"What are these?" Samantha asked as Nathan pulled her to one of the kitchens.

"Cups," he told her.

The two ceramic cups he'd made were sitting on the table, along with a pitcher of water. They had been glazed royal blue everywhere but the very bottom of the thick cone that made up the handle.

"Here," he offered her one, then filled his with water, not quite reaching the top of the stem in his. "Fill it with water."

"Why?" She asked.

"Just do it," he told her, holding out the pitcher. "Do it, do it, do it, do it."

Giving him a weird look, Samantha took the pitcher from Nathan and filled her goblet all the way to the top. As soon as she stopped, she realized that the water was draining out of the cup somehow and looked at it in confusion.

"Where's the water going?" She asked.

"Into the handle," he tapped the cone. "The stem acts as a sort of siphon. If you fill it too full… the drink drains out."

"And it just stays in the-eek!"

She jumped, letting go of the goblet, which Nathan caught, laughing.

"Yeah, no," he grinned at her. "The handle is just a little too small on the inside to hold all of the liquid if you fill it all the way up. It's hollow inside. In a normal one, it just drains right out of the bottom into your lap. In this one, the handle is two-part, with the upper part being an empty space that can hold a little more water than what would be to three-quarters of the cup. If you're filling it fast, you wouldn't notice the water – or whatever – draining out."

"And since it can hold up to three-quarters of the goblet's contents," she said. "In the handle, then it wouldn't go the normal route and just drain it onto you."

"Not unless you filled it even fuller," Nathan confirmed. "The container in the handle has holes at the top, just beneath where it meets the cup part, and the water or whatever drains out of there. Since you filled it all the way…"

"It drained out, onto my hand," she punched him in the arm, and he grinned at her. "How did you learn to make that?"

"It's our finals project for Pottery this semester," he told her. "If we're allowed to resume classes as-normal after this whole thing ends, anyway. Nearly everyone was in that class was a senior, so even if not, there'd only be a few students left for it. They'd probably still do it, but…"

"You know about the finals project?"

"He told us about it last month," Nathan nodded. "Since we're here, I decided to try making them."

Nathan turned her goblet over above the sink and let it drain out, then handed it back to her, thinking about their conversation after the duel.

She was surprisingly receptive to the idea that he wasn't a virgin – even stated it meant he'd better be able to pleasure her right when they crossed that line.

They hadn't, yet, though mostly because Nathan was still a little bit hesitant. Having sex with someone he liked rather than someone he just wanted sex with was a fair bit different to him.

"Samantha," he said, then took a sip from his own goblet as she began to fill hers. "I-"

Challenge 4 has been completed by all! The MPR is now open. You may restock your bags, standard rules apply. Male Challenge 1 will begin in 3 hours. Any male student not in the MPR at that point will die. There will be a 15-minute notice alerting you in advance.

"Told you," Nathan said.

"You did," Samantha nodded. "I was still doubting you, but that confirmed your suspicions. The System is giving us a 'fair' game, even if it's unfair for parts."

Nathan nodded, and the two of them drank from their goblet, cleaned them up, then brought them to their room before making their way to the MPR, where they restocked their backpacks.

Nearly all of the boys had assembled by the time the three hours were up, with the final two arriving just before it was over. They were Keith and some kid Nathan had seen around, but never really got to know. The kid had picked a sword, like most of the guys.

Looking around, Nathan counted one hundred thirty-five students including the girls, all of whom came to see what was going to be the Male Challenge 1. They had a loss of thirteen from Challenge 4. None of the thirty-seven from his own instance – Keith had probably made sure everyone survived, claiming the final points he needed after the other guy he walked in with did.

There were fifty-one girls left, making the total number of guys eighty-four. It was divisible by two, four, six, seven, and twelve, among others, meaning that it could evenly split between the boys in multiple ways.

"Seven of twelve."

"What?" Samantha looked at Nathan.

"We're being split into seven of twelve," he said. "One loss each."

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"Male Chall-"

Nathan cut off, reading the message that appeared in his vision.

Male Challenge 1 will begin in 5 minutes. You will be divided up into seven groups of twelve students. You will be required to collect 15 Tokens. The tokens will spawn in a random location and are student-specific. You will be required to kill a certain amount of monsters to cause each token to spawn. Once it does, you will be alerted of its location and that you have fifteen minutes to collect it, or you will have to meet the circumstances once more to cause it to spawn again. No Points or Experience will be earned on reattempts. 77 students will survive this Challenge. If 7 students die before 77 students have collected all 15 Tokens, all remaining students will be returned to the neutral instance. Students who collect all 15 Tokens will be returned to the neutral instance. 7 students will die, be it from monsters or lack of Tokens when the count of students remaining added to students deceased equals 7.

"It's almost the same as Female Challenge 1!" Michael called out, then explained it to the girls. "I'm going to be the first to return, ladies!"

Nathan snorted, then looked around. He didn't really care if anyone else heard that, but still felt satisfied that only Samantha had. He – and the other guys – waited the five minutes, and as soon as they were up, Nathan assessed his combat partners.

He was the only of the top seven males in the room. By his own estimates, they had one from each of the twelve sets of seven in terms of ranking. In other words, the System divided them up evenly.

He returned his attention to the System, which had sent him another notice.

To spawn Token 1, you must kill 10 H-3 Monsters.

Nathan sighed, then left the MPR as the other students began formulating a battle plan and team. They called to him, to see if he wanted to join them, but he ignored it. They'd either adapt, or they'd be the reason everyone failed.

A One-Pointer was an easy kill.

