Dinner was delicious and I can't remember ever feeling more full in my life. It was also hella expensive. Eleven dollars for the basket of tenders and fries, nine for the mozzarella sticks, five for the pudding, five for the milkshake, five for the drink, and seven for the salad. How in the world does Lucas afford that? Especially since he paid for two sets of that. Does his family's business really pay that much?

Right now, we're walking towards my apartment in silence. I don't really know what to say – as I told him, I don't really have friends. I've never been one to socialize, and he's only doing this because I'm a client needing help. Chances are, most of it's in the interest of having me renew my membership after a month.

"What are you thinking about?" Lucas asks when we're halfway to my house.

"How well your job must pay to afford that sort of thing regularly," I answer honestly. "Does being a personal trainer at a center for power users really pay that much?"

"Not at all," he snorts. "I get paid fifteen an hour, which is only about two an hour more than a personal trainer at a normal workout center in the area. In the upper districts, it's only a few dollars short. So I get paid about normal here."

"Did you say you go there regularly, though?" I ask.

"Yeah," he answers.

"Living with your parents to cut down on expenses to afford that?" I ask.

"I have a second job," he informs me. "Personal bodyguard for someone in the upper districts. I'm paid by gig, charge five hundred an hour for that, always rounded on the hours. I usually work a single gig each week, two to three hours each time. Once every four or five weeks, though, he asks me to do a second gig."

"Damn," I say. "Personal security pays that much?"

"When you're as good as me, yeah," he nods. "I have seventeen years of martial arts training and a pretty decent ability set that I've been training in just as long. I'd pit my powers against the Sivalshi Guardians any time."

He stops and gives me an apologetic look.

"Sorry," he says. "I'm used to dealing with people who know I don't like them, not people who support them."

"It's fine," I say. "We have our differences of opinion, but that doesn't mean we can't get along."

"Thanks," he says, and we resume walking. "That job makes me go from needing a roommate to afford a semi-decent apartment and still feed myself to being able to live on my own and buy extras."

At four grand a month, minimum, he could probably afford a decent apartment in the middle districts from just that job and still afford a decent amount of food. I guess he probably wants to be closer to his family, though, and likes helping out at the training center.

"What's the ability you're the best with?" I ask. "It is light-stepping? You mentioned you were about double or so the norm for starting, right?"

"Yeah," he answers. "Though the first thing you awaken isn't always your strongest ability, even if it's a bit better. For all we know, you might end up superior with a shadow whip over shadow-walking."

"So yours is something different?" I ask.

"I can summon beasts," he nods. "Most who have such an ability can only summon one thing, and it's usually not large. It might take them most of their life to power up enough to increase its strength significantly compared to starting. My light beasts? I can summon over twenty of them, and my first one, a wolf, is already triple in strength from when I first summoned it, which was when I was ten. It was… an accident."

He chuckles at the memory of his first time summoning. Most people discover their power by accident, though I guess in cases like his, where the parents knew he'd have something, they have the kid try different things until it manifested. After Lucas told me about people having multiple abilities in actuality, I'd assumed that they were usually discovered through training, not accident.

Looks like I was wrong.

"That said," he tells me. "With how far you can go as your starting point, shadow-walking probably is your strongest. Your strongest ability is almost always the one that's ridiculous compared to the norm."

"So what does that mean for me?" I ask. "I mean, it doesn't seem like there's much to it, so it being that 'strong' isn't really beneficial, right?"

"Not so," he says. "With an ability like that being your strongest, you'll probably be able to reduce how much magic it costs you rather decently in comparison to others. Mine got down to a certain cost, then stayed there no matter how much I trained. You'll probably manage to reduce it even more, meaning you can make more jumps before running out of juice. Second, you'll probably be able to reduce the cooldown time pretty well. I can manage about fifty short jumps before I start lagging. You might manage a hundred or more before starting to lag again once you're trained up, and that might only take you a year or two. Your skill with it will be improved by it being your best."

