04 - Knight Spirit Maximus (Patreon)

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Ryan looked at the small, 20 centimetre figure stood on his desk. The spirit 'Maximus' had just shown his gratitude to Ryan, or at least that's what the quest 'reward' would make him assume. But before he could even try to think about it more, two messages appeared in front of his eyes.

***

[You have become the Keeper of the Knight Spirit Maximus]

[A new domain has become available]

***

"So, what now? Can it do tricks?" Silvia wondered curiously, and Ryan laughed, his nervous tension disappearing immediately.

"He's not a dog," Ryan protested, looking back at the Spirit, concentrating on Maximus as a whole as if he was pulling up his own status window, "Though, I do wonder, can I maybe see anything about him?"

Just like Ryan hoped, another window appeared.

***

[Maximus]

[Knight | Level - 1]

[AP - 18]

[Stats]

-[Aura - 0.56]

-[Strength - 0.79]

-[Stamina 0.71]

-[Resistance - 0.86]

-[Physicality - 0.81]

[Skills]

-[Knight's Attack | Level - 1]

-[Knight's Guard | Level - 1]

-[Knight's Martial Knowledge | Level - 1]

***

"That... hold on..." Ryan muttered confused, "That's just the actual Knight Class, and a regular... huh?"

"You okay? What's going on?" Modak asked with a worried expression, and Ryan quickly nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine... But... do you guys remember learning about awakened Knights in history class or something?"

"Uhh... vaguely?" Silvia replied, "What about it?"

"So, Maximus just has a regular status window. I don't know much about spirits, but I do know that's not normal. He has a class and all, and that's the 'Knight' class... Here, hold on," Ryan said, reaching past Maximus to get to his computer's mouse. He opened a text editor and quickly typed everything out for Silvia and Modak, since they couldn't see the system windows.

"Huh... those stats are kind of low, right?" Modak asked, "Yours are a bit higher than that, right?"

"Well, yeah, but you've got to consider that he's basically a 9th of my height... for that, he's pretty strong," Ryan quickly explained, "And we don't know a ton about Knight skills, but they sound decent enough too."

Ryan quickly pulled up the information on Maximus' three skills, copying them over for Silvia and Modak as well. During that whole process, Maximus himself was just staring at that massive window of light in front of him, with nearly childlike curiosity.

***

[Knight’s Attack]

[Level - 1] [Proficiency – 0%]

[An offensive aura envelops your weapon]

[Effect - +10% Damage for 1 Minute]

[Cost – 10 AP] [Cooldown – 2 Minutes]

[Knight’s Guard]

[Level - 1] [Proficiency – 0%]

[A protective aura envelops your body]

[Effect – +10% Resistance for 1 Minute]

[Cost – 10 AP] [Cooldown – 2 Minutes]

[Knight’s Martial Knowledge]

[Level - 1] [Proficiency – 0%]

[The deep and extensive knowledge of a Knight, allowing the skilled use of a large variety of weapons]

[Effect – Increased proficiency with all weapons]  

***

"Yeah, these are just regular skills. If he weren't tiny, there'd be nothing hinting at Maximus being a spirit," Ryan pointed out, and Silvia placed her chin onto the desk, taking a closer look at Maximus.

"So he's literally a spirit of Knighthood?"

Ryan slowly nodded his head, "I guess so. I mean, are those a thing?"

"Well," Modak started, contemplating it for a moment, "I haven't heard of that before, but Kars and Mila are the Great Spirits of Technology and Agriculture, so a concept like 'Knighthood' doesn't seem impossible."

"I guess it doesn't matter, really. He seems pretty cool either way," Ryan pointed out, a smile on his face, "I'll have to figure out a way to see what he can actually do, though. And test out my other skills a bit."

As if remembering something, Modak raised a brow, "Right, speaking of things you've got to do... Are you going to register soon?"

