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After awaking from her one hour nap, Vivi sluggishly got up and looked outside. 'So much for a half hour nap...' she scolded herself. The Nekomata returned to her human form and stretched, grabbing a water bottle and running outside quickly.
The same fast pace continued for about an hour before she hit unfamiliar parts of the woods. If she were to guess, about eight miles away from campus. Vivi looked around for the nearest clearing, and sat down in one surrounded by pine trees, the pine needles being a slightly frosted on the ends. She took in more of her surroundings and finally noticed a huge mound sticking out of the ground, like a mini mountain. In the opening, was a railroad track leading slowly deeper into the cave by a slight tilt. The Nekomata noticed farther into the cave what seemed to be small little specks of white falling to the ground.
Grinning to herself, Vivi ran in quickly, already recognizing this as a dungeon like area. Instead of taking out her axe this time, she took out her two sword hilts and kept them in hand as she ran deeper into the tunnel.

As her trip down the tunnel got deeper, the more she realized it was getting colder. Seconds later, it started to snow around her, and she slowed her pace down to observe this weirdness. 'It must be some sort of strong golem keeping this place cold as the north pole itself...' Vivi mentally noted. This was information to be kept about the boss.
As the narrow entrance became wider on the turn, a huge frozen over lake made its presence known with snow falling steadily everywhere from the cave ceiling that was about twenty feet high. Little small snowball like creatures slipped and slid across the frozen surface of the lake, stopping immediately when noticing the intruding Nekomata. The Snowgies looked at her for a brief second before their happy rock faces turned into stone cold angry faces. With their high pitched battle cry, they all charged at Vivi at once.

"Shit." was the only word Vivi could fully say out loud before she raised up a hand and summoned 5 fireballs and threw them into the army of angry little snowmen.
Sadly, only half of Snowgies were destroyed, and the rest of the ones alive gave her the glare of death. Vivi, without a second thought jumped up to a wind plate above her and threw down 4 regular bombs at them. With that, the rest died off in melted puddles of water, and the Nekomata jumped down from her wind plate.

'That...was interesting to say the most. Never thought something so cute could be so damn violent.' She thought to herself.

Continuing onwards with her journey downwards into the mineshaft, she balanced herself on the metal part of the mine rails as a small game to keep from thinking too much of the long boring walk.
In the distance of the dark cave, only lit by small mushrooms, she saw something sparkle like crystal, ice. Running towards it she opened the thick iced chest open with a punch and peeked inside. Although, before she could really look inside, She heard the loud thuds of something approaching. Turning around quickly, she saw a massive frost troll approach her. It looked somewhat starved and lonely, this giving her the perfect chance. Vivi would take down this troll and skin it, that was her ultimate plan. As the frost troll darted towards her, the Nekomata raised her hand in the air and summoned 2 fireballs, throwing it directly at the frost trolls gut. The troll, already being weak from starvation, screamed in agony as it collapsed to the floor, the fire burning his insides and leaving the skin of its stomach charred up.

"Well that was no fun. Pussy." she mocked as she stuck out her tongue, taking out a sword hilt and charging it with small amounts of Exin to give the blade 4 inches. She went up to the dead frost troll with a mad grin as she started to scalp its head and skin its arms, taking enjoyment of using the tuff skin as a new clothing item and armor for the climate of this snow dungeon.

After skinning the troll of its skin, Vivi had dipped it in the snow used it to wash off the blood and vessels, scraping off any leftover hanging flesh. The skin was hard to cut into as it was, and the edges were slightly jagged from the attempts to cut through it cleanly. No matter, the skin was fine and near clean as she started up a small fire to hang the skin over. As the skin was left to dry off on top of the fire, Vivi had gotten to salvaging any troll fat that was not cooked to a crisp, quickly pocketing it in a pen. It would go great for damaging health potions with the roots she had collected last dungeon.

Remembering the chest against the wall, she ran up to it and peered inside, seeing Ice Wraith Teeth, a few Crimson Roots, and Ashen Vines, along with it a few Lunar Dragonflies flying out with their glowing wing lighting up brightly. Swiping the Lunar Dragonflies out of the air, she slapped them between her hands to kill them but not crumble their wings too much.

'Best. Loot. Yet. I can make an invisibility potion to kick Ren's ass! Ha!' The nekomata mused.

