The weekend came and went in a frenzy of activity.

  Nar’s [Constitution] and [Stamina], as well as his newly unlocked [Vigor], kept him going through the insane pace the Blades apprentices were put through in those two days and nights.

  He was also extremely thankful for the recovery effects of cycling his aura, and got into the habit of cycling it whenever he could in between exercises, during their short breaks.

  No one had reprimanded him for it, and so he had to assume that he was allowed to do it. In fact, he decided to try and push it one step further, and tried to cycle during the actual exercises… Which didn’t exactly work.

  It was easy enough to cycle in the confines of an aura pod, quietly focusing on the flow of aura across his body. It was another matter entirely to do it with several people constantly yelling in his face, urging him to go faster, harder and stronger, while gasping for breath and trying to keep the contents of his stomach from bursting out.

  Still, he kept trying, pushing to make it work, bit by bit. He would face combat soon enough, and when he did, he would need his aura under his command.

  And so, by the time they all collapsed, exhausted and drained, in the comfort of their beds, lulled to sleep by the hum of the ship that Seventh night, everyone in the party who was meant to, had unlocked [Vigor], getting at least one point in that new attribute.

  Tuk had managed a solitary point in [Vigor], Gad and Jul two, and Nar and Mul having gained a third, had thought themselves the winners, until Viy arrived later that night, absolutely bruised and battered from whatever insanity had gone on in the Polearms Hall, and had taken the prize with an impressive 5 points of [Vigor].

  When Nar arrived at the Blades Hall the next day, still sore and bruised despite his aura cycling, to begin a second week of what he expected to be another ravaging, merciless continuation of their conditioning, he was instead startled as he was welcomed and greeted by a much more relaxed cohort of instructors.

  For a moment, Nar wondered if he had wandered into the wrong hall, and looked up in search of the glowing red blade in the ceiling to make sure he was in the right place.

  The apprentices were taken through a much more relaxed, even if still intense training that week, one which was instead focused on increasing their flexibility and body motion capabilities, and which was divided between excruciating stretching and some over the top obstacle courses.

  Nar still ended every day sore and tired and bruised, if not bleeding from having fallen from ropes, bars and handles, or not having reacted fast enough and gotten a rotating pole to the face. Still, the sight of the handful of apprentices still being shouted at in one corner of the hall, as they struggled to unlock their [Vigor], ensured that Nar never complained about whatever injuries and embarrassing failings he accumulated. And by the Crystal, did he accumulate them.

  Through the entirety of their second week in the Blades Hall, the Master of Blades never approached Nar, or even acknowledged him in any way. Nar would often find himself stealing discreet glances at the master, but never once did he even catch the man looking his way.

  It was a little disheartening, and opened his mind to doubts about the importance of having received a message from the master in the first place. However, he resolved to just throw his all into the classes and hope against hope that through his hard work he would catch the master’s attention. He put his head down and just focused on eking out every single drop of effort he could from himself, all the while slowly, but surely, getting the hang of cycling his aura alongside his exercises.

  Across his party, the new pace was a welcome change also for Gad, Viy, Jul and Mul, who each also had their intense workouts changed into something else.

  Viy’s training was pretty much the same as Nar’s, their masters seemingly intent on increasing their mobility and flexibility.

  Jul’s one was somewhat similar, but it included one major difference. Her sessions often involved some pretty complex, and painful, games of tag and hide and seek. Nar came to know that the entire Shadows Hall had the ability to transform into a maze of corridors, tunnels, nooks and crannies through which the rogue apprentices began to hone their stealthier ways. Unfortunately, this was further cause of distress for Jul, who more and more looked certain to not want to make her path one of a rogue’s.

  As for Mul, under the instruction of the dual Master of Emotions and Hand Combat, they had begun a series of complex trials, tests and exercises, that evaluated their competencies, their habits, their likes and dislikes, their bodies, the way they moved, and even the way they thought and reacted to a broad range of stimulus. Pretty much anything that would help decide what style of hand-to-hand combat was going to be appropriate for them was analyzed and taken note off. Throughout that week, their brawler accumulated the most bruises out of all of them, and was in a state of constant poor humor in regards to the amount of time he spent on footing and positioning exercises, and guards and blocks and how badly he seemed to be doing across all of it.

