Rejoining the Turtle Fortress did not mean it was time to leave immediately. Several other teams had been at even further distant parts of the continent. The last group wasn't supposed to be back for another two days. In the meantime, Caeden's team looked around the coastal city they had helped save from a horde of Plague Rats.

It was gratifying to see how much of the damage had already been rebuilt. At the same time, it was sad to see all the homes and businesses that no one had bothered to repair. No one said anything, but they all knew every broken door and shattered window was a sign of a lost life. Those homes were still broken because none of their owners were alive to fix them. It would be years, decades, before this city returned to how it was before the Plague Rats.

Doing their best to move on from the stark reminder of how much death there was in the Starry Sea, the team headed back to the ship, wanting to relax and enjoy each other's company. None of them had expected the return visit to be somehow more morbid than their first, but it had been. Once they returned, they discovered that Captain Saorise had been waiting for them.

"Welcome back." The ebony-skinned military commander turned teacher greeted them with a sympathetic smile. "I suppose your trip didn't exactly go as planned. Here or at Mining Station 003."

They all nodded. "It was definitely more intense across the board. I don't think any of us got what we were expecting." Caeden answered.

"Yes, I would imagine so. Even in terms of most hunting teams, your first expedition was harrowing, to say the least." Samantha looked them all over with discerning eyes. "All of you seem to have come out of the experience the better for it, which is good. Now, I already have Blaine's account of what he witnessed through his aura, which is comprehensive enough, but I'd like you each to tell me in your own words what exactly happened. The sword you found shoved into the Heartstone is especially concerning, and I'd like every piece of information I can get when I send this up the chain."

"Yes, of course." Once more, everyone nodded along with Caeden's answer, murmuring their own general words of assent. "Whatever we can do to help. That thing was terrifying, and I hate to think what the Revolution is doing with it."

"Excellent. If you'll all come with me, we can go to my office and get this over with." She nodded down one of the ship's corridors, and they were off.

{}

"This is concerning." The masked figure stated neutrally. Micheal shuddered inside. The ones wearing masks had no official title in the Revolution. According to the leadership, they didn't exist. Most of the rank and file would have the same opinion. They simply didn't show up very often, and when they did, whatever they were involved in was of the utmost secrecy. To those like Micheal that had become aware of their existence, they were simply called Fixers.

Something about the masked, robed figure covered in neutral beige colors was deeply unsettling. Maybe it was the way they moved in a smooth glide as if they floated across the ground or the voice utterly empty of all emotion. Either way, the Fixers never seemed quite human to Micheal. He had met three so far in his career with the Revolution, but he couldn't tell one from the other. They could be the same person for all he knew.

Every encounter Micheal had ever had with a Fixer ended in a promotion. He counted himself lucky. Always in the right place at the right time with the knowledge to add a little insight to the situation. Unfortunately, that same knack put him where he was now, explaining what he saw to one of these emotionless, faceless things.

But none of that was what had caused Micheal to cringe. No, his anxiety had gone through the roof because of what it said. "This is concerning." That was an expression of emotion, despite the lack of tone. Something Micheal had never seen from a Fixer. So he was very, very worried.

"I didn't realize the piece was so important." He managed to keep his own emotions under control.

"Immaterial. The piece itself is irrelevant to the plan. A shrouded possibly exempt from the substance's effects is incongruent with all gathered data." The Fixer said.

"Yes, I know. I gather a lot of that data. This is why I made a huff about getting this to leadership immediately." Micheal nodded. He had been part of the original team. He had been there when they brought in drugged and bound shrouded, testing the sword-like objects' strange properties on them. He had also been part of the crew that cleaned up the mess afterward. That was a test they only tried once. Not for lack of stomach, but because sourcing live shrouded was near-impossible. The one they got was only managed because it was a child.

