I was both amused and terrified by my zoology’s extra credit question on the final.

The mythical phoenix is said to be a bird made entirely out of fire. Given what you have learned, which Empire would you classify the creature into? Which Kingdom?

The question posed the risk of revealing that I knew too much about phoenixes. In the grand scheme of things, the risk was tiny, and I couldn’t resist the challenge of the question, or the allure of getting a perfect score. One of the next classes in the Zoology course was Mythical Creatures, and I’d bet that the question was more there to incite interest in the course. I could always claim I’d read the book ahead of time.

Some people had it right when they said getting expelled was worse than death. Given that the question seemed theoretical, I could always play my knowledge off as ‘I like reading a ton’.

A phoenix is a Magical creature. However, it fails to meet the definition of an Elemental, due to missing a few key criteria. For example, the…

Finals! I don’t know why everyone was stressing so much about them.

Marcelle gave me a disbelieving look.

“Seriously?” She asked me.

I firmly nodded.

“Seriously.”

“The School’s not that dangerous!” She threw her hands up in the air, still holding her grading clipboard.

“It takes days to properly set this up! DAYS! [Persistent Casting] with my best image isn’t quick!”

Marcelle grumbled some more.

“Fine. I can’t give you top marks in the bonus practical self-modification section, but you’re passing the class with a perfect score already.”

I tried not to look too pleased or smug.

“While we’re on the subject, I have a question about biomancy and classing up.”

Marcelles eyebrows climbed up into her bangs.

“That’s a lot of trust you’re offering. What is it?”

I shrugged.

“You’re my teacher, and advisor. You’re the biomancy expert. Who else should I ask?”

She gave me a curt nod, and looked around the exam room. Heavily warded for privacy, to prevent cheaters, snoops, and the like.

“Ask away.”

“When should I upgrade my [Student] class into a biomancy one? What’s the optimal route, and what tasks and activities give the highest quality classes?”

She gave me a strange look at that.

“Like any other class, you’ll get out of it what you put into it. If you practice changing yourself - I would normally never suggest this to a student, but your self-healing makes it possible to do safely - you’ll get a self-transformation class. If you practice changing animals, a stronger class with that angle will present itself. The safe workshops have mice and shuvuuias to practice with. If you practice changing other elvenoids - please don’t, not without careful supervision - you’ll get a class relating to modifying others.”

Marcelle eyed me thoughtfully.

“With your build, here’s the track I’d take. Modify yourself extensively. Spend a few million points of mana on it, the gods know the School’s got enough arcanite lying around. Grab a self-modification class at 32, level up to 128. Expand to a class that can modify others there, graduate, then best of luck.”

I wanted to snort at ‘a few million points of mana’. For the average student, that might be a reach, but not for me. For me, that was only a few hours of work, but she was right that I could speed things up with all the arcanite the School had. Probably touch the tens of millions of mana inside an hour, if not more. I processed what she said, along with my own knowledge of the System.

“If I primarily focus on changing my legs and arms, I’ll get a stronger class around modifying those than a full-body modification class, right?”

Marcelle nodded.

“That’s right. It’s safer to modify your extremities. Now, I hate to cut this conversation short, but there are still more students I need to examine. Make an appointment if you’d like to discuss this more.”

Knowing a dismissal when I heard it, I left, leaving Marcelle to torment - errr - examine - the next poor student.

I’d had a general skill slot open for way too long, and it was time to just pick a skill and be done with it. [Pretty] had merged into [Scintillating Ascent], and I was going to be going a step further with biomancy. At some point, I’d need to sit down and figure out what proportions I wanted to aim for, and what curves and height I wanted.

It was low down on my list, but it was weird to think that I could mold my body like clay, that I didn’t have to just accept what mother nature had given me.

I doubted I’d make serious changes. I liked my height.

Seeing an echo of mom’s face in the mirror was one of the last things I had from her.

No, between biomancy and [Scintillating Ascent] changing my body around slightly every time it leveled up, I was good in the ‘fundamental looks’ department.

