Ryan threw the jacket over a chair and took off the vest. He pushed up his sleeves and undid his tie and some of the top buttons. As he did, both Fae and Yanna stared at him. Or, more specifically, his arm.

  “Ryan,” Yanna started, finally breaking the silence, “when did you get a tattoo?”

  Realizing that neither of them knew about it yet, Ryan looked down at his arm. Luckily, Tiar knew not to move around other people now unless they were specifically told it was fine to do so. Now there was a decision to be made. Ryan couldn’t tell them that he had bonded with something called a symbiote that was passively strengthening his physical growth, on top of having linked with his system to give him an additional class. Would they even believe that? If he told them that, Ryan felt like he wouldn’t be able to hide the rest of what was going on with the Aglecard family, either. At the very least, it wasn’t a decision that he could make without thoroughly thinking about it first.

  But Ryan couldn’t just brush it off as a tattoo, either. He was dealing with his friends there, who also happened to be the girlfriends of the two people he spent most of his free time with. It was possible they were going to see Tiar move at one point or another, and if he called it a tattoo now, that wasn’t something he could justify.

  “It’s a skill thing,” Ryan let out. He figured that might be the best thing to excuse Tiar as. “It’s part of a talent skill I learned last week that lets me construct part of one of the spirits’ bodies on myself. Hold on; I actually took a picture of it.”

  Hurriedly pulling out his phone, anxiously trying anything he could to convince them, Ryan pulled up a picture that he had taken during one of his test runs of the Spirit Armament skill. Yanna and Fae leaned in to take a look.

  “Oh, damn, seriously? That looks so cool!” Fae let out curiously. “Can you do it now?”

  “Ah, no, I can’t. I need, like, materials to build it, and for Maximus’s armor I need, like, a bunch of metal. Plus, it’s on cooldown anyway; I used it at the newly-awakened get-together thing earlier.”

  Yanna raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so, that’s why you’re wearing a suit. For a moment, I thought you three were on a date together.”

  “Ew,” Silvia let out, not averting her gaze from her sketchbook. Ryan slowly turned his head toward his friend.

  “You know, I don’t disagree, but that still hurt. I’m a catch, aren’t I?” he pointed out, placing his hand on his hip, as Silvia slowly looked up from the paper for the first time. She gave Ryan a once-over then slowly returned her attention back to the paper.

  “… Sure,” she replied.

  “Yanna, your sister is bullying me.” Ryan groaned, dropping down onto the edge of Silvia’s bed as Yanna laughed slightly.

  “Right, right, I’ll tell her off later. But also, the way you’ve been talking sounded like you have more than one spirit? I thought it was just Maximus.” The minotaur looked at Ryan curiously as Fae raised her eyebrows.

  “Oh, I thought the same just now! Did you make a contract with another one?”

  Before answering, Ryan looked inward, into Gaia’s domain. Though she seemed a bit exhausted from being around so many people earlier, it seemed like she was more than happy to introduce herself properly to Ryan’s friends. And so, as it was easier to show than to tell, Ryan asked Gaia to step out of her domain.

  As green threads of mana flowed out from the leg of Ryan’s trousers, the Golem’s body was promptly constructed. “Her name is Gaia. She’s a Garden Golem Spirit.”

  Gaia looked around, spotting Yanna and Fae before swiftly bowing her head to them as a greeting. Fae immediately sprang up and squatted on the ground next to her, trying to take a closer look. “Oh, wow! She’s so much bigger than Maximus. And are those flower buds?”

  “Yeah, so like, she’s still one-tenth scale, so they just have different base sizes. Ten meters sound pretty reasonable for a Golem, right?” Ryan grinned lightly. “And the flower buds are from one of her abilities. She basically takes care of our balcony garden, and now those same plants are growing on her body.”

  “That’s so cool!” Fae let out, with clearly pure curiosity, but Yanna was interested in knowing something else.

  “How did you even find these guys? Aren’t spirits supposed to be, like, super rare? And the famous ones don’t make contracts with people,” Yanna pointed out, and Ryan scratched the back of his head.

