The days at The Scar stretched on in a single gray blur, sliced into portions by the iron cleaver of the schedule. But Ortahn's entire timeline was devoid of even a shade of boredom; that would have required some level of engagement.

  Morning: waking to an icy rain spell that fell upon his bed. Then, a drying spell and the tasteless nutrient paste on his table, devoid of smell and flavor (which was for the best).

  Day: the iron blockheads would lead him to a lecture, then to practice, then to another lecture.

  Evening: return to the room, a dinner no different from breakfast, lying on the bed and watching the light-line on the ceiling until all thoughts dissolved in his head. Sometimes the line would form patterns that seemed to Ortahn like... something. Just something.

  Night: darkness and silence in the corridors, interrupted only by the measured steps of the school's homunculi. There weren't even any tears.

  All the corridors of The Scar were narrow and blind, without windows. Despite the time he'd spent here, Ortahn, even in his right mind, wouldn't have been able to find his way back to his own cell in these iron hallways. He suspected the school's labyrinthine nature served as an additional security measure in case one of the men lost control.

  But he did see the sky—when he was led through the inner courtyard that everyone called "The Pit." This courtyard was a crossroads of many passages, rising upward like a square well, covered by a magical transparent ceiling. This membrane, though it sometimes shimmered with a rainbow iridescence, distorted the sky, making it pale and distant. When it rained, murky drops would settle on it, forming puddles. Watching them consume each other or form alliances was the second most popular pastime in the school. The lack of windows made The Scar feel like a crypt, and only The Pit allowed one to look up out of it. Hence, "The Pit."

  Practice took place in large hangars whose walls covered with spell-shells, preventing the magical emissions from breaking through. Here, the students were "taught male magic": lifting stone blocks, crushing rocks in their fists, blowing dust off the floor with willpower. How these actions were supposed to help in the application of magic, Ortahn didn't know, and he excelled at none of them. He simply performed the tasks like a homunculus, without understanding or effort, while others writhed with exertion. Although he'd heard of special punishment rooms, he was never sent to one. It seemed Tulila had given up on him, since he had given up on himself. As long as he didn't bother the others, it was acceptable.

  Sometimes the pointless practice was replaced by something useful, like cleaning and repairing artifacts. Useful in theory. For it to be useful, things should have become cleaner after the cleaning, and the artifacts should have started working again.

  Yaron, in his Yaron-like manner, tried to tell Ortahn about the mythical lower levels. He failed to be mysterious and scary, though he tried, but he was, after all, Yaron. Against his will, Ortahn learned that those who had gone mad from experiments (which were supposedly conducted within The Scar's walls) were supposedly kept below, and that he himself would soon end up there. Ortahn doubted it. To him, the system's victims were in plain sight—right in his classroom.

  A gray-haired, middle-aged man, Gartan, was always silent. But one day, Ortahn saw him yawn. Inside his mouth was only blackness, no tongue, no teeth. He was probably the only one, besides Ortahn, who didn't complain about the school food. The old man caught his gaze and slowly closed his jaws.

  During one training session, Karbo, that very one "real kinetic," took a metal spear to the chest. Torb, a metal-mage, had lost control of a spell, and it had shot out with almost feminine speed, finding its victim. Karbo only swayed slightly and said, in a tone as if he'd tripped on a step, "Oh, dear." Tulila immediately rushed over, tore out the spear, and her hands covered the wound, flooding it with healing light.

  "Lucky it was you, Karbo. Can't stand male shrieks. No nerves, no problem, right?"

  Another man with an empty gaze followed Faya everywhere. She was constantly bustling about nearby, forcing him to trail in her wake. The unblessed cleaned the rooms and managed the storeroom (and, judging by her behavior, she also considered it her job to supervise the class during lectures. But no one had informed Tulila of this, and she invariably deprived the southerner of the opportunity to perform her duty), and this man was her silent porter. She called him Taut, a Zazaran word, though he was a northerner. It was most likely her personal nickname for him. The others didn't call him anything at all, simply not noticing him.

  And there was another one. Ortahn. He watched everything without emotion, his apathy like that membrane over The Pit—transparent, but impermeable. He didn't answer questions, didn't participate in others' lives, showed no will of his own, only followed everything with indifference. One of them. Broken.

  There were other classes in the school, but they rarely crossed paths. Once, Ortahn saw a group of teenagers marching in formation, their gazes as empty as Taut's. Dead inside. It was unlikely they were gathered that way. It was easier to assume they were gathered and then had their souls killed. They were led by a witch in a very old-fashioned uniform with short black hair combed back. The current fashion was for long stripes and narrow collars buttoned tightly to the chin, but she had a deep neckline, popular many generations ago. Yet, upon seeing her, the men avoided looking at her. They weren't interested in the neckline or its contents. They simply wished with their entire being that this witch would disappear from view as quickly as possible, hastening the moment by the position of their heads.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Also orbiting Ortahn's bland microcosm was Yaron. An annoying asteroid, despite all his attempts to become the center of gravity for at least someone. Yaron wasn't a leader; he lacked the intelligence and charisma. He was a jester, a lightning rod for the general suppressed malice. His dull-witted aggression, his readiness to be the first to do something stupid and get a beating from Tulila for it, was the primary source of entertainment in this dreary tomb. Ortahn saw in Yaron only a pathetic, bustling creature.

