Street Cultivation, page 14
The central lobby was mostly white and silver with dark gray highlights, a massive room that spanned three floors. He could see people moving industriously on the upper levels, smartly dressed and packing a significant amount of lucrim. As many businesses as Maguire Incorporated was involved in, it was clear that this was their lucrim-focused branch.
Before he waited long, he spotted someone who stood out like a sore thumb. It was a man only a few years older than him, with a scruffy goatee and a shirt with stylized blood spatters. He slouched into the lobby, looked around, then headed in his direction.
"Oh, hey, are you the guy with the core?" He sounded much too casual for a place of business like this, grinning unevenly. Rick wasn't sure what to make of him, so he just pulled out the core again.
"If you mean this one, yes."
"Wow, great." With troubling speed the casually-dressed man slipped forward and took it from him. He drew it close and peered at it, then glanced toward him eagerly. "You're not part of the test group, but I gotta ask, did you feel anything? It's supposed to be a future lucrim burn, but if the core wasn't working right maybe it would have just felt like a drain?"
"Sorry, but that one is only 10 lucrim. Maybe a fragment. I have no idea what it is or what it's supposed to do, but I didn't feel anything strange." He decided to stick with that, hoping that they would brush him off as simply ignorant. The other man seemed disappointed.
"That sucks, man, but I guess that's how it goes. Though... how exactly did you get this thing? Weird that it got out, but the higher ups don't always tell me things."
Rick hesitated, completely unsure how to answer that question. He'd assumed that they knew exactly how he got it, so he hadn't prepared any lies on the subject. Before he could think of anything, they were interrupted by a man wearing a black suit, sunglasses, and a wire. His lucrima was tightly suppressed, but he immediately set Rick's teeth on edge.
He stopped nearby and swiveled his head toward the unkempt man. "You've confirmed recovery of the core?"
"Yeah, this is it. Looks like he had it removed by some competent rando. But no sign of damage or anything."
"Then you can go back to your work. I'll take it from here." With that, the man in the suit pivoted to look at Rick. "Come with me."
Saying no didn't really seem like an option, so Rick followed him. They left the main area and entered a hallway as lightly colored as the rest of the building. If not for the signs on the walls, Rick would have quickly become lost. They didn't go far, soon pulling into a small office. The man in the suit sat down and gestured for him to sit. It was not an offer.
As soon as Rick sat, bracing his strength despite himself, the man pulled out a sheaf of paper. Rick actually didn't see where he had been holding it, but there was no time for that because it was already being placed into his hands and the man was speaking.
"Maguire Incorporated appreciates you coming forward and returning our intellectual property voluntarily. However, we need you to sign this nondisclosure and anti-indemnification agreement immediately. If you do, our corporation will be able to appropriately compensate you for your assistance."
Rick shrugged off the play to his greed. He might be poor, but he couldn't be bought that easily. "Okay, just give me time to read all of this."
"That is not necessary."
"You want me to follow the entire agreement, don't you?" Though the suited man stared at him so intensely the entire room felt oppressive, Rick forced himself to read every single line carefully. It said that he couldn't sue for anything related to the core, couldn't hold them responsible for any losses, couldn't talk about the core's existence to anyone else, and more.
Seemed mostly like the company covering its ass, nothing too scary. Though he was surprised to note that a later clause directly said he couldn't sue or bring charges for any injuries taken during the acquisition of the core. The language of that clause wasn't in the same legalese as the rest. He wondered if it had been put in later, specifically regarding how Mike had attacked him.
"That is sufficient time. We need you to sign the agreement."
"Can I get a pen?" Since the suited man was putting off ever more dangerous vibes, Rick decided that he didn't have a real choice. The man handed him a pen, again slipping it out of his hand like some sort of magic trick, and Rick signed at the bottom of all the pages.
"Very good. Maguire Incorporated thanks you for your cooperation."
"You said you'd compensate me for my assistance?"
The man stood up, no longer looking at him. "Your reward is that Maguire Incorporated will not bring charges against you for theft of our intellectual property."
Typical. Rick frowned at the man, but internally he breathed a sigh of relief. Though it might have been from watching too many conspiracy movies, he'd halfway expected them to try to eliminate him after they got the core. In real life corporations didn't kill needlessly, though, just did whatever was necessary to get what they wanted. Which meant the core and his silence, in this case.
Since it seemed like their business had concluded, Rick stood up along with the suited man. Before they could go anywhere, the suited man cocked his head at an angle, listened for a moment, then turned back to him. "Stay where you are for several more minutes. Then you may go."
Those seemed like nonsense instructions, but Rick played along. He hadn't sat in the office very long before the door opened again and a wall of solid lucrim washed over him.
The man who walked in was middle-aged, with a full head of gray hair and an expensive suit. But all of that paled in comparison to the power within him. Rick thought that he had a decent amount of personal lucrim, but it was difficult to see through the radius of the Security Lucore.
Such cores were unbelievably expensive, used by politicians, celebrities, and other powerful figures in order to prevent assassination by lone warriors. The aura it put off was invisible, though obvious to anyone with the ability to sense lucrim, but it would stop most ordinary attacks cold. Whoever this man was, he was serious business. Several aides came along with him, bearing tablets, but he waved them back as he stepped in.