  “Actually, it’s not a proper contract. At least not from what I looked up online,” Ryan tried to explain. “Like, I found Maximus and Gaia’s cores, and then I built their bodies with the parts that my class provided to me. And then after that, it’s my job to take care of them. Housing them, letting them do what their concept aligns to, and just whatever else they want.”

  “Wait, seriously?” Yanna replied. “I’m acquainted with another summoner, and he described it super differently … He had to go on, like, months-long journeys to find spirits that suited him and then had to somehow find a way to convince them to form a contract with him … And then, after that, he can summon them from where they originally live to his own position.”

  Ryan scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, that’s how it usually goes, I guess. I’d say I’m just … lucky?”

  “… That’s it? Lucky?” Yanna asked, not sure what to think about that, and Modak scoffed lightly. He knew that going to deep into the background of Ryan’s class and the situations surrounding it wasn’t the best idea, so he figured changing the topic would help Ryan out.

  “I mean, with how often he’s dragged into fights by bad luck, he has to have some good karma built up there, right?” Modak pointed out.

  “But he involves himself in those fights,” Yanna retorted.

  “Well … sure, but it’s the bad luck to find himself in situations where he would need to involve himself. I don’t remember the last time I saw an active mugging, some guy with ridiculous road rage that pulled out a baseball bat, or a group of drunk guys bullying an animal,” Modak pointed out, and Yanna slowly turned toward Ryan.

  “You got yourself involved in things like that?”

  Ryan awkwardly averted his gaze. “Not like I can just let stuff like that keep happening without doing anything, y’know? But it’s not like I’m always violent.”

  “Okay, that’s true,” Modak agreed. “He’s literally the type of guy to carry an old woman’s groceries after he helped her across the road. Ryan’s a magnet for lost or crying kids, too.”

  “Well, that’s not …” Ryan wanted to deny at least some of what Modak was saying, but considering his interactions with Michael just earlier that night, he didn’t feel like he really could. “… Shut up.”

  Just then, Silvia put down her pencil, looking at the pages that she had filled with sketches of her sister. She slowly turned the pages toward the others.

  “Here, this is what I saw with my skill. Different facets of Yanna. Like … all the different facets that came together into who you are and how you act right this second, all separately on their own,” Silvia explained, and Yanna placed a hand in front of her mouth with some embarrassment at all those different emotions just being displayed so clearly. Of course, she wasn’t the stoic type and, just like Silvia, wore her thoughts and emotions on her sleeve, but that didn’t change that being faced with emotions that she might not consciously realize on her own in this way could still be embarrassing.

  “Isn’t that pretty useful?” Ryan pointed out. “Use that skill on Alicia next time you see her; I wanna know what’s going on in that woman’s head. Did I tell you that she showed up at the event this evening?”

  “Wait, what? Why would she be there? She should be pretty busy.” Modak was just as confused as Ryan.

  Yanna looked back and forth between Ryan and Modak. “Alicia? Who’s that?”

  “The Mistress of the Magic Tower,” Silvia explained bluntly. “She’s a family friend to Ryan’s family and the person that scouted Modak for the magic tower.”

  Ryan and Modak both stared at the elf, who just raised an eyebrow. “Wait, did you not want people to know about that?”

  “Guys, what’s Silvia talking about? Why exactly do you know the Mistress of the Magic Tower?” Yanna asked again. “And ‘scouted’? Like, what do you—”

  Modak sighed, nervously scratching his neck, “Yeah, so, I was going to tell you earlier, but then … you know … but the Magic Tower is interested in my mana tapes, and I’m going to be working with them on some research projects to expand their uses and see exactly what they can do.”

  “And as for me,” Ryan added, figuring he should just come out with it as well, “do you remember how I said that I’m not part of that Aglecard family? Like, the super rich and influential one? So, apparently that’s not entirely true.”

  Ryan stepped into the flat and let out a long groan. He headed straight for the kitchen and threw his jacket over one of the chairs. After pulling open one of the cabinets, he grabbed some protein bars and quickly opened one of them, hungrily biting into it.

