Izai stood in Tai’s backyard again, the sky above overcast. The upstairs neighbour sat on the balcony, reading a newspaper and occasionally glancing down at them.

Tai had a chalkboard set up. He had gotten it from someone who owed him a favour and thought it suited his new role as a ‘tutor.’ On the board, he wrote:

Light Duration Cycle – 0.06 0.08 0.06 – 1

Medium Duration Cycle – 0.11 0.08 0.11 – 2

Heavy Duration Cycle – 0.22 0.08 0.22 – 4

“You ready?” Tai asked.

Izai nodded. Katalia Pushed a vine, wrapping it around the wooden dummy at the far end of the yard. She yanked it, and the dummy came hurtling toward them. Tai raised a blue coloured palm, stopping it mid-air before guiding it safely into position.

“What the hell was that?” Tai raised an eyebrow.

“I’m trying to refine my Push,” Katalia replied, a bit guilty.

“By smashing my windows? This ain’t the north side, Lia; our buildings aren’t coated in expensive Saps. Things break in the south.”

“Sorry,” she shrugged.

Izai didn’t know her well, but he felt he knew her enough to notice that she had been sulking that mid-afternoon.

“Good Push, though,” Tai admitted. “I’m used to seeing you go through a whole song and dance to let out a puddle of Water,” he smiled.

Tai then turned his attention back to Izai. “What’s your Vitality at again?”

“Five.”

Tai had been gradually easing Izai out of Resource Management, hoping that soon enough he’d be using it in its natural state. He had started with his Vitality at 1, which made the seconds of his natural cycle go from 0.11 0.08 0.11 to 1.1 0.08 1.1. This week, it was set to 5, making it 0.55 0.4 0.55.

“We’re making great progress,” Tai felt impressed by his teaching. “Today, we do the Light Duration Cycle.”

He pointed to it on the board. “This lets you perform light attacks. These are important because you can use them to interrupt an opponent’s move, chip away at their health, and most importantly, if someone blocks you, it won’t trigger an involuntary Duration Cycle.” He glanced to the side. “Lia, show him a light attack.”

Lia positioned herself before the dummy, first executing a quick jab, then a low kick, and finally stepping closer to deliver an elbow strike.

“There. Happy,” she said.

“You okay?” Tai asked.

“Is there anything else you need from me?” she asked, her voice tinged with a hint of anger.

“You know I was joking about the windows, right?”

She rolled her eyes and headed inside the house. A few moments later they heard the slam of a door.

“What’s her deal?” the Taur from upstairs leaned of the balcony.

“Eh,” Tai shrugged. “None of our business. She’ll us if she needs to.” He rubbed his bald spot. “Now, where were we? Oh, right. Come over here.”

Izai stood before the wooden dummy. Tai unfolded a scroll showing stick figures performing basic moves. He pointed to the spinning elbow.

Tai folded the scroll and tucked it under his arm. “Now, find what you think is the optimal striking range for that.”

“How do I know?”

“You just should.”

Izai tapped the ground slightly with his right foot, gauging Tai’s expression for the correct answer, but Tai remained unmoved.

“In real matches, people are constantly moving, you know? You won’t have time for all of that.”

Izai closed his eyes, trusting his instincts. He took a step back, then stepped forward, pivoting on his lead foot to spin, and letting the momentum carry his elbow into the wooden dummy.

“Good. Now, let’s add the Pulse. To channel your Essence into a Light Move, you must rush it. You’ve probably done it a thousand times before without realizing it. Just feel it inside you and rush it. Got it?”

“Got it,” Izai knew what he meant.

He took a deep breath, feeling the warmth of his Essence swirling around his core. Stepping forward, he let his Essence guide him, spinning with it, and as his elbow connected with the wooden pole, he felt the energy release before settling into his neutral stance.

“That was easy,” he smiled.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“That’s because you’re in Resource Management. It’ll get tougher when you return to your regular Duration Cycle. But for now, it’s all good.”

Izai felt his pride swell.

Tai added, “Another thing to note about light attacks: unlike mediums, which affect both the Active and Recovery phases of the Duration Cycle, a light attack will only force an opponent into Involuntary Recovery. It’s just enough to buy you time to set up your next move.”

Izai nodded. For the next two hours, they drilled the same basic moves – jabs, kicks, straights, hooks, and elbows – over and over and over again. Gradually, Izai began to notice something about the Pulse Essence: during the Startup, it heated his core; in the Active phase, his core burned; and in Recovery, it started to cool.

Afterward, Tai allowed him to shower. Once changed, Izai stood awkwardly before Tai, rubbing the back of his head. “Speaking of Resource Management, can I get a potion to boost all my V-Cores back up?”

“Why?” Tai’s tone was suspicious.

“I need it for work,” Izai replied.

“What work?”

“I’m working for the Lotus Sentinel Company. They’re teaching me how to use Pure-Sap for game day security. You know, I need to be alert and monitor a lot of different Kin around me at once. One of my tutors says the reason why I’m having such a bad reaction is because my Vitality is low.”

“I’ve never heard of that being a thing.”

Izai shrugged. “It’s what she said.”

“So, the Lotus Sentinel Company, huh?” Tai pressed. “Look, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about some of these Kin that –”

“Hey,” Izai interrupted, sensing where the conversation was heading. “I know. It’s just for the security job. It’s something for now you know…”

----------------------------------------

Izai guiltily inspected the vial as he walked to a small local park. Without hesitating, he gave it a quick gulp. Truthfully, he didn’t need his Pulse for his job. Rather, Koralo and Olav had urged him to get his V-Cores to their max.

