He felt the eyes of ghosts all around him, but he was not afraid. It was a cloudy and moonless night with his only source of light was the Breath Torch, a scepter when blown on produces a stream of fire made from the remains of a small reptile beast called a sneeze dragon, he kept lit by holding below his nose. As the son of a Master, all the stories his father told him desensitized him to the violence of monsters, but he was a student of a school of self-improvement that every Master considered mortals’ ultimate weapon against monsters.

It all started when he was nine years old. Nick’s mom had taken him out on a picnic in the middle of one of the flower fields within Iaso’s forests. Nick had wandered off while chasing a multichromatic butterfly, an extremely rare species whose scales glowed with all the colors of the rainbow. After he was a quarter of a mile away, it happened. A pack of neevils ambushed him, F rank mammal beasts with loose leathery skin, sharp rat-like fangs, beady eyes and curved sloth-like claws on their front, upright paws.

His father always told him that there were many differences between mortals, monsters, and animals. Mortals are highly individualistic, but monsters and animals all shared the same basic psychological principles. Mortals are capable of nearly infinite evolutionary potential within a single generation, but animals take multiple generations to evolve and individual monsters only evolve after being able to survive for long periods. Mortals and animals are both the products of nature, but monsters disrupt it. Mortals are irreplaceable, but animals become irreplaceable only after the last of an individual species dies and each monster will eventually resurrect after dying. But what all living creatures, mortal, animal, monster, and everything in between had in common was Aura.

By the time Nick made it back to the flower field, he had broken every neevil’s neck and was completely inconsolable. He refused to leave his room for six days and burst into tears whenever his mother tried to get him to leave, which would drive her to tears as well. On the morning of the seventh day, his father arrived and his mother told him everything that had happened. His father managed to coax him out of his room and back into Iaso’s forest.

“Nick, I want to show you something truly incredible.” That statement got Nick’s attention. Nick’s father held his hands in front of himself and in between formed a steam-like mass of pure light that began to turn into a variety of shapes from a running rabbit, a swarm of butterflies, to a coiling snake.

“Nick, this is Aura. The most mysterious thing in the universe. It is both the product of all life and necessary for all life to exist. If dimensions have Aura, then they have the potential to develop incredible things, but Mortals are the most peculiar possessors of Aura because each one of us has the ability to become aware of it and use it in a completely different way.” Nick’s father’s Aura suddenly took on the shape of his mother’s favorite kitchen knife and he swept his arm out, sending the knife outward and chopping down five trees at one time to Nick’s surprise.

“The method of manipulating one’s own Aura is called PK, or Psycho Kinesis, and those that use it are called PK Masters. Like any skill, one’s PK becomes stronger and easier to control the more they use it. With PK, every mortal has the potential to become a great hero or a terrible villain.

"Powers are abilities fueled by Aura that are formed by the Master's traits, experiences, and imagination. They can take an infinite number of forms and their Masters can train them to evolve them, develop new applications for them, or learn new ones. Many Masters also like to name the powers they use to better hold onto the necessary visualization to use it. Naturally, Powers used in ways that are larger in scale, highly complicated, or exert more force can consume vast quantities of Aura. Thankfully the more one uses their Aura the more they build the maximum quantity of Aura they can generate, kind of like training strength. Powers can also come with some manner of rules, conditions, cost, or risk for their Powers called Limits which can increase their potency and efficiency the more restrictive or detrimental they are.

“I’m going to stay in Iaso and spend the next two years teaching you the ways of Psycho Kinesis, but since I’m not a very good teacher I can only show you basic abilities that anyone can learn, and it will be up to you to develop your own Powers.”

Nick, his sense of wonder restored, clenched his fists and made a huge grin. “I want to be just like you someday Dad, but I want to do it my way!” Nick’s father smiled at him with tears in his eyes. “That’s my boy! Come, join me for some meditation! It’s the best way of getting a feel for your Aura!”

Back in the present, Nick marveled at the area around him in a morbid but intense curiosity. The skyscrapers around him each had wide openings at regular intervals that served as windows and entryways. Thousands and thousands of slate bricks made up each building, the same kind of slate bricks that served as the primary material for constructing graveyards across the universe, which only served to make his horrifying theory more plausible.

