When something you’ve been looking forward to finally happens, a kind of unreality inserts itself between you and the experience, giving it a dreamlike quality. Like in an actual dream, it can be difficult to spot when it turns into a nightmare.

  As it turned out, many of the new students were eager to gain their new ability and practice with it before school started. The staff was happy to operate the imbuing machines before the official initiation.

  I was lying in the machine—musing on what power I would get—when the dream turned. The TA operating it shook her head and mumbled, “0%” before directing me to one of the ability imbuing experts that were on call throughout the beginning of the semester.

  The man examined my charts and made excited noises. “I have never seen a shade so perfectly constructed and symbiotic with a hero.”

  “My ability guides its formation,” I mumbled. My jaw struggled to work. I didn’t want his commentary. I wanted him to fix the bug in the machine.

  “Yes, Exemplar, right?” He sat the charts down. “Mari, I have to level with you. Ability imbuement is more of an alchemy than a science. We implant a compatible organ into a hero’s shade and that grants them a new power. We don’t really know how it works, and most abilities—aside from Exemplar—are highly variable after implantation.”

  He tapped my medical scans.

  “Your shade is too perfectly optimized for the Exemplar ability to be compatible with any other known ability. Simply, there is no room for a new organ. Our models predict that your shade would squeeze it out, harming you and wasting a valuable resource.”

  I stared at my hands. “But I need a new ability…”

  “Hmmm, I wouldn’t discount the benefits of a well constructed shade. The power all heroes share would have been considered legendary in my youth. That being said, I doubt ability imbuement is impossible for you, but we will have to bump this case up to the Savior. When he has the time, I’m sure he’ll find a solution we can’t. Exemplar is one of his many abilities after all. We know it can coexist with other powers.”

  How long would that take? How far would I slip in the rankings as the heroes around me were granted my ability and used it to take their prowess to new heights? How could I tread water and not fall into obscurity? Would the Savior bother with me? I was just one person. A hero like him battled extinction level threats and revolutionized all aspects of society. He didn’t have time for one increasingly insignificant hero.

  “Doctor, if you’re done.” The man in the doorway didn’t look like a university’s headmaster. He wore a brown leather jacket over a white wool dress shirt and brown canvas pants with hiking boots. A gun and a whip hung from his belt. The only sign of his advanced age was his gray hair and beard along with the spectacles that dominated his face.

  The doctor nodded. “Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do for her.”

  “Mari, if you would see me in my office, we need to discuss your future.”

  “Yes, sir.” I followed like I was walking to the gallows. While I had earned my admission here, it was under the assumption I could gain a unique ability. Since that was impossible, a soon-to-be irrelevant has-been didn’t deserve Aspiration.

  The headmaster cringed. “Please don’t call me sir. Rick is fine. Professor Danger, if that is too uncomfortable for you.”

  We walked through the well illuminated white marble halls. Gold lines ran through the stone to both increase its strength and repel monsters. Enchantments pulsed with each of our steps. When I had first arrived, I sighed in relief at finally being in a building that didn’t feel like it was made of paper. The gaudy decor stemmed from a functional need that the university attempted to mute with furnishings and contrast with the black uniforms of its students.

  At his office, Rick carefully unlatched the door and entered with gun drawn. He spotted the tiger prowling on his desk and shot it. “Damn things always find a way in here.” The spirit collapsed on the wound and faded into twinkling motes. The headmaster held the door for me and invited me to take a seat.

  While he was checking the corners of the room and sifting through mementos of his adventures, I attempted to determine the source of his feline spirit infestation. Almost immediately, I spotted the Cat-sìth statue resting on one of his bookshelves. I didn’t say anything. The headmaster of Aspiration would know he had a spirit caller in his office. It must be here so that they don’t attack the students.

  Contented with his search, he sat in his chair and faced me. Behind him, the back wall of the office was almost entirely glass and overlooked the school. When he spoke, it was like the school itself made a declaration. “I want you to take the Crafting track.”

  I blinked. “But, I’ve always been a Vanguard.” It was a stupid thing to say, but I was off-balance from my hopes being dashed.

  “Exactly, and with your ability, you’ve mastered nearly all there is to know about being a Vanguard. If you had gained a new ability in the initiation, we could have taught you how to best integrate it into your fighting style. As it currently stands, that curriculum would be of little benefit for you.”

  “I’m not at my peak yet.”

  He gave me a dry look. “What’s your shade percentage?”