  “Finally back?” Runar stepped into the kitchen, looking Ryan up and down. Ryan’s shirt was completely drenched in sweat, as the vest had run out of mana, and with that its cooling qualities, a few hours before. “You went to Silvia’s place all of a sudden? What happened?”

  After swallowing the food in his mouth, Ryan promptly responded, “She awakened.”

  “… Huh?”

  “Yeah, she awakened. Soulspark Artist, that’s her class, and it sounds like it fits her pretty well,” Ryan explained. “But there’s some strange circumstances to it. I know it sounds weird, but I think it’s possible I somehow helped her awaken. You mentioned something like that before, right?”

  “No, that …” Runar, trying to really catch up to what Ryan was saying, slowly shook his head. “That’s not a fact. It was just a theory that the Spirit Keeper awakens a class in spirits, but that’s something completely different from actively making others awaken. Why would you even think that?”

  “Well, I kind of felt something right when she awakened. But the situation is a bit more complicated than that. Hold on; Silvia gave me a sketch,” Ryan said, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket before handing it to his uncle. “Silvia and her girlfriend were at dinner today, and that girl suddenly showed up and yelled at and basically assaulted them. She seemed to have done something to Silvia at that point, and maybe that, combined with my connection to Silvia, caused her to awaken?”

  Runar looked at the sketch. “Alright … she had antlers, but she’s not a faun?”

  “No, apparently not. Do you know anything about that? Is there a hidden species like that?”

  Shaking his head, Runar responded, “No, not that I’m aware. This seems to be an individual thing … Do you know exactly what this girl told Silvia?”

  “So, I think Silvia and Fae said that she yelled, ‘This is wrong,’ and ‘You’re all messed up,’ and things like that.”

  “I see. I’ll have someone look for this girl,” Runar explained, folding the piece of paper back up. “But either way, I don’t think we should assume that you caused Silvia to awaken. The reasons behind awakenings are still unclear, so there was most likely something else that acted as the trigger. Heightened emotions aren’t a rare one for that.”

  Ryan leaned against the kitchen counter, looking at his uncle. “Yeah, but she’s got this really rare class and awakened just two weeks after I did? You’re telling me that’s a coincidence?”

  Not sure how to respond to that, Runar sighed and shook his head. “I wouldn’t call it a coincidence, I guess. I told you about that ‘pull of fate,’ right? Well, it’s a lot more complicated than you’d think. Awakened are drawn to each other to some degree. A person that awakens statistically has a higher chance of being surrounded by other people that have awakened or will do so in the future.”

  “Well, sure, I heard about that before as well, but still, two weeks? Seriously?”

  Runar sighed loudly. “Listen, I don’t know, either. It looks like the Spirit Keeper class is slightly different from when your father had it. We don’t know exactly in what ways, but we’ll figure it out. But before we do, let’s not assume the frankly craziest possibility. Yes, Silvia awakening within two weeks of you would be an incredible coincidence, but it’s not impossible. Weirder things have happened.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Ryan replied. “Either way, Silvia seemed pretty excited about making new clothes for me now. We’re heading to that dungeon soon, right?”

  Runar slowly nodded. “Right, we’ve prepared almost everything, so as long as you’re ready to go, we can go there. We should get you to level 10 as soon as possible to get the Bluesky guys off your back.”

  “You can say that again. Having your guys following and watching me constantly to make sure nothing happens to me is kind of exhausting, to be honest.” With a laugh, Ryan stepped out of the kitchen. “Anyway, I’ll go take a shower now and head to bed. I’ll tell you about the party tomorrow; that was a whole ordeal on its own.”

  Runar silently watched as Ryan left, stunned by his nephew’s words. It was true: Runar had assigned the shadow troupe, the same one that had infiltrated that lab with Yamada, to follow and keep an eye on Ryan, so that if something happened, they could intervene. But Runar had never told his nephew about that. He wanted him to be able to just live his life like normal, and knowing he was being followed wouldn’t do him any good there.

  “How the hell does he know that with just that small of an increase in his intuition?”

  Chapter Nine

  Test Subjects

  The scent of sweat filled the air as the dulled clang of metal hitting against metal sounded out. Ryan let out some heavy breaths as he poured some water down his throat.