Three of the One-Pointers were waiting in the hall to the cafeteria from the MPR. Nathan struck quickly, taking each of them out with only a few strikes. He moved towards the others One-Pointers in the cafeteria, defeating them quickly. There were eight of them, and he did receive a Point for the last one, confirming to him that it was only kills to respawn a Token that didn't reward anything.

Probably to avoid people farming the Points.

Nathan Hunter Token 1 is located in Room 1004. You have 15 minutes to locate it.

The far side of the school, which bordered the street at the front of the school. As the timer moved to the corner of his vision, Nathan took off across the school, dodging the monsters before reaching the history classroom and beginning his search, locating his Token in the teacher's desk.

Immediately upon his touch, the Token vanished, and another notice appeared in Nathan's vision, giving him a counter for how many of his Tokens he'd found, which then moved to beneath the empty timer.

In addition to that, he received a surprising notice. He received a Stat Point, Skill Point, and Point for obtaining the Token. No one had mentioned that before. At least, not to or around him. However, he doubted it was new to the Male Challenge, that the Female Challenge included it.

He also received a notice informing him that he had to kill fifteen One-Pointers, and so he got to work, hunting them down. It took him twenty minutes to locate enough One-Pointers, and once he did, he received a notice that his second Token would be located in Classroom 609, a chemistry lab.

Groaning, Nathan took off and began frantically searching the classroom, eventually locating the Token in the chem lab's storage room, where all of their dangerous chemicals were kept. He received two to each type of Point upon claiming it.

The next Token required twenty One-Pointers, and when Nathan left the classroom, he realized that the numbers of monsters were slowly increasing. Eventually, he'd be forced to fight in order to reach the Tokens, and he was only on the third one.

As Nathan fought, he bumped into one of the other guys, who was wielding a sword while trying to handle two One-Pointers at once. It was just a touch beyond his ability.

Nathan quickly took out one of the monsters, then looked at the exhausted senior, who finished off the other a few moments later.

"How did you make it this far?" He asked.

"Dude!" The guy exclaimed. "Not everyone can be as badass as you, Nathan! Plus, I've been having to fight them in twos and threes! I've only fought them one-on-one or in teams!"

"Weren't you in a team?"

"We got separated."

"Good luck," Nathan clapped him on the back, then took off, taking out several more monsters on his way.

After locating his third Token in the woodshop, Nathan received his bonus for completion and the notification that he had to kill twenty One-Pointers and five Two-Pointers. It took him nearly an hour, but he managed to do it.

Part of the reason it took him so long was because the other students were also working on the monsters and had been occupying a fair portion of the school, forcing Nathan to travel pretty far. One downside to working alone while everyone else worked in groups was that the others could cover a lot more space, and there was a limited number of monsters.

For his fifth Token, Nathan had to kill only two more Two-Pointers than before, and the same amount of One-Pointers.

As he fought his way through the fifth, sixth, and seventh Tokens, he began to wonder how the girls managed to complete the Challenge. Thirty-six hours with increasing amounts of monsters and difficulties for victory would be pretty hard to do.

He also wondered what they spent their Points on, as well as why no one mentioned their Skill Points and Stat Points bonuses for each Token. That was a huge bonus and someone would have bragged about it.

During his battle for the spawn of the eighth Token, Nathan knew he was losing stamina. He'd been fighting for nearly five hours straight and things only got tougher for him, even with dodging every monster after a Token spawned until he had to fight again.

During his battle for the spawn of the ninth Token, Nathan finally reached Level 41, though had nothing notable form for him, nothing going up and no new Skills unlocking from the last Level.

To spawn his tenth Token, Nathan had to fight twenty One-Pointers and fifteen Two-Pointers, same as for his ninth, but also had to battle five Three-Pointers.

Groaning, Nathan made his way to the roof of the school, where there were no monsters, and moved beside one of the air conditioning units, resting his back against it and closing his eyes, setting a mental clock of five hours.

He was too exhausted to continue. Nine hours had already passed by the time he was ready to face the tenth Token's spawn requirement.

Five hours passed, and Nathan opened his eyes, stood, stretched, and made his way back into the building, ready to face the next portion of his Challenge. Another seven hours passed, and he frowned at the final portion of the Challenge, then made his way back to the roof for another five-hour rest.

There was no way he was going to be able to handle it unless it was rested, not unless he had a decent team backing him. And he knew that only a few people would have a chance at beating him to the victory.

Only one person.

As soon as Nathan woke, refreshed and ready for the final token's spawning, he prayed to whatever powers may be that he found the Token in time.

He doubted he could fight a Five-Pointer a second time without a lot of resting after this challenge. At least the message let him know where it was located so that he didn't have to hunt it down.

Pulling up his Status, Nathan assessed his options.

Name: Nathan Sex: Male Age: 18 Level: 41 Health: 501 (1/575s) Mana: 281 (1/596s) Stat Points: 105 Skill Points: 112 Points: 914

He couldn't use the Points, due to it not having been sixty-six hours yet, but he could use his Stat Points and Skill Points for sure. Once again, he wondered why the girls hadn't mentioned their 120 Points, Skill Points and Stat Points bonus from Female Challenge 1.

Why did they keep it a secret? That would have given them a huge advantage. In fact, from what he could tell, their advantages and differences in the latest Challenge were too small.

Did the System change its parameters? Was that because Nathan confessed what he had figured out, and it decided to give them a bonus this time?

Or was something different?

Nathan opened up his backpack and pulled out some food as he thought about his options, and what he would spend his Stat Points and Skill Points on. The Five-Pointer would be tough, but at least it was all he had to kill for the fifteenth Token's spawn.

How did the girls take on the Five-Pointer? He wondered. Even if they worked in teams, eventually, there'd only be a few of them.

Clearing those thoughts from his head to ask Samantha later, Nathan got to work allocating his Stat Points and Skill Points.