“Why is Knot helping me grow?”

Line laughed and tugged his beard. “Beat me and I might tell you.”

The two of them were in gym full of dummies, training mats and wooden versions of weapons. While the shop and displays covered the front of the building; the bakery, a squat dining room and the gym was squashed in the back end.

The two them stood in an empty ring at the centre. Few others were practicing next to them.

Line wagged his fingers at Corn in a come-hither motion. “Let’s start without Stats.”

Corn agreed and charged at Line.

He threw a hook and followed it up with an uppercut. Line stepped back, then side stepped and returned with a few crosses of his own.

Corn dodged the first few but got hit by the last one. It barely stopped him, but Line managed to use that slight pause to head butt him out of the ring.

Corn charged at Line again and shot him a punch. Before it could reach, Line reached forward, ducked and used Corn’s momentum to lift him and toss him out of the ring.

Corn dusted himself up and entered the ring again. “Is this a gang?”

As the two circled around each other making no moves, Line replied, “No.”

The moment he closed his mouth, Line charged at Corn. Corn waited till Line was close enough and side stepped. Without skipping a beat, Line swiveled on his left foot and arced his right foot onto Corn’s back.

Corn was pushed out of the ring again. The two of them sparred several more rounds. Corn found that the crazier he went, the greater the ease with which the human could push him out of the ring. But regardless of his moves, in a few seconds Corn was always on his ass.

Line helped him and beckoned in him again. “You’re right. You do suck balls in hand-to-hand combat. You understand the bare bones principles of boxing and have excellent situational awareness.

But the problem is you only have a hammer in your toolbox and when all you have is a hammer everything is a fucking nail. What’s worse is you’re so obvious. You’re practically shouting your moves before you make them.

In real battles you need to mix your martial arts. But before that let me ‘correct’ some of the bad habits you have formed.”

Line showed him how Corn executed a cross, and he repeated the move to show the correct form. He made Corn repeat the moves again and again.

He also examined Corn’s hands and nodded. “Good. You have a high Vitality or else I wouldn’t encourage too much boxing for a Mage. You people have weak hands.

This time, maintain your distance and use your Magic.”

Corn shot two ice blades at Line. He dodged them both. “Again,” he shouted.

He followed up with four ice blades, spreading them across the ring to stop Line from dodging them. Line dodged the first three and stood in front of the last one, letting the ice blade hit him. Core was firmly cycling in his chest and the ice blade only cut his shirt.

Line removed his torn shirt and tossed to the side. Although he only had a few inches on Corn, his bulging muscles, broad shoulders and hairy chest made him look more bear kin than human.

“Is that all you’ve got? Give me the strongest shit you’ve got.”

Corn hesitated. The core in Line’s was like a bulwark.

Almost experimentally, he formed a simple circle and pushed out an ice blade. Instead of aiming it at Line he threw it at the furthest wall. Half the blade entered the wall. It was a sturdy wall.

The next one he aimed at Line. Corn was shocked. He had ample preparation, but Line didn’t dodge the blade. Instead, the blade hit him on his chest and bounced off.

“Weak!” shouted Line and ran towards Corn.

Corn rushed backwards, careful to maintain the range while shooting circled ice blades as quickly as he could. The floor shook as Line charged at Corn. He easily blew aside all Corn’s ice blades.

Corn began to prepare his trap. But within seconds, Line had closed the distance and swept his leg at Corn. There was hardly any core in the attack, but Corn managed to dodge it and ran to the side.

Line followed Corn and stepped straight into the icy patch on the mat. Instead of slipping on it, he used the sheer weight of the core in his legs to crush it into shards.

At this point, Corn was almost out of mana and his trap had failed miserably. Line quickly caught him in a head hold.

Corn dangled as the blood rushed to his head. There was very little core in Line’s arms, but he maintained the hold until Corn tapped Line’s arms in defeat.

As Line let go, Corn drove all his remaining attacked into an ice blade and drove into Line’s stomach. Only for the blade to shatter and Line shoved Corn aside.

