The Final Trial, page 6
part #3 of Level Up Series
And on that note we went our separate ways. I declined their offers to drop me off and set out in a cab.
When I got home, I flung my shoes off and sank into an armchair without even getting undressed. Boris rubbed up against my legs, meowing soothingly. I was sadly caressing her curving body when I heard the xylophone ring tone of my phone. I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered anyway.
“Hello? I’m sorry to bother you. Is this Philip?” I heard a pleasant woman's voice that was vaguely familiar but that I couldn’t place.
“Yes, it is. Who is this?”
“Panfilov?” I could hear the smile in her voice. “You don't know who this is?”
“Sorry, no. Do we know each other?”
“Oh, you!” the woman laughed. “It’s Paulina Esman! Your classmate! School no. 23, class B, we graduated in 2003. Does that ring a bell now?”
“Paulina? Esman? Wow, how about that! Hi!”
Excitement seized me from head to toe: it was my first, unrequited love, Paulina, with whom I’d shared a desk starting in first grade right until she moved over to sit next to a friend[3] in around fifth grade.
“Hi there! How are you? I haven’t seen you in a long time!”
“Very long, Paulina. Practically since we graduated.”
“Uh-huh. Anyway, let me get straight to the point. We’ve been looking everywhere for you for more than a month — we wrote to you on social media, and someone found your old home number, but I guess you moved. So then it occurred to me to call your parents. Look. We’re having a school reunion tomorrow, and a lot of our classmates are coming: Mike from Australia, Pasha from South Africa, Olga from Germany, can you believe it? The Yezhovs from America... Anyway! Almost everyone who lives on another continent has come, but people from our city couldn't make it. Thank goodness I found you!”
“A school reunion?” I repeated. As the idea sank in, I was bombarded with memories about school, classmates, everything. It felt like it was yesterday, but I’d already forgotten a lot of them.
“Yes, we graduated 15 years ago. Can you believe it? I tried to get everyone together for the 10-year, but only six people came. By the way, you didn't come even though we called you.”
I remembered why I hadn’t gone, but had they really called? It seemed that they had. Did I really say no to getting together with my classmates because of the latest raid? Yup.
“Wow, it’s been 15 years... I'm so glad you found me, Paulina. I’d love to come. Did Pasha really come back?”
“Yes, he came to see his parents. We scheduled it so that everyone could make it. So we’ll be expecting you at Andrei Belyaev's restaurant tomorrow night at 7.”
“Andrei owns a restaurant? No way! Where is it and what’s it called?”
“Chito Gvrito[4] on Warsaw Street. Do you know where that is?”
“I’ve never heard of it, but I’ll find it. Cripes, Chito Gvrito. Is it Georgian?”
“Uh-huh. His partner is a chef from Georgia. All right then, don't be late! We have stuff planned. The girls and I...”
“Got it. I won't be late. See you tomorrow!”
“OK. Good night.” I heard a giggle as Paulina hung up, leaving me full of mixed emotions.
Faces I’d long forgotten resurfaced from the depths of my memory. Andrei Belyaev, who’d made me the target of his ridicule throughout the upper grades — we were both in love with Paulina. My friend Pasha Pashkovsky, with whom I’d had a falling out over something I could no longer remember. Maya Abramovich, a slight brunette with large... um... potential as a great poet, with whom I’d dreamed of dancing at the prom, looking forward to something, but in the end I couldn't work up the nerve to ask her. Max Minenko; a straight A-student Zagvozkin (another Pasha); Sergei Kardayev, small and pug nosed, who made up for it by doing more pull-ups than the rest of the class and was passionate about PE lessons.
My phone started to strum unrelentingly, notifying me of a steady stream of text messages coming in. I opened WhatsApp and saw that I’d been added to a group chat with my classmates.
“Hi, Phil!” Pashkovsky greeted me.
“Hey, Little Philip’s joined us! Yay, guys!” Belyaev said, remembering my nickname which came from a children's story by Tolstoy.
“How are you, Phil? Do you have a family? Any kids?” Kardayev wanted to know.
“How come you don’t have a profile photo? You should get a photo taken in a studio!” Ira Goncharenko commanded.
I said hello to my classmates, then became engrossed in their profiles and photos. They were grown-up faces. It would have been easy not to recognize them.
The messages continued to stream in: photos of families, children, memories, stories about our school days, rumors about people who weren’t in the chat. Everyone was excited about the reunion, and once everyone had dispensed with the heartfelt joy and nostalgic conversations, the get-together would probably turn into a display of accomplishments: who had achieved what in life, and who had become successful. Even in that indirect debate I didn’t stand out in any way: I hadn’t achieved success, I hadn't produced any children, and hadn’t even held on to my family.
