(Arc 2 Complete!) Path of the Last Champion [Sci-Fantasy LitRPG, Party Dynamics, Earned Power]

Nar woke up the next morning to the sound of an alarm he didn't recall setting, and grimaced at the dull ache that seemed to emanate from his chest.

It had taken him a long time to fall asleep, both due to maelstrom in his mind, heart and soul, but also due to the fact that having slept for apparently four entire days, he didn't feel tired enough for it, or inclined to so soon return to sleep.

The careful sounds of his party members getting ready filtered in through his closed curtains. A stifled cough. A hushed whisper… The careful opening of curtains.

Nar sighed.

Best to get this done and over with.

He opened his own curtains, startling the other three people in the room. Kur, Tuk and Mul froze mid doing whatever it was they were doing and stared up at him like some frightened level 1 critter gazing upon a delver.

Nar groaned as he noticed how Tuk in particular stared up at him with wide eyes, his pants forgotten in his hands.

"Put on your pants," Nar said, his tone light.

His voice broke the stunned silence and movement resumed. Though it was still cautious, and it set him to grinding his teeth.

"Get ready," Kur said, clasping his shoulder gingerly. "We'll talk outside. With everyone."

Nar gave him a nod, and trudged off into the toilet. A few minutes later, with a deep breath, he strode out of the boy's room, the last one to do so. He could hear hushed conversations coming in from their common room, but he hadn't reached for his [Hearing] to eavesdrop on them, and as the door opened, those conversations stilled, and everyone looked up to stare at him.

Kur. Gad. Jul. Viy. Tuk. Cen. Mul. Rel.

The party.

The family.

The goal…

The duty.

"You all know what happened," he said, before anyone could speak. "And it's… Fine. It's the rules, and that's that. No need for your guys to worry about it, okay? There's nothing that can be done about it."

And already knowing who would speak first, he turned his eyes to Gad, and meeting the all-black eyes of the tank, and the soft expression upon her face… He felt his own shoulders ease a smidge in response.

"You don't know that, and neither do we," the tank said, her tone gentle. "We all trusted that god, and none of us ever considered that it would be forbidden to return, but I think it's too soon to give up hope, or to ignore a promise made by a god, Nar, especially one who already gave you your class... That said, it's obvious that this is not something for us to consider in the short term, and that for now, we all need to focus on what we can do, and first ensure our living conditions out here. But know that none of us have given up, and we never will."

Nar opened his mouth to tell the speech he had prepared while he lay awake the previous night, but Mul stood up first.

"Let's go. I'm starving," he said. And then, meeting Nar's eyes, he added. "Whatever you're going to say, there's no need. We're free people here, and we'll do whatever the fuck pleases us."

Nar stared back at him, his breath held and loaded with words… Then he sighed.

"Thank you."

Kur clapped his hands once, startling the transfixed party. "Alright. Let's go get breakfast!"

And that was that, and as Nar fell into step with Jul as they filtered out into the corridor, he smiled at her concerned, panicked expression, her green-blue eyes opened wide with worry, in the hopes it did something to assuage it.

"So, what did I miss in these four days?" he asked her.

*********

As it had turned out, Nar hadn't really missed much.

He had regretfully missed out on two days of leave in Haven, but that had been pretty much it, and the Scimitar was now underway to bring the apprentices to the cluster of dungeons they would be training in over the next month. In addition, no one knew anything yet about the mysterious and ominous Brightnight, except for the same stuff that the Master of Blades had revealed to him the previous night.

In the meantime, they would arrive at the dungeons overnight, and they had been pretty much left to their own devices as the faculty organized around new skills, affinities and weapons in preparation for the first phase of their two year delve training.

"Do you already have exams?" Nar asked, in between syrup laden pancake bites.

Kur shook his head, looking up from his tablet.

"This is formation stuff," he explained, showing him tables and pictures of party formations and diagrams filled with arrows and instructions. "I'm just trying to get something ready for us to talk about, but we'll deal with it tonight."

Nar nodded, then he glanced cautiously in the brawler's direction.

"What?" he gruffly asked, looking up from his own tablet.

"Uh, are you… Studying?" he asked, feeling himself walking on eggshells, as the expression went.

Tuk snorted into his cup of water, and Mul punched him with his eyes. But then the brawler pointed a stubby index at the little wolf cub eating besides him, from his own smaller plate on to the table.

