Rob had needed a break for a long time. So, as his friends got ready for the next fortnight of endless slaving toward their goals, Rob was offered a weekend of relaxation, and took it.
“Bet you never thought we’d get to experience something like this,” said Brianna, Rob’s sous chef, and recently acknowledged best friend. Rob saw why Arson liked the Coveted marital status in his Overlay, as it was a consistent sign that his partner was alive and well, which made Rob regretful that he’d never tried to become a cultivator, as he looked toward the young woman next to him.
“What do you mean? I slave in kitchens with the mindset that I’d only ever end up in a place like this,” said Rob. His hand gesturing toward the lavish box suite within the newly refinished ManaWell. He and Brianna had spent the day lounging and being catered to for once, watching amateur fights hosted by the nightclub, that Rob felt was becoming more of a small stadium, than a nightclub or fight club.
“Well aren’t you special,” responded Brianna before she stuck out a tongue at Rob and returned to watching the fight.
“Special enough to get a brat like you,” teased Rob. The young woman rose slightly and looked him in the eyes, before she raised four counting fingers in his face.
“Brilliant, ehhh, yeah, you got me there,” said Brianna as she went letter by letter through the acronym youths their age coined simply as brat. A single dropped finger for each letter as she went on.
“Rich, not really… but kinda I guess, maybe on the way,” said Brianna with another dropped finger and an accompanied nod from Rob.
“Amazing, astonishing, acrobatic bed partner, all definite options, but annoying… yeah I don’t see it. What’s left? T, right?” Rob gave her a nod in response doing his best not to burst into laughter while Brianna acted as if she was in deep thought.
“Tragically out of your league, maybe, but terrible, good sir, I am not,” said Brianna before she poked Rob in the eye and kissed him on the cheek before he could flinch back any further.
“Ow, what don’t you think was terrible about that,” asked Rob as he pressed a service button on a small station table installed into the arm of the sofa he sat on.
“You better kiss me or I’ll show you terrible,” said the woman as Rob squirmed away from her threatening pointed finger. He snickered and pulled her in close before kissing her deeply. Then the screens held within the club changed for the first time that day. Holograms tuned into various fights across the realms were changed to all show Lane, who wore a smile that Rob knew meant she had a scoop that would result in views and credits alike.
“Hello my Black Hole Conglomerate family, we have a special event for you today, an Heir to the Eco family of Titans has challenged the BlackHole leader Carter Gestalt, and we are here to provide you with live footage, so without further ado,” said Lane. The scenes shifted to show a dark underground area, the only available light drifting down from above faintly.
A camera view flew around a destroyed construction, giving the audience a full view of the area to be used for the fight.
Rob watched the comments explode with questions on where the pair of fighters was, no one there able to pinpoint the location.
A beautiful tree filled with runes from top to bottom was explored by a series of split camera views displayed. The multitiered building was completely exposed on one side, rubble and debris creating a series of small stages that led up toward the apex of the tree being wrapped up by a broken topped tower like a jacket. All this was displayed from many angles before the word fight was seen in letters that took up the entire screen, before the two fighters were heard but not seen.
“Autumn!” The name was yelled, only to have a camera angle display an empty room. Rob winced as Brianna jerked back. A young man in a massive golem suit of armor sailed through the air toward the empty room. One of Arson’s Living Hand Constructs flying through the air beside the young man. The broken wall he’d just been smashed through still caught up in his momentum, scattering into the room through the open space all around him.
Before he was able to cross the center of the room the Living Hand grabbed him by the ankle and yanked, hard. The Eco heir swung bodily in the opposite direction. He flew, before being slammed into the floor of the room. He yelped, the floor cracking beneath the weight of his massive form once he made contact.
Then Arson appeared, his appearance seemingly off to Rob and Brianna as both shared a look temporarily.
“This isn’t going to be good, is it?” Brianna barely asked the question before the figure of Arson was next to his opponent. A heel drop hurtling toward Moriarty’s back.
No—“ Rob’s few words cut off by the kick that crushed Arson’s opponent into the floor below.
“I don’t think so…” finished Rob as Arson was seen already below the falling form of Moriarty, preparing a spin kick, the stance obvious to Rob, and even some within the comments of the broadcast felt they knew what was to come.
A spin kick was performed, and Arson’s opponent was once more sent flying just hard enough to be smashed, bouncing off of another wall, most viewing the fight unaware of how many structures Moriarty had already been forced to test the toughness of that day.
