One moment I was fighting a small mountain of metal, the next I was in a small room. The teleportation was disorienting, and I was still in the middle of some high-speed maneuvers and blasting my Radiance around.

Being teleported hadn’t stopped either of them, and I crashed into the wall of the tiny room before reorienting myself.

Right. Most people would be in a fight when they got ejected, and it’d be a bad idea to have people in the middle of casting huge skills to be teleported on top of other people.

I landed, and habitually turned my notifications back on. A half-dozen skills were offered to me, one for each unusual way I’d taken somebody out, and I almost dismissed them after glancing at them before one caught my eye.

[*ding!* Would you like to merge [Solar Flare] and [Sun’s Heart] into [Solar Corona]?]

Solar Corona: You have bathed in the unceasing light for over 20,000 years. The ever-burning glory of the sun becomes you. You have been anointed and crowned by the blazing sun, borrowing its power for your own. You energetically cleanse darkness, fear, the cold, and the wet wherever you go. The power of the sun is on your brow - and at your fingertips. Massively increased heat, power, destructive energy, range and incineration for all Radiance skills. -262,144 Mana Regeneration.

Whoa.

I immediately accepted the skill, watching my two old skills merge into one while I quickly tried to process what I’d read, and all the implications of the new skill.

First off, that mana regeneration cost implied a massive increase to my power. It was literally eating a quarter of my regeneration, and the way I understood it to work was it basically ‘stored’ all that mana to improve my abilities. My Radiance beams were going to be nasty, and I wish I had a few rocks to melt through to test.

The issue would be the same as it usually was. I was only good in a fight while I still had mana in my mana pool, but with the extra oomph on my skills I should be very good during that time.

I bet I could totally melt through skill-reinforced armor now!

The description was also somewhat terrifying. Five different factors got massively increased? They also stacked with each other, and the total effect was probably greater than the sum of its parts.

Also, it made taking another Radiance class attractive from a strict reading. It deliberately called out that it worked on all my Radiance stuff, not just the class skills. It was the safe, boring option, but sometimes the little extra to stay alive was nice.

I’d nearly been drowned to death a few hours ago. During a supposedly safe event.

I shuddered and tried to put it out of my mind.

The skill description was also a mix of terrifying and interesting. Crowned by the sun? Energetic cleansing? Bathing in light for 20,000 years straight?

Was the System counting the entire time I’d been in the fae realms for my classes and skills!? It didn’t quite make sense, not with my age still being 22, but frankly I didn’t know. It wasn’t like “people who’ve been in the fae realms for stupid amounts of time” was a well-studied phenomena.

Or maybe it was in this day and age, I just hadn’t found the information yet. Not like I’d gotten time to.

By all the gods above… I must have some insane classes waiting for me. Forget waiting to get [Meditation] to a high level, that wasn’t going to do a damn thing for me if that was true.

Classing up jumped on my to-do list. I doubted my general skills could make much of a difference at this point. Not quite to the top - I still had dozens of other things to do.

Like leaving the room, and seeing what was going on.

And figure out where I was.

I settled down and left the room, still completely disoriented. Sure, I vaguely knew where I was - in an arena room - but I had no idea where that was. Being able to teleport other people was a terrifying ability.

It didn’t take too much imagination to figure out how teleporting somebody could go wrong. Into space. Into a closed cave with no breathable air. Into the bottom of the ocean. Heck, I had to displace air when I was teleported, so there was no reason I couldn’t be teleported into the heart of a volcano!

I followed the sounds of cheering, finding a large group of people - most of them in the pointy hats of the School - watching various fights that were being displayed via Mirage skills all around the area. Interestingly, whoever was casting the skills deliberately degraded the quality of the illusion, making it entirely clear that the fights being shown were fake, and there weren’t life or death struggles all over the spectator’s area.

A bunch of the spectators swooped down on me when I came in, babbling in a variety of languages, everyone trying to shove drinks or food or other things into my hands. Including a pair of underwear.

Ewwww.

I let that drop.

Most of the crowd swiftly abandoned me as the next contestant came out of the teleportation room, and I shook myself free of the few people who were trying to pester me for something or another. Even without speaking the language they were annoying!

I paused at one of the images playing - well, replaying - images from the battlefield. It was the last fight I’d been in, and I honestly didn’t know how I’d been taken out.

I was flitting around the knight, burning brightly, when a massive bolt of Lightning came down and took both of us out.

Bah.

I totally could’ve survived that. I suppose that was the difference between a game, and real life. I was fairly certain I’d eliminated a few opponents with non-lethal shots myself, so I couldn’t really complain when the same happened to me.

Now I just needed to know if my performance had been good enough.

