On Sunday evening, Lisa sat on her massive bed at home and held a miracle of magic scripture in her hands. Not that many others would appreciate it as such, but what did she care about what others thought?

That wasn’t a rhetorical question; she just didn’t want to answer it right now.

The miracle came in the form of a larger-than-usual Salamander crystal, but it wasn’t filled with just fire essence. Tiny, invisible channels made of something else ran through its core structure and formed a pattern much more complex than the simple engraving of scales on its inside.

Lisa thought those scales might have had some qualitative significance, but she wasn’t sure which right now. She’d seen patterned Salamander crystals with teeth, or claws, or fluid drops engraved instead. Maybe it hinted at unique Skills? She’d have to read up on that later.

While other people might just see the crystal as a training wheel for beginning [Summoners] or as a simple familiar that could run around and pick up crystals for anyone else, Lisa saw it as so much more—as potential.

For the crystal didn’t just have a pattern of a Salamander inside, it had a dead pattern—an enchantment—on how to make a Salamander inside and then animate that Salamander with a simple behavioral pattern ... even if the former was just a temporary mana construct and the latter basically said, “Do as your Summoner commands.”

Still, this crystal was like a living being to her. Or it could be, Lisa believed, with a little help.

Three mana rings weighed down the fingers of her left hand. She‘d filled two of them just that day when she’d been shopping with Micah, and had even gotten some of their contents from him. Not that he knew. Concentrating, she pulled the mana from one of the rings and pushed it towards the crystal.

After four tiny membranes of resistance—ring to finger, finger to crystal—she immediately felt something give and the mana spilled inwards. Everywhere else, fire essence spilled out. Lisa could feel the shift in contents create a pull, a demand for more and she obliged.

No wonder why these simple summoning crystals were meant for beginners. All you had to know was how to push mana out of your body and they would do the rest. Even a Class [Fighter] could use them with a few months of practice. Why didn’t every climber have one by now?

Potions, she answered the question bitterly as she tugged on the mana. And failed enchantments. Of course, they could also just break. Lisa chose that to be the main cause as she forced those thoughts aside. The flow halted for a moment when she reigned it in. She wanted to observe, after all.

She let the mana trickle into the channels and it ran along their walls, slowly being tainted by their material. Mana was full of potential to be corrupted, as limitless as the soul’s imagination itself after all. In this case, it took on the form of something others might call flesh. Or bone. Or wood, stone, or chitin. Some even called it life and they would be close, but not quite there.

Either way, it was a poor imitation. Like essence compared to reality.

The tainted mana started moving the channels like intricate parts of a watch, weighing some down, pushing others around, flowing, creating forces that technically had a pattern all their own made of moving mana—a spell. This one looked like it was weaving something together. But there was also a small part that described heat and fire and an even smaller part that described something like water. These descriptions would taint the mana, too, when it was their turn.

In some places, the mana flowed out of the crystal and into the fire essence that surrounded it. The first wave was thin and mixed with it, creating a foam-like mold in which the crystal could work. Mana didn’t move well in the open air, after all. Not on its own. Too little guidance. After a few seconds of the two intermixing and condensing, more mana flowed out, denser now, and dug new channels inside of the bubble around the crystal. Where the channels met foam, they hardened into something more semi-permanent.

The channels then broke through the foam and still kept on hardening. A chain reaction? Impressive.

Through the pores of the newly-made channels, the third wave of mana flowed out and started forming the glowing “bones” of the construct around them. Then the fourth and last wave, purer than the others, started weaving the thin “flesh”.

Lisa knew these were for internal stability. Most mana constructs were just a hardened shell. But she insisted on doing it right. She slowed the flow even more and gave it time to weave things right.

Suddenly, it sputtered and stopped. It took her a second before she realized she had to add more for it to continue. Before she did, she made herself reach out and rip a chunk of the newly-made construct and pattern from the whole. Then she pushed the mana from her second ring into the stone.

The flesh just kept on growing, ignoring the wound. Lisa let go of her leash on the flow and pushed. Not even a second later, the rest of the Salamander’s body was finished. Its shell was woven from essences so densely, it could fool light and common sight. Even Micah would probably just see it as a Salamander that was glowing. And they did that anyway.

Suddenly, one last push emerged from the core of the crystal on its own and went through the whole construct—-the behavioral enchantment. The Salamander twitched, now a moving being with a living pattern, albeit a very, very simple one.

A miracle, really.

It had also grown around her hand and was missing one leg.

Sloppy miracle, that, Lisa thought. What kind of craftsmanship was this? The dead pattern hadn’t even tried to fix the wound. It just kept on following its own steps. Could it even sense itself? Or the Salamander? No. Probably not.

And why had it grown around her hand?

Ah, no, Lisa realized, a little embarrassed. That was a beginner’s mistake on her part.

For now, she tried to push in more mana into the crystal to fix the missing leg, but no matter how much mana she stuffed inside the enchantment, little to none of it flowed into the Salamander. It had done its job, achieved its construct, and now it would do nothing more.

Lisa guessed she shouldn’t have expected any more from a treasure of the first floor. The Salamander wouldn’t be able to repair itself, so each time it got wounded, she would have to dismiss and reconstruct it. It didn’t even have its poison or enhanced traction either. It was basically a weaker version of first- or second-floor unmade Teacup Salamanders.

She had definitely made Garen overpay Micah. Not that she would ever tell either of them.

Mana and essence were leaking out of the Salamander’s wounds like smoke from a pyre anyway, so Lisa knew it wouldn’t last that much longer. She was basically forcing it to be stable. And yet, the creature’s tongue hung out and its green and golden eyes turned to frown at her as she held it there.

It pained Lisa to dismiss it.

As if cutting off a tense stream, the crystal immediately stopped trying to keep the construct stable and the then-malleable mana collapsed in on itself, dispersing into her room. There was a tiny puff of smoke from the densely-woven bones collapsing, but everything else was still salvageable, even if it was no longer pure.

Lisa never worked with “pure” mana anyway. She got it all from others. Now, she pulled as much of it as it as she could back into her ring, filling it up by about twenty-four parts one hundred. Not very efficient. She would have to do better next time.

Next time … Hopefully, it wouldn’t always feel wrong to dismiss a summon.

Taking a deep breath, Lisa recreated the Salamander all over again. This time she used her last mana ring, the tainted mana, and a little bit of mana she drew from where she’d stored it in her spine and made it with the standard time-frame in mind. About six seconds. That made it less durable than if she took her time. It also made it cheaper.

She made sure not to form it around her hand this time.

When it was done, she made herself hold the Salamander up with both hands, like someone who didn’t know how to hold a cat. She stared at it.

It kept on opening and closing its mouth, moving its tongue a little as if it were chewing. Then it switched between watching her and glancing at the window.

What was it looking for?

The Salamander was also warm and brimming with energy. Every now and then one of its legs would twitch to some hidden instinct. Was Lisa holding it wrong? Was it a defensive twitch? Maybe it was uncomfortable? Could it feel discomfort?

