AN: Couple of things. :)

Some folks have asked me about other stories that I have mentioned as working on, but never really show anything. Recently I decided that I wanted to try doing a litrpg style story that was different than the norm .... which is sort of my thing.

So, after this chapter part of Blackthorne... There is a very rough, and mostly consistent first chapter for a different story.

It might be sort of boring if you aren't into litrpg highschool virtual reality stories where super powered teens beat the snot out of each other, interdimensional dungeons pop up in random locations around the world and spew out supernatural monstrosities that can slaughter entire armies. These students are expected to become strong enough over time to subdue dungeons that entire armies can't deal with on their own.

So, a highschool slice of life virtual reality to reality dungeon crawling litrpg adventure story that focuses on battle and feelings, and random hijinks, and cute girls beating the snot out of each other to show dominance while some guys who may or may not be cute do the same thing. Also, just as a heads up... characters can die easily in this story.

The first chapter is thin on description and the like, and even thinner on MC backstory, but it is to get the concept out there. This is basically me poking a little fun at super powered highschool teens that have to save the world storylines. Basically, it's what would happen if Scott went to high school.

Chapter 39.2: As the Dragon Sleeps

Life could take many strange twists and turns. One day a man could be a simple paramedic. The next day he could be one of the few doctors in an apocalyptic refugee camp. Jason Killen was one of several specialists that had been put together in the support squad founded by Ashton.

He looked around the room and took in the sight of his companions, people he was meant to work with now that he had chosen to join the Blackthorne faction officially. There were three identical teenage girls who wore bizarre outfits that looked like something out of an S & M play, an old man who had his nose stuck in a fantasy book, and guy who looked like the quintessential plumber. He even had a tool belt with a plunger on it. There were also two guys wearing aprons, and an older woman dressed as a nun.

While Jason waited for the meeting that was to come, he could not help but notice when the older man waved his hands in the air and a bottle of water appeared out of nowhere. An excited cry rose from the old man's lips and he looked as though he might burst into tears. "It works! It really works!"

"What works? What did you do?" asked Jason curiously.

"I actually managed to cast a spell on Earth! My spirit stat is finally high enough..." said the man.

"Hey that's great. I still can't cast any of my healing spells." said Jason.

"We can't do magic either." said the identical triplets.

Before anyone else could speak, the door opened and Ashton walked into the room. She smiled at everyone gathered then said, "Alright. So, this is everyone we have so far?"

The gathered people nodded or otherwise agreed with her. She gestured for everyone to sit down at the table. Once they did, she said, "You should all know me by now. My name is Ashton. I'm head of the Blackthorne support division and handle finances. Basically, I'm in charge of logistics and other things that make an enterprise run."

After that statement sunk in, she looked at those who had been gathered. "We need more people in the support division, but this is a good start. We have a few magic users, healers, cooks, and an engineer."

The plumber spoke up. "Technically, I'm a sanitation engineer..."

She smiled at him. "It's an important skill. You can also fix cars and other things? Oh, and introduce yourself to the group."

"Yeah, oh, my name is Terry Boyles. I can do some light repairs on most cars, and can do a little electrical work too."

"Great. Do you have any system skills in those regards?" she asked him.

"I have a general maintenance skill and can do repairs on weapons and armor. General maintenance lets me do my job better with less effort." said Terry.

"Excellent. We can definitely use you. I'll add you to the engineering and maintenance group. There should be a few more people joining you soon. We'll see who has the most qualifications to lead the group at that time."

"Sounds good." said Terry. "Glad to be of use."

Ashton glanced over to the nun. "Miss, are you one of our two healers? Can you introduce yourself?"

"Yes, I have a few minor gifts and can make medicine." she said. "My name is Mot... Well, now I suppose I am merely Merida." The last admission came with a sigh.

Ashton nodded her head gently. "Thank you for joining us. It is good to have you on board." She then looked at the group. "Alright, who was our other healer?"

Jason spoke up. "That would be me. Jason Killen, paramedic. I can make medicine using alchemy, know basic life-saving skills, and have healing magic."

The fox girl smiled at him. "Good to have you on board. We have a distinct lack of healers."

Jason flashed her a flirtatious smile. She returned it with a professional nod of her head then turned to the next person. Jason was slightly off-put by her response. He was not used to being so easily dismissed.

"I'm going to assume you are the Chow family?" asked Ashton as she looked to the two Chinese people wearing aprons.