“Ooow, this might be bad folks. All parental advisory warnings for content displayed here—“ Lane was cut off as one of Arson’s Living Hand Constructs swooped through the room in a dive, and hooked Moriarty around the waist by the blade of the scythe it held, and triggered the fan function. The young man’s form blurred as it was spun violently through the air before being launched toward Arson.
“Sparks…” Arson cocked back a punch, bending at the knees slightly and widening his stance as his opponent was flung toward him. Yelling violently before Lane could speak up again, a deep multi colored lightning traced and intertwined with black conductive water rolled chaotically down his arm.
“Mana Lightning!” Everything happened so quickly that many missed the second Living Hand Construct land flush on Moriarty’s back, and push him forcefully through the air toward Arson’s punch.
An explosion of ambient mana spread through the room, destroying more of the surrounding walls and even distorting the camera view in certain areas.
The comments exploded and the broadcast cut off to show Lane smiling once more. Her widening eyes looking off screen and back toward the camera.
“Embers of the maiden, that fight is heating up. For all unsubscribed members join up now to use your free fight token to watch the rest of the mayhem for free. For all our regular members, you know you can always buy the fight for a 50% discount. As always, Growth and Grace, my loves!” Brianna and Rob shared a second look, communicating more through body language than actual words.
“I’m going to need 5-star cuisine for this, boo, so who's paying for the fight and who's cooking?” Rob rolled his eyes and stood. He was the only 5-star chef in the building, with Brianna being the only comparable secondary option.
“Just kidding, boo. Wanted to see if you would cook for me. Thanks,” said Brianna jumping to her feet before she gave Rob a peck on the cheek and darted off down the hall.
Rob chuckled and sat back down, already wondering how the fight was going. Yet he forced himself not to watch, eating popcorn casually as he waited for Briana to return.
He glanced over at the side table next to him and saw his aquatic rebreather, made for humanoid fish species and other various lifeforms that breathed water rather than air and mana. He tried not to wear it when he wasn’t working on potions or cooking, but the mask was quickly becoming an extension of himself.
He put on the mask while he waited and began to meditate. Meditate on the things that bothered him. Meditate on his goals. Even meditate on his newest wish of becoming a cultivator.
Time passed and Rob felt like he was beginning to sweat profusely. He kept his eyes closed as a feeling equivalent to cool water running across the skin of an overheated body spread across his entire body.
Rob lost himself in the sensation. Almost feeling as if he could control and move the revitalizing energies that seemed to fill him more and more as he took deep breaths.
Maybe this is what Arson was describing?
Rob had only listened in on a conversation between Troy and Khalif before he’d started to meditate, but it wasn’t until Arson returned from Endless and explained more of the process of meditation and its potential for all, not just Cultivators that Rob began to understand.
Then Rob pushed the sensation through his body in a circular pattern. First across his heart, then his head and brain, down the opposing side of his body, pushing the energy to the tips of all his limbs. Ambient mana rushing through his veins. Then finally through his core and legs, before he started all over. He tried this many times before, but it’d never felt so rewarding and refreshing.
I can see why some cultivators lose their lives and will to push on doing this.
A new process beginning for the young mortal man, about to take his first step into a new life.
…
Brianna turned the music on in the kitchen of the ManaWell and started to cook alongside the rest of the staff.
She didn’t want to work initially but seeing all the staff members struggle slightly to keep up with the club’s increased capacity made her feel obligated to do so. Everything went smoothly until she realized she had one too many ingredients.
Well, not food ingredient exactly, but there was an unfamiliar face in front of Brianna. This would be possible with the 100 member cooking staff, if Brianna hadn’t memorized the face of every person she’d personally hired.
Once upon a time, Rob had laughed at the younger Brianna for forgetting an ingredient to a dish she’d made only once at that point in her life. The younger Rob had simply looked around the room at all the other members of the orphanage's own large cooking staff after she’d exploded on him for his unreasonable expectations and asked her a question that changed her life.
“Can you name everyone in the room?” Brianna had looked around and answered honestly.
“Of course I can. I work with these people everyday. Why wouldn’t I be able to?” answered Brianna with an accompanied scoff. Her annoyance already having had boiled over by that point.
“You see, then why wouldn’t I expect you to be able to name the ingredients in every recipe you work with everyday? Raise the level of importance as those that help you make masterpieces, and you will never forget the potential and need of every dish and ingredient in a recipe, just like you know what groups do what in the kitchen and whose involved,” offered Rob finally, cooking the entire time he spoke, unaffected by her anger at the tender age of 11 season cycles. Brianna opened her mouth as many around the pair snickered and laughed overhearing the young man.
