17 - Power Source (Patreon)

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Ryan and Maximus hadn't gotten a single point in after Richie and Roxie got serious.

"What..." Ryan looked at the gnome across from him in disbelief, as Richie carefully picked up the robot to look it over and make sure nothing was broken or too scratched up, "...what the hell was that?"

Modak and Silvia also quickly approached, "How did you do that?" Silvia questioned, just as puzzled as Ryan. But Modak seemed to have some kind of idea.

"Was that an Energy Transmutor?"

"An Energy what, now?" Ryan asked, and Richie quickly explained with a proud grin on his face.

"An Energy Transmutor. It can take one form of energy and turn it into another directly. In this case, it can access and transmute kinetic, electrical, and magical energies into each other."

As he picked up Maximus off the ground as well, Ryan looked at Richie confused, "So what, you just turned Roxie's momentum into electricity for those sparks?"

"Basically. It's a relatively new technology, so it's not perfectly efficient. The only reason I can do it is because I can supplement some of the energy-loss through my magic. The others had to come up with their own gimmicks, though."

Ryan looked around at the other club members, who were all excitedly agreeing.

"Do you think... Maximus and I could fight the others as well? For practice, I mean," Ryan asked, not even hesitating. Maximus was a knight, a physical combat class. And after the end of the battle, Ryan noticed not only himself, but Maximus be surrounded by a particularly thin layer of that glowing dust representing a growth in experience. Of course, the others couldn't see it, but Ryan could. While these battles were basically nothing but spars, they still allowed for Maximus to grow.

He had no idea why he hadn't thought about it before; a large portion of especially martial-arts based awakened ended up in combat sports, rather than actual 'classic' combat scenarios. While they tended to level up slower than people that were active in Dungeon Diving or Heroics, they still levelled up.

Ryan wasn't necessarily expecting a full level-up, but just bringing them closer to the next one would just be great. Plus, the sooner Ryan reached level 10, the sooner he could get the Bluesky guys off his back. They kept calling and showing up at the Café. Luckily Runar managed to intercept them most of the time, but until Ryan reached level 10, the point at which the trading of classes became impossible even with whatever methods Bluesky had found, they clearly had no intention of letting up. Not to mention, levelling up and strengthening their skills would make finding the rest of Gaia's fragments just that much easier.

So, in order to level up as soon as possible, Ryan and Maximus would make use of whatever they could. They needed to fight. And doing it here, in such a safe environment, only brought benefits. And if all the Duellists were as unique as Roxie, then this would not only be useful to grow stronger... but it would also just be a lot of fun. However, it wasn't just Richie's own choice to be made.

The gnome looked around the room, trying to gauge the opinions of the other club members. Seeing that they were all curious and interested, the gnome replied with a nod, "Sure, as far as I'm concerned at least. I'll run it by the other members properly first, though. Ah, but obviously it can't happen right now either, we're all still working on the finishing touches. This whole Power Duel thing is part of our main project for the semester, so we're doing our final test-run this Friday afternoon. You can come by if you want, I'm sure the others will be happy to have the data from fighting a spirit."

With a grin, Ryan looked at Maximus as he stood on his palms, "Are you alright with that as well?"

Ryan didn't even have to wait for an answer; before he was able to even finish the question, Maximus nodded enthusiastically.

"Looks like we're set, then," Ryan replied, already getting excited. But Modak was more curious about something else.

"So, you said you're doing a test run? Are you guys going to be presenting this to anyone?"

Richie looked at him with a raised brow, "Of course. We've got a whole fair thing going on this weekend, where we'll present our work to some companies and organizations as a thing to sort of sell ourselves. It's a great way to get a couple job offers for after uni," Richie explained, "We've got some bigshots coming this time around, actually."

Modak looked around the room at the other members, almost regretting that he didn't join this club after all. But he simply didn't have the time to spend on this. Honestly, he barely had the time to be here right now.

Richie took out his phone and held it toward Ryan, "Here, give me your number, I'll text you the time and let you know if the plan changes or anything."

He quickly entered his phone number and returned it. And then, without further ado, Ryan, Modak, and Silvia left the club room.

"...That was so cool," Silvia almost involuntarily let out after the door closed behind her, "Can we join you on Friday? I loved Power Duels so much as a kid, please!"

Ryan laughed slightly and nodded, "Obviously, come join. Literally don't know what I'd do without you two at this point."

He looked at his friends for a moment as Maximus was starting to be taken apart, flowing into Ryan's palms to take a break in the domain. He was seriously insanely grateful for everything they've done for him. Not only did they make his life here in the city amazing, but after he awakened, they went full-force in supporting him through it all. He really-

"Sorry, coming through," a young woman pushed through the small group. They were stood in the middle of the hallway, so she really had no choice but to go right through them. A young Hobgoblin, carrying a cardboard box filled with bits of metal, tools, screws, wires, and most importantly, a partially constructed Duellist robot. She rushed through the hallway and pushed down the door handle with her elbow, carefully making her way into the room.