"It's for this little shit," he said. "Nobody really knows anything about bonded beasts on this damn ship, so we need to learn what we can by ourselves. At least the basic stuff."

Wolfie looked up from his food long enough to give him a little growl, presumably at being called a little shit, and then resumed eating. That the cub now ate with them was a new change, and the little creature had sauntered over to rub his head on Nar's hand affectionately before focusing on his own breakfast.

It had been… Touching, and Nar had felt a little quiver in his heart at it, as frail as things stood within him still. He had the feeling Wolfie had been cheering him up, and given that the beast was bonded at the soul level with Mul… Well. It was touching.

"Is it… Hard?" Nar asked, hating how awkward he sounded. How quiet the whole table was. Holding their breaths, and ready to sprint to him in case he… In case he broke down, he guessed. He just wanted things to go back to normal, and to distract himself from it.

Mul made a half-grimace, staring down at the tablet.

"Not hard, but it's a lot, and the faculty don't really know what's going to happen. But they're searching the archives for anything," he said, then shrugged. "Then there's the whole ice and fire thing. Turns out I need to pick one, and I'm not sure which one yet."

"Oh, no way… If you pick ice, does that mean that the…"

"Nope. Suppressor's staying," Mul said, shaking his head. "Ice can be just as deadly and destructive as fire, it turns out."

"Ah, damn."

"Yeah…"

And with that, the conversation lapsed again, silence claiming their table once more. In an awkward bid to distract himself again, Nar scanned the canteen around them.

"Emptier?" Kur asked him.

"Yeah," Nar said, frowning.

And then it hit him.

"Oh… The choice!" he said, looking upon the emptier canteen with new meaning. "How many…"

"About 32%," Gad told him, sitting across from him.

Nar blinked at that as his System enhanced brain ran the math. "That's… About 300 people? That left?"

"Bah. Weaklings!" Mul said, before stuffing a bite of eggs, pancake and bacon into his mouth.

Kur shot him a glare.

"It's their choice. Not everyone wants to be an elite delver, and not everyone even wants to be a delver."

"And… Row's party?" Nar asked, with a bit of a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. But Kur grinned at him.

"They're all here."

Nar sighed in relief. He liked Row's party, and in their strange new reality, it was nice to know they were around.

"By the way, we have a lecture right after breakfast," Kur told him.

"Ah. That must be why I had that alarm," Nar said.

Kur grimaced and shifted in his seat.

"What?" Nar asked.

"Actually… That was me."

Nar frowned at him in confusion.

"I've received more permissions from the faculty. I can now see your schedule and the footage you get from the faculty, as well as whatever goals you're working on. I can also set alarms for everyone now, as well as manage everyone's bookings, both for rooms and the pods," he revealed, not meeting Nar's eyes. "I can't see your own training footage though, nor your notifications."

"Damn…" Nar said, nodding slowly. "Fair enough."

"There's also another surprise. Small one, but sort of related."

That got the attention of the entire table, and Kur squirmed further, as though to try and disappear under it.

"We were forbidden to speak about it, but you'll hear about it in this lecture."

"Who's we?" Rel asked, the first words Nar heard from her all morning.

"We, the Party Leaders," Kur said. "We all got it, but don't ask me about it! I can't tell you! Just wait. I just wanted to give you a heads up, that's all…""

Then he snorted. "Your reactions should be interesting at least."

Mul groaned.

"And I thought it was going to be a nice day…"

*********

"Good morning, everyone! I'm so happy to see that so many faces decided to stay with us for the full journey!" Professor Thim said, greeting them all with his customary jovial cheeriness beaming from his one, large eye, his hair gelled to the exact match as it ever was. "I hope all had a great time in Haven, and the chance to relax, and that you are all now ready to delve right back into the thick of things!"

He gestured over his podium and the lights dimmed overhead as the wall and podium screen flared to life.

"And to get us all started, this morning we have our first lecture! And it's a very lighthearted one at that. Very easy. Very fun!" he told him, and more than a few of the apprentices returned his infectious smile. "And the last part? Eh! That's always my favorite. It's hilarious! Watching the reactions never gets old."

Mul shot Kur a glare from across the other side of the party and Kur made a show of ignoring the brawler.