She could feel the texture of its belly, the grooves of its scales, the heat of the essences that had made it. If Lisa closed her eyes and let her mind drift, she could almost imagine a heartbeat.

Maybe if she gave it more essences, would it grow organs? Probably not. She could probably make it equal to an unmade with some tinkering, then it would weave its own organs over a long time … But that would take years unless she sped the process along. Could she give it organs? From other Salamanders?

It licked her one hand with its tongue. Lisa ignored it and let herself fall back on her bed. For now, the Salamander was alive. What happened when it wasn’t, though? Could it remember the last time she had summoned it? Could it feel pain? Could it feel time?

She tried not to think about that.

Instead, Lisa closed her eyes and thought, Mother, Mother, Mother, over and over again while she hugged the Salamander to her chest. She imagined herself going somewhere without any baggage and let its warmth lull her to sleep.

Mother.

[Of the Daughter Path discovered!]

[Skill - Mold Pattern obtained!]

[Summoner Class discovered!]

[Summoner Level 1!]

[Skill - Basic Summoning obtained!]

[Skill - Summoner’s Bond obtained!]

When she woke up to that instead, Lisa frowned and mumbled, “Huh. So that’s what her voice sounds like.”

The Salamander lying atop of her heard her and confirmed something similar. Then it went back to staring at the half-hidden beast floating in the air outside like it had all night. When it licked its eyeballs, the other one copied the movement. Was that a sign of aggression? Its summoner didn’t confirm.

That morning, Lisa immediately used her [Summoner’s Bond] on her Salamander instead of dismissing it. The spell didn’t normally work that way. It created a bond during the summoning process, not afterward, but Lisa figured out how to do it anyway by hiding the spell in a little bit of mana and threading it into the crystal’s enchantment.

The bond was … weird. It connected a little bit of Lisa’s mental spirit with the Salamander’s behavioral enchantment, and even dug roots throughout the Salamander’s body. Those acted as sort of a rudimentary sensory system for both it and her. The Skill tried to do something similar with her body, but Lisa shut that down. She didn’t want weird information-gathering mana roots digging around inside her body.

But other than that, it was pretty nice. The bond let her feed mana and information to her Salamander from a distance. Not all [Summoners] had that Skill, she knew. They had other ones, though.

Lisa hid the Salamander inside her bag with the command to “Keep quiet” and carried it with her to school. She wanted to study it more in her free time. For example, the enchantment for the main body itself. A part of it described the creation of cells that would normally store produced poison, but the Salamander didn’t have the capacity to actually produce any itself. It didn’t have the ability to make toxins without magic, like natural Salamanders did, and it didn’t have the magic necessary to create those toxins. At least, not without Lisa’s help. That confirmed it wasn’t an exact copy of the unmade Lisa knew from the Tower.

Her Salamander only had one of their qualities, the one that described heat and fire—Ryan’s [Hot Skin] Skill. Or rather [Hot Scales] in this case. Interestingly, it didn’t just produce heat essence. There was more to the enchantment than that. A large and complex part of it actually produced water essence underneath the heat. To cool the body? She would have to look further into that, but she thought it might be some form of enhanced perspiration system. That made sense. Natural salamanders didn’t do well with too much heat, after all. They were semi-aquatic creatures.

Did Ryan have that, too?

Just while Lisa was thinking about him, Ryan showed up out of nowhere, as if summoned by her thoughts, and started shouting at her in the hallway. Or at least, he talked very angrily. He said something about Micah getting a Strike and them getting into a fight over it. Lisa saw the bruises on his nose and thought it might have been more than just a “fight”. He seemed pretty upset and yelled at Lisa to stop encouraging Micah to go into the Tower.

Lisa was caught off-guard by the whole thing. Shouldn’t they be laughing at Micah for getting a strike? But then her Salamander tried crawling out of her bag, presumably to attack Ryan for shouting at her, and Lisa was too distracted to focus on him. She told him that Micah and he had to sort this out on their own and that she wouldn’t get involved. Then she headed off, one hand on her bag to keep the Salamander down.

A hissed command in the next hallway and it stopped trying to escape. Apparently, “Keep quiet” and “Stay hidden” were two very different commands. For some reason, the fact that her Salamander had exploited that difference made Lisa happy. But only briefly. She peeked around the corner of the hallway to stare at where Ryan was walking slowly, looking lost, somewhat brooding.

What was his problem? Didn’t Ryan and Micah both want to become climbers? Lisa started to suspect that Ryan might be a tad bit overprotective. Or maybe he was just mad because Micah had gone without him.

That still didn’t mean he had to let his anger out on her ...

Lisa pushed that thought aside.

She couldn’t bring her Salamander to school after that. Public monsters were minorly illegal and would get you a fine if you were caught with one. And if the school caught you with something that broke any rules and they could confiscate, they would confiscate. Lisa didn’t want to have to sneak into the receptionist’s office to retrieve something that had been stolen from her … again.

So on Tuesday, she left her Salamander in her room with the order to “not leave the bed” and a full mana ring. She was interested in seeing what it would do with such a loose command. Then, when she would have had training with Mr. Bates, she raided the school library for more information. Micah was busy with his weird family thing that day anyway.

The Chandler library had books on magic, including summoning, but only a few. The library itself was mostly for show and had all the famous histories, autobiographies, and essays that were expected to be seen in a newly-noble library. Courtesy of Allison Reed and the Heswarens, since Garen didn’t care about any of that.

Lisa had read the books on magic back to back half a dozen times already. Her personal library had more useful essays on summoning theory than that. But she did find one book on loot that confirmed her assumptions of making Garen overpay Micah. Hopefully, he wouldn’t read that himself one day. Here, at school, she found a similar book that confirmed something else the first had taught her—the public, modern understanding of patterned crystals.

Apparently, Tower people assumed the simplest patterned crystals from the first floor had five enchantments instead of three. One to make the body, one to enchant it with a Skill, one to tell it how to act—Lisa agreed with those. But they also thought the crystal had a life enchantment that allowed for the various properties the body enchantment could taint mana with. It could create bone- and flesh-like structures from mana, after all, without the [Summoner] needing to describe those with a spell themselves. One book even had an annotation by the author that referred to an Overseas scientist. He thought the enchantment might be better described as having a “biomatter” quality.

Lisa respected his academic approach, but this was about magic, a dominion outside of traditional Overseas science. And even then, the Tower people only knew the minimum about maybe two types of dozens.

Overseas scientists knew none. They were vultures who only observed others.

“Life” was definitely closer than “biomatter”, Lisa thought, even if mages using the term usually meant “spirit” or “healing”. In this case, “life” meant “life”—all-encompassing. It was in the same vein as that mana might mean “mind”.

The book also assumed the crystal itself had some kind of durability enchantment, because it was harder and tougher than regular monster crystals. But it was just a harder and tougher crystal infused with a little bit of foreign essence. It didn’t have a dead pattern that caused those properties.

