Street Cultivation, page 29
"I'll see you there, and I'll fight to the end." Rick wanted to glare at Mike, but knew it was a better tactic to look cowed for now. "Just don't hurt my sister."
"Believe me, you're the only one I want to hurt." With that, Mike and his friend strutted away, clearly viewing this as a victory. Rick stood in the street, watching them go.
Now he was backed into a corner, so he had no choice. Feeling as much fury as he currently did, he wanted nothing more than to go to the match and pay Mike back for this. That would be difficult, likely impossible, yet those cold flames felt as though they could burn anything.
"Rick?" His sister's voice was distant until he brought the phone to his ear. "God, Rick, I'm so sorry about this..."
"It isn't your fault. He was going to force me into this one way or another."
"Can he really do this? Threatening someone is illegal, can't we just turn him in or something?"
Truthfully, he hadn't considered that. Rick thought about it for a moment, but it wasn't really a choice. "No, it wouldn't do any good. The combat sects occasionally kill people and have the authorities look away, and a company like Maguire Incorporated is even bigger than most of them. They can get away with this, at least as far as the law is concerned." Not as far as he was concerned.
"Well... get home soon, okay?" Melissa took a slow, shuddering breath, then forcibly lightened her tone. "Wow, he really did a number on our door. These hinges are... yeah, that's not getting fixed. Think we can get the landlord to fix it?"
"I think combat damage isn't covered by our lease, and even if he did, it would take him a month. If he's in a hurry."
"Guess we'll have to buy another door, then. You know, I have absolutely no idea how much those cost."
"Neither do I, but I suppose we'll find out." Talking about petty details with his sister helped him come down from the intensity of the confrontation, at least a little. Rick and Melissa stayed on the line, by unspoken agreement moving to talking about anything other than the threat. They'd see each other shortly, but they needed to talk.
When he reached the parking lot outside their apartment, his eyes were immediately drawn to their door. It looked like Melissa had propped the door up in the frame, but it was obviously in bad shape. Suddenly Rick felt heavy and mounting all the stairs to the apartment seemed impossible.
"Fuck, man." One of the methheads loitering by the base of the stairs gave him an odd look. "Crazy fucking shit man. Whatever's going on with you, real sorry about it, mmkay?"
"Uh, thanks." Was that a display of solidarity from the local methheads? Rick gave him a weak smile and the man shuffled away, presumably to smoke meth. The strangeness of it broke Rick out of his funk and he took the stairs several at a time, hurrying to his apartment.
"Was that one of those guys by the stairs?" Melissa asked through the phone.
"Yeah, apparently people saw the Birthrighter break the door."
"It was pretty loud, so I'm not surprised. Not that they did anything. I mean, not with somebody that dangerous..."
Finally Rick arrived, moving the door out of the way with his free hand. He found Melissa on the other side, waiting for him. They stood there for a while, both still holding their phones to their ears uselessly, then they leapt to embrace one another.
"God, that was awful." Melissa pressed her forehead hard against his chest and gripped him tighter. "When he broke the door down I had no idea what was going on and I was just..."
"Don't worry, it's over now." He wanted to comfort her, but his mood darkened. 'They have what they want."
"Yes, I heard." She pulled back and drew him into the apartment, staring into his eyes seriously. "So you don't have any choice but to fight him? When does the challenge happen?"
"Barely two weeks after the end of the multi-tier event. So I need to get through that without getting too injured, because I doubt I'll get any help once Granny Whitney gets what she wants."
"But... can you beat him? Not that I don't believe in you, bro, but they're Birthrighters with over 100,000 lucrim, right? And won't his father just hand him a bunch more power to make sure he wins?"
Rick considered the question as they sat down. "I hope that last part won't happen. I met Mike's father very briefly when I gave the core back, and he seemed a bit irritated at his son. Though this challenge must have gotten his support, for it to happen at all, I don't know if he's fully invested in it. I hope not, because if he does go all-in, then I don't have a chance."
"But even so, that's a really huge gap in lucrim..."
"It is, yeah. But fighting him one on one in a formal challenge is better than him ambushing me at any time with his friends helping. The smart thing to do would be to let him beat me until he's satisfied. If I focused on defense until then, I could probably avoid permanent injury." Rick took a deep breath, forcibly relaxing his fists. "But I want to win."
Melissa hugged him tightly. "I don't know what the right thing to do is. Your life is most important, so I don't want you to risk yourself at all. I hate the idea of people like him being able to just walk over us, so... I'd love to see you beat the shit out of him."
"Language, language."
She stuck out her tongue at him. "So it becomes wholesome to wish terrible violence on somebody if I say 'beat the poopy out of him'?"
"Yes, that's very wholesome." The absurdity of it made him finally smile, which let most of the tension ease from him. It didn't improve the facts of the situation, but he couldn't face those facts if he was still wrapped up in emotions. "Let's go get this door fixed before too many bugs come in. I'll try to come up with a plan while we work on it."
The mundane activity gave him something to do with his hands and took his mind off his new problem, for at least a little while. Time was precious, but rushing into things would accomplish nothing. He needed to remain calm and use the days he had efficiently.