  “33%.” A third of my body had been replaced with metaphysical material, the concept of who I was as opposed to the physical reality. Heroes are not figuratively made of myth. It is quite literal.

  “Top heroes have made do with less, Mari. I know you're used to being faster, stronger, tougher, and more skilled than your peers, but they are going to catch up. The Savior himself is at 60% and pushing past fifty nearly killed him. Yes, the scale is exponential, but realistically, you are looking at doubling your current talents before needing to risk your life to go further. That prowess can’t compare to actual enhancement abilities layered onto middling shades.”

  “But I can’t just give up combat!” I had nothing against Crafters. They were the bedrock of society, and I had dabbled in the profession from time to time. Most of my current gear was handmade to save money. But that didn’t mean I could do it full time.

  “Ha! No, I suppose you can’t. Thankfully, no one is suggesting that. The way I see it, your power is only limited by your equipment. While other heroes will use Exemplar to push their existing talents to new heights, you can forge custom gear for yourself and invent entirely new fighting styles. It’s exactly the kind of Crafter old Absolute is pushing for.”

  While my mind tried to wrap around the concept, I asked, “Why is the president of the Hero Union and the top ranked Commander concerned with the training of Crafters?”

  Rick’s face became grim. “More portal expeditions are failing. The Crafters get assassinated and the base camp falls. She believes the Crafters need to be more combat capable. I feel that the other roles could more easily be taught Crafting.” He grinned. “If you prove to be the archetypical combat Crafter, then all of the other top heroes with Exemplar will be forced through the same training. Full disclosure, it’s a minor political win for me, but that’s not why I’m suggesting it.”

  “Then why are you? Because I’m having trouble seeing it. I’m already slipping in the rankings, if I devote less time to sharpening my prowess, I’ll only slip more.”

  He tapped the desk and nodded in understanding. “Believe me, I want none of my students to have peaked in high school.”

  The ancient colloquialism referring to pre-university education caused my shade to ache. That fear had been driving me out of my skull. I couldn’t stand the thought of being left behind, fading into obscurity, and retiring. My life had only just started. As long as my story was, I should only be through the first chapter.

  “While I would want you to trust my credentials as an educator, your situation required supernatural inspiration. Are you familiar with my ability?”

  “No.” The headmaster of Aspiration wasn’t someone I expected to fight against or with.

  He sighed and stood. “Spend thirty years teaching and they forget about you… My ability is ‘Path of Adventure’. It shows me the route to the greatest risk and reward. This university was designed with it in mind and the curriculum I made produced the Savior. That isn’t to say the Crafting track won’t be fraught with peril for you. I imagine your desire to be the best will push you into increasingly risky behavior until you are either the best hero you can be or dead.”

  A tap on his window displayed a rolling list of names that filled the wall from floor to ceiling.

  “For every Savior that follows my guidance, far more die ignoble deaths. I don’t give good life advice. I give exciting life advice.” He turned to face me, the names of the dead framing him. “So Mari, are you ready for an adventure?”

  Exemplar hadn’t backed down from a challenge before. She wasn’t about to start now.

  I accepted my quest and left to get my uniform fitted. Now that I thought more about it, this was my original plan before ability imbuing was invented. All the headmaster did was remind me of my path and give his blessing to follow it.

  Unlike most of the students, I hadn’t ordered any uniforms ahead of time. While I had trained as a Vanguard, I knew my new ability would decide my curriculum. This plan hadn’t been derailed by my lack of a power increase.

  I stepped into the dusty and disused machine in the requisition office. It whirred to life and began to scan my features to instantiate a uniform directly on my body. The latter days of mankind didn’t have the spare population for tedious labor. Pure Crafters that never fought the monsters wielded immense industrial might and produced perpetual artifacts that automated all drudgery. No one sewed the standard uniform by hand or watched an assembly line construct them. The Crafter who made this machine could be dead, and it would keep producing uniforms for thousands of years.

  This lack of human involvement did mean that the shadow unfurling from a dark crevice wasn’t unexpected. The shrieker expanded its wings and spun the teeth in its conical mouth before swooping toward me. That ear-splitting sound of its teeth grinding together had given the demon its name.

  But that wasn’t what made shriekers so annoying.

  I crouched and caught the creature’s tail before attempting to slam it on the ground. It resisted my attempts by flapping its wings as its soul-sucking aura emboldened it and weakened me. These creatures were one of the many reasons I didn’t believe in a God, and if I ever met him, I would kill him and see if his divine bones could be put to better use. No matter how mighty a hero grew, shriekers were always just as annoying.

