Kyle was doing well to just appear as a regular old coachman, he'd commanded his summon horses to casually stroll down the road to Brittlemar while appearing to keep them in check the non-magical way. Syilten had been talking rather animatedly with a young Driski with soft shades of green for skin, but polished green silver eyes, he'd looked pretty familiar to the Blacksmith that Kyle visited regularly in Tundra’s Kiss.

  About an hour down the road he'd found out that Radwin was in fact the son of Mr.Roal on Blackfell street. The best Blacksmith in the frozen plains. What was different was that he was an alchemist instead of a musician or Blacksmith, and while powers aren't always inherited. they usually are. He was definitely a kid he'd keep an eye on, especially if he sticks with Syilten.

  ____________________________________________

  It'd been about a few more hours down the road that Kyle started to notice traces along the road and tree line. ‘Hmm, bandits. I could take them out myself before they get near the carriage but this might be a good moment for a young life lesson.’ With this thought, Kyle just kept on his way down the road acting oblivious.

  He didn't have to wait much longer as an arrow aimed at his heart raced towards him, pitifully slow for his true tier, but he allowed the arrow to slam into his left shoulder and slumped off the carriage. As three men came running out with Dash and Reckless Charge active at the same time, slamming into the side of the carriage and knocking it over.

  ‘Those adventurers that joined aren't slouched, so he should be fine, but I hope he doesn't join in too much with combat. I'll jump in if necessary, but I'll blow this cover.’ He kept his act up, even when the bandit captain kicked him.

  What Kyle hadn't expected was for Syilten to exit the carriage on his own first, and get into a position to surrender, and the light hadn't left his eyes yet, but he did a good job hiding it from the bandits.

  ‘Systems above, what is this reckless child doing now?’ Kyle wanted to frown at his antics but was just as hopeful nonetheless.

  When it looked like things weren't going to go Syil’s way, eight shards of sparkling, starry ice appeared. Two shards went up and smacked the bandit leader in the under chin, throwing him back.

  ‘Okay, so these are Tier One bandits, I won't even need to join in with those Tier 2 adventurers here. Seems they had Syilten act as the decoy since they only really knew about the kids. The bandits had targeted the carriage specifically to kill children, an’ take their freshly awakened Cards.’

  The man, Rook, dragged him to the side of the collapsed carriage and tucked him where he could still see the combat, but would be safe when he ‘woke up’ again.

  The party known as the Cub Pack wasn't bad for missing one of their key members, which Syil seemed to be playing surprisingly well.

  Syilten was dodging what hits he could while blocking others, arrows kept coming his way while he occasionally sent one of his shards to help the two men, Rook and Laurence, with the six men they had tangled. The party leader Jessamine was out-ranging the four Rangers firing arrows down on her team.

  Suddenly, Syilten was getting focused on by the bandit leader. The swings just kept coming in, and Syil was gaining shallow wounds at a rapid pace while blocking twice as many attacks sent his way. You could tell Syil was flagging, his actions started to use less energy, slowing slightly.

  One of the bandits that was hanging back and only popping in to stab at Rook or slash at Laurence, noticed that Syil was slowing down and started to move in on him while he was catching his breath. The bandit was on him, and Syil cast Ice Slash in an instant.

  Kyle was primed to rush in and save Syilten when something happened that he didn't expect, the sword that spawned actually knocked the blade away before continuing on into the bandits throat.

  ‘Poor kid, that's a lesson learned a little too early.’

  Kyle could see the despair that took over Syilten’s features. He just kept looking at his hands and the body infront of him. He was starting to spiral into a dangerous cycle. Radwin was trying his very best to help break his trance and calm Syil down.

  Before Kyle could move to help him regain his senses, the party leader Jessamine slapped Syil pretty hard, but it did the trick since he just stared at her dumbfounded.

  “Enough of that, it doesn't serve you now. It speaks well of you that your first reaction is to detest the action of taking a life, but know this, he would have taken yours without a sliver of remorse,” she paused and pointed at Radwin who looked like he wanted to come over but wasn't sure, the pacing marks on the ground he was walking in were similar to the ones next to Syilten.

  “Your friend is certainly happy that you're not dead, and I'm certain your family is as well. You'll grow from this, if you take the right lessons from the situation.” She gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulders and went to help the men push the carriage back over.

  Kyle felt a genuine smile reach his lips. ‘I'm glad that good people were around when he needed them.’

  _______________________________________

  It took about 20 minutes for them to get the carriage back up and Kyle had his horses conveniently show up in a clearing, so that Jessamine could find them and bring them back. She helped with getting the harnesses back on while Rook took the second seat on the front bench with Kyle.