Corn lay panting on the floor, as Line commented, “Good. You know how to fight dirty. It’s a lesson I learned the hard way. In true battle, there are no rules.

I have to say, I haven’t met a mage who wasn’t a prissy brat and held their wands like a second dick. Compared to them you are a lot more fluid. I have to commend your work even if you went ahead and became a crazie.”

Line paused and glared at Corn before continuing, “But you really lack power. If you have a determined enemy, even if they use one of the lower Stats, you are fucked. Truly fucked.”

Corn sat up. “Most people don’t have core as thick as you do.”

Line slapped his thighs and laughed uproariously, “I’m afraid you’re mistaken. For a level 2, I really don’t have nearly enough core as I should.”

Corn stood up, dazed. He’d seen levels in his Stat Screen but with a lack of knowledge simply ignored it. His curiosity was ignited. “What are levels?”

“I suppose Knot hasn’t got to that part yet. When you accumulate your Stat points up to a certain number. You can level up your Stat and get a body imbuement. The kind of body imbuement will depend on your Stat. You probably haven’t seen a lot of people with level 2 Stats. Your best chance is to resort to trickery or depend on teamwork.”

Corn was silently thinking. Some of the bodyguards guarding Moon were definitely level 2, maybe even the panda kin accompanying BlueEyes and perhaps even the mercenary healers. The key point was the density of the energy.

“I can’t teach you how to use Magic. But I can teach battle strategies, tactics and proper form. You have a good battle awareness, but you just throw yourself all over the place without any proper structure. Let me teach you a couple of basic forms.”

Since Corn had already eaten for the day, he only allowed his mana reserves to replenish naturally. Once his sight was back, Line guided Corn through a martial art he called the Flickering Radiance for the next couple of hours. He made Corn exercise certain muscle groups, followed by practicing a series of weird stances. Next, they moved on to series of movements.

Line only covered the simpler forms of the martial art. Overall, Flickering Radiance emphasized speed and utilizing the opponent’s momentum. After they had gone through at least fifty drills of each form, Line made him spar with an elf.

“You’re not good enough to beat me. But beat him and I’ll tell you why Knot was helping you.”

The elf was an Endurance user so ultimately, they were both ranged fighters. Without Stats, the two of them were an even match. The first two fights the elf beat Corn easily but once Corn started using the martial art he saw that Line was correct.

The elf could predict his moves. Once he followed the more efficient forms of boxing and the martial arts that Line showed him, the elf couldn’t predict what he would do. And so, the two of them played a game of feints with the elf running out of endurance long before Corn did. Thus, he managed to narrowly beat the elf.

At the end Line nodded approvingly and said, “It’s gonna take some time to break your bad habits. But it can be done.

Tell me, do you know what a fixer is?”

“Someone who fixes equipment?”

“No. A fixer is someone who solves problems. Problems that the rich and powerful either can’t fix or can’t be bothered to fix.

You were in the Border Reserves. You’ve seen mercenary companies. What Knot is trying to do is form a mercenary company that is less violent and more attuned to problem solving inside the city.”

Corn mulled it over; he knew his status as a mage was why Knot was interested but the nymph was helping him, so he didn’t see a problem for now.

“Now go practice the forms I taught you.”

Corn went at it for hours, only stopping at Line’s insistence that he rest. As Line explained: without rest, there was no recovery. He waited up for Knot, hoping to continue with his training of Desire.

His mana reserves were completely replenished, so he pondered how he would train with Magic. He needed to improve his control, for starters. Seeing the mage shape water mana as a ball, greatly inspired him. He squeezed out water mana, hoping to control it, but it simply jetted into the air.

He squeezed it out softly, but the water merely trickled down. He tried several times to get the water to hang in the air, but his control did not go so far.

Instead, he pushed the water mana onto the ground and squeezed it, freezing it into ice. He then tried to release the ice back to water. His control strained as he managed to turn some of the ice mana back to water mana.

It was more feasible. He practised turning the water to ice and back to water again. He emptied more than half his reserves before he stopped.