"Sort of like you and your summoning of light beasts," I say.

"Yep," he says. "I could stop training my magic entirely for twenty years the day you learn to summon shadow beasts, if you ever do, and after twenty years, my skill with it would be far superior still simply because that's my strongest and not yours. I can summon more beasts, summon them faster, and summon a more versatile range than others. My grandpa can summon three beasts, and he can manage to summon two at a single time. He's been summoning for almost sixty years now. I've been summoning for ten, and I can already summon three at once. And I can keep them out longer than he can keep one out.

"So don't think yourself too special," he shoots me a grin. "Everyone's got their own best and it's unfair to compare your ability with something you're normal for against someone who's got it as their best."

"Makes sense," I say, then a thought comes to me. "Lucas, it takes me an hour and a half to recover my magic right now, but I'm only supposed to train for two hours for best results? Wouldn't it be better to train that basically every time I'm at full?"

"Sure, but not for increasing your power with it," he tells me. "Two hours from start to finish of training, regardless of how little you're able to do. It's just how magic works."

"Oh," I say, then am silent for a few moments as I think over that. "So what am I doing in that time between? Just… resting?"

"Agility training."

"Agility training?" I ask.

"Yeah," he answers. "You can do a little bit of physical training there, too. Would certainly help you with running around if you need it for the security job. Between step sessions, you can train in the same arena, running between and jumping over the blocks. They're actually perfect for that, and we change the setup every day, too, so you won't be able to just learn a route and time things perfectly by knowledge instead of through what experience tells you."

"Okay," I say. "What should I wear for the training sessions? I'm not running around naked…"

"Bring some shorts," he tells me. "If you really want, a sleeveless, too. You'll get warmed up pretty fast and have to take them off for half a minute, anyway. That's for the power training. For the martial arts, we'll supply you with a gi, it comes with the gold membership."

"Okay," I say. "Thanks."

"No problem," he says.

We go quiet again, as I don't know what else to talk about and he doesn't seem to have anything to say. I really hope that our difference in opinion regarding the Patron won't affect my training. He seems nice and I'd hate to end up needing to deal with a different trainer because we can't get along over something like that.

Lucas and I reach my apartment building, then I take him up to my room, looking around at it. It's a slight mess. Every apartment here is a studio apartment, with only a separate bathroom and separate closet.

My apartment has a couch against one wall with a coffee table in front of it. A mattress rests in the corner of that wall and the one with the window facing outside. Between those is a chest of drawers angled with the short end touching the wall, the drawers facing my mattress just to 'separate' the living room and bedroom a little. My bathroom is opposite of the bed, with the door facing my bed, though I keep it closed for obvious reasons. Beside the bathroom is the closet then the kitchen, and past that is the front wall of my apartment, which we just stepped through.

Small and cozy, but it's home.

There's my towel from my shower earlier resting on the floor where I dropped it, along with my clothes from yesterday. My bed's not made, the three blankets on it tossed haphazardly across it, the pair of pillows resting unevenly. It's not visible at first glance, but I know there are a bunch of forks in the sink, and there are some glass cups sitting on the counter, since they need washing.

The recycling bins are overflowing with the plastic ramen containers, the paper lids that sealed them closed before use, and the foil wrappers for the breakfast pastries. My trash can, on the other hand, doesn't overflow. The bin for the compost stuff – like used napkins and paper towels, things that shouldn't be recycled the normal way – is full, but not overflowing.

I need to take the recycling down to the bins so all of that can be reused. Supposedly, before the Rift Calamity, most of this stuff was just trash, stuff that couldn't be recycled. With resources as scarce as they are for some things, though, everything that can be recycled is being made to be recycled.

This is especially true on the cities on the great beasts, since we don't go near land very often. We have to make do with the resources available here most of the time, so the rules regarding trash are pretty strict to make the most of what we get.