The man and woman glanced at each other. The husband spoke to his wife in Mandarin for a moment then turned back to Ashton and nodded. "Yes." said Mr. Chow.

Ashton blinked then nodded as well. That had been odd. Since when did a husband need to discuss admission of the family name with his wife? "It is good to have you. I see that you requested a location that you could use as a store front for a restaurant."

Mr. Chow had a discussion with his wife once more then he turned back to Ashton. "Yes."

"Ah... Right. You do know that you will still be required to help cook meals for the various squads even if you run a business, right?" she asked. It was mentioned on the application.

Once again Mr. Chow conversed with his wife. Afterward he looked back to Ashton. "Yes."

A thought suddenly occurred to Ashton. She tilted her head to the side and asked Mr. Chow something in a serious tone of voice. "Am I a pretty purple prancing leprechaun?"

Mr. Chow blinked then turned to his wife and had a discussion with her. Mrs. Chow could not help but laugh as she explained the situation to her husband. Finally, she said "Tell her. Ha ha. You got us."

Mr. Chow turned back to Ashton. "Yes. Ha Aha. You –" He glanced back to his wife and she repeated herself. "got us."

Ashton grinned. As it turned out, Mr. Chow spoke little to no English, but did not want to seem less valuable due to that fact. "Thank you both for joining us. Glad to have you."

Mr. Chow started to speak in rapid Mandarin, and his wife translated. She asked on his behalf, "We have seen him. Is he really a dragon like my grandmother used to tell me about?"

Ashton nodded to Mr. Chow. "Yes, it isn't exactly a well-hidden secret anymore."

"Ah, may he bring us great luck in the future with his benevolent leadership." said Mrs. Chow after a moment of excited babble from Mr. Chow.

Ashton refrained from mentioning how much she would enjoy a little more luck with Scott. Yep, getting lucky would be nice. Instead she thanked them once more then checked on the skills and talents of the others who had gathered.

The triplets were an entertainment troupe, dancers who could bolster the stats of those who watched them dance. The effect would carry over primarily to those in the faction, and would serve to demoralize any enemies they might run across. True to the proper cliché of triplets they had names that were similar and rhymed. They were Mandi, Candi, and Sandi. They were sweet girls, but Ashton secretly wanted to slap their parents for doing that to them.

The old man had decided to change his name to Simon since he was now a magus. His skill-set was primarily in conjuring items such as water and food, but could be used for other things if he could develop his magic and spirit. Unlike Scott he was not able to draw energy from the environment. He had neither the knowledge nor the spiritual power. In fact, no one outside of Scott could perform that feat in the area currently. It was something that would take quite a while for a human to achieve.

While Ashton continued to run the numbers and organize the support staff, other things took place. People of various skill and capacity chose to either come to Earth or leave for the dream world. Scouting teams collected resources from nearby houses once the owners were proven to either be dead, gone from the city, or were in the refugee camp and willing to add their stuff to the collective good. Scott had strict rules about theft and improper looting. The world had not ended, yet. Civilization might have fallen, but most people were still alive. Besides that, there were literally thousands of houses and buildings in town that were proper to loot. Why bother the ones that had people living in them?

Of course, those refugees who did not wish to contribute with either their labor or their resources were politely asked to leave by large men with heavy weapons. Occasionally one of those men had the head of a tiger, and most people did not argue when he came around. They gave freely. They gave hard.

The population fluctuated a little, but outside of restructuring very little happened during those two peaceful days on Earth. Trade continued in the dream world, and Earth kept on spinning.

--

End of Blackthorn part

Begin Bonus, the first part is sort of a prologue

--

Impossible Devices

In the modern age of man there were many truths that the common people considered to be absolute. There was no such thing as magic. No monsters hid in either the closet or under the bed. A man was only an animal that thought highly of himself, and every facet of existence could be explained with simple scientific inquiry.

It would come as a great shock when this common wisdom was proven false. There came a day when monsters did stalk the land. There came a time when man was proven to be capable of more than being a simple primate who thought too much of itself. There came a day when human potential became unlocked, a time that gave rise to the new modern age.

In the year 2024, four years after the advent of the first interdimensional dungeon's appearance on Earth, supernatural monsters raged across the world. A new technology discovered in the depths of one of the most dangerous dungeons arose to combat the dark tide. This Impossible Device became known as the ID-Drive. It was a technological innovation capable of awakening the hidden power within a human being. It brought that power forth into the world through the use of virtual reality and spiritual manipulation. Thus began the new era. It was an era of magical technology. It was an age of impossible devices.

