Jackson's fire impacted the hydra's scales, where it drilled down, attempting to splice into the heart of the venomous monstrosity. It was mingled with the gold of his affinity, and the silver of his soulfire.

I turned to glance at the group. Salem's face was knotted in concentration as he messed with the minds of the hydra, slowing its response. I could actually see the minds fighting against the glowing purple magic Salem was layering, the instinct of wanting to escape the fire too hard to be completely pinned in.

But Salem was fighting back, and while the heads continued to whip around, the hydra's legs weren't able to scramble forward and out of the way of the pillar of flame descending on it.

I slashed my wand out, unleashing a pair of dragonfire enhanced arcane missiles. The massive spears of mystical force rippled through the air before impacting the same spot as Jackson's flame. Inside me, I felt my fire gutter out, the spells and the slow but steady draw I'd been using in the fight draining me dry.

Yushin flashed into existence next to me then, holding a short sword that was absolutely dripping with darkness as she plunged it up into the chest of the hydra. Though I couldn't smell what sort of magic was layered in it, I could smell the layers of her bloodline that she had pressed into the weapon.

At least some of her affinity's effects were immediately on display as the blade struck with far more power than Yushin's body should have been able to put into the thrust, driving through the flesh until it was buried up to the hilt. Yushin ripped it out a moment later, and the fire descending on the hydra pushed through, flowing through the gap that her blade had created.

The body of the hydra tensed, then slumped down into the dust and rocks, dead. An instant later, Emir descended from where he had been floating overhead, grinning from ear to ear.

"Well done, kiddos!" he laughed. "You were the second fastest team to kill your hydra!"

"Wesley?" I asked sourly, and Emir shook his head, looking slightly confused.

"No, a second year team in the other class, the one that meets on Mondays. They have someone with a destruction magic affinity, who amplified the destruction school spells the entire group cast. They all cast heavily amplified versions of fire pillar, and killed it. As far as I know, Wesley's still fighting."

Emir clapped his hands and gestured to the hydra.

"But now that we're done, we get to move on to one of the other parts of today's class: dissection."

Yushin tilted her head, and flicked her fingers, calling a set of knives into her hands.

"I have taken apart spirit beasts for cores before, but I was under the impression that they needed to take in chi in order to form a core. Is this not true of bloodline beasts, like this hydra?"

"No, it's true, at least far as I know," Emir said, shaking his head. "But that's not what we're harvesting."

He started ticking off points on his fingers as he spoke.

"Hydra blood can be used as a poison, or if it's distilled by a talented enough alchemist, it's a critical component in greater healing potions. The bones can be used as a body component in the crafting of wands, staves, or amulets, and the horns as core components. The skin is able to repair itself, and makes a solid basis for artificers to work with. The teeth can be crafted into daggers, and with the work of an artificer, can even regenerate a store of its venom over time. Processed hydra fats can be used as pest control poison, and the meat can be purified of poison and used to create an extremely high quality fertilizer. As with most beasts of this quality, every part of its body has some sort of use."

He waved his hand, and piles of materials appeared on the ground.

"Even if you're not blessed with an artifice affinity, or don't have any need for the components, there's still value in the coin. Which is why, now that we're finally getting to the part of the class where you fight things that are worth harvesting, we're going to go through the process to properly extract as much value as possible. This won't apply for everything, but it's a good start. Now, if you'll take a pair of gloves, an apron, and a mask from the pile…"

What followed was an hour of focused attention on breaking down the body of the beast, draining its blood into jars, taking off huge swathes of its scales to dry, and more. When there were only about ten minutes left in the class period, Emir teleported us back to the campus greens, where Wesley and the second year team were both waiting. The Erudite was sitting in a wooden rocking chair, his eyes closed, staff leaning against the back of his chair, and when we arrived, he rose, stretched, and yawned.

"Congratulations every…"

He trailed off as he yawned a second time.

"Everyone. You've all killed a hydra and passed the midterm. For that, you're due some rewards. I've gone ahead and used the process body spell to finish harvesting the hydras, and put it away for you all in your school lockers. You'll also get access to the hunter's crest."

"The hunter's crest?" Yushin asked.

"Process body spell?" Wesley asked at the same time.

The Erudite glanced between them, before choosing to address Wesley first.

"The process body spell is a fourth circle transmutation spell that automatically breaks a body down and preserves the bits of it, all according to your knowledge. That last bit is critical – if you don't know how to skin it, the spell won't do it for you. I recommend you study some stuff on how to break down bodies of assorted monsters, for when you all learn the spell. The fun part is that if you cast it on a creature before you kill it, you can process it on death, which even works for summoned creatures, so long as you're not the summoner. It does eat a large chunk of their power for a while, though. I recommend casting it on demons before you kill them, but not anything friendly."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He then turned to Yushin and nodded.

"The crest is an indication that you've been cleared by the city for hunting monsters or demons. It should appear on your student identification cards, and will give you access to some of the military halls in the city. You could sell the hydra goods you don't want there, but I recommend that the blood, skin, bones, horns, and teeth all get traded at the student market. You'll get a better price for them there, if you're a shrewd trader. The meat and rendered fat are probably best sold off to the military."

As he spoke, I felt the plate in my pocket grow hot. I pulled out the smooth slate, and sure enough, below the image of my face and rows of personal information, and sitting just to the right of the three circles that marked my abilities as a caster, was a mark. It resembled a sword crossed with an arrow, and was embossed in bronze.

