New System, Who Dis?

Tutorial Day 65

Using my remaining Qi, I fled.

This was already the second time this afternoon. My legs felt numb, my arms weak. The Spear I held in one hand barely registered. Once I exited the forest, the Borker had fallen far enough behind that it gave up the chase.

This had been so much easier when groups were Hunting the Forest. However, it seemed like they had since gone back to deeper zones or Tutorial Challenges. So now, I was left trying to forage for plants on my own, without others killing Borkers and making it easier.

Dejectedly, I stared down at my measly collection of Herbs. My time in the Tutorial had taken a turn for the worse. The task of accomplishing three thousand perfect replications of what Claude did, and cleaning the Dojo twice, was taking its toll on me. I still hadn't succeeded once in the entirety of the task, but I had managed to learn how to perform a perfect thrust, sweep, and spin.

That was the only good news.

Sighing, I began walking back to Town. This was already proving to be a challenging experience. Over the last couple of days, I had been forced to collect Herbs to make more Rejuvenation Pills. Why did I need more? Well, despite what Veronique had thought, other than the first three, they began dropping in price as they became more common. The first three had sold for around fifteen thousand. The next few had sold for about thirteen. Now, almost a month later, they were starting to cross under the ten thousand Point threshold. This meant that for every ten days of room and board, I needed to sell two of the Pills. And that meant the Pills were becoming even more common.

Veronique still believed that the value should skyrocket at some point, when people truly understood their value, and even suggested I stop selling the Pills for a time, but I didn't have another option at the moment.

I desperately needed to come up with a new recipe.

And believe me, I was trying to do that too.

The problem was that hellish training before venturing out here led to many, many mistakes. Despite the Borkers being 'easily' defeatable, I seemed to attract their attention even when I believed I was using my Concealment Enchant and was far enough away. Unfortunately, they tended to approach me during my Harvesting or Fusing, which was far from ideal. It left me with very little time to react. Yes, I had killed a few, Skinned and Butchered them early on–but having only one escape or fight left–made the next time I got caught, the end.

So after the first, I was invariably forced to flee. Today marked my first attempt to escape at the first sign of trouble and continue collecting discreetly. This strategy, unfortunately, hadn't worked as well as I had hoped. I had managed to gather perhaps twelve Herbs in total, but I was now out of a Qi and forced to return to Town.

The upgrade to Reptilian Body made me more powerful, when using it–certainly. However, exploding a Borker or running away faster didn't make much difference. In fact, it cost me Tutorial Points in theory because I had less usable Meat and Hide.

Even more disturbingly, none of my Stats, besides Wisdom and Perception had increased. I had expected at least one of the others to have grown. Despite Harvesting Herbs, which in the past had raised one of my Stats, nothing had happened. The only conclusion I could draw was that my Gardening Skills were still at F-Rank.

So, how could they possibly add E-Rank Stats?

But knowing a possible answer didn't solve my problem. Even if it was the answer, it only made my problem more infuriating. Perhaps to raise my Stats to E-Rank, I never needed to use the Stat Breakthrough Liquid. Maybe I just needed to upgrade my Gathering Skills?

Still, I had E-Ranked Mining in the final Portal before I was shanghaied here. So, maybe that's also not true…

It was beyond grating though to think that the possibility existed, where Claude was right. What if I hadn't needed to hinder my Potential by using the Stat Breakthrough Liquid?

But how could I upgrade my Gathering Skills? That's a great question–isn't it? Apart from a unique encounter, I really didn't have any leads other than the messages on the Rock Lavender Flowers—

"'Tax!" A familiar voice cut through my ruminations.

I blinked, finding myself looking at London. Unfortunately, it wasn't just London. The rest of my old rag-tag crew was there too, in the same place we'd, as a group, met the bandits in the past. It seemed they'd had a career change. They were no longer Hunters, but the people who taxed them?

I guessed when you were willing to kill someone, you'd be willing to do anything.

Exhaling slowly through my mouth, I was instantly thankful for my half-mask and hood. At least the idiots wouldn't recognize me.

My first glare was directed at Jacky, the woman who had attacked me when I'd used my Reptilian Body Skill and become scaled. Then I transferred my glare to the rest. Sarah, Gavin and finished with London again. They'd all left me for dead, so in my opinion, they were no better than her. Without a word, I showed them my bucket, reached in, and passed them approximately three of my twelve Harvested Herbs.

London looked pointedly at the bucket. I realized at that moment that the bucket trick had been taught to me by this group. My bucket was simply leaves stitched together to make a makeshift holder for anything I was fusing and collecting. Today, I hadn't fused anything. There was no soil or sapling inside, which was probably what allowed London to dismiss the similarities between my bucket and the one he was used to seeing me, or a dead man, hold.

