Serenity tapped on the door to Honoria’s hut. While she had a room in the Instructors’ dorm, she preferred to live in the same building she used for crafting. She left for food, to teach, and to gather materials; other than that, it was hard to get her out of the hut.

Not that it was a hut on the inside. Serenity was more than half convinced that she had a special deal with the Voice to give her her own area. On the other hand, he’d recently learned that she, like Blaze, was one of the very, very few Tier Four instructors. Blaze was the authority over the other Healers, but Honoria didn’t seem to want authority.

The crafters didn’t seem to need it, and that was the authority she’d likely have had anyway.

The door jerked away from Serenity as Honoria pulled it open. She seemed grumpy until she realized who was standing there. “Oh, good. Not another student bothering me about teaching things in my free time for no pay. Come on in, Serenity; this isn’t a great time, you’ll have to wait about half an hour while I finish up the fiddly stuff, but as long as you take care of anyone who comes to bother me, I’ll happily take a break after that.”

She turned and stalked into her kitchen. After telling him to sit, handing him a cup, and pointing out the teapot, she vanished into the back. Serenity was certain she was headed to her workroom.

This had happened before, so Serenity was very well aware of where Honoria kept her tea supplies. He’d just set the teapot onto the enchanted stove to heat when he heard a knock come from the front door. Was she really having visitors that often? It would certainly explain why she was in a bad mood; she didn’t mind teaching, but she’d only give extra lessons to people she decided were worth it.

Serenity answered the door and found a man he didn’t know standing there. He seemed to be in his low to mid-twenties and surprised.

“Ah, is this the right place?”

Serenity shook his head and the man turned an odd shade of red, turned, and ran before Serenity could get the words out to ask what he was looking for. Serenity stared after him for a moment, but decided not to follow.

Less than five minutes later, there was another knock on the door, and Serenity found another young man standing in front of the door. This time, the man didn’t start off with a question; he simply tried to squeeze past Serenity to get inside, as though he expected Serenity to get out of his way.

Serenity didn’t move and the young man bounced. He staggered backwards a couple of steps, but didn’t fall. “Hey, why are you blocking the way? We’re all trying to get in!”

Serenity sighed. “What exactly are you trying to get in for?”

He was beginning to understand why Honoria was so annoyed when she answered the door for him - and he’d only dealt with two so far!

The young man snorted as though Serenity had just said the dumbest thing in the world. “Same reason you’re here! Are you trying to hog it all?”

“I doubt that.” There was approximately zero chance that anyone else from Earth was visiting Honoria for the same reason he was. “Now would you answer the question? Why are you here?”

The young man glanced both ways as though he was looking to make sure no one was watching. It would have been funny if it weren’t so sad; he didn’t check behind himself or Serenity and he also didn’t look up at all. Once he was satisfied that his woefully inadequate check was complete, he whispered. “For the Secret Body Cleansing Serum of course! Now come on, let me in! I need it!”

Serenity could hear the capitalization in the way the man emphasized the term Secret Body Cleansing Serum. He sighed and shook his head while he debated how to deal with this. He’d never heard of such a thing, but the universe was wide; it probably existed somewhere. It wasn’t going to be here, and certainly not as a secret to an entire group.

It was possible Honoria could have made a “body cleansing serum” for someone who needed their body cleansed for some reason, but it would have either been a one-off, probably for a medical reason and offered at the Healer’s Hall, or offered to everyone. That told Serenity where to begin. “What is it supposed to do?”

“It cleanses the body so that you can progress farther and faster!” The young man sounded confident, but he also sounded like he’d been fed a load of bullshit.

“At what?” The young man didn’t reply immediately, so Serenity pushed. “Progress farther and faster at what?”

“Um, on your Path? It helps with XP gain? Like in a game, an XP-boosting potion?” The young man sounded a little tentative.

Serenity sighed. Nothing helped with XP gain, not really. There were certainly things that looked like they did, early on; in many ways, that was what the Voice was doing with the Tutorial Trials and Dungeon. It was possible that what the Voice did was different, but everything Serenity was aware of that could boost XP came with the downside of having to make it up some other way or it would block you. At Tier One, that wasn’t significant; what you were expected to learn from a Tier One class was simple. That wasn’t always true at later tiers.

Not that he expected the young man to understand that. “And where did you hear about this mythical snake oil?”

“It comes from snakes?” The young man somehow managed to look both disgusted and intrigued.

Serenity closed his eyes for a moment before answering. He probably shouldn’t have used the term. “Snake oil means fake medicine. Where did you hear about it?”

The young man looked uncertain for a moment before his expression firmed and he challenged Serenity’s statement. “Then how did John get to level 69?”

Serenity knew just how to burst the young man’s bubble. “Level 69? Really? I mean, what are the odds that it would be such a fun number.”

It wasn’t really a question.

The young man twitched a little; Serenity assumed it was doubt, because it certainly wasn’t the prelude to an attack. “Now you go tell this John to stop messing with the instructors. If he continues, we’ll have words at least.”

Serenity closed the door in the young man’s face, locked it, and headed off to get his tea. The water ought to be hot soon.

