Hell Difficulty Tutorial
Chapter 613 – Murder birb

I wake up lying on my back, pulled away from the mess I made. I still feel a tightness in my chest, and as my sight clears, I realise it’s just Biscuit lying on my chest, protectively facing the Vice Director.

The woman is holding one of her hands, which seems to be bleeding for some reason, and she keeps staring at Biscuit.

Checking the timer, I confirm that I’ve only been passed out for a few minutes, yet it still feels awkward. Lately, this seems to have been happening quite a lot, even with my powerful mental passives. I wouldn’t even say it’s the passives’ fault, or that they’re lacking rarity; it seems more likely that I keep jumping into situations where they can’t really do much to help. A normal Hell difficulty or even Beyond attendee probably doesn’t do this kind of thing very often.

Cowards.

"Who’s a good boy?" I ask. Without turning around or breaking eye contact with the selari woman, Biscuit’s tiny tail begins to swing wildly.

Then he woofs.

“Yes, you are!”

The speed of his tail wagging increases even further, to the point that I begin to worry he might lift off like a helicopter.

As I move to stand, he floats into the air, maintaining a position where his front legs rest on my shoulder.

“Again?” I ask the Vice Director.

“One more time, and afterward, I’ll provide feedback,” she agrees.

Our mana rises again, and I have difficulty not compressing mine to the point that it turns black. Maybe next time, but first I need to learn more about her.

After passing out once more, I wake to find the Vice Director once again holding a bleeding hand, this time marked with tiny bite marks from a sharp set of teeth.

After that, I receive detailed, well organized feedback along with a list of potential mistakes she thinks I may be making.

I consider all that feedback valuable, as she even tells me about methods she and her unit would use if forced to face a Champion with capabilities similar to mine, if on a much grander scale. It’s all very fascinating: the arrays she mentions, inscriptions, items, materials, special metals to be used for shielding, and so on.

Just by listening, I can tell the depth of experience she has when it comes to facing much stronger opponents and the methods she had to develop just to be able to contest them. At first, I also thought she might have a concentration type skill, but in the end, I concluded that it’s probably just part of her personality—laid back and only rarely showing interest. Years on the battlefield, never knowing when a Champion could appear and wipe them out, could cause that.

Of course, one thing raises my opinion of her more than anything else: she probably invested every possible point into mana, to such an extent that when she was still somewhere around my level, she probably had only slightly less mana than I do now.

There is a slight difference, too. While I do it mostly out of fascination, stubbornness, and future planning, I think for her it was more logical and calculated. It was probably a decision she came to after bonding with Lulu, who seems to be helping her limit and control that mana of hers, and likely provides additional abilities the tiny owl has yet to reveal.

Such a cute, silent murder birb.

Back in my room, I wash up and change into a clean set of clothes. It is still a suit because apparently, Assistant Professors are expected to wear one at all times, for some supposedly important reason involving prestige and representation.

Biscuit climbs onto my lap without waiting for permission, and I let him.

My body still feels off. Not weak, just out of sync. Like some part of me is lagging behind, still stuck in that moment when her mana spiked and mine tried to match it.

I look at the floor for a while, steadying my breathing, and think about what she showed me. About the things I failed to notice until it was too late. Her movements were not fast, but they were modified to interrupt mine, to force me into a series of knee jerk reactions instead of a state of control. I made her job easier by relying too much on my "scripted" frequencies.

That much is fine. I can adjust.

I should also test a few new interaction types between my support passives and focus on how my mana behaves at different stages. There is one twist to Mana Cycling I’ve been ignoring for a while because it messes with my sensory balance, but maybe I should give it another try. If I start slowly, I can manage the side effects and get used to the change.

"What do you think?" I ask the corgi.

Biscuit makes a soft growling sound, which I take as a sign of agreement.

We stand up together and leave the room without speaking. I head to the garden, where I meet up with Maya, Tess, and the twins, just like we did on the second day of our first loop.

So far, everyone is more or less keeping to the schedule we had during our 1st loop.

Even before we start talking, I notice something about Maya. It is quite a big change to her mana, and I am sure she’s chosen not to hide it on purpose, just to show off in front of me.

“What did you buy?” I ask, already knowing what she wants to hear.

“I am testing a passive that makes my mana creations stronger and passively compresses them, and then another that does something similar. I want to see how they stack up.”

“Rarities?” I ask.

“Both mid arcane. All my shards are gone.”

“Damn, I see you’ve gone all in with testing.”

"You bet. And I have about ten more passives I want to test during the next few loops. You have to meet up with all of us sometime. We’ve been holding these special dark brotherhood style meetings where we sit around candles and theorize about the best ways to use our shards."

"Are human sacrifices involved?"

“We sometimes kick Dennis when he gets too annoying.”

“Sounds good, I’ll try to join the next one.”

Tess, seeing that we’re done talking, asks, “So how was the Vice Director?”

"Quite strong. I think she could have beaten all of us at once in direct combat, but assuming we had time to prepare, I believe we could take her down. Then again, if she also had time to prepare, it would only make things more dangerous."

“That strong?”