"A Bag of Holding?" he asked.

That question left me in a predicament. I didn't want to say anything because, of course, these four morons might recognize my voice. However, it required an answer. Very carefully, I raised my hands, holding the spear away from the group, and spun around. I was trying to show them that I had no Bag of Holding on me. The Necklace of Holding did have the Meat and Skins from the last few days in it, but I was hoping they wouldn't be able to find it buried under my armor and clothing. They looked me over as I turned.

Of course, it was Jacky who spoke next. "I totally told you this wasn't going to work! Everyone in this Tutorial is poor. Just look! The first day we do this, we end up with a frickin' pauper as our first victim."

"We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, you witch!" Sarah muttered under her breath.

"If it was a group bigger than ours we'd have been forced to hide, anyway, idiot!" Gavin exclaimed.

London looked at Jacky angrily and then silenced the other two with a pointed look. Before his eyes landed back on me. As he had done on that first day, he adopted a charismatic, soft expression and asked, "Are you doing okay, man?"

Again, this was a question that needed an answer, and again, I was unwilling to speak. I shrugged and began walking toward the Town with my remaining nine Herbs.

Thankfully, none of the group moved to stop me.

London called out after me, though, with an offer I almost wanted to laugh at. "If you're really hurting for Tutorial Points, you could join us."

I pointedly avoided shaking my head in response.

It didn't take me long to get back to Town and to Claude's Dojo. Once there, I immediately knocked on his door and was given a bowl of porridge. Claude didn't ask me how my excursion went, and he didn't exit his room either. Instead, he spun around and headed back toward his chair, already chugging from a bottle.

Shaking my head, I moved to the center of the Dojo and checked the progress of my task, which I had somewhat affectionately begun to call my 'quest log.' The sight of my 'progress' was not pretty.

This daily quest, because there was really nothing else to call it, reset at midnight every night, was far from complete. I tried it every way I could think of: not cleaning the Dojo to avoid wasting my energy, just performing the thrusts, the sweeps, and the spins. However, no matter how I did it, I never came close to finishing.

First, because I was wearing the ridiculously heavy armor that popped into place as soon as I entered the Dojo. But mostly because, for every four to five attempts at each action, I only received credit for one. And while I knew the minor faults I was making in each action, I, unfortunately, wasn't able to correct it satisfactorily while my Qi, Soul, and Mana were running at such high levels.

It was like I was flooding my body with pure adrenaline, causing it to twitch and overreact to every command I gave it. I knew that this was part of the training. I absolutely knew it. Just like I knew that blowing up a Borker every time I made an attack wasn't necessary.

This task should be teaching me how to limit my Qi, and how to get my body under control while using Stat-increasing and body-enhancing methods. If I could control the Qi, Mana, and Soul to a higher level, I was sure that I could perform the actions better.

As it stood, I wasn't making progress on that front. So, I chose to prioritize cleaning the Dojo, because at least it gave me a discount on my daily room and board.

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To my absolute shock, I heard the door of Claude's room open behind me. The man swaggered out. Well, "staggered" out is probably the better description. And as soon as the bottle left his lip he slurred, "Have you finished the task yet?"

I blinked, looked at the System window, and back to Claude. Had it not notified him I hadn't? Or was he just so drunk that he was mistaken? Could I use this?

There were two options here.

One, I could certainly lie and tell him I had finished the task. Or two, I could be honest and ask for advice, giving him a Cleanse and Heal, so he could actually perform the actions that may be required to better teach me. I figured, if anything, I should at least treat this like a test of character. So I responded with a shake of my head and a muted, "No. Haven't finished yet. Barely even made a dent."

Claude blinked. "You still trying to use all your Skills and Poolz at once?" He slurred out.

I blinked, having started to get to my feet to Cleanse and Heal him, but slowly lowering myself down. This may have been the first non-cryptic answer I'd gotten from the Trainer in a while. In response, I tried not to ruin that moment and said, "No, I haven't figured out a way to do the task without using all three of my Pools, Claude."

Claude, the drunken Spearmaster, nodded to himself, took a big swig of what looked to be red wine, most of which spilled out the side of his mouth, and answered in his slurred voice, "Well, that's the first thing you gotta fix."

Finally some direction! And better yet, it seemed that Claude was willing to give me advice. Hiding a smile, I asked, "And how should I do that?"

Claude raised the bottle as if he was toasting an imaginary drinking companion. "Just remove Qi from your emotions."

Try to remove Qi from my emotions? I wanted to respond angrily, but didn't. Because, once again, somehow Claude was at that perfect state of drunkenness that he was willing to answer questions.

