Modak raised a brow and held out his hand toward his brother. With a grumble, Pock revealed his phone again and placed it in Modak’s hand, and Modak quickly took a look. There were some pixel errors and the touch screen didn’t work that well anymore either.

  “Hm … alright, I’ll swap the screen out later. But seriously, I’ve told you a thousand times, just put a damn screen protector on it already,” Modak said, giving the phone back to Pock, who just silently stared down at the table, his face still dyed by that dark blush. Modak glanced down at his brother’s leg. “Did you hurt yourself when you fell?”

  After a few moments, Pock shook his head. With a smile, Modak got up and grabbed his plate; he roughed up Pock’s hair while walking over to the sink, then put the plate inside. He looked at his mother. “Do you need me to drop off something from the store later?”

  After a few moments of thinking, she nodded her head. “If you could grab some pickled mandrake, and maybe some more flour, that would be great.”

  “Of course.” Modak smiled, then slowly walked back to his room while making a note on his phone to buy eggs and look into a replacement phone screen. Right before he could walk through his door, his sister Kora walked down the hallway, scratching her belly while still half asleep. Modak raised a brow. “Up already?”

  Glaring daggers at Modak, Kora replied, “How can I not with how much you’re yelling. Pretty energetic for someone who came home like three hours ago.”

  “… I was helping out Dad,” Modak replied, but Kora raised a brow, confused.

  “Wait, I thought you went over to Ryan’s place.”

  “Yeah, but when I came home, I saw that Dad was still at the garage, so … what was I supposed to do?”

  “He’s a grown ass man, Modak,” Kora sighed. “It’s not your job to pick up after Dad.”

  “It’s fine, it wasn’t that big a deal. We managed to finish pretty quickly anyway,” Modak replied, stepping into his room.

  Kora looked at her younger brother with a concerned smile. “Just … take it easy, alright? You’re looking really tired these days.”

  “I’m fine, but … thanks for worrying,” Modak replied, and slowly closed his door. With a longing glance at his bed, he walked over to his closet, then grabbed the first thing he saw to change into. As he was changing, though, his phone started buzzing.

  Picking it up, his trousers in his other hand, Modak saw a text that he didn’t expect.

  Ryan

  Yo, who wants to go shopping with me? Going to a dungeon soon

  Silvia

  Wtf you awakened like yesterday

  Ryan

  Yeah and I’m itching to go already

  You

  Don’t you have to register to go to dungeons?

  Ryan

  ya

  already getting ready to go to the awakened center rn

  Yanna sent me some stuff to prep me beforehand

  Silvia

  but why do you want to go to dungeons anyway? They’re so icky

  Ryan

  I was watching a video about a dungeon that formed in town recently, and Maximus gave me a quest to go take a look

  so I figured I might as well

  it’s a low danger dungeon so yk

  Silvia

  ooh damn, another quest?

  sounds fun then

  count me in! When are we meeting?

  You

  I’ll join too, but I’ve got an early shift so it would have to be after.

  Why are you guys even awake already? It’s 6:30.

  Silvia

  never went to bed in the first place <3

  Ryan

  same lol

  @Modak when are you off work today? Let’s just meet at the store at the end of your shift, there’s some stuff I want to get from there anyway

  You

  I’ll be done at 4pm

  Modak tossed his phone onto his bed and finished getting dressed. At least buying stuff shouldn’t take Ryan too long later, so Modak should be able to come home and just go into a coma without any trouble.

  Once he was fully dressed, Modak waited for Zigg and Mogh to finish getting ready and walked with them to the nearby subway station. As usual, they were messing around, so Modak had to walk behind them to keep them in line. He pushed them forward a bit as he wrangled them into the train car, making sure he always had them in his sight amidst the crowd that flowed into the train. It would take a while for them to get to their station, so Modak pulled the small book out of his bag and started to read.

  “Ew.” Zigg stared up at his brother, past the book’s edge. “Why’d you read on the subway?”

  “Because it’s the only place where you two can’t run off while I’m not looking,” Modak replied, his eyes flowing over the pages.

  “We’re not dogs, ya know?” Mogh scoffed, but Modak just rolled his eyes with a slight sigh.

  “Yup. Nine-year-old dogs tend to actually listen.”

  “Whatever,” Zigg replied, already moving on. “Can you help us with our homework again tonight?”

  “… You don’t even know what homework you’re getting today. Try to do it on your own first, and if you don’t understand something, I’ll help you out. Deal?”

  “Fiiine …” Zigg groaned. The rest of the train ride was a lot more quiet, at least in regard to the twins. Once they reached their station, Modak pushed the boys out of the train, and the three walked up to the street level. They followed the crowd of other kids walking to school, and before long, they split up. After Modak made sure that the twins were actually inside of the building, he started to walk to his part-time job.

  Since university was on break, he was trying to work as much as he could to make some extra money, which meant getting up early every day. It was just a nice feeling to have some spending money when he went out with Ryan and Silvia, and being able to support his parents a bit more was nice too, of course.