Sixteen years have passed since the first impossible devices were developed, and it is now the year 2040. During the time that had passed many concessions had been made by the super powers that existed across the world. In time a special international school was developed on a newly risen landmass in the center of the Pacific Ocean. This school became known as IDEA, the International Dungeon Exploration Academy. Locally it was referred to as the Impossible Devices Academy due to what was studied inside those vaunted halls.

It was a school with its own special laws, a zone created at the request of the scientific geniuses who had discover the purpose of the drive in the first place. The normal rules of law and good order were suspended. It was a place of extreme violence and constant struggle as super powered teenagers tested their might against each other in anticipation of the day when their strength would be called upon to protect the Earth.

This school was completed and for twelve years students who showed promise were sent to study and grow strong. The mortality rate was higher than the governmental powers that be would have liked, but remained within acceptable tolerance levels. For a student to attend the academy, they and their parental guardians had to enter into a contract. Should the student die during training, there could be no lawsuit filed.

Students were brought to those vaunted halls of hellish battle by way of a series of tests when they were sixteen years of age. It was at one such testing center that Scott Hennessy stood in line and awaited his fate.

Chapter 1: Very Rough Draft version

"Damn. This is taking for-ever." said a girl with long blond hair. She was three people ahead of Scott and seemed to be bored out of her mind. It was a common affliction for those who waited.

"Yeah, I know. Why are there so many boys here anyway?" asked another girl, one of the blond girl's friends.

The blond snorted. "Who knows? It's not like they have much resonance."

Scott tried not to let her words bother him. It was true. At his age, few boys had enough resonance to use a full-immersion ID-Drive. Girls on the other hand usually scored at least twice as high as the boys would. For him to make the cut, he would have to show resonance more than twice what a normal sixteen year old male showed.

It was a quirk of the technology, and a betrayal of basic biology. No one, not even the designers knew exactly how it worked. A working theory, considered a bullshit theory to be honest, was that the male members of humanity had acquired a slight boost to developing strength and quick bursts of stamina during the slow climb up the evolutionary ladder. The female of the species had developed talents more devoted to multi-tasking and spiritual pursuits. The theory was basically a sexist way of saying women had more emotional capacity than men and the tiara liked them better for it.

In the modern age, it was the girls who had the ability to rapidly ascend to superhuman power. Boys were forced to play catch-up and most did not manage to achieve proper resonance levels until they were in their late twenties if they ever did. There were only so many ID-Drives to go around, so the boys usually lost out.

Time passed and the line shortened. Scott used that time to go over his mental exercises. Ever since he was a small child he had dreamed of becoming a dungeon explorer and obtaining fantastic powers. He had spent several hours per day for the last nine years honing his ability to focus his mind on multiple concepts at once. The ability to multi-task was the most important aspect of resonance, or so the experts claimed. It showed an agile and adaptable mind.

He glanced at a small group leaving the testing area and noticed that out of the dozen wash-outs ten of them were boys. Not every girl made the cut either, though most who did not make it frequently did not want to make it in. Few people wanted to put their life on the line to gain power when they could just live normally.

As Scott entered the actual testing building he saw dozens of young people lying on floor mats. Technicians used resonance testers, a small coin-shaped device to scan the brainwaves of those would-be dungeoneers.

The girls in front of him were led to their testing areas and he soon arrived at the desk. The lady taking names had been amiable and chatty with the girls but when she saw Scott she merely handed him the testing sheet and told him to fill it out. What was the point in chatting with someone who would be sent down wash-out lane in a few minutes?

"Alright, testing area three, row C." said the woman. Scott took his paperwork and left. As he walked away he heard the desk clerk strike up a friendly conversation with the next girl in line. He tried not to let it bother him, but it did. He had known that it would be an uphill battle.

As he walked to his testing area he tried to calm his nerves. Years of training, late night meditation, and dreams had led him to this point. Had he wasted all of that time, or would it pay off. It was time to find out.

"Not bad. You scored two hundred twelve. You'll need to go to a training camp if you want to get it to two forty." said one of the testers. Scott walked past the girl who had been told that she had scored too low to get sent to a special school and soon found his tester.

His tester, a blue haired man with a pleasant smile, nodded his head. "So, what do we have?"

Scott handed him his paperwork and the man checked through it. After a moment he looked back up to Scott then smiled again. "You've been training? Good. Let's see if you managed to make any progress."

