7. Downtime

Alex stepped into his new office, cluttered with boxes and stationary items that had been moved in. Sam peered in from behind Alex at the door.

“What are you going to do first?”

Maybe get the computer started up? I really need to organize my thoughts.

Alex felt some uncertainty through Sam’s feelings.

“Relaxing is important.”

He knew that Sam was right, but he was beginning to feel antsy in a way that he’d never experienced before. All his life, Alex had done various tasks and hobbies. He had a tendency to throw himself into something at full speed and lose himself in learning and exploring it, completely pushing aside his other fears or stressors, even if it was unhealthy to do so.

He knew that’s what he was craving, and the System integration, along with the possibility of learning real magic, was his perfect focus. He’d been intentionally trying to take things slow since Christmas, but as he pulled up his Status Window and saw the meager progress he’d made in the last two weeks, Alex felt the need to begin training.

***

Status
Name: Alex Moore - Level 26
Class: Ritualist (Novice)
HP: 570/570
MP: 540/540

Traits: (1/3)
{Primordial Will}

Titles: < Control Freak >
Pathfinder
Unbound
One Against Many
Control Freak

Physical Stats:
Strength: 24
Agility: 41
Constitution: 57
Vitality: 26

Magical Stats:
Intellect: 42
Willpower: 343
Mana: 26 + 28
Wisdom: 74

Bond Skills:
[Mana Siphon] (Novice - Level 16)
Primary Stat Shared - Mana

Active Skills:
[Mana Thread] (Novice - Level 18)
[Mana Infusion] (Novice - Level 16)
[Feather Step] (Novice - Level 10)
[Ritual Insight] (Novice - Level 17)
[Mirage] (Journeyman - Level 8)

Passive Skills:
[Efficient Rites] (Tier I)
[Sleep Resistance] (Tier I)

Bound Items:
Unique E Rank Growth Item - Heavenly Eye of the Celestial Sage

***

Seeing that he’d only gained a single level in [Mana Siphoning] and [Mana Threads] was a bit depressing to him after all the rapid progress he’d made. He felt like he’d been wasting time over the last few weeks.

No, I can’t think that way. The downtime is good for me and spending time with everyone has also done my nerves a lot of good.

He thought back to the first few nights after returning from the Rift. In hindsight, he was thankful that his friends stayed with him in his apartment. Some of the nightmares had been hard to deal with. More than once, he’d wake up in a cold sweat or punched at the air like he thought a Shadow Serpent would crawl from a dark corner of his room.

He wasn't sure if he was willing to admit it to himself, but a deep down part of him knew that he hadn't even taken the time yet to stop and really process everything that happened in the Rift and everything that he had done.

After Sarah had realized just how much he’d been through, she’d really suggested that he meet with one of her coworkers. When it was clear that the idea of talking to someone made Alex uncomfortable, she made it clear to him that she was willing to listen and help him how she could.

Something within him stirred as he realized that he’d be burdening his friend with the things that he’d done. She didn’t deserve that kind of weight, especially not after they’d spent the last week or more thinking that he had died.

He knew he had some amends to make and felt like these issues he was having in the Rift experience and killing fell on him to sort out. The world was changing, and he’d already decided that he wanted to change with it.

Maybe this is the first step in that direction. Sometimes, I might just need to get my hands bloody. If it’s what’s necessary to keep myself alive or to protect my friends, I’ll do what I need to.

He felt his Willpower affecting him and didn’t mind at all. The conviction was forming within him, and he knew that if it was between his friends or someone else, he wouldn’t hesitate to do what was necessary.

Alex knew that Sam was staring at him, but his thoughts were moving so quickly that only a moment or two had passed. He smiled back at the teen before deciding that brooding wouldn’t do anyone good.

He walked across the room and opened a small bag that was set next to the large wooden desk. He put the bag on top of the desk and then turned to open the curtains of the large window. With a beautiful view that was only disrupted by the faint sounds of construction equipment from the backyard, he flopped back into the leather chair and tipped the bag over. Alex admired the sleek packaging for a moment, feeling a flicker of excitement at the prospect of new tech.