Bagging the rest of the material for a cool new potion, vivi headed to the tough skin and pulled the now clean skin away, taking off the wooden temp army and replacing it with the skin, putting the scalped head over my head, slipping on the arm sleeves and back like a coat, and putting on the feet over my black socks, jumping excitedly.

"Suck it Kheire! You might be a craftsman but the huntress knows how to make armor shit too!"

She said with great amounts of joy. It was warm, cozy, tough enough to take most cut damages, and most of all, made her look agressive and cool.

Stretching out slightly, she gathered her stuff and continued on her path down the insanely weird dungeon mining system place.

Coming up to her next task, a whole pack of wolves, counting to about nine were all curled up and sleeping. Their furs were icey pure white, their claws long, strong, and sharp. Freezing in her steps, she tried to remain hidden. But, it was too late, one of the closer wolves had heard her and opened their sharp blue eyes, howling loudly to alert the others of the Nekomata.

Vivi ran past them quickly before they could give an attack, running into a narrow, long, steep path with the wolves hot on her heels. She jumped and back flipped behind them, landing on her feet gracefully as she brought out both her swords and powered them with enough exin to make the blades four feet long. The Nekomata charged at the wolves as they tried to come in for an attack again, slashing at them wildly and without a thought as each wolf was sent flying to the twenty-four feet deep canyon. Splatters of blood covered her face and front side, luckily not enough to make her dripping animal blood. She cut off the power to her swords and stuck them to her bomb belt on her waist, letting out a sigh of relief. Wolves were not her thing, they were cute, but just....no.

She began her run down the path that had became a simple cave area, a beginning of a castle ballroom becoming clearer and clearer to her as she approached it. When she looked up, there was a high ceiling with a wide opening to show the second floor that seemed to be just as tall in length. Vivi looked at the stares to her side, carefully walking up the thick designed ice. Whatever made this went into a lot of trouble to make such great detail on everything. Everything seemed to be made of ice, even the chandelier was made of icicles and 5shards. Entering the second floor, she saw two polar bears guarding another entrance to another tunnel.

This was a moment for an axe, she decided. Pulling out her axe from her pen, she held it up in an offensive position, giving a whistle to alert them of her presence. The two polar bears stood up more on all fours, the first one giving a loud rawr before it challenged Vivi to come make the first move. She gladly took the chance, running at it with her own batle cry and slicing at its belly with a upperleft swing as it stood on its hind paws. Unfazed, the polar bear growled and raised its paw, striking down on Vivi who used her axe to stop it in its tracks, pushing it back and stabbing the blade into its side. The other polar bear charged at the Nekomata, throwing her to the side with its body weight. She go up and ran at the polar bear's left, tilting to slice at its bare neck. Both polar bears slowly bled to death as she walked off and wished that Zillium had mercy on their souls.

Not even a long walk later, she had hit the final room, the boss room...

The mighty snow golem uncurled itself from its rubble-like state, rising to its full stature.
The cat demon unsheathed her two swords, the blades going to a full three and a half feet length. She raised one in front of her and let the other one fall to her side loosely.
The artificial monster rushed forward like an oncoming avalanche, swinging its mighty, spiked fists in the direction of the fiery, young catgirl.
Vivi jumped into the air and summoned a wind glyph, using it to land on his back and stab both blades into the monsters hard snowy back.
The snowy abomination arche its back in pain, falling backwards on top of you.
The Nekomata summoned 6 fireblasts from inside the beast, burning up the snow and ice with the extreme heat.
All that was left was a shiny, light blue core.

She walked to the core, taking short breaths as she bent down and took the core, smiling to herself. Another step to getting stronger...
She took her eyes away from the core and around for the familiar chest, seeing the tip poke out from a patch of snow. Running over, she dug it out and pulled it closer to her, opening it to find a brand new set of armor. The armor was a beautiful sharp blue that looked to cover the whole body, rose petal like shoulder spikes of a greyish blue hue, the legs down wrapped with movable sky blue metal. The chestplate was midnight blue claw marks that covered her sides and stomach fully, the chest being shielded with grey hard metal. It was beautiful. She slipped on the armor quickly and twirled in it a bit. It was a perfect fit, and it was suprisingly warm for ice armor. She gave a jump and noted that she would need to practice with this new armor weight, and grabbed her weapons, putting on the helmet and walking out of the now completed ice dungeon.
 