After some aimless wandering around, I got scooped up by Artemis and the rest. Lots of cheering, hugging, and one overly-energetic and excited Auri later - along with stopping her from trying to find the mage who’d beaten me to get ‘revenge’ - and we kept walking around. After some more wandering around, we managed to find Iona, who’d won her tournament, then the organizers found me. The Black Rose was among them.

We did the usual song and dance of Iona translating, the organizers insisting that their language enchantments were good enough, their language enchantments totally failing - I wasn’t speaking a well-known language - Iona agreeing to translate, then the ‘Wait, your name is actually Elaine?’ spiel.

Finally, we got down to business.

“Yugure no Shirayuki.” A beautiful kitsune told me, her eyes filled with lazy snowflakes reflecting her Ice element. Her fur was snow-white, and her nine tails were hypnotic, slipping out from her purple witch robes. “I’m the coach for the School’s team. I want you. I can get your tuition waived, if you’ll compete for us in events.” She waved a stack of papers, which I assumed was my golden ticket.

I wanted to shout and jump for joy. There was one minor sticking point that I needed to clear up before I could happily accept.

“I’m sworn to do no harm. I can compete as long as I don’t need to hurt my competitors, like in today’s event.”

That particular revelation set off a flurry of discussion before they got back to me.

“Acceptable. To the [Bursar].”

With a flurry of tails, she turned on one heel and stalked off. We glanced at each other, and hurried along after her. She set a blistering pace, and Iona had to pick up Fenrir to keep up. The ice-blue wyvern wrapped himself around Iona’s neck, perching on top of her head like the world’s deadliest scarf.

“That was so cool!” Amber exclaimed. “The way you snuck around with that barrel! They never figured out where those shots were coming from! Oh! Oh! And the thing with the river!?”

Amber stuck one hand up over her head, with a single finger pointing out, turning it around and pretending to blast people.

“The river was pretty fun. Insanely dangerous though, I would’ve completely been at the mercy of a Water [Mage] if they’d found me.” I tried to caution Amber. Any of my Ranger instructors would’ve thrown a fit, although any Ranger team I was on would’ve been delighted if I managed to pull it off on a mission.

“But they didn’t!” Amber was skipping along, high off the excitement.

“I would’ve thrown you out of the Rangers so fast if you tried any of that on a mission.” Julius teased.

Ok. Almost any Ranger team I was on.

“Was that how you killed the pirates?” He continued.

I shot him a finger.

“This was a display, and remind me, who was it that we kept throwing into the colosseum to fight badly but show off? His name started with a B…”

Artemis gave me a pointed look, and with a slight start of guilt I remembered that she’d also been thrown into the arena, just slightly less voluntarily than Brawling.

“Sure, but you didn’t flash the Ranger eagle at the end.” Julius said. “Makes the whole thing a wash.”

I rolled my eyes at him, and was readying a retort when Amber jumped in.

“OhByTheWayPleaseDon’tBeMadIMightHaveBetWithYourGemsAndWonATon!”

She thought she was being clever, completely forgetting that I had at least 100 times the vitality that she did, and her ‘fast speech’ was easily parsed.

“You WHAT!” I blew up at her. Those gems were some of the last mementos I had of home, each one a precious reminder of a person forever lost and gone.

“I got them back!” Amber quickly backpedaled under my furious gaze, Shirayuki continuing to pace through the crowd, with or without us.

“Whoa, chill Elaine. I was fine with it.” Artemis - ARTEMIS - was the voice of reason here.

“Brrpt BRPT!” Auri was scolding me for my yelling over the ‘brilliant’ scheme.

I took a deep breath, letting myself center again. I should hear what the plan was, especially if everyone else was in on it and alright with it.

At the same time, it wasn’t their stuff that had been risked.

“Ok. Explain.” I curtly ordered as I started to follow Shirayuki through the crowds.

“We’re completely broke. In basically every sense of the word.” Julius started to explain, and if he was on board with this I guess it couldn’t have been that terrible of an idea. “Everything here works off of gems, and you were a total dark horse. Amazing odds, like a lame horse and a bad [Charioteer]. We saw the chance to take a calculated risk, knowing how good you were, and made back our initial bet thirty times over. Almost two diamond’s worth.” He said, and I mentally translated.

Almost 50,000 coins.

Ok.

That was a lot. Two years tuition at the School, for one. Enough money to buy a modest home.

“Yikes. Alright.” I mentally readjusted, considering how incredibly broke we had been. “What are we doing with the money?”

Everyone except Iona traded looks.

“Grease a few palms to get myself and Artemis situated, get you whatever funds you need for the School, and whatever’s left over Amber uses to start her mercantile empire.” Julius said.

“BRRRPT!”

“And buy Auri a pretty nest.” I said.

“Brrrpt.”

“Or some juice.”

“BRrrrpt!!”

“Auri, pick one thing, a mirror, a nest, juice… we only have so much, we’re a little poor now.”