Just as he slid the box out for the brand-new laptop, Mark appeared in his doorway, towering over Sam.

The large Polish man ruffled Sam's hair, and even though the teenager swatted the arm away, Mark gave them both one of his infectious grins. In the space over Mark’s shoulder, Val squeezed and flew past them and into the office, greeting Alex with a small head bump.

“Hey buddy, what are you up to?” Alex gave the mana wyrm a few pats on the head.

“Dude, how does this whole having a chef thing work?” Mark said from the doorway. “Like, can I just grab some food from the kitchen?”

“Why are you asking me? Go ask Gabby.”

“She scares me. She’s always walking around with that wooden spoon.”

Sam snickered from right in front of Mark.

Mark squinted his eyes and looked at him suspiciously, his voice hinting of mock offense. “What’s so funny ‘bout that?”

Alex rolled his eyes and ignored the two. He pulled the new laptop from the bag and opened the box, enjoying the feeling of new technology. As it began to boot up, he got up and began to open some of the nearby boxes.

Some of the things he’d ordered were simple office supplies. He found pens, sticky notes, paper clips, and more. The box he was looking for contained a small stack of leather-bound journals for him to use as sketchbooks and notepads.

When Alex located the box, he sat back at the desk and began to get out all of his thoughts, as he so often did when he felt overwhelmed. Every once in a while, he’d need to select an option on the laptop screen as it went through the setup process.

Once he was done, Alex stood and walked with the open notebook over to the rolling whiteboard that Edwin had gotten for him. He grabbed a marker with his free hand and popped off the cap with his teeth. He began to restructure all the thoughts from the unorganized mass in the notebook into a more structured list on the whiteboard.

He placed some of the bigger and more ambiguous questions at the top of the board and then began to structure a series of to-dos and fleeting thoughts about training and skills.

By the time he had finished, he stepped back and looked at the board, feeling like he was already on a better path forward. “Hey, we’ve got to talk about how to start getting you guys ready to…” Noticing the quiet surroundings, Alex trailed off and glanced at the doorway and saw that both Sam and Mark had gone.

They must've gone to get food. I need to make sure they know about the team event that Elana mentioned is starting soon and if I can get them into some Rifts to train before it starts, it would be even better for us.

He turned back to the board and looked at the top of his list. The one, all the way at the top, was a question that had been nagging him for months now.

"Who is Zaamis?” He read aloud.

This was a big one, especially since Eura hadn’t even known who the being was.

Below that were some consistent notes for himself, such as ‘Unstructured Magic > System Magic’ and ‘Use Ritual Insight.’

His failure to optimize his use of the class skill was a point of major frustration for Alex. While playing video games, he wasn’t really one to follow the “meta.” But balance was needed, as he never wanted to be unoptimized. The fact that this was his real life just really increased the feeling that he wanted to do everything perfectly. The more he thought about the days he’d gone with the skill not on cooldown, the more he felt like he was wasting an opportunity to gain strength.

Below those key points was a list of to-do items. He had written some of the more pressing things that he wanted to accomplish, like checking the Auction House for more training manuals. As he thought about that, he stepped forward and added a small note to reach out to Elana on his order for the Rune Manuals that he’d made a few days before.

Other pressing items included a brainstorming session on his use of [Mirage], researching how to advance a bonded companion, reading his new Advanced Ritual Manuals, and sitting down to take notes from his time training with Eura. While Alex had a good memory, the celestial had taught him a lot of different techniques and theories. They’d gone through mana shaping exercises and mana circulation techniques as well as general theories for improving mana flow through the body with something Eura had referred to as tempering rituals.

While he’d already begun to capitalize on a few of these more basic things himself, he wanted to share the information with his friends. Olivia, in particular, could benefit from a lot of the magic training Eura had shared with him, as her kit was something between a rogue and a shadow mage as far as he knew.

