Welcome to GEN-101. I see some of you rolling your eyes already, discounting the importance of this class. I know some of you are martial Pathbearers who think your path in life is set. You will be the hammer of the Republic. You will be its fist. You will be its bow, its dagger. You will be its mind.

  For some of you, general education doesn't seem to hold a purpose. What point is there in making sure you can write an essay or conduct statistical analysis? For those of you who are crafters or magi, it might seem an inadequate thing as well. Not only is the course pointless, but it's also pointlessly easy. Indeed, the written and math portions of this class might be, but that is not the purpose of this class.

  You will not be taking Gen Ed 101 for the rest of the semester. You will be taking it for the next two to three weeks, and then you will be assigned supplemental classes per your weaknesses. That is the point of Gen Ed 101.

  For the martials here, you're going to receive an order someday, and you're going to need to respond to it. You best be able to write well and write legibly, and write and describe your thoughts in an understandable manner. Failure to do so might see your comrades slain, might see medical supplies delayed, might cause confusion and chaos within your ranks.

  If you are bad at math or personal finances, you're going to learn how to do that because there's little point in spending all your mithril on a set of armor and finding yourself destitute, first forced to serve as some Low-Tier Sell-Skill to make up for your empty pockets.

  And for the Magi, we're here to make sure you can clean your own bloody clothes using your own bloody hands and that you can talk to people without issue. We don't need you to like socialization; we need you to be capable of it, and that is non-negotiable. This is not about comfort, but functionality.

  We rise individually, but we rise on scaffolds and shoulders. The scaffolds installed by those who came before and the shoulders of giants who trailblazed certain paths ahead of us, who removed impediments for our progress.

  Now wipe those looks off your face, turn your eyes to the board, and start writing. The faster you get this done, the faster the class can move on to the next portion of the matter: introducing yourselves to each other. Dreadful, I know. I can already tell most of you are going to need to go to CHARM-101. Abernathy is going to be so very happy this semester.

  -Master-Instructor Michael Hu, GEN-101, Phoenix Academy

  220

  Slipgate

  By the time Adam and Shiv finished explaining things to Irons, he looked like someone had pissed in his breakfast.

  "I see." The captain sighed. "Do you think she's a danger to herself or anyone else right now?"

  Adam shrugged. "I can't quite say. She’s definitely not stable, though. She’s still in denial that she did anything wrong."

  "The mind is a fragile thing after it's shattered," Irons grunted.

  “And people love scooping up bullshit and telling themselves it's chocolate." Shiv let out a breath of annoyance from where he lounged on the bed. "She should keep away from Marcus for now, though. Her and the rest of her old Brunswick bunch. Won't stop them from shooting ugly looks at me or spreading rumors, maybe, but that's them dealt with."

  "Yes, but the resolution came at potentially increased peril." Irons narrowed his eyes at both Adam and Shiv. "Was it wise to invoke the presence of the Inquisition?"

  "No," Adam said, "absolutely not, but it was the easiest thing I could think of. The last thing we needed was Shiv compromising his cover in some other way. Like Magnolia breaking her blade on his face.”

  Shiv crossed his arms in offense. “If she did that—”

  “You would have stopped time and choked her unconscious, yes, Shiv, truly the best plan.”

  “And she would have deserved it too.”

  The captain still looked slightly displeased. "You could have called for me."

  "They were already at the door," Shiv said, "and before things got really dark, it seemed like a goofy story. Marcus Unblood apparently got two girls pregnant, and now one girl’s brothers are trying to kick his ass. What are you supposed to do about that? Enforce discipline? Yeah, that would draw attention too. The simple matter is that the Neath liaison left out a bunch of stuff or didn't know a bunch of stuff himself. Now we're paying the price for that. Speaking of which: Cullywier!”

  The fairy manifested in a burst of wind, flower petals, and fragrance. He stood behind Irons, whose eyes widened uncharacteristically at the sight of the newcomer towering over him.

  "Is that a fairy?" Irons asked.

  "Supposedly," Shiv replied. "So far, I don't see what the big deal is, aside from him drinking up all that Necromancy."

  "That's not unique to me," Cullyweir replied nonchalantly. "All fairies can neutralize Necromancy. We don't decay. We don't die. Why would a lore of endings affect a creature of eternal cycles?"

  "Yeah, that's cool and all, but did you not know that Marcus got murdered by his own people? Or did you just not plan on telling me?"

  The fairy looked up at the ceiling, which was only a hand’s length away from his face, and paused briefly. A second later, he replied, "I did not know. The Dragon Brokers thank you for this information."

