“That must have been a Super Power. When two or more PK Masters with a degree of kinship use PK for the same general purpose, the Aura can end up mixing and taking on the combined properties of the Powers of its Masters and create something greater than the sum of its parts.” “I guess that explains why it looked like a monster. The more I learn about Aura and PK, the more it seems that I have no clue what to expect from it.” “That’s pretty much the golden rule of PK.”

Nick and Yohan were currently talking about the events of their previous mission in the commons area nearest to their room. It turned out that Mr. Workle posted that contract as a means of deterring the mystery bomber later revealed to be Louie. He hadn’t anticipated that he was a professional Master. “It’s probably for the best that he ended up dead. Masters can’t be prosecuted for their crimes unless captured by another Master.” “Yeah, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about it.” “Hey man, I’d be worried if you weren’t shaken by killing a mortal for the first time.”

It had been six days since they came back from Aoe’iei’ouy, but what had astounded Yohan was that it had taken less than twenty-four hours for Nick to completely recover from his burns. “I might look like a human, but I'm actually an amalgamate-type polyman. A doctor once told me that I have a bunch of different types of mortals from multiple tribes in my lineage, giving me a pretty unique biology. What this means for me is that I can recover from any small injury in an hour, and any big one in a day. I can even grow back lost limbs, organs, and teeth believe it or not! Hypothetically, the only thing that could kill me would be a severe injury to my head or neck. Apparently I unconsciously trigger Select, or the ability all Polymans can use to manifest specific traits within their lineage more dominantly than others, so as to adapt to the injury and sustain my life processes.” Their payment plus the value of the gold dust they’d brought back had brought their HC totals to eight hundred each. Apparently, ordinary gold dust didn’t have much value on Helgram because it lacked supernatural properties.

Yohan’s training had also had a breakthrough, most likely on account of his human half’s ability to explosively develop in PK in response to potent stimuli, an ability called Rebound. He discovered that by using the pellets as a material, he could create a solid Aura construct of nearly any manner of object, but the amount of force each object could exert was relative to the number of pellets he used, which currently capped off at one hundred twenty a day. Each pellet used in a construct can exert as much force as Yohan's body can, which wasn't a lot considering his fifty-pound body weight. For each object to retain its integrity, it needs to remain in direct contact with a mortal's Aura. If it doesn't, it becomes as soft as gold and light as tin. This power was thus dubbed Leprechaun’s Workshop.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” A voice rang out from the nearest entrance to the room. A person came walking up to them with a body made of liquid metal in the silhouette of a human. He was wearing a light blue cuirass and had a face with two holes and a slit for eyes and a mouth. The voice itself sounded smooth and vibrated in an almost metallic manner. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am a humble goleman called Citro, and I have a proposition for you!” “What kind of proposition?” Asked Yohan first, surprising Nick. “It’s no secret around here that occasionally, the teachers like to hide treasures around Helgram worth a substantial number of HCs to give some of the more daring students an edge. And I have just come into the possession of a series of clues leading to a treasure worth at least twelve hundred HCs. All I ask is half that amount for this little slip of paper.” A note slid out of Citro’s extended arm. “You’re free to take as long as you need to decide.”

“We’ve decided, and we refuse.” Wha? Thought Nick to himself. Yohan shot Nick a look and he could swear he could hear Yohan telling him, Just go with it. “We have no way of verifying if what you say is on that paper is true or not. Plus, we could probably make that much on something way simpler than a riddle-driven treasure hunt. But we could reconsider if you could knock down the price to, say, two hundred?” “After what I had to go through to get these? You could go years before getting a teacher to like you enough to give you something like this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to bend over backwards to get where I am now. The lowest I can go is four-fifty.” “Three-twenty-five.” “Deal!" “So, how do we go about making the exchange?” “Oh, it’s simple, now that we’ve made the deal all we need to do is shake hands.” Citro extended a tendril and morphed it into a five-fingered hand, which Yohan grasped and shook.

“Excellent! Here you go, and good luck!” Citro handed Yohan the paper and walked down another hallway. “That was... neat.” said an amazed Nick. “Eh, he clearly wasn’t desperate to turn a big profit. Plus, if he was willing to go that low then this thing can’t be as hard to acquire as he made it out to. Luckily I was able to back him into a corner by turning the tables on his plan to make us warm up to the deal over time.” “Well... what are we doing sitting around here for? We have a treasure to find!”

