[Your Dexterity has increased by 0.01]
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The window popped up in front of Ryan as he was in the middle of pushing the head of the Hippogriff onto its body. Excited to have increased his dexterity over the next threshold again, he placed the animal model onto the table.
In the past few days, by spending hours and hours every day building models, he managed to increase his Dexterity by a total of 0.03. Of course, it was only a little more than the lower end of how much it could increase through a level-up, but for the amount of time he spent to get to this, it was an incredible growth as far as Ryan was concerned.
"Hell yeah," Ryan grinned as he stood up, stretching to get the stiffness out of his back and shoulders. His right shoulder was overall actually feeling pretty fine, but he still felt some pain when he moved it around too much.
With a slight whistle, he picked up the finished Hippogriff model and placed it onto his shelf with the others, "...I might need to make more space. Or put some away..." he muttered. The whole wall in front of him was filled with different kinds of models; historical warriors, famous mages, some animals, and even a few dungeon monsters. The one that he had most fun building was actually the Grave-Worm. They were a pretty bothersome type of worm that was known to thrive in the middle of battlefields where numerous people had died, feeding on their corpses. These days, they were mostly a pest that could be found in graveyards. They weren't really that big of an issue, but considering they could grow to be up to half a metre long and as thick as a thumb, they were certainly not a pretty sight.
Apparently they were actually a type of maggot that either lost the necessity or ability to move on to the next stage of their life cycle. That being the case, Ryan remembered the stories about this graveyard that turned into a dungeon sometime twenty or so years ago, where massive grave worms were one of the more common monsters.
And that was the model that Ryan was looking at now; a Grave-Worm wrapping around a skeletal hand, all at a 1:1 scale. It maybe wasn't the most complex model to build, but it was definitely a unique final product.
With a satisfied expression, Ryan looked down at his phone to check the time, "Come on, Maximus, we need to head out."
The small knight, sitting on top of Ryan's desk, quickly nodded his head. He stood up and walked to the edge of the desk, where Ryan was waiting to let him into the domain.
'You ready for the battles later?' he asked inwardly, and Maximus stood in the centre of his domain, showing him a thumbs-up. He's been picking up some weird habits from the comics he's been reading lately. And to think he didn't even know what a fist-bump was a week ago.
Ryan threw his bag over his shoulder and quickly left his room, making his way through the flat's main entrance. There were two different stairways, one leading right into the café, and another leading to the alley behind the building. Especially when the café was busy, he preferred going out through the back. Ryan has been trying his best to avoid Runar as much as he could as well.
He stepped out of the door and pulled it shut behind him, pushing against it briefly to make sure it was locked before making his way down the alley. But as he turned around the corner, walking away from Café Runic's main entrance, he heard someone call out to him.
"Mister Aglecard, one moment, please!" with a voice that already made the hairs on Ryan's neck stand up, Simon Grand, the representative from Bluesky that just wouldn't leave him alone, came up to him.
Trying to act like he neither heard nor saw that stuck-up high elf, Ryan pulled out his headphones and pulled them over his head, picking up the pace a bit. However, it didn't seem to take a lot of effort for Simon to catch up on him.
"Mister Aglecard," Simon once more said, with that annoyingly fake smile on his face, now having cut Ryan off.
"Fucking- Can you stop following me around already?" Ryan groaned loudly, quickly stepping past Simon to continue on his way to the subway.
With a laugh, Simon quickly caught up to him again, simply walking next to him, "We have been struggling to contact you to show you further offers. You must understand that-"
"Okay, get it in your fucking thick ass skull already. I am not interested in selling my fucking class! I've told you like a dozen times, and I've already complained about you at the Awakened Centre. What will it take to get you to finally leave me alone?" Ryan asked, at the end of his rope. This is probably the third time that Simon was waiting for him to leave the building so that he could talk about another one of his 'offers', but no matter what, he just wouldn't listen.
