New System, Who Dis?

Tutorial Day 34

The sensation of Milk Porridge on my tongue woke me up for what felt like the hundredth time in two days. My eyes flew open and I glared at Claude, who sat above me.

"Don't glare at me. You passing out cuts into my drinking time…" Claude said sadly, while shaking his head. "If you promise not to cheat again, I will reduce the armor's weight."

"How am I cheating?" I growled. "I have a Skill that increases my Stats!"

"Ahh, I see. So, this Skill is a Body Enhancement and you plan to always have it running?" Claude asked.

"What? No! Why would I always have it running?" I stuttered out.

"That's the wrong question, student. You should be asking—how can I always keep it running?"

"Okay—How can I always keep it running?" I asked.

"By using it for its intended purpose," Claude responded cryptically. My eyes narrowed at the man even as I considered his words.

What did he husking mean? Reptilian Body was clearly the Skill I'd gotten inside the Portal with Nagina, the huge Universe-Ending Snake. It was supposed to be a Draconic Body, like my Dragon Heart, but the System broke it so I didn't die.

Broke it. I scanned into the red mist space, and then into the space with the blue mist. If I was right, Dragon Heart was also broken—because it was leaking mist too. What if neither of them was broken, per se.

What was the description on Reptilian Body again? It hadn't had anything to do with Body Enhancement—had it? No, it was Body Refinement!

"How do you refine your body?" I asked, not understanding the distinction as well as I thought Claude expected me to.

Claude smiled, and then motioned around himself. Thankfully the man had turned me over onto my back to feed me. So, I was able to follow his gesture. He was indicating the Dojo. His hand moved to my chest next, and he tapped the armor twice—indicating it as well.

The first tap was the indication which likely meant the second tap was to remove some of the added weight. Sure enough, I was able to budge a leg, which I wouldn't have been able to do if he hadn't returned it to its lighter version.

"What am I supposed to do to stop damaging the Dojo floors, master?" I asked.

"That, is an excellent question, student." Claude smiled broadly. "Let me know when you discover the answer."

* * *

Tutorial Day 35

There were a few discoveries I made the previous night, that I instantly made my life inside the Dojo both better—and more frustrating.

Primary amongst them was the spare room, which I was clearly paying for with the Room and Board. As soon as I entered the door, to what I had always assumed was a second closet—the armor vanished—

How had I discovered this room?

Simple, I needed to go to the bathroom, and asked Claude how I was supposed to relieve myself. Turns out, he hadn't been torturing me the last time. Just waiting for me to listen or ask—or perhaps a great deal of both.

Inside of the bedroom, which was really just a foam mattress with a single sheet thrown over it—there was also a toilet. There was no privacy divider, but I supposed there didn't need to be. It was just me in here after all.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Another discovery I made an hour ago, was that if I stayed in this room too long—Claude would come in to get me. My second discovery was more of a re-discovery—that fending him off was impossible. I had simply been sitting on my 'bed' thinking about how I could better utilize Qi, Soul or the still unused Mana Pool—when the door slammed open.

Startled, I'd watched as Claude had grabbed me by a wrist and dragged me into the Dojo, while simultaneously collecting his fee for room and board.

Which I felt was unfair—considering we hadn't trained throughout the night. Oh right. I'd tried to fight him off and tell him about the injustice simultaneously.

For my troubles, I was currently sporting a bruised ass, and ego. I'd also lost twenty-five reputation with Claude for my complaints.

"Even when your body doesn't need to sleep daily—it is still a very important part of your training," Claude intoned. Then, motioned to the beer bottle in the corner. "This is why I don't volunteer the information about the bedroom—students choose to slack off."

"Slack off?! I needed to use the bathroom, you jackass," I responded.

"You were on the toilet the entire night?" Claude said robotically and I felt my head fall even as he continued to speak and the translator continued, "I didn't realize that the Milk Porridge disagreed with your stomach so badly.

