Mark managed to find something to watch in the living room, and then watched it. Even though he sat there, eyes open and on the screen, Mark had no idea what he was seeing. His mind was 100% elsewhere. He did remember to go take another drop in an hour, though.
Addashield was not there in the kitchen, or anywhere in the house, actually… or maybe he was? Mark didn’t exactly go exploring. He didn’t want to know what he didn’t want to know. Not yet, anyway. Not before the danger was over and Addashield was done kowtowing to his demon.
When Mark got back to the couch, to watch more television, he distracted himself by asking, “Quark? Can I get a final readout of the full 7 days of Color Drop physical cultivation?”
The television flickered away from the show, displaying numbers.
172 → 175 → 179 → 182 → 184 → 185 → 186 → 189 centimeters tall
57 → 65 → 71 → 78 → 83 → 84 → 88 → 95 weight in kilograms
20 → 30 → 50 → 65 → 80 → 90 → 95 → 105 bench in kilos
30 → 40 → 65 → 80 → 100 → 115 → 130 → 155 deadlift
25 → 40 → 65 → 75 → 90 → 110 → 125 → 145 squat
Quark provided the numbers in imperial without asking.
Final numbers:
Height: 6’2.5”
Weight: 210 lbs
Bench: 231 lbs
Deadlift: 341 lbs
Squat: 317 lbs
Mark smiled at those numbers.
This might be the only time that he would ever experience such a large increase in physical capability, and he loved it. Seven days to full recovery, and then some! And then some by a lot. He was over 6 feet tall now. How crazy was that! Insane, really.
There were a few flies in the ointment, of course. He was pretty sure he had been stronger before, even though he had been shorter. He was only 17 and 8 months before he entered the coma, and those four months to 18 should have been filled with strength and endurance training, so he should have been able to blow past these numbers on this screen. 315 squat? Should have been 350 by age 18, since Mark had been training to be strong. 230 bench? Should have been 275. Deadlift should have been 350, at least. Pure strength wasn’t the best way to determine success as a warrior, though, so Mark’s current numbers were great, and he was taller, so that would help a lot in the Tutorial.
He felt he weighed more than he appeared to weigh. Maybe he was only really 180? Did he have 20 pounds of adamantium in his body? Probably not, really. It’d been around 7 months since Addashield imbued his body with the stuff, so he should have something like a thumbnail-sized piece collecting all across the bones of his body. A thumbnail-sized hunk of adamantium was about twice as heavy as the same hunk of gold, so maybe he had half a pound of adamantium in him? Less? More?
Did the adamantium collect in cell deposits? Or was it inside all of the marrow, like a diffuse cloud?
No way to really know besides asking Addashield, and Mark did not want to step into that danger zone until he needed to, and he did not need to do that right now.
Mark watched television until another hour passed, and by that time he was already kinda sleepy. He took another white drop, had a snack, and then decided to head to bed. Wrapped in covers and feeling too comfortable, Mark drifted to sleep in the middle of the morning.
The sun was shining outside, in a cloudless, blue sky.
- - - -
Mark woke to the sound of rain on the roof.
As he stretched, Mark yawned and blinked out his sleep. The sky outside of his window was dark with clouds and the rain came down in rushing waves. A shuddering wind blew through the oak tree outside, tossing leaves and creaking the wood.
A big storm, then.
Mark got up and scratched himself as he walked down the hall, yawning again. After a trip to the bathroom, Mark went to the kitchen.
Addashield was still absent.
“Quark? Is Addashield here?”
Quark did not respond. He was probably under interaction restrictions with Addashield being nearby. Mark didn’t bother to investigate the archmage’s whereabouts more than that.
Mark decided to make himself a sandwich. A light snack before the Tutorial.
He tried not to get too nervous.
He made a second sandwich for Addashield, who was still not there, and then he ate his own. No white drops this time. Just food. And drink. When Mark was done with his own meal he put Addashield’s sandwich back into the fridge, and then he got ready for the Tutorial.
His previous shoes were a little small, and he should probably go up another size, but that would be using new shoes in the Tutorial, and that was just bad. Better to use these two-day-old pairs that mostly fit. His clothes got the same evaluation. Once he was dressed in comfortable jeans that allowed for full range of motion, socks and shoes, and a t-shirt and long-sleeved shirt, he was almost ready. A belt finished off the prep.
And then Mark did a round of stretching.
The storm outside was gathering strength. The sky was dark. The rain was coming down hard, now.
On a whim, Mark asked, “What’s the weather forecast like, Quark?”
No answer.
Mark frowned at that. Had Addashield killed the AI? Maybe.
Mark went to the living room. The silver box that held the House AI box was still stuck to the wall, its silver tendrils burrowed into the wall like roots. Tiny lights glowed in the cracks of those roots and along the edges of the box itself. Lights glimmered under the silver surface, too. Mark couldn’t make heads or tails of all of that, exactly, but the lights were on, so it seemed to be working.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Quark? You there?”
Silence.
Mark ignored Quark’s silence.
He was getting nervous now.
For a warmup, Mark went down to the garage. With the garage door still shut, he swung around a sword with one hand while he pretended to bash goblins with the shield in his other hand. He didn’t want to do too much, so he stopped there. He discarded the shield and sword and he opened the garage door.
The world was a rainstorm. It came down at a harsh angle, whipping around the sides of the house and then flowing directly away, but also down, and to the sides. The wind was coming in from the other side of the house, and almost no rain came into the garage. It was still kinda terrifying to see that much rain.
Mark was just nervous.
