She was up early today. It wasn't like she hated waking up early, she just hadn't had anything to do in the morning for a while. This time it was different though, the time had finally come. All the paperwork and talks had led to this moment, months of preparation, meetings and flyers had led to this day. She was realising an old dream of her, the opening of her own dojo. Thinking back to how she got here, she marvelled at the events going through her mind. Finding herself in that place, a monastery after a particularly bad day had been strange enough, but the training she got there had taken weeks. When she finally returned to the real world, she was a changed woman.

No longer did she cover in fear and avoid confrontation. She now faced her problems head on, she chuckled darkly as she remembered the shock from the others at her sudden transformation. For them it had been overnight, for her it had been weeks in the making. After that things got a bit blurry, there were several weeks of constant activity, more and more did she delve and earn enough to set herself up. First came her own apartment which she bought outright. Then even more delving, slowly she become more and more powerful with every dungeon she conquered. She wasn't always alone, there were flashes of comrades with her.

Some of those she remembered were still active, others had fallen or retired. She didn't mourn them as much, while she had known some for a couple days, the relationships had been professional more than anything else. She was focussed and driven towards her goal. In only a month she broke out of Tier 1 and into Tier 2. It got slower then, the dungeons more dangerous and the comrades with her for longer each time. The pay-outs were also better though and after some more weeks she had the start-up money ready to go.

She breathed in again, slowing her heart through an effort of will alone. She had learned this trick not too long ago, but it hadn't been extremely useful yet. She hadn't delved in weeks, but it wasn't something she missed. It had always been about the pay-out for her, about making her dream a reality. As she walked to the front of the building, she took it all in. Most of the structure was here from an old defunct gym so the rebuilding had been rather easy, still it had taken time. The front desk was still unmanned, she had hired someone, but it was still a couple hours before she would open so it was fine for now. As she looked through the glass door, she saw a woman standing in front of the building. She recognised her, The Rogue.

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"What can I help you with? We don't open for a few hours yet."

"I didn't come for that, though congrats and all."

"Oh? I'm not going delving today though, I don't have my gear on hand."

"That's fine, I just came to deliver some news. A new warlock has joined."

"Ah."

She had known the last woman to hold that title, they were pretty close in end, but before anything else could happen she had fallen. She hadn't been there, neither had The Rogue. That had been just before her last mission, she almost fell herself during that one due to the distraction. The Rogue still stood there, waiting for a response.

"I'm not sure what you want from me, I'm not doing the introduction, I'm quite a bit busy today."

"That's fine, I'm going myself in a couple hours. I just wanted to warn you, ya know, if you suddenly heard about The Warlock again."

"Thank you for that."

The Rogue shuffled off, back into the parking lot and out into the city. The Monk calmed herself down again, maybe that heart control technique was more powerful than she had originally thought. It allowed her to keep herself calm for rest of the day; without it, she would have a lot more troubles than an opening to deal with.