If they wanted to work seriously together as a team, they needed to sit down and discuss each other’s strengths and skills. He wanted to help them all grow stronger, and in his mind, he wanted to believe that assisting them to grow together would make them stronger than if he just focused on his own power.

The power of friendship and all that. Right?

There were some repeatable tasks toward the bottom that he hoped to begin doing every day. They included setting aside time for reading articles on the AG app, made easier by his new laptop, and practicing his mana shaping and circulation exercises.

Lowest on the list, but far from least important, was his continued physical training. While he wasn’t even close to the physique that Rylan had, he’d been proud of his progress in the Celestial Rift. He wanted to continue that trend, and he planned to work on personally enhancing some of the gym equipment, either with runes or rituals.

Hopefully, with the Rune Manuals, there are some runes I can implement. Otherwise, I can always use the Weight Increasing Ritual.

He grinned at the thought.

Alex walked back around the desk and finished setting up the laptop. As he began to click around on the desktop and install some of the most crucial apps, he called for Edwin.

“Sir. What can I do for you?”

“Edwin, can I ask you to do something for me?”

“I believe so, Master Moore. That is the entire purpose for my being here.”

Alex was sure he saw the man’s perfect white mustache twitch at the corner.

“Well, alright then. I wanted to see if you would be willing to study up on articles from the AG forums. I’m going to be doing some reading myself every day, and I’ll try to get everyone else on it as well, but I’d like to make this a specific part of your job.”

“I like to read.”

Alex paused for a moment, caught off guard by the straightforward and simple statement, which made him want to laugh. “Okay… well, that’s good. There’s a lot here to read. The information posted in these forums is the sort of information that can save our lives in the Rifts. If I had one regret about entering that Epic Rift, it was that I hadn’t prepared more. Looking back, going in there was really, really stupid.”

“Hindsight, Master Moore. Hindsight.”

Alex nodded in agreement. “Do you have a computer or something to do this research on?” Alex grabbed one of the leather-bound books from his stack and handed it to Edwin.

The man accepted the book and stood with it behind his back as he nodded and affirmed that he had a personal computer.

“Great, I need to reach out to Elana anyway and check on my manuals. I’ll make sure that we get you added to the Guild as a member so that you can get access to the better articles on the forum. Try to condense the most important notes in that book, and with any of those notes, just make sure to write the article title if necessary so that we can go back and find it if needed.”

“Would you like me to begin compiling hard copies of these forum files for on-premise use? Also, if you’d like I can call Ms. Voss in your stead.”

Alex thought about it for a moment. "Yes, to the on-premise files. It can't hurt to have the files handy. Having physical copies will make it easier to reference during group training sessions, and we can mark up important sections." For some reason, he found himself preferring to have crucial information in multiple formats, and he loved the idea of filling up his office as a miniature library with a wealth of knowledge. "As for Elana, don't worry about that. I want to keep that contact open between us.”

Edwin didn’t say anything else, just bowed and silently retreated from the room.

Alex sat back in his chair and decided to check something off his list. He opened the AG website, logged in with his account information, and began to hunt through the Auction House section. He began looking for skills that fit with the general theme Eura had explained to him more than a month ago in the grove.

After giving it a lot of thought, Alex liked Eura’s advice. Even though it might make him weaker at the moment compared to some others who were focused on structured magic or skills. Alex resonated with the concept of setting himself up for huge success down the road.

His plan was to find skills or manuals that would enable him to learn casting magic or spell patterns that he would then practice and cast on his own. It would take a lot more time to learn those spells through the unstructured method, but it would give him a lot more freedom and flexibility down the road.

After a half hour of searching, he didn’t find anything that grabbed his immediate attention for the cost of what was being posted. It wasn’t until he started clicking through the forums that he found a post that caught his eye.

The post was from a user complaining about an item that they’d found in a chest during their Rift run had a restriction. They attempted to break the token multiple times but kept receiving a System error, telling them that their Willpower was too low to learn the skill. The user was angry, especially since they’d invested more of their points into Willpower than they had originally wanted, attempting to meet the unknown threshold for the skill.

