Chapter 5

Professional Myst Smiths and Enchanters are known as Malloricks. Meanwhile, scientists specializing in the study of myst and magic are known as Mystgenists. Both roles have been crucial to the development and progression of technology into what we have today. These jobs are held in high esteem in almost all nations.

As Nennel, Ferris, and I made our way to the DEFAC for some food, I took note of the others’ dress. Nel wore plain white sneakers under a pair of well-worn jeans and an airy sky-blue blouse decorated with assorted flowers. Her platinum blonde hair was cut short and worn around her neck as a straight curtain. Ferris, on the other hand, looked like a complete wild child. His mane of dirty blonde hair was a chaotic mess, sticking up at all angles. The contrast between his clothes and his Elven eyes was striking. His jade-green irises paired well with his forest green t-shirt displaying the icon for a popular metal band, the Black Tongued Demons. Over the shirt, he wore a light hooded jacket that displayed triangles of black, gray, and light green. Ferris’s pants paired with his amethyst-purple sclera. The pants in question were of a style that Thallos introduced me to called trip pants. Pitch black with deep purple lining and stitching, the waist worn tight while the cuffs of the pant legs were almost comically wide.

DEFAC was a completely new experience from last year. The structure was what you might call new-age-utopia style. The domed structure stretched longer and wider than it was tall, formed from elegant swooping arcs of white steel holding massive windows of thick glass. Within the glass dome were seven levels, each with glass floors and outdoor balcony patios around the outside of the perimeter of the structure. At a glance, the mess hall reminded me of a soap bubble that had grown rings.

The inside of the mess hall was just as new as the exterior. The back quarter of the ground floor was a buffet-style serving area set before an open kitchen space bustling with cooks and assistants. The expansive space and all floors above looked to be filled with circular tables as before. Only these tables had a hole in the center. When I set my gaze around the room to puzzle out the strange table structure, I found at some of the occupied tables, there were actively playing hologram images.

Nennel, Ferris, and I crossed the room by skirting the perimeter, ready for an assault at any time. Before arriving at the DEFAC, I had traveled back to my room to pick up a particular backpack. The bag was slung over my left shoulder, even as I picked up a food tray and examined the food up for grabs. Shockingly, all the food looked impressively good. I eyed it all with suspicion. But when the students ahead of me were loading up their trays, I followed suit. The next five students in line before me ranged from Tier 4 to Tier 6, so I assumed they knew what was going on. I snagged myself a cheeseburger, fresh salad, a large serving of fries and mashed potatoes, and a slab of some interesting-looking sauce-covered meat that looked to be an Eathrain dish.

“You’d best get the good stuff while you can, newbie.” Came the student directly in front of me. A Human boy with sandy hair, freckles, blue eyes, and a rather pronounced nose. From a glance at his shoulder, where his symbol of rank sat, I noticed he was a Tier 4 student. “They only serve this kind of food to us lowly students on holidays and special occasions. You only get this kind of grub regularly when you’re a Tier 6 or 7.”

I gave the upperclassman a silent nod of understanding and set to adding even more food to my tray. Nel and Ferris heard the guy’s comment and started doing the same. So, with trays heavy with cuisine, the others and I made our way over to the dining hall map. From the look of the diagram, Slates were designated to eat on the ground floor, and they assigned each rising level to the parallel tier of student grade. From the first floor up, each level had assigned spaces for each sect, but following the seating chart was optional. There was also a note stating that a higher-tier student could sit on lower levels, but the reverse was not allowed.

I led the procession of eager hunger that was our small group up to the Tier 1 floor. Together, we claimed a table on the balcony. I set down my mounded tray and slid the bag from my shoulder to lie on the floor beside my seat.

With an eager ferocity, I sank teeth into a stacked burger. After a diet consisting mostly of canned soups and simple sandwiches for the past two months, I relished the juicy meat. I savored the mingling of flavors from the sauces, sweetness, spiciness, and tang. The bun was robust, and even the pickles packed a tangy-tart punch. I devoured the burger like a starving beast.

Without breaking pace, I dove into a steaming baked potato loaded with cheese, bacon, sour cream, and shredded brisket. I picked the spud up and ate it like an Eathran taco. Three bites in, I paused to notice Nel and Ferris staring at me with surprise.

“What?” was all I could manage around a mouthful of meaty, starchy goodness.

