“Yuliah? What are you doing here?” Kyle asked in surprise.

“The teachers who have the Cooking Skill take turns cooking for the students,” Yuliah explained. “That way you all get to try a variety if different things instead of only eating the same type of thing over and over again.”

“Huh, that’s a pretty good idea actually,” Kyle muttered. Most of the different races could eat the same things and this would mean that they got used to eating whatever they were given which could be important when they became Adventurers as well as helping to develop friendships with students from other cultures. This may seem like a simplistic idea, but the fact of the matter was that it became easier to talk to people if you had a starting point and over his long life Galdon had come to the conclusion that food was a good starting point especially early on in a relationship. Of course, the fact that Galdon himself enjoyed cooking and was often found making meals for his students had absolutely nothing to do with this policy at all.

“Anyway,” Yuliah said placing two simple sandwiches, one hardboiled egg and a steamed fish on the counter. “Here’s your lunch, you can eat it on the way to class. You two are already late for your next classes, don’t worry Zerah has sent a message to your teachers explaining what happened so you won’t get in trouble.”

“Alright thanks Yuliah,” Kyle said taking one of the sandwiches and the egg which he held up so that Fi could start eating as Claire picked up her own sandwich before passing Theodore the fish which he swallowed whole earning an exasperated look from his fellow companion who was daintily nibbling the egg.

“Your next class is your Mental Energy one, right?” Yuliah asked. “Do you know the way?”

“Uhh, not really,” Kyle said pulling out a small piece of paper that had a map of the school on it. “I can’t even find it on here.”

“It’s not a very popular class so I’m not surprised,” Yuliah replied shaking her head sadly. “In fact, I think there’s only one other student in that class this time. You know what, I’ll take you there myself.”

“Thanks,” Kyle replied slightly embarrassed.

“It’s fine I don’t have a class this afternoon,” Yuliah told him. “Also, usually the students who take that class have a Skill that you don’t yet.”

Kyle cocked his head to one side in confusion, “And this Skill helps them find the class?”

“Ah, well actually its more like it helps the teacher to explain where to go,” Yuliah replied somewhat hesitantly.

Kyle continued to look at her in confusion unable to figure out what she was trying to say. There was just too much about Mental Energy and its related Skills that he didn’t know. Seeing that he was still confused Yuliah chuckled slightly, unfortunately she didn’t have any real talent for Mental Energy related Skills, so she couldn’t really answer any questions anyway.

Claire excused herself and headed off to her class while Yuliah finished cleaning up.

“Fi did I gain a Sub-skill from the fight with Reginald earlier?”

“Oh, yeah let me just bring that up.”

Sub-skill of Chain Fighting Unlocked

Whirlwind Stance- This stance increases attack speed and weapon damage by 2% with each consecutive attack up to a maximum of 20%. If an attack misses the bonuses reset. Cost 5 SP per second. Duration: Variable. Cooldown: 2 minutes.

“Well that’s definitely going to be useful,” Kyle muttered. “I wonder if I can use Lash with it as well or just normal attacks?”

“Just normal attacks,” Fi replied. “But who knows how that could change later, there’s a lot we don’t know about this Skill.”

“True,” Kyle nodded as he started eating his sandwich.

Not long after that Yuliah finished cleaning up the cafeteria kitchen and lead Kyle to a rather gloomy corridor not far from the cafeteria.

“It’s down here?” Kyle asked incredulously, most of the corridors had windows or sky lights that let in natural light but this one didn’t and as such was dark and dingy.

“Yes,” Yuliah replied. “The teacher who takes the class is of a race that dislikes sunlight, so we keep this corridor dark just for him.”

“Huh, well I suppose it’ll be easy enough to find the classroom from here,” sighed Kyle before continuing down the corridor. “Thanks, Yuliah.”

“No problem,” she replied with a smile, she may not have a talent for Mental Energy herself, but she was certain that whatever Kyle ended up learning in that class would only serve to make him stronger, perhaps even becoming his greatest strength.

Kyle walked down the gloomy corridor wondering exactly what the hell he was going to be walking into, even Fi looked a little nervous as she peered out into the gloom. This class was too suspicious every other class was obvious as to its purpose but as far as this class went there was very little information. Which, with the requirements wasn’t that much of a surprise but it still made them both nervous.

Reaching the only door that they had found through the entire length of the corridor they both gulped before Kyle reached out a hand to open the door revealing to rather unusual figures inside the room which was dimly lit by several Mage Lights due to the lack of windows.

Kyle took in a surprised breath as he saw these two forms for, they were the rarest and most interesting beings he had ever seen.

The first figure was extremely thin and tall with a head that looked oversized on its slender body. As it slowly turned towards Kyle, he could see its skin was a dull grey colour and it also had massive eyes far larger than a human and a small lipless mouth that turned up slightly in an approximation of a smile.