  ‘Guess they decided to have a proper watch now that we've been attacked. We won't make town now before sun down’

  Kyle got Rooks attention and pointed at a good spot to camp out, and he gave a curt nod before leaning into the carriage throwing out a collection of hand signals, all amounting to ‘We've found a camping spot and will be stopping for the night’

  The Cub Pack wasn't very efficient at setting up camp, but they certainly had experience in it, so I allowed them to set up while I cared for the horses. Syilten had been asked to take the last watch, which was secret code for everyone to let him rest. Kyle was thankful for this act of kindness, since he wouldn't have to find a way to arrange this on his own now. He knew what the kid needed more than anything was rest, and not more paranoia.

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  ‘These are some good people. I wonder if I can arrange for them to party together later on. Syil could already start as a defensive iron adventurer and he doesn't even have a full Deck yet. What did that sweet viscose woman do to you in a day?’ He clicked his tongue and leaned back into the coach seat.

  _________________________________

  Kyle had decided in the night to scout ahead past the treeline, while Rook was on watch again as it was the best time to sneak out. He ran leisurely till he reached the tree line, the trek only taking him maybe 10 minutes, to the hour and half casual carriage ride he'd be taking later.

  What greeted him was the Brittlemar Event zone, or better known as shifting zones, one of the areas of the world that was always in flux, turning into impossible environments completely contained to their area while spawned; though this didn't prevent stampedes out of the zone should it not be sufficiently cleared during its time spawned.

  Most fields didn't stay spawned more than three months, with the shortest shift being four days, at least recorded in the area.

  The current rotation was the Coral Plains, a deceptively dangerous zone that was more common to the area than other Event zones. It was large plains riddled and pockmarked by dozens upon dozens of pools that were far deeper than just puddles. There was a whole sea ecology below the surface of various aggressive magical fish, corral forests, and hidden leviathans. Thankfully on the surface it wasn't nearly as dangerous as it was below, the common enemies being frogs and crabs.

  Kyle was going to call an end to the scouting when he spotted something that left a sour taste in his mouth, a Kelpstral.

  They were nasty buggers, considered Elite spawns, and were known as beginner killers. They were a rare example of the spectral Affinity outside of ghost and undead type monsters, making them resistant to physical attacks. Most early adventurers use melee weapons when they first start out, especially if they end up dropping out of the academy, due to lower mana levels at early tiers.

  Kelpstrals liked to take advantage of this when they ended up in a beginner zone, they were semi-intelligent monsters after all. They would bait young and rash teams to waste their mana, and get them to come to close range combat, drawing them into the water to drown them, before feasting only on the head of their victims.

  ‘I'm gonna have to take that out before I go back, those kids don't have enough oomph right now to not incur either a stupid amount of injuries or lose a few running.’ Kyle gagged, he hated this aspect of his abilities, injustice or unfair odds put a literal nasty taste in his mouth.

  ‘I would have done it anyways.’ Spitting to the side, Kyle pulled out a farming scythe and hopped down with a hearty plop.

  “Over ‘er you overgrown weed!” Kyle announced out for the Kelpstrals benefit. The effect was immediate, it rushed towards him with hate radiating in its Crimson eyes.

  The Kelpstral weaved through the ground and puddles alike, trying to confuse Kyle, bait him into wasting energy on attacks.

  Kyle just lazily sent out bursts of undirected aura from time to time trying to bait the beast into thinking it had already worn him out.

  The whole time Kyle hadn't even actually broken a sweat, or gotten anywhere near having labored breaths, but he sold the act anyways, waiting for the creature to take his bait. And without further fanfare, the kelpstral pulled back and then lunged forward at Kyle.

  With practiced and precise movements, he brought up the scythe and flicked lightly to the side. The kelpstal passed him.

  “Your crop was not mine to sow, but mine to reap,’ and the kelpstral’s head fell to the ground, oozing viscous black blood, the body following shortly.

  Kyle made his way over to the body, mostly to see if it dropped any loot. He was in luck, too. Beside the body was Kelp Essence, and a Card, Kelpstral Pack: Rare.

  He placed the Card in a nondescript envelope, and tucked it into his pocket.

  ‘I'll have him stay under Dominic, he should still be working as a dorm monitor at my favorite dorm.’ An evil smile crossed his face.

  ___________________________________

  After Kyle pushed the body into one of the ponds, for the water denizens below to have a rare feast, he headed straight back for the carriage, getting back just before the end of Rook's shift and the rotation went to Jessamine.

  It being still more than four hours until sunrise, Kyle went to sleep for the first time that night.

