The ISG man stood and brushed off his suit and adjusted his tie. "Thank you for having your pet unhand me. Viola informed you of the marauding criminal element who found your apartment earlier, did she not?"

  "She did."

  "We did not expect a second attempt, and so we had a momentary lapse in our surveillance."

  "Same group?" Luke asked.

  The man scoffed at this. "Hardly."

  Luke frowned.

  "There are numerous entities after you, Mr. Quinn. With your antics being in the public eye, information is bound to spread."

  "Antics?"

  "I'm sure you understand what I'm getting at. My reason for being here is to reiterate the need for you to stay safe and well-protected. This housing situation is neither of those. Your friend saw reason, perhaps it is time you did as well?"

  He mulled that over. With the reason for his joining Integrated Solutions Group, the nuke, gone, he'd considered leaving the guild to strike out on his own again. Several revelations about Alan's actions and ideas didn't sit right with Luke, but at the same time, he couldn't help but find the thought of helping his party improve an interesting proposition. Also, Dot had joined now. That, more than anything, tipped the scales in favor of staying, at least for a while longer.

  "Fine," Luke said. "I'll take the damn apartment."

  "Very good," the man, who still hadn't given his name, said, handing over a blank keycard. "You are two doors to the left of Ms. Marlene. Please respect the peace after 10 PM."

  "Sure," Luke said, putting the card into his inventory.

  "Good. We will deal with your landlord. I am also to inform you that Mr. Schmidt would like to see you as soon as your meeting with the Department of Integrated Affairs has concluded. Your party has already been informed that you will be late in arriving today."

  A shudder went through Luke, and his senses came alive. Three figures appeared out of nowhere, as if they popped into existence right there in his apartment. Each of them wore a motorcycle helmet in matte black to hide their faces, and a matching leather one-piece suit for riding. One woman, two men. All three walked out of the apartment without a word, ignoring Luke's Tempered Staff leveled in their direction.

  Once they were gone, Luke returned the weapon to his inventory, turning back to glare at the man. "Who were they?"

  "Bodyguards."

  With that, the messenger left the apartment. Luke looked down at Smudge. "Did he mean my bodyguards or his?"

  Smudge, the little bastard, didn't have an answer. The fact that Luke couldn't sense them worried him, but there was nothing that could be done about it now. Before returning Smudge into the stables, or whatever you wanted to call that part of the pet menu, Luke fed it another monster core.

  "Shit!"

  No, that wasn't a monster core. Stunned, he stood there, wondering if what he'd just done would have any serious repercussions down the line. He'd just fed Leslie's meta-heart to Smudge.

  Liza: "Luke. Are you there?"

  Pulling back from his idiotic mistake, Luke gathered himself enough for a reply.

  Luke: "Hey, Liza. Been a while."

  Heading out of the apartment without bothering to collect anything other than his phone charger, Luke descended the stairs and headed back outside.

  Liza: "I'm really sorry to bother you, but it's my girlfriend. Are you busy?"

  Luke: "Kind of. Headaches, right?"

  Liza: "Not just regular headaches. There's something wrong, and the ICU just keeps sending us back home without doing anything."

  Luke: "Can you meet me at the orb now? I'll take a look."

  Liza: "Right now?"

  Luke: "I have to be there in twenty-three minutes. Can you make it in twenty?"

  Liza: "We'll be there."

  He'd given Liza some thought here and there. It'd been a while since she had asked him to take a look at her girlfriend, and never having had the time to deal with it had pricked at his conscience. If they'd been in the emergency room several times, it was a good idea to take care of it before whatever ailed her got worse. Then again, it might just be nothing.

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  As he hurried toward the park, Luke used some of the available skill points to rank up the no-brainer skills.

  Needle of Life (Rank 2) [Active - Mana Cost: ?]: Use a precise touch to assert your will upon the weave.

  Turned into.

  Needle of Life (Rank 3) [Active - Mana Cost: ?]: Part the weave as you see fit.

  Threads of Mana (Rank 3) [Passive]: Mana is the weaver's primary tool. Your threads shape the weave.

  Turned into.

  Threads of Mana (Rank 4) [Passive]: Mana is the weaver's primary tool. Your threads are the weave.

  The Healer's Moment [Active. Mana Cost: Moderate]: A mere moment can cut through the chasm between life and death.

  Turned into.

  The Healer's Moment (Rank 2) [Active. Mana Cost: Moderate]: Your choices in the moment shape the future.

  Weavestep [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: Pass a short distance through the weave.

  Turned into.

  Weavestep (Rank 2) [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: The weave is yours to traverse.

  Weaver's Perception [Passive]: Your understanding of the weave has reached a higher concordance, allowing glimpses of the threads that create, destroy, and bind all things.

  Turned into.

  Weaver's Perception (Rank 2) [Passive]: Many are the senses, but all you need is one. You'd best use it.

  Weaver’s Renewal [Active - Mana Cost: High]: The body forgets. The weave does not.

  Turned into.

