Amanda left the ATA more than one hundred million dollars poorer. While it was not a negligible amount of money even for her, she felt the expense was valid. Combat healers were always in demand, and now she could have her own private army.

"Robert, would you please set some time in your schedule to train Veronica on the Time affinity? Two hours might be enough. I'll have someone to get her started with the Holy affinity too."

"Sure."

"You have the Time affinity too?" Veronica asked, surprised.

Robert remembered that he didn't get to ask her about Time scrolls before he was interrupted by the Kraven acolyte.

Amanda snickered. "You wouldn't believe how many he has."

"Amanda…" Robert started and then shut up.

She looked guilty. "Sorry. To both of you. But Veronica's contract has a secrecy clause."

"All of them have," Robert said, a little irritated. "It's standard issue in all Samson employment contracts."

"What can I do to compensate for it?"

"Never mind," he said. Robert shifted his body to the side and stared out the limousine window.

*

*

The limousine parked inside the arcology. While they waited for the team Veronica stared at the gigantic facility and its massive internal gap.

"Impressive! It's like this is a passage realm," she said.

Tyrone, who for some unknown reason tagged along, openly snickered.

"Thank you," Amanda said. She glared at the unruly soldier, which made him stand at attention.

Robert saw a red flag. Tyrone was a loose cannon, someone who had little respect for anyone, Amanda included. He believed that the guy had a boiling pit of rage and ambitions inside him, ready to spill.

Though they were both murderers, Robert never killed without a reason. What Tyrone did at the ATA didn't sit well with Robert's sensibilities and ethics.

Perhaps he should nip the problem at the root if something like that happened again. He should talk to Amanda first, though. He wouldn't murder a coworker out of the blue. He wasn't Tyrone. But if Tyrone acted like a psychopath again, it would be his last.

The tram arrived. They boarded but when Robert was crossing the threshold, his foot caught in the gap between the platform and the tram. He tripped and crashed on the floor nose-first, cracking the cartilage and bleeding profusely.

The bleeding stopped almost immediately. And the wound was fixed with a little essence.

Tyrone was laughing hard. Amanda and Veronica crouched next to him, worried.

"What happened? Why are you tripping out of the blue?" Amanda asked.

"I don't know."

U"Are you okay?" Veronica asked.

"Yeah, just about finished healing my nose."

They helped him back on his feet and onto a seat. Robert refused to make eye contact or even look in Tyrone's direction.

*

*

The three humans, two puffblooms, and one invisible Taulusian reached the gates of Amanda's mansion. Tyrone had fucked off to somewhere else, thankfully.

A woman in a French maid uniform that Robert hadn't met yet came to answer the door.

"Miss Samson, welcome back home," the maid said.

"Patricia, thank you. Have all my orders arrived?"

"We received several packages of books and ether scrolls, yes. But not all as the manifest indicates several items are still being procured."

"Good. Where are the sensitive materials?"

"In my storage ring."

"Transfer them to Robert."

"Right away, Miss."

"Robert, take Veronica to your apartment and give her a welcome lecture. Then get her started with some Time and Holy tempering along with basic spells."

"Okay."

"Once you are done, take the rest of the day off. I'll be here if you need me."

Amanda entered the mansion. After finishing his business with the maid, he took Veronica to his apartment.

*

*

"Make yourself comfortable," he said. "And don't mind Freddy. He's a Taulusian."

"A Taulusian hound? Where is he?"

"It's okay to show yourself, buddy," Robert said.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The alien refugee decloaked.

"Another deviant?" Veronica gasped.

"No, an Arch-Taulusian. They aren't monsters, they are sentient."

"Did Freddy take a Prime vestige?"

"Yes," Freddy barked.

"That bark means 'yes'. Freddy's people speak their own language."

Robert spent ten minutes giving Amanda the Cliff Notes about the Taulusian status and predicament. He then went to prepare refreshments for his guest.

"I'll keep that in mind," Veronica said. "Mr. Freddy, thank you for trusting me."

Freddy nuzzled his snout against her hand. Veronica petted him and then withdrew her hand suddenly, yelping "Sorry!"

"Though we avoid treating him like a dog out of respect, Freddy doesn't mind," Robert said. "He enjoys the affection. They aren't humans, the best way to deal with it is to act naturally. Freddy doesn't hold a grudge."

"Sure. Freddy, you are a true gentleman."

Freddy preened and wagged his tail. Robert laughed.

"See?" The only thing he doesn't do is drool on people."

She petted Freddy a bit more, drawing jealous squeaks from the puffblooms, which floated closer to her.

"You have a lovely and agitated family," Veronica said, causing Robert to pause.

Conflicting emotions ran amok inside him. Robert closed his eyes and dipped his head. When he raised it again a few seconds later, he nodded back.

"Thank you," he beamed. "And welcome to team Amanda."

He brought her the drinks and a plate of pastries. His foot entangled the edge of the rug and he tripped. The drinks went up in the air. Veronica blurred and caught both glasses with minimal spillage. She placed both on the coffee table and then caught the plate. Only two pastries came out of it and she snatched both with her mouth.

After she had placed the plate next to the glasses she swayed and sat down.

Disaster avoided, Robert stood up and sat down.

"Damn. What is wrong with me?"

Veronica giggled. "A spell of bad luck?"

"Probably," he replied, taking a sip of his drink. Nice save there. Your talent?"