Currently he had about a month before the multi-tier match, then two weeks after that before the challenge. Focusing on them one at a time was simply not an option, which meant he'd need to split his attention. Life would be easier if he could devote himself entirely to a series of individual goals, but that wasn't how life worked - he should count himself lucky if he didn't run into several brand new problems before the challenge fight.
But how was he going to fight someone with as much power as Mike? There was no magical solution that would transform him and no medicine that could grant him that much power. He could make progress in his remaining time, but he couldn't depend on that.
Once they had the door roughly repaired and made calls about getting a replacement, Rick pulled up his profile to consider his options.
[Name: Rick Hunter
Ether Tier: 17th
Ether Score: 229
Lucrim Generation: 27,650
Effective Rate: 21,636
Current Lucrim: 2408]
[Rick Hunter's Lucrima Portfolio
Foundation: 3050 (Lv IV)
Offensive Lucore: 4700 (Lv III)
Defensive Lucore: 8400 (Lv VI)
Bunyan's Step: 3950 (Lv II)
Graham's Stake: 5500 (Lv II)
Aura Leech: -3554 (Stage II)
Aura Leech: -2460 (Stage I)
Tracking Bond: 100 (Lv XIII)
Gross Lucrim: 27,650
Net Lucrim: 21,636]
For a moment the sheer size of the lucrim gap depressed him, but he pushed past that by remembering what Emily had said. What mattered was how much of their power they had invested and how well they had invested it. He did have useful assets to bring to the fight, and he could strengthen them, particularly if he focused on combat cores instead of Graham's Stake.
Mike was certainly going to enter the match fully charged. Thanks to extra money from the fights, Rick could afford enough philosopher's elixir and serum to do the same. Endurance would be key, because his only chance was to make his opponent exhaust himself.
If so, he needed to get rid of the aura leeches. Rick seriously considered whether or not that was a good idea, because it would lead to more lucrima damage and might have lower returns than focusing on combat. Yet he knew there were drugs to deal with that and Granny Whitney might even give him some before the tournament, so he would have to take the chance. Getting the leeches out of him would greatly improve his stamina.
He had one major advantage: he was very familiar with fighting opponents more powerful than him. His opponent was doing this for the sake of his ego, while Rick was doing it to survive. That was an edge that Mike could never purchase.
Yet that might not be enough. Rick moved from thinking about what was reasonable to what was possible, no matter how desperate...
Chapter 40: Planning Recovery
After several days training his fundamentals, Rick had advanced as much as he thought he could for now. Fortunately, he'd also developed a plan that might give him the edge he needed against Mike. The difficulty would be surviving his plan.
The first step involved checking what resources he already had. He had scheduled a sparring match with Lisa for that day, so he headed out to meet her at the park. Doing some research online suggested that high end lucrim massages could do a little healing work, and they definitely helped with recovery, but he didn't want to depend on the impossible.
"Hey, Rick!" Lisa greeted him with her usual smile. "You ready to spar?"
"More than ready. I need to update you on some things, but let's do it while we're recovering."
They started sparring in their usual location, though this time Rick didn't hold back. He was interested to see that Lisa responded easily, pulling out a technique he'd never seen before. Every time he made contact with her aura, he felt slightly numb. Though he could push through the numbness, by the end of their match his entire body tingled as if it had fallen asleep.
"That's new." He shook his hands, trying to get sensation back into them. "At a higher intensity, that could be disabling, maybe even lethal."
"Actually, it's not new - and I didn't mean it to be dangerous. You were just taking it really seriously, so I reacted automatically." As they sat down, she glanced over at him in concern. "Are you alright? Usually you don't let your emotions get to you."
"Well... that's a bit of a story."
He told her about the upcoming fight against Mike briefly. Though he'd intended to skip anything related to Melissa, somehow he ended up telling Lisa about that as well. It didn't matter, since she'd probably learn by implication the next time she gave his sister a massage.
When he was finished, Lisa shook her head. "That's awful. I wish... well, there's no point saying it, but I wish we lived in a world where things were fair. If everybody had equal amounts of lucrim somehow, or aura didn't exist..."
"I don't think it would change anything." Rick slowly rubbed his eyes. "Some people would still find a way to gain an advantage and then lord it over others. If it wasn't lucrim, it'd just be money or something else."
"Yeah, but I imagine the fact that the powerful can become immortal and blow up mountains doesn't help."
"Heh, that's fair."
"So why did you tell me all this?" Lisa put a hand on his shoulder. "If there's anything I can do, I'm happy to help. It's just... there's no way I can fight, if that's what you were asking. I might be an okay fighter thanks to you, but I don't think I have it in me to be in a serious fight."
Rick quickly shook his head to ward off that suggestion. "No, I wouldn't ask you to do that. But since I'm going to get heavily injured during this, I wanted to ask you about your limits when it comes to healing. I know massage therapy isn't meant for that, but I had to ask."
