“This is much earlier than I thought it would be,” Vegis said to himself. He decided to sleep. In the morning, after cleaning himself up, Vegis walked out of his apartment complex under the light of the artificial sun. He thought about what to do today other than messing around online or in a game and picked to go up to the surface to breath some fresh air and maybe get some real life practice with spells and mana.
Vegis went to the nearby station and took a pod train to the closest elevator hub. He walked into the large building that had waves of people coming into and out of it. From outside and in, one could see that 10 tubes went from the floor all the way to the ceiling of the underground city. Vegis walked up to 1 of the tubes going up and wasn’t full and squeezed himself in. After 1 more person squeezed in, the doors closed and the occupants experienced 5 g on their bodies as the elevator shot up to the surface in just a minute.
As they got closer to the top, they slowed down and eventually stopped. The doors open into the inside of the surface elevator hub. Nearby, one could look to the left to see a large spaceship that is used to move around the local planets in the solar system and to the right was a field of all-purpose vehicles coming in and out of the parking lot through the shore, forest road, and up in the air. Vegis walked out with the rest of the crowd and walked along the road. After walking for 10 minutes, Vegis ran as fast as could. There was a breeze in the air and the lack of weird smells left him feeling refreshed.
He ran faster than the fastest land creature from the old world, but the vehicles on the road blazed by him and were easily 3 times as fast as him. Vegis ran for 20 minutes, from out the forest, through one of the many fields of crops, and eventually stopping in clearing with a building that was labeled, “Training Ground”.
Vegis walked into the building and asked the clerk if there was an open spot. They said, “There are 124 spots open for public use. Here is a map of where they are,” and then sent the map into Vegis’s eye. He picked the spot A81 which was close to the edge of the field and near the forest.
Vegis paid for 2 hours of use and walked all the way to it. As he passed other spots, Vegis saw many teens. Vegis looked at the calendar to what time of year it was and realized that the semester was about to start. Eventually, he arrived at his spot and saw 5 targets. One of steel, another of brass, 2 of titanium, and the last one is made up of a mana enriched metal, this one being called Msteel.
On the head of the brass, a small creature was sitting on it. It was one of the more docile native creatures. It looked like a shelled squirrel that glowed a light green color in the sunlight. It is a prolific hunter when it is their matting season and they form large packs and become loner scavengers every other time. Much like rats, they crowd around artificial structures since they could take food from the trash left nearby.
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Vegis released the mana in his body through the pores of his right hand and used it to control a small part of the wind into a ball and shot towards the small critter. Vegis’s spell hit it and forced it into the ball, flying into the trees and bursting. The squirrel-like creature was left unharmed and was very confused. It stayed in place for a couple of seconds before bolting off.
He sat down on the provided chair and circulated his mana throughout his circulatory system. As he did this, Vegis took some deep breaths and checked his results. It mainly told him the same thing as what Tulip said but had some additions. It went on about how Vegis was more attuned with his flesh than tech, other than his left eye, which had been cybernetic since his birth due to a birth defect. This means he could “see” network connections better than most with his soul.
The end of the results talked about potential problems Vegis could have in his workplace. The main one was his left eye turning off in specific areas due to them containing either confidential items or had innate EMP properties. This could hamper his ability to do his duties. The remedy to this was that after a while, they could upgrade his eye and would pay for it since it would be a workplace disability issue.
A smaller issue was they needed Vegis to get more training in his coordination. This would be something that he would learn hands on but could be supplemented if he applied for lessons which would count as overtime since the lessons would still be done in cooperation with other departments in the place he was going to work and on the weekends.
After Vegis was done reading, he was finished properly circulating his mana and saturating his body with mana. It was time to use some spells and hit stuff. Vegis started by expelling the mana out of his mouth in the form of fire, blasting into the brass target and heating it up so much the arms of it started to droop. He swiped his arm and sent a blade of wind to the steel target causing a 5 inch deep slash into it.
Vegis ran to one of the titanium targets and punched with all his might into it, causing a shallow fist shaped dent to appear and then coated his hand with some of the fallen brass pieces infusing them with as much mana he could before willing the mana in his arm to actively strengthen his arm. Vegis winded up before slamming his brass covered fist into the torso of the second titanium target, getting half way through the target. When Vegis pulled his hand back, it had brass fragments popping out of it but soon popped out of the wounds and the wounds started to close.
Vegis grimaced at this and held his hand. A white light covered his hand and accelerated the healing. He walked back to his original spot and summoned as much mana as he could into a drill above his head. He willed as many concepts as he could to make it spin as fast as he could, and launched it at the Msteel target, which stopped a millimeter off the target. The mana inside the metal was infused with the concept of defense. It naturally made a barrier that blocked the attack.
This didn’t last long before the barrier started to fail and the drill started to bite into the metal. But after 10 minutes, the drill dispersed for Vegis ran out of both mana and will to continue. The damaged left was a 3 cone removed from the target. “I should do this more” thought Vegis as remembered how fun this was, but also how much weaker he had gotten since he stopped after he started working full time.
