The next week was a blur.

  After passing the evaluation with flying colors, I was sent to live at the union facility.

  Due to the volatile nature of a video game, school had little structure. Each master taught a class, and each class lasted two hours, one a day, at a scheduled time, with a bit of overlap. As a student, you merely listened to however much of whichever lecture you felt like, taking notes only if you felt they were useful.

  There were exams, but no grades. If you failed an assignment, you just tried again.

  Actually, the whole thing was a lot like college, run by people who didn’t like going to college very much.

  Anyway, after passing the first exam, students are sent to missions in teams, with classes afterward.

  To prepare for that exam, and for future exams afterward, all classes had a theme. This week, it was monster behavior.

  “Can anyone tell me what this is?” Master Tentazui asked us, tapping the lesson screen with a wand. This time, it displayed a tall black figure, with a stretched out eye from its head to its stomach.

  Tentazui was one of the four masters who let me pass the exam. As per customs, I was to attend all of his lectures. In return, if I showed promise, Master Tentazui would prepare a special one on one lesson for me, once a week. After I passed the first exam, that is.

  Master Tentazui was a little stuffy, but this was a serious game, so it fit.

  “Nightmares?” The boy to my left asked. That was Lice, a boy with spotted black and white hair. I don’t know a lot about him, beyond that he likes insects a lot and tends to twitch a little when he speaks.

  Our Master nodded. “Very good. They are manifestation-type enemies, as shown by their attack pattern, which defies basic biology.”

  At a flicker of mana, the screen shifted, displaying the eye on the creature shifting into a mouth.

  “Can anyone tell me what a manifestation is?” Master Tentazui looked in my direction. “Grind, you have experience with this, don’t you?”

  Obviously, he was referring to my abilities, not the time I actually fought one.

  Obviously.

  Hopefully.

  I never can tell what a Silver rank does and doesn't know.

  “A little,” I started. “Manifestations feed off of emotion.”

  “In most areas, it takes a lot of emotions to create one,” Master Tentazui stated. “In fact, I’d call them borderline useless outside of the second area. But here, even the slightest twinge of fear or disgust is enough to give these beasts power. Do not allow yourself to fear them. Fortunately, as per the universal rules of Tetraterra, all power is double-edged. In order to grow with fear, they must also weaken in its absence.”

  Another flicker of mana and the nightmare was noticeably withering back, like a dying plant.

  “Do not fear nightmares. They are the weakest and easiest of the second area’s enemies.”

  Roid raised a hand. “But—”

  Master Tentazui rolled his eyes. “Patience. I was getting to it.” He tapped the screen, revealing another larger monster, this one the size of a small building, with saggy shadowed skin and thousands of arms. “More beings beyond players feel fear, of course. If a nightmare finds the spawn location of a notable Npc, they will repeatedly kill them, harvesting fear. Given enough time, these creatures can grow to the point they are genuinely dangerous, which funnels into more fear, and, in the worst cases—”

  He tapped the screen one final time.

  “---may result in a nightmare with two billion health. This is Gorgita, the strongest being ever seen in the second area.”

  The monster shown looked similar to the last, just with more arms and several hands. Kizota was also displayed, coming up to his knee.

  Master Tentazui de-summoned his wand.

  “Less than twenty years ago, nightmares were the strongest enemies in the area. But then one player finally survived the third area. He was Locata, the strongest player at that time, with an equivalent of four trillion mana. Using that, he effortlessly killed every nightmare in the second area, before recording and spreading knowledge of their nature. Once players no longer feared nightmares, there was no longer anything to fear, and without that collective fear, their numbers became meaningless.”

  He scanned the room. “In other words, despite the fact that monsters respawn, it is possible to weaken a monster species to the point of extermination. That, for the sake of our dying comrades, is the current goal of the union.”

  Master Tentazui smiled. “Thanks to the union, fifty percent of all players reach the third area. Of the other fifty percent, ninety percent remain in the second area, keeping our systems operational. That will be all for this class.”