  Before it could latch onto my head and scalp me, I grabbed its wing and pulled it taut. The demon writhed in my grasp and inched closer to my face. I dragged it to one of the constructing lasers and delighted as the green beam seared the demonic flesh. The shrieker's low roar of pain was deeply satisfying.

  “How many lackadaisical students have you’ve eaten before the semester starts and casualties are tracked?” I gritted the words out as I dragged the monster through more beams.

  “Student, there is an obstruction in the receptacle. Uniform creation has been delayed by 27.14 seconds.” A soft feminine voice came from the machine, and the demon didn’t answer my question. Thankfully, shriekers were not sapient. I cannot imagine the horror of art and culture produced by such vile creatures, and I was one of the few appreciators of Demogorgon rap metal. Knowing thy enemy is essential to the art of war.

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  Once the demon’s torso integrity passed a certain threshold, its soul-sucking aura weakened until I could rip off its wing and beat it into every hard surface by its tail. The cumulative concussions knocked the shrieker unconscious long enough that I could jab my fingers through its brain.

  By the time it was dead, my uniform had finished constructing. I had opted for an open blazer that exposed my white T-shirt underneath, along with loose slacks that allowed for a full range of motion. The dress flats weren’t as pretty as Reina’s skirt-and-raised-heel ensemble, but with the kind of acrobatics I engaged in, I wasn’t comfortable being so exposed.

  Only a few drops of black ichor from the shrieker marred the white trim. I deposited the corpse in my satchel for later. The teeth sold for a premium on the market and made for an excellent conducting edge. While my Crafting knowledge was a little rusty, a deep mastery of monster anatomy had let me buy my mother a house. Careful monster hunting was an extremely lucrative profession.

  I climbed from the basement and headed toward the library to collect my books for the semester. Around the queue of students were splatters of green and black blood. The lack of red stains indicated that none of the monsters were successful in their hunts.

  When I entered the back of the line, a few of the guys turned and unconsciously examined the perfection that was my body, as was only proper obeisance to the platonic form of beauty before them. I did not only carry myself with skill; I manifested the concept of attractiveness. The stares were a form of worship, and as a hero, I needed to tolerate a certain level of worship.

  Thankfully, my fellow heroes caught themselves and tore their eyes away from me. The line proceeded at a steady clip in dead silence. Our line was two by two so that informal quartets of students could watch all approaching angles for encroaching monsters. Their instincts were good, but no one was checking the line for changelings and mimics. After a quick examination, I determined that we were safe or already dead. Any shifter that could bypass my well trained senses would be a high enough tier to blend all of us.

  No further attacks occurred as I retrieved my books from the librarian. The Introduction to Enchanting textbook was a thick tome dealing in theory and interactions. Along with it, I grabbed primers for Runes of Creation and High Elvish. Runes are simple and powerful. Any dabbler in Crafting learned a few, but truly complex workings were notoriously difficult. High Elvish was the opposite. Simple effects tended to be more complicated in the inverted tongue than esoteric effects. That trend continued until the desired item was sapient, at which point the scripts required exploded in length.

  Vocal and written languages were not something my power helped me with, but I was adroit enough with signing to communicate with a deaf Dragon. Draconic would be the ideal ur-language if anyone but the Savior had mastered it. Us lesser heroes had to content ourselves with moderate goals while we struggled to catch up to our peers.

  And I had a lot of catching up to do. My other two books were Advanced Fabrication and Introduction to Alchemy. The rest of my classes didn’t require textbooks. Of my 15 credit hours, only 6 of them were tier 2. The rest were tier 1. If I had taken the Vanguard track, I could have expected several Heroic tier courses where I worked shoulder to shoulder with the professor to advance the field as a whole, but I had to agree with the headmaster: my gains would have been marginal.

  Most students wouldn’t have dared to read while walking to the dorms, but I didn’t need my eyes to be wary of danger or to plan a course of action. First, I needed to read my textbooks. Only a foolish student waited for the professor to teach them. They were experts in their field first and teachers second. The closer you were to a colleague, the better their help would be. Effort is its own reward.

  Second, I needed to hit the dungeons armed with the knowledge of what materials I needed. Most of my current gear was mundane steel enchanted with basic durability runes. This was sufficient for when I was selling all my spoils to push my family into the next economic tier, but was woefully inadequate for an Aspiration Crafter.

  I was the first to arrive at my team dorm. The rest were probably still busy testing and evaluating their new abilities. That let me peruse our accommodations first. Each team consisted of one person in each classification. Our suite was closer to a house enclosed in the school than a normal apartment. It hung on the curved interior of one of the five major buildings.