Lisa had never considered essence infusions to be enchantments herself, but if liquid mixtures infused with only essences could count as potions, why shouldn’t these? She was willing to consider it. It was simply the broadening of one term to encompass a similar effect, after all.

But maybe she should start referring to different types of enchantments with different terms. She might start a trend.

Other than that, the books told her mostly things she already knew. [Summoners] used appraisal spells and patterned crystals to familiarize themselves with monsters’ bodies and then tried to replicate them with spells themselves. Most of them stopped relying on patterned crystals sometime after level 10 and summoned monsters directly instead. Some of them bound spirits to mana constructs in place of creating a behavioral spell or mental bond. Some even got the spells for those constructs from the spirits.

Freaking Tower spirits.

Lisa didn’t want that to go either of those routes. She wanted to make her Salamander real.

It was what her mother would have wanted.

Other [Summoners] did use patterned crystals, but there was a divide between which types they used. In this example, some used Salamander crystals from the fourth floor that could create complete unmade Teacup Salamander from the first or second floors. But those had less room in their crystals for adjustments. They were rigid. These Summoners often summoned one monster with a crystal and then a whole bunch of copies off of it, adding spells onto those instead of the crystal itself.

Some could even summon the copies without needing to summon the original first, instead projecting the crystal’s pattern someplace else. To understand an enchantment made with a different source of magic well enough to replicate it with your own at a distance location … Lisa respected those summoners, but it also wasn’t something she was interested in.

Others preferred the simple crystals for the flexibility they offered. The downside was that you had to spend more mana on modifying the base enchantment with semi-permanent mana channels to create any adjustments you wanted. If you didn’t memorize those adjustments and the crystal was broken, your work would be lost. And if the summoner died, the crystal would revert to being just a regular first-floor one again as it quickly filled itself up with essence.

Tower people knew little about making permanent enchantments. Mana wasn’t good at doing that after all. Even these summoners used the crystal’s enchantments as a basis to work off of. They were pretty much reliant on the Towers in general.

Still, higher cost for more flexibility? Obviously, Lisa would take that.

Now, all she had to do was learn how.

Before she could read about that, a voice from above interrupted her, saying, “Books on summoning theory? Really, Ms. Chandler?”

Lisa made herself look up. The young Mr. Bates stood there, looking down on her. Looking down on others, like Anne and their noble friends liked to do? Lisa could get along with that. Doing that to her?

Lisa wanted to punch this man; maybe make his nose look the same as Ryan’s did and then work off from that.

And anyway, shouldn’t he be teaching a class? She glanced at the windows of the library and saw it was afternoon already. Had she gotten lost in thought? Was that a side-effect of her first Path or just her usual fervor? It had been years since Lisa lost her sense of time during a project. She’d still lived back home, then.

Since she couldn’t decide and was in a bad mood anyway, she chose to believe it was her own mind and not a weird Path digging around inside her.

Meanwhile, she sat on the floor of the library—even after two years, she wasn’t used to tables—and stared while Mr. Bates made no move to leave.

“What?” she asked.

He scowled.

“‘What?’” he quoted. ”That’s no way to speak to a teacher. Shouldn’t you be showing more embarrassment after being caught skipping class?”

She considered.

“No?”

Why would she? Lisa thought the message she was sending was pretty clear.

Mr. Bates sighed and crossed his arms.

“Delegating your fighting to summons is a worthy pursuit for any mage, Lisa, but you still need to learn the basics someday. You can’t run away from your problems forever.”

“This is completely unrelated,” Lisa said because it was the truth.

He raised his eyebrows. “I’m sure it is. I’ll see on your Proof Of paper soon enough. But my point still stands. And in line with that, I just wanted to let you know that I’m lowering your final grade in my class to a zero.”

“What?” Lisa asked. “You can’t do that!”

Her body didn’t react along with her outrage, but she genuinely felt like punching the man then. He’d already given her a four before, now she wanted to further insult her by lowering that to a zero?

In freaking physical education?

“Skipping class because the major tests have come and gone is not the type of behavior we want to encourage in children,” he explained. “Maybe next year you will show more interest in improving your—”

“Fight me,” Lisa said.

That seemed to catch him off-guard.

“I’m sorry?”

Lisa put her book aside and made herself stand up.

“As a member of House Chandler, I challenge you to a duel. Let me show you just which grade I am owed.”

Mr. Bates frowned at her for a moment before smiling condescendingly. It wavered a little, though. He must not have been expecting a student to challenge him to a duel.

“I’m not a noble and you’re sixteen, Lisa”, he said anyway. “I decline.” He waved one of his hands and took a step back. He looked like he might start laughing to himself at any moment.

Coward, Lisa thought and grit her teeth. But she knew it was the right decision for him to make. A teacher dueling a student? How preposterous. The knowledge of that only made Lisa angrier.

Where she came from, teachers dueling students was not only normal, it was expected. How else were you supposed to learn?

“No magic,” she added. “Just you and me, hand-to-hand combat.”

Again, Mr. Bates needed a moment to process that. He wasn’t very smart, was he?

“Then you would lose,” he said eventually. “You don’t stand a chance. You don’t have any [Fighter] Skills whatsoever, nor the experience to—”

“I have—”

“No, Lisa. Just stop. I’m not going to fight you. I’m not going to duel you, either. The fact that you even propose the idea makes me want to put you in detention. Your grade is zero and that’s final. Don’t forget to hand in your Proof paper by next Friday.”

He turned around and left. The only thing that kept Lisa from throwing a ball of flames at his back was that it wouldn’t help.

You’re a creature of solutions, her mom had always told her. Not anger.

Lisa tried to remind herself of that as she ground her teeth together.

When she got home, her Salamander had only moved to the top edge of her bed and done nothing else. It was staring at the window again and licking its eyeballs. Why? What was its fixation with windows?

Maybe it’s vain.

The thought amused Lisa as she threw herself down next to it and plucked the mana ring from her pillow with a sigh. The Salamander would have gone back to it if it sensed it was running out of mana, she’d assumed. Or rather, she had hoped. If it hadn’t and burst while the ring was still full, that would have told Lisa a lot about its capabilities.

But the ring was empty.

She hadn’t been expecting that either. It shouldn’t have needed so much mana just to sustain itself for half a day. It took her a moment of going through various reasons before Lisa realized it was the [Summoner’s Bond]. She had hoped the Salamander might be eating the mana somehow, maybe for personal satisfaction or out of boredom, but the bond itself needed mana, too, and the cost most definitely only increased with time and distance. Especially since it was a temporary bond meant for a temporary construct.

Every action both of those things made took energy—for the Salamander, even just existing and interacting with the air in the room—and every second they existed their costs increased as they had to maintain themselves. Eventually, that got pricey.

Lisa had filled up one of her mana rings by half in school today. The other two were empty. The bond also drew mana from her, she knew, so where had that come from? She sent her spirit over her bones, but most of them had too little mana to spare. It couldn’t have come from there. Or at least, not without her knowing of it. But when she kept on looking, she felt a spark of something and her eyes widened in surprise.