“Greetings Kyle.”

Kyle flinched as a voice echoed throughout his head as he was finally able to name the race that the figure in front of him was from.

“A Palnassian,” he gasped in surprise.

Palnassians were one of the most unusual races, they couldn’t speak like humans or most of the other races could and instead relied on a form of telepathy to communicate, this fact combined with their odd appearance meant that most people found it difficult to trust them despite the fact that Palnassians abhorred lying as one might expect from a race of beings that communicated via thoughts. They were also incredibly powerful mages, but their weak physical forms meant that they were largely incapable of wielding any but the lightest weapons.

The Palnassian nodded slowly.

“That is correct,” it replied placing a three fingered hand on its thin chest. “My name is Figz and I teach this class.”

Like most Palnassians that choose to live among members of other races Figz was male. Female Palnassians were much larger than their male counterparts and spent the majority of their time in spawning pools laying eggs which are then fertilised by male Palnassians and teaching the young once they hatched. By no means did this mean that female Palnassians were weak, Palnassians were known for their powerful mages and the females were said to be the most powerful of all, not that anyone had been foolish enough to cause any issues with them.

Figz watched the young man and his companion as they stared at him, he wasn’t annoyed by their reactions, both because he was used to it but also because he could sense no negative emotions from the boy just surprise and interest, both things he could understand as he had acted in a similar manner when he had first met a human and took this time to examine his new student. This was the first time he had met an Aethereal Human face to face and he was rather interested in the Skill that had led the young man here. Figz had been taking the time to learn the history behind the Aethereal Humans, of which there was very little information on and what little they had largely came from Kyle’s own mother, Figz had been doing this because the abilities that one could awaken were usually connected to the nature of each specific person but ones race often had an effect as well, especially when they had a Skill of their own that was related to Mental Energy.

Realising that he was staring Kyle blushed in embarrassment, “Oh! Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Figz replied shaking his head. “And this is your only fellow classmate Amy.”

Kyle gulped turning his head towards the other figure who was watching him expressionlessly, this wasn’t because she wasn’t interested in her fellow classmate but because she literally had no face to make an expression with.

Amy was a Geode, an entity that formed a crystalline body around a core much like the way a Golem was built around a high-quality Soul Gem. In fact, for a long time Geodes were considered to be aa form of monster due to their lack of anything that the other races recognised as civilisation and they had been hunted due to the fact that by using a Soul Syphon on them their cores would become high-quality Soul Gems.

Amy or Amethyst was a young Geode that had gained her name from the purple crystal she had formed her body out of. When young a Geode would condense layers of minerals around their core to form the beginnings of a body, it would be a small clumsy thing at first but as they grew older and got better their body would become more and more detailed and even eventually form things like a face that they can control to form expressions like other races but Amy was too young to have that level of control, but she had reached the level at which she could move her limbs and body in a way that was almost indistinguishable from the way a normal body could. This ability to shape their own bodies meant that Geodes could choose various forms as they slowly built up layers of crystal and could end up looking like humanoids or something else entirely. Amy had chosen to take on a humanoid form due to her interest in other races and currently looked like an unfinished statue of a young woman made from a massive chunk of purple crystal that floated about half a foot off the ground.

“Nice to meet you Kyle!”

Wincing slightly at the loud telepathic voice inside his head, Kyle smiled at her.

“Nice to meet you too Amy, but could you be a bit quieter please, it feels like you’re shouting inside my head.”

“Oh! I’m sorry,” she apologised. “I just got a bit excited.”

“It’s fine,” Kyle replied.

“And is this your companion?” Amy asked turning her head towards Fi.

“Yes, I’m Fi,” Fi told the excitable Geode with a smile. “Its nice to meet you.”

“Wow, I’ve never seen anything like you before,” the Geode gushed broadcasting her thoughts to the entire room. “You’re so cute.”

“You’re pretty interesting yourself,” replied an embarrassed Fi.

“Alright you three, that’s enough of that for now,” Figz said sighing telepathically. It was hard to read the expression on the Palnassians face and his control over his telepathy was far greater than Amy’s, but he was secretly pleased that they were getting along. Both Geodes and Aethereal Humans had a few stigmata attached to them due to their natures but even without trying he could sense that these two were good people. But he did make a mental note that they both needed to learn how to control what emotions and thoughts they released if they were going to learn how to control their Mental Energy properly as lacking in emotional control could disrupt their abilities.

“Kyle, I understand that you have unlocked a Racial Skill that allows you to use some form of Mental Energy Aura, what can you tell me about it?”

