I smiled from ear to ear, pulling Crapshoveler back into my hand. “You’re welcome.”

  “Yeah,” Sip nodded shakily. “Thanks. So, we passed?”

  Toya smiled, wiping sweat from his forehead. “I’ll admit, that was clever; using her job as a teacher—”

  Sosie walked up and slapped me across the face.

  I think she was more surprised than me, judging by the way she flinched at the sound. Even so, she forced herself to focus, jabbing me in the chest.

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” Soise said, shooting a nasty look at Toya. “We don’t fight dirty!”

  Sip shrank back a little. “Hey, I’m fine with it. Master Jujud was guaranteed to try and save me—”

  “Because she’s a wonderful person!” Soise cried. “Why would you take advantage of that?!”

  I scratched the back of my head. “Because we needed to win?”

  “You call this winning?!” She hissed, clutching the hem of her dress with white knuckles. “I-I just can’t—I mean you are—why?” Tears rolled down her cheeks. Soise covered her face and ran from the field.

  The rest of us stared like idiots.

  “Should we…check on her?” Sip asked.

  “I got it,” Catania grumbled, desummoning her helmet. “You three don’t have a shred of common sense.”

  Toya frowned.

  Catania glared back. “For the record, that strategy was lousy. Monsters aren’t gonna care if we start attacking each other.” She glanced at me. “Not to mention the ethics of what you just did. I’d rather someone else lead this team.”

  “I’m not trying to lead anything,” I said, holding up both hands. “I was just—”

  “Giving orders?” Catania huffed. “You’re competent but reckless. You had your shot and that shot is now over.”

  Toya raised his hand, stepping forward.

  “I will lead,” he said. “If not Grind then—”

  “Ohho, I like you even less,” she chuckled. “Stay where you are.”

  “If you feel strongly, why don’t you lead the team?” I offered. “You seem rational and realistic.”

  “I’m rational and realistic too,” Toya muttered under his breath.

  Meanwhile, Catania spent a few seconds thinking. Finally, she shook her head. “I just hit things. A leader has to be competent.”

  “I feel like we’re forgetting an important candidate,” Sip said with a casual shrug as he puffed out his chest while leaning on the side of the academy. He smiled wide.

  Toya and Cantania nodded. “Soise.”

  “No, I was talking about…” Sip trailed off, watching the two rush away, in the direction Soise left. Sip sniffled. “...Guys?”

  I wiped Crapshoveler on the nearby bushes, undoubtedly giving the gardener a scare sometime in the future. “Do what you want, Sip. I’m heading home.”

  Sharon was sitting on the couch of my apartment, flipping through a stack of magazines.

  “Hey!” He snapped. “Grind, did you know they have a library here? Like a real human library right inside your apartment building?”

  I paused. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, first floor,” he grunted. “Seriously, how could you not know this? Don’t you use human books for school?”

  “I take notes on papers I summon,” I stated. “Speaking of which…”

  I flexed, slightly distorting the air around my fist.

  Although I wasn’t able to summon anything, I could feel that my mental power was far stronger than before. Perhaps double.

  “Do these things work or what?” I asked, flicking my wrists.

  Sharon huffed. “Barely a 0.5% increase. You’re only getting better at condensing that power. If you want to see actual results, you need to practice commands with the bands on.”

  “I can’t do commands,” I stated.

  “Fail. Repeatedly.” He flicked a page of his magazine. “That’s how humans grow, I suppose.”

  I walked to the kitchen, pulling out whatever little food I could manage. “So what? Fairies don’t fail much?”

  “We’re born with a silver’s mental energy from day one.”

  “Oh yeah.” I frowned. “That’s a lot, right? We just fought a silver today.”

  Sharon twitched. “Did you now?”

  “Sure did,” I said, giving Crapshoveler a twirl. “Hey, there was a little blood when I put it in my inventory, but now that I’ve taken it out, it’s clean as a whistle. Weird, right?”

  “Blood?” Colors flickered to life beneath Sharon’s pale skin. “You injured a silver?”

  “One of the masters. Jujud.”

  “It was she who captured me in the first place.”

  “Really?” I blinked. “Hey, this could be retribution or something!”

  Sharon wasn’t really paying attention. He continued to stare at the closest wall. “You, a Tin, dealt enough damage to injure someone five orders of magnitude stronger than yourself?”

  He was sitting up now.