"How do I do that, Claude?" I asked.

Claude smiled. "You touched your Soul and Qi at the same time, right? Soul is balance, and Qi is conflict. How do you think you should combine them?"

My eyes widened. I had touched Soul and Qi at the same time. I'd been doing it for a while. Could I use that? I thought about it for a moment too long, and Claude seemed to snap out of his perfect state of drunkenness as he finished chugging the bottle and walked out of the Dojo. For a moment, I wondered where he was going, but I had a lot to think about.

At the speed I ate my milk porridge, I didn't even taste it. I took a moment, just one, to lick my lips before standing up and attempting to touch my Qi. I had been experimenting with this tactic: limiting the amount of Qi based on its Pool. And not my control. The results had been mixed, but it was primarily why I had any numbers at all in the categories of thrust, spin, or sweep.

Today, I simply stood there and focused. I still needed to fabricate an emotional response to get my Qi to secrete from my Dantian and out into my body. Now, I attempted to both force an emotional response and maintain the equilibrium that I needed for my Soul.

It was strange. I realized the tactic I had been using was to separate the two: keeping a portion of my thoughts calm and still as I held onto my Soul, and keeping another portion in a state of frustration.

This time, I tried to force those two halves of my consciousness together. At first, it was like trying to pour oil into water. They wouldn't mix. They stayed separate, fragmenting into little beads perhaps, but separate all the same.

However, oil and water could mix as long as you added something like soap. With that in mind, I tried to look for that way to make them a stable concoction. What could combine emotions and tranquility? I didn't have an answer.

Standing there, holding my weapon, the butt of my Spear grounded, I felt that I had an achievable goal. It was something that had been lacking for the last few weeks. I had a direction. But not a destination that seemed possible. No, here was something that I could physically and mentally latch onto. Something I could tease at until I got the answer.

Anger. Tranquility. I breathed in. I breathed out. Anger. Tranquility. I breathed in. And I breathed out again. Both were states. States of mind and physical states.

What if I could somehow be angry physically but tranquil mentally?

Qi was of the physical realm. Soul was of the mind. My eyes flew open. That was definitely the right track. Now, how could I physically induce Qi? Whenever I was emotionally angry, I could physically feel it, right?

I could still recall the feeling. My hands usually clenched, skin tingled, muscles almost excited, but definitely prepared. However, that was akin to excitement, another emotional response that could activate my Qi. I needed to find a way to physically react without the corresponding mental state. If I could achieve that, I might be able to control the amount of Qi?

But that didn't seem right. Perhaps Claude was so drunk he wasn't making sense. Clearly, any response I had could act as an on or off switch for my Qi. At least, that had been my experience so far.

But could I toggle my physical excitement or frustration to force my Qi to react as I wanted?

I took a deep breath. It felt like I was onto something, but there was still no soap. I exhaled, then inhaled. What if there was no soap?

What if this wasn't a case of oil and water? This was a matter of the physical and the mental. Athletes, like those in the Hunters Mixed Martial Arts League, often spoke about their state of mind. They performed better when they were mentally prepared, but not overly excited.

That was an intriguing concept. I remembered a talk by a famous Hunter who likened his emotional response to a volcano. You didn't want to be so emotionally charged that the volcano erupted, but you also didn't want to be devoid of emotional response while fighting in Portals.

'The Perfect State of Emotion'. I could still recall the name of the interview now. That's what he called his state when he fought.

Wasn't that interview with Gamonji?

It was, and there wasn't a better Hunter for me to emulate—at least not in my mind. Gamonji was my GOAT! I'd watched that entire interview and everything available that the man had been involved with. His process to get to that state was through practice—I knew that was his usual response. In fact, it was 'practice, practice, practice.'

However, in just one interview he talked about the difficulties of performing at his best, when shit hit the fan. How sometimes the decisions would overwhelm his 'perfect state.' His example used was a situation he'd found himself in where he needed to decide whether to save his tank or healer—cause he could only get to one. The interviewer had likened it to the classic railroad problem, but Gamonji dismissed her response.

"No, the Perfect State has room to acknowledge emotions, but acts with flawless logic. The right decision in a split second—" I repeated Gamonji's response. "—the trained gut reaction!"

My skin tingled, and I blinked. Sure I was excited cause I was onto something, but my Qi had just entered my body—and it hadn't been a flooding out.

