Wandi snorted, suddenly, turning back towards the city, and clearly trying not to laugh. “I guess you want his permission to court me. Here I am, telling you that you are making me wet, and you are talking about asking for the right to hold my hand in public and maybe be seen having dinner and a walk with me.”

I chuckled, “I intend to observe the letter of the law as much as the spirit. Is it working?”

She gave me a big, beautiful smile. “Yes, weirdly enough, it is.”

We walked, quietly back towards the city. “Hey, Wandi? Do you mind if I take some time to just… wander the town a bit? I really want to spend more time with you, and I’d love to see you for dinner, but I think I need a couple of hours to get my head straight. I went straight from, “She keeps turning me down, how much can I tease her?” to “Holy scat if I don’t die, someday I am going to get to see her naked!” I used to be pretty good at making the switch, but that was a while ago. I think I need to think things out.”

She smiled and nodded. “Of course, I get it. You are in a brand new place, in a brand new land, and went from sleeping under a bunch of leaves to walking through a high-tech metropolis in barely a town. Just… make sure you take this.” she unclipped her carbine and offered it to me. “As upscale as Kanten is, there are still some people that would knife you for your boots. I’ll take your stick, and going heeled is the best way to head off trouble before it starts.”

She added, “Lots of people carry a piece, but usually only hunters walk around with a carbine, and even the most desperate trash won’t just shoot themselves in the face by attacking a hunter. You know how to use it. Do you need change?”

I shook my head. “Naww. Don’t sweat it. I am good,” I said, starting to breathe carefully and spinning up my ring to replenish my energy.

She nodded, “Watch out for cutpurses. I can go home and then grab what we need for delving, and we can meet at my place for dinner and then hit the mid-scale market for more normal clothes. We should be able to hit the hunter’s hall for breakfast and find a delve.”

“Will it be that easy?” I asked curiously as I slung the rifle.

She nodded, “You have restoration, no less than four fighting traits, and probably a bunch more I don’t know about or don’t understand. You fight like a copper and can shoot your own bullets from thirty yards with a pistol or a hundred yards with a carbine. It should be super easy, barely an inconvenience.”

I chuckled, “What can I say? Carbines are tight,” knowing she wouldn’t get the reference.

“is the strap too short?”

I shook my head, “Nope, it’s good.” and we waved while I made my exit. Oddly, I had a lot more of a connection with this strange and lovely hybrid than I ever had with the high-maintenance girl I’d spent ten years of my life with. I liked her a LOT better, for a lot of reasons, not least of which was that she didn’t jump while putting a hole into a tree with a rifle. Accurately. At one hundred yards.

It didn’t hurt that she’d probably look amazing naked, with a gun. Like a gun girl, only the real thing.

But… if I was going to be a lawkeeper, would I need more deputies? Sure, it was socially acceptable enough and probably necessary, but having this much of a connection, this intimate of a connection, with more than one person?

I was not afraid of commitment. After the crazy pinball that was my old life, I had way better things to be afraid of than the idea of being with a gorgeous, athletic, competent, and supportive woman for the rest of my life. But my own experiences… my ex-girlfriend had been a job and a half, incredibly high maintenance. Could I really afford that level of commitment with two or even three women? And have enough time to advance, do my future job, and possibly pursue my own interests, if I could figure out what they were.

Right now, except for possibly Kamli who was already married, I couldn’t even imagine wanting to sleep with even the loveliest women I saw on the street. I’d done the sleeping around and hookup thing, and even with my twenty-something hormones raging in my body, I felt like I’d outgrown the whole boink and burn thing. I mean, yeah, I had thoughts, especially when I saw the most amazingly flexible otter girl dancing for coins on a street corner, a dance that probably would have gotten her sent to jail in Texas for licentious enticement despite being fully clothed. But they were just momentary thoughts, with no real urge behind them.

Huh, was I in love?

No idea. I didn’t have a basis for comparison. I’d been a self-absorbed butterball before I’d joined the corps, and a dying butterball after I left, and when I’d been in, I’d either been on the score-counting track or with her. I was also a bit of an introvert, which didn’t help matters much. I was actually a little surprised at how quickly Wandi agreed to let me do a little wandering to think on my own.

Weirdly, I couldn’t even actually remember her name. If you were with someone for ten years you should remember her name, right? It was… kar something, maybe? Kari? Karen? Kailey? Kali? Kali fit, but that might have been her personality. And Kailey was that hot engineer from the Firefly TV show I’d had a total nerd crush on.

Forgetting her name bugged me for a moment before I glanced at Wandi and happily threw the memory away. Screw it. We’d been comfortable in between fights about her blowing my money during my many deployments, and I was pretty sure she’d cheated on me a few times while I was gone, but I couldn’t really blame her.

Six months to a year was a long time, I just didn’t like her using my money for her hookups. She was pretty decent in bed, but no acrobat, and our sex was… comfortable. Took care of my needs, anyway, and was way better than bar hopping or buying a girl for the night overseas that might turn out diseased, underage, or have a hidden penis.

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Was that evidence I hadn’t loved her? I mean, I hadn’t even slept with Wandi yet, and the idea of her in some giant-eyed baboon’s bed made me want to track down this Miatt guy and ring both of his giant eyes even blacker than they probably were already. Not that I would, she had already made her peace, but I had a LOT stronger of an urge to do that than to track down the oh-so-twisty dancing ferret-girl.

I noticed I was getting plenty of odd looks, from women, and the occasional man, alike. A lot of them seemed to notice the carbine and suddenly looked elsewhere, but some seemed to linger.

