Later that evening, with a set of new cuts and bruises ad her body from her private lesson after css, Emily shows The Cws to her friends at dinner.

  “Woah, that’s so cool!” Tom fawns over the ons.

  Hester spares them a gnce, as Emily expins the internal meism, but she doesn’t show muterest. Juliana frowns slightly when they are first revealed, but still listens ily to Emily’s expnation.

  “...springs are uhe ptes on the back because I pn on ging that system a little after I work out a few issues.”

  Emily finishes answering all of Tom’s queries and pulls her sleeves back over the Cws before turning to start eating. They eat in fortable silence for a few minutes until Juliana leans in and whispers to Emily.

  “You know, Emi. I’d prefer if you showed me one of your clockwork birds instead of ons.”

  “Sorry Jules,” Emily chuckles apologetically. “I really enjoy making ons, so I’m probably not gonna stop. But I promise I’ll make you something less violent at some point.”

  “Jules?” Juliana questions softly, staring at Emily with wide eyes.

  “Well, if yonna give me a niame, it’s only fair,” Emily responds while stig her to.

  Juliana giggles lightly and smiles as she returns to eating, quickly distracted from her s over Emily’s crafting habits.

  ***

  Returning to her room aloer eating, Emily sets about making a sed set of Cws. As the sound of steam and grindial fills the room, she thinks over her priorities for the foreseeable future.

  I o start signing up for more csses soon. Before I take the Cws or Steam Source to E-Rank, I need some lessons on engraving and possibly spell creation.

  She gnces over at the trays of powdered mana crystal.

  And maybe alchemy before I mess about with those...

  ***

  Emily spends the wo weeks bang meditation, tinkering with her maes, spell creation, and lessons.

  She signs up fraving a Studies, the prerequisite to Alchemy. Her first engraving css turns out to be redundant, as she’s given a brief expnation on the subject before being handed a list of books to read before she join the css in their lesson.

  Beast Studies, taught by Mr Eleocharis, is more useful. They look at sand stalkers, a familiar beast to her. To her surprise, she finds out that sand stalkers actually have a use in alchemy, with their tendons being a semi-valuable magical reagent.

  She also attends her st Elemental Sele, where she is given a pass a off one hundred points richer by Jenny after dispying her gesture casting of burning hands. She follows up by passiiquette early after pleting a short, writte, using the tents of a few textbooks she memorized to avoid the b lesson.

  Her uful two weeks e to an end as Emily walks into her fourth hand-to-hand bat lesson fifteen minutes early, as has bee a habit now, to find the room empty other than Jeremy and Kyle. Both have their ons on them, but she thinks nothing of it, walking towards a er of the room to get warmed up.

  “Well well well, if it isn’t the prodigy herself,” Kyle says with a desding sneer as they sloroach her.

  Emily looks up at the two, unamused.

  “Aas your little ego bruised by me passing the lesson you’ve been stu for months?” she responds to their animosity in kind.

  “Silenoner scum,” Jeremy spits on the floor at her feet as he speaks. “What gives you the right to speak back to your betters?”

  “I don’t know, talent aal acuity you’re clearly missing?”

  Jermy’s face turns bright red, aakes a step forward. Emily lowers her stance, ready to strike the moment he es close. Kyle quickly grabs his friend’s arm and pulls him back lightly.

  “Not yet,” Kyle hisses before turning baily. “Noouldn’t want anything unsavoury to happen here, would we?”

  “I don’t know, I quite like where I was going,” Emily says with narrowed eyes, still holding a bat-ready stance.

  “You see, a few weeks ago you showed off a very peculiar set of ons.” Emily reises the familiar glint of greed in his eyes as he speaks. “Our families would like to know who made those for you. If you tell us now, we end this easily without any… issues.”

  Emily snorts at his demand.

  “Well tough shit, I’m not telling you a thing,” she sneers, poised and waiting for them to attack.

  “Ahh, what a shame. The hard way it is then,” Kyle says with a sigh, releasing Jeremy’s arm and giving him a small nod.

  “Boys! Fuck her up!” Jeremy calls out as he advances.

  Out of the er of her eye, Emily spots two bulky students she doesn’t reise walking into the hall and closing the door behind them.

  Juliana said no magic that harms students, right? Damn, this may be difficult.

  Releasing a deep breath and fog, her perception slows down as her targets approach. Jeremy steps in to throunch, and she ducks below, avoiding it by a fra of an inch. She jams an elbow into his ribs as he passes, knog him to the floor coughing. The moment she starts to rise though, a sword is thrust towards her face. Reag quickly, she tilts her head to the side and leaps back.

  Reag up, she touches her cheek and feels a wet warmth on her fingers.

  Are they actually trying to kill me?

  Lookiween the blood on her hand and Kyle’s sword, Emily feels rage bubbling in her chest.

  “I guess the great prodigy bleed!” Kyle jeers.

  His two ies help Jeremy up and then begin to surround Emily, each drawing a on. Jeremy takes the spear off his back, and the other two carry a sharp mad a double-sided axe. Emily springs forward, attempting to take the initiative and strike Jeremy before he level his spear, but the mace-wielding brute reacts in time, swinging for her legs and f her to step back.

  She feels a tingle run down her spine and leans over backwards, watg an axe sail through the air where she oood. Pnting a hand on the ground, she pivots over, delivering her foot into the face of her attacker. He stumbles back with his nose bloody, giving her enough room tht herself.

  As she nds and prepares to push her advantage, a foot flies in and catches her in the side of the ribs. Stumbling to the side and grittieeth through the pain, she leans to avoid a sword ssh to her torso. The bde lightly grazes her exposed ribs, and she responds in kind, shing out towards Kyle’s hand and engaging the Cw’s release meism while p a small stream of maa into it. The long, thin bde rockets out, ly severing two of his fingers.

