When they got home at around 15:00 Jinwoo laid down on the couch and started rubbing his eyes. “Are you not feeling good?” Jinah asked. “Mana Overload.” he said. “Should go away in an hour or so.” Jinah nodded. “See, that’s what you get for taking those weird pills.” “I took it nine hours ago, before we went to the hospital. This has to be something recent.” That meant two possibilities. Either the tiny amount of D rank Tuna had done this to him, or that delicious juice that he had bought. He couldn’t quite describe the taste, but the fact that it was on his menu but not Jinah’s meant that it had to be from a dungeon. “Well, then I’ll leave you alone. Maybe I’ll see if Keiko wants to hang out. Mind if I invite her over for supper?” “Make sure she likes fried chicken first.” Jinwoo said, and Jinah nodded before going to her room and pulling out her phone to call her friend. Thirty minutes later the headache was dull enough that Jinwoo could also use his phone. He looked up the two ingredients in the Guild app and found that they were both listed. While the fish did have a bit of mana, at the amount he ate it shouldn’t have affected him. The Juice, on the other hand, came from something called a ‘Divine Fruit’, which was a dungeon fruit that the Fenrir guild farmed. It restored stamina and mana in anyone that ate it, but because he was tired from the shopping trip the stamina merely made him better rested. He hadn’t used any of his mana, however, and therefore his body now had more than it was supposed to be able to hold, which caused him problems. He was just grateful that he had saw the prices and decided to go with the cheapest one, at five shards per glass, instead of the more expensive ones at 20 or 100 shards per glass respectively. Thirty minutes after looking the issue up the headache was mostly over and there was a knock on the door. Jinwoo got up to answer it and saw a cute Japanese girl that was slightly younger than him standing there. “Hello.” he said in English, a smile appearing on his face. “Is Jinah home?” the girl asked, also in English. Jinwoo now knew who he was speaking to. “Oh, you must be Watanabe Keiko. Jinah said she was going to call you and see if you wanted to hang out.” He smiled a bit playfully, and continued. “Right this way, Keiko-chan.” “Hey, I’m only a year younger than you.” said Keiko before entering and taking off her shoes. “Yeah, but you’re friends with my little sister, so I think it’s still allowed.” In reality he was just teasing her a bit, a crude flirtation technique that was the only one he was comfortable with using. “Fine, Jinwoo-ajeossi.” She responded. “Hey, I’m not that old.” he countered. Jinah heard them and ran out of her room. “Onesan.” she called out before giving Keiko a hug. She then looked at Jinwoo. “Have you been flirting with my friend, ajeossi?” she asked in Korean. Jinwoo pretended to be confused. “What? Of course not. And and I’m not that old, so stop calling me ajeossi.” Both of the girls rolled their eyes and walked back to Jinah’s room. ‘Well, I guess I lost the opportunity to ask her out.’ he thought as he sat down on the couch again. He got out his phone and looked through it, trying to find something to do with the rest of his day off. With nothing left to do, he decided to try and go for a run. The Guild app suggested at least a 10 kilometer run per day along with the 100 each of situps, push-ups, and squats. While he could do the others later, he hadn’t tried running yet. He went to Jinah’s room and knocked. “Hey, I’m going to go work out, so I might not be back until supper.” he said. “Do you need me to transfer you some money so you can order something?” He really needed to stock the refrigerator so they wouldn’t have to keep eating out. Jinah opened up the door, wearing her new outfit. “Actually, Keiko wants to leave too, so we’ll have to eat that another time.” Keiko pulled out an E ranked Essence Stone and showed it to him. “I can buy us something to eat and bring it back here if you want.” she said. “Oh, I can’t ask a guest to do that.” Jinwoo said. Mostly he just didn’t want to look like he was broke in front of the cute girl. “You two can just eat out and I’ll get us fried chicken next weekend.” “Oh, ok.” said Keiko, putting away the stone. “In that case, we’ll be back later.” she said, and both girls grabbed their shoes before leaving. Jinwoo sighed. He wasn’t really going to try and date his sister’s best friend, was he? It just seemed wrong somehow, even if she was pretty hot. Maybe working out will take his mind off of it. He put on something comfortable to work out in, a track suit he had brought with him, and left. The main road, from the outside to the end of the old boss chamber was two point four kilometers. So if he ran from his apartment to the entrance, then to the end of the road and back twice that should be just over the ten kilometers he was supposed to run. Once out on the street he started the route he had planned out. By the time he was at the front gate to the city he was already so exhausted that he wasn’t certain he could continue, but he kept going anyway. Any time he got so tired that he didn’t think he could keep going he slowed down to a walk, but kept going, knowing that if he stopped he would likely cramp up. If he had a way to use mana, he might buy a bottle of that juice from one of the convenience stores he passed. Several were advertising them at 2 for 5S, so he might be able to make use of their stamina recovering effects to keep going, but if he used one now he would just get mana overload again. Maybe if he got stronger he would