The next morning was unforgiving. Keynes’s head felt like it’d been used as a basketball. He struggled for a few moments, cursing himself for going out and drinking alcohol. He should have known better. His time was limited.

He got up and ground his teeth as the headache renewed. Whatever they’d used in the alcoholic beverage, had nasty side effects.

Slowly, he got off the bed and realized that he was in his cabin. He didn’t remember returning here. At some point, he’d fallen asleep and that was it… or was it?

His photographic memory was useless. There is no point in dwelling on this. I won’t find answers in the empty cabin anyway. He checked the time. He had an hour before training started. It was going to be a rough day.

***

“Don’t tell me anything else, please,” Keynes told the other trainees as they counted his feats from the last night. Apparently, he’d woken up at some point and started crying, then danced, calling Vivena’s name, sang and challenged a few troopers to a fight.

They called in security and had to take him home. Nice.

Abashed, Keynes turned from them and focused on the training ahead of him. He had a week. He had to give it his best.

***

Your Strength attribute reached Maximum Advancement.

Level up to gain the improvements.

(Remaining time: 1 year)

Current essence absorption: 80%

Further Strength attribute improvement for Level 1 is impossible.

When Keynes saw the system message he stopped the push-ups and cried out his satisfaction. Others looked his way, confused.

“Are you still drunk?” Oxford Sioux called out from the other side of the gym.

Keynes’s personal trainer approached him hastily with determination. Keynes smiled. He got the first attribute maxed out. Only four—no, five now, to go. Still, he was immensely happy that it finally happened.

“What’s the matter?” asked Keynes’s personal trainer.

Keynes glanced at Kaito Ren who stood by a wall, watching him. There was no obvious expression on the head trainer’s face but he didn’t care.

“I maxed out Strength.”

“Really?” the personal trainer asked, surprised. Didn’t Kaito Ren tell them about Keynes’s request?

Daiyu Fen was by Keynes’s side in an instant.

“What about others attributes?” she asked.

Keynes looked at her finding intensity in her gaze. He could swear that he saw something solidify in the way she held herself.

“Not yet, unfortunately.”

She nodded to him, mouthing ‘good job’ then turned to return to her training. Samuel King approached him and put his hand on Keynes’s shoulder.

“Are you two…” he didn’t finish the sentence.

“No.”

The black-skinned trainee relaxed visibly. It only irked Keynes a little that Samuel King looked like the epitome of a perfect athlete with a handsome face and this guy still worried about being rejected. Keynes, of course, didn’t care about these things as he’d reminded himself many times.

“So, what does it mean?”

“That I am one step closer to get stronger.”

“Aren’t you strong already?”

The personal trainer decided to step in and explain it in Keynes’s stead. Keynes didn’t mind this.

“You can gain better attribute bonuses upon levelling with maxed out attributes.”

“I don’t exactly follow.”

“Can you tell me more?” Lazark appeared among them. “I am interested. No one told us about maxing out our attributes.”

As the dam broke and questions flooded the personal trainer, other personal trainers decided to join the fray and help him. Keynes approached Kaito Ren who didn’t move from the spot.

“You did it,” Kaito Ren said as he watched the other trainees peppering the personal trainers with questions, minus Daiyu Fen who was training alone.

“Yes. It says I have a year and improving my Strength further is impossible.”

This raised Kaito Ren’s brows. He pushed himself off the wall.

“The System told you as much?”

In his excitement, Keynes didn’t mind telling him. He nodded as he inquired what now. There was no point in training Strength any further. Did it mean he could focus on other attributes from now on?

“Check your level progression,” Kaito Ren instructed him.

Keynes did so and was surprised that his progression dropped by 20%. Why was that?

“It dropped. Why?”

“Get back to your training,” Kaito Ren called out to the other trainees then added quietly to Keynes. “Follow me.”

They left the main gym and walked upstairs to Director Wolf’s office. During their short stroll, Kaito Ren told Keynes something that gave the young man pause.

“It’s still a secret and I only know because I accidentally overheard it and Director Wolf decided to explain to me what was going on. Since Vitality has been reinstated, a few who had maxed out their attributes noticed penalties on their progression. It hadn’t been the case before.”

Keynes kept the shock off his face. This couldn’t be good. On the other hand, 20% off his progression was more time. Unfortunately, it was 20% off the current progression, not the absolute value so in effect, he lost around 13%.

Progression toward Level 2: 45%

At the same time, he could imagine the faces of the top brass. They couldn’t be happy about this and that was worrisome. It wasn’t all though. Kaito Ren’s information confirmed that somewhere out there were people who were maxing out their attributes as they were speaking. It should hardly be a surprise. The world had billions of people. It would be very worrying if no one tried to max out their attributes.

Kaito Ren knocked on the director’s door.

“Come in.”

They entered the office, Kaito Ren closed the door and immediately said.

“Keynes just maxed out his Strength.”

“And?” the director perked up.

“The same as others.”

“Shit,” Director Wolf cursed. “If the Inner Circle determine the penalty detrimental to their plans, we may be back to square one.”

Keynes knew he couldn’t let that happen. Level 5 possessed an intimidating strength but it needed to be said.