After a long walk home, she bursted into the dorms and collapsed on to the couch. The nekomata turned into a cat quickly and slipped out of the armor, yawning and falling asleep. It was now a thing, leave for a dungeon, come back to sleep on the couch after a day or two, wake up and repeat the process.
 
Quin sat and thought about names. "I do my best thinking when I'm relaxed...." he walks over towards the firepit, his puppets flying above/behind him. Quin puts sticks, twigs, logs, leafs, and any other flammable thing around into the fire. "Okay, I need to name you.... Bo, Anthony, John, are you three." He points at the three. "You three are named Grace, Kim, and Vivi... Ah yes, I'm naming one of you after my best friend since I've been here.... Vivi, can you get a stick?" Quin asks and The puppet named Vivi flew away, coming back and dropping a stick at his feet. "Good, good...." Quin lights the fire and starts to laugh evilly.
 
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Kheire was only able to respond before beginning the process, as it would need utmost concentration. "Yes, this will assist you in combat a great deal. Now, I won't be able t speak while this is going on, so please be patient." For the next hour or so he went to work on each spot specified by Miki that he would like to have a runic tattoo. He let out a long, drawn out sigh upon completion. "Thank you for your patience. As you have requested, each one is in the proper place and with the right specifications. If you are ever unsatisfied, please tell me."
 
Valentina decided to try to get out of bed without waking Ren up further, and went to go find Kheire. She had this core she needed his help with.
 
Miki filled up the two Exin caches and tested them slowly, "I want to test them. Can you accompany me in case I have a misstep?"

"Of course, I was just about to head to a dungeon, myself. You have a Metal alignment, correct? I have a pet with the same alignment and just so happen to need to acquire his first ability." Kheire smiled and dug through his equipment, pulling out a small belt of colorful vials. "These are potions, it is necessary to take them to every dungeon possible. Here, take some." The shorter young man held them out to his new companion.

Miki nodded and accepted the bottles, pocketing them and looked at Kheire expectantly. "That is fine with me, let's go."

Kheire set off to the academy building, expecting Miki to follow. He had not told the other dorm members about the portal room, or the other parts of the academy. Mostly because no one asks.
The brunette trailed behind Kheire, watching as other students, mostly upperclassmen, pass through the portals all labeled with a symbol that he really couldn't read. The room was simple, circular tall stone walls with a dome ceiling, lit up by a collection of light orbs drifting through the air. The portals were plain metal archways that melded smoothly with the walls.

Kheire stopped as they entered, searching for the metal aligned portal. "Welcome to the portal room. This place is a shortcut to all artificial dungeons."

Miki hummed in acknowledgement, pressing his hand on the walls as he followed. "Which one are we going through?"

"The metal dungeon. Didn't I mention it?" Kheire continued towards the metal dungeon door. "Seems like this one is particularly difficult today. Oh well, I am sure we can handle it."
Miki nodded and passed through the portal without prompting, slightly disorientated by the sudden change of scenery.

Kheire followed, holding his companion steady. "I know, a bit confusing. You went from a room full of doorways to a strange, metal enclosure full of symmetrical, shiny structures." The young monster glanced around, noting the rectangular support columns, cube shaped room, cube shaped nearly everything with strange, nigh eldritch designs. There was no clear source of light but everything seems to have its own shine. There are different pathways on every wall, including the roof and floor. All a matching size and cubic shape.

The Gheist strained his senses to scan for any chinks in the maze, but the entire structure was solid without a single indication for which path was correct. "I can't even look for places without metal as a guide..."

Kheire closed his eyes and thought. There are ten paths. "Hmmm. Maybe just pick one at random? I like that one." He points to one near them, over to the left and a few paces ahead. "It looks and smells right."

Miki didn't question how a solid block of metal smells 'right' but he accepted it was just Dorm Advisor's judgement and went into it without a single doubt.
Kheire jumped down, following the path. A deep rumbling was heard before slots opened in the walls, revealing metal angler fish with a strangely shiny metal piece on the end, their maws gaping with hunger. "Well. This could be worse. Ideas?" He sprayed weak projectiles to deter them from approaching.

"A hippo is worse. Particularly if it breathes fire. Those things are not fun." He summoned a crystal to smash a fish into the adjacent wall.

"I suppose you are right." Kheire extended his wires, slashing through one sloppily. "But you most likely just jinxed us. Hmmm. We need a way to go through them. Ideas?"

"You could carry me while I'm a sword?" He said monotonously.