At the man's direction Scott took off his shoes, loosened his clothes, and then stretched out on the mat. The tester ran through a few items of interest with him then placed the resonance tester on his forehead. "You'll feel a hot buzzing sensation in your head for a moment. Afterward, we'll see your general pattern test."

Scott tried to avoid the frown that threatened to rise up. A pattern test was just a formality for a girl. Even if she tested poorly they would still continue testing for an actual resonance number. For a boy a low pattern test percentage was used as an excuse to send them home early.

A burning sensation flared between his eyes for a brief moment and then his entire skull began to buzz. Soon, his body vibrated as well. The test continued for several minutes, but the vibrations never stopped."

The tester released a slow whistle then nodded. "Not bad at all, forty-six percent."

Scott winced. Forty-six percent was exceptional for a sixteen year old boy, but less than what even an average high school girl might have. He started to get up since that should mean the end of his dream for that year, but the tester made a few adjustments on his laptop. "Am I done.... or?"

"Ah, normally yes. We haven't had a qualified male entrant so far this quarter, so we lowered the pattern test percentage to thirty-five last week."

Suddenly, hope sprang anew! The pattern-test was not particularly accurate. It only registered the general resonance pattern that someone possessed. Typically, for someone to be considered worthy of training at one of the regional schools the entrant had to have a resonance pattern of at least sixty-percent. The average girl had a resonance pattern of fifty-percent. The average boy had a pattern of resonance that registered closer to fifteen.

"Alright, you'll need to follow my directions to the letter to make sure we test properly." said the tester.

"Sure thing." said Scott. He tried to remain calm, but he was becoming excited. This was his chance!

A sense of pressure began to build between Scott's eyebrows. The tester glanced down at him then back to his laptop.

He quirked an eyebrow then tilted his head to the side. "Maybe not... One moment."

"Huh?" asked Scott.

The tester pulled out his cell phone and sent a text. A brief moment later a woman with hot pink hair and who wore shorts that were far from professional attire walked over to his testing center. She glanced down at the laptop. Her eyes widened slightly then she asked. "You administered this test with standard protocols?"

"Yes ma'am. I had not even had the chance to start the multi-task scenarios." replied the testers.

The pink haired woman glanced down at Scott then back at the laptop. "I'll take over here. Please assist."

"Of course!" said the tester. He brought up the first protocol immediately.

The pink haired woman spoke aloud. "Scott, I want you to think of a simple object. It can be any simple item you like. Make it as detailed in your mind as you can."

"OK." said Scott before he took a breath and started the real test. He had performed this exercise many times. He chose an apple as his item of focus. In his mind's eye the apple appeared in an empty void of absolute darkness. Despite the lack of light the apple was in complete focus.

He gave the bright red apple scent, texture, and depth. He focused on developing little specialty marks such as spots and an intricately detailed stem.

"Good. Now make two of the same item." said the pink haired woman.

Scott could easily comply. He made two of the apples and made certain that they were identical in every way. He even allowed the scent of apple to increase in his mind so that it would be as though two real apples were next to each other.

The unprofessionally attired test mistress smiled at the result then flashed a grin. "Not bad. Now make as many identical apples as possible."

He complied readily. The number of apples that he could create and hold in his mind numbered eighty-four. He had to drop the number to twenty-two to maintain perfect clarity in his mind, however.

"Good. Now clear you mind as best you can. In a moment you will begin to see images inside your mind. Tell me what they are."

Scott did as he was instructed. Soon images came to mind that he did not create on his own. "I see a blue fish, three green cubes, and a purple triangle."

Adjustments were made. "How about now?" she asked him.

"A stick man is fighting a bunch of circles. Sort of looks like a man fighting a bear." he said.

"And now?" she asked.

Scott blinked. The image that unfolded before his mind was a beautiful lake. Fish leapt up from the water. There was a brilliant rainbow in the background, and a magnificently shining water fall. On the edge of the lake he could see several brightly colored rocks and a fresh water crab scuttling around. He told the testers each thing that he saw. As he mentioned certain items, he was directed to interact with them.

After a while the woman smiled warmly then slapped the other tester on the shoulder. "We got one!"

"Yeah we did! Can't believe his score is higher than mine." he said with a laugh.

She laughed with the man for a moment then turned back to Scott. "For the record, you scored three hundred thirty-six."

Scott bolted upright. "Holy shit!" He had hoped to score at least two hundred so that he would get into a training camp, but over three hundred meant something entirely different. It meant something that he had not even allowed himself to dream about.