eventually develop an ability, but for now the only option was to buy a rune stone to get one immediately, and anything worth having would both be gone already and cost too much if you could find a copy. Eventually he had made one loop and felt like his legs were wobbling under him. He kept walking for another thirty meters before collapsing on the ground. He laid there panting before he felt the muscles in his legs tightening. Before he could try and stretch to stop it, the muscle seized up and he gritted his teeth in pain. Before long it was too much for him and he automatically screamed, though not as loud as he could. Several people walked by, only to give him strange looks, mutter something about crazy people, or ignore him. A few minutes later, however, an old man walked over and grabbed his leg. He screamed again, as the pain was almost as bad as when it cramped, but a warm sensation quickly went through the leg, soothing the pain away. The old man then grabbed the other one, and the same thing happened. Now that his legs were usable again, Jinwoo stood up. “Thanks.” he said. “No problem, kid.” the man said, standing up as well. “Most folks call me Old Carlos.” he said, holding out his hand. Jinwoo shook it. “Sung Jinwoo. I guess the fact that you fixed my legs means that you are a healer?” “Yep. Probably the only E rank healer in the city. Saw a fellow E rank suffering and decided to help him out. It’s tough being at the bottom.” Jinwoo nodded. “Hopefully I’ll be D soon. Been taking my Elixir.” The old man looked a bit sad. “Don’t get too dependent on it, ok, kid?” He motioned towards a bench on the side of the road and the two of them went and sat down. “Why, is it addictive? The paperwork didn’t say it was.” “Well, it isn’t, technically, but anything can be if you let it. That’s what happened to me. I moved here two years ago, used it every day. I thought that if I could go up a rank, maybe two, by using it, I could get on one of the good teams, earn a lot of money. But it didn’t work out. Reaching the peak of E rank wasn’t too hard, but then I tried to up my rank. It failed, and I ended up getting a case of Mana Overload. Spent a few nights in a coma.” He sighed. “That should have been the end of it, but I wouldn’t let it be. I figured that, if one dose wasn’t enough, maybe I’d try two. So I doubled the D rank dose I was supposed to take to rank up. What’s the worse that could happen?, I thought. I’d end up in a coma, right?” Jinwoo nodded. “That’s what the warnings said.” “Well, the warnings were wrong. Turns out a lot worse things can happen than just having too much mana in you.” He sighed. “Tell me, kid, how old do you think I am?” Jinwoo shrugged. “I don’t know. Late sixties, early seventies, maybe?” He didn’t have much experience with the way non-asians aged, so he wasn’t certain. “I’m forty seven.” Carlos responded, and Jinwoo looked at him in shock, realizing what that must mean. “You mean, Elixir can…” “Rapidly age you? Yeah. And that was just a fairly light overdose. Something about the effect trying to upgrade your cells beyond what they can handle. I’m not sure of the details, but what it basically means is that the cells of my body are about twenty or twenty five years older than they should be. And since there’s no cure for aging, I’m stuck at E rank, as trying to improve my rank would probably kill me, and I probably only have another twenty years left, instead of the forty or forty-five I should have.” Jinwoo wasn’t sure if he could believe the story. Or, more accurately, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to believe it. “But the documentation says that an overdose can kill you, or put you in a coma for a few months. It didn’t say anything about this.” “That’s because I’m the only one it’s happened to. Everyone else that’s overdosed has either died or ended up in a long coma. And because I’m the only one, they won’t put my case in the documentation, afraid that an ‘edge case’ will scare away users.” He stood up and touched his back, a bit of pain on his face, and a light golden glow appeared on his hand. A few seconds later he relaxed, the pain having subsided. “Trust me, kid. There’s no magic pill that will give you what you want in life. There are things that can help, but the only thing that you can rely on is yourself and your training. If I had learned that lesson two years ago I would be out there happily fighting in E and D rank dungeons, killing weak monsters and living a descent life. As it is, I’m stuck helping people with their workout injuries, because anything more than that is too much for me.” With that Old Carlos, or more accurately, Middle Aged Carlos walked away, leaving Jinwoo there in silence. Jinwoo thought for a while and sighed. He would take the man’s advise. He wouldn’t let himself rely on outside help, and would learn to do things himself. Because, when he really thought about it, the only thing he can really, 100% rely on is himself, his skills and body. Refreshed from the healing he started jogging towards the Guild Hall. If he was going to rely on his skills, he would need to get some. --- Once the store closed Gerald Tailor went over to the Guild office. While he didn’t work for them anymore, anyone could pay to use it to work out, but few people outside the guild ever did. That meant that the only people you would find there other than Guild members, who got a free Premium membership, are ex members and their families. He walked to the Sword training room and entered it. Every Saturday since leaving the guild he had met his friend down here for a practice session