  Shiv threw up his hands in frustration. "Alright, so they're just incompetent, not malicious. Perfect."

  "I must remind you that this body was provided on short notice." Cullywier offered a silly smile. It looked uncanny, like an animal trying to mimic a human expression. "All things done in haste will usually come with their own downsides."

  "That is undeniable," Irons said flatly, agreeing with Cullywier.

  "Alright, fine, you didn't know that, but is there any other information I need to know about Marcus? Does he have some other girl he impregnated back in the mountain holds? Some kind of evil twin somewhere? A Legend with a grudge? Anything like that?"

  Once more, Cullywier paused, and Shiv realized the fairy was actively communing with the Dragon Brokers each time. "That is not known to us thus far, but we will see if any other unsavory details about the past of Marcus Unblood turn up."

  "That's about as much as I can ask for right now," Shiv grunted with disgruntled acceptance.

  "May I be dismissed then, Deathless?" Cullywier asked.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Yeah." Shiv waved away the fairest. "You can—" Cullywier vanished in a burst of fading wind, "—go now."

  Shiv sighed and rubbed his face. "Didn't even get finished scrubbing my own ass before we had to deal with that shit. Alright, Irons, can you smooth this over with the kids here and the campus militia?"

  The captain nodded.

  "Great, cause Adam and I are gonna go back to the coliseum. I'm not sticking around here, even if we got Magnolia to piss off. I don't trust the looks the old Brunswick boys were giving Adam earlier."

  Irons gave a grunt of acknowledgement. "I will see things handled properly. And that they don’t get out of hand.”

  Shiv looked at Irons once more and considered something. "Hey, you said that Melissa gave you some evidence earlier, right?"

  Irons nodded slowly. "She did."

  "Any chance you could send some of that over? Or have Adam pick some of that up? I think we're gonna be doing some planning and research tonight, along with some other stuff. We might be able to get through some of that too. See if we find anything."

  The captain mulled that over for a moment, and he nodded once more. "It would be appreciated."

  Just then, Adam pulled out the pin from earlier. And that made Irons cock his head.

  "This is a special pin given to me by Enchanter Merrielmel," Adam said. "It belongs to a member of on-campus security, currently enjoying a period of extended leave."

  A look of distaste passed over the captain's face, but if he had any objections, he kept them to himself. "I see."

  Another stream of mana formed between Irons' pin and Adam’s security pin, and soon, there was a growing communications network between the trio.

  "I'll send you a message in a bit," Adam said. "I'll tell you that 'the evening swan comes to roost.'"

  The captain almost did a double-take. "The evening swan comes to roost."

  "So you know it's me."

  "Do you know how often I get messages in the middle of the night on my academy pin, Arrow?"

  "No, and I don't assume anything.”

  For once, Irons gave a genuine smile, and that caught Shiv completely by surprise. The captain’s face really wasn’t used to the expression. "At least you learned something from my class."

  ***

  With the day somewhat ruined and unwilling to be ambushed in the dorm again, Adam and Shiv returned to the bathroom, where the Gate Lord fired another arrow. This one led back to the coliseum, and they went across with as much haste as they could. As soon as they arrived, Shiv found himself hounded by Helix immediately, demanding that they start their Biomancy and Practical Metabiology lessons immediately.

  "Yeah, look, I'm not blowing you off, Helix. I want to start it soon, frankly. I probably want to start it more than even you do."

  "I strongly doubt that," the orc said, adjusting his spectacles. As Adam walked past them, Shiv noticed that Helix refused to make eye contact with the Gate Lord for whatever strange reason. The other orcs snickered at him from behind.

  Shiv got the feeling that Helix was undergoing an unusual moment of humiliation. “Look, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, and we can actually get some shit done. Right now—”

  “Legend Shiv,” Can Hu said, calling out from behind. “Your presence is needed within the Slipgate chamber.”

  Both Shiv and Adam came to a halt. Helix scoffed. “Oh, good, more distractions from what truly matters.”

  The first order Shiv had to attend to wasn't Biomancy or even Melissa's evidence. It wasn't even going over the day's events with Adam and the others. No, it was the current state of the Slipgate, the project that Enchanter Merrielmel and Smith Concelhaunt were working on.

  Can Hu was unusually animated regarding the Slipgate. It seemed the Penitent thought there were opportunities there that they could take advantage of. But that wasn’t the only reason it seemed excited. The Penitent's body had been mostly restored, and there was an additional layer of material lining its chassis as well. Studs of mithril and lengths of focus crystal formed what appeared to be a skeletal scaffold over the Penitent's spine and limbs. A stream of binary numbers and sloshing smears of unattuned mana glided along the magic-conducting materials.

