The way Blackmist Incident collapsed to be so small was turning into a real advantage, past just convenience. Now that he was back on earth, Max easily passed for a regular person. Some Challengers couldn’t do that anymore.

  He’d been listening to morning talk radio and had learned that Challengers weren’t always welcome everywhere, or by all people. Especially people who had run afoul of bad Challengers, even the fact that Challengers were the reason humans hadn’t already lost the war with the monsters wasn’t enough for everyone to be a fan.

  The fact that there were actual gangs of Challengers, actual professional criminals blew his mind. He couldn’t believe that the more powerful Challengers could tolerate it.

  Maybe they’re just too busy, he thought.

  Max got out of his rental car and looked at the directions on his phone again. “This is it,” he mumbled.

  The warehouse location he was staring at definitely fit the description he'd been given. But either he got the wrong place or this was truly a case of brilliant urban camouflage.

  Max had been told via email from Chad that this satellite location belonging to the Trifecta Guild, a private gym, looked a little run down. Even with the warning he still hadn't been prepared for the reality, which was that the warehouse looked like it hadn't been occupied in over ten years. Other abandoned-looking buildings and shady areas were nearby, places that normal people probably wouldn't want to go during the day, much less at night.

  He shrugged and walked up to a small door on a corner of the warehouse. Now that he was closer to the door, he became more certain that this was actually the place. Instead of some standard industrial door, he could tell at a glance that despite the shoddy paint job, this door was several times more solid than any normal warehouse door. Max had no doubt it was bulletproof. He keyed in the code that he'd been given earlier that morning and tried the doorknob. Sure enough, the door swung open soundlessly. The fact it opened outwards was a nice touch.

  Doors that opened outwards were harder to break down.

  Once he was inside the building, small lights around the inside of the floor automatically came on, providing enough illumination that a regular person would be able to find their way around. He found the controls for the lights and fans overhead and after flicking on the huge warehouse's full illumination, he just paused a moment to take it all in.

  Chad had told him that this place was built around three years ago.There were also several other locations like it that belonged to the Trifecta Guild. Apparently, all of the bigger guilds in the country–and likely in the world–had satellite training locations like this one for secrecy and to spread out their members. The goals were for convenience and paranoia. After all, if other guilds knew that any guild's members at any time could be scattered all around the world, they would be less likely to ever launch any kind of attack at a guild's main office. Granted, such a thing had never happened before, but after being involved in the war for Earth, all of the Challengers’ mindsets had gradually changed to one of veterans.

  So far, large Challenger guilds had not truly ever gone to war with each other in any kind of serious way, but it was inevitable that it would happen one day. After all, people were people.

  It was a big building. The actual ceiling of the warehouse was over twenty feet up. Max glanced around, examining the place more before walking further in. The warehouse's walls had been fully armored up to about ten feet tall. That by itself probably had cost a pretty penny. Max assumed that at one point the warehouse had garage doors or some larger opening to get the thick, heavy steel inside. Now it looked like there was more than a quarter inch of steel surrounding the entire building, higher than an average adult could reach. On top of that, the steel had been firmly secured to the floor, slightly in front of the walls. Behind it and around the entire gym, a generous amount of spray foam had been applied directly to the walls.

  When Max had walked in, he noted that the original warehouse walls already had some sort of insulation. So, all of this other foam and armor was on top of what had already been there.

  The building probably wasn't completely soundproof, but it was likely the closest thing to it. Even the door that Max had entered through had a generous helping of foam on most of the inside. Some had been shaved away so that it could still open, but that was it. The ceiling had a decent amount of foam too, but not as much as the walls.

  In one corner of the warehouse, there was a curved steel wall that rose even higher than the steel armor around the circumference of the wall. There were sandbags stacked up over ten feet on the inside of it.

  On the opposite corner of the warehouse was exercise equipment, both machines and free weights.

  Near where Max was standing, he could see a strange, egg-shaped piece of equipment that he recognized as a deprivation chamber. There were also several other areas clearly set aside for meditation.

  The corner opposite from where Max was standing was the office, or living space, and likely the showers. The were was limit to how much Max could see from where he was standing, but it looked like a combination of an indoor tiny home and spa.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  On top of the living space and bathrooms was an area rigged up with machines and gizmos to help magic users focus and train. There was even a dedicated meditation area, a raised platform with a descending dome that could help the person inside by mimicking sensory deprivation.

  One wall of the warehouse was full of practice weapons. Another wall was full of practice firearms. And the wall closest to the shower and rest facilities had a handful of real steel weapons.

  Max was extremely impressed. The layout reminded him a little bit of the martial arts school that he’d won money at with sparring before going to the Quartet. The memory came unbidden and flashed past, like quicksilver. Even though it hadn’t been that long for him, it still felt like all of those events had happened ages ago.

  He hadn’t liked the people he’d dealt with back then, but their gym and dojo had been fantastic. If those guys had had an unlimited budget and also made a living by killing monsters, he suspected that this warehouse would be something they would cook up too.

