I walked into the AAG training warehouse with fifteen minutes to spare. The other three said they were going to go check out a free, open air rock concert happening nearby and then wander around from there. That was fine by me, except for the part where Kevin saddled me with the small ice chest containing the caught catfish.

He was going to take it home and cook it, which was fine by me. I'd eaten a lot, and a single catfish was worth the continued relationship building in my opinion—at least now that it seemed like I'd secured an effective and reliable food source. After killing it and cleaning it up a little, he stuck it in an ice bucket and transferred it to an overpriced, styrofoam chest that the boat dock people provided. Thing is, he didn't want to carry it around, so I was the one stuck with the stupid box.

I was kind of tempted to just eat it myself while no one was looking—but I endured. The things I do to build relationships with people.

I ended up spending the remaining time until my scheduled lesson on my new phone. I bounced back and forth between that obscure Anathema image board and generic Wiki articles on the local marine ecosystem. The former was mostly just curiosity. I'd already trawled through all of the chamelium content, so I was really just poking through the all time best posts for various other "rare" types.

There were a bunch I'd never even heard of, and some of them were super weird. One of the strangest I found through the image board was something creatively named a 'monolith.' Many Anathema, such as myself, were composed of strange materials—sometimes even materials that didn't normally 'exist'—but we usually still had a 'biological' appearance. A monolith, it seemed, was the epitome of the first part and the total opposite of the second. They were literally just big, smooth, sharp-angled slabs of dark rock.

According to the 'curated' type description, they were usually perfect cubes, and that was backed up by the various pictures people had submitted. All of them, even the non-cubic ones, were composed of the same perfectly cut, semi-glossy, bluish black stone like material. Also, they didn't move. As in, they were quite literally sessile organisms.

That would have been hilarious on its own—a monster that was just a big fucking rock—but the fact that they were supposed to be a genuinely dangerous, high tier threat made it even funnier in my opinion. If they were literally immobile, did that mean they had some kind of ranged ability? That was my first assumption—but no. They didn't move, and they didn't shoot projectiles or summon minions. They grew.

What started as an already large, several hundred ton cube would slowly and steadily consume nearby matter, using a combination of extremely minor 'suction' and simple, direct contact to consume increasing amounts of their surroundings. The result was that, if left unchecked, they would outright demolish everything in the path of their growth.

Still, that was only a threat to property and not people, right? Wrong. What if you were trapped in a tall building during an incursion and one of those took root at or near the base? The steady and inexorable growth could become extremely dangerous, especially since many incursions happened in populated areas with many buildings. People might not even know it was about to knock a wall on top of them.

The board editors even mentioned numerous incidents of people effectively getting trapped between a monolith and adjoining 'normal' buildings, leading to a slowly impending compaction and devouring. I found the idea of that to be inherently really funny, and I was disappointed when I couldn't find any videos of it happening. Regardless, monoliths were also hard to actually kill, as their lack of mobility was compensated by an immense resistance to all common forms of damage.

The main point, though, was that there were a lot of bizarre and interesting kinds of Anathema out there—and I was one of them. Man, I'm so glad I'm something cool and rare like a chamelium and not just a juiced up skinner. Can you imagine how lame that would be?

I also found out that 'sea turtles' were also a severely endangered, protected species. I somehow stumbled onto a whole bunch of them, which was apparently super 'lucky'—and of course I fucking killed and ate them. I didn't really care, overall—I wouldn't hesitate to glass the whole planet if that's what it came down to—but there was already plenty to eat, so I'd do my best from now on not to eat those. I didn't want conservationists or whatever freaking out that the sea turtle had finally vanished from California waters.

Anyway, my new instructor arrived exactly on time. There was absolutely no doubt that it was the guy who just entered—even if the time didn't line up so perfectly, he looked exactly like the kind of person who could teach you sword arts. With a height of at least six feet, a streamlined but powerful build, and a long, luscious, blond ponytail, the dude looked exactly like a modern day viking. I swear I've seen at least several people who look exactly like him talking about modern metal techniques. Metal as in the music genre. Anyone want to take bets that his name has that weird, crossed 'o' letter in it somewhere?

