"Every stat, every skill, every experience, memory, thought, and emotion impacts your aura. The way you perceive yourself, your place in the world, and who you are is reflected in your aura. One with no will to fight will never be able to intimidate with their aura, to sharpen into claws that can rend a foe in twain. One unwilling to endure will find their aura brittle, easily broken and unable to protect themself from the predations of another. One unsure of their place in the world will find themselves rejected by the world. Rejection such as the world shattering beneath your feet, objects crumbling in your hand, and wasting away as if you were starving no matter how much you eat. Focus on who you are, your place in the world, and command your aura to enforce it."

As Shiori spoke, she conjured an image of a man destroying his home just trying to get up from his bed, his family too afraid to even touch him. Next to the struggling man, an armored warrior appeared, surrounded, his spear shattering in his grip and leaving him unarmed against his foes. Finally, an image of a dragon appeared, desperately shoveling food into its maw, only to collapse with hunger.

"Power has a price."

The man knelt in a hole amongst the ruins that was his home, sobbing as his very movement cast him deeper into the earth. Rocks and timber would shatter as he tried to climb, casting him back down. Jumping only made the hole deeper, the earth too soft for him to push off against. Slowly, the man buried himself deeper into the earth, until his image faded away, leaving only two.

The armored warrior danced about as his enemies hemmed him in, every movement slowly breaking his own armor. He survived for a time as he managed to grab onto weapons and foes with his empty hands, breaking them as he broke his own spear in a display of grace and skill. But he too was brought low, slowly bled by numerous weapons, his defenses shattered by his own strength. A simple spear held by a young boy impaled him from behind, bringing him low, surrounded by the shards of his armor, then his image faded away.

The dragon desperately shoveled food into its mouth for days on end, but it was futile. Its muscles wasted away, leaving formerly taut skin hanging loose. Its scales lost their shine, the dragon's movements growing slower and slower until it simply stopped, too weak to move or eat as it wasted away on a mountain of food. This image too faded away and Shiori stepped back as Inari stepped forward.

Sara's mother produced a square piece of paper and began folding it as she eyed the students around her. The foxkin's eyes lingered on Sara and Jun for a moment, and Jun could've sworn she saw the faintest hint of a smirk on her lips before she turned away. "You have already begun to learn aura control," Inari said, looking across the assembled students.

"The training we have already done has been about developing your strength and control of your body, maximizing the use of everything you have. Learning to control your body, to push your stats to their limits and then exceed them, is the first step in learning aura control." As Inari spoke, she continued to fold the paper in her hands without looking.

Jun sat in the dry earth transfixed, her eyes glued to Inari's hands even as Sara's mother lectured, watching the paper take shape into something more.

"Your aura is a part of who you are, a metaphysical part of your body. Just as you do not need to think to breathe, you do not need to think to control your aura to some degree. It is instinctive, and the stronger your aura gets, the more instinctive control you gain over it. But like any muscle, your aura can be trained to gain strength, speed…" Inari opened her hands, displaying a bright yellow paper bird. "...and control." Gasps filled the clearing as the paper bird seemed to come to life, twitching and hopping about like a real bird before it took flight, flapping out of Inari's hands to circle about the students.

"Close your eyes and reach out to the bird with your mana senses. Once you find it, point and follow it with your hand" Shiori commanded as the bird flitted about.

Following her mother's direction, Jun closed her eyes and reached out with her newly unlocked mana senses, feeding it intent and direction as she felt for the bird. Only to freeze as she sensed a monster watching her from the trees, lying in wait for her. She felt alien claws reaching for her from every tree, every shadow, from the ground itself. No, she corrected herself, not a monster. It was the Forest itself. Primal and untamed, glutted on the deaths of millions of adventurers and the remains of forgotten civilizations. It wasn't just a single monster, but all of them. The Forest hungered, and it would have her as its next meal. Fear gripped her heart as the claws reached for her. Tugging at her mana, Jun started to cast a barrier, only for her to lose her grip on her mana as something else pushed the Forest's mana back with a roar. A predator that ruled the Forest. It might be a wild thing, but it too feared something. Something that reminded the Forest of it's place and claimed Jun and her friends as its own. As suddenly as the Forest's oppressive mana appeared, it vanished along with whatever scared it.

Shaken, Jun opened her eyes and looked around the clearing, only to see her friends in their own meditative poses as Inari and Shiori looked on, seemingly unconcerned. The Guild Guide Kora stood off to the side, an unreadable look on her face as she eyed the two beastkin. Seeing her mother relaxed, Jun shook her head and took a few deep breaths, banishing the memories of the Forest's encroaching claws before she closed her eyes and reached out with her mana senses again.

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With the Forest's influence gone, subtle sensations made themselves known as they floated into her mind. A feeling to her left gave off the impression of wind blowing through the trees, unbound and free. Sara, Jun realized, the sensations coming from where the elf sat next to her.

