Nate nervously tapped the side of his phone, trying to get up the courage to hit the button that would dial the number. He hadn’t done anything like this in years, and George’s talk of her being cute hadn’t helped in the slightest. It had actually done the opposite.

He was psyching himself out, over a simple phone call with a girl who was completely out of his league. He took a deep breath and held it for several seconds before slowly releasing it. Remembering that she was pretty much a princess actually helped.

This wasn’t a fairytale where love trumped everything, he was in a world where enough strength could overrule laws. If he wanted to be with someone, then first he needed to be strong enough to stand by their side.

Besides, all he knew about Angie was that she had a nice face, her personality so far wasn’t exactly welcoming either.

Finding himself calmer, Nate thumbed the button and pressed the phone against his ear.

It rang, and rang, then rang some more, before finally switching over to her voicemail. He left a quick message and hung up. He would wait a few minutes before calling Lindsay’s number. There were several reasons Angelica might not have answered her phone, and he wanted to give her some time.

With his homework all finished, Nate was free to do as much research on traps as he wanted. Later he would start exploring the dungeon systems some more.

He was curious as to whether he had access to everything already or if there was a way to upgrade things. He knew he could have more dungeons eventually, yet he didn’t even know how to unlock them. All of that told him he was missing something.

Finally, he also apparently needed to start training his body again and find out what weapon, if any he was proficient in. It was quite the list for a Saturday.

With his parent’s home for the moment, it was probably smarter to weave two of them together. Grabbing his laptop, he went downstairs and settled down on the opposite end of the couch from his mother.

“Hey, mom, did I used to train in any weapons?” He asked, not taking his eyes off the computer screen.

“Hmm, why the sudden interest?”

“Just something that was mentioned at school, and since I can’t remember portions of my life still, I have no idea.”

“Sweetie, I hate to tell you this, but you’ll probably never get those memories back. I looked into people who have suffered similar accidents to yours, and the few cases where people had lost memories never got them back. It’s why having someone guard you is so important.” Her hands clenched tight. “We should have been there to watch over you ourselves, if not for that stupid mission!”

“It’s fine mom, it’s the past. As long as you and dad are alright with me not remembering everything then this is fine. Now back to the question at hand. Did I ever train in any specific weapon or martial arts in preparation for what would happen after I formed my core?”

She shook her head, while forcibly unclenching her hand. “There was no one weapon you favored. You would train in them all for a little while and then move on to the next one. I’m not sure what you were looking for, but you never seemed to find it. You went through them all though, bows, crossbows, naginatas, daggers, swords, jians, katanas. You tried them all.”

Nate felt his eye twitch. That did sound like something a younger him might have done. He would have been obsessed with finding the one that felt ‘right’ in his hands. Instead of training to get that feeling. He had read too many stories where you were supposed to pick the weapon that felt right. Instead of training to make it feel right.

There were arguments to be said for both unless of course you never found one that matched up to you.

“Did I ever try kukris?” It was a shot in the dark.

She tilted her head thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think you ever did. Why?”

He shook his head. “Just curious. With George making progress on my meridians and core, and then what they said at school… It’s got me thinking I should start training again is all. At the rate I’m going to be behind everyone else if I don’t do something soon.”

Her eyes narrowed. “This has something to do with a girl, doesn’t it? I heard you mention a name to him last night. Ange, something, or other. I know guys always start working harder when they have a crush they want to impress.”

“Her name is Angie or Angelica, and no this isn’t about her, mom. This is about me not wanting to be vulnerable the next time someone wants to pick a fight with me. I want to know that I’ll be able to defend myself when that time comes.”

“You said when not if…” She said softly.

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“Yeah, I did. You can’t tell me you don’t think someone won’t try something similar in the future. Maybe not when I’m forming my core this time, but they’ll find a reason to do something, I’m sure.”

“Regardless, if you want to start training again. I can talk to your father about finding you a proper weapons trainer, just remember, he and I are on probation.”

“I wouldn’t be too worried about that mom, you heard George. He doesn’t expect anyone from this expedition to survive anyway, so you’ll be cleared automatically you said. Why do I need a special trainer though? Couldn’t you or dad do it in your free time?”

She shook her head. “We already tried that once. I use a bow, which again you liked well enough but didn’t think it was right for you. And your father uses bladed tonfas, which you absolutely struggled with. If you are wanting to train in daggers, kukri’s specifically then neither of us would be able to help you.”

