Wulf felt like someone was watching them for the next half hour as they walked back toward the Academy. He counted it as just a superstition, but then a twig cracked in the woods behind them. Softly, and it could’ve been a trick of his mind.

  But the hearing of this younger body was better than what he was used to as an old man. All his senses were, and he’d learned to trust them long ago.

  But there was nothing he could do. Their hunter hadn’t revealed itself yet. His hand hovered over his haversack, where he kept his last potion, and he still held the lantern out ahead of him.

  After a few more minutes, a tree creaked and groaned. Snow tumbled off a bough, and needles crinkled. Wulf spun around, but there was nothing.

  “You heard that?” Kalee asked.

  “I did.”

  “It’s still…odd,” she whispered. “At the end of my life, I could barely hear anything. Now it’s all so loud.”

  “I think Thalin could use some extra hearing,” Wulf whispered, tilting his head toward the mountainwatcher. The dwarf kept on marching, and resumed humming to himself.

  “Got a potion for that?”

  “I wish.”

  “I think there’s a way. My granddaughter kept trying to make me take a hearing-potion. I didn’t want to believe how bad it was until I came back to this body, though…”

  “Too many battles?” Wulf whispered.

  “Too much hammering metal and carving runes in the darkness. I was also going blind, by the way.”

  “And yet you still had time to learn to fight? I’m impressed.”

  “You tend to want to learn after a couple demon attacks and ravages.”

  Wulf didn’t exactly know how to take that, so he left the topic alone, and instead asked, “You had a family?”

  “Adopted a few strays. Nothing…from me.”

  He nodded. “Me neither.”

  “I sure hope you didn’t pop anything out your loins.”

  “Not like that,” he groaned. “By the Field, did your brain turn into an academy student’s, too?”

  He asked it somewhat jokingly, but as he spoke, he changed his tone. The way he felt, his mind refreshed, slightly different. His soul had lightened up just a little, and maybe that was a product of his new body after all. Kalee was probably the same.

  “It’s like…I’ve got the memories of my past life, but I’m not exactly her,” Kalee said. “I’m not exactly my old self either, though. Something in-between.”

  “That’s…a good way of putting it.”

  They kept walking, Wulf with his hand by his last potion, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice, and Kalee with her hand hovering by her leg, ready to draw and consume another of her rudimentary constructs.

  Her abilities…they had to be something to do with consuming constructs to activate spells. But if she could use a spell Skill without mana, then…that meant so much extra mana to put toward advancement, knowing how much mana a Mage gained from defeating enemies.

  But asking the specifics of another’s Skills was generally considered rude, and he’d already pestered her enough today.

  A tree fell across the path. With a creak, its base snapped, and splinters shot out from its sides, before falling across the walkway with a crash. Dry needles rained down, and a wave of pine-scented air wafted over Wulf.

  He whirled toward the disturbance, but in the gap where the tree had just been, there was only blank, empty darkness.

  But he’d bet it was a yeti.

  A moment later, a tree tumbled behind them, crashing onto the pathway and throwing up a wave of pine needles. The pathway etched across the slope of a mountain’s base. Going to the left meant they had to climb a steep, slippery, snowy incline. Wulf couldn’t think of anything less climbable. To the right, they’d have to navigate a steep, greater than forty-five degree slope while a yeti chased them.

  They were as good as trapped.

  And then, with a howl, a yeti pounced out onto the path. It was slightly taller than the others, and though it was roughly the same shape, the ice spines on its back were blood-red, and black markings ran like bolts of lighting through its fur.

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  Wulf immediately held out his hand and assessed its tier. “High-Iron!” he called.

  “It’s berserk,” Thalin said. “Not good. Get behind me. We’ll deal with it together, or it’ll tear us apart together. We’ll be alright.”

  The trees that had fallen on both sides of the path blocked their way, and would slow their escape, but they weren’t the yeti’s usual prey. They could vault over it if they wanted, but after that, there was nowhere to run. Wulf guaranteed that an Iron-tier monster was faster than them.

  The yeti, registering Thalin as the greatest threat, charged. Thalin, being a mage, infused his broom with flame—as all Mages would learn to do with their weapons and aspects.

  He struck the charging yeti in the side of the head, sending it staggering to the side. “I have one potion!” Wulf called. “And it will increase my speed…and give me a mana stipend!”

  “Would it be enough to get you to the next Tier and get you a new Skill?” Kalee asked.

  “It…might be! I don’t know how big of a stipend it is, but the potion’s much higher quality than me. And the speed won’t last long. Thirty seconds.”

  Thalin commanded, “Save it for an emergency.”

  “I’ve got my fists until then,” Wulf said, and settled into a well-practiced fighting stance. “Kalee? How much have you got?”