I mulled this fact over for some time and processed it until I came to a logical conclusion: screw it! I would just be happy to see the gang. I needed something positive in my life before the start of what I imagined would be a drawn-out war with the Dorozhkins.
When I was in school, I was triply cursed: I was a poor athlete, I didn't know how to dance and was afraid to try, and I dreamed of being a witty joker like Belyaev, but the clever comebacks and jokes always came to me too late. People didn't really give me a hard time for that in class, but I wasn’t popular either. I got good grades, but not outstanding ones. In PE class I was scared shitless of the bouncing ball, cross-country races and parallel bars. At night clubs, I skulked in the corner, shy and afraid of making a fool of myself.
So I decided I’d gird myself and go to the reunion the next day. When it came to sports, I was ready to give any of my classmates a head start. I’d managed to become funnier over the years since graduating from high school — in college I’d even written jokes for our comedy competition team. As for dancing... well, I’d always been bad at it and I still was. I mean, if I had enough to drink and heard a song I knew, I’d probably run onto the dance floor and simulate a dance, but to an outsider it would look pretty absurd. I didn’t even have a Dance skill in my profile. But there was sure to be dancing tomorrow at the class reunion.
Having forgotten all about the first deputy mayor and his lowlife son, I spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos on “Dancing for Beginners,” and tried to reproduce and memorize the moves set to rhythmic music.
By the end of the second hour I was starting to catch on — I was able to control my body far better than before.
Congratulations! You’ve activated a new skill: Street Dancing.
Current skill level: 1.
XP received: 200.
XP points left until the next social status level: 16990/18000.
Why were my attempts classified as Street Dancing? No idea. Having said that, I hadn’t had anyone to learn the rumba, tango or waltz from. All I had was YouTube videos of B-boying basics with music to match.
Hell, I’d always wanted to learn how to downrock.
* * *
I woke up as the sun was rising. I immediately turned on the TV and looked for a music channel — something that would be more or less appropriate — and turned the volume up as high as it would go. I moved the coffee table and couch to make some space, set my cell phone to record, and began to dance, trying to build up my muscle memory.
After midnight, I’d reached level 4 in the Street Dancing skill. Admittedly, I’d had to work almost as hard as I'd worked on boxing. Dancing expends a lot of energy — I discovered that after I’d mastered the basics and moved on to freezes where I had to stay balanced on my hands and keep my body horizontal to the floor. Having practiced the worm, I learned the windmill. Everyone has seen this move at least once in their life: the dancer swings his legs and turns in a circle on the floor, and it looks like a windmill. If you don't have strong arms, good core muscles and excellent coordination (read: Agility) you won't even be able to start B-boying, so it was a good thing that I’d leveled up over the past few months.
Things started to go wrong once I’d moved on to more complicated — that is, more dynamic — elements. I basically wasn’t strong enough for those. Mastering so much acrobatics without any previous practice — as the moves were getting more and more complicated — was totally unrealistic. Still, I caught on somewhat and managed to learn a few things. If everyone started dancing tonight, I wouldn’t hold back.
I was in a good mood as I got ready to go to work out. I’d laid boxing aside for a while until Kostya returned, but I was still running. At a minimum, the plan was to bring Stamina up to 20 as one of the criteria for the Tier-2 Heroism skills.
As I ran, I listened to English lessons. After I’d gotten the call from the US embassy, I’d decided to study the language. I’d bought a monthly subscription to an online course and received a bunch of files, including audio ones. Each lesson was based around a specific topic, in this case cooking. The teacher was earnestly trying to convince the students how important it was to know how to cook, and to cook at home. Like, it was healthier and much cheaper than eating out, blah blah. He wasn’t teaching me anything new about America; the central objective was different: learn to absorb speech orally and understand it. I managed to do that: throughout the lesson you learned two or three unfamiliar words which I immediately ran through the translator.
My English progress bar rose by 2 or 3 percent, and my running, by half a percent. Once you got to level 8, it was progressively harder to level up a skill. To make up for this, I received a new level in Stamina. I was in the thick of my workout when the interface gave me a notification:
Your Stamina has improved! + 1 to Stamina.
Current Stamina: 12.
You’ve received 1000 pt. XP for successfully leveling up a main characteristic!
XP points left until the next social status level: 17990/18000.
I nodded with satisfaction and continued running. I passed the spot where Kostya and I had sparred and where his little sister, Julie, had watched our bags. It felt like all these things had happened a hundred years ago even though they’d taken place only recently: my creation of the company, Kostya’s stay in the hospital, the final breakup with Vicky in Panchenko’s office, my victory in the boxing tournament, Ilindi's appearance at the super final, the abduction and Trial (that is, the preliminary selection), Kostya and Julie’s trip to Germany for the surgery, and finally, the confrontation in the night club with Dorozhkin Jr..