Frankly, it was downright gratuitous.

Looking around, he spotted me and headed over. "Alexis Huntingfield?" He asked.

I stood up and pocketed my phone. "In the flesh. I assume you're the sword guy?"

He laughed as he took my hand. "You could say that, I suppose. Let me guess—no one ever told you my actual name?"

Oh, good. I was a bit worried there, because I was extremely sure I hadn't just forgotten it. "Not unless your name is Instructor, first name An?"

He laughed again at my lame, ice breaking joke. It had been hard not to roll my own eyes at it. "I'm afraid not," he admitted. "Bjørn Andersen, actually."

Oh come on. I almost felt like my eye twitched. You have got to be shitting me. I was pretty sure that he was not, in fact, shitting me, though, and I did my best not to react in any particular way. "Good to know." I gestured at the mostly empty building and the open lot adjoining it. "So uh, yeah. The AAG training secretary person just said she had a sword instructor she could set me up with, so..."

We spent a few minutes confirming mundane details and also getting used to interacting with each other. Bjørn was a Tier 4 Guardian—I already knew that from the little information the AAG did give me, and I could also taste it. He 'also' had an ability that fundamentally involved the sword—I'd lied and said the awesome sword Dad loaned out to me was a direct manifestation of my power. After moving to the gravel lot outside and entering one of the loosely marked off areas, he asked me to demonstrate it.

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That was easy enough. "The funny thing is," I told him, "I can summon it but not desummon it. It sticks around no matter what, but I can call it back to me from any distance." Lazily pointing in the direction I knew the weapon was, I allowed a jagged bolt of violet lightning to crackle into existence between it and my hand.

We were miles away from it at minimum, but that didn't matter very much. From some minor testing I'd done, it seemed as if the sword accelerated at a constant rate when called upon. That rate was also ridiculously fast—over a hundred meters per second per second, I was pretty sure. The result was that the time it took to arrive didn't grow nearly in proportion to the distance.

Within just a few seconds, a dark, purple-black blur streaked into my open hand, instantly solidifying into a plain but beautiful sword made of what looked like polished silver with strange hints of reds, oranges, yellows, and even fainter hints of other colors depending on the angle of the light. It continued to remind me of something, every time I studied the strange material. The connection continued to evade me, though, and I hadn't devoted much time to figuring out what it was actually made of.

Ironic for a material's science major, I know.

Bjørn raised an eyebrow at my display. "Hmm. Is it intangible during transit?"

I blinked. Huh? How'd he know that? "Uh, yeah, actually, it is. How'd you guess?"

"Hmm? Oh, it just made sense. I didn't think you would summon it from such a great distance if it had any chance of smashing through things in the way. Also, I couldn't feel it through my aura until it was in your hand."

Oh, right. Tier 4 and higher Guardians had an 'aura,' which was the main factor in the major gap between Tier 3 and 4. There was another major gap between 6 and 7, but so few people ever crossed it that it was less talked about. Anyway, the aura was some kind of localized manifestation of a Guardian's power, and it was supposed to be super important in combat. From what I understood, though, it was also supposed to be kept restrained at most times, since just being inside of it was supposed to be difficult for normal people or even other Guardians below Tier 4.

I said as much, and he explained that 'restraining' one's aura didn't actually compact the aura itself, but rather sucked all of the power out of it. The 'empty' aura—whatever that actually was—could still be used for things like detecting stuff that entered it. "Have you ever felt what it's like to be inside an unrestrained aura?" I shook my head. I hadn't, actually. "Hmm. Another time, maybe." He peered at my sword. "May I?"

I handed it over to him. He studied the blade, turning it back and forth in the late afternoon sunlight. A deep frown had crossed his features as he continued eyeing the metal. "Is something wrong?"