“Brrpt…”

I thought about the division. I thought about Amber’s rules of acquisition, or at least the ones I’d been told.

“I want 90%.” I told Amber.

“What!?” She squeaked, and it was hilarious.

“I want 90% of the profits.”

“NO!” She protested. “Absolutely not!”

“My gems provided the seed money. Doesn’t that make me, like, the investor or something?” I had basically no idea what I was talking about. I just knew I was putting the screws to Amber. It was only fair.

She grumbled a bit.

“50%. I’m putting in all the work. And that’s after cost of goods sold, expenses, cost to buy property and equipment, bribes, taxes, fees, and the whole other host of things you probably don’t care about.”

“Deal!” I agreed before Amber could back out. I never expected to get anything out of this, honestly, and I had complete faith in Amber making me rich.

I got distracted by the sight of a massive sky barge landing some distance ahead of us. The bottom half was like a flat-bottomed boat, but the top was all fancy and decorated. Pillars of yellow and red twisted with fascinating, ornamental designs, showing off dozens of magical creatures. The whole thing had various streamers, and was packed full of black-robed students.

We were there a few moments later. We had to wait for the students to disembark, then a number of waiting robed people boarded the boat. Shirayuki swept onto the boat, and we followed in her wake. Someone in a fancy purple robe tried to protest, but Shirayuki just said a few words to him, and he was quiet.

I needed to learn the language as soon as possible. My first few classes were all going to be language classes, and if I could manage it, I was going to do them all at once.

After a few minutes of shuffling around and all of us getting jam-packed onto the sky ship, we took off. The process was smooth, and the few gasps I heard seemed to be from similarly non-robed non-School people on the boat. I kind of wished I was near the edge. I would’ve liked to look out and see all the sights from up high. I loved being in the air, and flying under someone else’s power was only a hair worse than flying under my own.

“I wondered how we’d get to the island.” Iona said as the wind whipped through the crowd, grabbing the occasional poorly-guarded hat and sending it flying off the rails.

I really, really hoped there were some safety features to stop people from flying out of the boat.

“Brrrpt brrrrrrrrrrpt.” Auri didn’t like someone else doing the ‘flying’ for her.

“You know, you could just fly up. You don’t need to be on me.” I told the little hummingbird.

“BRPT!” Auri leaped into action, flying just above the sea of hats to ‘prove’ she was doing it herself, and not letting the boat ‘fly’ her somewhere.

“BBRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpt!!!!” Auri screeched in fear as the wind grabbed her, and launched her down the length of the ship, just like the rest of the hats.

With a roll of my eyes I flickered my [Mantle of the Stars], catching Auri, not willing to test what anti-falling measures the ship had. It might’ve been a good lesson in too much pride and thinking before leaping - she was a phoenix, falling out of a sky ship would hurt her ego more than anything else - but it was already a strange place, a strange land, and I didn’t need to take the detour.

“Brrpt BRPT.” Auri huddled up next to me, complaining that the magic winds were too strong, and the powerful Wind elemental had it out for her.

I’d seen elementals in Lun’Kat’s lair. I saw how fast the boat was moving, and the corresponding breeze as a result. I’d eat one of the extra-poofy hats if there was an elemental involved.

I let Auri soothe her wounded pride though. Our various small talk as the barge continued its ascent led to Amber broaching the topic of working together again.

“Since we’re in business together, I’d like to get as much starting capital as possible from you.”

I raised my eyebrows at the beanpole.

“You’re not getting my gems.” I flatly told her. “Not when each one is a friend.” The entire ship entered a large cloud, obscuring almost everything around us.

“Your Moonstones!” She burst out. “You’ve got a bunch of them, they’re not connected to your friends. My class is [Fae Trader of the Intangible]. Normal trading and bartering is experience, but it’s not good experience. I’ve been trying. No, what I need is to trade intangible things, and skills stored in gemstones are exactly what I need.”

That explained all the games with trading the IOU’s around. They represented intangible things, and while the stakes were low, it was technically doing exactly what her class wanted. Like me healing up some scraped knees.

She gave me great big puppy eyes, and I glanced at Artemis.

She gave Amber a light smack over the head, and as she lectured the greedy guts, I mouthed the words I knew Artemis would be saying.

“You idiot! This is a public place! Don’t go yelling about your classes and skills to everyone!”

Ahhh, good times. I remember all the speeches Artemis had given me on exactly the same topic. I’d learned my lesson a little too late - I’d needed my arm twisted by the emperor before it had properly sunk in - but it was a nice trip down nostalgia lane.

“My panacea skill only.” I told Amber.

“Are you sure? I was hoping for… you know.”

“Absolutely not.” I folded my arms. “And that’s final. This isn’t a discussion or a negotiation. Rule 3.”