  There was a hum of mana, and our Master was gone.

  “I wish I could teleport,” Sip groaned, fumbling through a stack of notes. “I’d get out of this stupid place.”

  He was the boy on my right and had a couple fingers missing, which made it hard to write. Not that you see his hands much, as he liked to wear an obscene amount of robes, piled one over the other.

  I sighed.

  This was my life now, and for the immediate future. So I would make new friends. And when I died, those friends would forget me. So I’d make new ones.

  “Hey, Grind, you wanna go to the arcade?”

  Video games in a video game.

  That’s just the benefit that comes from summoning whatever you like.

  “I’m going to train,” I said, picking up my supplies.

  Sip snorted. “Train train train. You never go anywhere.”

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “You said that yesterday!”

  “But it’s not tomorrow yet, is it?”

  Sip rubbed his forehead. “There’s…so much flawed in that reasoning. Look, if you don’t want to go, fine, fine.”

  “I would like to go,” I shrugged, heading out of the classroom. “I’m just a little preoccupied.”

  While I couldn't call the two of us friends, Sip was a nice guy, and I would like to hang out once in a while.

  But Terror Williams was only letting me keep Sharon, under the assumption that I’d be using him to get stronger, somehow. Which meant if I wasn’t getting stronger, he’d realize the fairy wasn’t being used, and then he’d take my fairy and probably throw me in jail for the stupid amount of debt I’ve got built up.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Two billion dollars. How was I supposed to pay off a fee like that?

  Anyway, training was the most important part of the day, namely because of the prize.

  It was separated into courts, each filled with fighters on your own level. Beating three enemies without losing once would get you to a higher court. Losing three times would drop you to a lower court. Of the eight courts, the top three are the most important, as each grants the victor some amount of Exp and stats.

  And if I want to take out ancient monsters, I need to get Exp.

  The referee of the eighth court stood before me with a pale black orb in his hand.

  My stats are pretty bad, but that doesn’t actually matter here.

  “Weaken.” the referee commanded, stretching out his hand, opposing his will against my own.

  I made sure not to resist the command, letting my stats drop, down to the minimum values allowed within the game.

  {Grind}

  //0 Str 2 Hp//

  Well, okay, technically, I could have one Hp, but then I’d just fall unconscious.

  I hadn’t yet figured out how to fight while unconscious.

  The ref walked to the other side of the court, where my opponent went through the same treatment. Without strength, we’d be too weak to actually hurt each other, and even when we used weapons, those had been enchanted to avoid dealing damage.

  So instead of losing health, getting hit three times, breaking a bone, falling unconscious, or giving up would all end the match.

  My strongest power was the Abnormality manifestation, which I couldn’t use with so little mana. And to use more, I’d need to reach a higher court.

  And that required winning fights.

  The ref raised a hand into the air, condensing mana into a fixed point. The ref was Gus, one of the students in my class, paying off debt with a part time job. He was also stupidly strong, regularly fighting in the first circle. I knew he liked planes and the video game ‘Skullmunchers.’

  He was also bald.

  You can learn a lot about a person from just a couple minutes spent intentionally observing them.

  “BEGIN!”

  As for my opponent, I’d never seen him before.

  There were at least a thousand students in the academy, so that wasn’t too uncommon.

  He was also really, really bad at moving with negligible strength, collapsing on the floor before I even hit him.

  The ref called the game there.

  While my second fight was better, it was still pretty much the same.

  “AAAHHHH!!!” My opponent yelled, holding her sword above her head and stabbing downward.

  I punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious.

  That was my second win.

  Now, courts use a tournament system.

  If someone wins they must then fight someone who has also won. Since there are never more than eight players in the eighth court at a given time, that inevitably means me and my rival have to face each other in our third fights.

  So far we’ve fought seven times. Each time ending in a draw.

  I picked a sword from the rack and stepped into the eighth ring.

  Ardenidi huffed, tossing her sword between each hand.

  “Seriously?” She hissed. “Can’t you give a lady a break? Take a day off or something.”

