Authors Note: This is a bonus chapter dedicated to yijunding! lol

“So, what do you think?” I asked, a big smile smeared across my scaly green face.

Tetra looked somewhat apprehensive, but Wulfric looked suitably excited behind his mask of blisters and bruises (courtesy of the loving touch of Master Sylko).

“Good! I have always wanted to try defeating a Cultivator.” Said Wulfric enthusiastically, giving me a painful looking wink. “I was wondering when you would get around to telling us what the heck you were doing!”

I rolled my eyes playfully at him before turning to Tetra. “What is it?” I asked gently. “It has been more than a month since we last spoke about any of this stuff… I want to know what you are thinking.”

Wulfric was humming something to himself as he backed away, giving us some space. I hadn’t seen him this happy since the first week of Academy!

Tetra, on the other hand, gave me a complicated look. “I…” she started, before pausing to gather herself. “I never told you how I got here, did I?”

I fought the urge to lean forward in anticipation, “No, but I would love to hear it.” I said, doing my best to stay calm and level. Inside I was doing cartwheels. FINALLY!

She sighed. “I like fighting.” She said quietly, and I very nearly chuckled. Bad Heller! I nodded sagely, pretending to understand in the hopes she would continue.

She clenched her fist. “I was supposed to go to Academy in the city… the one that only Nobles go to.” She looked up at me quickly, “Not that I’m a noble! But my father is a Master Alchemist, and one of the richest people in The City… and…” She paused again, taking a deep breath, “and it doesn’t matter. I was supposed to learn how to cultivate from the age of ten, with the other lesser nobles, but I said the wrong thing to the wrong person.”

She looked at me and shrugged, but this time I was legitimately too surprised reply… so I waited again, my eyes wide.

“So now I am here, exiled from The City, made a servant of a beast-loving frog. And even if I win the Black Tournament no Great House will have me.” Her silvery scaled lips parted in an ugly sneer of disgust, seeming to be equally aimed at herself and at some unknown third party.

Wow… way worse than I expected. I looked over at Wulfric, hoping he would come over and save me with some inappropriate question or another. But he was busy with something in his corner of the room. I started wishing, for the millionth time, that my buddy Wolfram was here. He’d say something nasty but hilarious, totally saving the day by dragging the entire conversation through the gutter.

But that wasn’t me. “I don’t care what some stupid Noble in The City says.” I replied. “I might not be able to teach you cultivation, but I can help make you ready for the Tournament. And then, when you DO win, we can just chop the…” (I just barely stopped myself from saying ‘cock’…) “the ears” (lame...) “off of whoever tries to STOP you from learning how to cultivate.”

I then punctuated my brash and heroic (stupid and impulsive) proclamation by holding up my right hand and summoning a gigantic sword made entirely of ice.

Tetra gasped, moving back a step, and from the sounds of things falling over in the corner I had Wulfric’s full attention again as well.

“What the beast is that!” He said, hurriedly making his way over, his eyes wide and his jaw loose. I almost yelped when he reached out to touch it, jumping backwards and letting it vanish again.

I shook my hand, which was slightly numb from the cold (I still hadn’t worked out that quirk yet). “Woah, be careful!” I said, scowling. “Never just try to touch something a cultivator does!” I held up my left hand, looking over at them as I re-summoned the sword and tapped it against the wall… which promptly started frosting over. There were a few small pops as pockets of moisture trapped near the surface of the rock suddenly froze.

Both of them looked suitably impressed, so I unsummoned the sword and motioned to the wall… which was still quite frozen in the area where the sword had touched. My point was punctuated by another pop as a small chip of stone fell to the floor.

“What… what the beast was that!” Asked Tetra, her voice excited but her eyes betraying a far more complex battle of conflicting emotions. “That’s not House Spiritwind! What was that?” She looked like she was fighting the urge to run up to me and force me to answer her.

I just smiled at them in turn, gesturing to the door. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

-------------------------

“I have lightning, and I can move and bend steel.” I nodded to the pieces of metal on the floor of my ‘training room’. I had zapped one until it melted into a piece of slag on the floor (it took about a second), and the other I had used magnetism to bend into a pretzel.

Neither Wulfric or Tetra said anything, both of them far more amazed than they had been back in our rooms.

“Now I am working on some Ice based powers.” I turned around, holding up a hand that was suddenly covered in frost (as was my other hand, incidentally). Bracing myself against the cold, I shot out a coherent stream of ice at about two hundred liters (roughly twenty gallons) per second, quickly forming a wall across the back of the room that was more than twice Wulfric’s height.

I looked back at them, to see that Wulfric had fallen backwards in either amazement or fear, and Tetra was left with her mouth hanging wide open. Oh well, onwards to glory. I shrugged, deciding that I might as well just rip the band-aid right off.

I focused on the Ice Wall I had just created, shooting a streamer of ice from my hand to the wall. I focused my will, gritting my teeth as I fought to maintain the image I had in my head. It had been nearly impossible at first, and this wasn’t even the hardest part!