"That... Gives me ideas. Turn into that sword form of yours?" One of Kheire's gloves expanded with Exin from the core on the back of the hand into a circular shield. He reached a hand out to Miki.
Slightly surprised at the acceptance, Miki shifted wordlessly, hoping that Kheire would actually catch him before he hit the ground.
The shorter young man reached out and grabbed the living blade by the grip and positioned it directly beside the shield. He took a deep breath before rushing through the enemies, leaving them behind. After having left them far behind and making various turns on instinct. Finally, he reached a room. He stopped when he noticed how much larger it was than the others.

I take this as an okay to change back.」 He was slightly miffed that they didn't destroy all the mechanic fish beasts and shifted back, falling on his ass due to Kheire now holding onto his ankle.

"I suppose now is as good a time as any." Kheire helped Miki up and looked to the center of the room, seeing an enormous metal hippo lazing around, looking as if it could just swim through metal. "...You just had to say giant hippos, didn't you?"

"If it's of any solace, I didn't say god-eating tarantula?" Miki summoned his weapon and stared at the beast, waiting for Kheire to give a command.

"This does not look like something we can defeat, melee wise. It can most likely move through our surroundings quite easily. I would recommend magic, as it would seem to be the easiest method of damaging it safely. Unfortunately, I have no strong method of magic attack. But, I can figure something out. Magma, an alignment of mine, would be extremely helpful against this metal monstrosity. Could you buy me some time? No need to hurt yourself doing it, it would be risky, but I could possibly avoid its attention while creating my attack. Unless you have a better idea. I am all ears at this point." Kheire's face was a mask of solemn features as he considered his options.

Miki nodded, "That's no problem." He circled around the beast making sure he was far enough from Kheire as the creature's eyes tracked him lazily. He created a cluster of small crystals and flung them at the hippo's eyes, but only grazing its face.
As Kheire was steadily contracting and expanding a mass of magma as the hippo sank into the floor, heading for Miki. It leapt out of the ground, quickly snapping at him before diving back down and reappearing in the center.
The brunette cursed under his breath and picked himself off the ground. Miki swung his sword in a wide arc, creating five spiraling shards all poised to hit the hippo's exposed back. He watched as two shattered on impact and three successfully pierced the creature's skin.

The creature roared in pain and threw its head from side to side. Seeing the brighter colored Kheire tinkering with the glowing magma, it chose to go for him instead. Diving underneath the metal floor, it poked its head from the ground with its gaping jaws on either side of Kheire just as he smiled and looked up at Miki, having finished the process. The jaws snapped shut around him and sank back underground, staying silent for a couple moments before an explosion rocked the boss room, rubble flying up from the floor while still in perfectly symmetrical cube shapes. Kheire crawled out with his scales covering his body looking quite damaged, even blank in some places. "Uhhh... I did it." He grinned at Miki, hoping he didn't tell Ren that he exploded. "Soooo. You wanna find loot while I absorb this Halophage?"

Miki scoured the area and picked up a pair of gloves made of chainmail with bulky cuffs. "This was it." I had walked back to Kheire and held out the gauntlets, "Can I keep these? You already have gloves anyway."

"Of course. I like mine better anyway. Have fun with them, see what they do while I finish up." His speed in absorbing Halophages and transferring them to his pets had increased with experience.

Miki slipped on the gloves, looking for any indication on how to use them. He punched the air and started when a claw shot out from his wrist. The protrusion sunk into a nearby wall, retracting to pull back a cube of metal from the wall. "This will be... useful...

Satisfied with the spoils of their dungeon the two went back to the Academy. It took Miki a full day to even realize he had never used his runes.
 
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When Kheire had returned to the academy, he noticed Val waiting in his room. "Hello there, what can I do for you today? On a side note, I am glad to see you healthy again and ready for action." He grins at her softly, glad she hadn't been too severely injured by the ordeal. He would've been much more upset had something worse happened than some temporary burns.
 
When Vivi had awaken, she had turned human mid sleep, her brains spinning and dizzy. She crawled up and immediately felt nausous, running to the bathroom. She had her hand pressed to her mouth, her body slamming into walls with her blurred vision as she began to gag, vomit seeping through her fingers. Finally opening the bathroom door sloppily, she rushed to the toilet and ripped it open, letting it all out. There wasnt very much left, seeing as how droplets led her way to the bathroom and the bathroom itself covered in small puddles of vomit. 's-strange...I had nothing to eat...why a-...am I so sick...?' she questioned herself dazily before her vision started to blacken. With a last minute effort to keep awake, she gave a call for her cat to come. And come, the cat did, bolting in and quickly biting and Vivi's fingers to keep her awake and alert. The Nekomata smiled at her precious pet and sent her to go get help, before laying against the wall and passing out. The cat, with the same speed as before, ran to Kheire, the closest person she could find. With loud meows and scratching at the door, she finally sank her claws into the wood and really started to tear at it.
 
