The scent of sweat filled the air as the dulled clang of metal hitting against metal sounded out. Ryan let out some heavy breaths as he poured some water down his throat.
"Holy shit, this is... fucking rough," he told the minotaur in front of him exhaustedly. Yanna laughed a bit and nodded her head.
"Of course, what did you expect? The stat awakening program is rough for everyone," she pointed out, "Though you're making some pretty good progress. I guess all that fighting is keeping you fit, huh?"
Ryan scoffed, "Yeah, sure, that's probably it."
With a smile, he looked down at his arm, where Tiar was busily moving and twitching. He had decided to go with the 'Skill' excuse permanently, so it was fine for Tiar to keep moving around even when there were people. And especially in this situation, it seemed like Tiar wouldn't be able to stop themself anyway.
Ryan was currently working out in the university's Awakened gym, where Yanna was helping him learn how to work out to awaken some physical stats. And of course, it was an incredibly intense workout, and Tiar had immediately gone into overdrive to try and help out his growth and recover actively. It seemed like he was doing a great job, too. It was the third day of this training regime, and he hadn't felt any particular muscle pain at all, and he was able to add a surprising amount to the weight that he was lifting already.
Of course, the gym offered some drinks that were supposed to help with the recovery quite a bit, but Yanna still seemed shocked that Ryan didn't have any sore muscles at all when he showed up for his workout today.
"You ready for cardio?" Yanna asked, and Ryan slowly nodded his head.
"Let me eat something first," he replied, walking over to his bag to pull out another protein bar. With a raised brow, Yanna glanced at the bar.
"I know that eating well is good when you want to build strength, but you're eating like... five times more than you used to. Are you alright?"
Ryan turned toward her and laughed slightly, "Yeah, I'm fine, I've just been feeling super hungry recently."
"... Since you awakened?"
"Roughly, yeah. It's a unique class, we don't really know what sort of effects it has perfectly. This might have something to do with how I'm keeping up a space to house the spirits?" Ryan suggested, of course lying straight out of his ass. He knew perfectly well why he was eating so much. It was another part of Tiar's influence, and the more that the symbiote worked, the more Ryan had to eat. It actually seemed like working out made Tiar's hunger even stronger.
Runar did say that this was possible with some variant species, though he didn't seem particularly confident when he did. But since there apparently wasn't any harm to it and his body was processing all the food properly, Ryan wasn't particularly concerned.
Yanna sighed lightly, "As long as you're sure. But I guess you can afford all that food now, huh..?"
Ryan tensed up, awkwardly turning toward her, "Yeah... Runar buys all of it, and he gave me a credit card so that I can go and buy all the food, and whatever else I might need, the other day..."
"I still can't believe that Runar of all people is supposed to be some big shot old-money heir. I mean, you didn't know about it, but Runar grew up like that, right? So how'd he end up like... that?"
Ryan scoffed, shaking his head, "How the hell do I know? I guess he just got kind of sick of acting the part," he suggested. From the perspective of everyone else, Runar was just the lazy, ever-yawning owner of a small café that was closed as often as it was open. Of course, Ryan knew that he was quite active on the hidden side of the Aglecard family, but on the public facing side, he wasn't known about at all in relation to the Aglecard family. He had done an amazing job at putting himself into the background of things and letting others deal with the parts that he didn't care about.
After he was done eating the protein bar, Ryan followed Yanna over to the treadmills. Some of these could apparently go insane speeds, but the ones that could go really fast were surrounded by mats and nets in case someone was thrown off backward to ensure that they didn't hurt themselves. But the one that Ryan was using now was basically just a regular treadmill with a somewhat higher upper limit. The one that Yanna was using was a bit on the faster side and already had some nets set up behind it.
"Alright, sprint for one minute, jog for two. For as long as you can," Yanna explained again, and Ryan quickly nodded. He had already done this twice, so he knew what to do, but it was definitely going to be extremely exhausting. Though, that was the point, anyway. This was stamina training, and for him specifically, it was training to let him awaken the stamina stat, so he had to push himself for extended periods of time. And right now, it was to the point of exhaustion.
Once he started the treadmill up, Ryan quickly moved up in speed to a sprint as the digital clock on the treadmill counted down. After the minute was over, it automatically went down to the jogging speed he set for himself, and in two minutes, it would go back up to the sprint speed. It would continue like this until Ryan turned the machine off.