"Yep. Lie down again so we can run your status. Have you made preparations to leave home?" asked the pink haired woman.

"Well, yeah. We're all supposed to, though I'll have to go pick my stuff up at the motel and let my parents know."

"It's fine. Give us the name of the hotel and the room number. We'll send for them. There is a lot of paperwork to fill out and you need to undergo more testing." she said excitedly.

He shared the relevant information with them then stretched out once more so that they could run a few more tests. The most important one for an acceptable applicant was his status test.

"Alright, tell us what you see now." said the pink haired woman.

Within his mind there appeared a series of words and numbers. They were jumbled together for a moment but they slowly moved into a better placement.

Scott Hennessy

Age: 16

Development Points: 0

[--]

Resilience: 81

Vitality: 96

Dexterity: 93

Physical Prowess: 114

Mental Acuity: 139

[--]

He informed them of what he saw and the pink haired woman nodded. "You'll have to go to remedial training classes with the other entrants before transferring to your new school, but it should not take more than a few weeks."

Scott's head began to swim as the pink haired woman continued to talk. So much was happening, and far faster than he had realized that it would. He had not dared to dream that his resonance would score over three hundred points. It was low in the grand scheme of things, but high enough for elite training at the academy. He could hardly believe that he would transfer to the International Dungeon Exploration Academy, IDEA.

They spoke for a while, and then he was ushered off to an office to wait for his parents. The testing center needed their mat back for the next test taker.

In the pink haired woman's office Scott learned that her name was Alice. He also learned something else that was quite surprising. "You're going to be my trainer?"

She nodded her head then leaned forward. Her elbows were pressed down against her desk and she used her hands to prop up her chin. "Yes. It is rare to find a qualified applicant, even more so when the applicant is male."

Scott took that to heart. He had studied the numbers a bit before coming out for the monthly test cycle. "What kind of training will it be?"

"Dungeon exploration using the ID, of course." She flashed him a warm smile. "Don't worry, we won't train you on anything rated higher than level one and Class F."

A feeling of relief washed through him then. He wanted to explore dungeons and develop awesome skills, if nothing else girls liked a guy with awesome skills. The danger was real, though. Wounds taken in the dungeon transferred to the real world as well due to the same creative force that allowed for physical advancement and item withdrawal to take place.

Alice glanced down at her laptop then her eyes widened. Scott asked her what happened and she looked up at him. "Come see."

She turned up the volume while Scott walked over. On the screen there was a news report. The National Guard had been called out to a location five miles outside of Bakersfield California.

"It is like a war zone out here Diane!" shouted the man on the screen. In the background six small tornadoes moved randomly about the area. Two of them had captured military vehicles, and dozens of helpless people were seen hurtling through the air.

"As you can see, the dungeon that appeared an hour ago is a Class C rated Air Dungeon. The qualified helicopter pilots can't get close enough to enter due to the wind elementals that are raging outside the entrance."

Alice bit the tip of her finger a little then sighed. "Damn. Air dungeons are bad news if we don't have anyone in the area who can fly."

Scott glanced at her then back to the screen. A Class C dungeon was something that normal people could not even enter. The same resonance score used for testing purposes also determined whether someone could penetrate the dungeon barrier. A qualified helicopter pilot would need to have at least a resonance score of four hundred if not a bit more in order to enter.

The man on screen stopped moving for a moment then placed his hand to a device attached to his ear. He then looked back up to the camera. "An update is coming in now! Team Silk Falcon has arrived on scene!"

The camera panned over to helicopter landing in nearby. Six colorfully clad women hopped out of the side of the transport then the apparent leader moved to discuss the situation with the commander of the guard unit.

Scott's eyes lit up as he saw the girls turn and race off toward the howling madness that awaited. The camera zoomed-in on the chance that they could capture more of the coming battle and some of the fight with the first tornado could be seen.

One woman flew up toward the elemental and then began to fly rapidly around the tornado in a direction opposite of its spin-motion. She moved so quickly that she took on the appearance of a speeding comet as she whipped around the tornado at extreme velocity. The wind elemental soon began to fluctuate, and it was not long before a nigh-translucent form appeared in the center of the howling tornado. Various attacks lanced out from the women on the ground and the tornado quieted down. Due to their experience and team work, the wind elemental was destroyed quite easily.

"Team Silk Falcon, huh?" asked Alice.

"You've heard of them?" asked Scott.