  “Holy shit, this is … fucking rough,” he told the minotaur in front of him exhaustedly. Yanna laughed a bit and nodded.

  “Of course; what did you expect? The stat-awakening program is rough for everyone,” she pointed out. “Though you’re making some pretty good progress. I guess all that fighting is keeping you fit, huh?”

  Ryan scoffed. “Yeah, sure, that’s probably it.”

  With a smile, he looked down at his arm, where Tiar was busily moving and twitching. He had decided to go with the “skill” excuse permanently, so it was fine for Tiar to keep moving around even when there were people. And especially in this situation, it seemed like Tiar wouldn’t be able to stop themself anyway.

  Ryan was currently working out in the university’s Awakened gym, where Yanna was helping him learn how to work out to awaken some physical stats. And of course, it was an incredibly intense workout, and Tiar had immediately gone into overdrive to try and help out his growth and active recovery. It seemed like he was doing a great job, too. It was the third day of this training regime, and he hadn’t felt any particular muscle pain at all, and he was able to add a surprising amount to the weight that he was lifting already.

  Of course, the gym offered some drinks that were supposed to help with the recovery quite a bit, but Yanna still seemed shocked that Ryan didn’t have any sore muscles at all when he showed up for his workout today.

  “You ready for cardio?” Yanna asked, and Ryan slowly nodded.

  “Let me eat something first,” he replied, walking over to his bag to pull out another protein bar. With a raised eyebrow, Yanna glanced at the bar.

  “I know that eating well is good when you want to build strength, but you’re eating like … five times more than you used to. Are you alright?”

  Ryan turned toward her and laughed slightly. “Yeah, I’m fine; I’ve just been feeling super hungry recently.”

  “… Since you awakened?”

  “Roughly, yeah. It’s a unique class; we don’t really know what sort of effects it has. This might have something to do with how I’m keeping up a space to house the spirits?” Ryan suggested, of course lying straight out of his ass. He knew perfectly well why he was eating so much. It was another part of Tiar’s influence, and the more the symbiote worked, the more Ryan had to eat. It actually seemed like working out made Tiar’s hunger even stronger.

  Runar did say that this was possible with some variant species, though he didn’t seem particularly confident when he did. But since there apparently wasn’t any harm to it and his body was processing all the food properly, Ryan wasn’t particularly concerned.

  Yanna sighed lightly. “As long as you’re sure. But I guess you can afford all that food now, huh?”

  Ryan tensed up, awkwardly turning toward her. “Yeah … Runar buys all of it, and he gave me a credit card so that I can go and buy all the food, and whatever else I might need, the other day …”

  “I still can’t believe that Runar of all people is supposed to be some bigshot old-money heir. I mean, you didn’t know about it, but Runar grew up like that, right? So, how’d he end up like … that?”

  Ryan scoffed, shaking his head. “How the hell do I know? I guess he just got kind of sick of acting the part,” he suggested. From the perspective of everyone else, Runar was just the lazy, ever-yawning owner of a small café that was closed as often as it was open. Of course, Ryan knew that he was quite active on the hidden side of the Aglecard family, but on the public-facing side, he wasn’t known at all in relation to the Aglecard family. He had done an amazing job at putting himself into the background of things and letting others deal with the parts that he didn’t care about.

  After he was done eating the protein bar, Ryan followed Yanna over to the treadmills. Some of these could apparently go insane speeds, but the ones that could go really fast were surrounded by mats and nets in case someone was thrown off to ensure that they didn’t hurt themselves. But the one Ryan was using now was basically just a regular treadmill with a somewhat-higher upper limit. The one Yanna was using was a bit on the faster side and already had some nets set up behind it.

  “Alright, sprint for one minute, jog for two. For as long as you can,” Yanna explained again, and Ryan quickly nodded. He had already done this twice, so he knew what to do, but it was definitely going to be extremely exhausting. Though that was the point, anyway. This was stamina training, and for him specifically, it was training to let him awaken the stamina stat, so he had to push himself for extended periods of time. And right now, it was to the point of exhaustion.