“Welcome to the Anomalous Materials Class… Which isn’t a class.” Alex clapped his hands, attempting and failing to wake the other members up. “We’re all long-term students… Which means we haven’t taken a class in years!”

  “I haven’t attended anything in about 10 years,” Luna said, waving a lazy hand from her position on the sofa. “Yet with so few…”

  Alex clapped again. “Do not steal the stage, please.” He stomped around, cupping his chin as though thinking of something fantastical to say. The image was unimpressive, especially considering how small and cute he was. “Ethan, how much do you understand about anomalies?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Finn, give him an example. What are we going to take care of this weekend?”

  Finn let out a dramatic sigh. It was clear that these people didn’t truly want to be here, and Ethan had his suspicions. But he reserved his judgements until later, allowing this motley crew their stage.

  Finn grunted as he rose, rolling his shoulders out. “We’ll take care of a water-based anomaly soon. Normally, gems and crystals aligned with water magic do benign things like creating water, or condensing water mana into other gems. This one is creating water elementals.”

  “Something that does something it isn’t supposed to do is an anomaly.” Luna stood, taking the stage. That was easy, seeing as she was taller than anyone else. “But just being strange isn’t enough to get us involved. We step in when those objects, places, or people cannot be interacted with normally. Moving this crystal we’ve found results in serious injury. Even from high-rank people.”

  Alex did a little pose, his cheeks slightly rosier than before. “So? Comments? Concerns?”

  Ethan tapped his chin, stalling. He didn’t understand why he was involved in this. “Why am I here? And why isn’t it night outside?”

  “Those are the questions you have?” Alex looked at the other members. “Those are weak questions, right?”

  Luna shrugged. “Perpetual day is strange.”

  “Agreed.” Finn nodded along.

  Luna smiled, walking over with long, loping strides until she reached Ethan. He had been lingering near the top of the amphitheatre, looking down on the group from a protected position. She placed a hand on his shoulder and he felt something rush through his body. Before he could respond, the scribe had been rendered immobile, the strange power flashing through his body as quick as his heartbeat

  “His power is interesting.” Luna regarded Ethan with her starry eyes. The galaxy inside her eyes seemed to shift, sparkling with power. “If you’re interested, I can help you develop this power. So long as you trust me with some of your secrets, we can finish those rings you started…”

  “Please don’t scare away another one,” Alex groaned, falling dramatically onto his back.

  “He’s doing something similar to my cultivation technique.” Luna looked to the other members, giving them a resolute nod. “I’ll brief him on the job this weekend. If he’ll have me, I’ll also help with his system.”

  “Works for me. I have stuff to do.” Finn was the first to leave, only shrugging as he rushed out the door.

  Alex lingered for some time, glaring between Luna and Ethan as he lurked out of the room. “Remember: I’m always watching.”

  The moment the door closed, Luna turned to Ethan. “He isn’t. Now, how are you creating those attributes?”

  Ethan could only stare for a few moments while his mind caught up. He had a lot of questions. “How did you know? Can you feel them?”

  “Correct. My path is extremely good at manipulating mana. Hiding those rings from me is impossible.”

  Ethan found himself once again wondering the value of hiding his class and system. He looked up into the strange eyes of the woman and thought about it before he decided. Each member of this strange group had a different system. They were a part of the other academies on the planet. This was the group the mysterious benefactor wanted him to be a part of, which meant there was some bigger purpose for him to serve. He then considered how Luna had sensed his rings with a touch. If she could detect them that easily, her instruction could be a serious shortcut for the things he didn’t quite understand.

  Placing his fingers on his chest, Ethan pinched the end of the pen and pulled it out. “This and my class are how I’m making my Attribute Rings.”

  “Curious.” Luna displayed her experience with such things by not reaching out for the pen. She simply looked at it, tilting her head to one side. “A soulbound pen, no matter the power, wouldn’t allow you to write your own attributes. You’ve got an adaptive class, something you’re calling primordial. Very curious.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Perhaps the Anomalous Materials class would turn out to be more like a class than Ethan had expected. “Can I show you what I’m doing?”

  A small smile spread across Luna’s face. “Now you’re willing to share? Let’s see it.”

  Ethan let out a breath, drawing mana from his soul and into the pen. Before he could even draw the ring in the air, Luna had a comment.

  “That was a lot of mana at once. How long have you been on the planet?”

  “Less than a week.” Ethan began his Mind Ring, creating the basic circle first before moving on to add the details. Those details involved him thinking about what Mind meant to him, and poking at various points until it looked closer to what he imagined in his head. Something the details had in common was a general shape. They looked like little symbols from another language, and mostly formed on their own with enough poking.

  “You figured this out on your own? Without instruction?”

  “Minimal instruction,” Ethan corrected. “I’ll be honest, I think the class is doing most of the work.”