My apartment is definitely a mess. I was going to pick up the dirty laundry when I got back, and I was planning on doing my dishes later. Someone with as much money as he does probably has his apartment neat and tidy, and I wouldn't be surprised if he has a maid, too. This place probably looks filthy to him. At least the carpet doesn't need vacuuming, though it does smell a little just from how old it is and the damp that sometimes seeps in.

Nothing I can do about that, though. Scented stuff costs too much, a deep-clean for the carpet does as well, and so does one of those things that draw in the moisture from the air to prevent the issue of the moisture seeping in and making everything smell musty.

Yeah, he probably thinks this place is filthy.

"Um," I hurry over and pick up the dirty laundry. "You can see the kitchen, uh, there."

"Hey," he chuckles. "This is one of the cleanest apartments I've ever been in."

As I dump my clothes in the hamper, I remember the letter, envelope, money, and earpiece. They're all still sitting on the couch, and I hastily move them into a drawer in the coffee table after grabbing a few extra bills, thankful that Lucas didn't seem to notice them. If he did, he probably assumed it was from the offer or something.

Lucas goes through my cabinets, muttering to himself, and I make my bed as he does.

"Okay," he approaches me. "You definitely need to get some stuff. You literally only have ramen and breakfast pastries. That's… not healthy at all. How big is your food budget?"

"Uh… about five hundred dollars for the next month," I answer.

"Good," he says. "Because you have a few bowls that probably never get used, a bunch of forks, a bunch of glass cups, a bunch of instant-ramen, and a bunch of breakfast pastries. Oh, half a quart of milk. Is this seriously normal for you?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," he lets out a breath that tells me that he's trying not to say something. "We are buying you some dishes, too. Proper pots and pans, a better variety of utensils, cooking utensils, plates, and a few other things."

"I don't think I can afford all of that," I tell him.

"While you were making your bed and I was trying not to pull my hair out at your diet," he tells me. "I looked up some shops nearby, and-"

"You have wifi?" I ask. "Isn't that expensive? Same for a phone that can actually pull that up?"

"Private bodyguard for someone in the upper districts, remember?" He chuckles. "Yeah, it's expensive. I bet your phone's only about twenty a month. Mine's a hundred and twenty. It's worth it, though."

"Damn," I say. "If the guy does hire me, I'm hoping I get paid enough for that."

Though I'd be grateful if the Patron only pays me enough to continue living here, eating better, and training at the center. That's really enough for me. Anything extra would be a bonus to me.

"Good luck," he says. "Anyway, I found a place that you can buy that stuff at."

"Pretty sure just a set of pots and pans would cost a pretty penny," I say. "Every time I've seen them in stores, they're at least a hundred to a hundred and fifty for the lower-end stuff."

"Yeah," he says. "That's pretty much how it is. Is using a blender acceptable here? Or would that disturb the neighbors?"

"Probably disturb the neighbors," I answer. "I can hear it anytime the gal next door has her boyfriend over."

"Must make it hard to sleep," he says.

"Nah," I respond. "All I have to do is holler 'THERE'S A MONSTER IN MY CLOSET!' and they stop."

"Oh, jeez!" He laughs.

"The first few times I did it," I grin at him. "I heard thumps upstairs. Eventually found out that the upstairs neighbor had literally fallen in her laughter. The neighbor with the boyfriend now tries to be a bit quieter, but gets a reminder that everyone can hear it anytime they get too loud."

"You're ridiculous," he says. "Let's head out, the one place is only open until midnight and I'm probably taking up too much of your time as it is."

Unsurprisingly, I find myself not minding that he's taking up my time. Surprisingly, he hadn't made a comment about the state of my apartment. His only complaint is apparently my kitchen.

"You're paying me back by helping me off-the-clock to get this stuff set up," I walk over to the recycling bins. "Though if you really want to make it up to me a bit more, you can help me carry these down. I can only manage two bags at a time, the bulk is a bit much for me to succeed in going down the steps with two in one hand."

"Sure," he says. "I'll follow your lead on this, then we can head to the store."