She was producing mana.

Lisa had known this was a possibility, but she had forgotten to check these last two days. And since the [Summoner’s Bond] drew all of her own mana regeneration dry, like a cantrip would, she hadn’t noticed. Now, right next to her Salamander, the cost was decreased and her regeneration was catching up.

Mana was coursing along her nervous system like liquid, electric paint. Lisa was feeling it for the first time. She had never let it touch her spirit before. She’d stored it in her bones. It was a foreign source of magic, after all. It actually felt kind of … tingly. Like anything could happen.

The revelation both excited her and scared her. Would any children she had in the future produce mana, now, too?

“What are my parents going to say?” she wondered out loud.

Her Salamander turned to face her, but it didn’t answer. Meanwhile, Lisa was thinking of all the spells she could cast with a steady supply of mana. All the cantrips. It was a whole new world of possibilities.

Too bad I’m a Summoner now, she thought as she scratched her Salamander’s head. It didn’t seem to mind, but it didn’t show great pleasure either. All of her mana was probably going to go to feeding it.

On Friday, Lisa had finally made up her mind about what she wanted to do. She stood outside her Auntie’s office, hugging her Salamander with both arms like a stuffed animal, and knocked.

Keeping the Salamander close kept the cost down and all three of her mana rings were empty. She hadn’t had time to refill them yet, but maybe she could siphon some off of Auntie? The woman had received some basic mage training once, in order to control her armor, Marionette.

More likely, she was going to have to spend all day at the Bazaar tomorrow, refilling them from the crowd.

“Yes?” came the muted voice from within. “Come in.”

“Allison,” Lisa greeted her, stepping inside. “It’s just me. Do you have time?”

She sat behind her desk, surrounded by files and papers, and looked a little more than tired, but she still noticed the Salamander in Lisa’s arms, smiled at her and said, “Of course. What is it you need?”

“A Proof Of paper.”

“Ah, is it that time of year already?” Auntie nodded and shuffled some papers around. She got out a fresh one and a pen while Lisa sat down opposite her. “Did you bring your last one?”

Lisa shook her head. “No, but I memorized it.”

“Alright, then. Why don’t we start off there?”

Lisa held her Salamander close and counted the Skills and Path she’d claimed to have when she first got to this city two years ago. It seemed like an eternity away. She hadn’t even spoken the language yet. She’d only known the writing.

[Mage Path]

[Skills: Essence Sense, Create Fire, Fireball]

[Mage Level 3]

[Skills: Lesser Fire Resistance, Sense Magic]

The [Fireball] one had been a mistake. Lisa hadn’t known the difference between it and [Firebolt] back then, which most mages got by overcharging the [Sparks] cantrip. It had drawn a little bit more attention to her than she would have liked, so she had to play it low last year. She’d wanted to make a surprise appearance on the climber’s scene after she graduated from an out-of-the-way school, but now …

“Actually, there is something else I wanted to ask you for,” Lisa said.

Auntie looked up at her. “Anything,” she said so simply. “What is it?”

“Your endorsement,” Lisa said. “For applying to Ameryth Denner’s School for Self-Trained Climbers this Fall.”

Allison Reed had been a climber once, too. And then she became a [Hoplite] who defended her county. She’d been wounded six years later and donated all of her relics to her comrades when she retired. Now, she helped out the Chandler family with various things. She also had a license for writing Proof Of papers because of her luck in getting appraisal spells, which was pretty helpful. She was a Chandler in everything but name, especially considering her relationship with Garen.

Hopefully, Ms. Denner would acknowledge her endorsement, if only out of respect for her service and not her qualification. If not, Lisa would be disappointed. One day, her disappointment would mean something.

Auntie’s eyebrows slowly went up in polite surprise. “Why do you want to go there? I thought you had a whole plan and everything.”

“Things have changed,” Lisa said and made herself shrug. “All of my peers are going there, Myra and her posse, Annebeth, Navid Madin ... ” On that note, maybe Lisa could convince Ryan to go with her? He had to apply to schools soon anyway and he had a lot of potential with that Path of his. Was he otherwise qualified, though? Lisa knew nothing about his grades. And he still seemed angry with her …

Micah was bound to be upset, too, on Sunday. Maybe Lisa could do something special for his training that day?

Ha. Maybe she could even convince Micah to apply in two years. Then he’d be her junior and she could boss him around. Too bad his parents were poor and bigoted towards the Tower, though.

She wondered why that was. How old were they? Did it have to do with the church?

“And they just got the support of the Registrar's Department,” she went on. “Two years ago, I couldn’t have known the Climber’s Guild would open a school like that. Now, I think it’s worth a shot.”

“You’ll be set back a year,” Auntie pointed out, literally pointing her pen at Lisa. “And if the school fails, you might be set back another.”

“I’m young,” Lisa countered. “I have all the time in the world.”

“Point taken. Alright then. You have my endorsement.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, which Skills do you want? Which Skills did you get from that little guy anyway?” She pointed her pen at her Salamander.

Lisa told her about the three she’d gotten and Auntie wrote them down. Then Lisa told her the other Skills she wanted. They were having Lisa be a level 10 [Mage]. Seven levels in a little over one year was great progress and two levels above average for her given age, once she aged to seventeen. Seven was also the ideal number of Skills you had at level 10. Plus, Lisa had a “secondary” Class and two Paths. That promised a lot of potential. Rumor had it, Ms. Denner liked potential.

“And give me magic resistance and lesser strength,” Lisa said. “I’m tired of holding back and people have started noticing anyway.”

It wasn’t Lisa’s fault she was fighting against beginner Mages. Their spells were so sloppily-made and leaking, she could just tear them apart.

“Hold on a second,” Allison said while she got up. She went over to a box in the corner of the room and began rummaging around. Finally, she found what she was looking for and brought it back. It was a spineless book. Or rather, a thick collection of hastily-bound paper.

“It’s the registry’s raw quarter collection of proofed calling advancements from their climbers,” she explained.

Lisa did her frown again. “Are you allowed to have that?”

“I do not recall,” Allison said and smiled. “And that’s what I’ll say if they catch me with it.”

She flipped open the book and began looking for something. Lisa waited until she found it.

“There! I was just checking if [Mages] even get [Lesser Strength],” Allison explained. “It’s rare, but it’s definitely possible.”

“Ah,” Lisa said. “Smart.”

She peered over a bit. She kind-of wanted a look at that book, too.

In her arms, her Salamander strained to climb out and towards the table. It kept on slapping her arm with its foot as it tried to push itself out, which was kind of cute. Lisa frowned at it for a moment but then she just hugged its foot down as well. She didn’t know what it wanted, but she couldn’t allow it to trample all over Auntie’s valuable papers.

“What next?” Auntie asked.

“Uhm, I also need a Skill for harmless fire,” Lisa said. She reconsidered and held her Salamander up a little. It wanted something?

It was facing her, but it tried to turn around to look at that book Auntie had. Interesting.