"I mean, I have to. It's not like I can just be an unregistered Awakened. I don't plan on keeping it a secret either, so I don't want to deal with any fines or anything," Ryan pointed out, looking over at Silvia, "Though, do you think I could maybe talk to your sister about some stuff? Dealing with all that bureaucracy on my own sounds... rough."

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'll ask her. But Yanna's been pretty busy since she awakened, so don't count on it too much," Silvia pointed out, her eyes deeply focused on Maximus as if she was looking for something.

"Is everything alright?" Modak asked, and Silvia slowly nodded. She raised her head and pointed at the screen where Ryan had written the skill information down on.

"Yeah, just like... the skills say a lot about weapons here, right?"

"Yeah?" Ryan replied, not sure where she was going with that, "What about it?"

Silvia looked back down at Maximus, and pointed something out that Ryan himself hadn't realized until now.

"He doesn't have any weapons."

***

***

***

Ryan was left alone in his room with Maximus. Silvia and Modak headed home for the time being, since it was getting a bit too late. Of course, they would meet up again soon; they practically hung out every night anyway. But for now, Ryan had a lot of things to think about on his own.

Maximus stood on the desk and looked up at Ryan, who was tapping his finger on the table-top, "Okay, so... Why don't you have any weapons?" he wondered out loud, "You're a knight, and what's a knight without a sword?"

Seeing Ryan's confusion, Maximus tilted his head to the side.

With a slight laugh, Ryan shook his head and scooted closer to his desk, and quickly turned toward his monitor, navigating to his browser that was still opened to the Awakened-wiki, and quickly opened a new tab. In the top bar, Ryan quickly typed out a name.

'Hayden Aglecard'. His father's name. The first few results were social-media profiles of people named something similar to 'Aglecard', or other people named 'Hayden'. Though, there didn't seem to be a lot of people actually called 'Aglecard'.

However, after the social-media sites came some news sites, and the headlines surprised him.

***

• Aglecard Charity Auction raises 50.000.000 Gild

• 20.000 Homes built throughout Riveria by the Aglecard Charity

• Aglecard Charity donates ancient Artefacts to the Riverian National History Museum

• Thousands of Centurean Refugees find employment through the Aglecard Charity

• The Aglecard Charity...

• ...

***

Ryan stared at the screen a little taken aback. Literally every single article mentioning the name 'Aglecard' talked about some kind of massive charity. If it was like that, then he wouldn't be able to find out a lot about his father through the internet. Everything would be drowned out by things related to this charity instead, so talking to Runar in the morning would be a lot easier.

But even so, since he was already at it, Ryan decided to start looking up some things about spirits. While he would have much preferred a physical class, now that he awakened as this 'Spirit Keeper' class, he had to make this work. Of course, there were ways to get a different class; it was vastly expensive and incredibly exploitative, but there was a company that dealt with the trading of classes. Not that Ryan was interested in that; he had way too many questions about this class to just get another one.

While Ryan was distracted, looking up a lot of different things on the internet, Maximus had started searching the desk, pushing things around as if trying to look for something. By the time Ryan noticed that something was going on, Maximus already picked up the exacto knife and removed the safety cap.

"This is so weird," Ryan muttered with an awkward smile, and as he finished speaking, Maximus began to swing the knife around. It was almost too fast for Ryan to see, until Maximus suddenly stopped. And then, he began to stab the knife forward a few times. Overall, it really just seemed like he was trying to get used to it.

"Damn. If I need you to fight a cardboard monster for me, I'll let you know, bud," Ryan stood up and walked toward his door. It was pretty late, so he figured he should just get ready for bed right now. Though, then an idea popped up in Ryan's head, "Hold on... does that actually count as, like, a weapon for you? It just said 'Weapon', but... I guess that's kind of a spear for you... so... Do you want to try to use your... uhm, 'Knight's Attack' skill?"