Alice nodded. "Air dungeon specialists that are set up in California. Their leader attended the Academy. Pretty solid team."

On the screen, Scott saw his future. He envisioned a life spent becoming strong enough to fight against anything that rose up from the depths of the deepest dungeons. He could protect the world from monsters that no modern army could face. What good was a tank or a rocket against a tornado? A simple Class E dungeon could spawn monsters that were each strong enough to face an entire traditional marine platoon. The Class C dungeon that had appeared outside of Bakersfield could spawn monsters that were capable of leveling cities. Those tornadoes were not for show.

The pink haired trainer glanced over at Scott. She noticed how ardently he studied the images on the screen. "Say, what drove you so hard that you trained every day for this?"

Scott closed his eyes then shook his head. "No special reason. A dungeon did not kill any of my friends or family, if that's what you want to know."

He looked to Alice then said. "When I was a little kid, I loved comic books and video games. Until I saw a woman fighting a gigantic monster with her bare hands, I had not realized that it was possible to live in a world like that."

Alice nodded. "I see. So, your reason for training all this time was for the sake of a dream?"

"Yeah. I want to be a dungeon explorer. When I found out that most men wouldn't have enough resonance to enter any but the weakest dungeons till they were in their late twenties, I nearly gave up."

"What changed your mind?" she asked.

Scott shrugged. "I was still really young. I learned that there were training exercises that might help someone if they hadn't hit puberty yet. So, I did them."

He looked at her carefully. "Other kids went out to play all the time. I spent most of my free time meditating, working on logic puzzles, and trying to hold several different mathematical equations in my head at once."

"When did you start your training?"

Scott smiled. "Well, I called myself training at around seven years old. But I didn't really know what I was doing till I was almost ten."

"That's when you became serious?" she asked in an amused tone of voice.

The smile faded a little and Scott closed his eyes. "Yeah, I was finally old enough to realize that if I wanted to be able to do the things that I dreamed about then I would have to focus more on training. Doubled my training time after that."

"You should know..." She brought something up on her screen and Scott leaned forward to read it. "It takes a bare minimum of ten thousand hours of training for a young boy to develop the sort of resonance that you have developed. It's probably closer to twelve thousand."

Scott nodded to her. "Sounds about right. I kept a log of how much training time I did each week. Never thought to total it all up."

"How much training did you actually do?" She was slightly impressed that a child had gone this far on his own.

"About twenty to thirty hours a week. I used to joke with my mom that sitting on my butt and thinking really hard was my part-time job." he said with a laugh. Alice shared a chuckle with him at that as well.

Time passed quickly after that. The paperwork that needed to be filled out was completed. Teary-eyed parents said goodbye to their precious little man, and Scott soon found himself on a boat headed for the Academy. The trip was designed to take two weeks to maximize the possibility that he would be ready before classes started.

Scott currently sat in a small room with twenty-six other people. Three of those people were trainers, and the others were the accepted students from America for the current month. He looked around and noticed that there were only two other boys in the group.

"Alright, students. We need to go over a few ground rules before your remedial training begins." said a green haired woman who stood next to Alice.

The green haired woman surveyed the room then spoke again. "First, there will be no fighting onboard this ship. Save that for class."

A few half-hearted laughs echoed through the room. Everyone was nervous since this was the real thing. They were going to the famed International Dungeon Exploration Academy. It operated under its own special laws, and a few students died every year.

"Second, there are both male and female students on this boat. Do not fraternize. Save that for class as well." said the trainer. That brought another, heartier, laugh from the gathered teens.

"Third, do not do anything stupid while you train. We do have a Class A certified healer on board, but if you get your skull smashed in it will take an extreme effort to save you. Healing during your first month is free. However, afterwards you are responsible for your own medical costs."

She saw the confusion on the faces of the gathered teens and asked. "Any questions?"

A red haired girl raised her hand. "Yes, ma'am. I thought that the government was covering costs?"

"Ah, yes. Standard tuition plus room and board for one semester. The government also covers normal medical costs. Your special costs from your purchase of combat equipment, and medical attention brought about due to your own stupidity." said the trainer. She then clarified further. "If you take injury during training, and it is within tolerance due to the difficulty of the situation and not to pure stupidity, there is no problem. The government will pay for that. If you decide to fight in the street like an idiot and need medical treatment, you'll have to foot the bill yourself."

One of the male students spoke up. "Is it true that we'll have to cover costs after the first semester by selling items we farm from the dungeon programs?"