"This information is indeed of the highest priority. The anomalous shrouded must be removed. Plans will be set in motion to eliminate the threat as swiftly as possible. Micheal." The featureless mask conveyed nothing, "The Revolution thanks you for your continued service. A promotion to the rank of ether technician class five will be processed within the month. For the brightest future."

"We walk the darkest night." Micheal finished the code phrase. The Fixer moved immediately, vanishing from the alley in which it and Micheal had been talking, merging with the crowd of pedestrians on the streets of Mining Station 003. Letting out a deep breath, Micheal finally let his body shudder like it had wanted to for the entire conversation. For all that he hated every last one of them, he couldn't help but pity that shrouded kid.

He had a Fixer coming after him. Poor sap wouldn't last a week.

{}

"Interesting." Samantha Soarise was staring into the distance, processing their story. Instead of each talking over one another or telling the same story four times from different perspectives, they had opted to let Caeden tell the bulk of it, with each of the others jumping in whenever they had something relevant to add.

After a solid minute, she turned to Caeden. "It's unfortunate that your shrouded weapon was damaged. You've done a great service to the Central Authority." She swept her gaze over the whole team. "You all have. We'll have to find a way to reward you appropriately."

"Could you get someone to heal my uncle?" Caeden couldn't help but ask.

Samantha's expression grew pained. "I'm sorry, Caeden, but there's no way. I shouldn't tell you this, but the order to prevent your uncle's healing came from the Central Council itself. I don't know why they're so interested in you, but no healer in the CA is going to touch your uncle until that ban is lifted. Truly, I'm sorry."

Caeden sighed, letting his gaze drop to the floor. Sitting next to him, Lily laid a supportive hand on his shoulder while Erik slapped his back. "I figured as much. Thank you for letting me know how high up this goes. I already knew what I had to do before coming to the Academy."

Samantha nodded. "Coming in first at the end of the cycle. The Council members each offer the winner a boon. Anything they ask for, short of the Council member's life. They're honor-bound by their traditions. I'm sorry I can't offer you what you actually want, but I'll try to help you get your shrouded weapon repaired regardless. You said it indicated it needed to be taken to one of the ancient structures, correct?"

"It said the closest Central Management System. The last one, the one that made Forged Infinity, was in one of those structures. I heard there were several of those, right?" Caeden asked.

"Yes, scattered all over the mid-sized continents. Luckily, we'll be heading out in that direction, so there might be one along the way. If there is, I'm fine with authorizing a day trip for you all to head out and get your weapon fixed. If any of you have a request for your reward, Please get it written down. I'll see if I can justify it. Stopping the resurrection of a Magma Titan is no small thing, especially when it's on one of the more popular ether mining continents. I have quite a bit of leeway regarding rewards for you four. Don't hesitate to ask." Samantha assured.

All of them heard the dismissal of those words, so they thanked her and left. On the way out, Lily looped her arm around Caeden's, threading her fingers through his and squeezing. "I'm sorry that didn't work out."

Caeden frowned and shrugged. "It was a long shot; we knew that. I would have never guessed the Council was involved. That order came down before I ever reached the Academy. How did they know about me?"

Lily shook her head. "It doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for that explosion, you would have missed going to the Academy entirely. They couldn't have known about you before that, or you would have been picked up sooner. Something between then and your uncle's injury made them very interested in you."

"The only things that happened were me retrieving the lump of metal that turned into Forged Infinity later and my shroud assessment. Although," Caeden paused, thinking, "no one told me about the decision until after I went into the structure with Erik, so it's possible that's involved. In fact, that's more likely. They sent messages after that happened."

"But the information about you that caused that decision could have been any of those three things. There's no way to know." Lily reasoned.

"This sucks. I wish they would just tell me what they wanted and be done with it." Caeden complained. He rubbed his thumb across Lily's hand. The contact was relaxing.