"Now, let's get started then, shall we?" he asked, rubbing his hands.

Above him, the screen on the wall displayed a 3D, slowly spinning cube, which had to obviously represent the Nexus.

"So, the Nexus is built on certain crucial infrastructures," Professor Thim began.

The image above his head zoomed all the way down until suddenly, geometrical shapes of all kinds became visible upon the faces of the cube. They had to be buildings of some kind.

"Sapients need water to live…"

And a complicated mesh of blue lines of varying thicknesses spread across the map, with the thinnest of the lines growing upwards into every single one of the geometrical shapes on display.

"Thus, nearly every building in the Nexus is connected to the water network by means of tubes, pipes, sewer, treatment facilities, reservoirs, tanks, pumping stations, hydro-mat centrals and many, many other components of the water infrastructure."

And as he spoke, more and more shapes appeared in various shades of blue.

"But we also need electricity to power our tech! And heat for various activities!"

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And lines and shapes colored in yellows and reds populated the image as well, resulting in a chaotic mix-mesh of tri-color.

"Even as auramancers, you too make use of such an infrastructure," he said, and the image changed to a diagram of the ship, with the same-colored lines and shapes being visible across its length. "Water to drink and wash, from the kitchens, to the laundry to your very showers and toilets. Electricity for the lights, lifts and screens and every single machine you see aboard. And heat for cooking, heating up water, the ship, to power up our guns, and many other use cases across the Scimitar."

The image of the ship zoomed in upon several cylindrical shapes taking up a significant part of the ship's belly.

"To not go into too much detail, aboard any proper aethership, all of that aether is stored in aetherbanks. The banks are filed and paid for through various methods, whether it be in the Nexus or out here in the Labyrinth, such as the confluence you all witnessed. Then, on the day to day, that aether is taken and split into different kinds and sent across the ship on wires or tubes, according to their needs. Some of that stuff is pretty straightforward, like water, heat and electricity, while other types of aether are far more complex, like gravity for the engines, and… Spatial aether and others for space-time jumping, for example."

Nar's brows rose at Professor Thim's words.

How is any of that straightforward? He wondered, staring up at the dimmed lights. Light from electricity?

The whole concept of aethertech was still nebulous to him, given how used he was to using his aura to power the machines down in the cubeplant.

I guess our aura was our electricity down there… He realized.

"Of course, such aether needs to materialize! To take shape and become a reality before it can be used! And that's done through the use of materializers, special constructs that are half aether and half material!" the single eyed teacher said, and then grinned openly. "And how many of you did I manage to lose?"

Hands came up without hesitation, a smattering of laughter punctuating the auditorium.

"Fair, fair," the professor said with an easy smile. "This is a very complex concept, and I myself am not exactly an expert, but how about a little demonstration? They do say an image is worth a thousand words…"

"Oh, I like that one!" Nar heard Tuk whisper to himself.

He smiled idly at Tuk's never-ending amusement and wonder, and below, a somewhat egg-shaped object, with flat ends and about 12-inches in height and 5 at its widest, appeared in Professor Thim's hands, which he placed atop the screen floating in front of him.

There was a muted gasp across the apprentices.

"That thing is solid?" Cen breathed. "But… But I've been close to it! It doesn't come from anywhere!"

At Nar's side, Kur shook his head.

"Aethertech," he said. "And if my lectures are any indication, we haven't seen anything yet."

"Crystal…" the caster whispered.

Below, Professor Thim continued placing a string of objects atop what Nar, like Cen, had always considered to be an immaterial screen of light of some kind, and the screen on the wall changed to show a zoomed view over the proceedings.

"Right, so!" the man said, clasping his hands with a grin. "This should make it really simple! You'll see! Like I promised, this is an easy lecture today."

Nar leaned forward, leaning on his [Sight] to look down directly at the Professor, rather than rely on the screen on the wall.

"In the beginning, as you now know, the Radiants created the Source, and from the Source, everything else was created," he began. "That means that once, everything was just aether… And that means pure energy! Pure potential! It was the Radiants, in their grand act of Creation, who directly shaped aether into all the things that were created. This is a process called materialization, and it is, simply, when things become, well, things. Material. Reality. And this is not a one-way process. Once materialized, the material can be undone into aether once more. With me so far?"

Nar gave the man a half-nod.