It was, but he’d barely poured it over the tea leaves when there was another knock on the door.

Two people later, Serenity actually had a slightly longer break and was able to make and post a sign on the door. He’d started to ask Aki to make it before realizing that wouldn’t work.

If you’re here for “Body Cleansing Serum,” it is:

Fake Not here A scam Potentially dangerous All of the above

Please pick which of the above you want to believe and leave. I believe #5 is correct.

Always remember that if it seems too good to be true, you’re probably right.

The Tutorial is designed for everyone. There are no “secret hidden treasures” that someone can tell you about that you can then go find. This isn’t a game, however much it may resemble one.

It didn’t solve the problem, but it did help.

-----------

It was closer to an hour than half an hour when Honoria finally showed up in the kitchen. By then, Serenity was seated sideways to the table so that he could use it for his teacup while still being able to head to the door easily. Shooing people away wasn’t precisely difficult, but it was annoying.

“Sorry about the wait,” Honoria offered. “I expected to finish that off this afternoon, but I haven’t been able to get any space to do anything. Would you believe that one of them actually broke in when I didn’t answer the door fast enough?”

“Yeah,” Serenity offered. “It’s all people who think they know better than anyone else. I thought the sign would do more but I think it’s only convincing about half of the people who show up. Do you happen to know if you’ve offended a student named John recently?”

Honoria shrugged. “Only if he was the guy that offered to let me fuck his magnificent dick if I’d teach him extra. I thought about removing it, but it probably wasn’t quite enough provocation to do that to a student in the Tutorial, so I just shrunk it a bit. Don’t want to get in trouble as an instructor and get kicked out, but a temporary penalty that doesn’t affect his long-term potential will be fine.” She paused and tapped her lips with a finger. “He might also have some trouble with it for a while, side effects after all. It’ll go away some time in the next stage of the Tutorial.”

Serenity moved a hand to cover his own genitalia. He couldn’t help but ask, “The shrinking or the impotence?”

Honoria bared her teeth in something closer to a grimace than a grin. “The impotence first, but they’re both temporary. Having it grow back might be very painful; I was rather annoyed.”

Serenity shook his head. “Sounds like a lesson in not pissing off the local witch. I think you did teach him something.”

“Not if he’s the one sending people after me.” Honoria’s expression softened into a slight grin as she shook her head. “And much as I’d like to do something more to him, I don’t think I will. As long as it stays at people knocking on the door anyway; it’s only a few more weeks, I’ll get the Administrators to station someone outside. If he decides to do more, well, there are rules. But that’s not why you’re here. Why did you come?”

Serenity pulled out a small collection of small jars. They were mostly glass; glass held liquid and was inert to most things. It seemed to work on the bloodline potentials well enough. The lids were metal, but that didn’t seem to matter. He knew what they were, but he gave Honoria a moment to look over them.

Splinter of Passion

Frozen Instant

Blood of Magical Duality

Ichor of the Wise

Drop of Mana

Drop of Essence

Shard of Crystalline Hope

Bone Splinter of the Supreme

Drop of Sun-Touched Blood

Shadow of the Mind

Honoria took her time and examined each of them. When she finished with the last one, she looked up at Serenity. “Do you know what these are?”

Serenity nodded. “I have a pretty good idea. That’s not what I use them for.”

Honoria tilted her head and smiled. “What do you use them for? Let’s start there.”

Where to start? Well, Honoria was one of the people Serenity had watching out for problems, though this incident made him wonder a bit if that was the best idea. “You know about the disappearing students, right? No one’s seen anything yet, and we’re running out of time. So I figured I could go through the Tutorial as a student. I qualify, after all. Thing is, I’m pretty obvious. So-”

Serenity took the cap off the jar containing the Shadow of the Mind. He’d spent days experimenting with them all, and had managed to figure out how to control it enough when used with his Human form to look like a bloodline instead of taking over. He hadn’t managed that with his Chimera form for about half of the options.

The Nightmare Wraith bloodline gave him black hair and very, very dark brown eyes. If he wasn’t careful, other changes were possible, but that simply meant he had to be careful when shifting. The important thing was that it, like most of the others, meant he didn’t have horns.

Serenity looked over at Honoria with his dark eyes and grinned at her shocked expression. “It’s temporary. I should be able to hold it for most of a day, but that’s all. There’s a little lost every time, so I’d need a lot to last an entire Tutorial.” He could get more, of course, but it wasn’t easy and it took time. Time that he couldn’t take in a Tutorial, because he couldn’t reach the Origin with his Rift. Time that he couldn’t afford with only two weeks of Tutorials left.

Serenity shifted back to his Chimera form, taking the time to carefully regather the Shadow of the Mind Potential and shift it into the jar. “The jars work, mostly, but I’m still not sure they’re the best containers. It feels like there’s something left behind each time, so I need a better solution.”

Honoria looked at the jars for a moment, then up at Serenity. “You know that I make single-use materials, not reusable things, right?” At Serenity’s nod, she continued. “I can do something for you, but it’s going to take some trial and error. It’s a good thing you have a number of those.”

Serenity had the sinking feeling that he’d just volunteered to be a test subject.

Again.