***

4995.2432.143,202,14 That was all the information written on the paper. Just looking at it had given Nick a head-rush. Luckily, Yohan was able to decipher the latitude, longitude, and height of a certain location from the paper. Currently, they were in a hallway with walls made of stone and mortar with a few marble columns between. In front of a few open-air windows was a mosaic depicting a girl overlooking a strip of beach atop a cliff. Occupying the hall with them were several other students inspecting every stone, column and tile in the hallway while holding pieces of paper like their own. That two-timing peddler! Thought Yohan.

One of the students took notice and walked up to them. He was wearing armor that looked like metal scraps hastily welded together. He had a yellow stripe painted across his nose under his purple eyes and had greasy brown hair that stuck up in several bristly clusters. Clipped to his chain belt was a surprisingly ornate holster carrying the finely carved grip of a pistol. “Lemmee gess, Citro sencha?” said the man. “Yep.” replied Nick. The man scoffed, “Fygurs. Thaguy does deliver on wat he sellz, but he allayz sellz it crookyd. I’m Zitch b’way.” “Nick.” “Yohan.”

Yohan walked up to the mosaic. “May I?” “B’my gest. Tsnot lyk we’re maykn any progss.” “So how long have you been at the Master’s Academy Zitch?” Asked a curious Nick. Zitch scratched his fuzzy chin. “I’m gwyn on twelv yeerz now. Ave anly got bout’ fittie-six hundrid thauzind HCs sofer.” “We’ve been here less than a year, and right now we’ve got about thirteen hundred HCs between us.” Zitch whistled in admiration. “Tatz reel neet! I’ve sean gise like yoo gradate in less thn ten yeerz!

“Say, ain’t yoo the guy hoo beet Ol’ Alzy?” “You mean Alzolami? I would have lost if the Denja Brothers hadn’t interfered, so I nulled the contract.” “Yawee! Onner lyk that iz raer in toodayz yooniverz. Stoodntz wyth no onner speend halv theer lyves runnin rownd loozn HCs as fast az gettn im!”

Suddenly, Nick heard the distinctive sound of stone grinding against stone. Nick turned around and saw that the wall to the right of the mosaic was shifting to form an entryway. Nick turned to look at Yohan. “Looks like you had to push in the tile that was two-hundred two from the left and fourteen down.”

Nick looked around; the rest of the students looked flabbergasted. He walked over to the entryway followed by Zitch and peered in. The stairway led straight down into a deep darkness. Along the walls were alcoves that, as soon as Nick put his head through the threshold, erupted into flames bright enough to light the way down.

“Weel, there gowz thet treezzur. C’mn gyz, weer bailyn.” Zitch and the rest of the students, looking disappointed, began walking away.

“Wait! Why are you leaving? The treasure’s so close!” “Yerr noo here, soo aye’ll essplayne. Beefour Helgram wuz the Master’s Academy, it wuz a jayent labbrnth weer peepel uzd ta dump monsters in the theerd ayje. The fownderz ov the Academy forzed theem all in the undergrownd sektons beefour bylding the Academy. Theer arr entranses all ovr the playz. Mozt of uz don’t go aniwear neer the undergrownd becuz theer’z no tellyng wat wee mite fynd. In mozt dymenzions, yoo kin reed a rigystree ov monsters naytev too thet plaz wytch loors the ryzk of vintering intoo the wylds, but wyth Helgram, vintering undergrownd iz allayz a hooj gambyl.”

“If I cared about taking risks, I wouldn’t have come here in the first place. I’m going down there. Coming Yohan?” Yohan stared for a second. “Oh! Uh, sure! Yeah...”

“Hay man, it’z your foonral.” said Zitch before walking off with the others. Nick looked at Yohan, smiled reassuringly, and went down the staircase. Yohan walked to the entrance, started down into the dimly-lit darkness, gulped, and followed.