"Yes, to an extent. The government will continue to pay for room, board, and basic tuition if you maintain a ninety-percent grade average. Otherwise, all costs will be yours to pay. Failure to pay will result in expulsion. You will then be court-martialed for dereliction of duty and face up to twenty years in federal prison unless extenuating circumstances can be proven or you chose to sign a ten year military contract." replied the trainer.

She continued after the room grew silent. Possible prison time was not something they wanted to be reminded about. They were going to a school dedicated to making normal students into superhuman fighters for the sake of their country and the world at large. The fact that federal prison awaited for failures was disheartening.

A few more questions were asked, mostly pertaining to reasons for expulsion. As it turned out, expulsion was difficult to achieve. Nothing short of failure to pay tuition costs, equipment misappropriation, or blatant rape and murder would count. Students were encouraged heavily to settle disputes among themselves otherwise.

One girl raised her hand then stood up to ask a question after she was recognized. "Ma'am, I've been wondering... Why run a school like this? Wouldn't it have been better just to train everyone on an army base?"

The green haired trainer smiled at the girl. "Originally that was what every country did. However, after a few years passed and a few soldiers who left the service entered the private security market it became known that unrestrained growth allowed for much faster development."

"Unrestrained growth?" asked the girl.

"Yes. Regimented military style training produced decent soldiers with solid potential. However, those soldiers were nowhere near as talented as those who were allowed to train freely in directions that appealed to their personal taste and interest. Suddenly there were people who could easily handle a Class-D dungeon on their own when an entire squad of regular enhanced soldiers would have difficulty." replied the trainer.

She took a breath then continued, "There are lesser versions of the ID that are available for commercial use. They don't work very well, and it is more of a novelty item for civilians since most people can't use the lesser devices to upgrade stats. However, trained professionals who continued to explore dungeons as private security forces ended up continuing to grow and evolve. The dangers of the dungeons continued to help them become stronger and those lesser devices could be used to allow them to develop at will up to a point."

"I see..." said the girl, though it was uncertain if she truly understood the reasoning mentioned.

Alice stepped forward to speak then. "Look at it this way. The training you will have to undergo is basically a trick of the mind. The ID-Drives are helping you to unlock your potential. If you act according to your own instinct and follow your own interests, it will unlock far more of your potential and at a faster rate. This is due to your resonance scores. Those who don't have your level of resonance can undergo regular training with the military and still become solid dungeon exploration teams, however. They just don't develop as quickly or with as many wild and varied special talents. You'll be able to develop skills in four years that most will never develop in over a decade."

Scott decided to speak up about something that had been nagging at him since he had been accepted to IDEA. He raised his hand. Alice nodded to him and he stood up. "We could do that back home... I've been wondering, is this all really just so the world governments can show off their best and brightest or something?"

Alice laughed a little then made a finger gun gesture in his direction. "Bang. He got it."

That caused a bit of a stir among the students in the room. Alice quieted everyone down. "You are all emissaries of the American people. There are about two hundred American students currently at IDEA, and those are your comrades in a sea full of highly competitive students."

The stir died down as over twenty sets of eyes stared at Alice. She nodded her head once then continued. "I won't sugar coat things for you. You are embroiled in a serious situation. The representative students from other countries are not your enemies, many of them may become your dear friends and rivals over time. We are dedicated to conquering the interdimensional dungeons that pop up and cause widespread panic. But school spirit and the concept of international friendship won't stop some of them from killing you, or at least beating you within an inch of your life."

"How can anyone allow that?" asked one of the girls, a white haired girl near the front.

Alice shook her head at the girl. "Politics, of course. The Impossible Devices, or the ID-Drive can turn an ordinary person into a superhuman fighter in only a short time when those involved have your level of resonance. The country with the most powerful super humans wins. Don't mistake the nature of this school for anything other than what it truly is."

"What is it?" asked the girl curiously.

Alice leaned forward and spoke in an authoritative tone. "It is a battleground where the next great arms race is occurring. The weapons that are being produced are the students, and to the country with the most powerful students goes the spoils. Your very existence completely changes the nature of warfare and at some point in the future it could lead to national boundaries being redrawn in large numbers."

This admission led to many other questions. The trainers did their best to explain or answer the inquiries of the new students, but as time passed the question and answer session was forced to a close. There was more that needed to be done that night.

"Now then, we don't have much time left for tonight. You will need to get plenty of rest before your ID fitting tomorrow. Before we call this briefing to a close, we wanted to show you something." The green haired trainer brought out a gold tiara with a flashing crystalline gem on the front. Every student in the room knew what she held in her hands. It was an ID.

