Dinner was much less eventful than the greeting. Reed’s sister and mom had similar reactions to Mr. Blume as he did. However, they quickly got over it and started chatting with each other. The two parents started talking about Reed and Ema, as parents do. They bragged about their kids for a while. Meanwhile Reed, Ema, and Amelia were sitting at the other end of the table talking casually.

“Hey, Reed, I had no idea you had a friend this rich!” Amelia was very enthusiastic.

Reed frowned. “That’s a bit rude Amelia.”

“It’s fine.” Ema replied, sighing. “It is a bit extravagant. My dad is quite the character all right. Anyway, let's just enjoy the meal.”

The meal was delicious, and everything was going well. Then, by chance, Reed looked over at his mom and Mr. Blume.

“Pfffffft!” He spit out the water he was drinking. “What on earth?” Looking down the hall he could see them. They were definitely…

“Flirting.” Reed exclaimed out loud.

“W-what?” Ema said, a bit taken aback. “What are you talking about?”

Amelia followed Reed’s eyes and saw what he was seeing. “Oh God. No way, this is crazy.”

Ema looked over and gasped. “Oh no, I do not want to be seeing this. I was hoping he would start recovering since mom is gone, but this is a bit much.”

Reed gulped. “I was hoping Mr. Blume was married,” he explained, “our dad died years ago, and our parents had been separated for years before that as well.” He flashed back to the phone he was given by his dad for his birthday all those years ago. “Can we go somewhere else? I don’t want to watch my mom flirt any longer.”

“Yeah definitely, I’ll show you guys around.” Ema quickly stood up, motioning for Reed and Amelia to follow her.

Walking through the house it became apparent that it was even bigger than it looked from the front. I mean there was even an escalator.

“So I don’t really like being defined as a rich kid, but I can’t deny that a lot of the facilities that my dad has built are extremely useful in training. Over there is my personal gym, and next to it is the gravity room. The gravity room is exactly what it sounds like. You can increase your weight up to ten times your original weight. It makes everything a lot harder to do. Ah! Let’s go this way! The weapon racks are up here.” Ema seemed to be extremely excited showing off all of her training equipment. Her attitude was a bit reminiscent of a child bragging about their toys to their friends.

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“I’ve never actually held a real weapon before.” Reed commented offhandedly.

“Really? Come over here I’ll show you how to use some of them!” Ema looked a bit proud that she was better than Reed at something.

“Jeez and here I am just third wheeling.” Amelia said as she was ignored by the other two. “But still, how did you manage to make such a friend?” She whispered to herself, smiling a little. “I’m glad you’re getting better.”

________________________________________

One hour later.

The sound of metal on metal was coming from inside Ema’s personal gym. Reed and Ema were standing in a fighting ring, having a sword on sword battle. Ema lunged in with her sword, ducking down and dodging the thrust of Reed’s sword. Reed saw this and sidestepped the weapon just enough to avoid getting hit. He tried to bring his sword down onto her neck as quickly as possible, but Ema’s arm twisted and her sword reached his throat before he could do anything.

“It’s my loss.” Reed put his arms up.

“Is this really the first time you’ve ever wielded a sword?” Ema was surprised. Even if Reed had beaten her in the physical tests, there was a large difference between being strong and fast, and being a good fighter. Reed was learning how to move with a weapon extremely fast.

“Yeah it is. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be, but I think I’m starting to understand it.” Reed had sparred with Ema 7 times now. Every time he lost he figured out exactly why, and didn’t make that mistake again.

“You’re way too good at this stuff.” Ema shook her head. She had only shown him the basics of how to hold the sword and how to do some basic swings. He had intuitively started to copy her movements in order to match up to her.

“Wow! Reed I thought you were just a lazy bum! I’m surprised!” Amelia said, “But it’s gotten pretty late now, and I do have school tomorrow so…”

“I got it, I got it. We’re going to go get our mom and head out Ema. Thanks for showing me how to use the sword a bit.” Reed waved goodbye.

“No problem. Oh and Reed you should come by to train! There’s plenty of space and you’ll need some higher end equipment to train properly.”

“Really? I’d appreciate that a lot,” Reed smiled. He had been worried about whether he would be able to properly prepare for the player academy without any actual knowledge or experience on how to train.

________________________________________

On the way home Reed purposely ignored his mom to the best of his ability. He wanted nothing to do with his mom’s love life.

After a few minutes of driving the car parked outside of their house.

“Thank you for driving us sir,” Reed politely thanked the driver.

Once inside Reed went into his room as quickly as possible. When he was sparring with Ema he had noticed something. The colorless energy he had felt during the mental test had reared up in response to him fighting. It felt like it was trying to do something, but Reed couldn’t quite put his finger on what. It gave him the feeling of almost sneezing, but then stopping right before he could. He sat down on his bed and tried to meditate like he had during the mental test. After sitting for a while he could feel his head get clearer and his surroundings get fainter as he fell into meditation. It wasn’t as strong of a meditation as it had been during the mental test, but that was to be expected as he was under a significant amount of mental stress during that time, and the meditation was almost a way for his body to cope with it.

‘What is it that the energy was trying to do?’ Reed thought to himself. He went over everything that had happened when he was sparring with Ema.

*fwooosh*

He felt the energy stir up. It seemed to respond to his intent to attack. Now if he could just figure out what that means, he should get stronger. After all, it made him stronger during the mental test. He was determined to figure out the mystery behind this energy that had melded with his body.