Jessie, how do I go about using an essence trait? In this case, apparition?

It’s probably something you would have figured out eventually without my help. It’s actually super easy, barely an inconvenience.

I groaned mentally. Did you catch that reference?

Sort of, I noticed a nerve uptick when she used the phrase and your meme response. I figured based on your nerve impulses that you found it amusing. Of course, I might find it amusing myself if I had a personality pack.

Using your trait, however, is not difficult once you have achieved it. Most people do it instinctively once they start to cultivate. Simply visualize your energy, like you already do, and concentrate on the desired effect based on what the trait is capable of. For instance, for apparition, it may help to think of using a small amount of your energy and thinking ‘I belong here’.

Just like using restoration simply involves using your energy and thinking ‘Your body should be thus. Remember.' If you try to use it on someone else, though, you may have to extend energy like you did to link the bracelet. You probably cannot do it at any sort of range beyond touch, since you are not a… patternist, but your other traits, even the ones that do not use essence, should work much the same way.

Are all traits like this? And restoration could allow me to heal someone else?

Not at all. Most of your physical traits are released with physical activity and tend to drain your fatigue if they drain anything. Your imagination traits are released by, I suppose, your imagination, but I think can be fueled by fatigue or essence, or both.

It is not entirely unique, patternists do the same thing, activating abilities at range by building patterns and activating them, and so do formation users. It is, however, interesting and not something I have an active library about. You could, however, gain more traits that link the same way.

How do I get more points?

Well, this world has a slightly different structure from most because of its protected status. Classes work differently, here they are linked as paths and interface directly with your essence pool. They can be continually advanced, and provide free points per level, but they don’t unlock special traits after level nine. Once a class reaches level five, you can attempt to gain a more advanced or altered version, or possibly even an entirely new path, by advancing your class through various means.

So I could wind up level 50 in drudge and never have to choose a new path, and instead of advancing, I’d wind up as a very powerful cultivator by putting points in attributes and traits I absorbed instead?

Of course. One of the main rules of the system is that there is never ‘one true way’. Obviously, your build would be vastly inferior to someone who advanced their path to a better stage at that level, but you can build an airplane out of toy bricks and white glue instead of advanced polymers and metal components too. It won’t fly, and it would look weird and fall apart at the slightest nudge, but it would LOOK like an aircraft. Sort of.

So what’s the advantage of gaining an improved cultivation method?

Advancement at higher levels becomes much easier. You also gain dramatically more energy to work with for your traits and abilities. Do you know how something like endurance provides a multiplier to your attributes? A better cultivation method will do the same thing for your essence.

Could I use points to improve it?

Wow! Nice try. No. It’s a lot like an achievement or a simple evolution, it cannot be improved that way. It’s sort of like learning physics, and then trying to upgrade a bomb into a nuke without tools, any understanding of explosives or engineering, or parts. It’s there, and getting enhanced by your affinity, but it’s too simple to upgrade without learning more.

I have an idea of how to spend my points.

Okay, but you probably want to be sitting or lying someplace private in case there are any side effects, rather than standing in the middle of the street with a gun seemingly grimacing in concentration and mumbling to yourself without the benefit of apparition. Falling over or having a momentary seizure as your body adapts to upgrades might offer the wrong impression to people whom you may one day have to be the legal authority.

Ugh, right. I started trying to press my energy pool, lightly, while thinking ‘I belong here,” after a moment, I felt a very slight drain, and people stopped looking at me.

I still got the occasional rare odd look, but since apparition was based on perceptions, I imagined it was people who had high willpower or were much higher ranked than me.

Apparition, empathic, and perception all clearly needed at least a minor essence flow to be effective, although perception also seemed to have a passive state, where if I added energy it would just… keep it until needed or use it slowly, although I didn’t want to experiment too much right now. It did help me open my eyes, though.

As Jessie said, though, a lot of traits just seemed to be innate or activate automatically, like the ones based on my long-learned skills. I did have to wonder, though, what would happen if I added essence to something like firearms? Would it have no effect or would I suddenly become that much better of a shot temporarily?

More fodder for experimentation, I thought to myself as my pool seemed to be nearly full, so I could stop focusing so much on topping it off. Thankfully, Jessie didn’t reply.

I was passing through an area of more upscale shops. I’d been wandering eastwards, and my eye caught a small-glass-fronted shop with beautiful glints of shiny objects displayed. It looked like the storefront display for a jewelry shop, the cheap shinies that were not particularly valuable up in the window where theft might be an issue, further back I caught the long tables of jewelry displays, and over the glass-paned brass door there was a hanging sign that showed a large stylized blue gem with carved cursive letters in gold underneath it that said ‘Bucks’.

I headed in through the door with a small chime, and I guess my apparition was working well. There was a customer, a lovely late-twenties looking woman with white cat ears, pale platinum blonde hair, and a long, fuzzy tail, wearing a voluminous pale blue dress with petticoats, a low off-the-shoulder neckline that showed trim shoulders and a nice amount of tight but perky cleavage, and a pair of matching opera gloves. Her hair was done up in a simple top bun with an artful ringlet along the side of one ear, and she was wearing small dove-shaped gold earrings as well as tastefully light makeup that enhanced her catlike eyes and pink lips.

So I walked into this upscale jewelry shop wearing a combat carbine over one shoulder, dressed in slightly dirty and beaten leather armor and a duster and hat, and the two clerks barely noticed me. The cat lady clearly appraised me and then looked up with a slightly inviting smile, but nobody even thought that anything was wrong or that I might be there for something other than jewelry shopping. Creepy.