Ferris pointed at me with a fork. “Dude, has the gentleman tusker been feeding you a diet of roots and shrooms for the past two months?”

At his comment, Nel and I stared back at him for a whole ten seconds before I replied. “Ferris, two things. Number one, do not ever call Mystagogue Thrasher a tusker. Period. The man has been a staunch supporter from day one and even helped save my life when Thallos joined Kassidan’s parade. And number two, Thrasher only provided me with meals occasionally. Most of the time, I had free rein of the kitchen and part of the pantry and fridge. But I had to cook for myself, and what I was allowed to use from the pantry and fridge was limited to cold cuts and canned soups. If I wanted any actual meat, I had to hunt and catch it myself, and you two know I don’t have the guts to kill anything.”

Ferris gave a hasty apology for the derogatory term and, in peace offering, he donated a half serving of barbequed ribs to my tray. I wordlessly accepted the offering with one hand, even as I took another bite of potato. As the Quint Elf dug into his own food tray, Nennel waved her fork like a magic wand at Ferris. “You’d think someone from the most hated breed of Elf you would be most sensitive to discrimination.”

To elaborate on the statement, Ferris was a Quint, a crossbreed between two Elven breeds. Elves had this deeply ingrained stigma regarding bloodline purity. A child between an Elf and any other species is simply a disgrace. But crossing two Elven breeds was tantamount to heresy. This was all brought about because of an ancient prophecy that stated a crossbreed between two Elven breeds would be the downfall of an Elven nation, and currently, there is only one Elven nation, the Evarra Queendom, on the island continent of Yesheerra. Elves have a very low birth rate, so most children are thought sacred, but Quints are another story. The majority of Quints born are killed at birth if not aborted long before.

Ferris shot Nennel an annoyed look while he swallowed a bite of steak. With his mouth clear, Ferris gave a sharp retort with his arms folded over his chest. “Who here is the one whose Wild Elf father held their High Elf mother as a sex slave for months? Who here has a mother who abused them for their entire childhood? And who here has suffered nothing but ridicule and hatred from almost everyone in their life? I think I’ve earned the right to be sour.”

Nennel just gaped at Ferris before turning to check on me. I held an ember of anger in my glare that I directed to the Elf. “Ferris,” I started with a razor-sharp tone. “I recommend you check yourself before you get high and mighty.”

Ferris gave me a look of obstinate challenge, clearly not thinking things through. If I had thought the situation through, I would have realized that he was getting defensive because he didn’t want to admit that he was in the wrong. But I didn’t think when I spoke with frigid venom.

“At least you know your mother and know about your father. I was raised by an abusive Wild Elf who could not accept who I am. But he was the only person who loved me for most of my life, and I watched that man die right in front of me. At least you had a home for all of your life. Because after Fermose died, I lived on the streets. And you want hate and ridicule? Unless someone was an Elf or knows a fair amount about Elves, you’re safe, just a Wild Elf with long ears and dirty blond hair. Me? Anyone can spot my tainted blood with just a glance. My tail. My horns. Hells, even my eyes and skin mark me for what I am. And no one was willing to give me a chance for the majority of my life.” I slammed my hands against the table and shot to my feet before lifting my shirt to show my chest and side, covered in countless scars. “Ferris. Do I need to remind you what I went through last year?”

Ferris paled at my outburst and only grew paler with each caustic line. When I got to my feet, he visibly flinched like I was going to hit him, and when I displayed my scars, his gaze fell to the table. “S-sorry, Iver.” was all he muttered as I took my seat. It was then that I realized the scene I had made. Everyone within thirty feet of our table was staring at me.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly while mentally counting to ten to calm myself. I propped my elbow against the table and leaned forward to speak in a harsh whisper. “Ferris, dude, if you don’t like people calling you rude names like cut-ear or taint-blood, then you should give others the same courtesy you would like given to you.” I leaned back and gestured to everyone at the table. “I mean, look at us. The only person at the table that could be called a pure-blood is Nel, and she’s more mech than maiden, so we are all freaks. The least we can do is to be polite to others until they get harsh with us.”

Ferris gave a small nod but didn’t lift his eyes to meet mine. I was about to try to cheer him up with a topic change to something he enjoyed, but Nel beat me to the punch. “So, topic change.” She said with a single clap of her metal hands. The contact made a sound of metal on metal that made me wince. “Ives, what’s with the bag? Please don’t tell me you brought another project. You should know better than to tinker at the table when we’re eating. I’d rather not swallow another spring by accident.”