Taking some deep breaths, the girl put the cardboard box onto a free table on the other side of the room. While taking everything out of the box, she was approached from the side.

"Vanda, you alright? Didn't expect to see you here today," Richie came up to her with a smile, "You missed a pretty good show just now."

"Hm? Oh, sorry, yeah I was busy with work and then my little sister was suspended from school for a while, I-I'm trying to finish this in time, I'm so sorry..." Vanda replied nervously. Her hands were shaking and her claw-like fingernails were digging into her skin as she tried to calm herself down. Seeing how she was acting, Richie shook his head and started helping her unpack the cardboard box.

"Why are you even apologising? This isn't a job, you're supposed to be here to have fun. I mean, yeah, a lot of us use it as jumping-off points, but if we can't have fun with all of this stuff now, how can we later?" Richie explained his stance, and Vanda slowly looked at the gnome next to her.

"...Right... sorry."

Richie looked at the current state of Vanda's work, raising his brows curiously, "Oh? That looks like a pretty interesting strengthening method."

As if a switch was flipped, Vanda snapped her head toward him, "Right? The power output was plateauing, and then I remembered this documentary about Enhancers that I watched a while ago. I spent days just looking into specific documents about the unique flow of mana through an Enhancer's body!" she explained, seemingly starting to look for something specific in her tools and materials, "Did you know that they're one of the few physical class awakened that use a combination of Aura and Mana to strengthen themselves? They let the two different energies intertwine in these rhythmic pulses. The Aura is the base for the strength and then the specific application of mana refines it into the specific type of strengthening that the Enhancer needs."

"Oh? I think I've heard that before..." Richie muttered, cupping his chin in thought when he finally realised, "Wait, are you using both magical and electrical applications? At the same time? How does that even work, is it really giving the same effects as an Enhancer's abilities? And your Duellist is so small, how did you..."

An awkward laugh left the corner of Vanda's mouth, "Well, it's actually a bit of a glass-cannon... it's very easy for it to get damaged, and kind of complicated to repair. But when I did some tests, I was able to boost the strength by a whole extra 34.7%! And that was only when using a really basic energy pattern!"

It wasn't just Richie that was shocked by this revelation. The other club members that managed to overhear what Vanda was talking about all came closer to take a look.

"By that much? Seriously? Weren't the baseline stats of your Duellist pretty decent in the first place?" Richie asked, not sure if he heard right, "That's ridiculous, just... wow... How's the energy efficiency looking?"

Immediately, it was clear that Richie hit a sore spot, "So, that's actually one of the things I'm struggling with... on the electrical side things are fine, but the mana output is still far too high because no matter what I do, I can't get the precision I need into the mana patterns... So what I'm mostly working on right now is trying to fine-tune things. The voltage is fine, but the amperage is too weak, no matter what I do. Because I need two power sources, I just can't seem to find any mana sources that give me what I need..."

A bit in thought, Richie let out a groan, "I see the problem. That kind of thing can be solved when you scale it up for industrial solutions, but since our presentation methods are Duellists, that's a bit of a struggle... You think you'll be fine until Friday? A first-year that Awakened recently is going to do some Power Duels against us. He's a summoner, and he summons a Duellist-scale fighter. They're pretty skilled too, so it should make for some great data if you're interested," Richie explained, "Frankly, the companies that show up might always be really interested in Awakened, but they sometimes seem even more interested in technology that can match up to Awakened. Especially since your approach is Enhancer-inspired, I think you have a really good shot at making something work this weekend."

Vanda's heart beat loudly in her chest, as if threatening to jump out through her throat. Hearing that from Richie was basically a dream. Not only was he the top of all his classes in the Magic Engineering program, but he was even a Technomancer! There wasn't anyone in the Robotics club that didn't take his opinion about things like this as fact.

"Th-Thank you!" Vanda forced out anxiously, "That means a lot!"

"Let me know if you need help with anything, alright? We're all here to support each other."

"Of course!" looking at Richie's back as he moved back to his own table, Vanda couldn't help but smile broadly. She looked at the bottom of the cardboard box, where she was keeping something wrapped up. Carefully taking it out, Vanda unwrapped what she assumed to be the solution to all her problems.

Vanda quickly grabbed one of her tools and removed one of the plates covering her Duellist's back. As she had a lot of things relying on the presentation working out this weekend, Vanda was concentrating deeply on finding a way to make this happen. She pulled an old mana battery out of the small robot in front of her, and then grabbed the wrapped-up object. A small glass cylinder with metallic plates at the top and bottom.

