"Well, shit!" Keith exclaimed, and everyone looked at him. "Even a baby dragon, reduced to ten percent of its true strength and having all magic locked would be hard for us to beat, if even possible. No fucking wonder so few people survived the other times this thing happened!"

Everyone stared at Keith. Those in Nathan's group out of surprise that he'd revealed it – though it had been an exclamation of shock, so they didn't blame him – and the rest because of the comment itself.

That led to Keith explaining that this was the tenth time the incident had happened, the fourth in America. He then explained how he found out about it, and that while the other nine simply happened, theirs had been forced into happening. Samantha added in about Madeline and the group behind her and their part in the matter.

After that, Keith muttered, and his eyes flashed violet.

"It's in the West Parking Lot," he told them. "I'm going to let out my familiar. I need everyone, and I mean everyone to swear to never mention what it looks like to anyone. Ever. To not write it down. To not even think about it around others. Otherwise, I'm not pulling it out, and we're going to have a harder time fighting it. Do we have an agreement?"

He made contact with everyone who hadn't been in the dueling instance with him, and they all agreed.

"Why aren't you making them agree?" One of the other seniors asked.

"We already did," Samantha said. "He used it against Madeline, and we swore then we wouldn't."

Keith nodded, then removed his robe, tie, and tops. Nathan took them, and they made their way outside, the other students first staring at the marks on Keith's back, then quickly following.

Once everyone was outside, staring across the parking lot to the one across the street at the back of the school, they got their first glimpse of the dragon.

It stood roughly fifteen feet in height and twice that in length, a third of that length its spike-tipped tail. The dragon's golden gaze locked onto the students, and it roared, stretching out its wings and taking flight.

Keith's familiar stretched out as wings, then detached from his back, twisting into its more natural form before turning into a spear and launching itself at the dragon.

The familiar slammed into the dragon, and everyone watched as its Health took no noticeable decrease… until a moment later, when the massive, crimson Health Bar hovering above its head to those who had Level 3 Scan shifted just a sliver.

Then again as the dragon roared once more, twisted mid-flight, halfway across the back parking lot and snapping at something with its maw.

Then the other students saw what had struck it – Nathan, wielding his sword.

He landed on the wing of the dragon as the familiar struck again, and the other students attacked. The three magicians fought from a distance while the others moved in close and jumped or struck when the dragon dropped near.

Nathan continued his assault from all angles, with Keith providing a distraction to the dragon as Nathan moved to another angle.

Anytime one of the weaker students got into danger, one of the stronger students shielded them or got them out of the way, and after twenty minutes, Nathan hollered that the Points Shops were available.

Immediately, the six resting students accessed their Points Shops and purchased Health Potions and Mana Potions. The magicians purchased Mana Potions to restore their reserves, and Nathan continued his assault.

If anyone questioned why he was checking for the Points Shop during the fight, no one mentioned it.

The students who were doing no or little damage to the dragon accessed the Points Shop when they were able to safely to purchase more Stat Points with what they could spare. The dragon was far, far tougher than anything.

Especially if Nathan hollering that it had a thousand Endurance was true. No one was sure how Nathan knew its actual amount, but they went with it.

Nathan, meanwhile, was pretty pissed, and had gone berserker on the thing, though no one really noticed it. The thing ignored half of Piercing Strikes, so instead of taking out roughly 700 Health each full strike, he was only taking out… 0 Health.

It took him buying another 700 Stat Points to be able to do decent damage to it. It seemed to have around 1,000 Endurance, so even then, he was only taking out around 350 Health before Damage Dealer Doubled it, based on his sword's extra 200 Damage Bonus.

He didn't want to spend several thousand more Stat Points, so he decided to make do. The part that really pissed him off was the fact that he was pretty sure the dragon regenerated somewhere between 50-100 Health per second.

When he realized that after spending 7,000 Points on Stat Points, Nathan went into a rage, his vision turning red as he unleashed hell, hollering out his estimate on the dragon's Endurance.

Keith frowned as his familiar continued to attack. The dragon's Health was steadily dropping, but also rising, just a little, every second. He knew Nathan was probably moving much faster than he could track with his eyes, and the dragon seemed intent on killing him.

Keith himself provided a barrier for resting students to hide behind, as the dragon did sometimes go after them, but usually stopped when the familiar got into the way. One positive thing about his familiar was that it wasn't like an elemental titan, like Madeline's stone titan.

It could rearrange its form at will, becoming as soft or hard as necessary, changing its shape, its size, its density. It drew moisture from the air at all times, and could even draw on the air itself to fuel its power.

His familiar truly stood near the level of the Ultimate Trinity. It was virtually impossible to kill, yet could turn itself into an unstoppable barrier.

Unfortunately, its powers didn't extend to being able to kill a member of the Ultimate Trinity, even if it could damage it a bit. Had the dragon access to more magic than just its flight magic, Keith knew his familiar would be dead.

Something tugged at his soul, and Keith frowned, before seeing Nathan launching himself off of his familiar, having somehow used it as a launching platform. The moment that happened, his familiar stopped moving, completely freezing where it was, then started shaking violently.

Keith's eyes widened. His familiar was laughing. He could sense it through their link. It was laughing at the fact that Nathan had used it as a-

You have completed Challenge 8! +8 Stat Points, +8 Skill Points, +80 Points. Due to more than 8 students surviving, the eight students who did the most damage will survive, while the rest will die. You have 10 minutes to recover before you will exit the game and return to how you were before it began.