While the person wasn’t really offering to sell the item, Alex felt like this was a big opportunity for him. If his Control Freak title was any indicator, he had the highest Willpower stat of anyone on Earth. He sent a direct message to the original poster offering a fairly generous amount in either USD or Mana Stones.

Feeling a bit guilty about spending even more money, Alex closed the laptop and thought that he should do some searching for how standard spell casting differed from the use of Rituals or runes. He knew that mana needed to be moved in a very specific pattern through the body and outside of the body, and he knew that most of them required incantations of some kind, but that was all that was mentioned.

He shook off the thought and walked to the middle of the room. He sat cross-legged on the floor and thought back to his time with Eura before beginning to practice the mana circulation technique.

Alex closed his eyes and focused on his Core, where mana naturally pooled. The exercise Eura had shown him was different from what most of the sect initiates were taught. During one of their early sessions, Eura explained that many needed to first learn greater control over their Qi, leading them to use cycling techniques with complex movement patterns.

From the assessment he'd gone through, it was evident that despite Alex's recent introduction to magical energy, he already possessed an abnormally high level of control. Alex knew that this was his trait, but to the other instructors, it seemed like he was very gifted with control. Because of this, Eura had made an unusual choice. Rather than starting with the basic circulation techniques taught to most initiates, the celestial had decided to teach Alex an advanced method typically reserved for those who had already mastered the fundamentals.

"Your control is not an issue that you'll need to worry about as you grow," Eura had told him. "What you need now is to purify your mana to make each drop more potent. This technique is challenging, even for those with years of practice, but your unique trait and titles make you capable of attempting it now."

Eura explained that to purify mana, the technique focused on rotating the core at such a high speed that the impurities would begin to move further and further from the center. Eventually, they would be expelled from the Core entirely.

Alex knew from experience and initial training with the celestial that it was much harder than it sounded. He focused his will on his Core. The mana responded instantly to his call. He began drawing it in, concentrating it into a single point at the center of his Core.

Imagining that his Core was flat, he visualized pinching the center around the focal point, then twisting it with his magical might. He pictured the way cloth bunches up when twisted tightly in the middle, focusing on maintaining a gradual, controlled spin that tightened with each turn. Slowly, the outer edge of his Core began to pick up speed.

Maintaining a uniform movement wasn't difficult; the challenge was getting the spin up to the required speed. It was like trying to rotate a heavyweight with nothing but his mind. Every rotation demanded slightly more force than the one before, and applying that force evenly across the entire mass of mana was exhausting—an entirely different kind of fatigue from simply using a skill or forming a ritual circle with his [Mana Thread].

His relatively low Intellect stat made itself known, and his lack of raw magical power felt like a constant hurdle during the exercise. Despite that, Eura was confident that Alex could handle the exercise and would see great benefit from it over time.

After fifteen minutes, Alex could feel the strain building in his temples. Each rotation moved more sluggishly than the last, but he forced himself to continue. He knew his spin wasn't near the speed Eura had demonstrated, let alone sufficient to begin separating impurities from his mana. Still, he pushed forward, remembering Eura's calm instructions and gentle confidence.

Another five minutes passed before he was forced to stop. Panting, Alex relaxed from his rigid sitting posture, stretching his legs out as he leaned back on his hands. He considered his approach and the technique.

Raw power is always going to be a weakness for me.

He knew that if it weren’t for his titles, he’d be even worse off. And as his level grew, he would begin to lose that edge once again unless he found another way to shore up the weakness.

Is there a way to make each rotation more efficient?

He stood up, heading over to his whiteboard and adding the thought to his list of ideas to revisit. For now, though, he was satisfied with completing another session. He couldn't see any immediate difference in his mana, but that wasn't the point. This exercise was about building his foundation, and Eura had assured him that the results would come with time and dedication.

Same time tomorrow.

He promised himself. After a quick stretch, he walked over to the cat tree to give Val a scratch on the head. The mana wyrm blinked lazily at him before curling back into a tight coil, settling down to sleep once more.