  As luck would have it, she’d been demoted recently, resulting in a staggering drop from the fifth circle to eighth. The moment she beat me, she’d surely pass up through the courts once again.

  So it’s incredibly important that I didn’t lose. Or win.

  If I did, I’d lose my one and only competent opponent. You can only fight in the courts once per day, after all. No sense wasting time climbing the ranks if I could have one fight with someone at exactly my level of skill.

  She tugged at the scarf around her neck. “Whatever.”

  The ref backed away from the ring, hand in the air. “BEGIN!”

  We fought.

  Iron clashed against iron, numbing my fragile hands. We snapped at each other, blocking and slashing back and forth, repeatedly increasing our speed until it was at an astonishing level, at least for the stats we were using.

  Ardenidi had several passive effects to increase her speed.

  I was just good at fighting.

  Using Crapshoveler as a guide taught me how to move my hands efficiently. And moving efficiently leads to moving faster. That, plus over a week of non-stop training, resulted in formidable attack speed and recovery time.

  We struck again, bouncing off one another. Plumes of dust rose up around us, clinging to the pale concrete walls.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ardenidi hissed under her breath. “What are you doing in the eight court?”

  “I’d ask you the same question.”

  “And I already told you,” she said Her grip changed, signaling an attack, and we were off again, skirting around the ring with a series of lightning fast jabs and feints, followed by actual full force swings, which would have done serious damage if the two of us weren’t using enchanted weapons.

  Sparks of metal chipped from her blade, dusting the floor. There were already signs of wear on my sword as well.

  Despite my continued improvement, Ardenidi was getting better, fast. No matter how hard I trained, she was somehow keeping pace.

  Which was actually perfect for training. It forced a bit of urgency.

  We attacked again, ending in her cleaving down to lob off my head, something I barely deflected, knocking myself back a yard.

  There was a noticeable dusting of metal, all over the ring.

  Almost over.

  I raised my sword and went on the offensive, cracking and chipping at her sword.

  Finally, with a twist of the wrist, I wrenched her sword inside the groves of my hilt.

  Her blade shattered in an instant.

  “Not yet!” Ardenidi hissed.

  She struck against my sword with her broken hilt, punching me in the face with the other hand, while swinging around. I managed to slip out of the way, only for a kick to catch my side, blasting the air from my lungs and my sword from my hand.

  She held the broken hilt at my throat. “Now—”

  Ardenidi cut short, feeling the tip of a sword against the back of her neck.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  My sword was hovering in the air.

  “You…issued a command…in the middle of battle?” Ardenidi hissed.

  I smirked very smugly.

  The referee massaged his bald head. “Draw.”

  “Don’t fight if you’re not going to take it seriously!” She shouted, grabbing my sword from the air and ramming it into the floor, before storming out of the room.

  “I was taking it seriously,” I said to no one in particular.

  The ref pulled my sword from the ground, causing it to fall apart. He clenched his jaw. “And that’s another fifty qualm from my paycheck.”

  “Put it on my tab,” I said. “Fifty qualm isn’t gonna hurt much.”

  “Hey,” Gus started. “Why didn’t you use commands at the start?”

  “Because I didn’t know how to do them,” I stated.

  The ref just stared.

  “Sure I could do it outside of battle, but I haven’t been able to change perception during times of emotional strain and focus until just a few minutes ago…”

  I glanced at the basket of swords behind the ref.

  “Hey, why don’t you take those?”

  “Take what—”

  The ref glanced to his side, finding the broken swords were, in fact, not broken but actually fifty swords, all enchanted and in mint condition.

  It’s a common misconception.

  Gus sputtered. “What on earth are you doing in the eight court?!”

  By that point I was already gone.

  // {Notice} //

  Hi! Hope you enjoyed a fantasy story. But as much fun as a fantasy is, there’s things in the real world beyond what writing can fix. That’s where you come in.

  Want to fight human trafficking? Whether you’ve got money or time there are two organizations I wholly recommend.

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