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Miki spent most of the day in the Academy library refreshing his knowledge of runes. Had he not repeatedly dropped his stored weapons on the tile floor he probably would've been in the room all day, but he did, which is how he ended scouring the Academy grounds for Ren with hopes to spar and teach him how to wield a sword.
He was close to giving up when he peeked into the infirmary to see Ren curled up on an empty bed that previously housed Valentina.

"Finally!" Nurse Rina emerged from her office with the same face as someone who would kick a puppy, "Take that kid with you, he's taking up space for my patients!" After those brief words she swiftly shut her door.

The brunette stood over Ren and tentatively shook his shoulder, "Master... wake up, it's the afternoon..."
 
"Yes, I'm quite alright but I have this core here. I heard you could do something with it." Val said, holding it out.
 
Kheire grabbed the core and took his time examining it. "Ah, yes... a manticore core... exploding darts, interesting... I should be done with this by tomorrow, barring any unforeseen circumstances." At that moment, scratching could be heard at his doorstep. "That would be the unforeseen circumstances I was talking about." He turned to the door, scooping up Vivi in his arms when he sees her in her weakened state. "My poor baby kitty! Val, get the nurse! Fly, quickly!"
 
Ren grumbled as he stirred. "It's always the afternoon at this time of day... It's not fair..."
Sitting up drowsily, he looked around the room slowly before his gaze fell upon Miki.
"Ah. Hello."
He blinked, seeming not entirely present in mind for a moment, before flushing brightly, grabbing his sari off his pillow, and wrapping it around his head hastily.
"...Hello. Sorry... I fell asleep without realising..." he said sheepishly. "D-did you need me for something?"
 
"Oh uh, okay!" Val said, flying to get the nurse.
Once she had found the nurse, she realized she didn't actually know what was wrong.
 
Vivi started to twist and turn in Kheire's arms, breathing heavily as she squirmed more for coldness, everything becoming too hot. She wasn't necessarily sick, just very hot and with a stomach ache.
 
Miki breezed through Ren's murmurings and smoothed out the shorter male's clothes, "Since you are my Master now you need to be able to wield a sword. I'm assuming you don't have said experience so I'll train you. We'll be going to the training grounds outside the dorms." He picked up the white-haired boy and slung him over his shoulder, ignoring the odd sense of deja vu from the action, and began to walk out of the sickbay.
 
"E-eh? M-M-Miki?" he spluttered. "I-I'm fine! I can walk! This is Val's bed! It's not mine! I'm fine! Really!"
That said, he didn't squirm or struggle. There was something oddly comforting about Miki carrying him, albeit he wasn't completely comfortable with this particular setup.
 
"Do you think I would try to train you if you were hurt?" Yes, he would.
"For starters I want to see your stance, or what you think a fighting stance is, then I want to get you started with..." Whatever Miki had said was lost in a sea of specific terms for actions as mundane as wrist flicking, "...and maybe an extra hour of drawing exercises with stretching in between forms to finish. Did you get that Master Ren?"
The brunette moved his Master from his shoulder and held him outstretched like one would with a toddler, letting his height do the work, and dangled the shorter male over the ground.
 
Ren stared blankly at Miki, blinking in astonished bewilderment, much like any kitten would suspended by the scruff of its neck for the first time.
"Yes," he blatantly lied. "I especially liked the part where you said 'stance'. Where are we going?"
 
Val sighed as the nurse tried to get more information, quickly realizing how much time was passing, so she instead just picked her up and flied directly to where Kheire and Vivi were.
 
Miki set his Master down in favor of a fairly straight tree branch that he snapped off a nearby tree.
"You wouldn't know since you don't have Warrior classes," he started plucking the leaves off the limb, "but sir Knil likes to specifically reserve a training ground for his students."
"Not many people go there outside of lessons so you can do what you want, so feel free to make a fool of yourself." He swung the branch as if it was sword, stopping short of smacking Ren upside the head and nodded to himself.