"I understand you had a little scuffle with Mike." The man had a soft, smooth voice. Somehow Rick felt that it would be a very bad idea to lie to him.
"He came into our gym and asked for a match. It was my shift, so I did my best to keep up with him. That's part of the job, sir."
To his surprise, the man chuckled. "Yes, I'm sure that it was all that polite. In any case, my people tell me that you managed to tear part of an experimental core from him."
"Uh..." Rick felt like the question was dangerous, but couldn't look away. "That might be how it happened, sir. I'm not sure."
"Relax, Richard. This turned into enough of an issue that I wanted to stop by myself, but the company isn't going to hold a grudge. This isn't the first time I've had to clean up after my son."
Rick kept a smile on his face while doing the exact opposite of relaxing. He'd just learned three things that made him far more nervous.
First, this man was Mike's father, the CEO of Maguire Incorporated. Second, he bothered to take a few minutes out of his schedule to visit personally, which couldn't be a good sign. Third, the man had just casually used his first name. While it was possible that he'd gotten it from the legal forms, Rick had a feeling that he'd just been threatened.
In any case, the CEO gave him a thin smile and turned away. "I approve of your initiative, young man. Be on your way and stay out of trouble."
With that, he left the room, already speaking with his assistants again. The oppressive aura went with him and Rick breathed a sigh of relief to be only under the scrutiny of the suited agent. When the man gestured for them to go, Rick went willingly.
He braced himself for things to go wrong at the last second, for guards to ambush him or a bullet to go through him. But instead he was escorted to the door and allowed to go. Once he was out in the park, walking away from the company headquarters, he finally stopped holding his breath.
Dealing with the matter directly had definitely been the right decision. Perhaps there was some way he could have profited off the Golden Core, but trying to mess with a company this big was insane. He didn't need any corporate intrigue in his life - dealing with all his other problems was more than enough trouble for him. As he headed out, Rick finally let himself smile.
A moment later, he felt a burst of power beside him. Honed by his time in the Underground, he moved to dodge immediately, but wasn't fast enough to stop a blurring fighter from rushing up to him and grabbing the front of his shirt.
"You bastard!" It was Mike. His blond hair flew wildly and fury burned in his eyes as he tightened his fist in Rick's shirt. "My own father... I'll never forgive you for this."
They were still in sight of multiple people in the garden, so Rick focused his lucrim defensively and made no move to attack, just raising his hands to either side. "I didn't mean to do anything. Whatever happened, it was an accident."
"Bullshit! I'd beaten you and you grabbed at my watch like a little thief! I'd been entrusted with that for testing purposes and you... you..."
It looked like Mike wanted to punch him in the face, so Rick braced for it. Yet he found his eyes wandering to the other man's wrist, which now wore a much less expensive-looking watch. So the experimental Lucore had been stored within it? That was odd, but not shocking. In any case, what had happened was finally known - not that it did him a lot of good.
"Listen up, you little shit." Mike had obviously noticed that people were watching, so he slowly unclenched his fist, but the hatred in his eyes grew. "I will never forget this. You are nothing to me, do you understand? However miserable your life is, I will find some way to make it worse. I'll grind you under my heel until you regret ever standing up to me."
The best choice would have been to end things peacefully, but when Rick looked into Mike's eyes, he knew that was an impossibility. So he couldn't stop himself from replying. "Come by any time for a rematch. I think I'll need to raise my rates next time, though."
Mike let out a growl and struck at him, but Rick managed to step back from the wild blow. For a moment the other man stared at him, seething, then he turned away and stormed off. Rick stood there for a little longer, then headed away, his smile disappearing.
So this wasn't over after all. To make matters worse, he saw that his phone had collected several messages, the timestamps suggesting that messages had been suppressed while he was in the building.
One from Melissa saying he needed to pick up more of her medication. Another from Jimmy telling him he needed to cover an extra shift tomorrow. And finally one from Granny Whitney listing a time he needed to arrive at the Underground for a match.
It never ended. Rick sighed and started walking back.
Chapter 18: Tea Training
For a couple of weeks, Rick managed to juggle everything without any of it going horribly wrong. At first he was constantly alert for Mike to attack him, but it seemed that his threats weren't going to be carried out immediately. Given that, Rick was able to slowly dig his way out of the holes fate had forced on him.
He'd expected Granny Whitney to throw him into horrible fights with life-threatening conditions, but her requests were nothing special. Just more general melee events, except she requested that he target certain candidates and make sure they went down. So far he hadn't found any pattern to them, so he decided there was no reason not to cooperate.
More importantly, he earned 10-14 points for each of those events. That finally put him over 100 - specifically 112 - which meant that he had more control over the types of events he took part in. That included not getting thrown into Slayer matches according to rumors, though based on how much Alger had enjoyed it, Rick wouldn't put anything past the Underground's owner.
Granny Whitney had implied that something more important than average would occur when he passed 100, but had been busy with her own issues when it happened. Now he received a message indicating that he should meet her at a different address, which turned out to be a small building next to the Underground's makeshift hospital.