Slowly, over the course of half a minute or so, a humanoid shape emerged from the wall of ice. I couldn’t spare any attention to what my roommates were doing, but since I had sealed the giant iron portal – fitted with a simple magnetic locking system custom designed by Jaws and myself – guarding the entrance, I knew they must still be somewhere in here with me.

After the humanoid ‘ice man’ had finally been… birthed?... no that was super creepy... Anyway, the ice figure was still connected by a few tendrils of ice, plus the tendril coming from my hand (which was starting to get truly cold now), when I started the next stage. Imparting as much of my willpower, or so I thought of it, into the image as I could, I tried to make the ice-man take a step…

And it did… only to promptly fall over and break in half…

Oh well… “That was harder than it looked…” I said, reaching up to scratch my head as I turned around.

Both of them were sitting on the floor, neither of them breathing normally. Tetra’s breathing was abnormally slow… wait… wasn’t that a sign of shock? Like, the bad kind? Crap!

Wulfric, beside her, was hyperventilating… but he still had a huge smile on his face. He looked over at me, trying to speak but not quite able to yet.

I looked back to Tetra, who was struggling to stand up. “I need a second. I’ll be back.” She said weakly, wobbling her way back into the hallway.

I wasn’t sure what to do… but I had definitely learned, in my forty odd cumulative years of life, that people sometimes just need space.

“I’ve seen cultivation displays in The City, Heller.” Said Wulfric slowly. “But nothing…” he swallowed. “You are younger than me, by the bloody beast!” He started trying to stand.

I waited for him to continue. It bothered the hell out of me that I didn’t really have a standard of power to compare myself too. There were displays of Cultivation in The City? What the beast! We weren’t even allowed to talk about it out here in North Stone Village!

He was silent still, looking at my very slowly melting wall of ice. It would probably last for weeks, or more, if I didn’t do something about it before I left. It was slowly lowering the temperature of the room as well, but we had a few hours before it would become unbearable.

I decided Wulfric needed a prompt. “There are cultivation displays?”

His attention snapped back to me, “Oh, ahhhh,” he took a moment to gather himself, his smile coming back slightly, “Right, yes. Oh, but only for Nobles!” He hastily added, “Or other influential people. Did I ever tell you my father was a captain of the Guard?” He was clearly still distracted by the Ice.

I turned around and focused again, streamers of ice shooting from my hands and seeming to slowly absorb the ice back where it came from. That was not even close to what was actually happened, but I had learned from my whole ‘cultivation destabilizing’ incident that logic need not apply when it comes to these powers. I was literally just destroying the ice, but I needed a connection for my power to work and I didn’t want to walk over there and leave Wulfric alone.

One of my side projects, mostly during our evening history lessons with the Master of Water, was to work on writing out an actual cultivation technique for myself. It did seem to be helping, and the more structure I gave it the easier I found things to be. It might be a few more years before I could risk learning someone else’s cultivation technique, but I was definitely seeing progress. One thing was clear: Structure was key, and the more detailed (and intricate) the better.

“Sooooo… about those displays?” I said again, looking at my still-recovering companion.

“Oh, right.” He attempted a strained chuckle, “Well, yeah… I have seen cultivators do stuff, but… you blow them out of the water! Even an old and respected soldier from House Spiritwind took about ten minutes to create a block of ice way way smaller than the one you did.” He looked over at the other demonstration area. “And you have lightning too?” He shook his head, a real smile finally returning grace his features. “Yes, I accept your proposal. I’d love to train with you down here, I don’t even care if you can’t teach me! I just want to see more of this stuff!”

Well, that’s one down and one to go. I returned his grin. Our deal was that he would teach me how to fight, and I’d do my best to spar with him and help him improve so he could finally beat the Master of Fire. Plus… if I am truly honest with myself… I just really really wanted to show off what I could do after years of having to hide.

“Heller.” Tetra’s voice wafted in from the hallway. I looked at Wulfric, who nodded his head towards the hallway and gave me a small salute. I returned the gesture and went to see how she was.

I wanted to let her speak first, so I simply walked over to where she was and sat on the smooth stone floor next to her.

“You truly are Merrik’s apprentice, aren’t you?” She asked quietly.

Crap… beasting lies and their beasting tangled webs! No, I thought, I’m actually an old man from a different world pretending to be a young boy. No, stop, don’t call the police! Waiiiitttt! NOOOOOooo!

Yeah… the truth would not set me free. So I decided that silence was the better part of… not quite lying. I didn’t even nod.

But she took that as all the confirmation she could possibly need. Taking a deep breath, she said. “Alright, let’s do this. We have ears to cut off back in The City.” Her smile was still a bit unsteady.

I rocked backwards in surprise. Wow… she’s taking this a lot better than I had expected. After all, according to Wulfric, I had just done something that was impossible even by the standards of people who do impossible things for a living.

I jumped to my feet with a heartfelt smile, reaching down for her hand. She winced as she took it, looking at me in surprise because of how cold my hand was (forgot about that, dammit!). She didn’t say anything though.

I was incredibly excited, far more than was probably reasonable. “Let’s get to work!”