I still had that little nudge to take an appearance skill. I spent a whole hour meditating on the issue instead of doing something more fun, like reading or playing with Auri, before deciding that, yes, I was being influenced by our companion bond, but that I’d also taken [Pretty] as a kid and had stubbornly kept the skill for 12 years. I liked being [Pretty], and dirt and dust were my nemeses when trying to keep up my appearance for an entire day. Spilled drinks, someone else’s experiment blowing up in my face, the pervasive ash at the firing range and more all conspired daily to ruin my good looks.

Not anymore!

[Spotless] was here to save the day!

It was a complete luxury skill, but I had hopes that my life would be luxury skills from here on out.

Gods, if only I could sell a single Immortality use.

I banished the thought from my head.

Being a healer in a mid-sized town would be money enough.

I looked over my schedule one last time, triple-checking that I liked it. I was more restrained this time, not massively overloading myself. I’d even noticed that my performance in my remaining classes had improved!

All in all, a win for reason.

Comparative Anatomy - Dinosaur

Wizardry II

Biomancy II

Medicine Lab

Companion Class

Advanced Fire Sorcery

The last class was for Auri, and was her idea. She wanted to see what the ‘real school’ was like. I was planning on getting work done during that period, while Auri would pay attention to the lectures. I’d offered Mythical Zoology as a course, but she wanted fire.

Surprise, surprise.

I was deliberately skipping a medicine class, only keeping in a practical course. Trying to take it easy after my overload, making sure I was grounded and centered.

I gave a sharp nod at my work.

“Looks good, right?” I showed it to Auri.

“Brrrrpt! Brrrpt?”

“Next quarter we might add in a baking course. Isn’t Bridget good at teaching you and the other kids though?”

“Brrrpt…” Bridget was good, but Auri wanted professional classes.

“Walk before you run, errr…” My analogy fell apart as Auri gave me a haughty look. She hopped down onto my desk, and started running all over it, legs moving comically fast.

A frantic knock at my door interrupted our shenanigans. I got up and opened the door, to find a distraught Iona on the other side.

“I failed math!”

My first instinct was to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it, but Iona’s crestfallen face stopped me.

“Here, let’s sit, tell me all about it. It’s not the end of the world. Which math class was it? Math’s a huge field, there’s more than just one class. Plus, we’re on break now! We should do fun things! Once class starts up again, I’ll give you a hand with some studying…”

The grateful look on Iona’s face said it all, sending butterflies careening through my stomach.

I mentally added “study with Iona” to my schedule. Under “relaxation.”

I opened the door to the dorms, only to get blasted with Lightning, flames dancing merrily along the ceiling.

I spasmed as the Lightning played havoc with my nerves, jerking like a marionette for a brief moment before snapping up a shield between me and the source.

Half of me was screaming ATTACK! ATTACK! Duck, roll, [Kaleidoscope], Radiance beams! Go for the eyes!

The other half was more politely and reasonably reminding me that this was my home, in a safe place.

They both won out. I rolled around the edge of the door as I started to summon butterflies, noting that the Lightning wasn’t strong enough to punch through my shield. I peeked my head around the corner, squinting at the flashes of Lightning ruining my vision.

Fenrir was in the middle of the room, Lightning arcing from him all over the room, while Auri was cheerfully flying on the ceiling, letting little controlled spirits of flame dance with her.

I wanted to say there was no threat, but there was a threat and I did need to handle it. Just in a more yelly way, not a burny way.

“Aoife Auri Stentor!” I yelled with my best Sentinel Dawn voice, putting my hands on my hips. “What are you doing!?”

“BRRrrrpt!?” Auri did a double-take at me glaring murder at her.

“ENOUGH!” Reinhard stormed out of her room, making a ‘grabbing’ motion with her hands. Fenrir’s Lightning got pulled into a ball in her left hand, while Auri’s flames only swayed briefly towards her. “What are you two doing!? You’ll ruin the entire dorm! Fenrir, there is a firing range for testing new skills!”

She seemed to have the yelling well in hand, and it’d do everyone some good to get some yelling from people not named Elaine. It took a village to raise a kid, and all that.

“Auri! You know better than this! You’re a phoenix, for crying out loud! What would the other phoenixes think if they saw you?”