  Open stairs led to a second level with three bedrooms and a bathroom that overlooked a carpeted living room that had windows on three walls. Adjoining the living room was the kitchen/dining-area/war-room. Past it nestled the Crafter’s bedroom door next to the pantry. My room wouldn’t have any windows. The entrance to the dorm was left of the kitchen while the Commander’s bedroom and master bath were to the right. Our Commander’s room was more than twice the size of the other rooms as it jutted out from the building to soar in the air. He or she would be expected to treat with other Commanders to form alliances and plan joint actions.

  If a majority of our members survived, then this would be my home for the next four years. Diviners would have already arranged for my luggage to be in my room. They worked separately from everyone else to plan cohesive teams before last minute decisions wrecked a carefully arranged roster.

  I sat my books down and dashed into my room. A diving roll sent me tumbling across the bed in reach of my father’s sword. A flourish of the silver blade scored a deep gash on the green serpent that sprung from a dark corner. I had heard it breathing from outside. My door gently closed on well-oiled hinges as our mortal battle continued.

  The serpent immediately went for another bite. I sidestepped and slashed down with a pulled in strike, which failed to decapitate the serpent, but spared my bed a grievous wound. Neither ichor nor ethereal blood leaked from the creature. Instead, the wounds pulsed with a cloying green energy. A poison elemental!?

  I rolled backward and slipped a gauntlet onto my left arm in time to catch the serpent’s mouth. With a grunt, I pinned the 3-meter-long snake and jabbed my sword down its body. After the eighth strike through it into my wood paneling, the monster released its jaws long enough for me to gain distance and switch my sword hand to shove my right into another gauntlet.

  With equivalent skill, I parried the serpent’s advances as I slipped on more armor. A poison elemental was a foe to be wary of. One nick could spell my doom. After I finished my outfit with a winged helm, I searched for one of my containers.

  Elementals couldn’t be killed or banished—any damage to them was superficial—but they could be captured and acted as excellent sources of power. Unlike most monsters, elementals were not malevolent. They were primal forces that only acted to their nature. This serpent did not hate me or want me dead. It wanted to poison me because that is what it was.

  The serpent and I wrestled for several minutes as my unpacking became a perilous affair. Pinning the creature to my oak wall with a sword thrust created enough of an opening to pour out one of my bags. My room looked like the nest of a slovenly layabout before one of my especially enchanted glass spheres rolled along the floor. Quartz or any other crystal would have needed a fraction of the runes, but my detail work was superb, so I was able to save the money.

  With a longways stroke, I removed the creature's head from its body and dove for the crystal. By the time I rolled to my feet, the serpent’s head was nearly reattached. I drove my sword under its jaw and thrust the crystal into the pulsing wound at the creature’s neck. The sickly energy flowed into the container as the creature writhed. It thrashed its tail into my stomach with enough force to crack the air but not my abs.

  As the life left the creature’s eyes, a deep satisfaction radiated through my chest at having removed another of humanity’s enemies.

  Oddly, the creature’s body did not flow into the crystal. I poked through the desiccated flesh and then raised the smooth sphere of glass to my eye. Aha! I mistook this hue of green for poison. This was in fact a much more rare and dangerous necrotic elemental.

  I shivered. If it had bitten me, my shade would have been subsumed into another necrotic elemental, and my revenant would have slaughtered my team, turning them into revenants. Unlike zombies, we would have acted close to our original selves and expanded exponentially. Outbreaks like these have overrun entire Wards within a day. The only solution is to blast the sector clean after preparing a corpse wagon with thrusters to send the newly possessed bodies deep into the wilderness where Titans only know what happens to them.

  On the bright side, I had a rare reusable power source for crafting and an elemental undead corpse to harvest. I opened my door with a serpent corpse draped about my shoulders and plodded into the kitchen where my team was having a spirited discussion.

  “My name is Casimir, he/him, and none of you better get that wrong.” Given his elfin features that didn’t cause me to question his ancestry, I appreciated the clarification as I dragged the corpse to the sink and started to butcher it. His stature and frame matched the illusionist from the train. Though, the green trim of a Healer was a surprise.

  “Yo, you're that psycho g—guy that chopped off his boobs right after getting a new ability.” The chromatic pyro from the train cackled. “That shit was wild. There was so much blood. I thought you were going to die.”

  Casimir shrugged. “I gained an ability that let me sap vitality from my creatures. There was no point in waiting.”

