“Yes, it’s not good!” Kory took a deep breath. “They’ll expel me from R&H if she complains.”

  “I’ll go get her, she can’t be that fast-”

  “No.” She pointed at the table filled with papers. “You helped enough. I’ll clean your mess. Go make the technique.”

  “How was I supposed to know she was that weak? You people get your limbs cut daily. This was nothing.”

  Kory didn’t answer. With confident steps, she walked out. “Who knew that a human could be so troublesome?” The faint mumble grated on my nerves.

  It was as if I wasn’t the adult one. “This damn school ruined my perception… Stupid Betrayer and Ivaldie, and now I don’t even have a guinea pig.” It eroded my morality… Not like I had many principles anyway.

  I only had fifteen years left anyway. Might as well… I tried to gulp the lump in my throat, only to face disappointment. I dropped on a chair construct and refueled it with starpower.

  To strengthen my confidence, I practiced the forms of my poison. I didn’t channel starpower, but simply did the movements. Ever since my SE increased dramatically, the control over my body has improved. It reached the point where if I could picture it, I could probably do it.

  I stood up and flared starpower to its limit. My aura, dark and purple, illuminated the room like a pyre. Mind acceleration expanded my mind, and I was ready to try. The hardest step was to merge the imbibing form with the necrosis and absorption.

  I straightened my arm and twisted the flow with the tilt of my wrist, four times, I repeated to create the pattern needed for imbibing. My fingers didn’t stop moving for a second; the necrotic form came naturally to me, my starpower yearned to become that destructive force.

  Meanwhile, with my other hand, I weaved the absorption form, which was a more complicated version of the original movement that required only one hand. The timing had to be exact.

  The necrotic form reached the end of my fingers, and the imbibing form flowed through my arm. There was but a moment before the collision when I could combine all three together.

  In that tiny window before they combined, I stuck the absorption form between them, the starpower floating around it forced my will. They layered - imbue, necrotize, absorb, if I were to put that structure into an aerosol or a liquid, it would become a powerful poison. Or I could put it into any other construct...

  I didn’t want to do that every time. Technique recursion was crucial for that. Starpower remembered the exact pattern it took right before becoming a structure. All I had to do was reinforce the pattern, stabilize it, and control it.

  I put my hands together in a circle and recalled the exact process through my memories. With each loop of remembering, the flow became more reminiscent of the previous forms. I constricted the circle gradually, and soon the casting loop became smaller and smaller, eventually turning into a living magical circuit of starpower, placed in my right palm.

  Parasitic Poison Technique created at Adept rank.

  Your mastery of Absorption Form has reached Adept.

  Necrotize Form learned at Adept rank.

  Starpower Imbibing Form learned at Initiate rank.

  Circular Technique Recursion Form learned at Initiate rank.

  A sigh of relief escaped my mouth. I could have never done this without high enough SE; there simply wouldn’t have been enough starpower.

  The technique construct resided within my right hand, waiting for an opportunity to infuse deadly poison. All worries about Betrayer, Kory, and Ivaldie faded away. Now I just needed a technique to test this with…

  Optimized Defense and Attack included a technique that was an improved version of my starpower bullet - it added recursion and shortened the forms. Parasitic Poison construct required 30% of my SE to upkeep, but I wasn’t concerned.

  The solidification and force forms joined together nearly immediately. I closed my arm into a circle and ran my fingers across my shoulder, making the flow cyclical. And now in my left hand resided another construct.

  Bullet Launcher Technique learned at Adept rank.

  Only ten percent to upkeep. This was going to be my foundation in combat. I pressed my hands together and channeled all my starpower. Darkness sucked in the light between my hands, a bullet appeared, the poison fractal joined inside of it, and it fired. It all took just half a second.

  With a bang, the bullet made a hole in the wall. It fired like my father showed me that a pistol would fire – a constant barrage of attacks. “Ivaldie will fucking die.” I giggled maniacally.

  The bullets stuck in the wall sucked out the starpower. And the bullets grew like crystals, eroding the wall. “So what if she’s stronger? She’ll rot from the inside.” I bit my lip; the urge to cackle was getting more and more unbearable.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  My celebration was interrupted when the wall flashed white. I managed to scout it before it disappeared – it used the dispelling form. That was not good.

  Hopefully, it wouldn’t matter, since just one bullet would make her body decompose. Now for the final piece of the puzzle. I looked at my feet; it didn’t make sense to me why the dragons wore no proper boots, only the metal-looking socks.

  It did now. Combat Mobility Methods offered an elegant solution to dodging and gaining distance. I redirected the current to my legs with some tactical muscle flexing and twitched my toes.

  The force form that appeared blasted me backwards right into the wall. “Fuck.” The book said it would take quite a while to incorporate the method into my combat style.

  And so I practiced dashing. I bumped into walls with relentless fervor; the maddening desire for speed consumed my mind. I didn’t just dash, I shot my poison bullets, made an occasional force form to shove my invisible enemies, and even spoke some embarrassing things.

  Left – I dodged from the sword attack, back – I gained distance and shot a bullet, up – I jumped higher, infusing my hand with starpower and struck. The more I practiced, the more fun I had. The force form felt effortless to use. Even before I’ve done the movement, the starpower curled inwards.

  “Die, fool.” The ice bomb in my hand consumed light itself, and the poison within bubbled. Mad dash backwards gave me distance, the bomb flew forward and turned into an all-consuming block of ice. It eroded starpower, grew in size, and spread poisonous plasma everywhere. “I am the Dragon Slayer!” Evil laughter rang through the room-turned-battlefield.