Thank the System for [Immortal Recollections] prompting me with the right Amber rule of acquisition.

“I can charge a bunch of Moonstones with [Dance with the Heavens] for you. I doubt I’ll have the time to properly make good images, but they’ll still be lifesaving. That should give you a strong start.”

“Yes! You’re the best! Also I just leveled.”

We burst through the clouds, and I got my first good look at the School. I pushed my way through the crowd to get an even better look at the premier institute of higher learning.

“Brrrrpt!!”

“I know! It’s so cool!!”

A flying island indeed. The bottom was a rough, oddly-textured rock-like material, in a natural rough half-bowl shape. From what I’d gathered, the island wasn’t lifted up by skills or anything, it just was naturally there.

As natural as a flying island was.

A dozen smaller islands orbited the main one, each having their own miniature and distinct look. One was a meadow field of flowers, the second had a small hill of rocks, the third was a small basin of water. Each had its own strange and fascinating landscape.

The main island was the real draw.

There was a clearly demarcated line in the middle. On one side was a busy, bustling crowded town, rickety buildings clearly held up by copious amounts of visible magic, nearly every inch horizontal and vertical overbuilt as much as it could be. Only a few narrow strips of ground could be seen, and even as I watched the patch rippled, an entire crop grown, then it fell to the ground as it got harvested. High-speed high-skill farming in action - which would be needed, given the ratio of people to arable land.

On the other side of the divide were a number of huge buildings, each one stately, given plenty of breathing room. They were in three layers: a center set of eight tall towers, each one obviously themed after the basic eight elements - the Water tower had waterfalls, while the Fire tower was merrily burning. The Dark tower was unimaginatively painted entirely black, while the Light tower was a blinding beacon. The Earth tower was made out of stone and glittering crystals, while the Wind tower had lots of streamers and little windmills blowing furiously in the invisible wind. The Wood tower was naturally made out of wood, looking like a twisted ancient tree, while the Metal tower was all sharp edges and reflective glass.

They were in an octagonal shape, and more buildings radiated out from them, the entire thing looking a bit like a not very smooth wheel. After what I mentally classified as the “main” buildings, there was a whole mess of tight apartments on one side, and large houses with little gardens on the other.

Tiny little black hats moved around the streets like ants, the occasional brightly colored hat interspersed here and there. Purples were the most common of the colors - still incredibly rare - and I saw a few blues, greens, and one yellow, moving up and down the roads, busy with their tasks. The streets were lined with trees, and glowing pillars of Arcanite were regularly interspersed throughout.

There was an animated illusion of a great big tiger in the sky, pouncing and prowling in the most visible way. A large “6” was hovering in the sky, morphing between various different numerical alphabets. Pillars of glowing light were everywhere, and there was no way that was all Arcanite. No way. The cost would be absurd, not even Lun’Kat’s lair had that much.

Displays of magic were everywhere, and I got massively distracted by a building walking around.

I tried to absorb sight after sight, absent-mindedly noticing that Iona had joined me, looking just as wide-eyed and awed as I was. A dozen other non-School people had joined us at the railing, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the School people were laughing at us rubes.

Someone made an announcement, and while I didn’t know the words, I could easily figure out the meaning, getting me a level in [Learning Languages].

“Welcome to the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft!”

[Name: Elaine]

[Race: Human]

[Age: 22]

[Mana: 580,190/580,190]

[Mana Regen: 273,296 (+518,721)]

Stats

[Free Stats: 204]

[Strength: 1,004]

[Dexterity: 1,831]

[Vitality: 14,240]

[Speed: 14,272]

[Mana: 58,019]

[Mana Regeneration: 58,120 (+51,872)]

[Magic Power: 22,821 (+585,359)]

[Magic Control: 22,821 (+585,359)]

[Class 1: [The Dawn Sentinel - Celestial: Lv 513]]

[Celestial Affinity: 480]

[Cosmic Presence: 315]

[The Stars Never Fade: 11]

[Center of the Universe: 451]

[Dance with the Heavens: 513]

[Wheel of Sun and Moon: 513]

[Mantle of the Stars: 471]

[Sunrise: 411]

[Class 2: [Butterfly Mystic - Radiance: Lv 357]]

[Radiance Affinity: 357]

[Radiance Resistance: 357]

[Radiance Conjuration: 357]

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[Nectar: 357]

[Solar Corona: 357]

[Scintillating Ascent: 337]

[Kaleidoscope: 357]

[Class 3: [Beloved of the Wind - Wind: Lv 8]]

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General Skills

[Long-Range Identify: 376]

[Immortal Recollections: 300]

[Companion Bond between Elaine and Auri: 128]

[Learning Languages: 49]

[Oath of Elaine to Lyra: 513]

[Sentinel's Superiority: 513]

[Persistent Casting: 315]

[Passionate Learning: 382]