“Now close your eyes and I want you to meditate on yourself. Good, think about your true self and nothing else.” Said Yolanda. Micky did just that, meditation wasn’t anything new for the mage types. The easiest way to speed up natural mana regeneration was to meditate. Though doing it in a dungeon was new it wasn’t really unheard of either. So Micky thought of ‘himself’ and what that meant.

Eventually, Yolanda said “Alright that’s good enough open your eyes.”

Micky did as told and opened his eyes and his wounds were gone! They were right there, he could almost feel the ack…

“Stop that or you’ll literally reopen your wounds. This is a process that only works on ‘pure’ magic worlds. It is something that all the people her learn in their youth. Actually, depending on the ‘quality’ of the magic world it might be how things are actually born into existence, like natural born monsters. But most magic worlds require you to keep yourself as a concept in order to heal. Then you heal into that concept in a weaker form.

As you might guess these lesser worlds have all kinds of troubles and their society is extremely backward. It is why we have to help them create a better society moving forward. I mean, this world is a plane for [System]s sack! An endless flat surface, with the sun traveling from one valley to another every day and doing it all over again! As an aside, this is the same mechanism for how dungeons function. The mana and aether in a dungeon are so thick that they create a sudo-magic world that warps natural physics.” Said Yolanda.

“Now comes the hard part. I want you to focus on that goblin that you killed. But before you do I want you to seperate it from yourself and just let it float out on it’s own.” Said Yolanda and she seemed a bit worried to Micky but she was trying to hide it. She failed but it was more like she was fighting it like the draconic transformation of the lead instructor then her walls collapsing.

Micky meditated again and this time focused on the goblin lust and anger that had been floating around him recently. Suddenly he was a goblin and he started looking around. He grabbed himself because that’s what a goblin does when there isn’t anything around to kill. When he saw Yolanda all he could think about was ‘Girl’ like a virgen that hadn’t touched a girl outside of friends and family his whole life!... He had girls that were friends before dang it! WHatEvEr It wouLDn’t maTtEr in a MoMeNt!

“Focus! Split it away from yourself! Let it do it’s own thing!” Yolanda yelled as she dodged Micky. All he could think about was ‘Girl!’ Over and over again. Except it wasn’t so loud the second time. But it came back again. And then the fourth and fifth time it got quieter. As time went on the goblins screaming was slowly getting further away from the rest of ‘him’ and thoughts started coming back to him. Finally, with a pop the goblins thoughts completely left him and he could just hear a goblins incoherent screaming. Yolanda quickly took care of the goblin and walked over to the collapsed Micky. Micky just got up with a smile now that he wasn’t worried about the goblin’s uncontrolled lust. He just had to worry about his own lust…. Though that was absent at the moment?! Oh, there it was, good he thought he had just become an ascetic accidentally.

After making sure that Micky was ok, Yolanda further explained a few things to watch out for. And with a final “Alright, this isn’t a [System] world so you should try out your magic in a more freeform environment. As a mage you have a natural advantage here and you should capitalize on it. Now go find your group you’re supposed to be with while I go grab the ‘lost’.” Yolanda kicked him off to another instructor and the original group he was supposed to be with but wasn’t.

She had also given him food for thought. Lots actually but some things he was pointedly ignoring. But even though the world lacked a system it still translated certain things as concepts. Actually, it may even do this better than [System] language. So when Yolanda said ‘lost’ Micky picked up something from it. She meant literally people that were lost, but not the regular lost like they couldn’t navigate a map. No, they were the concept ‘lost’ like the place your left sock disappears to if it’s not inside a dragons belly. He idly wondered if they were speaking of the place of lost things that all the ‘lost’ stuff went to from his world but that just made him laugh at the children’s tale.

Whatever, in this world idle thoughts were dangerous so he decided to focus on his group… that had completely left him. Micky searched for them and found them walking towards the fuzzy mountains even though the mountains were supposed to be in front of him and they were off to the side. Micky decided to pointedly not think about it too hard and went off to catch up to them.

This was the first time he was in a group without Prin and Micky was a bit nervous. He supposed it was his own fault for going on a private lesson with Yolanda on a ‘field’ trip. He was however in the same group as that healer chick from when she gave him a beat down. Micky remembered when he got a bruise and it started to come back! Quickly focusing on his ‘self’ it disappeared again and Micky sighed in relief. Apparently, anything that was too vivid Micky would manifest into the real world. This was magic, pure and raw. Simply thinking about a concept and willing it into existence.