I gave her a look that said I would do as I damn well pleased, even as I picked up the bag off the floor. “Actually, I’ve got something for both of you.” At that, Ferris dared to look up at me.

I turned to my favorite cyborg friend, my hand in the bag, grabbing something soft and squishy. “So Nel, you had made a request last year for me to make you something.”

Nennel looked at me in confusion. “I did what now?”

“If you think back, we were hanging out with Rose and discussing something that made me blush.”

Nel made to snap her fingers, but no sound came. “That’s right. Kitty titties.” Her eyes went wide as she stared at me with hope and shock. “You didn’t.”

I gave a single nod before pulling out my hand from the bag and tossed a giggly mound of custom gel in the distinct shape of a breast. “My sister requests boobeg, she shall get boobeg. Now, I will admit that I designed the substance with only a vague memory of what Rose’s felt like the one time she made me touch hers. So the texture might be off a bit.”

Nel lept from her seat to glomp me in a tackle-hug that drove me from my own seat. Her titanium tits drove into my face with enough force to bruise. But I was happy for her reaction all the same. “I don’t care if they feel a bit off Ives’. Thank you! I’m one step closer to being a real girl again.” She spoke with giddy glee. As she pulled herself off me and I sat up, rubbing my cheek, she asked, “So, when can we get them installed?”

“Well, if everything goes to plan, after we’re done eating. That is if Master Mallock gives me permission to use a mechanics station in the Foundry.” To my response, she let out a squee of excitement.

I pulled myself back into my seat and picked back up my bag. I tossed the other synthetic ta-ta to land beside the other one on the table. With an amused smirk, I looked Ferris in the eye. His gaze lit with eager curiosity. While maintaining that eye contact, I took a long pull of my drink, a sweet raspberry black tea. As I kept pulling from the tea, I saw Ferris’s eager expression fall to bashful as he remembered what we had just been discussing.

When I felt I had strung him along for long enough, I set down my drink, reached into my bag, and tossed a long and hard object at Ferris. As expected, his combat-honed reflexes allowed the young Elf to catch my gift without even thinking. With wide eyes, he turned the tool over.

Encased in a matt black sheath with an edgy modern design was a blade. A foot-long dagger with a six-inch hilt. Along the length of the hilt were four diamond-shaped clear points with a ribbed leather grip. Ferris pulled the blade free of the sheath to inspect it further. The blade was dark gunmetal gray and lined with enchantment rune script and myst circuits. The serrated edge was formed from milky-pink semi-translucent crystal. Along the spine of the blade was a rod of segmented glass.

Ferris eyed the weapon, his eyes gradually spreading wider and wider. “Ive’…What is this?”

My amused smirk turned wicked as I explained what I had just given him. “Well, Ferris, you’re a Still Blade, right? A Mastlok between Crimson Blade and Silent Heart.”

“Yeah?” he confirmed in confusion.

“Well, my Elven friend, I know you specialized in knife combat in the Crimson Blade training, and that extends into your assassin training in the Silent Heart. So I custom-made you that infusion dagger.”

“Infusion dagger?” he asked.

I stood up and circled the table to stand over him. I pointed to the clear diamond shapes. “The hilt splits open, and you slot myst crystals in each of these sockets.” I moved my finger to gesture to the edge of the weapon. “When triggered by your will, the energy for a crystal of your choice will infuse with the blade to give you some elemental damage.” I gestured to the glass rod at the spine of the blade. “This here is the power indicator. It will tell you just how much juice is left in the crystal you have tied to the blade at the time.”

“Fang and fragment, Iver! This is incredible.” Ferris exclaimed in hushed awe, his eyes locked with the blade.

I tapped the flat of the blade with a nail as I said, “I even installed a security system. Once you’re attuned to the blade, no one else can use it other than you and me. I added myself to the override as a precaution should I need to make active adjustments while there is power in the edge.”

I stepped back around the table to take my seat again and consume some more food. But with a handful of fries pinched between three fingers and halfway to my mouth, I noticed Nel glaring at me. “What?” I asked defensively.

“Really?” Nennel demanded. “I get a pair of gelatin honkers, and Ferris gets a custom power blade?” She gestured from me to Ferris with a jell breast in hand.