The corners of Simon's mouth twitched slightly, though he was trying to keep up his smile, "There is no need for that kind of language. Bluesky Industries has a long history with the Aglecard family-"
"Oh my gods, I'm not a member of that stupid 'Aglecard' family! I just happen to have the same last name! I grew up in fucking Maidsbury, dude. You somehow managed to find out where I live, but you don't even know that?" Ryan barked at Simon and picked up the pace, rushing down the stairs into the subway.
"... You... just happen to share the same name?" Simon's voice still clung to Ryan's ears, as though he was standing right next to him, "That certainly does make things a bit easier."
Ryan felt a tug on his arm as a hand tightened around his wrist. Ryan turned around confused, and was almost startled at Simon's sudden change in expression. As if he was angry that Ryan had been wasting his time, he suddenly lost any will to be cordial with him. Simon quickly pulled Ryan a bit closer and placed his other hand onto his right shoulder. He practically buried his fingers inside the not-yet healed wound on his shoulder, and Ryan felt his whole body cramp in response.
"What the-" Ryan let out, or at least he thought so. But even though he opened his mouth, no sound left his throat. As he looked around, it seemed as though the whole world, practically everything beside himself and Simon, had been desaturated and robbed of its colour. Meanwhile, despite what was happening to Ryan right now, nobody seemed to notice.
People in this city stared when you wore a slightly weird jacket; there's no way they wouldn't even glance over here when something like this was going on.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"Now listen to me. I think there have been some miscommunication. Bluesky wants the Spirit Keeper class. And it is in your best interest to sell it to us. We will compensate you greatly, and you will never have to work another day in your life," Simon's voice was eerie and sounded like someone was scratching their nails on a chalkboard. Whatever professionalism he had before was gone like it never existed in the first place. While Ryan struggled to pull himself out of Simon's grasp, the elf continued, "We will simply be able to make much, much better use of that Class than you ever could. We have the resources to actually figure out the specifics of what it can do, and what the limits of its application are. Unique classes can bring society forward by years at a time. And you would really rob the people of this world of that chance for what? Some measly pride?"
Ryan didn't want to listen any more. He ground his teeth together, angry at the words that this ridiculous guy was saying. He heard about some bad rumours about the way that class-trading was handled and about Bluesky as a whole, but he never expected it to be this bad. However, if they wanted to mess with Ryan, they should have at least brought a physical class.
And just when Simon's grip tightened, wisps of red light started flowing out from Ryan's face as Maximus jumped out of his domain. With a perfect punch to the nose, the elf flinched, loosening his grip on Ryan's wrist and shoulder, letting him break free. He immediately grabbed Simon's hand and pushed his middle finger backward, putting as much weight behind it as he could. As the taken-aback elf pulled his shoulder back to avoid his finger being broken as blood started pouring down over his lips, Ryan swept away Simon's legs and violently kicked him away. Simon hit the stairs behind him and was staggered for a while, clearly not having expected anything like this at all.
Without a moment's hesitation, Ryan turned around and ran down to the subway platform. He had heard the train arriving just now, so he had to hurry; he managed to rush into the train just the doors were closing, and as Simon got up from the ground, it pulled out of the station.
Letting out a relieved sigh, Ryan clicked his tongue, pulling Maximus back into the domain, "Fucking psychos... he's an Arcane Trapper?" he muttered to himself while pulling out his phone. Without a moment's hesitation, Ryan called Aurora.
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"Hey, hey~!" Silvia said with a slight wave as she stepped into the robotics clubroom, where the club's members were setting up for the test-runs. Modak was standing near the door, just watching them. The orc turned around and quickly greeted his friend.
"Yo, how're you doing?"
"I'm alright, you?" Silvia replied, quickly glancing around the room, but Modak just sighed loudly.
"Ryan's not here yet."
"Huh? Seriously? He's usually pretty good at being on time."
"I know, I already texted him, but he hasn't replied yet. You think something happened?" with concern clearly written on his face, Modak looked down at his phone.
But Silvia just scoffed and shook her head, "Ryan probably just got a bit lost in model-building. He sent me a picture of the pile of boxes that were stacking up in his room, he used up that reward money really damn well."
Overhearing the conversation as he walked around the room while setting up, Richie looked over at the two friends, "Reward money? What reward money?"
