Power surged within Rick's soul, arcing from his body to form a perfect aura blazing at full strength.

"Yeah, okay. Hold it for a bit." The official glanced over his aura for a fraction of a second with a bored expression, then waved at it lazily. "That's enough. You can put that away now."

Rick nodded and sat back down in the office chair, which managed to look luxurious while being completely uncomfortable. When no further questions came immediately, he fiddled with the sleeves of his combat outfit. He hadn't wanted to wear the gift from Granny Whitney, but it was the best clothing he owned and he needed every edge for the job interview.

"Okay, next up is the transfer test. We'll start with a minute in between spheres and go from there."

He'd practiced for this, though he was surprised to be given marble spheres instead of bars. It felt like one contained much more lucrim than he thought could be crammed into a marble, so they must have some way of concentrating it that he didn't know about. Regardless, his job was the same: draw the lucrim out of the first sphere, hold it without absorbing any, and pass it into the second.

Since so much was on the line, Rick was utterly focused during the first test. But after that the official had him hold lucrim between spheres for three minutes. Waiting that long, his attention began to wander and he had to resist looking at the clock.

If this took too long, he'd be too late to see Melissa. Given the unpredictability of job interviews like this, he'd suggested that he could just skip this one, but Melissa had insisted. The world didn't care about their schedule and they had to rearrange their lives around it. She'd understand if he ended up missing her ceremony, but he'd be upset with himself.

"Okay." The interviewer made another inscrutable mark on his clipboard and then looked up, still without much expression. Though everyone at the bank was well-dressed, this official's suit didn't quite fit and he didn't seem particularly invested in his job. "That concludes the practical portion of your application."

Rick set the spheres back on the table and tried for a confident smile. "I passed?"

"If you hadn't, we wouldn't continue to the interview portion. Now..." The interviewer glanced down at his clipboard, then back up at him. "Why are you passionate to join the Branton Central Bank family?"

When he'd started on all these interviews, that question had really thrown Rick. What he wanted was a job that paid better than getting punched at the House of the Cosmic Fist - all he was passionate about was earning his way to a better life. But after several awkward interviews, he'd realized that the interviewers didn't really care, either.

The question was just a test. He gave a bland answer that he thought they wanted to hear, the same one he'd given at the last interview with a few names changed around.

"Uh huh." Once again, the interviewer's eyes dropped down to the next question, then back up. "And what would you say is your greatest strength?"

"I'd say friendliness. I worked at a gym and learned to provide customer service with a smile no matter how much clients needed to vent." The answer was complete bullshit, but he thought that was what a bank would want to hear. Maybe.

"Okay. What is your lucrima portfolio's greatest strength?"

There was a real question, and Rick didn't hesitate. "My defensive core. I've invested approaching 20,000 lucrim into a solid build and it's rated as Level VII."

"Uh huh." The interviewer scribbled something down - good? bad? - and moved on the next question as if Rick's most powerful asset meant nothing. "What's your greatest weakness?"

"I..." Rick gritted his teeth in something that was a distant cousin to a smile. "When I see a problem, I tend to try to implement a solution right away. In the past that's led me to move too quickly, so I've taken steps to surround myself with people who can help me optimize first."

He hated himself for giving such an awful answer. There had been at least one early interview that he'd bombed because he'd taken the question seriously. Maybe pride, maybe commitment to family over work, or more likely something he wasn't aware of. But no, apparently instead of searching himself for a real answer he was supposed to give an awful fake one. Interview guides said he was supposed to be authentic, but every other instruction ordered him not to be.

Regardless, Rick forced his way through the rest of the bank's interview. Unlike some of the first interviews, he felt prepared for everything. There had been rumors that they asked strange questions about manhole covers, but he didn't get anything like that. It was an entirely boring interview until eventually the official stood up and extended a hand.

"Thanks for coming in, Rick. We'll keep your resume on file and contact you if we decide to move forward."

"Thanks for talking to me." Rick shook the man's hand - not too weak, not too firm - and did his best to find a real smile. "Do you have any idea when you'll make a decision?"

"Uh, we'll contact you when we decide to move forward."

