“Larger insect species tend to replicate at a frightening rate, but the population is kept in check by limited resources. It is common for beasts of their nature to have their newborn children fight one another and consume the remains of the dead. This allows the lost mana to be reabsorbed.”

Speka, our pearlescent mini-dragon teacher seats atop her cushioned pedestal at the front of the classroom. She passionlessly recites the description from a Skill that I’ve already copied from her. Today, she seems a little more listless than usual, and she doesn’t seem to care that half of her students are paling in shock at what she’s describing.

The most affected of our peers turn their gaze downwards as they absorb the information and they whisper among themselves. The term ‘beastly’ echoes among them. They are privileged enough that such a violent competition for resources is entirely alien to them. It’s something for the beasts, for the rebels, for someone else.

If I’d been willing to play the right social games would I be able to live such a peaceful life? Could I have been someone that would bow to avoid being hit?

I don’t know, but I do know that the option has long since passed us by. We’re too far gone now, and this civilisation cannot welcome us as we are. We are the ‘beasts’ which they look upon with undisguised terror and disgust.

Class continues but my focus turns to the students as I let the teacher’s lecture flow in one ear and out the other. School, school never changes.

Or, maybe it does.

My classmates, for all their nervous whispers, are still paying close attention. Though I guess that’s not new, I’m one of the few ‘bad kids’ who’s not spending my whole life studying to prepare for my fated career.

I have my criticisms of the Unified States but they can sure get their students studying.

The students here, for all their troubles, are living pretty great lives. They need to follow unspoken, unknown rules, but for those who can do it, there is peace and safety. If they manage to prove themselves, there is even luxury, though wastefulness is heavily discouraged.

Life here is good. It’s better in most ways than life in my own little empire, and it’s not as if there is no freedom here. If I could just change a few things...

If it was an option, I could have become a lying, scheming politician instead and lobbied to change this universe-wide civilisation... if there was a way to address my concerns that didn’t demand outright violence...

What would that world look like?

What would we be like?

“To finish up for today,” Speka says, stretching her neck and looking out over the class. “I would like to shortly discuss the nature of beastly civilisations. I’ve heard some of you curious about such topics, so I will give you a summary.

“Wild civilisations are unpleasant. They generally cannot tame their surroundings and are thus quite violent, hunting the beasts that would compete with them, and warring to take resources that they desire.

“Individual beasts suffer under the structures that they build, as the strongest beasts take the most food and resources. Eventually, many such societies collapse as their leaders simply consume the weaker beasts to gain more power.

“These groupings simply cannot compare to what we experience in the Unified States.” Speka bows her head and opens her wings wide as she prepares to finish the class for the day.

“Is it because they’re beastly?” A young woman asks, rising from her desk as she calls out to the teacher. “Beasts can only make a beastly civilisation, right?”

“You’re approaching the question wrong. Beasts can be made into people, and people can let themselves become beasts,” Speka says. “Their civilisations are as they are because of beastly actions. Selfishness and greed. If a person were to join their civilisation, they would be eaten alive by the beasts who make up those societies.

“There are even cases where intelligent peoples have reduced themselves to beasts just to survive in such situations.” Her words hang on the shoulders of the students, as they’re forced to reckon with the idea of being thrust into such a situation.

It’s easy to tell that the majority simply can’t imagine it, but at least a few seem to be curious. Vii, Eshya, and Adler are with me, and we quickly put away our chairs and prepare ourselves to chase down the teacher.

“Would you like to join us?” A young man reaches out to us, standing at the head of a small but nervous group. He is plain but for the moss covering his thick brown fur…

Normal and plain.

What has happened to me?

“What for?” I ask, looking through his little group of students. They look like giddy teenagers waiting for a party while hiding their stolen stashes of booze.

“It’s a thing,” the boy says hesitant with details. “It’s down in the ruins.”

“A party?” Vii asks, her mouth puckering up as she thinks it over. Her face makes it seem like she’s thinking slowly, but I can feel the gears in her mind whizzing along at ten times the speed.

“Let’s check it out,” Eshya says. “A good chance to relax.”

“It’s not just a party, we’re trying to figure out what’s been going on lately.” The boy says. “Everyone is so tense and the welfare officers…”

“Don’t talk about them!” one of the girls says, running up to him and jabbing him in the side. “We agreed, remember?”

“Right, right, I forgot.” He chuckles scratching at his patched hair. “Well, it just seemed like you girls might be interested in joining us. You don’t talk to anyone else in the class, and this would be a good chance for us to get to know each other.”

He looks between us in curiosity. Surprisingly he doesn’t seem to have any ulterior motive, from what I can tell he just wants to make some new friends.

“Sure,” I say after sharing a look with the others. “Just have to talk with the teacher a little first.”

“We have some time to waste before the party starts, but if you want to come with us we’ll be studying a little beforehand.” He says, “We’ll be just outside waiting for you.”

“We won’t be long,” I say, catching Speka before she can leave.

“We don’t have much time before we have to leave for good,” Adler says, stirring up a gust with her tail as she looks at the world we’re leaving behind. The peace that we’ll never know again unless we built it for ourselves.

“Time is slipping away,” I say, “but like a fine dust that stains our hands, today and yesterday stay with us.”

“What’s with that?” She asks.

“Just feeling a little strange today,” I admit. Ever since we were told that we’re leaving this academy, it feels like the time I first set foot on a magical ship, ignorant of what would come. I don’t know where we’re going now, but it could end just as violently. In fact, that’s almost assured.