Mark sat on the bench press for a little while, just looking out of the garage door, at the rain. The power was still on, so the grid was working. Mark wasn’t too scared.
And then the storm came in stronger, which Mark didn’t think was possible, but here it was, a river pouring from the sky.
Wind howled.
Lightning crackled overhead, passing this way and that, vibrantly shaking the world into light.
Thunder rolled, and Mark’s breath hitched as something much closer cracked and broke; the sound of a tree falling, twisted apart by the storm.
The streetlights died and the lights in the other houses flickered and died, plunging the world into full darkness in the middle of the day. The lights in the garage and the rest of Mark’s house stayed on, but only because Quark was still alive and an independent power source. The house would always have electricity, now—
A roar in the dark echoed across the storm—
No.
Not a roar.
That was just a generator turning on. Mark recognized the rumble and then the steady rush of noise. Just a generator, rumbling in the dark. Some lights turned on in the distance, in the dark, far beyond the sheets of rain.
Mark felt a distant fear edge into his stomach like a cold knife that had already been pressed to his flesh for the last hour. Too many bad scenarios played in his mind, each one worse than the last.
If there were monsters out there, then the lights were a beacon to them.
Mark told Quark, “Garage down, Quark. Turn off all lights but the small ones.”
The garage door rumbled down, the noise of the moving metal barely heard above the storm. Mark was glad that Quark could still hear his own voice over the noise. The lights turned off. Darkness consumed all, and Mark could only hear the sound of the rain, roaring and roaring. A light turned on in the hallway leading into the house, beyond a proper door. A thick door.
Mark opened that door and went into the house—
He turned around and grabbed a shield and sword from the garage, just because he… he wasn’t sure why. He couldn’t take them into the Tutorial. Everything but basic clothes would be stripped from him. But for some reason he wanted a sword in his hands—
Addashield stood under a light in the downstairs living room.
Mark yelped, fear breaking into realization that an archmage was here, and he was safe.
And then Mark remembered that he wasn’t really safe at all.
Addashield grinned a little, his eyes flickering with a redness that was not his own eye color at all. He said, “You can’t take that into the Tutorial, so you might as well drop it.”
Mark set the sword down against the wall and began taking off the shield, feeling more and less secure by the moment. Oddly enough, even knowing that Addashield had done some horrible things, and knowing that his demon was in partial control right now, Mark was still relieved to see the archmage. A whole lot relieved, actually.
Mark breathed easy. He calmed.
Addashield noticed. “You were nervous, and now you’re less nervous?”
Mark said, “Big storms are scary sometimes, and you’re here now. Of course I’m less nervous.”
Addashield smiled softly, hummed once in a way that might have been a sign of amusement, and asked, “Ready for the Tutorial?”
“I might have to piss again, but other than that, yes. I made you a sandwich if you want it.”
Addashield said, “Go ahead, and then drink some water. I’m not hungry, but I appreciate the thought. Let’s leave in 2 minutes.”
Mark went and stood over the toilet for a good 30 seconds with his dick in his hands, trying to pee. The storm raged outside and Mark’s stomach was tumbling again. Eventually he managed to squeeze out enough, and then he tucked himself away and had a glass of water from the sink. He splashed his face and then opened the door—
Addashield was standing there.
Mark calmed his second near-heart attack away, and then he stood there.
Addashield said, “I will offer you a handshake. We will grip hands. What I do will sting a little. Only after that will I tell you to accept the Tutorial, and then you will accept the Tutorial. Once we are inside, you are NOT to talk to me. This is vitally important. Small infractions of looking my way will go unnoticed. If you talk to me, if you interact with me directly, then Malaqua might invalidate your Tutorial and you get nothing. I will get nothing.
“I will not save you if you look to die. You dying or failing the Tutorial today will mean the equivalent of my own death. Do not expect me to save you for any reason at all.
“I will, however, assist you with scouting, as long as the scouting is not directly a part of that particular testing room. This means pointing out monsters that are obvious. You will follow my instructions when I give them, but otherwise the Tutorial is your own.”
Mark held out a hand. “Understood.”
Addashield breathed deep and closed his eyes for a moment.
He opened his eyes in time to a flash of lightning from outside, or maybe his eyes had actually lit up. Mark could not say. All he could tell was that Addashield was focused, and his eyes were vaguely red and black. Addashield took Mark’s hand.
It was a strong grip.
The archmage’s black adamantium bracer on that arm deformed a little, twirling out into long, thin needles. Needles slipped into Mark’s forearm and bicep. It stung, but not too much at all.
Addashield said, “At the end of the Tutorial, there is a pillar with a hunk of prismatic substance on it. I will approach it first, do some alterations to it, and you will touch it when I tell you to, which will be right after I alter it. There can be no hesitation. When you touch it you will Awaken and Complete the Tutorial, with either a bi-Talent or the tri-Talent that the makers of the Color Drops were trying for. We can talk after you Awaken, in the time between Tutorial end and return to the real world. Understand?”
Mark was giddy and frozen from a combination of anticipation and unease.
Mark said, “I understand.”
“Call out to Malaqua and the Tutorial and accept it.”
Mark felt his breath hitch in his throat.
The storm raged outside, rain battering the world. The sky roared.
Here it was.
Mark was finally getting to take the Tutorial.
Mark spoke, “Malaqua! I accept the Tutorial!”
Words filled his vision.
Mark Careed of Earth.
You are at least 18 years of age and eligible for a pure mana baptism.
Initializing teleport to the Tutorial.
Everything went white.