“Good morning, apprentice!” the Master of Shadows beamed at her, as Jul entered the master’s private training room. “Do you feel well rested? Fully healed?”

  Jul smiled at the Master of Shadows. Her chaotic hair gave her a constant look of having just gotten out of bed, or not having gone into it in the first place. Her permanently stained clothing spoke of all of her late night sessions spent concocting mixtures as well as to her utter disregard to what others thought of her appearance. Or perhaps, as a rogue, that was all just a front…

  “Morning, master,” Jul said, with a curt bow. “And yes, and yes. I’m ready to train.”

  “Now that’s the spirit!” the woman said.

  As Jul approached her, it was impossible to not still feel a little bit of surprise and awe at how much their situation and relationship had changed. Jul had gone from dreading the master to now craving more and more time training together, as the Master of Shadows had decided to agree with her decision of pursuing a frontline combat role, and true to her word, she had neither tried to convince Jul otherwise or had delivered any subpar training.

  At least not that I’m aware… Jul thought, quickly pushing the thought away, as her master had an uncanny way of reading people through the smallest twitches in their body language and face.

  “So, we’ve got gains!” the master said, and several windows popped up in the air in front of her.

  Jul nodded with a smile and leaned in to read them, and first, the master looked into her gains notification from the den. Jul doubted that was the first time her overly excited master had read the notification, but still, she humored her.

  “Quite the gains, my apprentice! And that [Intuition] is very nice to see! It’s another excellent addition to your overall sense attributes, and if we continue as we are, one day, you will be immune to surprises, mark my words!”

  “Yes, master!” Jul nodded, her smile turning into a pleased grin.

  “We do need to do something about that [Strength] though…” the master said, grimacing. “Maybe we need to increase your weight regime.”

  Jul made a face at the thought of the wrist-ankle bands.

  “You need to,” her master said, playfully combing through her green hair. “Or else, we’ll never manage to achieve the path that we’re trying to build.”

  Jul nodded bashfully. The Master of Shadows had a disarming way of being incredibly heavy on the corporal proximity. It had been startling at first, but Jul had come to not dislike it. It was… Well, how she thought normal mothers interacted with their children, and the Master of Shadows had proven herself surprisingly warm, despite the chilling knowledge she imparted. Sometimes brutally.

  Unaware of, or ignoring Jul’s thoughts, the master glanced back at the window.

  “As for the rest of your attributes, you seem to be making good progress in recovering from the first half of your Climb,” she said, grinning at Jul. “Good thing you put away your “scout” class when you did.”

  The quam squirmed under her stare, playing with her hands. “Yes, master…” she mumbled, and there really wasn’t anything she could say to that, and still smiling, the master considered her status next.

  “Not bad…” the master said, rubbing her chin. “I mean, it’s not great, you should’ve gained an attribute modifier in at least one of your Body attributes by now, but… It could be worse.”

  “Yes, master,” Jul said, bowing her head. “I’ll work harder.”

  “That you will,” her master said. “Sense attributes are fantastic to have, but we don’t want to lose the rest of remaining attribute modifiers to them! As it stands, we might just manage to squeeze that third, 0.6 modifier into [Aura], which is crucial to power all of your debuffing, but as for the last two modifiers, it would be best to see them go into [Speed], [Agility] or [Dexterity]. It won’t matter how good you are at sensing things if you can’t move fast enough to do something about them, hmm? But then, there's this! What is this?”

  She scowled and ground her knuckles against the top of Jul’s head.

  “Ow! Ow! Ow!” Jul cried, dodging away. “Why?”

  “Your [Ego] is too damn low!” the master said.

  “I didn’t even know about it!” Jul cried.

  “But now you know, and you will work hard on it!” the Master of Shadows told her, her stare hard and unyielding. “No apprentice of mine is weak to mental or psychic attacks! Our minds are like ditanium! Strong and…”

  “Unbendable and certain!” Jul shouted, rubbing the top of her head. “I’ll work on it, master! I swear!”

  The master sighed and relented. “I know you will, Jul. I just want you to really work hard at it. You are strong and you are brave, and I want you to know that. To understand that, do you hear me? And I won’t let you out of my sight until this [Ego] is at least at 40!”

