Tutorial Day 7

  “Now that it’s—” the man began to say but then vomited all over himself, his spear, and the floor. “—oh!” he added stupidly just as the butt of the spear slipped on said vomit and, since his weight was resting almost entirely on the weapon—he crashed down as well.

  I watched as his thighs and legs landed in the vomit, which from the looks of things, consisted almost entirely of liquor. Normally, a body part hitting the floor would slow a fall, but in this case, it turned his tumble into a slip and slide, fulcruming his head down—so he could introduce his forehead to the polished wood and pool of vomit.

  The groan, or perhaps startled exhalation of breath told me that he had seriously hurt himself. I was still standing in the doorway and seriously considered turning around once again. Even though that move he’d performed before the failed puke trust fall was badass, that alone might not make it worth hiring him.

  Something tickled my skin, and I recognized the sensation of what I thought of as the magical shower, or the cleansing veil as you re-entered Tutorial Town. It passed over Claude, and I watched as the vomit and stains from beer vanished off his body. Whatever was left of the stale beer smell also seemed to get cleansed from the air.

  My eyebrow raised as I considered what had just occurred. Claude was clearly passed out from drinking, or unconscious from the knock to the head. Either way, I didn’t think he could have triggered the Cleaning Magic of the Tutorial Town. So, had it auto-activated when the man vomited?

  It took a moment to realize what that might mean—and to my surprise I felt a thrill run through me. In the wake of the cleansing wave, I felt heat rush over my cranium and down my back, all the way to my feet. This was what Gamonji and King Anubis did daily—well, at least were portrayed to have done daily by the documentaries.

  Train so hard, that you expected your body to fail—I wasn’t sure if it was an idolized thought, or if I truly wanted that—but a room that auto activated a cleaning feature-thing, I still wasn’t sure what it was, when the user vomited? The trainer must have got fed up and not only purchased the feature, but set it up so he didn’t have to deal with puke or even smell it for overly long.

  There was just one problem. That trainer—assuming Claude was the owner, was currently passed out, unconscious or a combination of the two. I had a solution to that problem, but should I risk it?

  My body seemed to move on its own, as I stepped further into the Martial Pavilion, allowing the door to swing closed behind me. After it did, I moved around the edges of the open room, there were two doorways that led off the training space, and a quick check showed me that both were locked. I assumed one was a closet and the other a bedroom for the trainer. I continued to carefully check the area.

  It wasn’t incredibly large and I arrived back at the front door rather quickly. No one was here, which was one worry taken care of. Taking a deep breath, I carefully considered what I was about to do one more time. It wasn’t like revealing myself as a Healer would be horrible—right?

  And if being outed as a Healer was the worst case—then was it really a risk?

  I realized I was trying to convince myself and clenched a fist, before stepping forward. Once I took that first step, the next few were easy. Almost before I knew it I arrived at Claude’s side. Kneeling down, I placed a hand on his forearm before activating Heal, and Cleanse through my Soul Nervous System.

  Ten seconds later, I blinked as Heal stopped consuming Mana. Ten points had been used for healing the man, which surprised me. Cleanse on the other hand cost me five Mana each time I used it, which in this case was surprisingly more than once.

  At first I had assumed one application would be enough, but as soon as I used the Skill I gained a connection with Claude. Well, more accurately—I gained an awareness of his body condition. He was practically killing himself with alcohol.

  How an Awakened could be suffering from kidney failure, liver damage, an enlarged heart, and high blood pressure was beyond me—but he definitely was. Each Cleanse application helped relieve some of the problems, but it also pushed the toxins back out into the blood.

  It meant that a second application of Cleanse was needed. This one removed the toxins from the blood, but also pushed more out of the liver, kidneys and even the minute amount of fat Claude had. I kept using my Skill, and after the fourth time, I tried Healing again.

  I quickly found myself out of Personal Mana and immediately regretted handing the two remaining Mana Batteries I'd taken from Nagina—the super huge snake, to Dave and Willa. I still was pissed that one had been destroyed when I tried to convert the Mana inside into Mana Coins.

  I kept using Cleanse and Heal as my Mana regenerated. It took nearly consuming another fifty Mana before my connection with Claude told me that his body was healed. Only then did I notice how much I was sweating, and just how fast my heart was pumping. I was about to stand up, but registered why I was sweating just before I did.

  The sensation was not identical, but definitely familiar to when Mining raised my Strength Stat. Or when Cooking did the same for Dexterity.

  Fishing-Stamina, Gardening-Intelligence or Skinning-Agility. Only question was what had increased and why? I listed the rest of the Stats I’d received and how in my head.

  Most of my Stats were at their ‘max’ with ten points. There were only two that weren’t. Wisdom and Perception which had just unlocked and not grown from their first point. I opened my Status and checked them.

  They’d increased by three each?!

  The first line reminded me that I still hadn’t chosen a Tutorial name. I shrugged. According to London the name was only important if you ended up on one of the ‘Leaderboards.’ Since I didn’t have any accomplishments that would be shared on any Leaderboard, I hadn’t bothered inputting a nickname.

  Knowing the reason for my racing heart and sweat-soaked skin I levered myself back to my feet—only to find Claude with his eyes open, looking at me. I stepped back involuntarily, not having noticed the man waking up.

  “Did you just—” Claude began, the voice translated in my ear, but either he’d cut himself off or started mumbling too softly for the translation to continue. His hands roamed over his body, pressing into his stomach, his sides, and finished by roving over his forehead, which probably should have at least had a ‘goose egg’ sized bump from his earlier fall.

