Oh. How the tides of fortune turn. Their information has become mine! --78.1 Seconds Post-Integration.

  Clark entered the stadium expecting another meditation session. Salsa had been clear on how it would need to be repeated in order to reap the maximum benefits. Had he been 'Generating' and meditating on his own? Of course. Yet repeated tutorials were always beneficial, especially to recruits other than him who might not have had his sort of upbringing.

  Instead, Salsa entered the stadium sweating, his face red. Clark's hopes for another Generation session dwindled. "Let's begin! By now, everyone in this rank should know the drill. No more hand holding! So, let's get right into today's tutorial -- weapon pulses! Does anyone know what I am talking about?"

  Silence on par with crickets.

  "I didn't think so. A weapon 'pulse,'" Salsa said, bending his fingers to provide air quotations. "Is when you activate the latent magical energies of a weapon in an offensive capacity. Or defensive capacity. Whether it is offensive or defensive will depend on the situation, clearly. How do you activate a weapon's pulse? Does every weapon have a pulse? One activates a weapon's pulse by directing your mana or aura toward a magified weapon's imbued magics. If the weapon lacks a magical core, it cannot pulse. This is the important bit for you all to understand. A weapon without a pulse is useless to a serious League defender. As such, while in the field, you will be wanting to gravitate toward weapons with a known magical interior."

  Salsa paused for questions. A few people had trifling questions asking for clarification on some such minor point or another. What Clark asked was "How does a multi-tool factor into weapon pulses?"

  "A multi-tool?" Salsa asked. "That is a specialist tool used by management, young Lifer. It won't be applicable to you for a good few years. Your tools will be simplistic weapons such as specially made League swords, spears, maces, and the like. Weapons like these -- and others -- are what you will need to focus on to have a fruitful career."

  "I understand, sir. However, you did not answer my question. How does a multi-tool factor into weapon pulse?" Clark was insistent, and he didn't like being insistent, but he had to know.

  Sighing, Salsa told him the minimum. "A multi-tool has an automatically recharging core. Meaning, you can activate a weapon pulse and then the core will automatically charge using latent magical energies in the environment. This is why multi-tools are reserved for those who have been with the company for many years."

  Automatic recharging?! For once, Clark was shocked but in the good way. It made him want to obtain a multi-tool are the more.

  "Any other questions? No. Moving on, then. For the lesson today, we will be using basic magified weapons made with a magical center. I expect each and every one of you to pass easily. See the table to my back? Pick a weapon and resume formation."

  Clark grabbed a short sword from the table. Behind the table was a single potted plant. The sword felt heavy in his hand but not so heavy as to provide trouble. He had his muscles, after all.

  Back in formation, he waited for Salsa to continue with his lecture. "As I said, you activate a weapon's pulse from reaching out toward its magified center with your mana or aura. To pass today's exam, you will need to activate a 'burst' three times. For your burst to qualify as part of your three, each burst must impose enough impact to push back the leaves on that tree behind the desk. Simple, so let's get to it."

  Per the norm, Clark was the first to go. Salsa handed him a stamina dandy. "You only get one for the exam. Use it wisely."

  Clark nodded and took a sip. His grip on his blade tightened. Using magic naturalistically was still far beyond him but this whole aura stuff was a different affair. With practice, he managed to see his aura every time he 'Generated.' When it came to being able to channel his aura and 'bubble' petty sums of mana, he could do it. Barely, but he could manage.

  As he had done in his dorm, Clark closed his eyes and controlled his breathing. Big breathes then small. He detached himself from the world around him to the best as his abilities. He concentrated on his breathing, centering himself in the here and now. A minute, then two.

  He opened his eyes.

  Aura pulsed (faintly) around his hand. Intuiting what Salsa said, about 'pushing' his aura toward the weapon in hand, relief was his when he saw the aura swim out toward the weapon and encase it. Once encased, the aura, he willed, penetrated deeper into the weapon. For his mana to reach the weapon's center took no more than fifteen seconds, if that; he knew his mana melded with the weapon's core upon feeling a ruckus from within the weapon. The blade actually shook in his hand. In a blink of an eye, magical radiance burst from the blade, nearly forcing him to step back.

  Clark held his ground against the unexpected movement from the weapon. "Did I do it?" he wondered to himself. He had been so focused on the blade, he hadn't been watching the potted plant.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Clark -- that's one. Two more, now!" Salsa yelled.

  He had done it! Which meant he could do it again and again.

  After another drink from the stamina dandy, he regained his stance. He repeated what he had done before, this time the only difference was he kept his blade in his other hand. He figured there wasn't any reason not to practice under a number of conditions.

  Like before, he closed his eyes, controlled his breathing, then opened. He saw his aura -- yes! -- and willed his aura to encompass his sword.

  The aura obeyed. It colonized the sword causing another rumble from its within before a burst rang out like a shrill cry.

  "Clark -- that's two! And an echo, not bad!" Salsa declared. An echo? What was that?