  “I just want to punch stuff… Why does everything have to be so complicated?” he would often grumble to himself. Unfortunately, he received no pity from the others. If anything, Nar was jealous that Mul was already beginning his proper combat training, while he was still stuck with conditioning exercises.

  As for Gad, their training changed into one that targeted their sturdiness, willpower and [Toughness]. A tank held the center of control for almost every battle and situation, and if they fell, so did the entire party. Thus, through heat and cold, pain and deprivation, the Master of Tanks wanted his apprentices to be tough, unyielding and stalwart. And Nar had to give it to Gad. Sometimes she was commanded to go to bed hungry, and instead of avoiding the canteen all together, she would still come and sit beside them as they stuffed themselves silly, her stomach growling loudly and pitifully.

  As with Mul, some part of Nar envied Gad. He could only hold on to hope that one day he would be allowed to join her in the Tanks Hall. While his DPS side of things seemed to have become more prominent, he was still firm in his decision to remain a hybrid class, and wanted to develop his tanking side as well, even if in his own special, non-tanky way.

  And that left the other three-party members, the non-melee.

  From First onwards, Nar hardly ever saw Tuk. The ring tosser got up before he did, and went to sleep earlier than him, preferring to be an early apprentice rather than a late one, as Nar had found himself gravitating towards.

  Whenever he saw the trugger, at meals or briefly in their party room, Tuk held a focused, if miserable, look to him. His hands and arms got more and more bandaged as the days went by, and Nar took that to mean that his re-learning of ring tossing was not going as smoothly as they had all hoped for it to be. Still, Tuk endured, and Nar never heard a single complaint out of his mouth.

  In regards to their party leader, Kur had gone and accumulated as many elective classes as he could, alongside his lessons under the master and instructors of Leadership. He and Gad had spent two long nights over their first weekend aboard, well into the AMs, deciding which classes would better benefit the party. In the end, they had chosen an array of lectures that ranged from Social Structures of the Nexus, to the Hierarchy of the Church and the Radiants, the Offices of the Nexus, and other such topics including finances of parties and delving, the economics of resources and materials, supply lines, two or three that focused on the Labyrinth, and so many, many other topics. Kur vowed that while he couldn’t help very much with the fighting, due to him having the lowest attribute density by far in the party and his path not giving him any combat capabilities whatsoever, he would at least fill up on knowledge about the Nexus and the Labyrinth to make up for it. They all contested his words, but he was adamant on his course of action, and now spent most of his time ensconced in a small study room somewhere on the ship, bent over his touch-screen and absorbing everything he could about their new reality.

  He had also volunteered to be one of the gatherers/harvesters of the party, and aimed to advance those skills and knowledge as well. And in the end, it was Jul and Mul that also volunteered to do it alongside their party leader.

  When Nar had told the party about the message he’d received from the Master of Blades, they had been unanimous that Nar should do as he was being told, and Jul had volunteered instead to fill up the third spot.

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  “I want to be braver,” she had said. “And useful. And I want to do this.”

  And with that, Nar had respected their and Jul’s decision.

  Lastly, Cen spent almost her entire time either practicing aura or studying about it. Her classes were still led by the Teacher of Mastery, with occasional visits and chats with the Master of Aura, and she waited with growing anxiety to learn what she would be doing come the end of the Intro Weeks.

  She expected to at least learn from the Teacher of Offense, and hopefully, some supporting from the Teacher of Support and Debuff as well, but above all, just like Nar, she craved to learn directly from the Master of Aura, even as, and to Nar’s surprise, she seemed to both respect and admire the woman as well as fear and flinch away from her in equal measure.

  When questioned, she only said that the master was stern with her, and both demanded and expected much from her.

  To Nar, that image did not fit in at all with the conversations that he had with the Master of Aura.

  Informal and laid back. Even playful. That’s how the master had always appeared to him. Stern, when needed, of course, but the Master of Aura was a far cry from the Master of Blades and his instructors. Now they were worthy of flinching away from…

  Speaking of their Master of Aura, Nar didn’t see her again after that second time. Unfortunately, this also coincided with him failing to progress any further in his aura cycling. He still used it to help his body recover every night, and he was making steady, if slow progress in his movement cycling during his Blades training, but he hadn’t managed to make any progress or gain any insight considering that deeper look the Master of Aura had told him to take at his aura.