  Instead, Claude found his forehead clear of any blemish. He blinked white-rimmed eyes at me, and I wondered if they’d been yellowing before. My connection to Claude earlier suggested that they probably had been. Like the man at Arnando Moreza’s photoshoot.

  He sat up, and looked around himself, before blinking at his spear. His face transformed, looking like someone had just taken all that smell of vomit and stale beer air—and shoved it up his nose. His fist snaked out and snatched the Spear in a grip so tight that his knuckles whitened and the wood creaked.

  Slowly, Claude joined me in standing. Once there, he didn’t lean on his Spear. Instead, it was transferred from his clenched fist to the crook of his elbow. He rested it over his shoulder casually as he regarded me, meeting my eyes with his brown ones.

  After an awkwardly long moment of silently staring at each other, he spoke. “So, you're here for training?”

  I blinked. Not because of the question, but because of the lack of robotic translation. Claude had clearly just spoken English, allowing me to hear his actual voice, which was strongly accented and deep. I nodded in answer to his question.

  “The sign out front said a hundred Tp an hour?”

  That wasn’t what I truly wanted to say. I wanted nothing more than to ask if Claude knew about my Healing. I wanted to plead with him to keep it secret—but some niggling part of my gut, or perhaps Mental Fortitude, told me that he’d already chosen to ignore it.

  “That’s right,” Claude said, then clicked a tongue in disappointment before opening his mouth. What he said next required translation. “I don’t teach the sissy Sword, though. If you train with me, you will learn how to use the Spear—do you understand?”

  His last question was back to English, and due to the delay of the translator I was forced to hear the robotic voice and Claude's question on top of each other. I nodded, not truly caring what weapon he was teaching. I probably wouldn’t even stay with him that long.

  “I do understand, but I’m really here to learn to use Qi and Soul,” I said.

  Claude smiled, and the remaining sweat on my skin turned to ice. He looked excited, and bloodthirsty. “I can teach you that starting tomorrow morning, but only if you clean the Pavilion tonight!”

  “Clean it?” I asked, thinking he’d misspoken—due to speaking in English again.

  Claude’s smile grew as he nodded and walked to one of the single locked door. At his touch it opened and he simply reached around the corner to pull out a mop, broom, bucket, and a great deal of armor.

  The armor was resting on the various other things he’d pulled out. A chest piece on the broom handle, and pants on the mop. Boots, and gloves inside the mop bucket. I blinked at the strange assortment. Did Claude use the cleaning equipment as an armor rack?

  “Put this on, and go fill the bucket from the well.”

  “What well?!” Then I glanced at the single SunStone in the room. It was telling me it was already around eight or nine at night. “Plus it’s almost time for bed. Can’t you just trigger the Magic Cleaning again?”

  Claude smirked and shook his head. His mouth moved and a moment later the translator spoke into my ear, “No. Students clean the dojo. It’s tradition.”

  I jabbed a finger in his direction angrily.

  “Don’t think that I don’t know that this is just some husking Mr. Muyagi shit…” I complained, swiping the chestpiece off of the mop before promptly falling over.

  Turns out the armor wasn’t Claude’s. It wasn’t even armor. It was essentially a weighted vest, leggings, gloves and boots. I had no gauge for just how heavy they were either, because it wasn’t like I’d ever tested just how much my Strength stat had improved my—well, for lack of a better word, strength.

  Still, if I could squat about two-hundred and fifty pounds before unlocking the Stat, and likely give an awkward penguin walk with about three to four hundred on my back—then that was what I was carrying in the chest piece alone.

  Add to that the weighted boots, pants and gloves, and after putting them on, I was literally sliding my feet across the dojo floor to avoid falling over—again. I truly considered what would happen if I did fall over, while wearing all this armor. My feet felt nailed to the ground—so, if I fell, would my shins simply break in half?

  “How the hell do you expect me to go get water in the bucket in all of this?” I asked, truly incredulous.

  The husking Greed could just cast the cleaning magic! It was right after that thought that my brain helpfully pointed out that this was actually what I wanted…

  Gamonji might have never collected water into a mop bucket while wearing weighted armor—well at least not in the documentary—but he had trained every waking moment.

  Claude simply leaned down, picked up the bucket, and handed it to me. That was when I discovered not only what it felt like to fall in weighted armor—but that the bucket was also weighted.

  Once on the ground, I experienced something that I can truly say I never wanted to, and had never considered before.

  Is this how a flipped over Turtle feels?

  I strained, and strained, but didn’t even manage to flip over, off my stomach. I did, however, get enough momentum to teeter onto my arm before the weight of my ‘equipment’ rolled me back. I tried to reach behind me and undo the buckles of the chest piece only to remember I was wearing gloves. Gloves that—conveniently, were tied tightly in place.

  As I reached for the bow to loosen it and take off the gloves, a translated voice spoke into my ear. “If you remove the equipment before you’ve cleaned the Dojo, I will not train you.”

  Then, as if there was nothing more to do—like say help a stuck man on the Dojo’s floor—I heard the second door in the Dojo unlock and softly shut.

  Right after I heard him walk through it.

  “You son of a Greed Hog!” I shouted, but didn’t get a response.

  In anger, I almost reached for the bow of the tied on gloves again—but Mental Fortitude talked me off that proverbial ledge. Surely, I was intelligent enough to figure out some way to get up and get to the well…

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