  “I can hit it three times with my main Skill,” she said. “It’s the only Skill I have—I took an upgrade for it rather than a new Skill.”

  “Thalin,” Wulf said, “you can do the most damage to it. At her stage, Kalee will just slow it down.”

  “And you’re a Middle-Wood as well. You can’t front-line for us, son. It’ll kill you in a hit.”

  “Then I better not get hit, and you guys better slow it down. I’ll keep it off you, but I need you guys to finish the job.”

  Thalin and Kalee both looked skeptical, but none of them presented a better plan. They were going with Wulf’s idea.

  Thalin stepped back, and just in time. The yeti lunged. Spinning his broom, Thalin struck it atop the head with his broom, again imbuing its head with flame. Wulf expected it to drive the yeti to the ground, but the beast just shuddered and dipped its head slightly. Thalin's broom shook and vibrated, but there must've been something magic about it, because, aside from not burning, any other broom would've snapped with that force.

  With another swipe from the side, Thalin made it stagger, but if that would've hit Wulf, it would've flung him across the campus.

  "Damn berserk yeti," Thalin grumbled. "Doesn't feel pain, and stiffens itself up."

  "Hit its belly," Wulf said. "That's where its skin is the weakest. I'll keep it busy and get it to expose itself."

  He darted to the side, wary of the yeti's hands. They had long, scarlet claws at their tips, but he slid under them, gliding on his heels. Once he passed the yeti's claws, he pummeled the beast’s flanks with a set of punches, but they did very little. The yeti stumbled slightly, probably more in shock than anything.

  It wheeled around, turning to face Wulf.

  Before it struck him, Kalee slowed it with a burst of gravity, and Thalin launched a wave of fire into its flank.

  It was about to turn back to the Mages—the bigger threats, in its eyes. Wulf couldn’t have that. He needed to lead it around, then eventually, open it up to attack.

  He ripped his speed potion from his haversack and downed it in a gulp. It tasted like rotten eggs, but he only coughed a small part of it back up into his nose.

  Lightning surged into his limbs, mana poured into his core, and words scrawled across his bracer. He ignored them for the time being and sprinted along the edge of the trail, diving behind the yeti. The speed potion empowered his limbs not with strength, but with speed, which seemed oddly counter-intuitive. He needed strength to go faster.

  At least, he’d need strength if he was using his regular muscles. But the Field bent the fabric of the world itself, and though he couldn’t perceive anything more than a tingle, he moved much faster than he ordinarily would’ve.

  As he passed, he struck the yeti in the back with his knee, drawing its attention once more. It snarled and wheeled about to face him, and the moment it lunged for him, he dipped to the side. Its claws raked past only an inch from his forehead.

  With a gasp, Wulf raised his bracer. The Field announced that he’d gained enough mana to advance a tier, but with a quick scan of his potential skills, he didn’t notice anything that would help in his fight, and he didn’t want to choose wrong.

  But still, advancing a tier always made him feel good. The tiredness of the day fled from his body, and he sprinted even faster, ducking and dodging swipes. He tried to turn the beast away, so it would just expose its belly to the two Mages, but he couldn’t get it to reach up.

  With his the mana stipend from the speed potion, though, some had flowed into his storage core. He had more mana available for a Skill.

  Bending down, he scooped his hand through a patch of fresh snow. He wouldn’t have long, and he’d already used up ten seconds of his speed boost. He drew an empty vial from his pocket as he ran, then placed a tuft of yeti hair in it, crammed in his handful of half-melted snow, and shook it until it mixed.

  There was no time to distill it. He couldn’t increase its quality, but the Field recognized the ingredients, if only as a Whisper.

  He imbued it with the aura his speed potion granted, crewing a Low-Wood tier potion.

  Good enough.

  Calling on [Arm of the Alchemist], he dragged the potion out of the vial in an incohesive thread. The yeti turned toward him, its mouth wide open, ready to bite down. Kalee hit it with a pulse of gravity, slowing it long enough for Wulf to raise up his new potion. He didn’t know what its effect was, and it didn’t matter. It’d transmuted to something green and glowing.

  He wrapped the incohesive strand around the yeti’s largest fang, and with all his mana, dragged upward, exposing its belly. It snarled and howled, craning its head backward.

  Thalin blasted a wave of fire into its weak spot, melting flesh and vapourizing the muscle below. The yeti hollered for a few seconds, before falling still. Most of its body was still intact.

  Wulf glanced back at Kalee and the mountainwatcher. They both stared at him, too. He lowered his arms, panting.

  “I think I stumbled across the two craziest students this school has…” the dwarf muttered.

  “Can…can I take its fur and teeth?” Wulf asked.

  “Just be quick about it.”