  “Magnus…” The weary voice broke me from my fun.

  Your mastery of Starpower Compression Form has reached Adept

  Your mastery of Plasmafication Form has reached Adept

  Your mastery of Force Form has reached Knight

  My eyes went wide, and my cheeks burned. So that’s why the force form became effortless to use. And the ice bomb will soon reach adept… “Hey, Kory. I was just training.”

  “I know.” She shook her head. “You better not say things like that, or you might get expelled.”

  I gulped and stopped flaring my starpower. The recursive constructs evaporated, and I felt the full brunt of my exhaustion. My legs shook and my head spun…

  “Okay. I won’t. Phew, the strengthening form is one hell of a drug.”

  “I cleaned your mess. Mitzi won’t complain, but you must not approach her, understand?”

  A grin found its way on my face. “Perfect. Thank you, my amazing ally. We are sure to win the tournament and cure you.”

  “I need to live till then, first.”

  “Don’t doubt yourself.”

  “It’s not about emotions. The degeneration is getting worse.”

  “It is about emotions. It’s what makes starpower move.”

  “I said it’s not about emotions!” She clenched her fists. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. How is the poison technique?”

  I didn’t want to focus on the depressing topic, so I smirked. “It’s amazing. Now I will get admitted to the technique design course.”

  “Hopefully. I have to go to R&H now… In three days, you and Steel can get permission for dungeon delving. That trait of yours has to be worth it.”

  “It is.” I smiled. “Thank you, Kory. I’m glad you’re my friend.”

  “D-don’t get emotional on me. I-i… I need to go.” Flaring starpower, she ran away.

  Was she hiding something? I couldn’t know, and it didn’t matter. I was her only way to survive, so she won’t do anything harmful to me. It was getting late, and hunger burned my stomach. After I had a meal, I went to sleep.

  __

  The day in ELEVATE was calm. Nobody shouted, nobody argued about killing me. Siege didn’t even force me into the tribulation altar. Today was simple – I just had to eat some suffocation toxin and keep my starpower flaring till death.

  “I won’t let you die, even if you really ask me, come on, kid, it’s not even a strong toxin.” Siege chuckled.

  I clenched my teeth. “If it grows my SE...” With shaking hands, I gulped the pill. In the first ten minutes, nothing happened. Then it kicked in. My head spun, and I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking, no matter how much starpower I fed. I started suffocating. I breathed, but the air simply didn’t translate into energy.

  All I had was starpower – so I strengthened myself with all the energy I had. It barely helped to stop the symptoms. For more than an hour, I struggled; the air wasn’t enough the starpower only slowed the process. When everything went dark, Siege slapped my head so hard my skull nearly crushed. But I could breathe again.

  Your SE has increased by 1. From 35 to 36.

  And so I breathed till my lungs were tired. “This was fucking miserable. A-am I free to go?”

  “Nope! We have time for another try. Come on, your strengthening is almost Knight - I can feel it.”

  The dizziness probably made me pick the wrong thing, but I swallowed it again. I didn’t care anymore. The second time was worse, because I lasted longer.

  When everything went dark, my starpower still surged through my body. I didn’t breathe, my heart stopped, my mind shut down. The starpower kept going for at least five minutes.

  Siege brought me back.

  Yet another mental scar was added to my rapidly growing collection. But with each scar, my magical potency grew.

  Your SE has increased by 1. From 36 to 37

  “Ding, ding, ding! Just three more sessions and I’m sure your strengthening will reach Knight. Wanna try to push it, little man?”

  “S-so…” I panted. “I need to get into… technique design… time almost ran out… can I go?”

  “Fine. But I want no complaints tomorrow, got it? Or once I become your curator, you won’t get a dungeon pass. Ha!” That damn giggle hurt my brain.

  “Yes, sir.” The worst part was that his methods worked. “Bye Ivaldie, bye Louize, bye Mousei, and goodbye Ocoz. See you tomorrow.” They didn’t respond, as they were having the same torturous experience I did. Mousei did wave, but that was probably because she learned how to not need to breathe…

  I left and went to the technique design classroom. Whispers and glares followed in my wake. After dying, I couldn’t care less. Only the betrayer mattered, only Ivaldie mattered, only becoming a supreme wizard mattered.

  The line leading to her consisted only of four students. It made sense – the time for enrolling was running out. If my calculations were correct, I probably won’t have enough to enroll…

  I stood in line anyway. A smaller girl with only 15 SE turned her head to look at me and screamed in horror. “It’s the human! He’s gonna kill us!”

  The line shook, and all eyes turned to me. “Eh, hello. I’m not going to kill anyone.”

  “He’s not going to kill anyone if we get out of the line, I can see it in his bloodthirsty eyes.” My ears barely caught the hushed whisper.

  “Who said that?”

  The girls exchanged glances. It was a unanimous decision; they took off, and I could say anything else.

  “How did it come to this? It’s only been two weeks…” I massaged my temples. Sure, back on Earth, I excelled in studying, getting top grades every time, but nobody treated me as a monster. Betrayer ruined all my chances of finding normal people as friends…

  After a long sigh, someone left the room. Her smile turned upside down upon seeing me, and with quick steps, she deserted the corridor. “Well, if I’m going to be treated evil, might as well act the part…”

  I unfurled my cape and stepped inside.