As though waiting for that suggestion, Maximus slammed the flat bottom of the improvised exacto-spear onto the desk. And that exact moment, a wave of red light flowed through the roots covering Maximus' armour, flowing right into the knife. The edge of the blade was soon covered in a glowing red edge as Maximus' aura strengthened it.

"No fucking way..." a smile formed on Ryan's face, as he rushed over to his shelf, where an empty energy-drink can was waiting to be recycled. Immediately, Ryan placed it down onto the desk, which was just a little shorter than Maximus himself, and clearly the small Knight understood why the can was there.

Maximus swung the exacto-spear to the side, moving it in sharp angles. At the last motion, Maximus stabbed it forward and pierced the side of the can, pulling the upper half off, leaving it stuck to the blade. But the part where the can was connected up until a few moments ago now had sharp triangles sticking out, each the exact same size as every other one. It took Maximus just a second to do this.

"...Huh." a broad grin formed on Ryan's face. If Maximus could use something like an exacto knife as a proper weapon, then maybe he could also use other things. Either way... there were a lot of things to try out. But at this point, Ryan was seriously just exhausted. The adrenaline from awakening was all used up, and he was ready to crash into bed. But before then, there was one more thing Ryan had to try out.

Ever since one of the system messages he got earlier, he could feel something in the back of his mind. Something like a mental image that was trying to push itself to the front. Ryan was pretty sure that it was related to one of his skills; the 'Spirit Domain'.

***

[Spirit Domain]

[Level - 1] [Proficiency – 0%]

[Allows the Spirits to enter a space of their own, where they can live, train, and keep their belongings]

[Effect – Grants access to the Spirits’ domain]  

***

It was a skill without any sort of cost or cooldown connected to it; a passive skill. So it was technically constantly active.

Ryan looked at Maximus curiously, "Can you get into your domain?" he asked, and without hesitation, Maximus nodded his head. He placed the safety cap back onto the exacto knife and placed it down onto the cutting mat. The knight bowed down slightly in front of Ryan, as his body fell apart into those red wisps of light that were starting to become so familiar. However, instead of disappearing into thin air, they flowed toward Ryan as if carried by some non-existing wind, clinging to his skin.

After the wisps of light disappeared in Ryan's body, that mental image in the back of his mind became more clear. Ryan was able to see a space. A cube. Ten, by ten, by ten metres. At the base of that cube was a meter worth of dirt and gravel. In the corner was a small wooden hut, though most of it seemed to be cut off by the cube's planes. The only thing inside was a single bed, and there really wasn't enough space for anything else. If the door opened toward the inside, it wouldn't be able to open fully either.

But most of the space in the cube was taken up by that patch of dirt and gravel on the outside, with a single straw training dummy propped up on an old wooden stick. As Ryan could feel the warmth of the red light flow through his body, that light began to gather in the centre of the cube, coming together to form Maximus.

***

***

***

The late-night subway cart was mostly empty, just a few drunken, mid-week party-goers sitting around and feeling the train's deep buzz travel through their bodies. At one end of that cart sat a young orc with thick headphones pulled over his ears.

Modak glanced down at his phone, checking the time as he slowly sat up with a tired groan. He caught himself at one of the vertical metal bars as the train came to a halt. As the train pulled away from him again, Modak slowed down for a moment and turned around. Instead of leaving through the exit right by his place, he would take the one on the other end, taking the opportunity to check something. And the moment that his head peaked out over the stairs leading up to the street, Modak let out a deep sigh, seeing light shining out from the windows of a nearby building with a large sign at the front. 'Brog's Garage'.

"Not again..." he muttered to himself as he approached the door next to the main garage. The smell of dust and oil immediately attacked Modak's nose, and even through his headphones, the loud, 20-year old rock music drowned out every other sound. Without a moment's hesitation, Modak grabbed the phone laying in between the speakers and paused the music. And immediately, a large head with halfway-greyed hair peeked out from behind the car stood in the centre of the garage, "What the-" the man, Brog, said with an annoyed expression, before seeing who it was.