***

“Okay Yohan, pop quiz. Tell me about a few PK Skills.” “Oh uh... There are an extensive number of basic applications of Aura that anyone can learn to use. They often involve pure force, basic physical properties, and biological fortification rather than transforming in some way. They tend to be the first thing a fledgling PK Master learns to do and it’s not uncommon for the mastery of these to facilitate the development of Powers down the line. However, prolonged or excessive use not only can greatly deplete Aura, it may even create physical and psychological fatigue. These can include covering the body in a layer of Aura to increase they physical capabilities and durability of a PK Master to superhuman levels, focusing Aura into particular parts of the body to increase their capabilities or self-heal injuries, intensifying and creating a large amount of Aura at one time to amplify Powers or other techniques, extending Aura away from the body and into some form of shape, using Aura to sense things beyond the scale of the primary senses, separating Aura from the body and manipulating it from a distance such as using it like a projectile, injecting Aura into something to manipulate it from the inside, and wrapping an object in Aura to manipulate it like an extension of the body. That’s all I can remember off the top of my head anyway.” “Excellent! It took me a year to memorize all that information. If I were a teacher, I’d give you a million HCs for that speech.”

The truth was that Nick asked Yohan to recite that information to distract him from feeling terror at their current situation that had even Nick himself on edge. He was sweeping his tendril-like Aura in a circle, hoping to catch monsters attempting to ambush them.

The hall they were walking through had alcoves with flames within spaced out at regular intervals that dimly lit their path. Burner rocks are a heat and light source that can create flames by slowly drawing in latent heat from the object they are embedded in. Burner rocks embedded in structures like buildings can draw in heat from miles around. Between every three alcoves was an archway that led to an unlit path, which Nick took to mean that it was not a path to their destination. The pathway itself was large enough to comfortably accommodate ten people walking shoulder to shoulder and, for better or worse, a creature ten times Nick’s height.

After five more minutes of walking, Nick sensed a large group of humanoids each holding pole-like weapons coming in from both sides as a great number of metallic clanging filled the area. From out of the archways to their left and right came what appeared to be about thirty men in metallic suits of armor, each carrying a metal spear, marching in unison. As they formed a square in front of Nick and Yohan, they turned to face them and lowered their spears. Now that Nick could get a better look at them, he noticed that their helmets were completely smooth yet bare while each of their joints where chainmail would normally cover had a metallic ball almost like the joints of a child’s toy or an artist’s mannequin.

"Whoarethoseguys?” Nervously asked Yohan as he cowered behind Nick. “They don’t seem human. I think they’re iron pawns, C rank artificial beasts. I read about them in an encyclopedia of monsters in a library I found while exploring.”

Artificial beasts are a classification of monsters similar to phantom beasts in that they are formless beings that must create a body from something they find. In this case, they form bodies from the remains of processed materials left behind from mortals. They tend to possess no ability to feel any physical sensation and thus lack most of the survival instincts of other monsters. However, they are known to utilize advanced tactics to menace mortals.

Nick brought out a hatchet he had tucked away as the iron pawns began to advance on them. Using the powers of the karni klowns, he whipped out and elongated his arm in rapid succession and managed to hack large gashes into the chest plates of the front row of pawns with loud metallic tearing sounds.

“Uh... That didn’t do much to stop them!” Nervously observed Yohan. “Wait for it...” whispered Nick. As the pawns advanced, the hall filled with more metallic tearing sounds as the gashes on the iron pawns steadily expanded until their top halves fell off as the front row collapsed.

When the rest of the pawns walked over the remains of the fallen, Nick charged as he grew the tentacles of a seven tailed tree master and thrust them through the bodies of three iron pawns each while he hacked at others with his hatchet. In the span of ten minutes, all the iron pawns we’re nothing but scrap metal on the floor.

As Yohan surveyed the scene of Nick standing over the remains of the monsters, he thought to himself I’m really glad this guy is on my side.

“Split hatchet! Made from the remains of a reptile beast whose bite wound grows in size until the part of the body severs. I think it was called an axe viper.” nonchalantly stated Nick. “We should collect these as we come back, they could be worth some HCs!” Yohan was about to agree when suddenly a much louder metallic stomping filled the hall.