He nodded in understanding, once again cursing the old him. There was something to be said for exploring your options and wanting to know how to at least handle most weapons. However did he really have to be this picky? It wasn’t even like he was training to become more than passable in them anyway.

The sound of his phone ringing interrupted their conversation and stopped them from saying anything more.

Picking it up, he saw it was Angie returning his earlier call.

“Hello Angelica,” He said accepting the call.

“I told you to call me Angie! I’m just returning your call; I’m assuming you got my number from George?”

“I did.”

“And did you mention what I proposed to him?” She prodded.

“I did, he said it was fine and that I should take you for everything you’re worth.” Nate chuckled. “No seriously though, he did mention that getting the medication would be a tremendous help.”

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“Well, I hadn’t originally intended for him to know of our deal for obvious reasons. However, I can’t say I’m exactly mad that you told him either. It shows a certain amount of character towards relationships that I can appreciate. Anyway, I already sent the order for the medication through yesterday. I figured you wouldn’t be able to resist speaking with him about the offer.”

Nate rolled his eyes. “What strength was the order you sent through for? George mentioned I’m going to need something fairly potent.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “It was standard strength, but I’ll let them know to make it stronger as soon as we’re done speaking.”

“Thanks, I’d appreciate it.” He said softly.

“They really did a number on you, didn’t they? We all know that you were getting ready to form your core, but that’s it.”

“Not getting ready to. I was in the midst of, I guess anyway. I don’t remember anything from it, but apparently, it was pretty much the single worst moment for them to have intervened.”

“I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“It wasn’t you or your family’s fault, but I won’t say what they did is fine either. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know about George. I’ll talk to you later.” They spent a few moments going back and forth before hanging up.

“Ugh,” He groaned, looking up at his mother. “That felt so awkward and unnatural.”

She nodded. “I cringed a few times, and I was only hearing half the conversation.”

“Gee thanks mom, you’re a ton of help.”

“I try. Now, what are you going to do for the rest of the day?” She sipped some of her cool tea with a look of mild disgust and set it to the side.

“Hmm, well, I’ve already finished all my homework, but I do need to do some research through the school’s information portal. Then I figured I’d start getting back into shape, so I’m not completely hopeless when it’s time to train.”

“Alright, well, go enjoy your weekend. I’ll just be down here waiting for news about the expedition. I have no idea where your father ran off to.”

Nate picked up his laptop, ruffled his mother’s hair, and went back up to his room. With Angie working on getting him the medicine and George already having healed him twice, it was time to get serious about a couple of things.

Namely, taking care of his body and knowing how to form a proper core.

With his busted knee, training of any kind had been the last thing on his mind. Thankfully, the remaining energy in his body seemed to have kept him from falling too far physically. He wasn’t a lumpy blob with no muscle mass. Of course, without his meridians, he was still weaker than normal all across the board.

Maybe he could start to change that.

He brought up the school website and logged into the information portal. All the latest books could be found either physically at the school library or online.

Nate quickly found every book available on either forming or recovering from core damage and began reading them. Well, he skimmed them initially. They were all monster-sized tomes that were exceedingly dry.

From that, however, he was able to remove most of the books from his list for the moment. They would be useful to read but weren’t immediately useful to his situation.

He needed to focus his attention on where it would be most useful. This wasn’t like the stories from his Original Earth, where information was delivered directly to your mind. He still needed to read everything the old-fashioned way for the moment.

Any information that got delivered that way needed to wait until after he got his core. Not to mention, some things were always lost when it was transmitted. That was why people still had to figure things out for themselves, even after getting the knowledge.

Sure, it helped with suddenly knowing how to do certain kinds of math or fighting skill, but the user had to make that knowledge their own still. Otherwise, it was little better than having a manual or textbook in your head all the time. It was useful, but not as valuable as some people assumed it was.

For the next few hours, he lost himself in the reading, making sure to take copious notes along the way. He wasn’t going to screw up forming his core this time.

Unfortunately, fixing what he still had was a little harder. It wasn’t a full core, and since it was actually broken, not just damaged, most of the information he found was useless.

That didn’t mean it was a complete waste of time, only that it was close to one.

Again, he added all the information to his notes. He was determined to try everything out before he went to bed that night. Assuming, of course, the expedition wasn’t causing problems inside the dungeon.

Finally, he decided he had spent enough time reading, and went down to the gym his parents kept in the basement to begin working out.