"Yes, I believe so!" Veronica said, excited. "Took a lot out of me, though."

"Do you know how fast you moved?"

" No. It seemed that the glasses and the plate were frozen in place."

"Hella fast," he answered, drawing a chuckle from the woman.

They ate the snacks.

*

*

"Robert, if I may ask…"

"Yes, ask away. I'm here to help."

"Why?" Veronica asked and blushed a little.

"Would you be offended if we told you it was a whim?"

"No, I mean…"

"A little? You don't need to swallow your pride. In fact, I believe that Amanda wouldn't like it if you did."

Veronica took a deep breath. "Yes, I'd be offended."

"Then it is a good thing she didn't. Amanda saw potential in you. Your work ethic, I believe. Then she did what any businessperson would in her shoes. She poached you."

"How expensive was the prime she gifted me?"

"Around ten to twenty million dollars. You will repay that many times over. So long you stick to that work ethic that impressed both her and me."

"I see."

"And be loyal. I believe you will learn many secrets working here. Keep them under lock and key."

They spent the next two hours working on basic gathering exercises and teaching Veronica the basic Time spells. As for Holy, Robert used the scrolls he bought.

She already knew all the theory but applying it required some nuance and insight that books would never provide.

Halfway through the session, a message came from Amanda saying that Veronica was assigned to the apartment next door to Robert's.

"One final thing. Let's test your talent," Robert said. "Activate it."

It took her some time before she found the switch. Active talents were either triggered with an act of will or toggleable. It was the latter in Veronica's case.

She started to move faster. Twenty-five percent faster, to be fair. Robert cast haste on himself to follow her.

"Can you push it to accelerate further?" He asked.

Veronica accelerated to thirty, then thirty-five percent faster. Robert asked her to maintain that acceleration for as long as she could. Half an hour later she started to show signs of talent fatigue.

"Okay that's enough," Robert stopped the experiment.

*

*

Veronica excused herself and went to check her new place. A pile of cardboard boxes contained the stuff she had in her old apartment. Amanda had somehow sent people there to gather her things. Which on the one hand was a nice gesture but on the other hand was an invasion of privacy.

"Do you want me to help you unpack?" Robert offered.

"Yes, please."

*

*

It was night when Robert returned home. He sat on the couch and finally did something he had been expecting all day long. He took an Ether scroll and used it. The runes on the paper flew out of it and into his soul, forming a new shell.

Robert activated it and vanished from the couch, only to appear behind it, in the same position.

Blink was the easiest Space spell that allowed short-distance teleports. You couldn't change orientation, speed, or position. It only moved you from point A to point B, in a range of less than ten feet. But it was almost instantaneous and could even be used to dodge an attack.

It was also the cheapest teleportation spell. It was often used to let the Arch get used to Space essence and awareness. Afterward, it would be discarded in favor of one of many teleportation spells.

Next was a rather advanced one. Pocket dimension was a tempering technique. It created a pocket of degenerate space inside the Archhuman's body, behind the sternum. It was the size of a grain of rice at first. It could grow by cycling large amounts of essence through it while meditating on the pocket space to see inside. It advanced slowly but not as slowly as the mental palace.

As the pocket space slowly grew, the Arch could store items in it, just like a storage ring. One benefit was that if the Arch also had Time essence, it could be infused into the pocket space to slow down or stop time inside of it. The drawback was that making it so time wouldn't pass inside slowed down the growth of the pocket space by half as it required equal amounts of each essence.

Robert went with this option.

The last spell was called space distortion. It could create pockets of compressed or dilated space to change movement vectors. trajectories and speeds could be manipulated freely, causing one's enemy ranged attacks to miss or correcting the trajectory of their own. It was hard to practice but the evolved versions of this spell could make weapons turn around by bending space so much it did a U-turn. Not only ranged weapons either though the amount of essence and evolutions required for that was astounding.

Robert had only so much essence going around to train all of his spells and techniques. Having too many affinities was coming back to bite him in the butt. But he couldn’t do anything about that. Versatility came at a steep cost.

To enjoy the time dilation, he dove into his mental palace and read a bit of the new books he bought, especially speculations on the elusive Fairy affinity, fairies in general, and Space magic. Late in the night, he wrote a report about the day’s operations. He paused and pondered whether he should put on paper his true impressions about Tyrone. In the end, he decided against it.

That night, Robert went to the arcology library. Amanda got him clearance to get anywhere but the Samson family archives. That one not even Jeremiah could grant, under lock, key, and three-star guards assigned by Titania herself.

He started to copy the library books into his intellect fortress. The process was simple. All he needed to do was to briefly glance at every page. Robert cast haste on himself and started to flip through the books at an insane pace. He would take a book from the shelf, flip the pages, then put it back in the same spot. This way, the librarians couldn’t even complain he was making a mess for nothing.

He experimented to see if he needed to see the page flat in front of him. He found out he didn’t. It didn’t matter if it was at an angle or the bottom first and the top later. If he saw the page in its entirety, it would be recorded in his intellect fortress. He could even tag the pages he didn’t get an accurate picture to fix later.

That increased his speed greatly. He would take a book and flip the pages like in one of those drawing animation books. He tried different speeds until he found a pace where he was as fast as he could while still seeing both pages on each side whole without missing anything.

Once he ran out of essence by using haste all the time, he would use his talent to go to a gathering chamber refill on essence and keep going.