“BRRRPT!?! BRPT BRPT BRRRRRRRRRPT!!!”

Reinhard paused, her eyes widening. She whirled on me.

“What does Auri mean, she doesn’t know any other phoenixes!?”

I facepalmed. This was going to be a long, long story.

But wait… maybe that meant Reinhard knew where there were more phoenixes!?

“Let me buy you dinner, I think we have a lot to discuss.” I told my roommate.

She continued to give me a dirty look, crushing Fenrir’s Lightning with her hand.

Holy shit.

Her shoulders relaxed, and she gave me a curt nod.

“Alright. I suppose I should give you the chance to explain.”

“... then we met Iona, who let us know just how much time had passed. Came to the School to try and learn what the world is like now. Given that it’s practically a whole new world and all that.”

I leaned back as I finished narrating the ‘short’ version of how I’d met Auri and made it here, leaving a suspicious hole in the “no I totally found her egg in the underground tunnels, just lying there.”

Reinhard slowly shook her head in disbelief.

“That’s… wow. Incredible. I’m so sorry. Nobody should have to go through that. Are you ok?”

I shrugged.

“No? But I’m doing what I can. I’m seeing Linnet to help me with all this.”

“Brrpt BRPT!”

“And Auri! Who’s the bestest little bird ever, right?”

“Brrpt!”

Reinhard looked unamused at Auri’s antics, but nodded.

“Excellent.”

She might’ve wanted to say something more, but I wanted to know more about phoenixes.

“Do you know where more phoenixes live? Could you get us in contact with them?” I’d been sorely lacking on goals recently, just drifting around as I tried to survive. I needed to sit down and work out what I wanted from life, and how to get it. Operation: Find Auri’s Relatives was a pretty good start to things. A goal I could work towards.

Reinhard hesitated, and looked around before leaning in.

“Not here.” She hissed at me.

Welp, onto a private area.

Reinhard’s idea of a private area was… the unused suite room in our dorm.

She spent a solid twenty minutes casting, using runes I couldn’t identify. I committed them all to memory anyways. In the future I could try to reverse engineer them… in a safe place.

Better would be to find a reference book for the type of runic language she was using, but I had more important concerns.

Like finding some of Auri’s… distant nieces and nephews?

“Right. Phoenixes. My family knows a few of them. When I graduate I can ask them for information, then pass it onto you.”

“Brrrpt?” Auri asked, but Reinhard ignored her.

“How will you know where I am? Can I visit?” I asked her.

She shook her head.

“We don’t let anybody into the Kirin Sanctuary, nor do we let anyone know where it is. With luck, you’ll still be here, and I’ll find a way back. Everyone should get to know more of their kind. Please don’t talk to others about the Kirin Sanctuary. It’s not a big secret, but we don’t like it getting spread around.”

With that, Reinhard turned on her heel, and left.

All that prep work for less than a minute of talking.

“Brrrpt?”

“Why don’t we read a book to find out more?” I suggested to Auri.

I hadn’t planned on taking Mythical Zoology, but it looked like I was going to be skimming the textbook.

A quick library raid later, and I’d located the book in question. Being a course textbook for a common class, we had multiple copies of the book. Being the break between quarters? We were well-stocked, with only the most prepared students having gotten a crack at them.

I curled up in my favorite chair - extra springy, in a hidden corner where nobody would bother me - and cracked the book open to the table of contents, looking for “phoenix.”

This was something I should’ve done ages ago, but I just hadn’t had the time for it.

I mentally cursed as I skimmed through the entries. I was letting myself get distracted by the other creatures, and the biomancy potential they had.

I was being dumb in a second way. I should take the class as a primer, then dig through the class offerings to see if there was a Mythical Creature Anatomy or something.

From my weak understanding of biomancy so far, I couldn’t become a half-phoenix, half-human woman. There was just something about the magical nature of the beasts that made it challenging to do. Like, I could make my arms into wings, and light them on fire, but that didn’t make them phoenix wings. Just very, very, very painful, and a trip to the local burn ward.

Not all mythical creatures were made out of fire though, and a number of them could have useful aspects or ideas I could incorporate into my own modifications.