When he entered, he found her seated at the center of a couch with embroidered cushions piled to either side. She was currently working on knitting something, her knitting needles clicking back and forth with a practiced air.
"Hello there, dearie!" She smiled at him and gestured toward the seat opposite her with the back end of one knitting needle, not missing a stitch. "I do hope you have been keeping up all your training, because today we might be able to make some significant progress."
"I've been doing my best. I've advanced to the second stage of Graham's Focus, as described by the book. The restoration pills helped, and I think I did the sand ritual properly. Plus I've been trying Buffet's Buffer on my own, improving my foundation and putting all the extra toward removing the worst of the aura leeches."
"Well, look at you! How much progress have you made?"
"It's been reduced to..." He had to check his phone, since he found it easier to avoid focusing on the exact number. Better than he'd expected. "462 lucrim remaining. That's less than a third of the original debt."
"Wonderful, wonderful!" Granny Whitney beamed at him, as if proud of a favored grandson. It gave him a warm feeling for a split second before he became deeply suspicious. "I think I'll help you a little with that, dearie. You deserve a bit of a reward for all your hard work, plus you'll need to face more difficult challenges than simple melees from now on."
She set down her knitting needles for a moment, reaching into the handbag beside her... and pulled out a bottle of 100k philosopher's elixir in a liquor bottle. Then a china teacup. Then another liquor bottle. While Rick stared, she arranged everything on the coffee table in front of her.
"Would you be a dear and get the tea for me? It should be done by now."
He looked around the room and spotted an electric teakettle on a table in the corner. When he went to pick it up, he found it surprisingly heavy, much more so than he would have expected, to be filled with just hot water. When he carried it back to the table, Granny Whitney beamed at him again.
"Thank you, dearie! Now, sit back for a moment while I whip up a little something special."
When she began pouring the elixir into the teapot, he had to say something. "Is it really safe to mix philosopher's elixir and... whatever kind of tea that is?"
"Not only is it safe, it's delicious!" She filled the teacup and then pushed it across the table toward him. "The tea is a special recipe of mine, and adding the elixir gives it a bit of a kick. But what matters is that the two balance each other out. While the elixir spikes your current lucrim, the tea soothes your lucrima soul. Not ideal for growth, but excellent if you want to remove something holding you back, like an aura leech."
"Then I suppose I'll give it a try." He hesitantly took a sip and found it... strange. The mix was thick and sweet, not really like either component. Instead of a rush of power, it was more like a strong current, pushing his aura upward. "It's not bad."
"That entire pot is for you, but don't drink it all at once. It'll be most effective if you savor it."
He nodded and kept drinking, watching her over his cup. "Thank you for the gift, then. What else did you want to do?"
"You mean you don't want to sit and chat with your dear old Granny Whitney?" She clucked her tongue and began knitting again. "Show me your Graham's Focus."
Rick obeyed, going through the exercise several times while he continued to drink the tea. It was a bit more difficult with the liquid flowing through him, but he kept it up. All the Lucores within him seemed to melt a little into the current of his power, and after a time the old woman nodded.
"You've done well. We can move on to the real purpose of all this: reinvesting your Birthright Cores. They're not doing you very much good as they are now, so you might as well use them for something else, hmm?"
"No need to convince me, I completely understand." Plus, he would feel better not being regularly reminded of the mess his parents had left him, though he kept that to himself. "Could I apply those to the aura leeches and wipe out the debts entirely?"
"While you could, I don't think that would be a very good use of your strength. No, I had you do Graham's Focus in particular so that you could move on to something better than that: Graham's Stake."
He frowned, trying to remember all the details of it from the book. "I read that part, but the book was pretty obscure. I don't know if I can do the exercise, and even if I did, the book doesn't say a thing about what it actually does."
Granny Whitney shook her head. "The exercise is just a step toward developing a Lucore - a special sort of Lucore. Most types, you need to work terribly hard to improve them, but this one will naturally gather lucrim on its own and provide you with some of it. Slowly at first, yes, but it adds up over time. Graham's Stake is a simple form of this type, but there's nothing wrong with it. You won't regret having it in your lucrima portfolio even if you become a Perpetual Soul."
"But this new Lucore wouldn't grant me a direct capacity, would it? I understand the value, especially long term, but in the short term don't I need speed or an ability more?"
"Tut tut, young man. Believe me, one day you'll thank me for this. You might be able to progress quickly by just pouring everything into strength at first, but slow and steady wins the race."
"Then I'll bow to your superior wisdom." Also, he didn't have any choice in the matter. Granny Whitney beamed at him, knitting needles clicking even faster.
Following her instructions, Rick advanced forward with the exercise. Normally it would have been difficult to dissolve the Birthright Cores inside him and create something new, but the tea helped lubricate the whole process. Plus, the constant flow of new power made everything easier. He understood how rich people could become powerful, if they could develop themselves like this.
But apparently this "Graham's Stake" also helped them become more powerful, so he devoted himself wholly to mastering the technique. It involved drawing all of his aura up into a sphere, but unlike a normal core, this one had raw, mostly unrefined lucrim packed within. That was what produced the growth, or so he thought.