Phantom beasts are the classification ghosts, zombies and other ‘undead’ monsters belong to. When phantom beasts spawn, they are essentially pure Aura driven by a bodiless consciousness that inhabit dead living creatures to form mobile bodies, or forming their Aura into a spectral body resembling the creature by using the imprint of the Aura left on the corpse and remains. Depending on several factors such as how the corpse died, where the corpse died, or what they did in life, they can evolve to take on several supernatural abilities. Even after being dispatched, their presence can contaminate objects and areas that when in proximity, give mortals false sensations such as hallucinations, paranoia, mania, and delusions. PK Masters, however, have a tolerance to this and similar effects, and proficient Masters may be completely impervious to them.

Whoever built this place wanted anybody inside to be really scared of the unknown. But I can’t afford to be afraid when I’ve got two thousand HCs riding on this game!

“Nicholas Xed! What are you doing here?" The deafening yet familiar shout filled him with terror. “Mom?” Nick’s mother stepped out from the shadows of a nearby skyscraper. “You should be asleep right now! What did I tell you about playing games all night? Now, I want you to give up this silly Master game and go to bed, right now!" Nick, as a product of his regimented upbringing, wanted to comply with his Mother’s orders. But before he could open his mouth to comply with her wish to give up the Master game, the wave of terror passed and his reasoning returned. “Wait, you can’t be my Mom, she wanted me to be a Master more than anybody! You’re just an illusion!” “Could an illusion do... This?" The thing that Nick previously believed to be his mother hefted her fist over her shoulder, which from experience Nick took as a cue to run. Behind him, the figure’s fist slammed into the ground, causing the area in front of it to explode into a series of dagger-like shards flying towards him. Nick rounded the corner of a building as the shrapnel flew by, impaling itself in the wall behind him.

That’s not just an illusion! That was a Claymore Fist, one of my Mom’s martial arts-based Powers! If that thing has all my Mom’s Powers, then it’s got to have Super Mom! My Mom made that power to protect me, if I’m within a hundred feet of her, she suffers no harm and feels no pain. I can’t suffer harm while in a hundred feet of her either, but I can still feel pain! And if that thing has all my Mom’s Powers, I can expect a lot of pain from it!

In her prime, Nick’s Mother was an infamous mercenary who specialized in bodyguard work known as the Crimson Djinn. She was familiar with hundreds of martial arts and had invented several of her own, all of which she taught Nick to the best of her ability. Even after settling down in Iaso, the people who knew her were wary of her short fuse and her habit of attacking anything that came near her property that she perceived as a threat. Because Nick was so familiar with her fighting style, he knew the crippling weakness she purposefully put into Super Mom for situations like this.

Nick ran right in front of the figure and screamed at the top of his lungs, “Mommy! I’m your little wuzzykins!” and he spat a bullet directly at the figure’s forehead. The figure recoiled and screamed a bloodcurdling cry in his mother’s voice. Once he speaks the code phrase in her presence, Super Mom starts amplifying his mother’s reaction to pain one hundredfold instead of nullifying it, all while making him immune to any of her other Powers. The fingers of Nick’s left hand became vines with razor-like thorns and wrapped around the figure, causing it to thrash around while continuing to scream.

The figure then turned solid black and fluidly morphed into the form of Alzolami, who stopped struggling and looked Nick straight in the eye. “What was that?" “You’ve got to be careful with transformation Powers, you gain a new form’s strengths but also new weaknesses.” “Noted!" Alzolami suddenly burst into black flames that seemed to ignite his vines with actual fire. Before the fire could travel down the vines to Nick’s body, he detached them and his hand grew five new fingers to replace them. Alzolami’s fire concentrated into her left arm and she thrust it towards Nick, burning the empty shell in his likeness that he left behind to escape the attack to a crisp. Alzolami screamed into the air, “You can run, but you can’t hide meat!" before walking backward and disappearing out of view into the shadows.

From a window six stories above the ground, Nick worriedly watched her disappear. She clearly knows what she’s doing better than I am right now. She wasn’t being reckless when she challenged me out of the blue, she designed this game so that people new to the Master’s Academy would have a big disadvantage. If I want to win, I’m going to have to get creative.