“Hey!” I said in offense. “I will have you know that those boobs took me a week and a half of straight testing to get the mixture right. And it’s not gelatin. What you are holding there is a specially synthesized combination of ballistics gelatin, impact dampening fluid, and that specialized cooling goo that they put in those premium pillows.”

Nel looked at me deadpan for a full ten seconds before she said, “You spent, seven days, playing stay-at-home alchemist, to get me a pair of boobs.” With each pause, her tone gained an edge.

In a panic, I dropped the fries and held up both hands in a defensive, non-combatant manner. “Hey, come on, Nel. I’m not exactly what you’d call a chemist. I worked harder and for longer on your gift than Ferris’s.”

“And you couldn’t have made me a tool that I could use in the field?” She accused.

“I thought you could use those.” I defended.

Nennel posted her free hand on her hip. “How, pray tell, is that supposed to work?”

“You’re a Phase Wolf, right? The Mastlok between Crimson Blade and Sightless Eye. That means you’re going to need to go undercover. I’m more than willing to design an illusion projection system like what I’ve got.” I pointed to my still invisible gauntlet. “But even if you look like a completely normal girl, if some trog cops a feel and finds that you rattle instead of jiggle, there would be problems.”

At this explanation, she cocked a single brow. “Iver, if I didn’t already know you saw me as a sister, I’d assume that you were just looking for an excuse to be a total perv.”

“Oh, come on, Nel. You know me. I couldn’t even think of Rose’s pair without going red in the face. You yourself saw that she had to force my hand onto her chest. Hells, in order for me to even work on your pair, I had to think of it as a project of engineering.”

“A project of engineering.” Nel echoed in a skeptical tone.

“It’s only the start of an ongoing project, Nel. If you’re willing to go along with this scheme, I’m gonna replace your body piece by piece with a more organic-seeming material and some nice armor plating under it all.”

Nel raised her head to look down on me with an expression of trepid curiosity. “This isn’t just an excuse to pick apart my insides?”

Now, it was my turn to give her an annoyed look. “Seriously? Nel, how many times did I have to pull you apart and put you together last year? I’m pretty sure I know your insides better than you do.”

Nennel gave a heaving sigh before gesturing to me with the breast-filled hand in a manner that said she conceded the point to me.

“Alright,” I said as I slapped my hands together and rubbed them together in eagerness. “Ya’ll done with your food? Cuz right now, I have itching fingers that are craving a wrench.”

Ferris stood up and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Yeah. I’m good.”

“Nel?” I asked as I turned to her. She gave another weighty sigh as she looked at her tray forlornly. “I guess. My ice cream is melted, anyway.”

“Wait, there was ice cream? Where?” I demanded.

Nennel gave me a mischievous smirk. “You missed out, brother dearest. I think it’s too late to go back and get some.”

I hung my head, mourning for the frozen treat I hadn’t had in over two years. Nel stepped up beside me and laid a hand on my shoulder to console me. “It’s alright, Ive’s. But we better get going.”

I pushed myself to my feet, the pep in my step lost. As we left the DEFAC, I couldn’t help but look longingly at the serving line. As we left the building and made our way back to the Foundry, I tried to distract myself from bemoaning my sweet tooth. “So you two know what I did over my break. What about you guys? Ferris, did you go back to your mother’s manor? Nel, you go back to the homestead?”

“Yeah, no.” Nel replied.

“Screw that noise.” came Ferris.

I looked between the two. “So then what?”

The two looked at each other before giving me a pair of knowing grins.

Ferris laced his fingers behind his head as he leaned back while strolling forward. “My bitch of a mother wouldn’t want my Quint presence besmirching her noble name. I was given the opportunity for extra training with a Mystagogue, so I took it.”

Nennel spoke up with her explanation. “As bad as I wanted to go home and see the family, I had a talk with Ferris and heard about the extra training. After hearing about your training under Thallos, it lit a fire in my core. So I asked to join Ferris.”

What about your mom?” I asked.

“I called her on the therra and explained that it was for extra credit. While she was sad to hear I wasn’t coming home, she was proud of me for going above and beyond.”

“So then, who did you guys train under?”

“Mystagogue Navor, and the bit- I mean, woman is scary.”

I paled at the name. “You trained under The Beast Eater? That woman scares me.”

Nel tapped a finger to her chin “That’s right. You saw her fight firsthand when she, Thrasher, and the Mysteriarch saved you from Thallos.”