Finishing the workout had gotten me 30 XP for completing a task. A shaft of light that only I could see pinned me down as I advanced a level.
Task status: Running Practice. Task completed!
XP received: 30 pt.
+5% to satisfaction.
Congratulations! You’ve received a new level!
Your current social status level: 18
Characteristic points available: 2.
Skill points available: 1.
XP points left until the next social status level: 20/19000.
My legs turned to jelly. Convulsing from the onset of euphoria, I toppled over onto the grass which was really the overgrown school football pitch.
This time it took me a few minutes to recover. I lay in the grass and opened my profile.
Philip “Phil” Panfilov
Age: 32
Current status: entrepreneur
Social status level: 18
Knowledge Seeker. Level: 13
Classes: Boxer, Empath. Level: 11
Divorced
Children: none
Main characteristics
Strength — 13
Agility — 11.
Intellect — 20.
Stamina — 12.
Perception — 15.
Charisma — 17.
Luck — 14.
The entry for Luck also showed the effects of the items: +12 from the Lucky Ring of Veles, +2 from the Protective Red Wristband, +5 from the ivory Netsuke Jurōjin. My workout outfit and sneakers barely added anything to Agility.
It would really be a shame to lose all these riches if Phil 2 failed the Trial. Too much of a shame for words, even. I thought it might even be a good thing if I didn’t remember my successes: I wouldn’t feel bad, and I’d just continue to smoke bosses in WoW. I'd heard that the new update to Battle for Azeroth was coming out in a month or two. Either the web search engines remembered it, or I was still in the database, but I saw ads for it whenever I Googled something, and I got messages from the developer’s website.
No matter what was in store for me there, I realized that I’d never tried to level up the Intellect and Charisma system points. I wasn’t especially concerned about Stamina — it wasn’t that important in my daily life: I didn't need to run any marathons, and I had enough breath right now for a prolonged night of lovemaking.
As an experiment I tried to invest a point in Intellect, and the system surprised me yet again. Either it was because of the increased Insight, or some other reason, but now things weren’t so cut and dried as with leveling up the physical characteristics:
Warning! We’ve detected an abnormal increase in your Intellect characteristic: +1.
Initializing process of creating, strengthening or restoring the user’s lost neuronal synaptic connections.
There are several ways of improving your intellectual characteristics available. Please choose one of the following:
— increase your cerebration speed by 10% above the base value;
— increase your reaction speed and problem-solving speed by 15% above the base value;
— increase your focus and attention by 50% above the base value;
— increase your short- and long-term memory by 20% above the base value;
— develop one of your creative abilities (+5 levels to the skill).
Accept / Decline
As I focused on the last option, a list of “creative abilities” started scrolling: music composition, poetry, writing, singing, acting, art, dance, photography, sculpture, design...
It was a long list — there was certainly plenty to choose from. There were even foreign languages. The fact that I could now speak perfect Chinese or Japanese (level 10 in just two Intellect level ups) was almost arousing. I might even become a great writer — truly great, because my current level 8 in Creative Writing combined with another 10 levels from the Intellect level ups would bring me to God level.
I could hardly wrap my mind around it. While my brain feverishly considered all the options, my hands, shaking with impatience and curiosity, tapped Decline and pressed Charisma.
That held a surprise, too.
Warning! We’ve detected an abnormal increase in your Charisma characteristic: +1.
Based on your choice, your body will be restructured.
There are several ways of improving your Charisma characteristic available. Please choose one of the following:
— improve your physical appearance and increase attractiveness according to the societal standards of your local segment of the Galaxy;
— activate the Commander’s Aura force field which offers a high probability of other people obeying you;
— activate the energy aura force field. Your entourage will feed off your energy, and your very presence will motivate people;
— develop one of your Charisma skills (+5 pt. to the skill).
Accept / Decline
The skills I could level up included social skills, leadership, public speaking, foresight, persuasion, wit, seduction, deception, erudition, decision making, and more.
There were so many choices. I wanted to develop all of them. Damn, why hadn’t I thought of leveling up Charisma and Intellect sooner? They were the root of my childhood complexes — that’s why I’d been weak and wanted to get strong. I’d become strong, but I’d also idiotically dumped a bunch of system points into Strength and Agility. That was infuriating.
I sprang up — or in streetdancing lingo, did a kip-up — and unenthusiastically dragged myself home.
Once back, I performed my postworkout actions on autopilot: I threw my clothes into the washing machine and myself into the shower. After showering, I opened the bathroom door and came face to face with Boris, who was patiently staring at me. She looked me in the eye and sneezed, then lazily stood up, stretched her back legs, and retreated to a corner, clearing a path for me, then started to preen herself. As usual, no matter what room I shut myself in, she’d wait for me on the threshold, but as soon as I opened the door, she’d pretend she'd just been passing by.