Another non-answer, but Rick thought he saw the truth in the bank clerk's eyes. He resisted the urge to vent his frustration, but couldn't help but grimace as he spoke. "I didn't get the job, did I? Did I fail the practical lucrim transfers? I thought my control was perfect."

"Oh, sure, you did fine there." The interview shrugged, actually throwing off a bit of his robotic nature and seeming to really look at Rick for the first time. "Kid, what you've got to understand is that doing transfers properly isn't that special. There are thousands of people who can pass the practical tests, so we need another way to pick candidates."

"I see." Since the man had actually given him an answer and he was fairly sure he'd failed the interview anyway, Rick decided to push on. "What do you actually choose by, then? Mastery certifications?"

"Those wouldn't hurt, but that's more for security positions. For a job like this, to get in the door, you really need membership in a decent sect or a college degree. Honestly, we wouldn't have interviewed you if we weren't required to interview a certain number of candidates by HR."

Rick ground his teeth and managed to keep his tone civil. "A college degree? In what, lucrim management? Does that have any relevance to being able to do the job?"

The bank clerk shrugged. "Not really, but we need something to thin the herd. A degree shows, you know, discipline. Good luck out there, kid."

With that, the interviewer led him out of the room. According to the guides, Rick should have thanked him again, but he didn't have it in him. Though he'd gotten the sense that his lack of qualifications hurt his job search, having it thrown in his face like that was a different experience. He rushed out of the bank's lobby, glowering at the floor and then the pavement.

Here, it didn't matter that he'd won his division of a massive tournament. Nobody cared about what he'd overcome or how far he'd developed his lucrima portfolio from nothing. Even his defensive core was just a number on a sheet of paper to them.

Taking a deep breath, Rick tried not to let it get to him. This wasn't the first time, after all. He glanced at his phone to confirm the time and saw that he still had a while before the ceremony. Better to head in that direction, maybe grab some more info, and get there before anything could go wrong.

His job at the House of the Cosmic Fist actually wasn't so awful. After his lucrima soul had been battered by Mike and the tournament fighters, not to mention Teragen, he could take everything the clients of the gym could offer. The raise he'd forced out of Jimmy helped, too, and for once in his life he and Melissa didn't need to scrape together every lucrim they could just to get by.

Yet after a few months, he'd started to feel how limiting the position was. His pay was good by his family's standards, but low in comparison to most jobs and he didn't get many benefits. More irritatingly, he no longer got much training benefit from sparring with clients. If he stayed at the gym... well, he knew that he wouldn't be satisfied.

Coming up from his thoughts, Rick realized that he'd been aimlessly walking for a while. Toward the school, yes, but he wasn't going to get there by walking even if he ran. Still - he checked his phone again to be sure - he had time and there was no point getting there before the ceremony, since Melissa would be with her friends.

Since he had time, Rick headed instead to the park. He could get some more leads there, plus he'd be right next to the bus station for getting to Melissa's ceremony afterward. Since the two of them had plans afterward, it would be good to accomplish a little more to be prepared for tomorrow.

A few months ago he'd never even been to Anglepark, but it was one of Branton's important community centers. The park took up a block shaped like a right triangle, but perversely, wasn't named for the angle. Apparently Jeffrey Angle had been a native of Branton who had won a Jade Medal at the Olympics, though it must have been multiple decades ago because Rick hadn't even heard of him.

From a distance he ran his eyes over the familiar scene: a few picnic tables in the shaded areas and a decaying plastic jungle gym for kids in the sandy area. It definitely wasn't Branton's best park, but it was kept clean and safe by the local community. There was some sort of sect that had taken the park as a public service project, so it was regularly used.

Most importantly, it was used for community announcements. Rick nodded to several regulars at the nearest picnic tables before stepping into the stone gazebo to check the message board. If people could just get organized and put their announcements online, his life would be a lot easier, but apparently the people in this part of the city liked doing things analog. Since they had a lot of resources for someone like him, he needed to follow suit.

His eyes skimmed over the familiar announcements, looking for new things that weren't local barbecues or other events. A colorful flier caught his attention due to its requirement of a generation rate of 50,000 lucrim or more, but it turned out to be an ad for some of the local lucrim sports. Interesting enough that Rick took a picture with his phone, but he didn't think he had that kind of competition in him.