The name of Nick’s Power is Monster Hunter. Whenever Nick kills a monster, he can integrate and manifest the physical and supernatural traits of the monster in question at will. However, using two monster's abilities doubles the overall consumed Aura, three triples it, and so on. The monsters he used previously were called a living creek, an F rank fluid beast that could use water as a body as long as its body mass was concentrated within it, a smothering razorvine, a D rank plant beast that could grow and freely manipulate dozens of vines with bladelike thorns from its normally immobile central bulb, and an armored escape anaconda, an F rank reptile beast that grew armor-like plates in place of scales that it can teleport out of to confuse predators and telekinetically manipulate until it grows a new shell of armor.

“Peekaboo... meat!" Screamed Alzolami from behind Nick, who quickly turned his body to look at the source. He caught a glimpse of Alzolami’s face sticking out of a wall behind him before an elongating arm from the shadows stretched out towards his face. Nick managed to quickly deflect it with his forearm before another fist from a different arm shot out from another angle and caught him square in the stomach, sending him reeling out the window.

Before hitting the ground, Nick managed to regain his senses enough to send out two dozen vines from the gaps in his clothing to coil on the ground and cushion his fall from mid-air. Alzolami leaped out of the window above him, melded and elongated her fingers into three multi-jointed and bladed claws, heading directly for him. Nick sent out his vines and wove them together to create a net-like barrier above him. Alzolami twisted her body, landed feet first onto the net and leaped forward to the ground before Nick could entangle her. Nick detached himself from his vines and turned around to face Alzolami, who was staring daggers at him.

"No more tricks! Now it’s time for the endgame!" Alzolami grabbed her wrist with her other hand and they morphed into a broadsword whose blade was twice her height. In response, Nick willed his middle and pointer fingers on both hands into the claws of a D rank insect beast called a steel-edged mantis, both of which were the same length as his arms. Nick assumed a combat stance and Alzolami screamed and charged.

They repeatedly clashed their weapons. Alzolami had the upper hand at first with her larger and heavier blade, but Nick steadily started reading her fighting style and managed to get closer, forcing Alzolami to shrink her sword to deflect Nick’s jumping strikes. Alzolami leaped back, extended her blade, and slashed downward onto Nick, forcing him to catch it between his claws. While he was holding her blade Nick grew the arms of a seven-tailed tree master, the C rank mammal beast that was Iaso’s top monster whose entire skeleton was one giant prehensile vertebrae with each of its tentacle-like tails having two dagger-like pincer claws at the end, and flung them towards Alzolami, who grew eighteen extra arms at various points on her body to catch and immobilize them mid-air.

Both were completely motionless, fiercely staring each other down. She’s seriously skilled, has Powers that I can’t make heads or tails of and knows how to plan a few steps ahead, my worst possible match. My only advantage is that she probably knows as little about my Powers as I do hers. I really hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I’m going to have to use my Powers in a way I don’t like on all kinds of levels.

Nick inhaled, clenched his core muscles, and shot a stream of projectile vomit directly into Alzolami’s face. He manifested the abilities of a living river and willed his watery puke to grab onto her head and form a bubble shape. She retracted her extra arms and attempted to claw at her trapping, allowing Nick to wrap his still manifested tentacles around her torso, leaving her immobilized and helpless. The ability to throw up on command was one of the few skills Nick wasn’t even remotely proud of.

She struggled for a couple of minutes, obviously too frantic and unfocused to summon any Aura. Come on, I’m burning Aura here! After the third and a half minute, her struggles ceased and she went limp. Nick de-manifested both Powers and let her limp body drop.

Nick walked up to Alzolami’s motionless body with the intention of carrying it back to an infirmary for proper treatment. “It’s over...” muttered Nick under his breath.

Before Nick could bend over, Alzolami’s neck elongated and wrapped around his in a chokehold. Nick, his Aura spent from the hard fight, could only helplessly struggle to stay conscious. Alzolami’s head stretched to meet his face and she screamed, “Now it’s over!”