Realizing what he was referring to, I asked, "What time did I go to sleep last night?"

"Last night?" Claude asked robotically, followed by the eerie translated laughter. "It was mid afternoon."

"I'm sorry, clearly I was tired because of the Soul training!" I retorted hotly.

"As I said, sleep is an important part of training. However, this morning, you still sat in there for a full shade change!"

Rolling my eyes, I attempted to point at Claude, but instead was reminded about the armored suit I currently wore. It had appeared on me as soon as Claude dragged me out here. The reminder only added to my frustration. "Is it any wonder that your student—" I emphasized the singular nature of his single Dojo member. "Runs away from you, with the way you treat me?"

I used a bit of my Qi to motion at the armor. Claude, shook his head slowly with a secretive smile and motioned to the beer. "You asked for training, and then complain about the method?"

Sighing, I stood up. "I'm just pointing out that I was inside my room trying to think of the trick I'm missing!"

"You think you'll discover it seated on your bed?" Claude asked in English—adding a true bellowing laugh to the question.

I focused on my breathing, trying not to let him rile me up so I would use 'too much' Qi—where I didn't need it.

If there was one thing I was benefiting from in this 'training' it was in my 'Qi control.' Not that I had control yet—but I had begun to realize the issues I had been creating in my own usage of the resource. It was the reason I could still only hunt two Borkers a day. It was why the first one had exploded. Why each one I'd killed after had a less than 'perfect' hide.

My Qi to this point had been at the mercy of my emotions. If I was to liken it to something, it was an on off light switch. However, due to the pool aspect to the resource—it was more like a faucet. I either turned it on full, or off. Nothing in between. In the faucet analogy, my emotions were like the water pressure from the city. With an on off faucet—it simply ejected as much water as it could from the pool—in the time I had it active.

Now with a better understanding of the resource, and how it worked—I was able to send the Qi out to my body by controlling two aspects. How wide I opened the faucet, and how much pressure I placed the pool under.

Using my Soul resource wasn't progressing in the same way. It truly was either an on or off switch. Either I was clinging onto my Soul as Claude had shown me, or I wasn't. If there were intricacies to it—I had yet to discover them.

However, it wasn't the limiting factor—in fact, even if I held my Soul Sense active the entire time I worked at the beer fetching, it didn't use more than ten points of my growing pool.

This morning, I made it halfway back across the Dojo to Claude before my Qi pool ran dry. Blinking, I looked behind me, even as I lowered myself to the ground so I wouldn't collapse, break the floor and knock myself out. That was at least one step further than yesterday. Maybe two…

Smiling, I turned to Claude who had stood up and come to collect his beer. He traded the beer with a bowl of Milk Porridge.

My next excited inhalation changed to despair. "How am I supposed to eat this! I'm all out of Qi, dude!"

"Dude, is it?" Claude asked robotically even as he moved back to his chair with the cold beer.

"Well then, dude," he added in English as he lowered himself down. "Figure it out."

While my Qi Pool still had one point in it, that wouldn't be anywhere near enough to suffuse my entire—

Wait—Claude did things like this for the purpose of a lesson. I didn't have enough Qi to move my whole body—but what about one arm…

What if, instead of a faucet with minute control, I pictured my body as an entire plumbed house. What were the pipes? Well, I somewhat had already gone through this process with Mana. Could I mentally picture a straw, and then funnel the Qi without diffusing it, to the exact place I wanted?

Trying that method lost me my single point of Qi.

Claude laughed, chugged his beer, and then stood up to come to feed me. "This isn't like Mana kid. The pathways already exist—you just need to reinforce them."

"Kid, is it?" I responded, between mouthfuls.

Claude's smile was sudden and extremely genuine.

Unfortunately, Claude paired his moment of happiness with a push that overbalanced me, and found me laying on my back like a turtle.

He didn't bother to help me up and instead chuckled as he continued to feed me, while I lay on my back.

Who needs 'friends,' huh…