She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. His words offering more in its direct example of something she’d already accomplished than any lesson she’d paid for in her new school, or even the others that stood around them with far more cooking experience at that time.
Since then, Brianna’s memorization abilities had been pushed to completely different levels, and one face was missing from her staff now that she counted her company. Replaced by a severe faced woman that used her knife to dice vegetables sloppily, the blade held like a weapon, rather than a specialized tool for the cooking trade.
“Aww naw, mmhmm nope,” said Brianna underneath her breath while she dialed Rob on his Flatscreen. The young man didn’t hear the call as an alchemical core was being created within his soul, his senses consumed by mana and even toxins rushing inward from his environment.
Brianna assumed he was more than likely caught up watching Arson. The same young man who she later learned inspired the words Rob had sent in her direction after beating Rob in a game with a checker board pattern.
“In warfare there are acceptable losses, I fight to live without loss,” said Brianna, quoting Arson. She took a knife shakily into both hands and pointed them downward as proper kitchen etiquette called for. Making proper calls and signals as she walked passed dishwashers, prep stations, and the majority of her fellow staff, and stopped behind the stranger.
“Don’t even try. Oye, drop it, we don’t play with intruders in this kitchen,” said Brianna raising both knives slowly, her hands shaking uncontrollably.
“You wouldn’t really use a weapon on me. I’m just here to help my cousin, he was sick and didn’t want to lose his job,” said the woman, who must have noticed she’d said something wrong, voices chattering all around her immediately at her words.
“Whoops, this is going to be bad, right?” said one of the chefs near the stranger. The entire group around her moving away slowly.
Flatscreens were pulled from the pockets of many, as most whispered and murmured about how many people Brianna had caught sneaking into the kitchen this season cycle already.
“You can’t really expect me to believe some shaky-handed shrimp like you is going to stab me,” said the woman with a laugh. Brianna smiled, as she took one blade in a reverse handed grip and the other held loosely in her opposing hand. The tremble that once wracked her limbs gone in an instant.
“Sorry, I get excited when someone enters this sanctuary with the belief that lies will get them out unscathed…” Brianna flicked her wrist and the knife she held loosely darted toward the woman’s ankle, blade first. The woman caught completely off guard was unable to stop the knife that sank directly into her foot and pinned her there. The specialized floor would normally cause the blade to remain solitary, but with the blood being picked up by the sensory equipment within the kitchen, the blade was reversed with a surgical accuracy and flopped onto the floor before the woman could even react properly.
Brianna smirked when she shrieked, looking around at many nearby members of the crew, all raising their knives toward the intruder. The woman incensed by the pain caused by the first knife, then Brianna moved, speaking while she rushed her.
“I’ll give you one chance to tell me why you are in here,” yelled Brianna, slicing wildly through the air, a reverse gripped blade coming inches away from cutting into the woman Brianna was convinced was a stranger. Only named Orphans knew their cousins, and the number of them that Brianna had met personally that were willing to work for an absent family member… couldn’t be counted on one hand, because they were nonexistent.
“You’ve done it now, I’m going to slice your fingers off and feed them back to you, rat!” The woman successfully blocked a handful of strikes from Brianna and even managed a jumping spin kick that allotted her distance from Brianna as she avoided the kick.
“The first person who stabs this sparking psychopath eats lunch for free for the rest of the season!” Brianna yelled, and didn’t think there would be many takers to her offer, only, the woman before Brianna was immediately swarmed by chefs.
In that moment it became apparent to Brianna that she wasn’t the only willing candidate to defend their kitchen from espionage, tampering, and even the rare assassination attempt her and Rob stopped from harming Troy earlier that same season seemed to impact this moment.
She thought their efforts small, but as the stranger was dragged to the ground by 7 hardened chefs all who at least attempted to stab her once, Brianna believed that maybe she’d inspired more than she was aware of.
“Hey what is that in your hand,” asked Brianna her subtle laughter at the sight cut off when she realized the woman held a unfamiliar device. The cylindrical object looked like a weapons handle, with built in hand grooves, meant to be squeezed on both sized compressing the buttons to trigger something Brianna knew she didn’t want to happen.
She’s going to squeeze that, isn’t she…
“For the Monarch!”