Otherwise it looked like the usual bad job offers, no better than his current job. There was a drab sheet of paper with something about a role for skilled lucrim-users out of town - not terribly promising, but it had been posted by the Central States Lucrim Authority so it was worth looking into. There were a few apartment listings, an ad for Advanced Lucrim stations, and a few local sports tournaments.

"Looking for a job, son?" An old man sitting at one of the benches in the gazebo called out to him. Since the man looked vaguely familiar, Rick nodded.

"I've got one, but it's a dead end."

"You take a look at that paper on the bottom left there. My cousin needs strong young types for his landscaping business. Pays a lot better than you'd expect, and you can make a lot more if you end up leading a crew."

To be polite, Rick looked at the paper. It did pay more per hour than working at the gym, but... "Thanks, I'll look into it." Rick took one of the tabs with contact information and shuffled around the side of the gazebo to prevent further conversation.

Once he might have thrown away the slip of paper, but now he found himself staring at it a while before putting it in his pocket. It was true that he was limiting the possibilities by only looking at jobs that required a strong lucrima soul. There was an entire world of people out there that had normal jobs and never fought a day in their lives, after all.

Was it pride that kept him from taking mundane work and throwing himself at job offers that never panned out? Rick leaned back against the wall and rubbed his forehead with one hand. He'd heard landscaping was hot and rough on the back, but he wasn't afraid of hard work - it couldn't be worse than being physically beaten at the gym. Was pursuing lucrim-based jobs just a stupid dream?

Rick shook off the thoughts. The main things he had to offer were his control of lucrim and combat skill. If his lack of qualifications made his current attempts difficult, it would only make trying to get an office job even more painful. Lots of jobs seemed to require a college or sect degree even to get in the door. No, he needed to stick to his strengths.

To keep himself from getting depressed, Rick pulled out his phone and began to check apartment listings. Those at least seemed to be centralized online for Branton, though a few of the apartments on the bulletin board had been new to him. The site tried to direct him toward some ridiculously expensive ones, but he scrolled past them to search for something in his budget.

Looking at the pictures, basically everything looked better than the terrible apartment where he and Melissa currently lived. It had been one of the cheapest possible, so of course it would be at the bottom of the barrel. A few they might even be able to afford, even without a better job, but actually applying to them just seemed like too much of a hurdle.

Sighing, Rick closed his browser just to check the time again. It was close enough, so he should just head across town and meet Melissa before the ceremony started. He was too distracted by all his tasks and the fact that he'd almost certainly bombed the interview - he wasn't getting anything else done.

As Rick started to walk away, his phone rang. To his surprise, it was the number he'd saved as the Branton Chamber of Combat. Applying for that job had been a really long shot, so Rick hastily answered the phone.

"Hello, is this Rick Hunter?"

"Yeah. Uh, speaking."

"Wonderful, I was hoping I could get a hold of you." The woman on the other end had a syrupy voice, the positive words flowing out meaninglessly. Rick held his breath. "Though I regret to inform you that the position for which you applied has been filled, another position has opened up that might be a good fit for your skills. You're cordially invited to apply in person at the Chamber offices."

"Great, thanks." Rick tried to keep the smile off his face. "What's the job?"

"Actually, the deputy director was hoping to talk to you about that in person. It's a bit of a new initiative that he's excited about. Why don't you come in?"

"Sure, when?"

"Now."

Rick froze. Had there been something strange in her voice, or was he just assuming that because the request was so strange? Part of him feared that it could be something suspicious, but this was no underground fighting ring - it was the freaking Chamber of Combat. It was hard to get public service jobs, and even this call might not mean he'd gotten the position, but this was something he couldn't ignore. If only there wasn't something twitching in the back of his mind...

"Sir? Are you still there?"

"Right, yes." Rick swallowed and forced himself to make a decision. As much as he didn't want to risk missing Melissa's ceremony, he couldn't afford to turn this down, so he didn't really have a choice. "I'll be right there."

"Wonderful." With that word, the woman hung up. Rick stared down at his phone for a while, wondering just what was going on, then got moving.