By the time Ashara opened her eyes, Yuki's bed was already empty.
No note, no nothing. The girl was a ghost.
Ashara got dressed, braided her hair back, and headed down to the dining hall.
Mira had saved her a seat. Or, more accurately, Mira had claimed an entire section of the bench and was sprawled across it with her tail draped over the backrest, a plate of eggs in front of her, and her head resting on Darya's shoulder. Darya didn't seem to mind. Jesse sat across from them, stuffing his face with food vigorously.
[Calm down, kid. It's not gonna go anywhere, hehe.]
Ashara slid in next to Mira, who immediately repositioned herself so her legs were draped across Ashara's lap.
"Morning, gorgeous."
"Morning." Ashara grabbed a bread roll from the center of the table. "You always wake up this clingy?"
"Only with people I like." Mira popped a grape into her mouth. "So, you know. Be flattered."
"I'm honored, truly."
Jesse looked up from his plate.
"Shameless."
Darya laughed.
"Let her be. She's a cuddler."
"I'm a lover," Mira corrected, stretching her arms above her head. Her shirt rode up, and she didn't fix it. "Speaking of, Ashara, I had a dream about you last night."
"Already?"
"Don't get excited. You were fighting a slime and losing."
"Wow. Sexy."
"It was, actually. You were sweaty and your clothes had been burned off."
Jesse's face turned red listening to that.
---
Griff Stonehewn taught class like a man who'd stared death in the face so many times they were on a first-name basis.
He stood at the front of the lecture hall, one eye scanning the room (the other was gone), his three-fingered hand tapping a diagram of a direwolf pinned to the board behind him.
"Monster ranks follow the same system as adventurers. F through S. F-rank, you've got your goblins, your direwolves, your giant rats. Nuisances, mostly. A trained civilian with a spear can handle one. A pack of them, though?" He held up his mangled hand. "That's where you start losing things."
A couple students laughed. Griff didn't.
[Okay, he's not a joker. Got it.]
He spent the rest of the hour walking them through behavioral patterns. Slimes that changed color to mimic regular bodies of water. Goblins that learned from failed raids and adapted their tactics. A species of spider that could mimic human crying to lure in prey.
"Had a partner once," Griff said, casual as anything, "heard a kid screaming in a cave, so he ran in. It wasn't a kid. Man lost both his legs before I could drag him out." He scratched the stump where his missing fingers used to be. "Anyway, the point is: don't trust your ears in a dungeon. Monsters aren't stupid. Hell, some of them are a lot smarter than you."
She was scribbling notes when her eyes drifted across the room.
Daniela was three rows ahead, sitting alone, writing without looking up once.
[Gods, she's pretty.]
---
Aura Control and Mana Management with Lirien was a different animal entirely. Whereas Griff's class left Ashara terrified, Lirien Duskwhisper's class made Ashara's head hurt.
She stood at the front of the training room with her hands clasped behind her back, and she started with the basics.
"Every living creature in this world has mana," she said. "It exists in all of us, from birth. Some have large pools, some have small. With training, one can expand their mana pool, but the upper limit varies from person to person. The current size of your pool determines how much you can do before exhaustion takes you, and, again, it varies by individual."
She paused, letting that settle.
"Mages shape their mana into spells, casting it outward by mixing visualization and incantations to create something tangible. Martial artists do something different. They push mana through their bodies and around their skin, externalizing it but keeping it connected to the body. The result is what we call aura." Her eyes swept the room. "You will learn how to do both of these things in this class."
Simple enough in theory.
She had them stand in rows and try, starting with aura. The instruction was simple enough: push your mana outward, hold it for ten seconds. The trick was, as she'd said, you had to take it out of your body, while keeping it connected to your body.
Most students struggled. A few managed it for a second or two before their mana either went back into their bodies or, more often, their mana detached itself from their bodies.
Ashara closed her eyes.
She thought about the stage. About standing in front of a crowd, pulling every eye toward her with nothing but her presence and the way she moved.
She breathed out.
It came easy. It always had. She just hadn't known what to call it.
It felt like creating her own clothing out of mana. That was the best way she could describe it, though, on a more natural level, it was like wrapping herself in a weird heat.
When she opened her eyes, everyone in the room was staring at her.
Lirien's eyebrows had moved up, though not by much. But, for someone that composed, it might as well have been a scream.
"How long have you been able to do that?"
"I, uh..." Ashara rubbed the back of her neck. "I didn't know I was doing it? Someone told me I had aura control a few weeks back, but I always thought it was just, I don't know, stage presence."
"Stage presence," Lirien repeated the words slowly, in disbelief. "That was B-rank level projection. On your first attempt."
Ashara could feel the looks. Isendra's jaw was tight. Vik looked confused. Jesse's eyebrows were up.