"This is a full-immersion Impossible Device Drive. Only a little over twenty-three thousand of them exist in the world. Five thousand of them are slated for use at IDEA. Each of you will receive one and it will become your personal responsibility. They can only be used for one person and will form a psychic link with that user." she said.

The white haired girl raised her hand again. After she was acknowledged, she asked "Is it true that the ID is powered by magic but works like a computer?"

"Yes, though technically speaking it is classed as a psionic device. That is why it was codenamed the impossible device.

The original was discovered as a loot drop on the fifth level of the Class-A Sci-Fi Dungeon that appeared in Queensland Australia about sixteen years ago. Since then many impossible devices have been discovered in similar dungeons. Items that range from psionically powered railguns to giant robots that defied the laws of physics and used the emotional state of the pilot to fuel its combat capacity have been discovered."

Alice spoke up to reiterate a point that she made earlier. "That only serves to prove what I said earlier about how the balance of political power could shift. Twenty years ago Australia was a moderately successful country. Now they are one of the great world super powers due to their thriving psycho-tech industry. Any country with a class A or better dungeon within its borders will either be crushed by that dungeon or acquire extremely powerful and useful items that exist outside the laws of physics as we know them."

Another student asked, "How did people get stronger before the ID?"

"Good question." said Alice. She looked at several of the students then nodded. "Before the ID, soldiers went into the dungeons in large numbers. Millions of brave men, women, and unfortunate civilians died in those first few years. Over time the survivors managed to find powerful items and acquire special skills. They could not directly increase their statistical values at the time, but the equipment did that for them."

"So, that was how people got down to the fifth floor of the dungeon in Australia?" asked a boy sitting next to Scott. His name was Jerry Farmer, they had talked a little on the cross-country plane ride. He had been found in Florida and like Scott, he had spent much of his childhood training for this day. Though, his parents had been able to afford tutors.

"It was a long bloody war. Thousands of soldiers died just to make it to the fifth floor. That dungeon still has not been completely subdued. An occupation force remains there at all times to kill off random spawns on a given floor, while exploration teams continue to hammer away at the floors beyond."

That was not as shocking to hear as one might think. There were several well-known dungeons across the world that had never been subdued completely. Most of them ranked B or higher.

"What kind of monsters were in that dungeon?" asked Jerry.

Alice tapped on the desk for a moment and a holographic display appeared before the gathered students. On the display a sleek black creature that looked like a cross between a crab and a panther appeared. Scott and a few others immediately saw a slight resemblance to a certain movie alien. The thing even had a tail with a bladed barb and acidic blood.

"The monsters that appear in dungeons are often strangely similar to creatures found in our pop-culture and from world mythology. This one was clearly patterned after a monster from the classic science fiction movie, Alien." She looked at the gathered students. "Thankfully they don't impregnate you through the mouth and then have their larva burst out of your chest."

Everyone in the room did immediately seem thankful for that. The full-grown version of that thing was bad enough. Alice continued. "There are other monsters there as well. There are also humanoids who look like normal people in every way, but act like bizarre caricatures of real human beings. Those were actually more dangerous than the other monster as the humanoids tend to use weapons like beam sabers or Gatling guns that fire depleted uranium rounds. And –."

"Is it really worth it? All those lives, I mean?" asked a pink haired student, cutting off Alice's explanation mid-sentence.

Alice glanced at her for a moment and the girl gazed back. Pink hair versus pink hair, the student was the first to blink.

Alice said, "A Class C dungeon appeared near Bakersfield today. Before the National Guard arrived over three million dollars in property damage was accrued and more than six hundred people died due to the rampaging wind elementals that were released. The last that I heard on the matter, one of the enhanced units of the guard was chasing a rogue elemental down Route 58. The elemental was racking up major damage and had killed several dozen people."

The pink haired trainer took a breath then said with finality. "Yes, it is worth any loss of life to subdue a dungeon. If we don't, they will destroy us all within a few years."

The other students became agitated and some became outright fearful after hearing that. Scott chose to focus his thoughts on the ID-Drive. A virtual reality simulator that could aid an individual in developing their mind, body, and spirit. Using that impossible device, powers could be unlocked, and supernatural weapons could be brought into the world. It was the one tool that humanity possessed that allowed them to truly fight back against the invading dungeons. It was his chosen path to greatness.