  It was Luna’s turn to take a moment to think. She gazed at the symbol he was working on, eventually clicking her tongue. “Your system is adaptive, which means it will be created as you go along. The things you desire will manifest through whatever class you have. You’re literally writing the rules for your class as you go.” Leaning in, she inspected the ring closer. “These symbols are all thick with mana. Have you noticed more symbols filling in on their own when you summon this ring again?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re doing extremely well. But now, you practice with an instructor. Me. First, I want you to keep this up. Continue tracing the shape. Focus on the concepts of this attribute.” Luna left him there, finding a seat. “Meanwhile, I’ll get you caught up on how we work here. Yes, Anomalous Materials is listed as a class. But that’s just for the books. The truth is that we’re all long-term students of various academies. And we all have one thing in common. Can you guess what that is?”

  Ethan looked away from his ring, tapping the end of his pen against his chin. “Something to do with mana, I think. You said you were a mana manipulation expert.”

  “Exactly right. We contain, destroy, or otherwise waylay the anomalies so they don’t pose a threat to the public.” Luna walked to a crate, withdrawing an unassuming wooden practice sword. The length of it was littered with intricate symbols. “My handiwork. This sword was putting off such a powerful aura that it cleared out a training hall. Everyone thought it was a powerful artifact at first, until we got involved. Truth is, it corrupted the system of anyone who used it for long. Eventually, it stripped their system away entirely.”

  Ethan found he couldn’t focus on the drawing anymore. He was certain of one thing. The examples he had heard so far and the issues he saw in his class interface seemed like errors… computer errors were the closest things he could think of from back on Earth. Was the Grand System tossing up exceptions and causing the “programming” of this world to mess up? The scribe would play his cards close to his chest for now, but Luna’s help was already greatly appreciated.

  “I’m going to teach you a technique from my path.” Luna broke Ethan from his thoughts with that statement, drawing him to the present in a jarring way.

  Things had moved so quickly already and he worried that, at every turn, he was making the wrong decision. But he listened, looking up from his work on the rings to see his eager instructor. “Okay. What am I doing now?”

  What Luna wanted to show him was a better way of dealing with the mana in his soul. Of course, he had to move it from his soul to the pen in order to draw the rings. But her claim was that his method was incredibly inefficient. Not only that, but he was relying on passive methods of increasing his total pool of mana. She ran through several exercises, which included deep breathing techniques to restore his mana, focused movement techniques to move only as much mana as he needed, and some general pointers that actually had an immediate effect.

  “Back to the breathing technique,” Luna said, correcting Ethan’s posture and placing her hands behind her back. “We’re going to be doing a job tomorrow, and the group wants you to come along.”

  Taking a deep breath, Ethan looked at her with a skeptical gaze. “You realize I can’t do anything, right?”

  “I’m very aware of that. But the sooner you get started on this, the better. It will only take you a few weeks to get into the swing of it. Once you have at least the most basic sealing magic, you can take on jobs by yourself. We’re doing this first one as a group just to get you accustomed to everything.”

  Although Ethan grew more uncertain of his ability to do what these people did by the moment, he couldn’t deny the benefit of working with them. He took a steadying breath, feeling as mana snaked its way through his system with even more efficiency than before. From what he understood, he was using the type of control that was typically untouched by most people who had a decent system. They relied on that system to do all of this for them. But people who followed a path like Luna were forced to do it the hard way. Some said the hard way was better, while others said it wasn’t. All the scribe knew was that if he wanted to get his system functional, he’d walk the difficult path.

  Luna gave him some details of the job. They would meet early tomorrow morning, Friday morning, at the Eastern Gate in Gale House. From there, they would set off further east and assess the situation. “We’re not at the point of seeing casualties yet, but we’re close.” Luna shook her head. “The number of people qualified to do this job is too few. Even most of the professors here either don’t have the time or the skill set to tackle what we do.”

  “What about your benefactors? Surely they are powerful enough to take care of some weird errors.”

  “That’s where things get interesting. We don’t know all the details, of course not. They keep us in the dark about just about everything. But my guess is they have some kind of pact with the academies or perhaps even the world. They are not allowed to interfere directly, which is why this group even exists. They created it so we could do their dirty work. This also means that every member here is trapped at the academy until we can find a replacement.”

  “And since this is invite-only via your benefactor…” Ethan winced as he thought about it, his concentration on his breathing techniques fading away. “That’s brutal. Who am I supposed to replace, and how do I decline the offer?”

  Luna produced a musical laugh. “You’ll replace Alex. The fun part about this offer is, you’d be a fool to decline. Even if we’re trapped, we all rose to the top of our classes. We’re rich, powerful, and we don’t have to leave the sector. They even let us go to the inner planets.”

  “Sounds like a fun time.”

  “Anyway, get back to it. I have another free hour, and I’m not interested in looking at your sad attempts at mana control.”