I shivered at the memory. While Thallos had fought like a rabid beast that day, he was always on the back foot because mostly of Mystagogue Terra Navor. She was brutal, relentless, and just plain ruthless. “H-how bad was she?”

This time, it was Ferris’s turn to reply. “I’m not gonna lie. She was harsh. The lady pushed us to our limits but never passed. If you’re asking, she didn’t pull the stab training drek that Thallos put you through. But she didn’t pull any punches.”

“No joke.” came Nel. “That lady wound up picking me apart and putting me back together more times than I’d like to count.”

I turned to Nel in shock. “Wait, she repaired you?!”

“Yeah. Nothing special, mind you. But she got me prime functional a day or two after the breakage.”

I gawked at this as we entered the Foundry. I started to wonder if the woman I was going to train under moving forward really was capable of anything. I was still lost in thought, even as we entered the Master Mystagogue’s office on the ground floor.

The entire space was a total mess in the cake slice-shaped room of Mallock’s office. The walls were covered in an insane patchwork of diagrams, tools, weapons, armor pieces, and devices that I didn’t even recognize. The floor was strewn with half-finished projects, broken tools and devices, and heaping mounds of paperwork. At the far end of the room was a massive desk of dark oak, or what once was dark oak. The majority of the desk that was visible under the mountainous mess of papers and components was oils and grease strained and even charred in certain spots. The whole office was ripe with the scents of oil, grease, hot metal, and sweat.

My train of thought got totally derailed at the sight of the room, jumping from Mystagogue Navor to wondering how Master Mallock got anything done. Sitting at the desk was an old Human man with laurels of gray hair that looked to have a perpetual charge of static. The old Master was shirtless, other than a leather forging apron. His exposed face, shoulder, and arm were tanned and heavily weathered. His right bicep was marred with claw mark scars. From his left shoulder down was a rough-looking cybernetic arm. Matching his left arm, Mallock’s left eye was a rugged cybernetic piece surrounded by a mess of scarring. Even the old man’s beard was a, charred and stained mess.

At that moment, Mallock was working on what appeared to be an armored tech glove of some kind. He was working with a soldering iron that was part of his cybernetic arm, tacking myst circuits. Mounted to his remaining organic eye, the Master wore a multi-lense focal apparatus with three of the seven lenses in use at the moment.

As we entered the room, a bell chimed to signal our entry, but the Master seemed so totally engrossed in his project that he was oblivious to us. I lead the way down the narrow path of clear floor to stand before the desk. We stood there, at attention for a solid two minutes before Nel gave a polite cough to catch the Master’s attention. The first time failed to rouse him from his trance. So Nennel gave a heavier cough, a bit more aggressively. That caught his attention.

The Master looked up with a start. Master Mallock made eye contact with each of us in turn. His confused expression was magnified by the apparatus attached to his face. “Ho! Students! How can I help you?” His rough voice was high with shock.

“Um, yes, Master Mystagogue. We were wondering if we could use a cybernetics workstation for some modifications to Nennel’s body.” I asked nervously.

Master Mallock squinted at me in confusion. He pulled off the lens apparatus to give me another look. “Ticker? Is that you, my boy?”

I did my best to hide my disgruntled wince at the use of the nickname he had given me after my entry trial to join the academy. “Yes, Master Mystagogue, it’s me, Iver Maverick.”

The Master shot to his feet, retracting the soldering iron back into his arm as he looked at each of us in turn again. “Yes, yes. I remember you and the clockwork-gear-mess of a girl, too.” He pointed to Nennel with the statement.

“Yes, Master.” I said with as patient a tone as I could muster. “Could we use a cybernetic station to modify her?”

Master Mallock rubbed his mess of a beard in thought. “I don’t see much of an issue depending on the work you plan to do.”

My face flushed a bright red before I could respond to the master. I couldn’t tell him that I was going to install synthetic boobs on my friend. But before I worked up the courage to even think of responding, Nennel stepped up.

“Well, Master Mallock, Iver designed me some synthetic breast replacements that he was going to install on me.” As she explained, my face burned even hotter.

The Master gave her a skeptical look for a long moment, his lips pursed and eyes squinted in thought. Finally, he said, “Show me the new components.”

Without a moment’s pause, Nel produced the gelatinous boobs, one in each hand. The mad Master gave each jiggly mound a scrutinizing look from several angles. He poked, first one, then the other, then sniffed one before licking the opposite one. Finally, he stepped back and turned to me. “The compound is functional but could use improvement. I’d recommend you speak with the student Gaibhnigh. The young Half-Dwarf has a talent for alchemy and chemistry. This modification is for infiltration purposes, yes?”