  Sometimes, at the edge of exhaustion and falling asleep, he would sometimes imagine that he could see something, or somethings, within his aura. But it was like catching movement or a reflection at the edge of his eyes, and when he looked again, there was nothing there. No matter how much he consciously tried to recreate those occurrences, it never happened.

  More than once, he thought about asking Cen for help. The Master of Aura had mentioned that the aura classes were more advanced than the other apprentices’, and that Cen was one of its most promising apprentices.

  However, something always held him back. He wanted to figure it out by himself, and something within told him that he needed to do it without help. It was his aura after all, he needed to be the one to unlock its secrets and potential.

  Yet, the week vanished by, and he failed and continued to fail.

  By the time Fifth day rolled in once more, Nar was forced to dig deep and consider whether or not he was just being stubborn about it.

  It felt important for him to learn and discover whatever it was he was looking for by himself, but at the same time, he worried about what penalties his lack of success might incur, not only from the Master of Aura, but perhaps even hurting his chances at studying with the Master of Blades as well. After all, the man himself had said that their auras were the foundations upon which their paths were built.

  And so, Nar was forced to relent, and later that day, at lunch time, when he caught Cen in the canteen, he made straight for her, ignoring the food.

  “Cen!” he said, sitting beside her.

  In the midst of some form of deep conversation with Gad and Jul, Cen didn’t notice his approach, and let out a startled yelp, dropping her spoon.

  “N-Nar!” she gasped. “My Crystal…”

  “Sorry!” Nar said, hanging his head. “I just…”

  Across from him, Jul also looked startled, and refused to make eye contact with him. At her side, Gad fixed him with a stern stare.

  Oh, no… I interrupted something!

  He scrambled to his feet, and babbled apologies.

  “Wait!” Jul shouted. “Just ask her!”

  “Ask me what?” Cen asked.

  Instead of replying, Nar stared at Jul in confusion. “How do you know?”

  “I-I can sense it,” she whispered, looking down at her still untouched plate. “You’re worried about your aura practice. It’s not going well… And you’re afraid you won’t get to train with the Master of Blades himself if you don’t get it to work.”

  Nar’s mouth hung ajar, and he looked from Jul to Cen, who looked just as startled, and then to Gad, who simply raised her scaly eyebrows at him, as if encouraging him to say something now that he had provoked the situation.

  Slowly, he sat himself back down.

  “You’re right. I am scared of that,” he said, enunciating every word carefully. “Is that… From your affinity?”

  Jul startled at his words, but after a moment's hesitation, she nodded.

  “Is that how you always knew?” he asked her, his tone almost becoming a whisper.

  About everything that went on in my head while we Climbed, he thought, not wanting to speak of it out loud in front of Gad and Cen.

  “I-I don’t know…” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know anything.”

  Nar crossed his arms over his chest and considered the quam.

  “The Master of Shadows has some pretty set ideas of what she wants to do with her,” Gad spoke, and after checking in with Jul, and receiving a slight nod from her, the tank continued. “She believes Jul has the potential to become a very rare, very feared and special type of rogue.”

  “The Breath of All Encompassing Dread,” Jul whispered.

  The name elicited a shiver from Nar.

  “It’s a path that focuses on paralyzing your enemies with fear from afar, or from hiding, and then sneaking up to them to finish them with a single strike. Or letting your party do it…” Cen explained.

  “I see…” Nar said.

  The cogs in his brain spun furiously, but what could he say to that?

  “I don’t want that,” Jul said, and lifted her eyes to Nar, pleading.

  “Then you don’t have to do it,” Nar said, the words coming to him immediately, as he stared at the fear, worry and begging in her eyes. “Everyone always says that they aren’t here to force any path on us! Even K told me that! They don’t follow path guides, they follow what we want and work with it.”

  “The master is very insistent…” Jul said.

  “Is there anything we can do?” Cen asked, directing the question to Gad.

  “I don’t know,” the tank answered truthfully. “But this goes against everything our own master has told us… Something is not right here.”

  Nar reached over and placed a hand over one of Jul’s wrists.

  She startled, but she didn’t flinch away. Instead, her eyes searched his for any sign of hope. Of help. Of knowing that he would be there for her, and that he had her back.

  And he did.