"Good. Now, like I said, aether is pure energy of many, many, many types, and in order to become electricity or water, it still needs to be materialized," the man continued. "With the Radiants in their depleted and recovering state from the wars against the Abyssals, they no longer take an active role in that procedure, but the Nexus continually demands a mind defying quantity of materialization at every single second of day and night. So, an alternative procedure had to be put into place…"

He raised a hand and something appeared in it. From a distance, it looked made of some sort of furry material, and it seemed to be shaped in some form of anatomically incorrect bear beast. In fact, the more Nar stared at it, the more it somehow reminded him of…

"Is that one of those doll things?" Nar heard Mul ask Tuk.

"I don't think so… I think these are called teddies. Or plushies."

"Are they still for kids?"

"I… I think they're for everyone."

"Uh… So, they come in beast shape too?"

Cen hushed at them.

"First and foremost, the quantities of aether required by the Nexus are so vast, that simply the ambient aether that continually emanates from the Source is not enough to support the demand," Professor Thim said, placing the plushie on the screen that was now also a table. "The aether needs to be drawn, extracted, from the Source in truly immense quantities, and for that, the Radiants created a special kind of spirit… A conduit spirit. One that is connected directly to the Source and whose main purpose for being is to continually draw upon the Source to provide the aether required. Be it electrical, heat, water or any other type, day and night, these enormous spirits do nothing but draw upon the Source without end, flooding aetherbanks, aethercables and others with aether."

He lifted up a blue string of some sort and tied one end gently to the plushie's legs. The other end he circled around the egg-shaped object.

"I won't bother explaining and listing out the entire, varied aether infrastructure that exists, but just assume that this little guy is our conduit spirit and that the string is an aethercable," Professor Thim said, pointing at each in turn and then resting his hand on the egg-shaped object. "Now this one is a very real, portable aetherbank. I borrowed it from engineering this morning, and it's filled with water and electricity aether."

"Wow…" Cen breathed, leaning forward even further.

"And this wire," the man said, lifting a black wire. "Is a very real aetherwire. You connect it into this port here, on the aetherbank, and then you need to connect it to the machine that will carry out the materialization side of the procedure."

And having said so, he connected the other end of the wire to a blocky, silver metallic looking box. It had a semi-circular indentation built into what Nar assumed was its front, and he noticed a black tap protruding from it, similar to the ones in the water tanks in the canteen.

"And this forms our complete materialization circuit!" the professor said, opening his arms over the apparatus he had assembled. "The conduit draws the aether, it is passed down the infrastructure to where it needs to get to and then…"

He grabbed a simple canteen cup and placed it under the tap, opening it. And water poured from it.

"Whatever machine it is, it materializes the aether to be used," he said.

He raised his cup to his stunned audience and drank from it.

"Simple, right?"

Nar stared wide-eyed at the assembly on the table.

"And this exact process is what powers our ship as well!" the man continued, leaving the cup back on the screen. "Of course, we don't have conduits on board, but whatever aether we fill our banks with has come from, in its origin, conduit spirits. Or a confluence, of course."

He clapped his hands, which never failed to startle his rapt audience.

"Now, here's where things get complicated!" he said. "You materialize water, and fair enough, you get water. But once you use it, and it's become dirty or turned into… Something else inside you, what do you do with it?" he asked them. "You're left with unusable, undrinkable, and undesirable endless quantities of water. Heat at least, dissipates, and while it's not gone, and no, don't think too hard about it as it's beyond the purpose of this class, "used" heat is at least not a problem anymore. Same way with electricity. You use it, and it's "gone"."

He folded his arms, scanning through the auditorium. "What truly happens is that what has been materialized, yearns to become aether once more. Heather dissipates and eventually decomposes into ambient aether. Same with electricity. But for more solid matter, like water, you need machines that break down the material until they eventually become aether once more. Then, you can just re-materialize more, fresh and pure, clean water. Well, as pure as the quality of the aether infrastructure carrying it is anyways…"

The professor sighed, and started to disassemble his little demonstration.

"You do need to keep in mind that dirty water makes dirty aether… And in large quantities, like you find around water treatment plants in the Nexus, or in the wake of giant aetherships, such ambient aether is not great for breathing in. Or being in. Even for auramancers, who burn ambient aether as they breathe it in, too much exposure to these sorts of toxic aether can and will cause health problems… Which is why the territories around such dissipating intensive activities are some of the cheaper you will ever find in the Nexus…"

"Meaning poor people," Kur whispered darkly. "Auramancers and aethermancers both. Breathing poisonous air all day, every day…"

Nar nodded quietly at his side.