  I ripped out the serpent’s heart and inspected its usability. “Your creatures are semi-real illusions, right?”

  Casimir turned his brown eyes on me and nodded. His buzzed red hair was as bright as his passion. “Most people don’t catch that. How did you spot them?”

  I tapped my nose, splotching it with mysterious undead gunk. “They did not smell right.”

  He guffawed. “Well shit. I guess I need to plan a trip to the menagerie and ask if I can sniff the exhibits.”

  “No, their sanitation procedures ruin the scent profile. Your best bet is to find your target in the field and engage them in melee until you’ve memorized the odor.”

  “Bah, with my new ability, I might as well drop the mimicry aspect and focus more on pack tactics.”

  Riena coughed. She curiously wore the gold trim of a Commander. “Casimir, thank you for telling us about yourself. Maybe we should all explain what new abilities we gained. I’ll go first. My new ability lets me link together my team’s empathetic connections and bolster teamwork. With your permission, I would like to use it on all of you since that’s my only qualification as a Commander. I have no other training or experience in this role. My actual skills lie in drones and firearms.”

  My mind boggled at how fucking useful that would be. I would have given my left arm to share a fraction of my impulses with my compatriots. Riena had struck pure gold in the power lottery. She wouldn’t need to learn a single tactic to be one of the most effective Commanders in history. Casimir seemed to think so too. “Damn princess, yeah use that power. Don’t worry about command. That was my classification before switching to healing. Fostering unit cohesion is the hard part.”

  We all consented to being subject to Riena’s ability. She blinked and suddenly the other four people took up more of my attention, and I could read their body language and moods far easier. She looked around the room. “Did it work on your end?”

  Everyone confirmed it worked.

  “Well, this is my ability, and I’ve already introduced myself to all of you. So, who’s next?”

  “Pfff,” Casimir volunteered. “Since I said most of it, I’ll go. I can make semi-real creatures and gained the ability to redirect vitality. This extends to my illusions, meaning their attacks steal life and let me heal the rest of you. That’s it for me.” Ah good, a healer with an offense focus, experience in battlefield control, and a potent healing ability.

  Our Vanguard shrugged and assumed it was her turn. “My name is Nyla, and I can sheathe my body in a wide variety of esoteric energies, including fire. I got some weird bomb making ability. Oh well, at least I can make them with the stuff from my original power.” Nyla seemed unimpressed with her vastly expanded blasting options. She twisted a finger in her ear and flicked away the wax. The act didn’t fool me. She wanted us to think she was the stereotypical muscle-headed Vanguard. What I didn’t know was the purpose of the deception.

  I looked closer and examined her athletic figure, pointed features, and the microlocs that hung past her ears. She winked an obsidian eye at me, and I got the sense that I shouldn't pry into this mystery.

  The other boy from the train was half a meter taller than everyone else. “Uhhh,” He rubbed the back of his head. “I’m Derek Bane. Yes, that Bane. I can conjure energy barriers and gained the ability to make turrets from hardlight.” A deep fury simmered beneath his words as he explained the turrets. “That’s it. So, what about you, Exemplar? What talent did you gain to pair with one of the Savior’s illustrious permanent powers?”

  I sighed and dropped my tools. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It didn’t work, and I have to wait for the Savior’s personal attention if I want any hope of a secondary power.”

  Derek blanched, “Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to mock you. I just get sick of hearing about him so much. Um, what does your power do?”

  “Well first, my name is Mari, but Exemplar is fine. The Exemplar ability lets me learn skills and techniques at a vastly accelerated rate. The more physical it is, the faster I learn it. The ability also refines my physique, which greatly enhances my shade growth, provides nearly limitless stamina, and acts as a very slow form of regeneration. I can recover from any crippling injury with enough rest.”

  “Ohhh,” Casimir’s eyes widened. “So that’s why all the bigwigs want it. Sounds like a way to turn any moderately successful hero into an experienced veteran. No wonder the Savior was able to master so many abilities… But hey, how well does all of that work by itself?”

  I laughed dryly, tinged with a bit of hysteria. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out!” As a relic from the previous age of monopowered heroes, I had to muddle my way forward. My team flinched back a step as a small fraction of my pain went over Riena’s bond. I composed myself and turned back to the corpse. “Good talk, everyone.”

  While the others peeled away to unpack, Riena pulled up a chair and watched me intently. I couldn’t tell if I should feel like a specimen on display, comforted, or both.

  I decided to be comforted and continued working.