  “40?” Jul shouted. “That’s too high!”

  “That’s the bare minimum! Now get back here! Let’s look at your skills.”

  “Yes, master,” Jul mumbled, her face low.

  “Well, damn…” the master whispered. “I expected something good from your true fear affinity, but this is much better than good…”

  Jul gulped. “That passive is a bit scary…”

  “Yeah… For your enemies!” the master said, squeezing Jul’s shoulder. “This thing is great! Of course, right now, you’re not very scary, and most enemies will easily resist your [Insidious Fear]. But it will still trigger often enough, and even if the debuff is only at 1%, it will stack! And your fear affinity is not done with changing your path yet. Oh no! It’s far from done!”

  Jul frowned at her skill list. “So… More fear skills?”

  “A lot more,” the master said, nodding. “Your class itself hasn’t changed yet, nor your role to reflect either Debuff/DPS, or DPS/Debuff, though my bets are on the first one… But yes, this is just a taste of what’s to come. Most of your current skills will be replaced with affinity related ones, and [Stealth] will be gone soon, I wager, as you refuse to use it…”

  Jul looked down, dejected.

  “Hey! Learn to take a little poking, will you?” the Master of Shadows said, pinching Jul’s cheek.

  “Ow! Yes! Yes!” Jul cried.

  “Anyways… So will [Backstab],” the master sighed, and sighed with heavy exasperation.

  Jul, having learned her lesson, kept an impassive expression, which quickly crumbled into a deep frown, and the Master of Shadow cackled at her. “I can’t stay mad at such a cute face! But yes, [Backstab] and [Stealth] will be amongst the first to go. These are subtlety heavy skills, and we’re not going for subtlety, now, are we? Not anymore.”

  “No, master, we’re not,” Jul said, shaking her head.

  “No, we’re not… Not at all,” the master mused. “[Aura Attack] is the next one to go, I think. It’s nothing more than a starting point for melee auramancers, but as to what will replace it… Something fear based, of course, but that could manifest in any number of ways for a debuff path. As for the rest, it’s all fine and good for now.”

  The Master of Shadows closed all the windows in between them, and she waved her hand. Jul let out a strangled yelp when a tall, pink toned, torso shaped target appeared in the right at her side. The master chuckled at her.

  “I’m going to keep doing it until you stop jumping like that,” she said.

  “Y-Yes,” Jul said, her heartbeat racing within her.

  The master had hidden herself on their very first session, scaring the crap out of Jul. And since then, she had kept jumping her apprentice at every opportunity, all in the name of making her inured to fear and preventing her from so easily getting frightened. Of course, Jul had a feeling that the master was taking a great deal of fun from doing it as well.

  “This is just a target,” the master said. “We’re starting on them in class soon, but for now, I just want to have an idea of how your skill works. Attack it.”

  “Yes, master,” Jul said.

  She took out one of her daggers and hesitated.

  Why is the target sapient shaped, she wondered. Shouldn’t it be more like a beast? Or a monster? Though monsters can look sentient too, I guess…

  “Today, Jul,” the master said. “It’s not going to fight back. And use your aura, please.”

  “Y-yes, master! I’m sorry, master!”

  Jul stepped forward and stabbed right into the target's gut.

  “Ugh!” she grunted, wrenching her dagger free.

  “Very lifelike, isn’t it?” the master asked, leaning closer to examine the wound. “It’s got bones and organs as well, and comes with a self-repairing time reversal functionality. Which makes it very, very expensive… You guys are lucky, you know?”

  “Yes… Master,” Jul said, staring at the multicolored dark liquid coating her dagger.

  “Stop being squeamish and get over here,” the master said, motioning for her. “Do you see? Your aura infected the target! [Insidious Fear] has taken hold!”

  Jul leaned in, twisting her lips and nose and the liquid seeping from the wound, and watched as a darkness spread from the injury, blackened veins were spreading from the puncture. Both the blood flowing out and the skin around the wound were starting to darken as well.

  “How?” Jul asked. “Does the target feel too?”