  “Why don’t I get the sense you’re lying?”

  “I’m serious,” I said. “She was a master, so I knew I couldn’t beat her—”

  “Obviously!”

  I stuffed some bread and green squash in my mouth. “Sho I Jusht aimed for a teamhat of mishne.” I swallowed. “Again, she’s a master and a master can’t have a student impaled during an exam. Since Jujud didn’t understand how Crapshoveler was moving around, she assumed it was either magic or controlled through magic, and as such, created a magical-based barrier to dispel it. But Crapshoveler isn’t magic! So he completely ignored her barrier and struck while she had no defenses up, since she was still keeping her stats at copper level for the exam. Of course, it’s an attack that’d never work a second time, but we only needed to pass the evaluation once before we can start taking contracts.”

  Sharon gagged. “You attacked a teammate? And that worked?”

  “Mostly.”

  “A human who preys on natural human convictions,” he said to himself, leaning back. “You must have very few friends.”

  “I’ve got plenty,” I stated. “Anyway, I’ll be back at nine.”

  He glanced at the clock. “It was nine five minutes ago.”

  “Pm.” I chuckled. “I’ll be training.”

  “You look rough,” Sharon admitted. “You…you aren’t taking a break?”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  I walked out the door, walked to the courtyard, set up one of the union’s enchanted dummies, and started fighting.

  Hours later, I was finally getting somewhere.

  “Grind!” Ardenidi called, waving in the distance. She jogged toward me, stopping short as Crapshoveler cut through the air, whipping around and around in circles.

  “Hey!” I shouted, flipping my hammer around. “Check this out!”

  Crapshoveler veered toward me, flipping so the handle pointed toward my wrist. At that moment, I moved my hand upward, then stopped pulling him toward me, causing his sudden change in momentum to swing the shovel in my direction.

  I struck the flat of a hammer, rocketing the shovel into the stratosphere

  There was a horizontal and vertical force. If I could affect both at the same time, much more energy could be transferred on each connection, with the added bonus that Crapshoveler would tilt toward the sky as he moved higher.

  I laughed, pointing toward the glittering speck. “So! How about that?”

  Ardenidi frowned. “What…is that?” She blinked hard. “Anyway, your team’s been looking for you. They have a couple things they wanted to bring to your attention.”

  “And they sent you to do it?” I asked. “And you let them?”

  Ardenidi smirked. “You should’ve seen Sip. He was cowering and sniveling as he tried to explain why only I could possibly go and explain the news.”

  “He thinks I’ll get mad, doesn’t he?”

  I pivoted, ramming the hammer into a golden meteor, repeating each of my previous steps, but with a smooth efficiency that compounded into a perfect hit. Crapshoveler was little more than a streak of energy before he disappeared again.

  “I’ll be fine,” I stated. “Today’s a pretty good day.”

  Ardenidi nodded slowly. “You…are a Tin, right?”

  “Crapshoveler cuts through things with ease, including air.” I stated. “He’s pretty easy to fling around. Continue?”

  “Soise has been made the leader of the team.”

  I nodded. “Good.”

  “And she really doesn’t like you.”

  “Fair,” I stated.

  “And now she wants to fight you.”

  “I—excuse me?” I asked.

  “In a game of chess.”

  “Chess.”

  “Soise wants to beat you in a game of chess,” Ardenidi nodded. “And if she wins, then she gets to control what you do. If you win, you get to be team leader.”

  I frowned. “I don’t want to be team leader.”

  “Wait, seriously?” Ardenidi blinked. “Because from the way Sip was talking, you seemed to take charge of everything.”

  “That was a one time thing,” I stated.

  “He said you were really good at it.”

  “Only in moderation.”

  “Sip really doesn’t want Soise to be the team captain,” she sighed. “Something about the market value of your party? So…what’re you going to do?”

  “I’ll pass,” I stated. “There’s not enough time for a game.”

  I blinked. “Time.”

  [4:56 PM]

  “I gotta go!” I said, tossing the hammer into the other bin of equipment. “Courts start in five minutes.”

  “You’re really doing that today?” Ardenidi hesitated. “THAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE FOR!?”

  I made it to the rings five minutes late. Thankfully, there was a bit of a line for the seventh court, so most people hadn't even gone in yet.