“I set my staff on fire with Gardener once and said it was sort-of a cantrip,” she explained. “I also created a ring of flames on the ground for Ryan and me to ward off Prowlers.”

I don’t want that book, Lisa thought and made sure it was picked up by their bond. Immediately, the Salamander stopped squirming and started surveying the room again. Huh. But why was it looking around the room? Was it looking for dangers? Or maybe potential targets? Lisa didn’t know how capable her Salamander was yet. She would have to buy a manual on that someday soon, although it wouldn’t be accurate. No two patterned crystals were exact copies after all and Lisa knew her bond was influencing it.

In the meantime, she was just going to have to resort to testing.

The Salamander settled on staring at the window again and Lisa thought she might have something she could try out.

“Who’s Ryan?” Auntie asked, still flipping through that book of hers.

“Huh?” Lisa set her Salamander down on the floor and smiled. “Oh, he’s this awesome kid who can copy monsters.”

That made Allison look up.

“Really?”

Lisa nodded. “Really.”

“What, is he a [Blue Mage]?”

“No, no,” she said quickly, leaning closer. Auntie listened. “He doesn’t use active spells. He just has this strange philosophical Path, I think, that gives him the [Mimic Beast] Skill. It seems to be comprehension-based, though. And all of his Skills are [Enhanced], so he can do stuff like make bird noises with just his speech organs. It’s really self-contradictory in some ways.”

[Enhanced] was dubbed the half-magic qualifier of the intermediate Stats, because of all the rules it could break and the non-stat Skills it could apply to. There was a theory in recent years that suspected [Enhanced] Skills permanently drew on your mana, but they hadn't had the opportunity to prove it yet. You’d have to find someone, measure his mana capabilities, have him obtain an [Enhanced] Skill and then remeasure without any outside factors obscuring the data.

And then you had to repeat that a lot of times to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

Ryan’s Path was definitely at least a half-magic one, even if he hadn’t figured that out for himself yet.

“You don’t think …“ Auntie asked and trailed off, shaking her head. “You’re going to be careful, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lisa brushed aside her concerns. “I just want to hang out with him, see what else he learns. Plus, he’s kinda nice, too. He has a bright smile.”

Maybe she could ask him which schools he wanted to apply to on Monday? Who knew, maybe he wanted to go there himself?

“How old is this boy?”

“Uhm, fifteen? Or was it fourteen …?”

“Hm. As long as you stay safe. So, setting your staff on fire and a protective ring of flames was it?”

“I also changed the fire’s colors,” Lisa added.

Auntie did a little wave. To brush aside her comment? “We can just attribute that to Path knowledge. Or maybe a light spell. Do you want the [Light] cantrip?”

“Sure,” Lisa said and Auntie wrote it down before she went back to searching.

Lisa, meanwhile, looked at her Salamander sitting on the floor and found a random book lying on the other side of the room.

I want that, she thought.

The Salamander immediately searched for what she was looking at, found it, and started walking off.

I changed my mind. I don’t want that. Come back.

The Salamander stopped going for the book, but it didn’t come back either. Instead, it looked around and tried to strain its head up to look at the ceiling. Suddenly, it rolled on its back and let its tongue hang out lazily.

Lisa frowned.

Roll over, she thought.

She pushed the thought down their bond, but the Salamander ignored her. What was she doing wrong? It listened to her vocal commands and when she wanted books … Could it only fetch things for her?

Maybe the bond wasn’t strong enough? Lisa considered cutting it and remaking it herself, without her Skill, but then, would its form collapse? It was just a bond, not the tension that kept the enchantment running, so it shouldn’t … technically. But Lisa was also feeding it mana that way. What if she cut it off and it collapsed from backlash or mana demand?

More importantly, how long could Lisa keep this up with the bond before that happened anyway? Maintaining it always drew a little bit out of her. Not just mana-wise, but also mentally. After a few days, she had to concentrate to not let the leash fray. And the mana drain was also steadily increasing by tiny amounts. Maybe the cost increase and the inability for mental commands were because it was a temporary bond? Where would Lisa get a spirit to make a permanent bond all the way out here, though? Tower spirits sucked. No, wait … she was producing mana now. Could she make a permanent bond herself? Mana was supposed to be good at that. But more importantly, did she even want that?

So many questions.

Roll over, she thought again. Suddenly, a socked foot appeared next to her and shoved the Salamander a little, rolling it over.

The Salamander let it happen, a low sound like a lazy groan in its throat, and then it kept on rolling on its own until it was on its back again. Huh. Maybe it liked that? That and staring at windows.

She briefly wondered why it wasn’t snapping at the foot that was shoving it before she realized whom it belonged to. Garen. Of course, it wouldn’t attack him. Even if the man didn’t have that Skill of his, [Open Level], the Salamander wasn’t suicidal.

She, on the other hand, was a little braver.

“Hey!” Lisa said, kicking his leg. “Don’t shove it.”

“I was just making sure he’s still alive,” Garen said. “Because he looked pretty dead. I paid for him, remember?”

“I was there. Thank you, gramps.”

“If you keep on calling him gramps and me auntie,” Allison commented. “People are going to get the wrong idea someday.”

Lisa just shrugged and sent happy thoughts down her bond to the Salamander, some of them memories of Garen. She didn’t want it attacking him on accident and getting squashed. Garen was strong enough to crush his crystal, too. Even by accident.

“So, whatchya doing?” Garen asked them then and leaned back against the desk. Lisa was acutely aware that he had ignored Allison’s comment.

“Faking Lisa’s proofing for her school application,” Auntie answered without looking up. She smiled a little though. Lisa saw it.

“Auntie’s helping me commit application fraud,” Lisa said.

At least, that made Garen chuckle.

“What do you need an application for, though?” Garen asked. “I thought you already had your dream school picked out?”

“I want to go to a better one, one where I don’t fail a class just because I can’t do a simple hand-to-hand combat drill,” Lisa said angrily. Screw Mr. Bates, and screw the school for allowing him to make that drill mandatory. Just because she couldn’t deflect a punch didn’t mean she couldn’t immolate anyone before they tried. Or take the hit and punch back. Easy.

“Which new school were you thinking of?” Garen asked, leaning over to look at the paper. He frowned at something Lisa couldn’t see, something that Auntie had written down.

“I heard the Climber’s Guild is opening a school,” Lisa said casually, as if it were just a rumor.

“Oh,” Garen said. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Lisa hadn’t known where she was going with that. Garen seemed to realize that no joke was forthcoming. He switched to a more awkward expression.

“You know I’m already endorsing Anne for that school, right?” Garen asked her. “Ameryth says one endorsement per person. Unless it’s that boy, apparently ...”

Lisa made her head shake, interrupting the thought.

“I already asked Auntie to endorse me.”

Auntie gave a little wave again. This time it said "hello."

“Oh. Cool. But why fake a proofing?” Garen asked. “Why not just say you’re a ‘natural’? Knowing Ameryth, that’d get you in like that.” He snapped.