and he wasn’t going to miss this one. Once inside he looked around and saw his friend sitting on a bench. “Joseph!” he said, then walked over. The German swordsman nodded and waved. “Gerald. I suppose you want to get your butt kicked again.” Gerald laughed. “If I remember correctly, I won our last fight.” Seeing that his friend was tired, likely from sparring other people, he held out his hand and sent out a stream of golden particles that quickly coalesced into a teenage fox girl in a white gi with a golden belt, him having changed her clothes from the kimono she wore at work into something more appropriate for the gym. “Gold, would you mind fixing his exhaustion?” The Fox girl waved her hand at Joseph and a golden light formed around him, making his fatigue evaporate. While it wasn’t as good as actual rest, it was on par with the Divine Fruit juice that those of other ranks used in terms of effect. “Thank you, Gold.” said Joseph before standing up. “So, same rules as last time? No using summons and I won’t use my Power Slash or Power Stab techniques.” Both of those coated the blade in mana to let it penetrate armor and accelerated the blade to make it hit harder, they just accelerated it in a different direction. “Works for me.” said Gerald, then he stepped into the ring, a five meter by five meter pad on the ground of the gym. He drew his katana, using a real weapon only because he knew Gold could fix them both up if they were seriously injured, then sent golden energy through himself, reinforcing his muscles, bones and nerves to increase his strength, durability, and agility. Joseph drew a thin Spanish fencing blade known as an estoque. It was designed for speed and stabbing, but was still an A rank weapon which, like Gerald’s katana, had been forged by Joseph himself. As soon as both were ready Joseph ran forward. As he was an A ranked swordsman he didn’t need a Boost spell the way Gerald did to run at forty kilometers per hour. Gerald brought up his blade to parry and barely managed to knock it out of the way before continuing the movement to throw it to the side. As his sword was two handed, while Joseph’s was one handed, he had the advantage in leverage and was able to move his opponent’s blade enough to put it out of position to block when Gerald executed a draw cut that would open up Joseph’s stomach if it landed. He knew that Joseph wouldn’t let it hit him, though, and watched as, instead of trying to parry, Joseph simply jumped backwards by a meter, putting himself out of the range of the sword. --- Sung Jinwoo entered the elevator at the back of the guild hall and took it down three stories. While few of the buildings had basements, as there wasn’t much need for them, the guild had specially dug underneath this building in order to build an area for high ranked guild members to train and spar. The rooms above it contained utilities, including the mana generator that powered the building as well as storage for rare materials and the stones the bank had in reserve, and work areas for those that dissected monsters. When the door opened he walked down the hall to the Blade Training room. After all, the only weapon he had experience with was daggers, even if he chose them because of their low cost. When the door opened he heard the sounds of blades clashing, and looked to see two men fighting in the middle of a five by five training mat. Everyone else there had stopped what they were doing to watch the battle, the only activity being a few bets that were being made. As Jinwoo watched he realized that he recognized one of the men. It was the tailor he had bought an outfit from earlier today. Wasn’t the man a summoner, though? He even saw one of his summons, the one with the gold belt, sitting on a bench beside the field, watching them. He wasn’t sure what she could do, however, so he couldn’t be sure if she was helping him in the battle. Jinwoo walked over and sat beside the Fox girl. “I didn’t realize Mr. Gerald was that good of a swordman.” He motioned as Gerald launched several swings that forced his opponent to back up and eventually resort to a backflip to get out of range. Gold nodded. “If he’s a summoner, though, how is he able to fight like that?” She cast a slight buff on Jinwoo, and he could feel his muscles tighten as his strength tripled. “Oh, yeah, buff magic.” She nodded. “So you cast this on him?” She shook her head and pointed at Gerald. “He cast it on himself?” She nodded. “So he has healing and buff magic too?” She shook her head and pointed at herself. “Oh, he’s borrowing the powers of his summons.” She nodded again. “That’s pretty useful.” She nodded again. By this time Jinwoo had roughly deciphered the strategies of the two men. Gerald relied on quick movements to disrupt his opponent’s movements, and the other man looked for openings in his opponent’s technique which he could exploit, conserving his strength until he found something to strike at. Of course, noticing it from out here while calm is much easier than noticing it while in combat. After a few minutes, Gerald’s aggressive style had lead to him becoming far more exhausted than the other man, which made the quality of his techniques decrease. This left an opening for his opponent, who sent his sword through the gap and stopped just before the blade touched Gerald’s shirt. Gerald stopped, sheathed his katana, and bowed. “Thank you for the lesson. You won today’s match, but I shall continue practicing so that I can beat you next time.” The other man sheathed his oddly thin blade and bowed as well. “I look forward to it.”

  Stolen story; please report.