Then he went back to controlling the water in midair. As he did, he felt marginal improvements on his control, but he still couldn’t control the water mana.

Would his control be greater with circled water mana? It turned out that it would not. The only difference was that the water puddled down into the floor instead of dispelling in seconds. In fact, even managing to draw just the right amount of water mana to form a single thread failed multiple times.

The basic water mana he drew from his nodes was a haphazard sea of squirming eel like threads. While the threads in the ice mana were less fluid. Shaping the ice was intuitively easier and he found himself trying to make ice into basic geometric shapes. He progressed from ice cubes and ice spheres to ice models of houses that a child might make out of clay.

That’s when he felt his mana reach its last few points. He stopped his training and lay on the sofa.

When he woke up, no one else was up yet. Yawning, he decided that now was a good time to finish his other duties.

He snuck into the Underworld tunnels and cautiously headed towards the gang’s old base. Only when he was sure there were no Guard or intruders did he enter.

Shards of ice hung around the base like stalagmites and stalactites. The ice had spread from where he had stood. Even breathing the frigid air caused Corn to shiver. The level of water in the reservoir had lowered by a fourth and a layer of thick ice covered the top of the water.

The gush of water and pumps from the treatment facilities and towards the other parts of the city was louder than ever. Perhaps something was broken.

He examined the spot of his death. The mana threads were thick enough to impede his vision. He had to place his head on the floor to barely make out the tattered remains of his old armour. There was no sign of a Life counter but nested within the hole-ridden goblin leather was the ring.

Corn was overjoyed.

He ate through twelve cubes of the crisp, exquisite, perfectly salted ice to reach the ring. Part of him felt bad for letting Hunger grow but he felt that the gains far exceeded the losses.

He slipped the ring into his gym clothes and left.

Corn slipped off the hood of his jersey. With his bald grey head and tinted googles on, as long as his mouth was closed, he could easily be mistaken for a rock nymph. There was a Guard standing at the entrance of Purple Hearts, but he stifled a yawn and waved Corn ahead.

Even at the back entrance, there was a bare-chested man wearing a thong and holding a Screen. He smiled warmly at Corn.

“Is the fairy inside?” asked Corn.

The man’s smile stiffened, and he pointed upwards, letting Corn enter.

“Bug boy! And here I hoped you had finally died,” the fairy cried out shrilly.

The rest of the gang paused and looked at the elevator for a second and then got back to their work. The hustle and bustle of the old days had returned.

Corn beamed a smile at her, “Sorry to disappoint.”

The fairy simply fluttered away, and Corn trailed after her.

“Care, with that old pervert dead, you’re responsible for him now.”

The soul eater got up to protest but the fairy went on, “Don’t care. He uses Magic. As of now, you’re the only one with a Higher Stat. Now is not the time to slacken our efforts.”

She immediately fluttered off.

“What do you mean by Night is dead?”

Care massaged her temples. “It was a surprise to me too. I figured the Guard would have just taken a life or two and let him go, not kill him for good. Especially a vampire. But the Guard must really be pissed that WarCode walked away free.”

“Can the Guard do that?”

“Without a case you mean? Yes, they technically can. It is a lot easier if you’re an Indentured Servant and a crazie at the same time.

Neither of us knew him that well and emotions are not my thing, so let us move on. As of now, we still need 198 million credits for bail. Our current plan is to retrieve the items from the vault and sell them. Since your own network of contacts is shoddy, I would like you to scout our old base.”

“Ohh, I already did that, there’s no Guard hanging around. Err, also remember the soul line you attached between my bracelet and Wall.”

Corn went on, explaining how Wall had used a soul attack and how she had fallen asleep. After that Wall had not responded.

Care smirked.

Corn was shocked, normally her lips were perpetually a straight line. She rarely expressed emotion, the moments he had seen her smile could be counted on one hand.

“That is a fundamental nature of ghosts. Exorcists often use that to banish them. Once they have been exiled to the Abyss and they have no tethers to the living, they are over.

She is gone for good.”