Lisa frowned. In what world was that a good idea?

“How many naturals are in this county?” she asked her partner-in-crime.

“Public ones? I could count them on my two hands,” Allison said.

“And there you have it. I don’t want that kind of attention. I just want one of your stupid educations so I can become a respected Climber and explore the Tower, make money for myself, make powerful allies, corrupt the government, and rule you all,” Lisa joked. “Plus, the training is pretty nice here. Not as good as back home, but close enough.”

Garen gave her a slight bow. “We thank you for your humble compliment. But don’t forget you’re one of us now. You got your Path, didn’t you?” He leaned closer and chanted, “One. Of. Us. One. Of. Us.”

Lisa shoved him away. He let her, stumbling away from the table and chuckling.

“I’ll leave you two to it, then.”

“Didn’t you come here for something?” Auntie asked.

Garen paused at the door.

“It was just a little bit of gossip about the thirteenth floor,” he said, glancing at Lisa.

She immediately started pulling some truth essence from where she had stored it under her tongue and pushed it into her nose. There, she wove it into its pattern.

“Nothing important.” He shrugged.

Lisa frowned. What was on the thirteenth floor?

“Anything you can tell me?” Auntie asked.

“‘No wings’,” he said.

Neither of the adults seemed all that invested in the conversation. They were keeping it casual, and yet Lisa couldn’t get the itch out of her nose that she was supposed to be catching them in a lie; smell deceit. But she wasn’t. Were they getting better at masking their scents?

“What was that about?” Lisa asked when Garen had left.

“Sorry, not allowed to say,” Auntie said. “Guild’s orders. But I’m sure you’ll find out in a few months. It’s really not that important anyway.”

That last sentence smelled like a lie.

So Garen thought it wasn’t important, but Auntie did? That could imply a number of things.

Allison was too busy searching through her book to notice her suspicion, so Lisa just leaned back and nudged her Salamander with her foot while she unraveled the truth essence. Having that in there too long was unhealthy for her.

The bit about finding out in a few months had been true, so she supposed she could wait.

For now, she needed a name for her new companion. She couldn’t keep on calling it things like “it”, “Salamander”, and “Hey, you!”

Salamander. She mused. Sally? Too girly. Sal? Maybe. It reminded her of Sal-Altrana and It was still alive. It might take offense. Maybe Salvador? It fit, considering its tongue. Then there was Soul … Sol? Lisa thought that meant “sun” in some languages. Sulara. Too old. Silver? Totally unfitting. Red? Didn’t have “s” in its name. Shanty? Too common. Also, too Northern. South? Definitely evil and also possibly, or rather probably, cursed. Salad? Yum. She could go for some right now. Sam? … Huh. Maybe?

She stored the thought away for later and added a note to visit the Heswarens sometime soon. She was running out of truth essence.

“Found it,” Auntie said then. “Here, [Lesser Ward of Fire]. ‘Allows the protective enchantment of magefire on personal or nearby objects.’”

Tower people just liked using the word “enchantment” for everything, didn’t they? It was probably overcompensation, Lisa mused.

“That sounds perfect,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Then we’ll still need to give you a proper mage stat,” she went on, scribbling the Skill down.

“[Lesser Imagination],” Lisa said.

Auntie frowned. “Why? Isn’t that tier one?”

“I subscribe to the theory that it’s a tier three stat,” Lisa explained and offered, “The research is there.”

She kind of hoped it was made up of Fluidity, Vibrancy, and Intellect, but she had no proof for any of them. It might as well just be tier one and help with “imagining” spells. You didn’t have to be smart to be imaginative, after all, and well-imagined spells could be both stronger and quicker than their standard Skill-taught counterparts.

“Last I checked, Mashala’s tests proved that it was tier one.”

Lisa scowled. “Her experiment was biased. She had a handful of test subjects, all of which were various [Artists] with no magical training, not to mention magical aptitude. Mages get [Lesser Imagination] all the time. It has to improve their capabilities somehow. And anyway, Skills are individual. One man’s fighting [Dexterity] is another man’s ability to play the guitar. Same with imagination, I suppose.”

“That has never actually been proven, you know? It might just be muscle memory. Still, I still prefer verified higher tier stats.”

“A lot of people do,” Lisa said, a little off-put by Auntie’s opinion. “But the tier system was meant to describe complexity, not quality. Almost all combat classes get [Lesser Strength], after all, and that’s tier one. Is it less valuable than [Lesser Brawn]?”

Allison scowled. “What about Ameryth?” she asked, dodging the question. “Do you know what she believes?”

Lisa made herself sigh. “I honestly don’t care. If she doubts me, I’ll just have to prove her wrong.”

“You mean falsify data?” Auntie asked with a smile.

Lisa chuckled. “Yeah.”

If the Registry really was supporting this school for the data they could collect, Lisa was about to give them a headache. It was their own fault, though, for being so narrow-minded.

“What next?” Allison asked.

“Something levitation related,” Lisa said.

About ten minutes later, Lisa had a perfectly forged Proof Of paper and twelve fake Skills that were supposed to explain her “natural” abilities. The way it portrayed her wasn’t perfect and it didn’t list nearly everything Lisa could do, but it was good enough—which was still exceptional. It promised potential and competence, and a little bit of everything, and that was exactly what she wanted. Apparently, it was what Ameryth wanted for her new school, too. She wanted to create a breath of fresh air, or so Lisa heard.

Maybe she really should ask Ryan if he wanted to go there on Monday.

[Of the Daughter Path]

[Skills: Mold Pattern]

[Mage Path*]

[Skills: Essence Sense*, Create Fire*, Fireball,* Light*, Shape Wind*, Electric Touch*]

[Mage Level 10*]

[Skills: Lesser Fire Resistance*, Sense Magic*, Lesser Strength*, Lesser Ward of Fire*, Lesser Imagination*, Lesser Magic Resistance*]

[Summoner Level 1]

[Skills: Basic Summoning, Summoner’s Bond]

On Sunday noon, Lisa lay on her couch in the sitting room and pouted. The pitter-patter of rain on the roof tiles was minorly soothing, but it had soaked the target dummies she’d set up outside. It shrouded the day in gloom.

Micah was late.

It had started raining before he was supposed to be here, so maybe it was because of that? Maybe he wouldn’t come at all? Wouldn’t he just use an umbrella, though, or … make a potion to ward off the rain? That last one sounded like something Micah would do. Maybe an overcharge summer-breeze potion or something?

Maybe he wouldn’t come because he was still upset after his fight with Ryan? That was also a possibility ...

Lisa would be disappointed in him if it was any of those reasons.

The pitter-patter continued but the house was silent. Both Allison and Garen had gone out to run various errands. Only Mave was with her, sneaking about on those silent soles of his. Well, him and Sam.

She held her Salamander over herself and tried out the name, “Sam.”

It still sounded weird, but she supposed she would have to get used to it. It didn’t even know what a name was, so why should she care? It was just ... everything deserved a name. Even a simple mana construct.