"I'm better with internal problems than anything external." Lisa shifted away, tugging a few blades of grass out of the ground and slowly tearing them apart. "I mean, nobody can massage a wound back together. Most of what I do isn't exactly repairing damage so much as helping the body function better. But when it comes to damage to your lucrima, I can help with that. So if you have a broken leg, you want a hospital or a healer, but if you're trying to regain strength in the leg you broke, maybe I can help."
"Hmm. How long would it take to do the majority of the recovery? I know it's a long road to get back to 100%, but what about being fighting ready?"
"The most extensive course of therapy I offer is two four hour sessions in one day. That's what I do for professional fighters who need to get back on their feet as quickly as possible."
Rick nodded. "Good. I don't know if our sparring is worth enough for that, but I think I'm going to need it. Hopefully you'll give me an advance."
"Sure, but..." Lisa tossed her pieces of grass aside and focused fully on him, her face filled with concern. "I hope you're not doing anything too crazy, Rick. The way you're talking about this makes me think you're going to get yourself almost killed."
"Yes, most likely. But since I don't have a choice, I'm doing my best to prepare for it."
She shook her head slowly. "I know they threatened your sister, but... surely there's another way? I'm not saying that I have an alternative, and I'm not judging your decisions, just... do you really think Mike is going to beat you that badly?"
"I don't intend to give him a chance." Rick sighed and got to his feet, forcing himself to smile again. "Thanks for sparring, Lisa."
"Aren't I supposed to be thanking you? I mean, I will, if you need the recovery."
"If you still have time before you need to go, I actually wanted to ask you several other questions."
"Yeah, sure." Lisa got up and walked along beside him, guiding them toward the walking path that circled around Eastpark. "What's up?"
"One of the most obvious components of recovery is medicine, but trying to research about it, I feel... well, dumb, to be honest. There are so many different sources online and I don't know enough to be sure which ones are accurate. Practically any herbal supplement or mystic herb site starts setting off bullshit alarms for me, so I can't judge between them."
To his surprise, Lisa laughed oddly. "Oh, you don't want to get me started on that. My mother is really into certain treatments and... really, don't get me ranting."
"I don't mind. It might be educational."
"Well... if you say so. Not exactly sure where to start, though. You're looking for medicine that can bring you back from serious injuries, right?"
"And ideally help me grow stronger from them, yeah." Rick shrugged. "I realize that's asking a lot, hence why I kept finding suspicious-looking products and sites."
"That's not asking the impossible, though. Some of my clients look for general health advice, or at least talk a lot about it, so I think I can give you some good suggestions. But I'm not an alchemist or a doctor, so you should take everything I say with a grain of salt."
"No, you know a lot more than me. Even just simple things... I see arguments about natural herbs versus synthetic versions and I just don't know who's right. Are the synthetic versions really inferior to the traditionally-grown plants? Or is that just being stubborn in the face of progress?"
"It's both!" Lisa smiled and began explaining, gesturing expressively while she spoke, though he couldn't derive any meaning from her gestures. "It depends on the plant, so you have to follow the research. In a lot of cases, the synthetic versions are just as as good as the traditional versions, just cheaper. You're right about those: people just like paying more to think they're getting a better product. But in some cases, the best synthetic attempts don't do as well in head-to-head tests, so the original plant has some emergent property they haven't duplicated in the lab yet."
"Hmm, then I'm going to have to rely on you."
"Don't worry, I waste a lot of time reading up on these things! Well, I guess not wasting... anyway, there are actually some cases where the synthetic version isolates the active ingredient from the original and is thus much more effective... though that means it's also more expensive. So sometimes a premium price is just for suckers, but sometimes it's because of a superior product.
"Fun fact: the most successful synthetic was so massively successful that the 'natural-only' crowd can't compete and people don't even think about it: serum. Go back thousands of years and only kings and queens drank it, and even a few centuries ago it was valuable. But now you can buy it in a 6-pack from the store, and even the cheap stuff is more potent than the serum kings and queens got. Isn't technology amazing?"
It was interesting to hear her speak about a subject with such passion, so Rick found himself smiling as he listened to her. Though it wasn't relevant to what he needed, he decided he might as well ease another curiosity. "What about all the family-exclusive or hidden sect formulas? Is there anything to them?"
"Those are really a mixed bag." Lisa gave a formless shrug. "There are some groups that have incredibly powerful formulations, without question. Some are actually state secrets. But the world is just chock full of special families and combat sects, and all of them wanted to pretend they had hidden knowledge."
"So some of them are worthless?"
"Absolutely. There have been a few clinical trials that went really poorly, the 'powerful secret medicine' not doing much better than the commonly available alternatives. A few did even worse than placebos! Or there was one that only did as well as common medicine because it was literally just a mix of aspirin and serum. Apparently they'd made the creation process so opaque, even their alchemists didn't know that's all it was."
Rick chuckled, for the first time seeing how reading a bunch of scientific literature could be fun. "I'm guessing they don't let people test their secret medicines very often, then?"
"You got it. But if you want a rule of thumb: be skeptical of hidden secrets. A few medicines are so powerful they're kept secrets, but for many, ask this question: if their medicine was so good, why don't they gain more power by just patenting and selling it?"