Suddenly, a blinding light flashed before his eyes and he could hear Alzolami screaming as a rushing noise filled his ears. Nick fell on the ground, choking, but conscious. He managed to get back onto his feet and to his surprise, Alzolami was truly unconscious this time. “Like taking candy from a monkey!” said a voice in the darkness. “It’s ‘baby’ Rob!” said another voice. “Whatever!” said yet another voice from the darkness. And they all shared a cruel laugh.

From three angles stepped three men. Each of them had a similar face and were all wearing similar clothing, but each was in different colors. The one to Nick’s front wore purple and blue, the one to Nick’s left wore green and orange, and the one to Nick’s right wore red and yellow. “Who the oblivion are you three?” The one in red and yellow sneered and said, “Is that any way to talk to your saviors? I’m Rob Denja! These are my brothers Job...” he gestured to the orange and green one. “...and Bob.” He gestured to the one in blue and purple. “And together, we’re the Danger Triplets!” Job smiled and said, “That’s Denja Triplets Rob!” “Whatever!” said Bob, and they all shared a quick laugh again. “Why are you guys here? And what happened to her?” Nick pointed to Alzolami. This time Bob was the one who spoke. “We just helped you beat a stupid enemy you couldn’t beat and got some sweet revenge in the process. You’re welcome!” Revenge, the keyword that Nick took as a cue to instantly dislike these three brothers. He hated the concept of revenge because his father taught him that hunting was about having no predisposed feelings between predator and prey and in the end, only the better of the two would come out on top after both giving their all.

It seems that these three men used me as the instrument to settle a petty grudge. Not cool. Not cool at all. “What did she ever do to you?” “We’ve been going to this school twice as long as she has,” said Job. “And the first time we met she challenged us to a Master game for three hundred HCs each and beat us! It took us five years to break even, so we want some payback! Just because she’s Mr. Ender’s daughter doesn’t mean she can do whatever she wants to anybody she wants!” At the sound, Alzolami weakly struggled to get back up and managed to stand on her feet unsteadily. “I... beat you three lumps fair and square... and I can do it again!” but she coughed and stumbled. Rob sneered and said, “Oh yeah? Well, we just beat you unfairly and triangularly! But it looks like you can take more punishment! Come on boys, let’s play teacher and give her a hard lesson in respect!”

On that note, Nick felt like exploding in anger. One of the things he could never tolerate was people continuing a fight after it was over. He took a protective stance to shield Alzolami and used his newfound rage to send out a wave of Intimidation to these brothers, his most powerful yet.

At first, they froze in place. “Did you just try to manipulate us?” said Rob, showing that the Intimidation had failed. “He did! He did try to manipulate us!” said Bob. “News flash meat! The more things you try to manipulate at once, the less effective the manipulation type Power becomes in response. Of course, it can’t help that you used all that Aura tenderizing that other meat for us!” said Job.

His Intimidation may have failed, but Nick had not yet begun to fight. “Mr. Nikeman!” Mr. Nikeman burst through the ground with one of his Challenge Doors. “Yes, Nick? Are you unsatisfied with the results of the Master game?" “You bet I am! I want to give all the HCs I won back to Alzolami. Can I do that?” “Yes, but I need to know if you’re sure first! Are you?" Nick looked Rob in the eye before giving his response. “Yes!” “Then the contract is forfeit! The Master game is officially a draw! When you are ready Alzolami, I shall transport you to the nearest healer office because your father would probably kill me if I gave you the option to refuse! Nick, tap your heel on the ground three times when you want to return to your boarding room! All other parties must find their own way back to where they belong!"

Alzolami looked at Nick’s back once more with her silver pupil-less eyes glowing warmly instead of intensely. Then the glow faded and she looked back at Mr. Nikeman and spat, “Fine!” under her breath before a Challenge Door flipped up that they both walked into appeared that closed behind them.

At first, Job and Bob looked angry at Nick, then their gaze shifted to their brother with an almost scared look on their faces. “It took six years of waiting... Six years of training and hard work for an opportunity like that to come up, AND YOU TOSSED IT AWAY LIKE YESTERDAY’S GARBAGE?" Rob looked so angry that he wanted to kill Nick, but Nick showed no fear. After sixty seconds of staring each other down, Rob turned around and began walking away. “Come on boys! Next time we see him on the field of battle, he’s mincemeat!" And the other two followed behind him, almost looking relieved.