Sam, Sam, Sam, she sent down their bond, hoping it would learn it someday.

Another half an hour later, she was hugging it, rolled up the couch and fuming. So Micah really wasn’t going to show up. If he’d told her that somehow, she could have done something better with that hour. Like visit the Heswarens to restock her truth essence. Or find a crowded place to recharge her mana rings. She had a hungry Salamander and eerie mana-roots to feed.

Really, just because he was fighting with Ryan didn’t mean he couldn’t have asked him to pass along a simple message … right?

She got up out of frustration and suddenly, there was an urgent pounding on the front door. Mave hushed by the sitting room to go open up. Lisa frowned and picked up her Salamander. Was that Micah? Micah didn’t pound on doors. Either way, it might be him so Lisa carried Sam out of the room and set it down on the first step of the staircase.

“Go into my room and wait there for me,” she told it.

It slowly started scaling the steps. Probably would have been quicker to let it climb the walls, Lisa mused. Well, too late now. Sam behaved weirdly when she told it conflicting commands.

Shaking her head, Lisa ran back to the couch and put on a furious glare as she waited for whoever had pounded on their door.

Micah shuffled in after all. The boy was dripping wet in an oversized coat and left a trail of sickle-shaped puddles on the floor behind him. Eventually, those became half-sized as he’d started tip-toeing, probably trying to minimize the damage. Neither Mave of Lisa minded, though. They had both Skills and skills for that.

“Hey, Lisa,” he said.

“What happened to you?” she asked in form of greeting. “Don’t you own an umbrella?”

Micah looked embarrassed. “I must have lost it somewhere. I couldn’t find it at home or anywhere else— I’m sorry about the water. And about being late.”

“You’re not just late,” Lisa said. “You’re an hour late.”

He cringed.

“I know, I know,” Micah said, bobbing his head, and then he started rambling. “It just took some time to find Ryan’s house in the rain, and then I had to convince him to leave his house, which I only managed because of the rain—I told him he could hide under a hoodie—and then we had to stop by Janet’s place, and she had to examine him and then we had to run all the way here, and we got kind of distracted, and—”

“Ryan?” Lisa asked, interrupting him. “Is he here?”

“Yeah. We actually wanted to ask you— Wait, what do you mean? He’s right—” He turned around and didn’t find whatever he was looking for behind him. Ryan, probably. “Where—?”

Then he spun around as if Ryan were hiding in some corner of the room. It was sort of amusing, actually, especially when Micah realized he was throwing water droplets everywhere and stopped, then tried to move carefully back towards the hallway. He had a large lump on his back from his backpack underneath his coat.

Lisa couldn’t decide if she was still mad at him or not. Maybe if he really had brought Ryan along …? That would mean they had made up, right?

“Ryan?” he addressed someone in the doorway. “What are you doing? Get in here.”

“I don’t wanna,” came a sulking reply.

Lisa sat up a bit.

“You’re already here,” Micah said. “She’s going to see you anyway.”

“This is so unfair. She was supposed to laugh at you for getting a strike,” he mumbled.

Lisa had been a bit too busy for that, but now she was more interested in why Ryan was sulking. Maybe he was embarrassed for shouting at her in a hallway?

He better be.

“I already told you I’m sorry,” Micah said. “And I already thanked you for yesterday. Please, just come on in?”

This is getting ridiculous, Lisa decided. She got up. The moment Ryan stepped through the door, though, she froze and stared. Laughter bubbled up in her throat and she tried to keep it down, she really did, but then Ryan noticed her staring and scowled, and she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

She pointed. “Your face!”

“Fuck you, too, Lisa,” Ryan said and turned away.

“Oh my Lady. Your face!” Now she was doubling over a little.

He scowled and mumbled something else. Micah pitched something in, too, but Lisa kept on going.

Ryan looked like he’d slept three days in the sun.

“What happened?” she asked as she tried to keep it in. She wiped away some tears. “Is that a sunburn?”

“Yeah …” Ryan mumbled, scratching at his cheek. Micah slapped away his hand and Ryan scowled. “And a rash.”

“How do you get a sunburn and a rash?” Lisa asked.

“He wore, uh, something to cover his bruises yesterday,” Micah explained. “And he had a minor allergic reaction to it.”

“Minor?” Ryan asked.

“And then his skin couldn’t handle the light essence in the, uhm, ‘something’ anymore,” Micah went on, ignoring him. What was this “something”? Some kind of salve they were experimenting with? “So, yeah. This happened.”

“Light essence?” Lisa asked with a smile. She was definitely no longer angry at Micah for being late. At all. Waiting an hour was worth this. “What kind of an idiot uses sunlight essence in skin?”

“Hey!” They both said in unison.

Ups? Did Lisa step on a toe there? Oh, had Micah made that?

“Janet’s not an idiot,” Micah mumbled. “She just made a mistake.”

Oh. Not Micah then. Lisa had already been preparing potion safety lessons in her head.

“Pretty big mistake,” Ryan grumbled, despite having protested.

Lisa agreed with him. That woman couldn’t have known Ryan would be allergic, but she could have tested for it. How hard was it to rub some of the stuff on an arm and wait a few minutes?

“Anyway, we already put something on it,” Micah said, pulling out a jar from one of his coat pockets. Lisa took it. It was wet. “But it’s only a basic healing salve. Janet’s going to need until tomorrow to make anything else.”

Inside the jar was a pretty standard low-grade healing paste. Except the soothing properties were a little enhanced and a bit of cold essence was mixed in. Lisa followed a faint trace of mana on the jar and turned it over. There, she found “Ryan?” in childishly neat handwriting on the bottom.

[Personalized Alchemy], she surmised. Why the question mark, though?

“You go pick that up,” Ryan grumbled, nudging Micah. “I’m not leaving the house tomorrow.”

“Do you want me to bring you soup, too?” Micah asked, joking. “And a warm blanket?”

“Yes,” he mumbled. “With eggs stirred in and crackers.”

Lisa realized this was the first time she was seeing Ryan and Micah interact with each other. Ever since the Tower, at least. They seemed … healthy. Aside from Ryan’s face and the rain. She was glad that they’d recovered so much since then. And that they’d gotten over their fight.

She handed Micah the jar with a small nod of approval.

“So what? You just wanted to hide his bruises?” Lisa asked. He didn’t even have any bruises anymore. Had the paste healed that?

“Yeah,” Ryan said.

“Well then tell this Janet she should use moonlight essence next time,” Lisa explained. “It’s much better at manipulating truth, with moons ‘harboring and revealing that which strides in the dark’ and all. Perfect for illusions. Less aggravating, too, although it might keep you up at night.”

Sunlight essence could also be used for illusions, Lisa knew, but this woman clearly didn’t have a talent for it.

“By the way,” Ryan said. “That, uh, man? He called you ‘Lady Lisa’. Are you like some kind of noble?”

Oh. Lisa had forgotten that she still hadn’t told Ryan.