"That's not how things work. The less you know, the more they can extract from you when they do come calling. It's a normal negotiation tactic. Honestly, you finding out where the order came from could be a part of the plan. Knowing it came from so high up shifts your perspective, making you expect a much heavier price. So when they come to you, what they ask for will seem small in comparison to what your imagination conjures, and you agree more easily." Lily explained.

Caeden's thought came to a halt. He had indeed been thinking up harsh, heavy-handed prices as they talked. Lily had accurately guessed his state of mind perfectly. "You're right."

"No need to sound so surprised." She laughed. "Come on. We're supposed to be getting food."

A week later, they were back over the Starry Sea once more. The arrival of the farthest team had led to a small ceremony where Captain Saorise commended all the students for finishing early, informed them of several notable groups, and gave an update on how the other expeditions were doing.

The top 100 students at Central Academy had been split into four ships, each carrying around a fourth of that number. Since they had been divided into teams formed before the expeditions began, the distribution wasn't exact. For example, the ship Caeden and co were on had 26 students split into groups varying from 6 to 2 members. Most teams were on the smaller side, in the twos and threes.

This distribution meant that the monster hunting expedition was both a competition on every ship and a larger competition between each vessel. In terms of their ship, Caeden's team was far and away in the lead. They had performed highest on most monsters killed and fastest completion. They missed the mark on highest number of monster kills per individual, with a team of two that had been one of the last to finish beating them out.

On a ship-to-ship level, theirs wasn't doing as well. Two other ships had departed from their first stop ahead of them, and another team had finished even before Caeden's, though with significantly fewer monster kills. After walking through all of this, Samantha dropped the bomb on them. Since there were no ranking day competitions on the expedition, their success as monster hunters would stand in. How successful they were here would affect their rankings.

That caused something of an uproar. Many students were upset that they hadn't been told ahead of time. The Captain shut that down immediately by asking the dissenters whether or not they would have performed better if they had known. Saying yes would be tantamount to admitting that they had slacked off, thinking their results wouldn't affect their standing.

Now that they were underway, the team had fallen back into their old training routine. That was how Caeden found himself in the Turtle Fortress training room with Erik working on his martial art when a crewman came and told them that Captain Soarise had called for their whole team. They agreed to head to her office immediately. Along the way, they kept up the discussion that had been interrupted.

"I get that you want to have the basics down, but you really need to jump into the imaging aspect." Erik waved his hands emphatically. "You gotta create moves that feel powerful to you, y'know? That's how you get to do the cool stuff. Have you thought about what imaging you want to use?"

"Actually, your use of stories had me thinking." Caeden smiled. "When I started looking back on my favorite childhood stories that felt powerful and evocative, one jumped out as perfect. Honestly, I don't know how I never noticed. It'll work perfectly with all the weapon forms Forged Infinity can produce. I really want my martial art to weave the forms together instead of making eight different martial arts."

"Oh, that's smart. I wouldn't have thought about that. Having the different forms would suck if you were trying to make a new martial art for each weapon type. What story was it?" Erik stared at him with excited, shining eyes.

Caeden laughed. He had already told Lily, so telling Erik his half-formed idea wouldn't hurt. "The Saga of the King Beasts and Emperor Dragon."

Erik nodded. Then he stopped. Standing stock still, he stared at Caeden as his jaw slowly dropped. "No way. No fucking way. Is that a coincidence?

"I have no idea. It was my favorite story when I was little, so maybe Forged Infinity pulled from that?" Caeden laughed at Erik's stunned expression. "I was just as surprised as you when I noticed. Honestly, who expects shit like that to happen? Come on; we have to meet the girls at the Captain's office."

He reached back and grabbed Erik's arm, pulling his roommate along. A minute later they arrived, finding the girls already present and Samantha waiting for them. "Excellent, you're here. I'll get right to the point. We've found a structure in the records along the way."

Caeden smiled. "Great, I'll feel better when I don't have this unknown damage hanging around."

Samantha frowned. "Yes, but unfortunately, there are some complications." She sighed. "How much do you all know about dragons?"