  The walk to the store Modak worked at took another fifteen minutes. It was originally a specialty store with foods from different cultures outside of Riveria, and they carried a lot of very specific foods for species with more specific food requirements as well. They even sold some specially produced stones for some avian species to keep in their gizzards. Generally, his work was fine, though dealing with customers was sometimes a bit awkward and uncomfortable. But since Modak was a bit more on the taller, stronger side of the spectrum, he worked in the warehouse and item-sorting section most of the time. His manager was fairly relaxed as well, so as long as it didn’t negatively influence his work, he was allowed to listen to music or, what he did most of the time, listen to some audiobooks. It was actually a decent opportunity to catch up on some stuff he had pushed back.

  But work itself was really quite monotonous, and eight hours would pass by agonizingly slowly. Though, Modak was sure it was a lot better than what Ryan was dealing with right now.

  A long yawn escaped Ryan’s mouth as he stepped into the Awakened Center. It was a large clean space that allowed any Awakened to get the support they needed. Depending on the direction that the Awakened wanted to go, they also offered classes for specific licenses, an emergency room that was capable of dealing with an Awakened’s strengthened body, as well as training rooms that could be rented. Though, the training rooms didn’t seem to be used that often.

  Also, compared to other bureaucratic and government buildings, it was so much less busy. Compared to the ten million people living in New Riverside, there were only about forty thousand Awakened spread all throughout, so that made sense. There was a reason why Ryan’s tiny hometown didn’t even have one of these; awakening was so rare that it wouldn’t make sense.

  There were a couple more people in here, but considering its size, it might as well have been empty. Ryan walked up to one of the counters. The clerk was a strigan woman with pure white feathers, looking at him with a gleeful chirp.

  “Good morning, my name is Aurora Carlyle. How can I help you today?” she asked in a happy voice that seemed to practically invite Ryan in. He quickly replied, though he was nervous about what was going to happen today. Yanna told him that he would probably end up having to fill up a ton of documents and even go through some tests since he had a unique class, so he really wasn’t all too excited about that. But if he wanted to go to a dungeon, he had to deal with it. Not having to pay a hundred-Gild fine for not registering in time was also a pretty good incentive, of course.

  “Good morning! I’m here to register, I awakened yesterday.”

  Aurora clapped the small talons at the ends of her wings together with a quiet hoot. “Congratulations! In that case, please follow me to a private room where we can complete the registration.” Aurora quickly stepped up from behind the counter and led Ryan to one of the elevators, which they took to the fourth floor together. Once there, Ryan was brought to a small office. The desk had a small name sign reading aurora carlyle on it.

  “Alright, in that case, let us get started. First, we need some generic information: name, age, place of residence, contact methods, and so on.” As she explained, Aurora pushed a keyboard over to Ryan and turned the monitor toward him so that he could quickly fill the standard information out.

  Simultaneously, she seemed to be typing in some things on a separate computer, and once Ryan was done, she took a look at the basic information.

  “Perfect. So, Mr. Aglecard, what is your class?”

  Ryan let out a nervous sigh. “So, yeah … it’s called ‘Spirit Keeper’? I couldn’t find any info about it online, so I think it might be a unique class?”

  Aurora tilted her head to the side for a moment, and then quickly snapped her sight back to her screen, as though she wanted to hurriedly check something. “I assume that is s-p-i-r-i-t, space, k-e-e-p-e-r?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  After checking things for a few more moments, Aurora turned back toward Ryan. “We will be verifying this information later anyway, but this is completely accurate?”

  “Uhm, yeah, of course … Is there a problem?” Ryan asked nervously. If this class really did turn out to be a dangerous class that only psychopaths could get … maybe he would be locked up right away? Of course, that was ridiculous, but considering Aurora’s shocked expression, that might as well have been the case.

  “No problem at all! Once again, congratulations on attaining a unique class! At least as far as our database is concerned.” Aurora didn’t look away from the screen, hurriedly typing and opening tons of documents. “However, this being the case, the process will be a little different today.”

  “How different, exactly? My friend has a decently rare class, and she told me that she had to take a bunch of tests … will that be the case?” Ryan wondered, and Aurora slowly looked over.

  “Yes, and no. The tests that we will be taking are different depending on the actual specs of the class and the specific circumstances. Now, especially for unique classes, while we would like to learn as much as we can, anything beyond the basic information is a voluntary process. That means we will record the exact stats you automatically gained access to as well as your skill information. The only part that is slightly different is that, because we are lacking that data, we would like to ask that you periodically give us information on your current stats, levels, skills, et cetera,” Aurora explained, and Ryan raised his brow, a bit surprised.

  “I don’t need to show you my skills?”

  “If you would like to, of course. However, as you have a class that has not yet been recorded otherwise, we have to act under the assumption that your class is tied very closely to your individuality. As such, even more so than for other classes, it is considered protected information. So, we will only proceed with any tests beyond the basic information as long as you agree.”

  As Ryan took a moment to think about it, Aurora moved some more documents over to the screen in front of Ryan.

  “Please just fill these out and then we will head back out for the tests.”