"Modak! What're you doin' here?"

"No, dad, what are you doing here? It's like 1am, you promised not to do this anymore."

"Oh come on, now," Modak's father shook his head with a loud groan, wiping the black oil from his hands as he moved around the car to take a look at the clock, "Huh, I guess you're right..."

"What is it this time? Why are you still working?" Modak asked, not in the mood to play around right now. His father turned back toward the car; an older model, but in pretty decent condition overall.

"Well, the owner's comin' tomorrow, I've gotta get this done. Not like I can just give 'im back a broken car!"

"That car's been here for a week, dad. Wasn't Paul supposed to work on that one?"

"Paul... he's been a bit busy recently, so he..."

"Just fire him already, he's been slacking off for months, dad," Modak sighed, but Brog shook his head immediately.

"No, no, I can't do that to 'im. He's about to have a kid," Brog looked at his son with a somewhat awkward expression. Modak wasn't particularly happy with that excuse, but he didn't want to tell his father what to do either. It was his business, so it was his responsibility.

With a click of his tongue, Modak put his bag on the ground and took off his jacket, carefully hanging it off the rusty hook near the door. Confused, Brog looked at him, "What are you doing?"

Modak walked over to the edge of the car lift, hitting the button to make the hydraulics lift it up a bit more so he could take a closer look at it from underneath.

"Not like we can give back a broken car, right?"

***

***

***

Laying in bed, Ryan looked up at his ceiling. Today was an interesting day, to say the least. He wanted to deny it, but there has to be something up with his father; why else would he have a spirit in a random toolbox. There were some rare cases where classes could be inherited, but those were all things established hundreds of years ago at the dawn of the system.

"He was... an accountant," Ryan muttered quietly, holding his hands to his face with a loud groan. He was still far too awake to actually sleep right now. Even Maximus, in his domain, was still awake, just seated on the edge of his bed.

Ryan grabbed the phone laying on the corner of his bed. It probably wouldn't help him fall asleep, but he might as well scroll through his Loop feed for a bit. The app opened up with an excited young woman pointing at the green-screened image behind her, "Ten must-go places in New Riverside during Spirit Week this year!" 

"Oh, right..." Ryan raised a brow. It was going to be his first Spirit Week here in the city soon. It was already a big deal in his small hometown, but he heard that everything was at a whole other level here in New Riverside. For now, Ryan saved the video and kept scrolling.

"New suspected Dungeon formation in-" Ryan instinctively scrolled past the video. New dungeons popped up every week or so.

"An animal disappeared from New Riverside Zoo!" as Ryan kept scrolling, he noticed something off, though. Not right in front of him, but in the back of his mind, Maximus was suddenly stood up within his domain, practically staring Ryan down.

"Uhm... are you alright, dude?" he asked concerned, and Maximus quickly shook his head, and then started pointing up. Not sure if he understood correctly, Ryan slowly scrolled back up to the video he just interrupted.

"New suspected Dungeon formation in an abandoned factory in Copperbeach! After this copper foundry first went out of use more than a decade ago, it has been locked off from public entry. But when some urban explorers found themselves exploring the premises, they noticed the tell-tale signs of a new dungeon and quickly reported it to the authorities. It has been classified as a Low danger level and-" Ryan watched through the video, a bit bored. These never showed what the actual dungeon was or revealed any useful info, so he preferred watching longer deep-dive videos on Klicks instead.

However, Maximus seemed to be more than just curious. As Ryan looked inward into the domain, he noticed the Knight standing in the centre of the space. Ryan could tell that Maximus wasn't looking at him right now, but past him, as if watching the world through his eyes. And Ryan didn't know why he could tell, it was just like a gut feeling, considering that Maximus stood there as he always did. He didn't even have a face that could be expressive. But Ryan could tell that Maximus was... angry. As if that realisation triggered something, a message popped up in front of him.

***

[You have received a new Quest!]

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