  “Listen. I’ll go and talk with your master myself if I have to,” Nar said. “If that doesn’t do anything, I’ll go talk to the Master of Blades and Aura. And if that doesn’t do anything, I’ll find the captain and talk to her instead. And if that still doesn’t do anything, we’ll leave this damned ship. You hear me? You will build your own path, and no one else’s!”

  Jul sniffled and rubbed at her eyes. “You promise?”

  “I do,” Nar said, gently squeezing her wrist. “I’m your big bro. I’ve got your back.”

  That got a snort out of her.

  “I’m the oldest!”

  “Well… I’m the more mature one.”

  Jul chuckled and wiped away at her eyes, and Nar withdrew his hand.

  “Thanks,” she said, looking from Nar to the other two. “I’ll try and talk with the master again, and see what happens… For now, you should go back to your practices. Oh, and Nar, you should still ask your question before you leave.”

  “Oh…” Nar said, leaning back. “I had forgotten…”

  Jul smiled. “I know. Your fear’s gone.”

  “Uh…”

  “What question’s that?” Cen asked, turning to him.

  Nar took a deep breath, suddenly feeling his cheeks warming up.

  “Well… I’m having some trouble with my aura practice,” Nar said, hesitating. “It was easy at first, with all those years in the machine and all… But then the Master of Aura told me to try something else, to look for something deeper in the aura. But no matter how hard I look at it, I can’t find anything.”

  “You don’t see anything at all?” Cen asked him, frowning. “If it's you, I’d expect you to be able to.”

  “I… Really? I mean… Sometimes I feel like I can see something. Somethings,” he corrected himself. “They’re in my hands, my arms, my legs… But it's always when I’m tired and not really looking. I… I don’t even know if I’m just imagining things or not at this point. I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I thought that this was something I needed to figure out by myself, but the Master of Aura gave me a deadline, and the week is almost over…”

  “And you’re worried you will get punished,” Gad said. “For not making progress.”

  “Yes,” Nar said, hanging his head. “Or hurt my chances at getting the attention of the Master of Blades…”

  “Pretty sure you’ve got his attention already,” Gad said. “None of us has gotten messages from any masters. Well, except Jul.”

  Nar sighed. “I don’t know… I just don’t want to risk screwing this up. The man is… I just know I need to learn from him.”

  Cen pursed her lips and considered him for a few moments.

  “You’re right in that it's something you need to figure out by yourself,” the caster said, and Nar felt his hopes vanish, as shameful as it had felt for him to feel that she was going to just give him the answer he needed. “But… I think I can at least point you in the right direction.”

  Nar perked up and Cen laughed at the brightness that beamed out from him.

  “Do we need to cover our ears for this?” Gad asked, hands half raised. “I don’t want to skew my path…”

  “No, it’s okay,” Cen said, shaking her head. “This is something that we all need to learn in order to improve our aura control and passive skills, and the faster you do it, the better… I think. But I’m only giving you a hint! You really do need to figure this stuff out by yourself!”

  “Got it!” Nar said, nodding effusively. “And thank you!”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Cen said. “It might not work. Anyways, instead of looking at your body, start by looking at your aura instead. The ball of light I mean, and try to look for it leaving the ball of light and… Going somewhere else.”

  Nar frowned, considering her words. “You mean, like when we found out that we were breaking our aura into pieces?”

  “Yes!” Cen shouted, excited by Nar’s insight despite herself. “Start there and… Oh, shit! Did I say too much?”

  Nar quickly shook his head.

  “No! You didn’t!” Nar rushed to assure her. “I still have no idea what that really means. But it gives me a new place to look. Thanks Cen! Honestly, thank you so much!”

  She smiled. “Don’t worry. It’s just what we always did in the Climb. And don’t forget that you were the one who figured out the way to unlock our auramancer classes in the first place.”

  “Only because you were there to guide me,” Nar said, shaking his head at the memory.

  From hating my aura to being desperate to grow and understand it… Life’s crazy.

  “Anyways, I got to go,” Nar said, standing up. “Thanks again, Cen. And Jul, if you're…”

  “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” Jul snapped at him. “Go grab some food! Or the Master of Aura will reprimand you again!”

  “Oh…” Nar said, grinding to a halt under her commanding tone. “Er… Yeah. I’ll do that. Be right back.”