  “It mimics it,” the master said, absentmindedly. “Like I said, it’s expensive…”

  Jul focused back on the wound, doing her best to stay steady and look properly. She had made that wound, as fake as the target was, and she would continue to inflict those wounds going forward. And on live targets. She could not, and she would not balk away from it. She would perform her role in the party, and she would grow her own path, with her own four hands, and with her own will.

  It was scary now, but one day, it would be the enemy that would be scared. And her party safe and made stronger by her presence! She would never be a burden again, and she would never be a coward again either!

  So, she focused on the wound, and was surprised to find it reversing, the darkness slowly retreating back to the puncture and the wound itself resealing, leaving no trace behind it. Not even the fake blood remained on her dagger.

  “5 seconds,” the master said, straightening back up. “It’s very short, but it will be refreshed if you trigger another instance of [Insidious Fear] within those 5 seconds, and it will keep increasing by two seconds with each stack. This means that you need to hit fast and repeatedly to get the most out of it, and to keep triggering [Insidious Terror] as often as possible… So maybe [Agility] and [Dexterity] are the ones we should be aiming towards getting those last two attribute modifiers. 0.4 and 0.2 may seem useless now, but in the long run, every little bit helps. For now, though… Jul, can you just graze it? On the arm, please.”

  “Yes, master.”

  Jul slashed her dagger across the target’s forearm, barely pressing against its all too real fleshiness, and scratched the target.

  “Oh… It didn’t trigger!” Jul said, staring at the normal looking, tiny wound that quickly healed.

  “This target has no active resistances at the moment, so I guess that’s what the System means by a significant strike…” the master mused. “We need to strike harder… Or deeper, in order for it to trigger. A bit different than usual melee debuff paths, or the usual poisons more commonly used, which means you’ll need a bit of [Strength] to reach deeper. But I wonder…”

  The master traced her finger along the self-closing wound. “Well… I’ll have a think about it. Anyways, how do you feel about the skill? You wanted to be a frontline fighter, and this is one, purely, close melee combat skill that you’ve gained.”

  Jul nodded. “It’s… Scary, but I like it. It feels strong and useful, and like I can fight with it. I can get better and stronger, and I don’t need to hide from anything if they’re scared of me.”

  “Well, machines don’t feel fear, nor certain types of beasts, monsters or summons,” the master said. “But fear immunity is exceedingly rare. At best, your targets might resist you, but the stronger you grow, the harder that will be… Especially with a true fear affinity, and with the amazing skills I expect you to gain. So, yeah, that’s the spirit! Let’s keep going then?”

  “Yes, master!” Jul said, smiling with excitement.

  “Alright, let’s get some warm up done, then let’s do some sparring. Your quadruple wielding is getting better, but it still needs a lot of work before it starts looking like something!”

  As she lowered towards the floor to stretch, the Master of Shadows couldn’t help but steal a glance at her newest and most promising apprentice. She loved to experiment. With people, with substances, with weapons, disguises and many, many other hobbies in a very, very long list of interests.

  Jul, with her true fear affinity, was going to be the best and greatest experiment of her entire life. She could barely sleep at night, or get through her daily routines, thinking of all the things she wanted to teach Jul, and of the things yet to come for the girl’s path. However, for the first time in her life, a tiny, tiny part of her wondered if what she was doing was right. If perhaps, this time of all the times, she shouldn’t be doing what she was doing with Jul.

  Not only did the girl have a true fear affinity, she also had an incredibly well developed and superior [Instinct*], and an amazing accumulation of sense attributes. If one were to add the debuffs and the superior close quarter combat that the Master of Shadows had in mind for the girl… Then perhaps, she was about to create something far more terrifying than any of them could fathom at present. Something even greater than the great Einxo himself had been.

  If that happened, could Tsurmirel even control their creation, the way Charysma had kept Einxo on his tight leash?

  She looked down at her feet, pushing away any and all intrusive thoughts of clipping her apprentice’s wings. She would give the girl everything. Everything! She was her apprentice, and she always gave them nothing short of her all, even if she did enjoy the experimenting!

  You will soar, Jul! She decided. And one day, you will have nothing left to fear!

  No one would stop Jul’s ascent, even if it was on wings of dread and darkness.

  She would make it happen. No matter what.