He blinked. "What? No. No, just—this is Adamantite."

Oh, dang. Thanks for telling me what it's made of—also, what the hell is Adamantite? I'd heard of Adamantite, of course, but that was in games and fantasy books. I had no idea it was a real thing, though. I thought it was a generic fictional supermetal, not a real alloy. I wondered what it actually was—maybe just another fancy name for a special kind of steel? I decided to ask.

"Adamantite is an esoteric material," Bjørn explained. "It's not naturally occurring—well, that's not technically correct. I suppose I should say it's not native to our normal reality. A shame, because it certainly lives up to the mythical name." He tapped his finger against the flat side of the blade. "Strictly speaking, this isn't actually Adamantite. It's Adamant steel. Pure Adamantite is incredibly valuable. It's stronger and tougher than any ordinary metal in nearly every way—also highly ductile, assuming you could even muster enough force to deform it in the first place."

Spinning the sword around like he was testing the balance, he continued. "Ludicrously high melting point, practically immune to mundane chemical attack, and so abrasion resistant you couldn't scratch it with a diamond, even with that high ductility I mentioned." He tapped the side of the blade again. "This isn't pure Adamantite, though—it's an Adamant steel alloy, if I'm not mistaken. Probably about eighty percent iron, I'd guess, judging by the color. Pure Adamantite would have more of a golden hue—still paler than actual gold, mind you, but a lot less silvery than this. You'd also see more of that burnt, coppery color and less of everything else."

He turned the blade such that the angle with my own line of sight was very shallow. "See that rainbow lighting going on? That's another way you can tell it's a steel alloy. Pure Adamantite doesn't do that."

I'd realized by this point exactly what the material of the sword reminded me so much of. The same realization made me feel pretty stupid, actually, since it was the same exact shit that comprised my mouth and claws. The main difference was that those parts of my Anathema body weren't the same steel alloy—based on the way this guy described it, they were pure.

I stared at the sword, appraising the thing in a new light. I already knew the weapon was supposed to be super durable, so it was the other set of implications that shook me. So does that mean—

"It's impressive that your ability manifests an Adamant weapon, even an alloyed one," he continued. "It's quite a rare material, given that it's effective at withstanding even high tier esoteric attacks. The main source of it is from ultra high tier Anathema—mostly Tier 7, which means it's both mighty scarce and only really directly obtainable by the most elite Guardians. However." He held up a finger. "There's technically another, minor source. There's a fairly rare type called a chamelium—"

I really wanted to break a bunch of shit or maybe go punch someone. For some reason, this was now making me irrationally angry.

"—that looks kind of like a dragon made out of metal. They range all the way down to Tier 3, and while those obviously aren't entirely made out of the stuff, they have small bits of it that you can collect and refine if you ever manage to find and kill one. So if you ever have the fortune to encounter a chamelium—and assuming you've tiered up a few times by that point—I'd suggest doing your best to kill it and keep the body. It's nothing compared to the total quantities collected by elites, true, but even a small, Tier 3 chamelium should net somewhere between ten and thirty million dollars worth of raw Adamantite. That's material you can actually sell, unlike that sword of yours."

That fucking jackass! I glared at the sword, silently fuming. I was pretty sure my dad hadn't just happened to give me a sword forged out of pieces of dead chameliums. A small, hitherto forgotten memory resurfaced—something that happened when he first arrived at the incursion where Katherine, Max, and I awakened. I'd instinctively formed a crude sword to fight him—back when I didn't know that it was him—but I'd somehow lost it after he cut off my hand.

I didn't lose it—the bastard stole it! And then—to add insult to injury—the fucker sold it right back to me. It didn't even matter that most of its actual usefulness for me came from the special abilities he'd somehow imbued into it. This is such bullshit. I can't believe I got scammed like this.

One way or another, I was going to make that jackass pay.

Also, wait—doesn't that mean I'm literally worth, like, twenty million dollars?

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