  "So, the Slipgate works?" Adam asked, seeming slightly doubtful, despite everything.

  "There is good reason to believe so," Can Hu declared. "So far, they have not managed to open a pathway to the Outside. However, dimensional stabilization and mana threshold diffusion functions are operational."

  "There is always some level of discrepancy with the ambient mana thresholds between different realms," Adam explained, noting Shiv's blank stare. "Even between naturally bridged realms connected by a gate, there needs to be a sort of stabilization process, hence the gateways. Sometimes, the dimensional mana necessary is manifested in naturally occurring archways, or ones shaped by the System’s hand, depending on what theory you subscribe to. But for artificial gates, there needs to be a finer calibration process. For it is not the System that guides things in these circumstances, but ignorant and fallible individuals."

  "So, it’s a device that can measure and make sure the ambient mana is equal between places?" Shiv guessed.

  "Not quite. More so, one that actively absorbs and displaces ambient mana across locations. Think of it like a scale, except you have some kind of mechanism that is capable of shifting weight from one section of the scale to another."

  "Alright, makes sense," Shiv said. “How bad is it if things aren’t balanced?”

  “Well, you already know. Just drain a bit of vitality from the fabric of the world.”

  “Oh. Shit.”

  “Quite.”

  And as they rounded another section of the maze, Shiv saw that a dimensional rift was already open ahead of them. The stones lining the walls were fractured open in a spiral pattern, resembling a rocky flower in bloom. At the center of the flower was another chamber, a massive one, and the sheer amount of magical energy spilling free from the portal was overwhelming, even for Shiv. It hammered against his Shapeless Tides, and he felt like a man in a full suit of armor walking out to embrace a sky filled with falling hail.

  Passing over, the Deathless blinked as he took in the facility that had been constructed. The width of this room was approximately half the size of the Rubix Well's mana core chamber, a few hundred meters from wall to wall. There wasn't a mess of walkways here, and the space was considerably less cluttered. However, there were many panels lining every square meter of the entire chamber, and they glistened with rippling wavelengths of mana. The space was like the inside of a large oval, and Shiv faintly felt a slight churning motion. The floor was moving beneath his feet, and that's how he noticed that the room was constantly turning as well, like something of an automaton's turbine.

  At the center of the room was a hundred-meter-long, inverted obelisk. It was lined with so many magical patterns that he couldn’t tell what material it was made out of. It didn't seem like any kind of mithril or focus crystal he knew, and with the way it constantly let out a pitched shriek, he wondered if it had the capability to modulate or manipulate specific mana frequencies.

  Hanging beside the large, inverted obelisk were two smaller pyramids. They were dense with mana, each glowing with a kaleidoscope of colors. The hues of a rainbow radiated out from each of them, and as one grew brighter, the other dimmed, and a second later, vice versa.

  "Those the magical scales you were talking about?" Shiv breathed.

  "That they are," Adam said, equally awestruck. "I've seen smaller ones, but displacers of this size must have cost a fortune, and one small mistake could see all that mana cascade into a cataclysmic overload."

  Shiv looked the obelisk up and down once more. At its base, there was another emanation of mana. Pure waves of Dimensionality splashed out from the root, but it was converted to other colors before it could reach the tip.

  At the very bottom, the two crafters snarled and barked at each other like rabid animals. The remains of a broken gauntlet hovered between them, and its isolated shape was rattling once more.

  "They managed to fix my Magebreaker?" Shiv asked.

  "I managed to get it back to an operational state," Can Hu corrected. "They had little experience working with Inertium, though they are more studied of other aspects and sciences."

  The Deathless smirked as he regarded his former armor. "Well, guess you showed them. And speaking of, what do you make of those two?"

  "Merrielmel is manic. He's driven to see the Slipgate made operational, not only to save his sibling, but also to prove this experiment to be a reality. He's often absent-minded about other things and spends his time obsessing over the finest details of this project. As such, he has a tendency to miss the forest because he's trying to make a perfect tree. Concelhaunt, meanwhile, is driven by guilt. His heart is not entirely in the project, though he is far more pragmatic and efficient in terms of material acquisition."

  "And what does that mean, in plain speak?" Adam asked.

  "He is likely the one that constantly strikes deals with the Neath," Can Hu explained. "He stepped out earlier to speak to one of the Dragon Brokers' liaisons. They are also deeply interested in this project, and will likely use this as a means to connect their criminal enterprises across Integrated Earth or potentially go beyond the confines of this realm alone. And that is one reason I called you here.”