"Do you think that's why the aetherium down in the cubeplant is toxic?" he asked him. "Because it's dirty?"

Kur shook his head. "I don't know. Not yet, at least. But maybe?"

"Now, that was arguably a bit of a roundabout way for us to arrive at our actual first topic for today," Professor Thim said, drawing their attention once more. "You see, the Nexus is made up of truly, truly immense, complex and always functioning infrastructures of various kinds. These in turn, are built upon and powered by other truly, immensely complex and always functioning infrastructures. Electricity for instance, powers the AetherLines, the transportation service that you all took in order to reach the Scimitar, and it runs 24/7. Now, of course, we won't be learning about all of them… We would be here forever, and it would be immensely boring to both me and you, so instead, that's for you all to find out about. But there is one infrastructure in particular that is absolutely crucial to know about, because from now on, you will be able to make use of it on a daily basis. Yes! Even here, all the way in the Outer Edges!"

The screen on the wall changed back to the 3D rendering of the Nexus, and the image zoomed out and away from the detailed view of the many buildings until it showed the entire, flat face of the rotating cube once again. This time however, circular motions and waves of some sort began emanating from the cube.

"Through a pretty complex process and infrastructure that I will not go into too much detail, the entirety of the Nexus, all the way to the mapped-out regions of the Deep Zones, are covered in an aether network that allows for the transfer of information across vast distances, achieved by means of special processes and aether types across ambient aether," the professor explained. "Adverse conditions in the aether in the Labyrinth can cause sudden quality or total drops, and some areas of the Nexus have better and faster access than others, but for the most part this network is very reliable. Of course, there's no 2NET inside dungeons."

The screen changed and Nar's jaw dropped as he watched a chaos of videos and images flash before them in succession, and even covering each other.

"Text. Voice. Even images and videos are possible to be transferred across the ever-present coverage of ambient aether," the man said, glancing up as more and more squares of images and video populated the screen on the wall. "This is the 2NET, or the Nexus Network for Aetheric Transfer. You use AE to denote many aether related processes, and with time, I assume, the AE became simply E, with the 2 standing in for Nexus and Network. So the 2NET, an endless agglomerate of… Well, you can find just about anything and everything in the 2NET."

"My Crystal…" Kur whispered.

Nar, faced blanched, saw dungeons, ships, immense towering buildings filled with lights and color. People riding on beasts. Someone singing, floating through space. Two armored sapients fighting, shooting ice and smoking green at one another as a crowd roared… And on and on the images went. Each wilder than the previous, each more bewildering and awe striking. And some of them didn't even make any sense to Nar.

"You were allowed to see some crappy downloads of low budget dramas and shows before, as we wanted to give you something to do and to relax with, but we didn't want to expose you fully to the vastness of the Nexus yet, or spoil the surprise of the dungeons," Professor Thim said, smiling at his awe-struck apprentices, their eyes glued to the flashing screen above him. "But from now on, we open the whole of the 2NET for you. You will find endless sources of information there, much beyond what we, your teachers, could ever hope to teach you about. And it will serve you very, very well, if you utilize it to its full capabilities. However, be aware that you can lose yourself in the fake realities you will come to find within… Many have. Many are."

The stream of images stopped, and it was replaced by a simple square with several lines of text.

"You'll be able to peruse the 2NET at your own leisure from now on, and you will all receive a searchable index pointing out the most useful resources that you can find within it. But for now, let's get our hands dirty so to speak," he said, grinning at his still dumbfounded audience. "Let's get our AuraChat, or A-Chat, accounts going!"

He raised a touch screen that looked exactly the same as theirs in the air.