"You alright?" Yanna asked, currently still sprinting on her treadmill. Despite that, she was casually talking and not even breathing that heavily. Yanna innately had both the Stamina and Agility stats, so not only was she sprinting at twice the speed that Ryan was, but she could also keep this up for hours. She was actually wearing a weighted vest to make it harder on herself, and even then looked nothing but bored.
Ryan slowly nodded, already breathing heavily, "Yeah, I'm good. I should be able to keep this up for a while."
"Good, just keep going for as long as you can, but don't push yourself. Getting injured will set you back a good bit," Yanna pointed out, and Ryan hesitated for a few moments.
"Actually, my uncle hired a healer for me... we're going to a dungeon soon so we can let Maximus level up..."
"Seriously? A healer?"
"I know, I know, it's kind of crazy..." Ryan replied, "... He's also remodelling the rooftop so we can expand Gaia's garden. Since I planted all the stuff in the garden right now, she hasn't had the chance to level up yet."
"Urgh... rich people," Yanna sighed, and Ryan let out a laugh.
"You know your family is pretty well off too, right? You own a four-story townhouse in the middle of Oldtown."
"Well... shut up," with a groan, Yanna glanced over toward him, "But we're not old-money rich. Like, we can't just hire a healer. And you also said something about Runar finding spirit cores for you?"
"Ah, yeah. So, some of the Aglecards' charities do a lot of work in stuff like... artefact collection, preservation, and restoration, and came across dormant spirit cores that can't form their own bodies. They look like gemstones so they can be confused for those sometimes," Ryan explained, "And then they started safekeeping them. With my class, it's better for them to be with me so I can try to wake them up."
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
"How does that work, though? Do you just... take them? Do they have a choice?"
"Of course they do, I'm not forcing anyone here," immediately, almost defensively, Ryan stared at the minotaur, "Maximus wanted me to build his body first before joining me, and Gaia's core was broken before I found her, so she was just grateful to have been found. No clue what requests the others will have for me, but that's just part of the deal."
Yanna stayed silent for a while, as though she was thinking about something. Ryan wasn't sure what she was going to ask about next, but he was certainly grateful for the chance to not need to talk while sprinting. When he went back down to a jog, Yanna asked her question.
"So, do you know why some spirits can't form their own bodies?"
"Nope," Ryan replied immediately, "I guess it's just an ability that some of them do, and some of them don't? I have no clue, really. But what I have learned is that the ones that can't seem to have more unique 'concepts'. Like Maximus' 'Knight' and Gaia's 'Garden Golem' concepts."
"Do you think other spirits know?" Yanna wondered, and Ryan raised a brow.
"I mean... maybe? That... might be something worth looking into."
"Yeah, you should! There are a bunch of places with Spirits bound to them in New Riverside. Some of them are apparently powerful enough that they can talk, so you might be able to get some info from them. I mean... if you get them to talk to you, I guess."
After Yanna's suggestion, Ryan immediately looked inward at Maximus and Gaia, trying to gauge what they were thinking. It seemed as though they were curious about meeting other spirits as well, so he figured that it at the very least wouldn't hurt.
"Alright, I'll go look up the spirits of New Riverside soon, then."
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Surrounded by trees, a massive, old tower reached up into the sky. It was one of the oldest buildings in New Riverside, despite being so far on the outskirts that it was hard to get public transport here. The only other buildings nearby were ones that were more recently constructed as extensions of the Magic Tower's central structure.
And here Modak was, standing in front of the large, old door, looking for either a doorbell or even a handle; anything at all that he could use to have the place open. He tried pushing against the door already, but there was nothing here, though it was clearly the main entrance.
Pulling out his phone in confusion, he checked the instructions. He was sent an email about an introductory tour of the Magic Tower and was told to come inside and ask for the guide at the reception, but Modak couldn't even get that far.
"The hell? Is nobody here? At... 2pm on a Wednesday?" he muttered to himself, when suddenly, some patterns on the door lit up as it was pulled open automatically. Taken aback, the man that stepped outside looked at Modak.
"Oh you... you are Mister Stonebreaker, correct?" the man asked.
Startled, Modak quickly nodded his head, reaching out his hand, "Yes! Modak Stonebreaker, it's a pleasure to meet you!"
The man nodded his head, "Likewise. I'm going to be guiding you through the Magic Tower today. Why didn't you come inside? Was there some issue?" he asked, concerned.
"Ah, well... the door wouldn't open, and I guess I didn't find the button to have it open?"
Confused, the man looked around at the door, "It doesn't have a button, it should be sensing anyone that's approaching and opening automatically. It looks like something is wrong with the array, then. My apologies."