Silvia glanced over at Modak, unsure if she should say it, but Modak just shrugged at her, "He didn't seem to care if people know."
"I guess so," Silvia replied, and turned back toward the curious gnome walking up to her, "Ryan closed down a dungeon."
"... What? Isn't that a really complicated process? Are you serious? How did he manage that?" taken aback, the puzzled Richie was practically stunned in confusion, but Modak quickly explained.
"He didn't fully close it himself. He found and destroyed the Dungeon Heart and then called the DMB right after. Because he called so quickly and showed them how to get to the core room, they were able to close it permanently, so he got a reward."
Richie thought about it for a moment, before seemingly remembering something, "Was it that factory in Copper Beach? That's the only dungeon I remember being recently."
"That's the one," stepping through the door with some heavy breaths, Ryan responded to Richie's question.
"Well, good job, and congratulations. Helping close a dungeon so soon after awakening? Doubt that happens all too often," Richie looked at Ryan, clearly impressed, "... Do you mind if we mention that tomorrow? Like, tell people that the spirit our duellists fought belongs to the one that helped close the dungeon?"
Ryan immediately just shrugged. He was exhausted from the way here, "I don't care, man, do whatever you want. But, just to make it clear, I don't 'own' Maximus, he's an individual and my friend that chose to trust me with his safety."
"Ah, sorry... Yeah of course," Richie nervously responded, "I didn't mean it like..."
"All good," Ryan stopped Richie with a shake of his head, "Let's just get ready for the Duels, alright?"
"Of course!" quickly, as if trying to run away from this conversation, Richie turned around to get back over to where the other club members were setting up. Ryan walked up to Silvia and Modak, who were both looking at him with concern.
"You alright?" Modak asked, noting the clearly annoyed expression on his friend's face from the moment he walked into the room. And just a moment later, it became clear just how annoyed he really was.
With a click of his tongue, Ryan shook his head, "No, I'm not alright at all. You know that fucking asshole Bluesky dude? He tried to fucking threaten me and used some trapping skills on me."
"What?" Silvia let out confused, "What do you mean, he used trapping skills?"
"He's a fucking Arcane Trapper, or at least he's got similar skills. I watched an interview with one last year, and it was exactly how he described it."
"Are you okay? Did he hurt you?" Modak nervously looked his friend up and down, "Should we call someone? The police?"
"The police wouldn't do shit anyway," Ryan crossed his arms annoyed, "I have no proof at all beyond my word, but I did call the person in charge of me at the Awakened Centre. She said she'd look into what she can do or whatever, but I'm just really pissed off right now. That fucker pushed his fingers into my shoulder, right onto my wound, on purpose."
Silvia shuddered, "That crappy little-" she stopped herself, getting more and more worked up over the information, "Are you sure you're okay? Do you want to call today off?"
"Oh, I absolutely refuse to call this off, I actually need to let off some steam. Plus, it's probably going to help Maximus and I get some experience. The faster I'm at level ten, the faster those guys will permanently leave me alone," Ryan groaned, turning toward Richie and the other club members, "Yo, Richie, when can we get started?"
The gnome turned around and looked at the watch on his wrist, "Basically now? We're still waiting for someone, but she said she's on her way, we're just pushing her back in the duel order."
"Right, so how's this whole thing gonna work anyway?" Ryan looked around the room at the setup. All the desks had been pushed fully against the walls to make as much as space as possible, and three square areas had been marked off on the ground with tape, each with a monitor right next to it.
"Basically, everyone fights against everyone once. We want to get as much actual duel data as possible. Three duels will happen at once, and there's a bit of time to check on the condition of the Duellist after each round and duel. Every duel is three rounds. Not like a first to two thing, just three blanket rounds to get the data we need," Richie explained, pointing over at one of the screens near the door that was just being set up, "That's the duel order, you can check it out if you want. There's twelve of us total, including you, so everything will take pretty long. We're trying to streamline the whole thing as much as we can."
Ryan quickly made his way over toward the screen, looking the schedule over. His first 'duel' was one of the first three, and it was against a guy called Kit and his Duellist 'Lightspeed'.