  Unlike the eighth court, you could use up to a hundred power, as well as one weapon of your choice. As per standard rules, if you dealt what a judge considered to be ‘extreme and unnecessary damage’ to a participant, you would be immediately demoted to the eighth court, where you would re-learn self-control.

  Beyond that, it was pretty much the same.

  My opponent lunged at me, baring his teeth like a wild animal. His abilities activated, granting explosive movement.

  I punched him in the face and he fell unconscious.

  My opponent brushed her long hair, imbuing complex mana into it, as to create whips, lances, and piercing needles.

  I ran around, tied her hair into knots, and she started crying.

  That one felt a little cruel, actually.

  Mikie stepped into the ring, summoning orbs of light all around him. “So we finally meet in combat, Grind. It’s good to meet a worthy opponent—”

  I punched him in the face several times, using Reach to keep his head repeatedly tethered to my fist.

  Moments later, Mikie lay crumpled up on the floor, whimpering softly.

  The referee lowered his glasses. “We have a winner! Congratulations, you’re moving onto the sixth court!”

  With that win, I was given my first official reward stats.

  One…one strength.

  I held the dinky little orb, barely the size of a marble. “Uh, sir?”

  The ref huffed. “It’s the second area. Little stats are smaller.”

  Maybe it had other bonuses?

  I cracked the glassy film, releasing potent energy.

  [(+1) 100 Str]

  Yippie.

  “Sharon!” I called, cracking open the apartment door. “I’m home!”

  He waved from the couch.

  “Haven’t you done anything today?” I asked

  “I let her in,” he grunted, jabbing a finger at Soise.

  Soise sat in a corner, smothered in blankets with a death grip on a chess board. She wasn’t moving. Or breathing?

  “You…you didn’t kill her, did you?” I whispered.

  “Of course not,” Sharon stated. “It wouldn't have been hard, though. She’s so oblivious to real world problems.”

  Soise cracked a blurry eye open, immediately locking onto me.

  “Grind…you took your time getting here.”

  She suppressed a yawn.

  “I told you I don’t want to lead the party,” I sighed.

  “You’re impulsive,” she grumbled, setting up the chessboard on my kitchen table. “You want the leadership but not the responsibility.”

  “I think you’re reading into this morning a little too much.”

  Sharon glanced between us, raising both eyebrows. Finally he cleared his throat.

  “So…you two dating or something?”

  Each of us shot him a withering glare.

  Sharon frowned. “Wait…no?...Waaaaiiittt. Are you two secret love birds?” He grinned like a fox. “Grind, you lucky dog—”

  Soise slapped him across the face.

  “OW!” Sharon shouted, grabbing his cheek. “That hurt!” He rubbed his skin. “How…how did that actually hurt?!”

  “Magic,” she stated. “And just because a guy and a girl are together doesn’t mean they’re in a relationship.”

  “Even if she waited in his room? To see him?” He gave her a flat look. “So the two could have a chat in private?” Sharon threw his hands in the air. “Look, from my perspective, this man’s always with some woman, somewhere, alone! What am I supposed to assume?!”

  “Rivalry,” she stated.

  “I have no idea,” I admitted.

  Soise huffed. “I would never think of sullying Ardenidi and Grind’s beautiful relationship.”

  My eyes widened. “We’re not in a relationship.”

  “I—” Soise blinked. “...No?”

  “See?” Sharon hissed. “It’s confusing! Just pick a girl!”

  “I don’t know anything about love!” I exclaimed. “And it’s just so confusing when you throw a timeloop into everything! I’m trying not to think about it all.”

  Soise bit her lip. “Timeloop?”

  She glanced at Sharon, who shrugged.

  “I think it’s a metaphor,” he whispered.

  “Weren’t we supposed to play chess or something?” I said, letting out an exasperated groan. “Can we please, please just do that?”

  “Fine.” Soise set up the board. “Your move.”

  I immediately knocked my king over. “Good game.”

  “Hey!” She shouted, puffing up after me as I rushed out of the apartment, despairing out a window.

  Soise looked down, then up, before throwing her hands in the air.

  “You know that’s not what I wanted!” Soise shouted.

  I had a hand on my chest, sitting flat on the rooftop. After waiting, I quickly realized she’d fallen asleep in my room again, waiting for me to return.

  Another hour of waiting and still no movement.

  I rubbed my forehead, cringing.

  That woman was persistent.

  Maybe I’d sleep on the roof tonight.

  // {Notice} //

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