While people were more casual with saying ‘dragon’, I noticed a distinct lack of anything draconic in the Museum of All Things’s biomancy and biology hall, nevermind the runes made out of dragon’s blood. I’d gotten to study Lun’Kat while healing her, but my knowledge of her body was poor at best. Dragon scales or dragon’s blood would be cool.

Well, the idea of it was cool. I needed to get the technical details to see if it was any good or not.

My finger skimmed over the table of contents, getting more ideas. I had some basic knowledge of some creatures, while others were unknown to me.

Almiraj - Crazy jumping powers. Could I leap over tall buildings if I incorporated their thigh and knee structure?

Basilisk - Their petrification was skill-based, but their venom was famous. Would a poisonous bite as a backup work? Then was the question of what type of fangs, and which poison. Was mixing and matching possible? Did I want fangs that deployed, or would something more like a coral snake work?

Drop Bears - deadly in the extreme. Was their killing power a skill, or innately part of their body? Was eating leaves useful? I’d need to run the numbers on the calorie efficiency, and if the trade-off was worth it.

I continued tracing down the list, my heart practically stopping on a familiar name, yet one I didn’t know.

Golden Crow.

Papilion had told me to be prepared to be reincarnated as a golden crow, and at the time, I’d begged to become human. I thought it was just some bird. I hadn’t known I was going to a world of magic and myths.

Its entry in this book suggested otherwise. I flipped to the page, a picture popping out at me.

A crow, with golden feathers instead of black ones, with a third leg. Almost exactly the same as what Papilion morphed into. The sun was prominently displayed in the background.

The Golden Crow is one of the most powerful creatures of fire on the planet, behind only dragons. It is debated if their mastery of flames is stronger than phoenixes or not, but most scholars place phoenixes above them, simply due to their quasi-elemental nature. Golden Crows are the light, using a combination of sun-related flames with Radiance flames. Stronger during the day, they are naturally Immortal, and are possessed of a keen intellect…”

I closed the book, trying not to cry.

I could’ve been that?! A mythical, immortal creature!? One innately attuned to fire and flames!?

What was I doing in this shitty human body!?

“Papilion! I WANT A DO-OVER!” I yelled into the air, shaking my fist.

“[Shush!]”

[Name: Elaine]

[Race: Human]

[Age: 22]

[Mana: 583,290/583,290]

[Mana Regen: 275,561 (+522,957)]

Stats

[Free Stats: 349]

[Strength: 982]

[Dexterity: 2,078]

[Vitality: 14,550]

[Speed: 14,582]

[Mana: 58,329]

[Mana Regeneration: 58,431 (+52,296)]

[Magic Power: 23,089 (+592,233)]

[Magic Control: 23,116 (+592,925)]

[Class 1: [The Dawn Sentinel - Celestial: Lv 513]]

[Celestial Affinity: 488]

[Cosmic Presence: 317]

[The Stars Never Fade: 11]

[Center of the Universe: 452]

[Dance with the Heavens: 513]

[Wheel of Sun and Moon: 513]

[Mantle of the Stars: 471]

[Sunrise: 420]

[Class 2: [Butterfly Mystic - Radiance: Lv 358]]

[Radiance Affinity: 358]

[Radiance Resistance: 358]

[Radiance Conjuration: 358]

[Runic Scribing: 55]

[Nectar: 358]

[Solar Corona: 358]

[Scintillating Ascent: 338]

[Kaleidoscope: 358]

[Class 3: [Student of the Ages - Wood: Lv 32]]

[Wood Affinity: 32]

[Learning Languages: 32]

[Dabble: 32]

[Something Doesn't Look Right: 32]

[Timekeeping: 32]

[Organization: 32]

[Repetition is the Mother of Learning: 32]

[Study: 32]

General Skills

[Long-Range Identify: 376]

[Immortal Recollections: 300]

[Companion Bond between Elaine and Auri: 128]

[Spotless: 5]

[Oath of Elaine to Lyra: 513]

[Sentinel's Superiority: 513]

[Persistent Casting: 315]

[Passionate Learning: 400]