“I won’t level up until I max out all my attributes.”

Strangely, it came out easier than he expected. Reactions from both men were also different from what he’d thought.

“I understand and I fully support you here. I want your group to be absolute elite among other elites. I will be speaking with the High Lord later today and will push for more time.”

Then Kaito Ren added.

“While Keynes’s Talent is a state secret, you still may tell the Inner Circle that Keynes cannot fulfil his duty without maxing out his attributes.”

Director Wolf didn’t inquiry about Keynes’s duty as it was explicitly linked to his Talent. Not that Keynes saw it as his duty. This whole World Government trapped him for now. He couldn’t leave without getting strong. This was the hardest thing to come to terms with. The powerlessness.

But soon it would change. He promised himself. He’d no longer be weak and agreeable. He would never again be trapped like this.

He returned to the training. He didn’t need to train Strength but both Dexterity and Will still required a lot of physical effort.

The next two days blurred as Keynes put the fanatical endeavour into pushing himself to a breaking point. Even Daiyu Fen who was like him in her insane pursuit of power couldn’t keep up with Keynes.

Your Dexterity attribute reached Maximum Advancement.

Level up to gain the improvements.

(Remaining time: 1 year)

Current essence absorption: 70%

Further Dexterity attribute improvement for Level 1 is impossible.

He quickly checked his level progression.

Progression toward Level 2: 36%

Another 20% down. So, clearly, each maxed out attribute punished him, making levelling harder. Why was that? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? It only discouraged people from pursuing this. Was this intentional? It seemed so. The System was a big unknown. Who knew what hidden purpose it meant to accomplish? It nagged at Keynes, this curiosity to find out. Normally, his emotions would have been more restrained but since he had this emotional affliction his emotions were amplified. Searching for answers was a good goal, one he might chase once he was out of the World Government’s grasp. For now, he pushed his Will at the affliction. Only his Will and Spirit worked, but without essence, Spirit was harder to manipulate.

With his physical training already done, Keynes turned his focus inward, fighting his emotional state. There was a lot of work to be done. He was only sixteen but his personality did not feel so. One thing he noticed as he sat in a park a day after his second attribute was maxed out, was that part of him resented himself for how weak he’d been. He had let the World Government kidnap him and he behaved as if nothing wrong had happened, which was not the case. They denied his requests to see his family and he just walked away from the office like this was not a big deal.

He pushed at the affliction with his Will as the cold Scottish wind blasted his face. There was no rain today so the park was swarmed by visitors. Troopers preferred spending their free time in a pub so instead, the park saw the attention of support staff in many different forms and shapes: cleaners, clerks, various assistants to many officers stationed in the city and so on. The only troopers to appear in the park were those who patrolled it. Despite the World Government’s inclination toward absolute control, the city lacked CCTVs.

It still was impressive how much they had achieved in a month and a half.

Keynes cleared his mind as he needed to focus on the emotions. It wasn’t easy to locate the source of his affliction but with some experimentation out in the fresh air, Keynes’s Will managed to grasp at something. It wasn’t physical and therefore was very difficult to understand the concept of manipulating an immaterial affliction. With his emotions in his ‘hands’, he started squeezing them, leaving a void.

From the void came clarity. He knew what he had to do. But despite the valuable result, the draw on Keynes’s Will was significant.

Keynes sat on the bench until his Will ran out and emotions flooded him, currents of opposite wants and desires, noise that buzzed inside his head and made his chest tight from worry and impotence.

Did he even need them?

***

A day took him to finally do it.

Your Will attribute reached Maximum Advancement.

Level up to gain the improvements.

(Remaining time: 1 year)

Current essence absorption: 60%

Further Will attribute improvement for Level 1 is impossible.

Progression toward Level 2: 28%

His third maxed out attribute. He was halfway toward his goal. It was time to focus on Perception and Mind only then he could think about Vitality. Both Perception and Mind were trained to some degree, unlike Vitality which had appeared out of thin air recently.

Repeating a trick of closing off his emotions, Keynes’s mind achieved clarity once more and he knew where he needed to go.

A half an hour later, he stood in front of the pub. During the day, there were fewer people, which wasn’t ideal. But with the deadline closing on him, Keynes couldn’t be choosy.

Only one-third of guests were inside compared to the night he’d gotten drunk. The large open space was bad at muffling the sounds anyway and it was the reason why he came here.

A table in the middle of the pub was unoccupied while all the tables around were taken by loud troopers. Perfect.

Keynes sat down and closed his eyes then started distinguishing the voices of some people while keeping all other noises out. Another strange exercise but though it wasn’t physical it pulled at Keynes’s Will so he could stay still.

After a bartender asked him to leave because he refused to buy a drink, Keynes went to the rift compound—he still could go inside, even though his physical training was over—and put a worker’s coat on. From there he entered the rift with a snowy forest. He used the temperature as a tool to push his Perception further.

He also got into trouble when he stripped to underwear. Workers called in a support officer who asked Keynes to leave to which Keynes said no.

When Keynes revealed his navy blue uniform, the officer fled and returned with Kaito Ren.