My eyes drift to the wear on the desks, and the slight gulley worn into the stone floor. People here have known peace for so very long, what can change offer them? What can I bring them but destruction?

“Kyra, we haven’t spoken in quite some time,” Speka says. Her pearlescent scales catch my eyes, I really should go catch Rare, the other mini-dragon I know, and give her some cuddles. Pet-sized dragons give warm cuddles.

“I’ve been busy realizing my place in the world,” I say.

“Don’t mind her,” Eshya says. “She’s a little strange today. We’re here to offer you another job opportunity, we’ll be leaving and starting our own thing.”

“Leaving?”

“A new world in a wide universe full of opportunities,” I say. “We’re building something new, something different. Hopefully something better.”

“Another rebel society,” the teacher grumbles. “I had hoped that this would be a phase for you as it has been for me. It’s good to know the secrets behind the universe but I’m not ready to give up this life. The more I learn of the world...” She shakes her head as if to loosen the dangerous thoughts in her mind.

“I wish you well.”

“The same to you,” I say. I could try and force her, and I know that Eshya and Vii want to press the idea, but I just can’t find it in me to do it. Until I can give her a life equal to what she has now, why would she want to leave?

“They'll all regret it, eventually,” Eshya says, looking back at the teacher who is resettling onto her cushion.

“Maybe, maybe not,” I say stepping out and following after the group of excited teenagers. They’re overeager and excited, is that what we ought to be like? Was I like that before I started killing, stealing, and acting like a beast?

Even the students we pass in the street are the same, distracted in their own lives, barely glancing at us as we pass them by. Their world is separate from ours.

They need not concern themselves with violence or competition. They can obsess over their own small lives, learning and growing, building something of themselves to become valuable gears in a greater machine. If they don’t fit, then they change themselves to become part of society.

I cannot.

I will not.

It’s the reason we suffer here, but it’s also the reason we’ve gained a chance to build something for ourselves. If we don’t fit into this machine, then why don’t we go and build a bigger and better machine for ourselves?

We could just leave the machine called civilisation, but I have a grudge against that bitch mother nature and I’m not letting her win.

One of the girls breaks away from the student group and comes back to us, a lively bounce in her step. Her long claws speak of a predatory ancestry, while her neatly combed fur has her looking more like a show dog/beaver/whatever-she-is.

“What do you guys study?” She asks. “I don’t remember seeing you in any of my classes.”

“We’re combat course students,” Eshya says with a shrug. “These two are also studying space magic and a few other things.”

“Ah, that’s difficult,” she says with a low hiss. “I should’ve guessed, sorry about asking.”

“It’s no problem,” I say. “It’s what we were born for apparently, so says our civilisation.”

“What’s right is right,” she says. “It’s better than living like beasts, sometimes it’s just a little difficult to see it ourselves. I’m glad that you’ve come to accept it.”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s right is right’?” I ask.

She shrugs.

“We’re living an ideal life, in an ideal society,” she explains, shivering slightly. “The welfare officers know right from wrong, the rest of us just have to stay focused and do our best.”

“By partying?”

“A few… mistakes don’t hurt, right?” She asks. “We’re allowed a little luxury now and again, we’re living in a perfect society, but we’re not perfect.”

“It’s not quite perfect,” I say. “There are a few issues I can point out if you want to hear them?”

“No, no.” She shakes her head firmly, staring at me in horror. “That’s the road to becoming a beast, I’m here for the parties and a few rebellious discussions now and again, but that’s just… no.”

We congregate together in the light of the sun at the edges of the training grounds. It seems that these rebellious kids are claiming the grounds for themselves, but it’s not as if the space is so well used that it’ll cause a bother. Half of the reason for the forest is to create a buffer between the combat classes and the rest of the school.

This entire place is a self-contradiction, and it’s bothered me from the first day since I arrived. The contradiction makes a little more sense now than before. Much of this is a test for us. We’re given enough rope to hang ourselves.

Those who are fond of violence, or who are too prone to antisocial behaviour, are free to express themselves so that they can be identified. There is a reason why there is no discussion about students taken by welfare officers, it would give a warning to the others who are secretly ‘beastly’.

For a few hours we settle on the grass, studying this and that. I work on my flight with Vii when I get bored of dealing with the work the others are focusing on, while Eshya seems to be lost in conversation with a nervous young man from the group.

Adler watches it all from a distance, the same as she did as a welfare officer. She smiles at some joke that Eshya makes, but doesn’t join the conversation herself.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Vii chirps. “People, conversation, peace. There’s no violence, no need for worries, or we can pretend like that’s the case. Is this the world that you want to recreate? A world like this, but without the welfare officers and all the stupid rules and stuff?”

“It’s close,” I admit, “but I want more, too. Some people wouldn’t feel at home here, and I’d like a place that would be fit for them. A world for those who like to fight,” I say looking at Eshya. “A world that might accept those who are too ‘beastly’, without causing everyone else trouble.

“I want people to have a bunch of choices that they can choose from. It’s better to let everyone have their own home rather than force them to fit into my ideal. Variety and diversity. No one really wants to eat their favourite food every day.”

Vii smiles bright, her eyes sparkling in the light.

“Let’s build it, then.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 52,271 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 25,985 / 30,271 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (Adapted)

-Nail Shifters (Adapted)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (Adapted)

-Layered Space Muscles (Adapted)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (Adapted)

-Repulsive Skin (Adapted)

-Prehensile hair (Adapted)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (Adapted)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

-Mana Drive (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)