  Kyle drops his sword and screams in pain, alerting his friends to his plight. Their momentary loss of focus aids Emily, as she turns and bolts towards Jeremy, keen to remove the threat of his spear’s range. Sliding in past his guard she sshes her bde towards his chest, but he reacts just in time, swinging the back of his spear down and catg her in the shin. She falls as her foot is swept out from under her, before following through into a roll to avoid a falling mace.

  Ign the searing pain in her shin and ribs, she swipes her other hand towards Jeremy’s back leg on her ast, extending a maa charged Cw as she does. The bde rips through flesh, leaving a spray of blood on the dirt as she rises and looks at her handiwork. Jeremy cries out in pain and tries to take a step back, only to fall as his foot doesn’t respond to him. Emily grimaces slightly at the sight of his foot hanging limp, the back tendons pletely severed, but quickly regains her focus as another bde sails towards her.

  She brings up both hands, catg the axe head betweewo bdes, twisting them aing the axe fall harmlessly past her. She uses the thug’s momentum against him, stepping in as his heavy on falls and sliding a bde against his exposed forearm, diggiill she hits bone. He grunts and drops his on. Handling the paier than his masters, he tinues fighting and shes out, sending an elbow into Emily’s arm.

  The weight behind the blow sends Emily staggering sideways towards an ining mace. She twists to avoid the worst damage, getting caught with a gng blow against her shoulder. She feels a pop and excruciating paihrough her arm along with a stream of blood leaking from a set of gashes, but she ig and turns to face her other assaint. To her surprise though, Kyle is ba his feet as well and holding his sword in his left hand with a hasty bandage ing his right.

  “You bitch, you’ll pay for this,” he growls through gritted teeth.

  “Haha, maybe, but I suspect it won’t be today.”

  Emily takes a few deep breaths to sider her attack options before bringing her hands together resolutely.

  I really hope this doesn’t t as attag with magic.

  Wing at the pain in her shoulder, she quickly weaves together a set of hand signs while closing the gap to push the offensive. As she steps inte, a fist and mace close in on her from either side. Hoping her gamble pays off, she steps to the side, avoiding the mace but taking the fist tut. As the impads, she releases a pained grunt and pours as much mana as possible into her spell before tossing the gathered ball of mana in front of her. She closes her eyes and s her healthy arm aroutacker’s fist.

  All three assaints cry out in pain as her spell bursts in a radiant shower of light. Emily opens her eyes soon after, seeing them all clutg their faces, to in the case of the man whose arm she has pinned. Making a quick decision, she releases his arm and sshes her bde down his inner forearm, disabling his st w hand and stepping away as he colpses with a scream.

  She rushes the other two before they recover, delivering a kick to Kyle’s chest and sending him tumbling to the ground, dropping his sword. The mace wielder mao react as Emily focuses on him, raising his mad sending it careening towards her with poor aim, his sight still hampered. The mace falls harmlessly past her with a slight twist of her torso, and she ruthlessly drives a Cw up through his exposed armpit. She watches with a sadistic grin as the bloody bde tears its way out through his shoulder before she rips it back.

  Ign the wailing mess of a man as he falls, she releases a small sigh of relief and turns to face Kyle. He looks up as she approaches, growing pale and scrambling back to escape her. She smiles with satisfa, seeing fear where earlier there had been nothing but haughty pride.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks tilting her head. “I thought I was going to pay for this.”

  She crouches over his defenceless form, stepping on his healthy hand as she does.

  “Well? Where is your scary noble house to protect you now?” she asks as she raises a Cw above his chest, sav the way he squirms in panic.

  Before she move though, the door to the training hall swings open. She looks over and sees Agnes walking in with a crowd following her.

  “Why was that door closed?” Agnes calls out, looking around the room and pausing in surprise when she sees Emily surrounded by fallen students.

  Emily clicks her tongue in disappoi as she makes eye tact with Agnes before driving her bde down into Kyle’s thigh. He screams in pain, drawing the full attention of the css as Emily whispers a final warning.

  “Try something like this again, and you’ll lose more than a few fingers.”

  Standing up, she wipes the bde on her shirt and begins making her way towards her teacher. As the adrenaline from the fight starts to wear off, she begins to limp slightly and wi the pain she feels all etting closer to the group, she sees a mix of fear and apprehension towards her, with only Oscar and a few others showing ion other than approval.

  “What happened?” Agnes asks directly.

  “Those assholes decided it was a good idea to attack me when I said I wouldn’t sell out my ons source to their families,” Emily responds bluntly.

  “I see,” Agnes scoffs, gng towards the four colpsed forms with disappoi. “Sit this lesson out and go deal with your wounds. Do you need help with your shoulder?”

  “No thanks, I’ll just ask a friend to help. Could you help me put my Cws away though?” Emily asks, not tempted to try to push against springs giveate of her arm.

  Agnes nods and helps retract the bdes on Emily’s wrists with practised ease.

  “Good job,” Agnes says quietly. “Looks like you put our lessons to good use.” She then turns to face the fallen nobles with s: “Get out and stop bleeding on my floor.”

  Emily ughs as she turns to leave. The crowd quickly parts to let her pass, but just before she steps out of the room, Oscar puts out a hand and lightly stops her. She looks at him with a brow raised in slight annoyance, waiting for him to speak.

  “If you need a healer, look for Fionn on the service market. He’s sponsored by my family, so I’ll let him know to give you a solid dist if you want.”

  “Thanks, I’ll look for him if I ,” she responds briskly with a small, grateful smile before quickly leaving.

  I’ll be fih some disiant and sleep. Jules isn’t going to react well though, is she?