As I slipped it back into my pocket, I considered the Erudite's words. I'd seen the student market on the map, but there was never an occasion for me to go. I couldn't lie that a part of me was a little excited. On Saturday, after my shift at the Charm and Fable, I'd have to stop by to see if I could get anything in trade.

The rules for Holmgang meant I couldn't bring anything that I hadn't made with my own hands and magic, so magical artifacts and potions wouldn't be of much use to me, but components I could use on my staff and wand would be. The gryphon feathers in my staff and ether enriched red oak in my wand were both substandard for fighting someone like Gerhard.

"Anyways," the Erudite said, bringing me back to reality. "That's about all. Enjoy your winter break."

He picked up his staff from where it was leaning against the chair, and teleported away, the chair going with him.

And like that, my entire first semester was complete. I'd passed all of my midterms, and with good grades at that.

"I'm goin' to the lockers," Salem announced, turning to look at us. "Anyone wanna' come wit' me?"

"I will," I said, nodding. I hadn't actually visited the lockers, nor been aware we had them. I was sure they'd been listed on the map, but so had a lot of things. I could have found them with time, but if someone else was offering to guide me…

"I will," Yushin said, inclining her head slightly. "I believe that the hydra components should make good materials for me. The fact we killed the hydra should also boost our natural affinity with them."

"I'm not certain, but I'm willing to give it a shot," I agreed. "Using something so poisonous for the body… I don't know."

Yushin nodded, and Jackson scratched his stubble.

"I do think I'm going to have to skip out," he said. "I promised that I'd attend a guest lecture. Sir Jekoska is giving a lecture on combining the roles of battlefield healer with full combatant."

The name sounded vaguely familiar to me, and a moment later, it snapped. That was the name of Emir's husband, the one who had helped pull the eccentric professor out of the Creep.

"Wait, I thought he was called the Seven Sword Knight," I said, recalling the term that Kybar had used for Jekoska.

"He is!" Jackson said, eyes shining. "He's one of the best restoration mages in all of Cendel, despite having an affinity for swords. He's renowned for using a set of seven blades to attack, while healing and supporting his allies. One time, he…"

Jackson regaled us with tales of Jekoska's exploits at the wall, and I wondered if he knew that Emir was married to the man. Given the hero worship, I was guessing he didn't, or he would have reacted differently to Emir's presence.

Jackson peeled off from us as we approached the brass towers, and Salem, Yushin, and I headed in the direction of one of the far towers. I hadn't needed to go visit it yet.

If I was recalling the map correctly, it was called the 'experimentation tower', and was where a lot of the classes on runework, artifice, and alchemy were hosted, alongside other heavily crafting focused courses that sometimes required specific compatible affinities.

When Salem opened the door, he immediately put his hands over his eyes, took a deep gulp of air, then leapt into the doorframe as if he were swan diving into a lake. He vanished in a flash of white light, and Yushin stepped up, doing the same thing. I mimicked their motions, figuring that it was probably an unusual old spatial warp, much like the library.

I just really, really hoped that I wasn't delving into the mouth of yet another horrifying eldritch entity. The library was enough for me, and that one cabinet made for too many. Having a third would just be gratuitous.

When I hit the doorframe, I immediately felt a warm and wet sensation rush over me, like delving into the ocean in the middle of summer, and I emerged standing in a long hall of lockers. There were windows high up in the wall, above the windows, and sunlight leaked into the room, helping keep it well lit. Too well lit, in fact – it was brighter in here than it should be. The whole place smelled of disinfectant and lemon, and the tiles on the floor were polished to a neat gleam. Each of the lockers was large enough to fit a person in, and made of smooth, polished wood, with a name embossed in golden script on the front, as well as a year.

As I eyed the first row, I felt my eyebrows raise. The year listed on it was decades ago.

"We are way down this way," Yushin said, waving me to follow. She and Salem were already walking down the hall, and I hurried to catch up with them.

We walked down the rows of lockers for several minutes, though when I glanced back, I realized that we'd moved way, way further than I thought we should have been able to. The exit had shrunk to a tiny speck, as if it were a mile away or more. Another spatial warp, perhaps? At least this one seemed to be in our favor.

"An' 'ere we go," Salem said, stopping before his locker, which had the current year on it. Yushin had to go a little further along to find hers, since she began with a Y, and I backtracked a little to find the locker labeled Emrys of White Sands.

"How do we open it?" I asked, looking at Yushin and Salem. Salem removed his student slate and pressed it to his locker, which swung open, so I did the same. There was another spatial warp in place in the locker. Despite looking fairly large from the outside, large enough for me to fit in, the inside was absolutely enormous, easily the size of an entire classroom.

Just as the Erudite had said, there was a pile of neatly folded scales, teeth, bones, horns, jars of blood, tins of reduced fat, and bundles of meat wrapped in butcher's paper.

"You may put the meat and fat in my spatial ring, so we can sell it before it rots," Yushin said. "There is no sense in wasting money."

I took a hesitant step inside the locker, and when it was clear that it was safe, strode in and began bringing things out for Yushin. When I went back in, I picked up one of the horns. I cast ethersight on it, and took a deep breath.

The entire thing radiated a negative power, ailments and afflictions. It was roughly third circle, I was guessing, but it was a strong third circle component. I thought it should serve well for binding to my curse affinity. It wasn't a perfect match, but it would still be useful for my staff, which already didn't have a great core.

The bone, on the other hand… Definitely not. It was far too toxic, infused with the hydra's blood, and even if it was another powerful third circle component, I didn't want to merge that level of toxicity with my ether pool. I put the bones back down, tucked the horns in my pocket, and shut my locker.

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