  Max walked into the rest area and set his backpack on a counter before moving to the center of the training area. He'd already come dressed in athletic clothing, so he didn't need to change.

  He did some stretching just to get a feeling for the place before moving over to the meditation area.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d spent working on his mana body since he’d been back to earth, but it was the first time since he’d been back that he could really focus on it properly

  Now was the appropriate moment to really assess where he was at, how long it would take to achieve the next level. It was the first time he truly decided to find the answer to this question. After about a solid half hour of meditation, in addition to swallowing one of his mana pills and still using the same ultra-efficient mana processing procedures that he had in the cortex, he found the answer. It was both exciting and frustrating.

  The answer was exciting because, with at least four hours a day working on his mana body, he should be able to reach a four star mana body in less than two weeks. All the memories of how hard he’d struggled in the quartet came rushing back, and the feeling was bittersweet. It was wonderful to be in a mana-rich world again, but he definitely wished that he'd been able to even achieve a one-star mana body before originally going to the Quartet. What's done is done, he thought

  Max stood and didn’t even bother checking the time. He still had a few things to do over the next week, but his primary focus until making his move on the Victory guild was growing his own strength.

  He slowly went through the entire practice center, checking out every single one of the training weapons on the walls. By the time he was finished, he was deeply impressed. Whoever had put this place together had not spared any expenses. For more popular types of weapons, like various styles of swords, there were multiple training options available, everything from foam, to various plastics, to unsharpened steel, and even heavy, weighted training weapons meant for strength training.

  Max moved to the center of the floor and closed his eyes, extending his senses around himself. He had saved the best for last, at least for the day, to have a discussion with his new spirit, Daliko. As soon as he reached out to her, his eyebrows climbed as he immediately got a response.

  Sure enough, she'd spoken the truth and Slick no longer needed to translate for her. However, the way she communicated wasn't in words like Saliron and Lavinia. Instead, it was like a wind through his mind, one tinged with the thrill of the hunt, a patience for what was necessary, and a cold, but honorable ruthlessness.

  Max just knew what she was trying to say. As a result, when he asked her what she could do to help him fight, her answer was more concise than he was initially accustomed to after getting a new spirit.

  Everything that Daliko had just shown him was more clear than his other spirits communicating what they could do in the past, but similar in not being complete. He had a feeling that he would be able to discover new uses of her powers as they got to know each other, and possibly other ways to synergize with his other spirits' powers. Luckily, Daliko’s powers, at least some of them, were immediately obvious how they would benefit the way he currently fought.

  Based on what Daliko had just shared with him, there were two main ways that she could theoretically increase his fighting power. The first, when he first learned about it, had seemed disappointing. After all, he couldn't really use the ability with weapons.

  It was time to experiment.

  Max assumed an empty-handed fighting stance and began a simple but powerful kata. His blocks and strikes flowed quickly, speeding up without channeling any mana. He could achieve much greater strength and speed than his current exercise with an expenditure of mana but it wouldn't be nearly as sustainable. Max figured this was a good baseline to judge the next step of his experiment against.

  Then, from a neutral fighting stance, Max delivered a vertical chop at an imaginary opponent’s clavicle. Daliko helped with it. As his arm was already accelerating, it suddenly felt like it was getting jerked out of the socket. He felt like his hand was just under the threshold of creating a sonic boom. After the chop was delivered, Max flipped, his entire body following his arm, and he hit the ground in a thunderous roll. If he hadn't fallen to the ground, he felt like his arm might be ripped out of his socket. "Wow," he said out loud.

  Mentally, Daliko apologized to him, explaining that her abilities were very hard on the body, which is one of the reasons why she hadn't had any contractors in the entire time she'd been a spirit. There was no way to tell how long she’d drifted, though. She explained that because of Max's mana body and how naturally strong and tough he was now, she had hoped that he would be able to use the full power of her assistance.

  So far, the experience hadn't been too helpful or felt good, Max could admit that, but he wasn't quite ready to give up on it.

  As best he could tell, Daliko, similar to Lavinia, had a number of spirits she led, except instead of being specialized to create ectoplasm and physical matter, they could create…forces and vectors. This meant they could individually move much faster than Lavinia's spirits when manifesting physically, at least over short distances. That's how Max's arm had moved so quickly. A number of Daliko’s spirits had pushed his arm. The upper end of the explosive movement hadn't been under his control, which was part of why it’d threatened to hurt him.

  Max tapped his lips, looking around the warehouse until his eyes landed on the shooting targets against one wall and he got a sudden burst of inspiration. Then, slowly taking off one of his bracelets full of beads, he had a quick but intense conversation with Daliko. At first, she didn't understand the new experiment he wanted to try.

  Eventually, she got the idea, though. She wasn’t totally on board yet, but was willing to try. Max grinned. "Okay, here goes nothing," he said.