After that, Keynes was left alone to his chilly training. Although, they sent the healer into the rift to watch him. The cold was biting and a couple of times Keynes’s resolution tottered on an edge.

But with these two exercises alone, it took him two more days to finally achieve it.

Your Perception attribute reached Maximum Advancement.

Level up to gain the improvements.

(Remaining time: 1 year)

Current essence absorption: 50%

Further Perception attribute improvement for Level 1 is impossible.

Progression toward Level 2: 22%

Only Mind and Vitality left and he had no idea how to train his mind. Intelligence was only a part of the Mind attribute so doing IQ tests would not suffice.

With three days until Esopp Earl was back and Keynes’s scheduled rift excursions would resume, he started to worry.

During a walk in the park, an idea snapped into existence. It wasn’t something he wanted to do but it was necessary. Keynes stilled his hands, took a deep breath and voided his emotions. In this state, he could remain for about an hour before his Will would run out. It was amazing how much noise emotions generated, skewing perception and misguiding decisions.

His best shot at finding a way to train Mind was to go to Director Wolf and ask questions.

***

“Wait, wait,” Director Wolf said to Keynes. Kaito Ren was also in the office. “You have already maxed out four out of six attributes? Why didn’t you say something?”

Because he had feared they might stop him but he feared no more.

“It was irrelevant,” he said flatly. “Now, will you share information on how to train Mind?”

Director Wolf frowned then gave Kaito Ren a sideways glance.

“You sound strange. Is everything alright?”

“Yes.”

“Ren, his behaviour isn’t normal. Is this something related to his Talent?”

“It is not.”

“I cannot help you, Keynes,” the director said finally, sounding sincere enough. “I am aware of a Perception training facility in Lisbon and perhaps they have something similar to train Mind somewhere but I have never heard of it.”

“Can't you make an inquiry?” Keynes’s tone made them pause. Being emotionless was refreshing—no worries or fear—and more importantly, instead of asking why, he only asked how.

“I can.”

“Thank you.” Keynes nodded and left without being dismissed. He didn’t try to be rude, he simply was running out Will and didn’t want to get caught in the office with those two and a flood of emotions.

He went down to the gym, slowly removing the hold on his emotions and feeling the onset of trepidation in his chest. Daiyu Fen was there as he expected. Upon seeing him, she stopped the weightlifting and approached. Keynes didn’t know how or why but there was a kind of bond between them after they’d shared their ‘secrets’ with each other.

“Did you max out all your attributes?” she asked without hesitation.

“No. Still have Mind and Vitality to go.”

Judging by her expression, Keynes guessed that she wasn’t expecting him to achieve this many attributes.

“Impressive.”

“What about you?”

“I am close to finishing up Strength and Dexterity but Will is a tough one.”

Their conversation got the attention of Samuel King who hastily swung by.

“Yo, Keynes, what’s up?” His jovial tone was over the top.

“I’m doing fine, you?”

“Same,” he replied not peeling his eyes from Daiyu Fen who paid him no mind. “What is bringing you back? I thought you mastered the attributes and you won’t bother with training anymore.”

“I didn’t master anything. I maxed out four out of six and I am stuck at Mind and Vitality. Mostly Mind.”

Samuel King raised his hands.

“Sorry, bro, but that’s not my department.” He was about to return to his training when he half turned back and said. “We should totally have another night out. All of us.”

“We should,” Keynes lied.

When Samuel King was out of earshot, Daiyu Fen said, “I don’t know what has happened to him but he has been behaving like a cretin recently. And look how hard they train, they aren’t even out of breath.”

That was true. Keynes didn’t notice it because his mind was consumed by something else but without Kaito Ren in the gym, the personal trainers showed leniency. At this pace, they’d not reach any attribute advancements before levelling up. They’d gain some stat bonuses but they were going to be much poorer, according to Kaito Ren who understood the difference better due to extensive research the Oriental League had done.

“Look,” Keynes showed Daiyu Fen the four screens.

She took the information greedily, frowning extensively. Keynes knew what she was confused about. He had the same feelings.

“Why does the absorption go down?”

Keynes mused her question for a moment. He’d asked it himself too.

“My guess is that our bodies become better and need more essence to level up. It is basically a choice between quality over quantity.” He decided to use one of the examples his father would have used. “When you make a glyph, discarding knowledge and skill, your most important resource is time. Creating an average quality glyph is easy, I could even do it. It would take me a few days to carve it out of a rock or wood. But its effectiveness would be very low and to make it better I would have to spend time, a lot of time. At some point, improvements to the glyph would slow to crawl and give diminishing returns on the invested time.”

“It feels like the System wants to test us. The time limit might be brutal if you don’t have access to several rifts every day.”

“I agree and that’s why I’ll max out all the attributes even if the government will tell me no. I don’t care about their wants anyway. There must be a good reason the System does it.” Some extra stat bonuses perhaps?

Daiyu Fen focused on Keynes without saying anything. It made him uncomfortable. Then she stepped closer, which made Keynes go stiff.

“I will come to your cabin tonight. I may know of a way to train the Mind attribute.”

Stiffness didn’t go away until he was out of the compound.