  As Ryan looked over the documents, he quickly glanced back at Aurora. “Oh, and I would like to apply for a Dungeoneering license as well, if I can.”

  “Of course! Though, that does require you to pass a simple test so we can make sure you know the rules and regulations surrounding dungeons, together with a small fee.”

  Ryan stopped for a moment, looking at the woman in front of him nervously. “How much would that fee be?”

  “That would be a hundred Gild total, including the processing fee as well as the printing fee for the actual physical license.”

  “… Sounds about right …”

  Chapter Six

  The Channel

  Ryan stepped through the large doors of the Awakened Center. In his hand, he was holding a small metal card, his Awakened license. On it was his name, date of birth, class, and a small symbol that showed that he passed the test for the additional Dungeoneering license. And though the process wasn’t particularly easy, he actually expected a lot worse.

  He did have to take a few tests where his current stats were evaluated, not just the ones that he actually unlocked but also the more common physical stats like strength, physicality, agility, and so on. However, besides that, it was all actually pretty chill. Ryan wasn’t aware, but there seemed to be some laws that had been specifically put into place to protect the privacy of the most rare classes that existed, such as unique or bloodline classes. That was why he didn’t actually have to tell them anything beyond the most basic information, as Aurora had explained to him.

  And considering that Ryan had no idea what the deal with his class was yet, he was quite happy about it too. That being the case, the process still took until 1 p.m., especially the Dungeoneering test at the end of it all. Luckily he knew a lot about this sort of thing already, so after taking a look at some of the practice materials that Aurora had given to him, he just tried the test out and passed with an almost perfect score.

  “Let’s just go grab some lunch.” Ryan stretched lightly and quickly pulled up a map on his phone. Just looking around, he was intimidated. Since there weren’t that many Awakened in the city, there was only a single Awakened Center. At least public transport was great to the Channel, though, something that Ryan didn’t really expect initially.

  Most of New Riverside was encased by a fork and confluence in the Galerian River and was split up into multiple boroughs. In the encased center was Upstream, the part of town where Ryan, Modak, and Silvia lived, and the oldest part of the city. There was also Copperbeach, a mostly industrial borough, as well as Lakeview, which included the parts of town that were submersed in the Galerian Lake that formed in this part of the river. At some point, the city spread beyond the western branch toward the mountains, creating the two boroughs of the Falls and Rapids due to the nature of the river adjacent to them, as well as beyond the eastern branch toward the forests, aptly named Eastbanks.

  And then, in the western branch, there was another island holding the smallest borough, the Channel. Even though it was the smallest, it was by far the richest part of the city, and it was clearly visible too. Compared to the old, historic buildings that Ryan was used to in Upstream, everything here was so new and simply massive. The skyline of this part of town was visible from literally everywhere in New Riverside, but being here, looking up at the skyscrapers from the street level was just ridiculous.

  “Fucking hell, man … this is crazy,” Ryan muttered, starting to walk around to follow the direction his map sent him, and soon enough he was sent into what, at first glance, looked like some kind of mall. There were shops all over the place, but just glancing at them, Ryan knew for a fact that he couldn’t even afford socks from any of them.

  Either way, this place wasn’t even his final destination yet; he wanted to go to this noodle place that he heard about on Loop that looked pretty decent, and for some reason it sent him through here. And then, after turning around the corner, Ryan saw the escalators that seemed to reach upward for miles. He wasn’t totally sure, but he figured he might as well take a look, and quickly stepped on the escalator.

  It wasn’t necessarily fast, but it was a lot better than having to walk up this far. And then, once he reached the top, Ryan stepped out of the building and was once more on street level. A bit taken aback and confused, he looked around to figure out what was going on. This was clearly a pedestrian zone, but he was walking by one of those earlier as well, and that was before going up what felt like ten miles on that escalator. Curious, Ryan kept walking around and soon noticed some railings at the edge of an open area, and quickly walked up to it. As he looked down, he saw nothing but a massive drop to the roads below.

  “Huh …” Ryan muttered, surprised. He didn’t expect things to be like this here in the Channel. It was a whole different world compared to what he was used to. Though, whatever the case, Ryan was hungry. After enjoying the view for another few moments, he turned back around and kept following the map to the restaurant. It was a small hole-in-the-wall place that seemed almost out of place in this neighborhood, though maybe that was the intention behind it. The old wood, the Shimarian style and décor, and the lovely, inviting vibe. Everything else in this part of town was so cold that Ryan felt almost unsettled, so this was a nice change.

  He stepped into the shop and took a seat at the counter before his order was quickly taken as well. Ryan watched curiously as the chef expertly used his four muscular arms to prepare the food just a few steps away from him. The smell of the broth and the braised pork practically made him salivate.

  When the bowl was finally placed in front of him and the steam of the soup heated up his face, Ryan couldn’t wait to dig in. Though, of course, he took a quick picture first and sent it to his group chat.

  You sure you don’t want anything? Ryan thought, inwardly looking at Maximus, though he just replied with a single short nod … Do you at least want to come out or something? I feel awkward enjoying myself while you’re stuck in there. You didn’t want to come out during any of the tests either.