Rick didn't feel any pain, and that bothered him.

He should have been happy to feel only warm and relaxed, yet his mind refused to accept it. Yes, that was right... he had taken a severe beating from that Birthrighter. It had broken several of his bones, left him with deep internal bruises, and possibly damaged his lucrima soul. After all of that, he shouldn't be feeling fine.

As he started to put things together, he began to come back to the world. He could feel that he was lying on the mat, though it seemed like someone had put a pillow under his head. Voices talking about what had happened... his boss Jimmy, his coworker Henry... and Lisa. That explained it.

Struggling to sit up, Rick finally managed to open his eyes and saw her. As usual, Lisa wore loose sweatpants and a t-shirt. She was still wearing her jacket, so he couldn't see the shirt, but there was a 99% chance it had an obscure band logo on it. At the moment she had her blond hair up in a ponytail, as if she'd come to spar.

Even though she'd obviously healed him and he should have been grateful, Rick found himself a bit irritated by her presence. He would have been gone if the schedule had progressed normally - was she wanting to spar with someone else? Of all the clients he had, Lisa was the only one he thought liked him more than superficially.

When she saw that he was awake, however, she rushed beside him with a look of concern. "Are you okay, Rick? I did what I could, but you took serious hits from a six digit fighter..."

"I feel fine, you did a good job." Rick shook his head and forced him to look at her. "But I really can't afford your rates..."

"Oh, don't worry about that!" Lisa laughed away the awkwardness. "You've always done a good job and I've never tipped you or anything. Besides, I need you in decent shape if we're going to work out, so it's for my benefit too."

"Right, about that... if not for the incident, I would already have been gone."

Lisa sighed and stuck out her tongue. "Yeah, I messed up my schedule today and I was just hoping I might catch you working late. Good thing I did, huh? I'd completely understand if you weren't feeling well enough to spar today, though."

"I can, just give me a bit to get my bearings again."

"No problem! I need some time to warm up anyway."

Rick looked after her for a moment while she went out to the mats and began stretching, then very intentionally looked away. Not that it wasn't a nice sight, but he didn't want to be a creep and Henry would bug him about staring. Besides, he had other matters to take care of before he could go back to work.

Based on how he was leaning against the wall, Henry had also been healed of the blow to his stomach. Based on how he was flipping through his magazine again, Jimmy was not going to give any kind of bonus for enduring the beating. Rick might be lucky to get out of this without getting his pay docked for making Jimmy get off his seat and do something.

"Glad you're doing okay, man." Henry gave him a lazy smile. "I was seriously worried there for a bit, but Lisa showed up and helped out."

"I'm just glad things were resolved without anyone getting killed." Rick returned the smile briefly, but then focused on his boss and something much more important. "What happened to the lucrim they left as payment? Since we convinced new clients to come in, we should get part of it as a bonus."

Without looking up, Jimmy grunted sourly and nodded his head toward Henry. The other young man gave him a grin and then dropped the two pearl bars onto the counter. "Don't worry, I made sure he couldn't run off with them. I was thinking you could use them to pay for treatment, but even if you're okay now, I think you still deserve them."

"Oh... thanks." Though Rick was truly grateful, he hesitated to pick them up. "I was thinking that you should have one of them. You did convince them to pay, and you took a hit, too."

"Nah, man, I don't need it." Henry grinned and tapped the tattoo on his arm. "Demonic bond, remember? I have 5000 lucrim on call whenever I want. Might not have been enough against Birthrighter assholes, but I can afford to be generous."

"Then I appreciate it." Rick swept up both bars quickly, resisting the urge to draw the power into himself. They felt like they had 2000 lucrim or more within them - he didn't get a windfall like that very often, so he needed to invest them carefully.

As he put them with his backpack and the rest of his things, Rick took stock. He still felt a bit fatigued, and he knew his side would ache the next day, but Lisa had managed to heal all the serious damage. That left him in much better shape, so he decided to check his status in the app.

Rick Hunter Ether Tier 19th Ether Score 189 Lucrim Generation 15,750 Current Lucrim 3158 Rick Hunter's Lucrima Portfolio Foundation 7250 Lv II Offensive Lucore 3000 Lv II Defensive Lucore 5500 Lv IV Golden Lucore 10 N/A Total Lucrim 15,750

The improvement in his Defensive Lucore was everything he had hoped for: not only had its value increased, it had advanced to the fourth rank as well. His defense had already been good, but once it recovered from its encounter with the Birthrighter, it would be a step better. If he could just improve his other cores and make his foundation a bit more efficient, he could punch above his weight.

But the "Golden Lucore" listed made no sense to him. He'd heard of a few famous schools or fighters that used "Golden" in technique names, but didn't know what this could be referring to. Even weirder, it wasn't included in his total. When he reached inside himself, he certainly didn't feel anything new. It might be a glitch, but he'd never seen one quite like that.

Baffled by the development, Rick pulled out his phone and searched a while for some answers. After filtering out irrelevant results, he had basically nothing, not even rumors. Though he wanted to keep searching further, he saw that Lisa had finished warming up and was bouncing on the balls of her feet, waiting for him, so he slid his phone into his backpack and went out to meet her.

"Let's do the basics today," Lisa said. "I just need to loosen up my lucrima after work."

"Frankly, I could use the same thing."

She winced. "Yeah, yours really got pounded. Dense power is good, but believe me, it's just going to cramp if you don't relax it afterwards."