"Oh... no, it's not your fault," Modak replied, quickly shaking his head. If it was supposed to sense mana in people to open up, of course it wouldn't open for him. He didn't have any, after all. Luckily most places chose not to use mana-based sensors because they were pretty expensive, but Modak has been faced with things like this a fair amount of times in places like banks or museums.
"Either way, let's get inside now," the guide said with a light smile, quickly bringing Modak into the building. And once he was inside, though he had seen this place in pictures before, the young orc's breath was immediately taken away. The walls were covered in beautiful paintings and maps, at least the parts that weren't covered in bookshelves. Platforms were magically floating up and down, and basically every surface was giving off a bit of that soft glow that magic circles had.
It was a beautiful sight, and if he didn't know it was impossible for him, Modak would have sworn that he felt the ambient magic pass through and fill him with energy.
And this was only the first stop too. The guide showed Modak around all the big, famous sights of the magic tower, as well as the spaces that usually you weren't allowed to see. People were using spells that he had never seen before, and using magic tools in ways that he didn't even know was possible.
The more they walked around the building, the more excited he felt. He would end up working here soon? This was beyond unbelievable. Sure, his main work was going to be in another building with more modern facilities to accommodate the magical engineers with whatever they needed, but he would still have full access to all the facilities that the Magic Tower had to offer. It was like a dream come true.
Before long, they came by a group of three mages currently taking a break, and the guide figured it was a good opportunity to introduce the orc.
"Perfect timing. Looks like you three are no longer the newest hires," the guide said with a smile, "This here is Modak Stonebreaker, he will be working with the new Magic Engineering team."
Immediately, the three mages raised their brows, happily greeting Modak.
"So, you're the one that was scouted by Miss Boreard herself?" one of them asked curiously, and Modak nervously nodded his head.
"Yes, that's me. I was working on a personal project that she was quite interested in, so she invited me to continue developing it under the Magic Tower's guidance," Modak explained. Seeing that this only piqued their curiosity even more.
"What sort of project?"
Not sure if he was allowed to say, Modak turned his head toward the guide, who quickly nodded his head. With a slight breath of relief, Modak continued to explain, "Inspired by cassette tapes, I was trying to place mana on some crystal bands for audio storage. Miss Boreard was interested in the idea since it seemed possible to use it as an assistance for spellcasting as a medium to carry mana-imbued audio akin to chants."
"Oh! That is quite interesting... How exactly does it work?" one of them wondered, and Modak immediately continued on to delve deeper into the methods that his project used to properly engrave mana on the bands, and even his theories for expanding it into a way to truly carry spellcasting potential.
"Looks like the magic-engineering team is going to work on a couple of pretty interesting projects. So, how about it, do you have the Magic Engineer class? Or some sort of information-related mage class?"
Modak tensed up, slowly shaking his head, "Oh, no, I'm... I'm not an Awakened."
One of the mages raised their brows, "Right, got it. That's even more impressive! So you're skilled enough to use magic without even awakening? Sounds like we've got quite the prodigy here."
Even more, Modak could feel his throat tighten as he shook his head, "Uhm... no, I can't actually use magic. Rather, I feel like considering where we are I should be straightforward about this, but I have Mana Rejection Disorder. I don't even have enough mana for the tower's main entrance to recognize me," he tried to laugh it off, but the expressions of the mages in front of Modak immediately dropped. Even the guide seemed confused, apparently not having heard about this beforehand.
Modak didn't know exactly what those mages were thinking right now. It was something that he hadn't seen before, like a mixture of disgust and curiosity.
"You have... no mana at all?" one of them asked, and Modak slowly nodded his head.
"I-I don't, yeah."
"How interesting, and you can function normally like that? I had assumed that mana was necessary for higher function," one of them said as the curiosity seemed to take over, leaning forward, and moving in a bit too close for Modak's comfort, "Have you been told if this has some sort of effect on your life expectancy? And have you had any IQ-tests done in the past? Oh, and of course, your motor skills are-"
"Hey, hey, back off!" one of the two mages pulled the third away, and Modak was quite grateful. That was, until she opened her mouth, "Be careful, we don't know what effects heightened stress may have on individuals without mana for the regulation of mental stability."
Modak felt sick to his stomach as he stared at the three mages in front of him. Sure, he had been looked at with pity plenty of times before. But this was the first time that he was treated like some kind of wild animal, or even worse... something like a test subject.