Kyle explained the situation that had led up to him unlocking Will Made Manifest and its Sub-Skill Suppression Aura with Fi chiming in to add in details that her partner had missed. Figz’s expression grew slightly troubled as he heard this, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“I see…” he began, placing his hand on what passed for his chin, in a gesture he had picked up from humans and other races who shared many of their features. “… it seems to me that your Skill came about because of your anger and desire for revenge. These two emotions often give rise to a Mental Energy Users most dangerous Skills, these Skills are not just dangerous to their enemies but to themselves.”

Kyle flinched as he remembered how he had collapsed after using up all his Mana and Stamina. If he had been in a real fight against anything that had wanted him dead, then there would have been nothing he could do to stop it.

“I also think that your desire to stop anyone else harming her had something to do with it,” Figz mused. “Anyway, I would recommend that you don’t use that Skill until you increase the rate your Mana and Stamina regenerate, but maybe we can give you something else to work on.”

Hearing this Kyle jerked in surprise, at the moment he didn’t have enough Skill Points to afford to buy a new Skill, so he was unsure what Figz had planned.

“The problem with your Suppression Aura is that it a continuous effect over a wide area,” Figz started raising a finger to stop Kyle from asking any questions, they didn’t have much time left for this class, so he wanted to explain everything at once. “But what if you focus it down into a single attack?”

“It would probably decrease the cost a bit, but it might also do more damage,” Kyle replied seeing where his teacher was going with this.

That’s right,” Figz replied. “I don’t know much about your Skill but in my experience that’s how these things work, so why don’t you give it a go.”

“Uh, wait my Skill won’t have any effect on an inanimate object, so how are we going to do that exactly?” Kyle asked worriedly as he recalled that his Skill also inflicted pain on its victims but to his surprise a telepathic snort echoed inside his head.

“Heh, don’t worry about me Kyle,” Figz said chuckling mentally. “Even if you do get it to work the first time, it won’t have much effect on me.”

Amy was watching this exchange with interest; her own abilities were mostly focussed on manipulating her body and communicating telepathically and she had never seen an attack that used Mental Energy before.

“Alright,” Kyle decided to trust Figz, if his teacher was okay with him trying out a new Skill on him then he wasn’t going to let him down. “Any hints on how to do it the right way.

Figz gave him a small smile and nodded he was pleased to see that Kyle was going about this intelligently, some of his students just tried things without learning how their Skills actually worked but it seemed that Galdon had been correct and Kyles’ parents had trained him well.

“Well you remember how it was your anger that unlocked Suppression Aura?” Figz asked and Kyle nodded. “Well I think that you just lost control and your anger just exploded outwards, so if you condense all that anger onto one target it should do something.”

“But I’m not angry at you,” Kyle said cocking his head to the side. “Will it work if I just try to imagine that you’ve done something to make me angry or someone I hate?”

“No, you’re right that wouldn’t be enough,” Figz replied. “But I can do something about that if you give me permission.”

“Uh,” Kyle gulped nervously as he realised that a being that could speak directly inside his head might be able to affect him in other ways if it wanted, then his expression hardened, if he was going to become an Adventurer like his parents then he would have to become as powerful as possible and backing down now wouldn’t get him anywhere.

“Alright,” he nodded bracing himself for what was coming.

Figz nodded and raised his hand, the gesture was unnecessary, but it let Kyle know that something was coming and released a bolt of Mental Energy directly at his student that entered Kyle’s brain.

To most people this attack would have been invisible, but Amy jerked in surprise. She didn’t have any eyes, so she saw the world with Mental Energy instead, so she could ‘see’ the attack clearly. It was a ball of red energy that writhed in a manner that she could only describe as angry and shortly after it entered Kyle’s head his face twisted, and he let out a scream of rage as his faintly glowing eyes suddenly blazed like two blue suns causing even Figz who had been expecting something like this to flinch in surprise and he quickly created a barrier to protect his other student just in case.

Kyle glared at the hateful thing in front of him his hands flexing as he snarled feeling something beginning to build behind his eyes as he charged forwards his hands outstretched to claw the things oversized eyes from its sockets ignoring Fi’s squawk of surprise before slamming into an invisible wall just short of his target.

Figz watched in shocked surprise as Kyle attempted to rip down the wall of telekinetic energy in front of him with his bare hands, the young man’s skin was now completely covered by writhing blue chains that almost seemed to be trying to break free of their fleshy prison. He hadn’t been expecting a reaction to his mental attack on this scale but if this didn’t work, he didn’t know what would.

Kyle slammed his fists against the invisible wall in front of him glaring at the monstrous thing in front of him, he couldn’t reach it. This simple fact only served to increase his rage and the sensation building up behind his eyes increased and, in his rage, he did the only thing that he could think of and tried to force that sensation out of himself and into the thing in front of him.

Figz flinched as he felt something slam into his mental defences, the attack was weak compared to most, but he could tell that it was exactly what he had been waiting for and deactivated the Skill that had turned his student into a feral beast.