  Weaver’s Renewal (Rank 2) [Active - Mana Cost: High]: The core of a being remembers.

  Phew. That was quite a lot, and the descriptions were as indecipherable as ever. Not wanting to wait, Luke gave Weaver's Renewal a try. This one hinted at what'd changed. First, a cut with Needle of Life on his arm. Using that skill didn't feel any different. Rather than encircle the injury with Threads of Mana, like he'd done before, he instead brought a thread to his meta-heart. The cut was gone. It wasn't healed. No, it just wasn't there, like it had never been.

  "Awesome," Luke whispered. This would make things a lot easier.

  Weavestep wasn't as big of a success. It worked the same as far as he could tell. Perhaps he was doing something wrong, but he didn't have more time to investigate right at that moment. The Healer's Moment, he saved for later, in case he needed to use it during his upcoming appointment. Threads of Mana didn't feel any different either. Weaver's Perception was different, but it was subtle enough that he couldn't quite grasp it without further study. So much for huge changes.

  Well, at least he had 13 more skill points to use and a long list of new skills to consider. That, however, would need to wait a little while longer, because he had just reached the park.

  Heading over toward the orb, he noticed the line of Integrated-in-waiting was much shorter than before. Fifteen people waited. Not a whole lot. Perhaps people were learning that it wasn't all positive, becoming Integrated. With several monster outbreaks and Integrated being hunted down, the risks were brought to the surface. If you stayed a regular human, monsters wouldn't target you, and you wouldn't risk dying in some dungeon. Or maybe, just maybe, everyone had already gone through the Tutorial Dungeon. It'd been a while since the orb had appeared now, after all.

  Liza waited outside the main entrance to DIA headquarters.

  She waved as he approached. "Luke!"

  "Hey," he said, walking over to shake the hand of the woman next to her. "Luke."

  Extending his new and improved Weaver's Perception, he got immediate feedback telling him just how the skill had changed. This woman had a hormone issue. Before, he wouldn't have been able to tell.

  "Cortisol dysregulation," Luke said, biting his lip and narrowing his eyes, taking in the woman in front of him.

  Bags under her eyes, bite marks on her nails, a general twitchiness. With the constricted vessels in her brain, it would become hypersensitive to pain signals, and the inflammation pathways would stay active at an elevated rate. That would screw with anyone's sleep, creating a vicious circle leading to chronic headaches.

  "What?" Liza asked. "Hormones?"

  "That's right."

  "What is the cause?" the girlfriend asked.

  "The usual suspect is a tumor either in the pituitary gland or an adrenal tumor, but you don't have either of those. Do you drink?"

  "A little," she admitted.

  Liza raised an eyebrow.

  "Okay, fine, yeah. More than a little."

  Luke nodded. "Any medical steroid use? Like Prednisone?"

  "Yeah, actually," she said, looking a little surprised as she nodded to Liza. "We moved in together. I'm allergic to her cat. I've been using my old allergy meds."

  "Stress?"

  She nodded.

  "Terrible sleep?"

  Nodded again.

  "Can you fix it?" Liza asked.

  Luke gave an honest answer. "I'm not sure. This whole thing," he gestured to her head, "has kind of created a perfect storm of shittiness. Alcohol and steroids, coupled with bad sleep and stress, can lead to elevated cortisol, which explains your headaches and even worse sleep, which..."

  "Leads to worse symptoms," Liza said.

  "That's right," Luke said. "So, the cure is simple but also difficult as hell. Touch grass. No screens before bedtime, sleep more, exercise, that whole thing. Also, no booze and no allergy meds. In time, the headaches should fade on their own."

  "You sound like a doctor," Liza said.

  Luke scoffed and waved for the girlfriend to step up closer. "I'll see if there's anything I can do about the symptoms. Perhaps we can break the downward spiral. No guarantees of results or safety. You good with that?"

  The girlfriend stepped in and nodded. "Anything to feel normal again."

  "And you'll follow the advice I just gave you?"

  "I promise."

  Even with that, he wasn't even sure if washing the brain and glands in healing mana would do anything. They were sort of doing what they were supposed to, after all. Starting out with just a dash of mana, Luke made a face. Nope. Didn't work. And this wasn't the sort of thing you could use Needle of Life for, either. That left Weaver's Renewal. Thinking it couldn't do any harm to try, Luke reached into her heart, since she didn't have a meta-heart, and activated the skill.

  The girlfriend's eyes grew wider, and she let out a sigh of relief, a smile creeping into her expression. "That's... that's better."

  "Uh, Monica?" Liza said.

  Monica turned to Liza. Tears were forming in her eyes now. "Yeah?"

  Liza cleared her throat. "Your tattoo. It's gone?"

  "Huh?" Monica grunted, raising her arm to look. If there had been a tattoo there before, it had disappeared, because there was nothing there but pale, freckled skin. "What?"

  They both turned to Luke, frowning.

  He let out a nervous laugh, scratching the back of his head. "Um. Small price to pay?"