Lisa was actually a massage therapist first and a warrior on the side. She'd realized that unless she could treat lucrima problems as well as muscular ones, she was going to be relegated to scrounging up minor jobs. That had brought her to the House of the Cosmic Fist, where she'd gotten an appetite for sparring... and definitely enjoyed how much the increased power improved her work.

To be honest, it probably would have been smart for her to leave them and move elsewhere. He judged her to have a generation rate of around 52,000 lucrim - well above the average client. Yet she kept coming back, and she was a nice client, so he did his best to keep up.

Before they began sparring, Lisa suppressed her power down to his level to make things fairer. That didn't reduce the efficiency of the Lucores she'd built within herself, though. Even if she didn't hit like a truck, she was incredibly fast, and there was a sharpness to her blows that he couldn't quite match.

They traded moves, adopting a grappling style instead of focusing on striking. That made things a bit easier on him, but Rick still found himself struggling to keep up. Unlike clients who just focused on raw power, Lisa had picked up decent skills. Combined with the Lucores she continually polished via her work, she was formidable.

Normally he would have forced himself to go longer, but when his side started to ache, he raised a hand to call a halt. Lisa immediately moved closer, examining him in concern. "You alright? Does it feel like you're bleeding internally again?"

"No, I'm okay." Rick leaned against the wall and took a few painful breaths. He should have just toughed it out and kept sparring, but getting the crap kicked out of him had soured his mood. "Lisa... why do you keep coming back here? You could get into a better gym."

"I tried, actually."

That surprised him enough that he looked up sharply, but Lisa had turned away, redoing her ponytail. "Which ones?" he asked.

"Nowhere too fancy. I actually got in without any trouble, but... I don't know, I didn't feel like I fit in there. Most of their clients have huge lucrima portfolios and can just throw lucrim at any problem. The people here know how to focus on skill and train efficiently, and that's what I really need for my work."

"Huh, really? I'd assumed healing would be helped along by bigger lucrim numbers..."

"It's not like that." Lisa turned back, making vague gestures with her hands that didn't clarify anything to him. "Think about it: my top clients already have a ton of lucrim, usually way more than me. If their stress or injuries could be fixed by flooding lucrim, they'd have already done it. There are therapists who train to flood even more, but I can't compete with them. My calling card is finesse, and here is still the best place for me to train that."

Rick wasn't good with taking compliments, particularly ones as unusual as that, so he just gestured for them to start sparring again. While they did so, he found himself thinking about what she said. He could feel a tiny bit of pride at his skill, and he was glad she kept coming to the gym, but beyond that he felt like his skill just didn't matter.

Not only could a strong enough opponent just smash through all his skill with raw power, Rick knew that he wasn't truly exceptional when it came to his strengths. His technical skills were decent, but a lot of real warriors were better. Having an offensive and a defensive core in his portfolio put him above amateurs, but others had huge portfolios of more advanced cores. And his foundation was sadly inefficient, absorbing over half of his lucrim generation.

He managed to avoid feeling sorry for himself by focusing on the sparring until he was exhausted. Lisa wasn't sweating that much, but it looked like she'd gotten a decent workout. After getting a drink of water, she pulled her jacket back on and examined the dark sky outside.

"Getting pretty late," she said, glancing over at him. "Sorry for keeping you."

"It's okay, I'll get overtime."

"You live in south Branton, right? I can fly you most of the way there, if you want."

Rick shook his head much too quickly. "Thanks, but I'll pass."

"You sure? It's on my way."

"I appreciate it, but it's good for me to get in a run before the end of the day." Normally he wouldn't exercise any more, given how much his body had endured that day, but that wasn't the real reason. Lisa was skilled enough to fly, but she didn't have any lucrim vehicles or skills that carried others or anything of the sort.

He was not going to go back home dangling in the air. He had his dignity.

Lisa respected that he wasn't going to take the offer and didn't press on it. Instead she flashed him a smile, headed out, and vanished into the night sky.

Though he needed to get home soon, Rick found himself leaning against the window and staring out into the sky. As usual when he had made significant lucrima progress, he was exhausted. Maybe he could afford to hire a taxi back home instead of running? If he was a few tiers higher, he could have used the bus system, but at the moment public transport was forbidden to him.

"Don't moon over her." Henry came up beside him, grinning. "I'm not saying she isn't hot, and she might like you, but it's bad form, man."

"I wasn't-"

"Deny it if you want." Henry leaned back against the window and folded his arms. "I guess that's another option for those of us who want to get out of the trash tiers: marry into wealth. I hear there are some great training options for couples that will really increase your growth in a short time."

Though Rick wasn't sure how to respond to that, they were interrupted by a grunt from Jimmy. He didn't look up from his magazine, but he did address them. "Not worth it, kid. Seems hot when you're young, but you'll regret it in the end."

Henry rolled his eyes. "That sounds like sour grapes. Unless there's a Mrs. Jimmy you've been hiding from us?"

Jimmy grunted as if considering what to say next, but at that moment Rick's phone rang. He saw that the caller was his sister and answered it quickly.

"Hey, sis. You doing okay?"

"Rick..." Her voice was difficult to hear and he automatically began grabbing his things while he strained to hear her words. "Are... are you getting back soon? I was feeling okay this afternoon, but..."

He was already out the door, sprinting into the night.