  His two "acolytes"—Vitl and Samar, identical skinny guys with plain faces—despised him themselves but followed him out of boredom, to avoid becoming targets, or at least to create the illusion of belonging to a group. Inside, they were no better, just smarter and more cautious.

  Listening to Yaron would have been funny if Ortahn still remembered how to laugh. The stupid enhancer spouted ridiculous boasts, mixing up words and concepts as if he had enlarged his brain on the same principle as his muscles, but not his skull.

  "I'm the top enhancer here! I can punch through three walls... Well, two... But definitely dustier than anyone, the wall chunks will fly everywhere!" he would yell. Once, he "enhanced" a chair to sit more impressively, and it collapsed under him. Tulila hit him for that with every one of her hands.

  One day, all the school's homunculi broke down at once, and Ortahn was left to his own. A terrible situation. He wandered into The Pit, where The Scar's number one amusement and his entourage were entertaining themselves with the number two. Samar nudged Yaron in the ribs with his elbow, pointing at the lost "broken one." Yaron, incited by boredom and the quiet approval of his "friends," decided that words were no longer enough. He approached Ortahn from behind and gave him a hard shove between the shoulder blades.

  "Wake up, walking meat!" Yaron roared, deciding it was the right moment to awaken his fat-walker comrade. But he didn't wake up. "Wake up, you wardrobe! Are you sleeping on your feet like a dead homunculus? And it's a magnified day today, look! Come on, wake up, I'm telling ya, or I'll help ya wake up! Heh. I'll give you a wake-uping!"

  Vitl snickered, Samar rolled his eyes, and Ortahn didn't react, only taking a step to keep his balance and freezing again without turning around. His apathy was the strongest armor. But Yaron, goaded by the silent challenge, came around to the front.

  The punch was short and hard, knuckles to the cheekbone. Pain, sharp and bright as a flash, pierced Ortahn's thick. But Yaron was punching the deep water of his mind, never reaching the bottom.

  "Well, you awake now?" Yaron asked, swinging again.

  The beating began.

  Ortahn instinctively raised his arms, but he had no motivation at all. Yaron, however, and Samar and Vitl who joined him (seeing that the victim wasn't fighting back), had motivation enough to bathe in—for a few moments, they could forget their own pain and helplessness. They hit to feel the impact, to convince themselves they could affect something, anything. The subsequent blows rained down: on his arms, his shoulders, his ribs, his kidneys. It wasn't a furious assault, but rather a methodical, dull hammering, like a mallet on an unyielding piece of metal. At least the practical lessons were good for something.

  Vitl tried to hit from behind, hiding behind Yaron's back. Samar kicked Ortahn in the side, and another blow made him stumble and begin to fall. He collapsed to his knees, then onto his side, curling into a ball on the cold bottom of The Pit. He didn't scream, only wheezed, exhaling air with each impact. His world narrowed to the pain and his own ragged breath.

  Just as Ortahn fell, and a boot lazily (as if afraid of getting dirty) sank into his stomach—luckily, only Samar's for now—Tulila's voice rang out:

  "That's enough, girls. Playtime's over."

  The blows stopped as sharply as they had started. Ortahn turned his head toward the sound, struggling to focus his blurry vision. Tulila was leaning against the wall, her front arms crossed over her chest, her legs crossed too. She had been watching the whole thing for a while; it was clear from her relaxed posture. The "girls" froze, and Tulila pushed off the wall and lazily headed toward the scene.

  "Teleport out of here," she tossed out indifferently, and Yaron, Vitl, and Samar practically did just that, disappearing into the nearest passage as fast as men could move. Ortahn remained lying on the ground, looking at the teacher through the haze that clouded his eyes.

  She crouched in front of him, in a masculine way. Her hands, both the living one and the magical ones, rested on his most painful spots, and a cool, pain-relieving radiance spread through his body.

  "Ortahn, you had... alright, I won't call it a conflict or a confrontation, since you're pretty much a solid lump right now. You had an incident with an Overlordess. Not many living beings can boast about that. Hmm. Let me rephrase: about showing some signs of life afterward."

  "SHE KILLED HER!" The scream tore out from his very core, ragged, full of such primal male fury that Ortahn himself was frightened by it. He pushed himself up on his hands, shoving her limbs away. Tulila herself flinched back slightly, but for the first time, something like approval flickered on her face.

  "Well, well. So there is something in you besides the look of a fish washed ashore. That's good," she praised Ortahn for the flash of anger, as if he had finally transferred the correct answers from his head to the paper. Tulila stopped healing him and rose to her full, impressive height. "You're healed. Come on, I'll take you to your cell."

  Apathy receded, revealing a dark, scorched-to-ash bottom. He felt a warm liquid trickle down his cheek.

  "I'm dead..." Ortahn rasped, sinking back to the friendly ground.

  "Ortahn, you're past such a dramatic age," Tulila said, studying him like a problem that required an inventive solution. "What should I say? I don't want to say something obvious and banal, like 'don't bury yourself before your time' or 'keep living and everything will work out.' Ugh."

  "Live."

  "What?" Ortahn pushed himself up on his hands again, shaking his head. Viya's voice was in his skull, clearer than ever.

  "Live..." Tulila repeated, now wary, almost surprised, watching the change in him. Her artificial eye shifted to a golden hue.

  "Live."

  Ortahn got to his feet. He wiped some liquid from his face with the back of his hand and looked directly at Tulila.

  "Let's go, Tulila," he said.