Smiling, I began trying to train the way Gamonji described. Sure, it wasn't going to be an instant fix. But—

"Practice, practice, practice…"

* * *

Saturday, May 25th, 2069

Shami stared at her revised witness list. The delay in the Trial in some ways gave her the opportunity to find out a great deal more about the situation and circumstances that surrounded Brodie leading up to the Assault and even some of the oddities after it. She looked up after she was finished looking it over again, and then consulted her legal notepad.

When she finished she looked up to find John looking at her. He had always been the faster reader, and perhaps quicker to come to conclusions. Not that his conclusions were always right–but he was faster to deduce them. When he saw he had her attention, he chewed his cheek before answering, "I mean you're definitely onto something. The problem is getting all of these people to paint the picture you've found."

"So, you think it's too thin?" Shami asked, reiterating her question from earlier.

John oscillated his hand back and forth. "No, not thin. Precarious?" he corrected. "The order of events is too perfect to not be the right conclusion, but can you get the witnesses to lay it out this concisely for the jury?"

Shami nodded. John was right. All the pieces were there. She even thought she might be able to get Arnando Moreza to appear, not that he would know much. Still, having him there would help put the pieces together. Maybe he could even finger the person who'd been working with Morgan Hallsbrad to identify targets…

The problem was that maybe, and that same circumstance existed with each witness and story she'd gathered. Her contact in the Windsor Police Departments Evidence Locker, would be able to claim that evidence was sometimes tampered with or it would go missing. But would she be able to say that something had happened to the gloves? No–she wouldn't.

Would she be able to claim that the department was on lockdown doing inventory–yes, she would. Would that be enough to show, and remind the jury of the Detectives recollection of two pairs of gloves at the scene? Maybe…

"What should I do?" Shami asked, not truly wanting a solution. However, John wasn't the type of man to not at least try to help.

John picked something up from the table and showed it to her. She smiled. It was the Card that described her Skill. Chains of Truth. She'd finally managed to connect her Mana into a Spent Mana Crystal for five minutes. She read the Skill Card over with a smile.

"You could use this, if it was approved by the court system," John suggested.

"Sure, and I'd get the Mana from where?" she asked playfully, even though her stomach felt like it was in her throat, as she pointed to her other card. It low number on the Mana total also explained why she had taken so long to connect to a Crystal for five minutes.

"You could borrow a Mana Battery from Abyss," John suggested, but then frowned, mirroring Shami's expression. "You're still worried about the line in Mana Bulb?" he asked.

"What if using my Skill gets me Husked?" Shami asked, with a shiver. She felt a hot line of water run down her cheek and quickly wiped the tear.

John moved around the table to hug her. She knew he had so many things he likely wanted to say. He'd already said them to her before. However, right now–well right now she didn't need a solution. She needed him to simply listen and understand.

He knew that–clearly. Instead he changed the subject by pointing to his two Skill cards. With a frustrated tone he lovingly joked, "At least your Skill seems useful."

"At least you've got a useable–" Shami began.

The moment was interrupted by her phone ringing. Shami who had been trying to joke immediately felt the tears return. John, seeing the problem, answered for her. "You've reached the offices of Stovall and Stovall, how can I help you?"

She watched his face go from sad, to confused, shocked and then upset. Then he simply exclaimed, "What?!"

He ran his hand forcefully over his forehead, eyebrows and then pinched the bridge of his nose. After a moment he held the phone out to her, his face a literal thundercloud. Shami tentatively took it, knowing that the explanation for his mood would be on the other line.

"This is Mrs. Stovall," she said as she put it to her ear.

"Hey Shami, it's me Emily from the Windsor PD Evidence Department. They've just informed us that they're locking down the entire department for a few weeks as we continue to inventory the entire warehouse. We are forbidden from having any outside contact with anyone until it's complete. I'm going to need to postpone our meeting tomorrow, and perhaps my appearance at your Trial depending on the timing."

Shami felt her eyebrows draw together, but she managed to finish the call and reschedule the appointment with Emily, a witness on her list. When she hung up she reached out to the list and put a star beside Emily's name.

The phone rang again and she picked it up this time. "You've reached Stovall and Stovall, how can I help you?" she asked in greeting.

"Hello, this is Arnando Moreza's lawyer. He will not be able to meet with you next week as he is going to be flying overseas to perform a photoshoot for the Sayyad Guild."

"Okay, when will he be back?" she asked.

"You will need an official summons if you'd like him to appear. Good day, Mrs. Stovall," the lawyer on the other line said before hanging up.

Shami began to cross out his name, when the phone started ringing again. John met her eyes, and they blinked at each other. What in the hell was going on?

She didn't bother picking up the phone this time. It was late and whoever was calling to reschedule or cancel could leave a message.

This had to be Varnish or the Larvae's Guild at work. But hadn't they promised not to do anything shady?