From another archway further down the hall emerged a metallic colossus whose head touched the ceiling. Its body was so large that it took up more than half the width of the hall. Its shoulders had pauldrons that slightly curved upward, its hands were larger than Nick’s whole body and had three big fingers each, and its legs had a skirt made up of rectangular metallic sheets tipped with triangular points at the bottoms.

“An iron rook! It’s a B rank evolution of an iron pawn! It must have sent those pawns to soften us up so it could have the kill!” shouted Nick.

The iron rook pulled back its fist as if to jab. “Hit the wall!” shouted Nick. Yohan rushed to the side of the hall and Nick went to the other as the rook’s first detached from its body and soared straight down the hall followed by an intense tailwind. After the monster’s fist hit the floor with a loud crash, it began moving backward with a loud scraping sound until it passed them once again and returned to the arm of the rook.

“Also, it can generate repulsive and attractive magnetic forces powerful enough to let it do that.” “Interesting. Can you kill it?” “I don’t know. Never really fought anything higher than C rank before. Even professional Masters usually have to team up to take down monsters this powerful.”

Undeterred, Nick ran up to the rook to close the gap and whacked it a few times with his hatchet as it tried to swipe at him, dodging each time. How does he do it? Wondered a mystified Yohan.

The hatchet only works if it can leave a mark. This thing’s armor is tough! Thought a frustrated Nick as he dodged and slashed.

As he dodged another swipe, Nick engaged chameleo draken invisibility and, while the rook searched for him, scurried up its back, turned one of his hands into the claw of a steel-edged mantis, curved it in front of the rook’s neck joint, grabbed the tip with his other hand and attempted to wedge off the rook’s head by applying pressure with his legs.

He was a quarter of the way through when the rook started backing up and slammed itself against the wall with Nick in between.

Nick’s arm turned back to normal as he slid off the rook’s back to the ground. He managed to quickly deploy his Aura to avoid a critical injury, but the slam against a wall by a multi-ton metal monster jarred him.

The iron rook raised its foot above Nick, ready to stomp when he heard the high-pitched shriek of a battle cry coming down the hall. Nick watched, amazed, as Yohan ran down the hall, leaped into the air and landed a flying punch to the iron rook’s chest plate. As Yohan kicked off to the ground, a golden-yellow ring of Aura began forming around the monster’s body along with a chain that Yohan had grasped in his hand. The monster pulled back its foot as it attempted to free itself from its binding, its metal body squealing.

Yohan pushed Nick up. “Hurry! I used everything on that shackle! It won’t hold for long!” Nick nodded as he shifted his arm back into the mantis claw, wrapped his body in Aura, and ran up to the rook. He leaped into the air, focused all of his Aura in the claw, and severed the head of the iron rook from its body with a mighty slash.

The beast’s body toppled to the ground as the band de-materialized. “Yeah!” triumphantly shouted Nick as he held his hand, palm up, to Yohan. Yohan grinned and, recognizing the universal gesture, slapped it with his own.

***

Nick and Yohan traversed a quarter of a mile down the hallway towards their prize. “You think those iron things were the only monsters in the vicinity?” wondered Yohan. “More than likely. Most swarm-forming monsters don’t like to share territory with other species. Though if I’m wrong, our only chance is to run since I’m tapped out of Aura and you used everything in one attack.”

After fifteen more minutes of walking, they finally reached the end of the line with their prize awaiting. Marking the end of the hall was a rounded wall with burning alcoves spaced around the circumference. Sitting on a pedestal rising from the floor was a silver pot with a row of aquamarines encrusted around the top and bottom.

“Is that it?” said Nick before running up to the pot and grabbing it off the pedestal. “It must be if it’s in a place like this.”

Nick turned the pot around in his hands and carefully examined it. “Any idea what it is?” Yohan walked over to Nick and began inspecting their prize. “Hm... I think it might be... Ew!” “What?” Yohan cleared his throat. “Well, more than likely, it’s a perfume pot. A novelty artifact that puts out a fresh scent after use that changes depending on what you ate.” “What you ate? You mean it’s a-?” “Yep.” “And we risked our lives for a-?” “Uh-huh.”

They both just stared at the treasure for a moment. “I guess... It’s better than nothing.” weakly stated Nick. “I guess...” replied Yohan. They turned and walked back where they came without a word.