“Something like that,” Lisa said awkwardly. She looked at Micah, but the boy didn’t seem to mind her not telling him. He even sort-of shrugged.

“Technically a noble,” Lisa told Ryan. “In the same way that farmers are technically nobles.”

“Ah.” Ryan smiled.

Micah frowned instead. Because he hadn’t known farmers were nobles? A lot of them were landowners near cities, though, so they counted, even if they would never admit it themselves. It was the only way the “true” nobles had initially managed to keep their titles—and therefore their leveled Classes—after they had killed the Third. It had been sort of an all-hands-on-deck situation back then, after all. Their Skills came in handy during the restoration.

“So what did you want to ask?” she asked.

“Oh. Right,” Micah said and shifted a little. “We want your help.”

“We want to go to the climber’s school,” Ryan explained.

They both stood there, soaking wet, one with a glowing red face, the other a little flushed, and looked perfectly earnest about that statement.

That, rather than the statement itself, made Lisa breath out a laugh as she asked, “What?”

“We’re serious,” Ryan said. “The Climber’s Guild is opening a school, right? We want to go there.”

“Oh,” Lisa nodded. So much for wanting to convince Ryan to join her. Convincing Micah had been more of a musing, really, but …

“That’s great!” she said and threw her arms up. “Me, too!”

Micah looked surprised, then incredibly happy.

“You want to go, too?”

Ryan just looked confused.

What? Had Ryan expected resistance on her part? He was the one got into a fistfight with Micah because the boy went into the Tower on his own. And now he wanted to help him skip two years of classroom to go to a school that wanted to train climbers? The real mystery here was how the hell Micah had convinced him of that in just a week. She would have to ask him later.

As well as a bunch of other stuff.

For now, she called, “Mave!”

Two quiet steps and the man came into the room with a pile of warm towels on his arms. Had he been waiting in the hallway for her to call him again? How petty of him.

“Thank you, Mave,” she said anyway. “And could you get some of that cactus jelly stuff, please?”

He held the jar up for her with his other hand.

Oh. How considerate of him.

The towels were folded, but Lisa just grabbed the bunch of them and threw it at Micah and Ryan. They flew everywhere.

“Speaking of warm blankets, dry yourselves off before you catch something,” she said. “You can give Mave your wet clothes when you’re done. He’ll dry them for you.”

“I will?” Mave mumbled.

“Yes, please.”

Micah pulled a towel from his face and grinned at Ryan.

Ryan still looked a little confused.

She tossed him the jar and it almost hit Micah instead. Ups. At least, the boy caught it. Lisa really shouldn’t be throwing things, but she was in a good mood and they hadn’t been able to use the target dummies she’d set up.

She needed to get it out of her system.

“Put that on his face,” she told him. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Ryan asked.

“What is this?” Micah did, opening the jar. “Is it alchemical?”

“No, but it’ll help. Trust me!” she called.

The last thing she heard was “Smells weird” from Ryan and then she was headed up the stairs.

Sam was lying on her bed in her room, staring at its own half-reflection in the window and licking its eyeballs. What was up with that? And how had it gotten onto her bed? It perked up the moment it noticed her and followed her with its eyes the whole while.

“Sit,” she told it.

Sam sat.

Lisa just needed to grab the practice folder that Auntie had made for her. She’d put it somewhere in her desk, she knew. Finding it, Lisa sat down and leafed through the pages, ripping out the handful of practice answers she’d made yesterday. Then she ran back downstairs.

There, she found Micah and Ryan sitting on the one couch. They were only half-wet now, in exchange for being half-clothed, and had wrapped themselves in the massive towels. A battered-up book lay on the table in front of Micah and he was leafing through it. Lisa recognized it as the alchemy guide they’d bought for him just last week. Wow. He was even worse at taking care of books than she was.

Ryan, at least, tried to peer down at the pages from where he sat next to Micah, his back straight. He had another towel on his lap and was dripping a little cactus salve from his face onto it.

Lisa chuckled as she walked up to them. Before, Ryan had looked angry and red. Now he looked alien and green.

“Not that much, idiot,” she told him.

Micah blushed. So it was his fault then?

“It smells weird,” Ryan said. “But it feels great. What is this stuff?”

“It’s made from cactuses,” she said. “From the Garden. It’s meant for sunburns mostly.”

“Thanks, Lisa,” Ryan said. He seemed to be in a better mood now that his face was being treated.

Micah frowned at the folder in her hands. His own book was open on a page that depicted Honey Ant legs.

“What’s that?” he asked her.

Lisa considered how to answer that question for a moment.

“Are you religious?” she asked back.

“Huh?” Micah frowned. “Uhm … no?”

Ryan nodded.

“Good,” Lisa said, handing him the folder. “That makes this easier. Forgot the Towers, and the Dwarf, and any kind of devotion to your Paths you might have. This is your new God now.”

Micah took the folder fearfully and opened it up to the first page. Even Ryan was leaning his head over a little to see.

It didn’t have any kind of title page or cover, but Lisa knew what they would see.

__________________________________________ Practice Entrance Exams 100-1

Name: ___ _____________________________________________________________________________________ Grade: ___

Date: ___ ______________________________________________________________________________________ Points: ___

Question 1 — Towers, Skills, History:

1.1 Name the four official representative non-combat Classes that can become combat Classes by climbing along with their respective Towers. (_/2)

1.2 Pick one of these Classes and explain its strengths. (_/2)

1.3 Was there another historic example rarely found today? Name it and the reasons for its decline. What was its successor? Explain the circumstances around and reasons for why it was chosen. (_/5)

1.4 Propose a non-combat Class to be the fifth official representative for the Tower of Annevos and explain why you picked it. (_/3)

1.5 Propose a non-combat Class to replace one of the Classes you listed in 1.1 and explain why you picked it. (_/1)

Lisa watched as Micah read the question with a deep frown. She knew he was smart—otherwise, he wouldn’t have gotten the [Essence Path]—but intelligence and knowledge were two very different things, and Micah would have to do a lot of studying in the next few weeks if he wanted to get into that school.

His other qualifications on the other hand … Would he be applying for a scholarship? Probably. Even today, he had been wearing Ryan’s jacket, Lisa realized. They were going to have to further his Paths and Classes to better his chances of getting one, then.

And then they still needed people to endorse the both of them.

When Micah read the next question on that page, about a map that he was supposed to describe on the back of the page, his frown only deepened. Then he was busy leafing through the rest, skimming question after question from dozens of practice exams about maths, history, grammar, biology, geography, the Towers, Skills, the cities … Even when he found the answer sheets, he didn’t let up.

Lisa saw him gulp.

When he looked up at her, though, he smiled fearfully anyway and said, “Thank you.”

Ryan, meanwhile, shouted, “What the fuck!” and pulled his legs up on the couch. He held his blanket in front of himself like a net.

Lisa followed his shocked expression to where Sam was walking into the room, staring at Micah and Ryan. It must have followed her down. But how? She had told it to sit … but not how long! Had it exploited that?

Were there any treats you could reward summoned monsters with?