And Daniela, three rows back, had looked up from her notes for the first time all class.
---
Rain's Combat Fundamentals class kicked her ass.
The afternoon session was held in one of the outdoor training yards, and Rain had them running reinforcement drills for two hours straight. If aura was about making your own clothes out of mana, aura reinforcement was like turning those clothes into a suit of armor. It was what let a martial artist punch through stone or take a hit that should've broken every rib in their body and keep going.
Ashara understood the concept. Her body did not care about the concept.
Around her, most students were struggling too, but at least they could hold it. By the end of the first hour she was gasping, and by the second, she could barely stand.
Rain stopped in front of her, grabbed her arm, and adjusted the angle of her elbow without asking.
"You're dumping everything at once," Rain said, flat and professional, though her hand was warm. "You don't need to reinforce your whole body right this moment. Start with one arm. Slow. Then let it spread."
"Got it."
Rain moved on. Ashara tried again. Slow, steady.
It held for five seconds before it sputtered out.
[Better. I think. Maybe. This is going to take a while.]
After class, she caught Rain at the edge of the yard.
"So," Ashara said, falling into step beside her. "How'd I do, teach?"
Rain glanced at her.
"You burned through your reserves in half the time of anyone else, despite having more mana than most of the class combined."
"That bad?"
"Your pool is massive. You could've easily been trained as a mage. But your control is shit." Rain stopped walking and looked at her. "You've got the raw material. You just need to learn how to not waste it."
Ashara leaned in a little.
"Maybe I need some private lessons."
Rain's eyes dropped to Ashara's mouth for half a second, then she looked away.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"That. You're my student now. I'm your instructor. That's the line."
"I know, I know." Ashara held her hands up. "I'm just saying, if my instructor wanted to offer some extra one-on-one time to help a struggling student, I wouldn't say no."
"You need to train with the rest of the class."
"And I will. But you said it yourself, my control is shit. I'm gonna need more reps than everyone else." She tilted her head and hit Rain with the puppy eyes. Big, amber, slightly pouty. The look that had gotten her free drinks all throughout her life. "Come on, Rain. Help me out."
Rain stared at her. Her jaw worked.
"... Extra training. Tomorrow night, after dinner. Don't be late." A pause. "And don't get excited... it's just training."
Ashara pumped her fist as Rain walked off.
[Yes!]
She was going to do everything in her power to make sure it was, in fact, not just training.
---
The communal showers were more like a bathhouse.
Stone floors, open space, steam rising from heated water that ran through channels in the ground. No stalls, no curtains, nothing.
Ashara stood under one of the streams, letting the hot water work the soreness out of her arms.
She heard footsteps, then a whistle.
"Damn, girl."
Mira walked in without a towel. Completely naked, tail wagging, not a care in the world. She picked the stream right next to Ashara and stepped under it.
Ashara looked. She wasn't going to pretend she didn't. Mira had a body on her, lean muscle, toned stomach, tits that sat high and firm.
... And she was packing, which, unlike her sister, was a fun little surprise.
"Eyes up here, babe," Mira said, grinning.
"No."
Mira laughed, loud, and leaned back into the water.
"So, I heard you already scored private training sessions with Rain."
[How the... Who the hell was listening us?]
"Word travels fast."
"It's a dorm. Everyone knows everything." Mira tilted her head. "Teacher's pet already?"
"She's helping me with reinforcement. I suck at it."
"Mmhm. And that's all?"
"That's all."
"Because my sister told me you had a thing with one of the instructors here... Could it be...?"
[I'm going to kill that woman.]
Ashara sighed.
"Yes. But, it was one night," Ashara said.
"One night with your future teacher." Mira stepped closer, and the water from Ashara's stream was hitting her shoulder now. "That's hot."
Ashara looked at her. Mira was close, wet, and still grinning.
But just as quick as she'd gotten close, she stepped away.
[Oh. She's trying to make me work for it. Fine, fine. I'm a patient gal.]
---
Ashara got back to her room with wet hair and heavy limbs. Yuki was sitting cross-legged on her bed, staring at the wall. Same position as yesterday. Same blank expression.
"Hey, roomie," Ashara called out.
"Oh, hello." It seemed like Yuki hadn't even noticed her come in.
"I am SO tired," Ashara said, hopping into her bed.
"Mm." Yuki paused, putting a finger to her lips like she was trying to figure out what to do about that predicament. "The hot water helps. I like the hot water. You should take a bath."
Ashara glanced at her.
"... Thanks for the tip."
"You're welcome!" Yuki replied with a smile, clearly glad to have been of use.
Ashara then promptly smiled, shook her head, and decided to tap out for the day.
More lessons would follow in the future, of course. She wondered how long it would take before she could cut down a monster or two.