"Yup, and she’s still hiding most of it, but I noticed some strange fluctuations in her mana. I’ll share the details later, but I don’t think she is a Candidate, nor do I think that she’s the one who stole the thermonuclear warhead. But she could be involved in the Champion’s death, or at least she will be, since it hasn’t happened yet for this round. You know what I mean."

Tess smiles. “No need to explain. But it surprises me, from what I heard, she seems fairly loyal to the current power structure.”

“Probably, but she could be pretending. Apparently, she worked directly under a Champion who was fighting for the title of Absolute, and when he died, she was given the option of serving here or dying herself. There could be a bit of ill will there.”

Raising her eyebrow, Tess says, “It’s been almost two hundred years since Champion Angar died. If she kept her mask on for that long and continued to plan, I would be very impressed.”

Maya shoves Tess playfully. “Are you sure she isn’t one of those spiteful ones?”

“I also know a few women like that,” Aaron mumbles quietly at my side.

Before any of the girls can react, his brother says quickly, “We found one of the richest students in the school and made a plan to steal all his stuff, along with some things belonging to a few other people.”

Oh boy.

“Did you think it through?” Tess asks.

“Sure. Worst case, we get thrown in prison until the next reset, right? Before we end this floor, we plan to steal all we can, make a pile, and then leave with it after we figure out the Floor Quest and stuff with the loops. There are mid arcane items, materials, information, and much more. We can sacrifice a few loops, practice, and even pin it on someone else if we try hard.”

Ever the bad role model, Maya says, “Grab something nice for me as well.”

“Of course! We thought about selling it to the system shop to get rid of the evidence if we needed to, but we don’t know when the system will judge that we’ve taken ‘ownership’ of an item. Maybe it’ll take a week, or perhaps we’ll need to bring it to the next floor or remove it from the Academy. Plus the system shop only gives us between ten and twenty percent of the value, damn it.”

“Be sure to think it through and decide whether it’ll be worth it in the end,” Tess warns him again.

“No worry,” Dennis says. “If we find no low to mid arcane items, we’ll drop it, it just wouldn't be worth it. Besides, it’s probably a better plan than Min-Jae’s, he wants to steal the whole library.”

That’s when I join in. “Tell me more.”

This time, Aaron answers. “He wants to be in the library at the end of the floor, possibly in one of the sections we’re not allowed to enter. Then he will adjust gravity so all the books fall through the entrance to the ninth floor and use [Telekinesis] to help it along. He also said something about asking you to help with breaking the library´s defensive arrays. Unlike Dennis, I respect it. Just imagine yoinking an entire library belonging to the top Academy in the world.”

“Aren’t the defenses too good?” I ask.

"Yup, but he’s planning to rely on the fact that every time a floor ends, everything goes to hell and the likelihood that there’s going to be some huge fight or some other catastrophe, forcing people to ignore the library. Nat, I think part of the reason he’s counting on that is because he knows you and because he saw how little you cared about thermonuclear warheads being stolen."

Rather than reacting to his accusations, I decide to stay quiet.

After giving me a funny look I do not deserve, Tess turns to the boys and reminds all of us, "Please consider the possibility that if we fail this floor quest, we might be stuck in this loop until the end of the tutorial. While that might sound ideal, think about how limiting it could be for our growth."

As she speaks, I immediately think of the opportunities it would provide first. Three years here would allow for so much exploitation, especially with the occasional trip to Beyond. But what would happen if I went to Beyond, leveled up, then returned? Would my stats reset with the loop? And if they reset, would they reset to the new version or the "original" version from the start of this floor?

An unsettling option comes to mind. Would fully exploiting the opportunities here be more valuable than advancing through the remaining floors? After thinking it through, I reach the same conclusion Tess likely has.

I don’t think it would.

Maybe I should take this floor quest a bit more seriously, which seems to be exactly what Tess wants. Rather than constantly lecturing us, she’s been nudging us just enough to reach the conclusion she wants us to reach.

I meet her eyes and see tiny sparks dancing in her grey irises.

Not much later, I sit in my office, still thinking over it all. The conclusion remains the same, and so I speak.

"I want to use a one day Beyond Stay token."

A notification pops up.

Impossible to enter Beyond at the current time.

That settles it. The system is still an asshole, and Tess is right. This floor, for all the opportunities it offers, is just as unforgiving as the others. You can grow here, sure, but the tradeoff would be huge, especially when it means missing out on Beyond and the other floors entirely.

I am not even factoring in the mental strain. Spending three years here, stuck in the same ten day cycle, give or take, would probably wear down the majority of people eventually.

At least the tournament still seems accessible, since Victoria told me she was on the 8th floor before entering. I’ll have to ask her how the system handled her absence when I see her again. Two weeks is a long gap.

I close the notification window and start reassessing my priorities. The floor quest is back on the menu. Not the top concern for now, but close. I should also check the Academy’s secondary facilities. I ignored most of them last time because they seemed unimportant, but there might be something interesting to find.

Min-Jae will probably want to talk soon, and I should check on Dennis and Aaron before they drag us into another problem.

As always, there’s still plenty to do.