Immediately upon receiving the notice, twenty-four students exploded in a shower of blood and gore. When Keith recovered from the shock that survival didn't ensure victory, he looked around for the source of their victory, finding Nathan pulling his sword out of the dragon's left eye.

Briefly, Keith wondered how Nathan had managed to take out the last of the dragon's Health with that attack. It should've been just a little bit more than he could do at a maximum strike. At least Nathan had managed to get his sword into the beast's brain, killing it instantly.

A quick check with his familiar informed Keith that the warrior had used another Skill. The creature could bypass any rudimentary mental defenses, and had easily read Nathan's completely-unprotected mind when he launched. And it was through thought that Nathan had triggered Impact, increasing his attack's power.

Keith didn't get much more out of his familiar, though, as it went back to laughing.

Sighing, the mage looked at his cloak and amulet. They'd gotten soaked in blood, just like him, since he had nine students behind his barrier and near him.

As Nathan jumped off of the corpse of the dragon, Keith's familiar flew over to the warrior and swirled around him, running itself over his body and cleaning him. It then repeated that process for the other seven, finishing with its master, before returning to its winged form and attaching itself to his back, returning to nothing more than white and gold markings on his pale skin.

"Keith," Elise walked over to him as he stored his amulet into his Item box, then decided to ignore the cloak. If it was returned to him soaked in blood, then so be it, but he wasn't picking it up. "That was a heavenly elemental, wasn't it?"

The mage sighed.

"You're a witch?" He asked.

"Sort of," she answered. "I don't really know much magic. I only awakened a few days before the game began, actually. But I grew up in a magical family. If I'm not mistaken, it was a mix of water and wind, right?"

"Storm," Keith corrected. "So sort of, but not really. He likes to conceal his electricity with that light. Please don't tell anyone."

"What's a heavenly elemental?" Samantha asked.

"The most powerful type of elemental," Elise explained. "They rest between elementals and the Ultimate Trinity in power, and are actually touched with heavenly power. If it continues to grow stronger, it'll eventually become an angel and ascend from this plane. How did you contract it?"

"I'd rather not share," Keith said. "And please, please, please don't reveal my familiar. The only people who even know about it thinks he's just a wind elemental that started acquiring some water aspects. No one's seen him before."

"How old is he?" Elise asked. "To be that powerful, he'd be pretty insanely old, right?"

"He's roughly three thousand years old," Keith answered. "Probably has another four or five hundred years before he transforms into an angel. And please don't push me on how I contracted him, okay? It's rather personal."

"But that's-"

"Personal," Nathan growled in a low voice, and Elise fell silent.

"We only have a couple of minutes before we leave here," Samantha interrupted, before Nathan went full angry on her. "I kind of want to know what exactly happened at the end there."

"Nathan used my familiar as a springboard while using the Impact Skill you martial artists have access to," Keith answered. "The dragon's Health was low enough for that strike to remove the rest of it, and because of where Nathan hand launched at, once he did, his sword just went through the thing's eyes. At least it wasn't large enough that the sword didn't just blind it and maybe do some damage to the brain."

"Why did your familiar start shaking like that?" Michael asked. "I saw it freeze up, I'm guessing that's when Nathan jumped off of it? Why did it start shaking after? It kept doing that, even as it returned to you. Did he damage it?"

"I didn't even know elementals of that nature could be touched in that way," Elise snorted. "It probably did something weird."

"It was, uh, doing something," Keith answered.

"What?" Nathan asked, seemingly concerned for the familiar.

His concern had a clear effect on Keith, who flushed a deep crimson and looked away.

"What was it doing?" Nathan asked, and Keith muttered something. "You do remember that we're all awakened, right?"

Keith flushed even deeper.

"Did I hear him right?" William asked. "Did he say his familiar was laughing?"

"Yes," Nathan nodded. "He very clearly said 'laughing'. Your familiar thought me doing that was funny?"

"He wants to know if you'll do it again sometime."

That sent the other seven seniors into a fit of laughter, and Keith just sighed, shaking his head in exasperation. He didn't even know something like that was possible with his familiar, and the thing wanted to do it again.

"Nathan," Keith said once the other seven seniors collected themselves. "How did you even know you could do that?"

"I took a gamble."

"What would you have done if it didn't work?"

"Crashed into Michael."

"Wouldn't you knowing you'd be hurting me result in you dying?" Michael asked. "If you'd done that, then-"

"Madeline wasn't lying."

The six who didn't know stared at Nathan in shock.

"He got a Skill at Level 40 that lets him hurt others," Keith said, and everyone turned their gazes to him. "It's, uh, how he forced me to tell him what I knew."

"Timer," Nathan said, cutting off any further discussion as everyone realized the timer was about to hit zero.

The moment it did, they found themselves back to where they were the moment the game began, dressed as they were at that point, though still with the System and everything that came with it, notices letting them know of things added or removed from their Boxes.

At the same moment, every senior who died during the game suffered the same injuries as they had in the game, their bodies filling with cuts, gouges, missing limbs, holes, or – in most cases – exploding in a shower of blood and gore.

Congratulations! You have beaten the Tutorial! +10 Stat Points, +10 Skill Points, +10 Levels, +100 Points, +10 to each Stat. All mandatory Challenges will be in Normal Difficulty from now on. Your System Phone has been added to your Item Box, and will contain further information on your future as a player of the game. System Phones can only be used by players, and only unlocked by the one to whom it's assigned.