"You should all be able to go into your new apps drawer now, and find several apps within," he explained, and did so, the screen on the wall showing them how to follow him. "App is short for application, and they are just programs built with aethercode to perform certain functions and tasks. Do not think too much about that though. While there is value in learning the basics of aether programming, as auramancers, such knowledge is, unfortunately, of limited use to you… Anyways! Do you all see the gray AC icon? Good, now, let's tap on that… And now, you will be asked to create a new account. Don't worry! This is all very straightforward. All you have to do is enter your full ID into that first text field there, followed by the public name that you would like to be visible to the Nexus by, and then come up with the most secure password you can think of! You will need at least 16 letters, digits and or symbols. When you click on your password field, you will see a list of requirements too… So go on, everyone! Give it a try! And don't worry too much about your public name. That can always be changed after! But just so you know, people usually like to come up with funny and quirky names! This not only gives other people an idea of your personality but it also serves to keep your identity private! So please, while you can, do not use your real ID! Never give away your real ID to anyone… It can be used for a lot of nefarious ends that you do not want to discover!"

Nar raised his eyebrows at the fields before him, then brought up his status and copied his ID into the first field.

"What name are you going to go for?" Kur whispered to him.

"I have no idea…" Nar said. "You?"

Kur shook his head.

On Nar's other side, Gad tapped away with quiet certainty, and the two of them peered over to check what she was typing.

"Tank is already taken?" she muttered to herself. "Try these following alternatives…"

"Tank? Really?" Kur asked.

She shrugged. "Why not? TankexWithBigx…"

"Well don't pick that one!" Kur snapped.

Nar chuckled quietly at some of the alternative suggestions that Gad had received, then he turned to his own account creation and tapped away at the public name field.

AuraBlade, he wrote, taking the first thing that came to mind that was related to his path.

"AuraBlade is already taken…" Kur read. "And all the alternatives are so weird too!"

"Take your time!" Professor Thim said. "As you can imagine, it's not exactly possible to find a clear and unique name when there are eight other quadrillion people doing the same. Eventually, you will have to settle on one of the alternatives suggested to you."

Nar scanned the list with a slight twist on his lips. He didn't really care to think of something else, and AuraBlade was at least somewhat related to him, the skill having proved itself difficult and teeth grindingly frustrating to even unlock, but live saving when it had.

And it's not even mastered yet… He thought with a sigh. It had been almost luck that he had managed to use it against the illatrian.

"There is also the randomizer button, which will either give you a completely random option, or take whatever you've written into account and generate a list of names for you," Professor Thim added.

Nar rolled his eyes and gave up on scrolling down the seemingly endless list of AuraBlade suggestions. He tapped the random generator button instead, and kept tapping, as most of the suggestions were pure nonsense, just a bunch of added numbers, letters or random words after AuraBlade.

Then he paused as he remembered something. He cleared the field and typed a different word.

Champion… Already taken?

Again, a list of alternatives appeared before him, and his eyes were drawn to the very first suggestion at the top of the list.

Champion875,421,608?

It was a full, uninterrupted string of numbers, and he scratched his head at the randomness of the seemingly legit number, but eventually just shrugged it off.

Well, there were always going to be other champions out there, he thought, giving the rest of the list a cursory glance.

With a sigh, he increased the name to AuraBladeChampion.

Again the top suggestion read AuraBladeChampion followed by a complete number.

Nine million something? That's a lot shorter, I guess…

And without further ado, he tapped on it and proceeded to think of a password.

"Once you're done, just hit the create account button at the bottom of the form," the professor told them. "And you should be done! But please, don't use names or your ID, or parts of it, as your password. Don't use your party members' names either. Or teachers! Or of anyone you know!"

Nar grimaced at the field…

No one other than my party knows the name, he thought. BEY, so that I never forget. 16 for our double shifts, 3 for the bridges we crossed, and UNCLEAN so that I always remember where I come from. Just in case I need to. Just in case… What?

He grumbled at the thought, and at the password creating rules that popped up to bar his advance, and shifted his chosen password around until the field was highlighted in green.

-BEY16-3-UNclean, he read. Sure. Why not?

He tapped on the account creation button, and the form disappeared, to be replaced by a little spinning icon.

Account being cr…

"Eh?"

A problem has occurred with the creation of this account. A ticket has been submitted and you will be notified once the issue has been resolved and the account created.

He sighed. "Great."

"Something wrong?" Gad asked, as she and Kur looked up from their screens to look at his. "Oh."

"By the way, if any of you encounter an error message, don't worry!" Professor Thim said with impeccable timing. "It happens and it's usually taken care of soon enough."

"Guess I'll just wait then…" Nar said.

And having said so, he tapped the OK button again.