The three of them now sat on wooden benches under tall trees whose foliage had been stripped away by the cold. Nearby, Koralo’s wife and children played on a stretch of grass. A very complex type of play as Izai noted. They were spinning and tumbling, using their Push to launch themselves high into the air before gracefully returning to the ground.

“They can Push?” Olav sat up surprised.

“Yes, my friend,” Koralo responded.

“They look ten,” Olav remarked.

“They’re both eight,” Koralo corrected.

“Kinlings get their Talentbirths younger,” Izai pointed out, recalling a tv program he had seen on the island nation of Etero and their use of child-soldiers to keep the local populace in line.

“True,” Koralo agreed. “I was six. How about you?”

Both Izai and Olav had been twelve. They were both Pullers at first, and it wasn’t until a year and a half later that Izai gained Pushing. By then, they realized the only thing left was for his Pulse and cells to mature before he became a Pureborn.

“How many Kinlings get Talents?” Olav wondered aloud.

“All,” Izai confidently replied.

“No,” Koralo shook his head. “Not all.”

“Yes,” Izai insisted. “All Kinlings are Talentborn. If you take a thousand, seventy five percent will be Pushers, with a few outliers being Pulsers or Pullers. About twenty percent will be Peakborn, and the remaining five percent will be Pureborn.

Koralo shook his head the entire time Izai spoke.

“That was true fifty years ago,” Koralo said. “Now. Not so much. Few Talentbirths. Talentborn marry Regular chances go down. It even goes for Kinling too. I see now Libri with no Talents.”

“All Kinlings have Talents,” Izai insisted again.

“So did all Kin once,” Koralo countered. “You talk of numbers from Dominion Epoch back when thirty in one hundred Folk had Talents. Time changes.”

As they were talking, Koralo’s family continued their playful tumbling on the grassy pitch. It seemed effortless to Izai. Not only they were they were able to contort and twist, but how careful and deliberate their Pushes were. Even he couldn’t pull off some of the things the eight-year-olds were doing.

“Where did they learn to do that?” he asked.

“From wife,” Koralo smiled proudly. He pulled out a worn wallet and opened it to reveal a photo. It was of his wife’s tiny blue figure in a glittery white one-piece, holding flowers and waving to a crowd. “She was how do you say gy…” he tried to sound the word.

“Gymnast?” Olav asked.

“Yes. Could’ve been best in Aradahi.”

“What happened then?” Izai asked.

“Life.”

A gust of cold wind blew past them, and they drew their jackets closer.

“Me and Olav come up with plan.”

Izai was surprised by this. What plan? And when had they found the time to do it without him? Then it dawned on him that this might be why they wanted him to have full V-Cores tonight.

“For Solar-Pearl necklace.”

Izai thought that was something they would have to deal with at some later date, not tonight. He turned to look at Olav, who had a big, goofy, proud smile on his face. “Oh, it’s a good plan,” Olav reassured him.

“Here how we go,” Koralo began. “We need to be smart. Clean. No noise. No fights. Smooth. The Koralo way.”

“And what is this Koralo way?” Izai asked.

Koralo explained how they were going to make a gravity bomb – an old-school one. Many museums still carried the husks of these things, and some still worked. Koralo had a working one, but the catch was that they needed GaleStone powder. He had asked around, but nobody on the black market was willing to sell it to him.

“What does the bomb do?” Izai asked.

“We throw it,” Olav explained. “Everyone in the area floats. We walk in wearing special boots, grab the necklace, and head on out.”

“That simple huh,” Izai felt that they were simplifying too much. “And the powder? Where will you get that?”

Olav pulled out the book Vilena had given him on charmed birds. He flipped to a page and pointed to a parrot.

“It’s a rare, charmed bird,” Olav continued. “Its feathers have the power of GaleStone. The green feathers regulate Gale, and the red ones, Stone. You pluck both, grind them, and you get a working form of GaleStone powder.”

“And where do you plan to acquire such a bird, Pa Olav?” Izai asked.

“Well Pa Izai,” Olav responded, “that’s where you come into play.”

“Huh?”

“You sneak to zoo, my friend,” Koralo said, unfurling a map of the Grand Polassa Zoo. “This area where parrot house is.”

“You want me to sneak in? Why can’t you do it?” Izai asked.

“Me?” Koralo pointed a blue finger at himself. “I do plans. I’m plan guy. I can’t both be muscle and brain.”

“There’s nothing there,” Olav said. “We staked it out a couple of times at night. The guards are barely interested – they just watch TV all night. The only ones interested are the ones looking after the animals. There’s this Taur couple that was there every night playing with the wolf pups. But they look our age so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Izai was still not convinced. Why couldn’t a Divine Talentborn like Koralo do it? He could just shift from place to place until he reached the parrot.

“Where’s fun and adventure in that friend,” Koralo said as he pointed to a jumpsuit in his duffel bag. “Special suit. Closes all senses. Like can’t feel anything. Like dead. But you drink Pure-Sap, senses go into overload right. Suit neutralizes it, giving you controllable experience.”

Izai inspected the suit. It was made of dark cotton on the outside, but the inside had a polyester like feel to it. “When did you even have time to get this all together?” he asked.

“While you were practicing,” Olav said, lighting a cigarette.

Izai looked at the tumbling family once more. “So, tonight?”

“Tonight,” Olav said.

“Tonight,” Izai repeated, to confirm it to himself.

“Tonight.” Koralo confirmed with a smile.