A burning heat came from her right, like the embers of a doused fire that threatened to ignite again. Aya. Following her senses, Jun picked up the sensations of the rest of her friends. Cecilia felt like strength and ambition. Cian of quiet resolve and love. Keira felt like the shadows of a forgotten dream. Lane burned with passion and valor, while Gareth rattled with the chains of duty. Corin whispered his presence as an invitation for a warm hug and a cookie, while Michael radiated stubborn resistance.

But not the bird, nor the older women who accompanied them. Driven by curiosity, Jun dug deeper into her senses, pushing beyond the noise of her friends' mana as she searched for the signs of the older women's mana, or what powered the bird. Minutes passed before she caught a trace of something else. A subtle scent, a flicker of a half remembered dream. Latching onto that faint trace, Jun sent her senses grasping for it until she finally understood it. A sense of control and discipline. Of books and coffee and late nights reading that came from the edge of the clearing, near where she last saw the Guild Guide. Kora, she assumed. Acknowledging the sensation, Jun moved on, digging deeper into the strange and esoteric senses she'd learned from her mother. She still hadn't found a trace of her mother nor Inari's mana, but then she felt it.

A flittering sensation that her instincts told her was mana but not. A relative perhaps, baring a resemblance but being wholly different at the same time. The flittering sensation moved about, dancing and weaving in the air around all of the scents of mana. Her eyes still closed, Jun raised her arm up and pointed towards that flittering sensation, her hand weaving about in a pattern as she did.

Kora held back a scowl as she watched the two beastkin and their students. The students that should've been hers. It'd only been a couple hours and she was already sure they would've been better off with her. The only way she could describe their training was barbaric.

Forcing an aura failure hadn't been done in centuries. Instead aura failure was taught when people hit mid Silver, and enchanted items to reduce the effects were easy enough to get. Especially since it took aura control to do without, something that most couldn't develop until well into the Gold rank. Asking Silvers, let alone Irons to learn it was asking for the impossible. Even if it was aura masters teaching them. Something Kora still doubted they were, even if their aura control was better than her own.

As the foxkin flew the paper bird about using aura kinesis though, her doubts started to slip away. Aura kinesis was the realm of Platinums, something only those with the potential to become aura masters were capable of at Gold, and even then they never had fine control. But her own senses didn't lie to her. She could feel the foxkin's aura pulsing through the construct, imbuing it with a portion of her own soul. No mana touched it, no spell or enchantment that might allow a Gold to fake such advanced skills. No, it was pure aura that powered the bird.

Perhaps even more unbelievable were the students. They could actually sense the bird. The elven girl was the first to find and track the bird, her finger following after it as it moved erratically about the students. It was an impressive display for a low Silver, though if she'd overheard correctly the foxkin was the elf's adopted mother. If she'd been learning and training under an aura specialist since Bronze, it made sense she might be able to sense aura already.

Then the next hand went up. "...what?" Kora whispered to herself in surprise. The second student was the purplish-black haired human girl, her finger hesitantly pointing to the bird. At first Kora thought the Iron ranked girl made a lucky guess. After all, who in their right mind would ever expect an Iron to sense an aura construct, even in the middle of a dungeon-forest without all the aura and mana noise of a city to sort through? But as the girl's finger started to follow along behind the paper bird, her eyes still closed, Kora was forced to admit to what she was seeing. One by one, the students, Silver and Iron alike, started to trace the bird's flight. Most were like the Iron ranked girl, unsure and just a few beats behind, able to follow but not well. Only two, Inari's daughter and Duke Brightmane's youngest, followed confidently.

Such a display of potential was unheard of. Any one of the students would've been heralded as a prodigy. To see ten of them in the same place was like finding a trove of ancient artifacts. Amazing, and dangerous. If their potential was known, noble families would fight to recruit them as vassals or tie them together through marriage. And if recruitment wasn't possible? Then they'd die by assassins sent by those same nobles, if only to deny their rivals a potential asset.

Jun ran deeper into the Forest, keeping pace with her team as the trees blurred by. As her foot touched against a root, Jun focused on her sense of self, willing herself to bounce off the wood rather than drive her foot through it. The root shuddered at the contact but held as she kicked off of it, sending herself speeding forward.

Shiori's words from the lesson echoed in her head with every movement.

She struggled with how to view herself, and her aura seemed to reflect her confusion. Her control was shaky as she struggled to figure out her place in the world. She remembered who she was on Earth, knew her place. But things were different here. She wasn't who she used to be. Merinthia was changing her, slowly but surely, but that process left her feeling confused, her old self and new self at war with each other. She was still the girl struggling to fit in, to do what she thought society demanded of her. She was a killer who abhorred violence. An adventurer, a mage, and a student. An abandoned child, an orphan, and a beloved daughter. Who she was, who she is, it was in flux.

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