  Everyone got up the following morning in a natural way. Syilten was the last to come out after his nightmare scared him awake. The poor kid was shaping up to have the mental scars of a drafted soldier, and Kyle could only hope for the best.

  Evidently, the Cub Pack was better at breaking down camp than they were at getting it set up, letting us set out quicker than we got to rest the night before.

  It seemed none of them had the bushcraft and it was very evident.

  Not even twelve minutes later, they were packed and on the road toward Brittlemar once more.

  Kyle's favorite part of the rest of the journey was hearing all of Syiltens excitement at the Coral Plains. During the day arro-cuda liked to fly around and swim in the humidity with their sail fins. Not very many frogs were out, probably scared by the Kelpstral blood in the water, but the crabs were out in force, although nowhere near the road.

  They'd made it to Birttlemar without anymore fanfare, other than a few overly anxious guards at the gate. After they all were in, and they departed the carriage, Kyle brought the carriage to an alleyway, and unsummoned it with a weary sigh.

  “Almost dropped it when I fought the Kelpstral. Glad I stayed relatively in practice. Now to rush ahead to start a little hazeing, and buy some time while getting to bully a precious junior.” The evil smile from the night before blossoming in new glory.

  He'd rushed over to the Center gate for the Academy grounds. “Halt” the female guard on the left called out. “State business or present identification.”

  Kyle just quietly made the Emblems on his shoulder become visible to the guards. He loved the look of slight horror that crossed their faces, before they switched to stiff professionalism.

  “Apologies sir, we didn't know you'd be visiting. We don't get dispatched disciplinary heads often,” she quickly blurted out.

  It took everything Kyle had to not let out an exasperated sigh at the antics of these guards.

  “There will be two students on their way here for their enrollment procedures. Make up some excuses that'll make them wait till another professor shows up to collect them.”

  They both gave a quick salute, “Sir,” and Kyle moved past them.

  With a huge grin planted on his face, “Time to head to the pony Pavilion.” He walked along, whistling a jolly tune that was secretly evil at its core.

  When he reached the gaudy pink building from his memories, his smile only grew wider. He entered and went straight for the doorway down to basement levels. He went straight for the slide, changed the dial to B since he'd had Dominic placed in a B block position since he hated being in second place, even if only implied.

  When Kyle got off the slide, he was thrust into Dominic's room for sure as the designs were made of Ice and Seafoam Affinities.

  As if on clockwork, Dominic entered the slide room, bucket ready to clean up puke from a brave first year, only to have pure fear fill his being, causing him to drop and spill the bucket.

  “What do I owe the visit, master? Did I do something worthy of the branch leaders' visit?” The fear he radiated was real.

  “No, I'm only here to finish up the dorm enrollment for two students, I already sent the details up for one of them and I'll tell you about the other myself. And don't give him a random one, give him this one.” Kyle pulled out the envelope with the Kelpstral Pack Card, and handed it to Dominic.

  “The boy's name is Syilten. He has an Ice Affinity like you, so he’d best have been placed on your floor anyways, but I want him in your section,” Kyle stated.

  To Dominic's credit, he just nodded his head and put the envelope in his front pocket.

  “The one two doors down just opened up this year, so I can do that. Anything else sir?”

  Kyle pondered for a moment, before a smirk crossed his face. “Don't you still have those old dojo clothes from your school years?” Dominic shivered.

  “Yes sir, I still have your ‘outfits’ that you left me. The Gi is the cleanest at the moment.”

  Kyle's eyes started to almost literally sparkle before he caught himself, the Actor General skill was easy to activate on accident since the passive enhanced intense emotions.

  “That will serve my purposes perfectly, actually.”

  ______________________________________

  Kyle made sure to get ‘changed’ before he headed back to collect Syilten and Radwin from the Center gates. He pulled out the length of his hair and turned it silver gray, moved the shape of his chin to be sharper, along with his jawline and eyes. He felt like a sheathed sword ready to strike, but laid back till otherwise necessary. He'd also made sure to put on the plain white martial Gi, before rushing over to the boys. He'd made them wait long enough, even if not really that much time has passed.

  When he got back, he decided to rush the boy through to their accommodations, delaying their badges till the next day, to make sure they had proper rest and relaxation.

  To say that Kyle was excited, was to be shouting an understatement.

  “You'll be staying here at Pony Pavilion. Mr.Flykra is in room 14b on the first basement floor. Mr. Roal will be on the third floor in 7c due to his proclivity to Alchemy,” he said and placed a key in either of their hands that changed color on contact, and he was off.

  ‘Should I try slipping in as a teacher, or a janitor?’