And inside of the cylinder was a single object, a crystal that could act as an immense source of mana that she had managed to harness, "Let's hope this one works... I really owe Christopher for getting me this..." she smiled, as the small green stone illuminated her fingertips.

Ryan, Modak and Silvia stepped out of the university's science-building, as the orc looked down at his clock with an annoyed expression.

"Urgh... Sorry guys, I've got to go or I'll end up being late for my shift," Modak let out a loud sigh, tiredly rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Ryan raised his brow surprised, "Wait, you've got work today? And you spent the time that you should've been recovering from your hangover in the library for me? Seriously?" he asked, feeling even worse for relying on his friends so much.

"The library's the perfect place for that, don't worry. It's quiet and nobody can bother me there for too long if they don't want to deal with Aranea."

With a shudder, Ryan nodded, "Don't remind me... the first time I went there I nearly shit myself..."

"That's what you get for dropping one of Aranea's precious books," Silvia laughed, barely glancing up from her phone. Curiously, Ryan took a step closer.

"You texting Fae?"

Silvia's cheeks quickly turned a bright red, "No! I mean, yes, generally, but not right now! I'm texting Yanna, she asked me if I want to wait for her to finish her workout. Ryan, you had some stuff you still wanted to ask her, right?"

Ryan thought about it for a moment, and when he remembered what exactly it was, he excitedly nodded, "Right, yes! I wanted to talk to her about the best approach for unlocking some physical stats."

"Ah..." Modak nervously looked at his friends, stumbling over his words, "I guess say 'hi' to Yanna for me?" the orc asked, as Ryan and Silvia both looked at each other, trying to hide their smirks.

"Yes, Modak, we'll say 'hi' to Yanna for you," Ryan laughed quietly, patting his friend on the shoulder.

"You know, she'll be pretty disappointed you're not doing it yourself. You sure you don't want to come along for a little bit? Probably won't take too long," teasingly, Silvia pointed down in the direction of the building that Yanna was working out at.

Modak seemed to actually consider it for a moment, but then just shook his head, "I seriously have to get going, I might already have to run to catch my train... maybe next time."

"Boo!" Silvia held forward her hands and gave Modak two thumbs down.

"Fuck off," Modak scoffed as he gave his friends a hug. He then quickly turned around, heading out toward the subway station, "Talk to you guys later!" he waved the two goodbye again as he headed down the path in the opposite direction of his friends.

As they were walking, Silvia almost rushed ahead a bit, forcing Ryan to pick up the pace as well. Before long, the two reached the buildings at the edge of the campus, belonging to New Riverside University's sports faculty. Right behind the building they stood in front of, a couple dozen students were running on the tracks. Meanwhile, inside of the gymnasiums in front of them, people were either practicing their martial arts or simply doing muscle training. And there was a reason why this school had the most Awakened students in the whole country.

No matter the faculty, the school provided as much support as possible to their efforts, and that included the sports faculty. Silvia and Ryan entered into the gym for Awakened students. Everywhere they looked, heavy machinery was set up in rows that allowed for any Awakened to train using weights unsuited for any regular gym. If Ryan remembered correctly what he heard during the tour in orientation week, the strongest machine supported up to 2 tons of weight, even if just theoretically.

Ryan couldn't wait to train here once he properly spoke to the university's administration about his awakening. He really wanted to open up some physical stats beside 'Dexterity'.

"Hey, you kids," a gruff voiced yelled out from across the room, as a mountain of a man approached the pair. The grooves of his muscular arms and upper body were practically filled in with heaps of sweat that was dripping on the ground as he walked. Being more than a metre taller than Ryan, he instinctively took a step back to not get rained on, "This place is only for awakened."

A little ticked off, Ryan raised his brow, "Excuse me?"

"I'm just sayin', if ya ain't an awakened, ya can't use this place, so get outta here already," the troll in front of the two looked down at them, sighing lightly.

Ryan looked up at the man in front of him, his brows furrowed into a frown, "For your information, I am an Awakened, not that it matters to you. Yes, non-Awakened students aren't allowed to use the machines for their own safety, but they're allowed to be in here like any other student. So how about you calm down for a second and let us wait for our friend in peace?"

Not sure what exactly to say, the man glanced back and forth between Ryan and Silvia, "I, uhm... I..."

Before he could continue talking, or at least attempt to, the loud slam of a magic-supported barbell hitting the ground made all three of them flinch for a moment. As Ryan looked past the living wall in front of him, he spotted the person who created that sound. A young minotaur, drenched in water that pressed her short-buzzed fur against her densely muscle-packed skin, making it cling to the base of her horns. While she was shorter than the troll in front of Ryan and Silvia, she was still much taller than either of them. As she approached, her hooves clopped on the gym's floor while she pulled her headphones out of her ears.

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