  Provided no answer, Clark focused on his exam. One more burst and he would get his rank.

  Once more, he repeated the steps. This time, the burst activated with hardly an effort on his part.

  Right away, he sensed something amiss.

  "Clark -- misfire. One strike. Try again."

  A misfire? What was that?

  Salsa, able to tell Clark was confused, explained: "A misfire is when you put in either too much or too little mana and attempt to speedrun the process for generating a weapon burst. It's like a short-circuit or a busted candle stick."

  Another sip. Clark calmed himself. He returned to basics. He didn't rush his breathing nor his focus. As with meditation, this weapon bursting technique was not something he could demand haste of: rather, he had to take it a step at a time and pace himself.

  When he opened his eyes again his aura was bright. He calmly directed it toward the blade.

  The weapon absorbed his mana. It burst and sent out a shockwave.

  "Clark -- that's three! Congrats! You pass!"

  He didn't receive his System notification informing him of his rank up until after the tutorial ended when Salsa en mass leveraged his device's grading mechanism: [Congratulations! You've Earned a League Promotion! Rank Increased to V].

  Another rank, another day. Not that he was complaining, though he was sweaty.

  "Class dismissed." Salsa left the stadium after he dismissed the recruits, forcing Clark to wait another day to talk shop. He had wanted to dig further into what a weapon's 'center' or 'core' was and how one made them, but if Salsa was busy, he would need to wait until later.

  A mellow and slow shower was how he treated himself once he was back in his dorm.

  In the shower, he could let his mind wander as the warm water cascaded down his body. With the frosted glass windowpane shut, he felt as though it were just him in all of the world. Intellectually, he knew he was only an ant burrowed away in his little hidey-hole, one among how many. In his own peace, the steam from the shower hugging him, he didn't care. It was his hidey-hole and no one except the powers of the executive legislature could take that away from him.

  Clark stepped out of the shower ready to call it a night. He thought about what he would do. There was so much -- he could read, sleep, study for his final exam in the second reading and writing Betterment course he had enrolled in, or he could self-amuse. Each idea seemed less appealing the more he considered another option -- he could put in overtime.

  It was tempting. Heavens knew he wanted the money, but he was already earning so much, so why break his back for more? Plus, he would need to call in Theo and Hera as well. And today was supposed to be their free evening to do with what they would.

  Clark was going to pick up a book when he received a voice message from Theo: "Hey. Mind pulling some overtime with me? Remember a bit ago when I got that upset stomach and spent a couple hours in the shetter? I lost a lot of pay from that episode. My Metrics plopped. So, I will be going in anyways. Care to keep me company?"

  He couldn't believe it. Theo asking him if he wanted overtime. He didn't need to spend any time thinking his response. "Sure. Give me a moment and I will be down to clock in."

  On his way out the door, Clark thought, 'screw it. If Theo and I are working, Hera can pull a shift as well.' He sent off a voice message to her reading, "Hey, Hera. Theo and I are working. If you want the extra hours, you can join us."

  He wasn't even halfway to the salesfloor when Hera shot back an "on my way."

  They had just arrived on floor 157 and it, like every floor below, consisted of the same old labors. By now, their task of Climbing the tower had become so routine, Clark found each shift drabber than the last. He walked along the Path-Line, customers sometimes asked him for help, he sometimes helped a department. If he was lucky, he might hear a monster alarm go off and he and his crew would be able to whack a slime around. Otherwise, all there was to his job was showing up and following the prompts, following the golden crumb trail.

  He and the team were back and clocked a few minutes later. Because they didn't pull overtime together too often, Clark offered a few orienting words as the leader. "Great to see you two again, you guys. We don't get much overtime together but remember overtime is like any other shift. We gotta give it our all."

  As he knew they would, Hera, followed by Theo, nodded. They were practically professionals, by now... well, Hera more than Theo, but that couldn't be helped. Not with how young Theo was compared to Hera's wisdom. Not that he minded. He liked Theo's impulsiveness.

  "Okay, guys," Theo said to them just as they had crossed the line to the one-hundred-and-fifty ninth floor. "If we get any alerts, let me go so I can accrue those bonuses." Lately, Theo had bought into the notion that department volunteering would be a better chance for him to earn Metric boosts than walking the Line-Path. Hera disagreed. SIMP couldn't say either since the System was an Augustford creation. With no one able to prove their point, Theo allowed himself the victory by default.

  "Sure thing, buddy." Clark replied.

  For several hours, their work was the same as it ever was -- walk, help, talk.

  Sure, periods of working a register or making some in-house product in a back room broke up the walking and talking, but those bits were far between. Like every shift, it was more of the same mixed under a flurry of System notifications -- dings for this, boons for that, not to mention the reinforcement messages if one-too many dings or boons arrived in a row.

  About to write off the overtime as just another shift, all notions of normality ran out from the register when the tower shook. Then, the lights flickered, and the walls fell way as a crack cleaved not just the salesfloor in two, but the whole floor.