I gave a vigorous nod to his question, happy that he saw the purpose without my explaining. The Master then turned to Nel. “Please lift your shirt, Miss. I need to see the plate structure of your chest.”

Totally unphased by the request, Nel lifted her shirt to expose her slightly curvy chest. Master Mallock gave her chest a just as scrutinizing examination, tapping it in a couple of locations and listening carefully. After a few moments of this, he straightened as much as his hunched back would allow. “I would say it’s definitely doable. Especially with your skill level, Ticker. But the process will take a total overhaul of her chest plating and reworking some of her internals. So I will supervise the process.” Without another word, the old man hurried past us, his power shuffle shockingly fast. “Come, come now. Follow.” He called behind him as he left his office without looking back.

So we followed. The old man led us up to the seventh floor into Cauldron 50. The room had sixteen spaces enclosed in glass with medical curtains just inside. Inside each space was a seat in a reclined position. Above each seat was a device hanging from the ceiling made up of dozens of arms ending in tools, with a light set into the center to stare down onto the patient below like a luminous and hungry eye.

The Master led us to the far back room in the right corner of the room. As soon as Nel entered the room right behind me, she was instructed to lie down in the seat. I was told to clean and sanitize myself before the operation. Even as I moved to the cleaning station in the corner of the space, Mallock was giving Ferris precise instructions while writing something down on a notepad that I never even saw him produce. “I need you to head straight down to Cauldron 23 and pick up these parts. Tell the assistant down there that I sent you, and hand them the list and ask for a cart to carry it all.” Ferris gave the Master a hasty salute before hurrying out with the list.

Not long after, I had cleaned and sanitized myself to medical operating standards. I pulled on a pair of rubber gloves as the Master was running a full-body, full-spectrum scan of Nennel’s body from a screen attached to the mechanical device overhead. I pulled up a wheeled stool and inspected all the tools that hung above me, checking for sharpness, cleanliness, and functionality. I found an issue with two devices and voiced this to the Master, who left the room and returned with replacements for me to install.

Next, I pulled up an operating tool station beside me before realizing that I needed to remove Venna, re-clean my right hand, and sanitize the synthetic breasts prior to installation. By the time I finished all that, Ferris was back with a wheeled cart laden with metal plates and small boxes that were no doubt full of components for Nel’s internals.

I checked with Nennel to make sure that she was ready before donning a mask and setting to work before anyone could tell me to do so. Piece by piece, I removed the plates of her chest to reveal her internals. Her insides were mostly mechanical, except for a few organs like the heart, one lung, her esophagus, and part of her digestive system. I noted that with my current level of skill and experience, I could make some improvements to her body with the right components and enough time. I would have to ask about that later.

Anything critical that I disconnected from Nel’s internals, I quickly hooked up to the life support systems that were for that very purpose. I swapped out part after part, making tweaks here and there to optimize the systems. Finally came the exterior plating. As I put the parts together, a thought came to mind. “Master Mallock, what is the youngest someone is allowed to have non-critical cybernetics installed?”

That Master, who had been quietly watching for the past half hour, spoke up without pause. “Under most circumstances, in order to legally have non-vital body augmentations implanted, the subject needs to be done developing, so it would depend on species. If you're talking about someone who develops along the same rate as a Human, such as yourself, that would be no earlier than the age of seventeen at the earliest, and there would be a possibility of medical complications later in life.”

“And if a student or group of students I am aware of had body modifications installed recently, then what should I do?”

I caught the motion of the Master giving a shrug out of the corner of my eye before he said, “Nothing can be done. The majority of implants can’t be safely removed because they replace parts of the body. The academy can’t force the students to have a possibly lethal operation performed on them.”

I quietly gave a snarl at the thought of Mallrimor and his thugs having such a massive edge over me. I only had a moment to think about that before I had to direct my focus back to Nel. I had just slotted her new breasts into freshly installed mounting sockets before locking everything into place with a few solid screws and some sealant.

I pushed back, flicked off my mask, and tossed both it and the gloves into the trash. “Alright, sis. You’re good to go.” Not wasting a second, Nennel sat up and hopped off the table to grope her new additions. “I think I could get used to having more squish to my body.”