Micky did not like this magic. There were too many ‘don’t think about it’-s in his head at any given time. Like right now he was thinking about that time Susan… That was Susan’s top on the ground wasn’t it?... Micky internally sighed, this was just one of the ‘don’t think about it’-s that he didn’t want to think about. But not thinking about them only made him think about them more… to catalog them!...

Micky was sure that his other classmates were having just as much problems as he was! The look of concentration on that kids face as he tried to make a flower that was only partially coming into existence to give to the healer said otherwise. Oh, it disappeared! Micky didn’t know that could happen. He hoped Susan’s top would suddenly disappear like that. Micky looked back, nope.

Micky sighed, and he caught back up with the group. He did a quick headcount however and found that they were missing someone, but didn’t know who. So he spoke up to the teacher. “Then they are ‘lost’ and also don’t do headcounts. They cause problems. We’ll do a headcount when we get back.” Said the instructor. He was one of the adventurers that were highered for the escort mission. The instructor staff had increased since ant incident.

Micky nodded even though he didn’t like what was said. Then he did a headcount again just to make sure he got it right before. He ended up with one more than he did before…

The instructor quickly slashed out and a creature ran away. It seemed weak, about the power of a student, but it was too fast and too wily for him to actually get it.

“I told you not to do a headcount! This, this is what happens! You, at the back of the group, now!” Said the instructor. He said that because the person that disappeared had been at the back.

Micky obeyed and… did another headcount. This time he ended up with one less again. He did not make a fourth headcount. There were some… interesting plants and animal parts from the secret realms that Micky was able to gather for his alchemy, and reluctantly enchanting. But aside from that the secret realm was pretty normal. Not even ‘normal for a dungeon’ but just normal. Sure, it had fuzzy mountains and other things, but what place didn’t have ‘other things’? Even his dinky little home village had other things and it was in the middle of nowhere!

The rest of the class got back with their various odds and ends from the secret realm. Yolanda however had the largest group, and not a group she started with. It seemed she had played pickup and gathered all the kids that had gone missing. There was even whatshisname from Micky’s group that had gone missing.

“Alright let’s get out of here while we can! Or before we get another ‘lost’ on our hands.” Said Yolanda. The teachers all nodded and deferred to her. She opened the door home which turned out to be a regular door that looked just like her house’s and everybody went through.

… And ended up right in front of her house. Micky questioned the physics and reality of it all but they were quickly shepherded to the guild before anyone could ask any questions. And no, they were not allowed to go home yet.

The instructors counted the students up and let out a pained sigh. “37, we lost 37 kids in there.” Said the head instructor.

“I’m sorry, the kids I brought back were all I could [Find].” Said Yolanda. The word [Find] not being the usual system word but seemed to be a concept that the system seemed to take offense to and convert to the right order!

“It’s ok, without you we would have [Lost] a lot more.” Said the head instructor. And there it was again, another blasphemous concept that the proper [System] had to set straight!

“The clanners aren’t going to like this, most of these kids are their’s.” Said another instructor.

“They were warned. This is why we didn’t want to do this so early. It’s ok though it was just the arrogant kids from the top and some of the washouts from the bottom that were forced to be here anyways.” Said the lead instructor.

“And they are going to take up arms because of it. You know how they are.” Said another.

The lead instructor rais her eyebrow and looked at the other instructor. It just happened to be looking down on them since she was a giant with no other reasoning! “And we are the adventurer’s guild. If they were really worried about them they wouldn’t have been here. The top level kids are disappointing because they are here for a second chance. But hopefully those will appear again soon having gained something [Special] from there. On the other hand the ones that were forced on us are a lost cause and we can only inform their next of kin. It’s really a shame they wasted so many resources on them.

Either way it isn’t something the [Adventurer’s Guild] has to worry about. If they do anything it’ll be some squawking like usual. If they did try something the guildle have’ to do some spring cleaning. But they won’t so that’s the end of it.” Said the lead instructor. More foraign concepts! The [System] will not allow it! They haven’t heard the end of this!

Micky hearing all this was glad it was none of his friends that were [Lost] and only people he couldn’t remember and were forgettable. He made his way over to Prin and gave her a hug before they headed home.