Kyle gasped as he came to his senses and looked down at his hands which were trembling in shock before looking up at his teacher with worried eyes.

“I-I tried to kill you,” he gasped.

“That’s right,” Figz nodded. “The Skill I used on you causes its victim to enter a berserk state and attack everything in sight.”

“So, you specialise in empathic attacks?” asked Amy who had watched in horror as Kyle had attacked Figz with no thought to his own safety.

“Something like that,” Figz nodded. Amy’s own talents were also along those lines, so it was no surprise to him that she was interested in the Skill that he had used. “So, don’t worry about it Kyle, I fully expected that to happen.”

Kyle nodded as Figz placed a hand on his shoulder, but he was still shocked at the depth of the rage that lurked inside of him. Seeing this Figz sighed internally he knew that Kyle’s anger wasn’t his fault, the Skill he had used on the young man had touched on something that he had kept hidden even from himself but that was something that was part of his nature as an Aethereal Human and wasn’t something that either of them had any control over. Aethereal Humans had been created by the Empire by imprisoning people in Dungeons to unlock any hidden potentials they possessed, and it was this that had led to the deep sea of anger that existed in all of them, the hatred to those who had suppressed them and their desire for revenge had been one of the catalysts that had created them. The problem was that telling him this now could cause problems for Kyle along the road so Figz decided not to tell him this for now.

Fi frowned as she looked at her partners still trembling form, she had never seen him quite like that, even when he unlocked Will Made Manifest, he had still managed to stay in control enough that he didn’t actively attempt to assault Ben. It was obvious to her that the Skill that Figz had used on Kyle was one that had completely overwhelmed his mind and she made a mental note to make sure that he increased his Willpower as soon as possible and to try and figure out any other ways to increase his mental defences to prevent him from losing control like that again.

“Alright enough dwelling on that for now,” Figz said turning to look at Fi. “I felt an attack hit my defences, was it enough for him to earn the Skill?”

“Uh, yes,” Fi replied. “Would you like to take a look at the Skill Kyle.”

“I don’t know, what if using it makes me loose control like that again?” Kyle asked his voice still shaking.

“Don’t be foolish!” Fi snapped at her partner causing the other two to look at her in surprise. “You didn’t worry about that with Suppression Aura, so why are you worrying about that sort of thing now! At least you didn’t collapse this time!”

“But…”

“No buts!” Fi squawked her tail lashing angrily. “This isn’t like you!”

Kyle sighed, she was right, he had decided that he would do whatever it took to become an Adventurer that could make his parents proud. If something like his was going to hold him back, then all he had to do was find a way to protect himself against those sorts of attacks. That after all was why the System had given them the power to improve themselves.

“Alright,” Kyle nodded, he was still worried about what had happened, but he knew that he was in the right place with the right people to learn how to do something about it. “Show me the Skill.”

Sub-skill of Will Made Manifest Unlocked

Pain Spike- A Mental Energy attack that attacks the targets mind directly dealing 3-5 damage with a 10% possibility to stun for 1 second. Cost 7MP + 4SP. Cooldown: 20 seconds.

“Not a lot of damage,” Kyle muttered. “But the stun will be helpful.”

“Don’t forget that Skills that use Mental Energy scale with your Willpower Kyle,” Figz reminded him.

“True, but it still seems pretty weak and the cost is higher than my spells.”

“Yes, but armour that blocks Mental Energy attacks is very rare,” Figz said shaking his head. “So, its more powerful than you think.”

“Huh, I never thought of that, so that means that Willpower would usually be the only thing that decreases the effects of Mental Energy attacks?”

“There are a couple Skills that can also protect you against mental attacks, but most people don’t bother with them because of how rare attacks that use Mental Energy are,” Figz replied.

“That’s interesting and actually a bit scary as well…”

“Yes, that’s why a lot of people don’t like those of us who can use Mental Energy Skills very much.”

“Um, excuse me,” Amy started, she didn’t really want to interrupt them while they were talking, and she had already learned a lot today even though she had basically been watching for half the lesson now, but she really wanted to ask a question. “Would someone having a high Willpower prevent someone from talking to them telepathically?”

“That’s a good question Amy,’ Figz said turning back to his other student. “Thank you for being patient with me while I was helping Kyle out. The answer is both yes and no, having a high Willpower stat would allow someone to block you out but only if they wanted to.”

“No, I had you to myself for about half the lesson, so I don’t mind you focussing on Kyle for a bit,” Amy replied. “But thank you for answering my question.”

“That’s what I’m here for, but we should probably continue the lesson, Kyle take a seat.”

Kyle sat down at a desk next to Amy who bobbed up and down happily causing the other three to smile at her.

It was only the first day and already he was stronger than he had been yesterday. Kyle’s smile widened as Figz started a lecture on the different types of Mental Energy Skills.

He had made the right choice coming to the Adventurers School.