Chapter 26: Lucrim Dating

Rick felt like a cliche being more nervous about a date than all the dangerous fights he'd endured, but it was true. He had developed instincts to help him survive fights... when it came to dating he had no idea what he was doing. The consequences could be severe, too, with no defensive core capable of mending broken relationships. For so long his life had been dominated by immediate concerns... he was out of practice with this sort of thing.

As he approached the restaurant, he fiddled with his collar awkwardly. It was a mid-tier place judging from the site, nothing too fancy, but he suspected that he was still under-dressed. He'd sort of believed he owned some better clothes, but looking through his closet had proved him wrong. The best he could do was a button down shirt - he didn't even own a tie.

Though with his new relative wealth he could have bought clothes quickly, Rick didn't know much about style and was afraid it would look inauthentic. If Emily was dressed great and he looked like a homeless bum he'd feel bad, but stuffing himself into a bunch of brand new clothes would strike a worse note. Or so he desperately hoped.

If either one of them had picked the other up, he could have found out earlier, but apparently it had worked best for her schedule to meet at the restaurant. Rick shifted his weight outside the door, adjusting his collar yet again. The place looked nice and he did feel under-dressed, but the real question was Emily.

He had no idea how he'd react if she showed up in an evening dress or something. Interesting as that might be to see, it really wouldn't fit what he knew of her. Worse, it would make him look like an idiot. Not that she cared about the class difference between them, but he knew that small issues could-

"Hey."

Her voice caught him off guard and he spun to find Emily... wearing exactly the same hoodie as usual. Either she'd repaired it or she had an identical spare. He thought she might be wearing some make-up, though he was bad with noticing the type that tried to look natural. But otherwise she looked like she could have rolled out of bed a few minutes ago, even wearing tennis shoes.

Seeing his glance made her smile. "You were worried about the dress code? Nah, I don't care about that sort of thing."

"Good." He glanced over at her again as they walked toward the entrance. "I really have no idea how places like this operate. I worried that they might have dress codes and not allow some people in, or something."

"The way I figure it, if anyone objects to what I'm wearing, I'm not powerful enough yet."

They cut off the conversation as they stepped inside. A waitress greeted them, noted their reservation, and led them to a table in the corner. The restaurant was dimly lit and subdued, but Rick thought that was what classy places looked like. In any case, that didn't really matter compared to his overwhelming relief that he hadn't screwed things up immediately.

After sitting down, they stayed silent. They'd worked together so smoothly fighting the jackalopes, yet now it seemed awkward again. Rick cleared his throat, regretted it, and desperately searched for a topic of conversation. Fortunately, Emily saved him with a simple question. "How are things at work?"

"They're okay. I'm having a hard time locating the last anomaly in the Refuge, and then after that I'll have to go back to finding them the old way."

"I don't think I can help with that," Emily said, "but if you run into anything that's interesting or life-threatening, I'm happy to come along."

"Oh, hopefully there won't be many threats like that. These are locations relatively close to Branton, after all." A moment later Rick realized that the larger threat was probably human, not animal. "Though there's actually one guy who worries me. Did I tell you about Jack?"

"Who?"

Before he could answer her question, they were interrupted by the arrival of their menus. He settled down to look over all the choices, but to his surprise Emily ordered before the waitress could even leave. Not wanting to hold things up, Rick went for a relatively cheap option that sounded good. Though he wasn't too familiar with real restaurants, he didn't think of himself as someone who took a long time, but clearly Emily preferred a faster experience.

"You've been here before?" he asked. She blinked back at him.

"No, I just don't like to wait."

"Ah." Things lapsed into silence for a bit before he rallied. "Okay, let me tell you about how this guy tried to kill me..."

In between getting their drinks and eventually their food, he managed to tell the story of the attack and the fight. He tried not to dwell on how Jack's strength had seemed so out of proportion to his lucrim generation rate, but couldn't help but be a bit distracted. Fortunately, Emily didn't seem to mind, perking up as always when lucrim techniques were discussed.

Once the food arrived, Emily tore into her dish at first, fast enough that he wondered if she'd forgotten to eat again. He decided to play along and ate for a while too, enjoying the quality of the food. After a while, Emily took a sip of water, dabbed her mouth, and glanced up at him.

"I can tell you how he did it, if you don't mind talking about that sort of thing on a date."

Rick shrugged. "Hey, I already went on about some guy who has a vendetta against me. I think we're well outside good first date topics."

"Good." Emily carefully put a fork of food into her mouth, chewed it thoughtfully as if considering what she was about to say, then spoke. "We've actually spoken a little about how strength can't be accurately predicted from generation rate. What we didn't cover was how it's possible to have more invested in Lucores than your total generation rate. Basically, it all comes down to your foundation."

"Oh, I might have heard about that. Is it the M-type foundation thing?"

"No, that's different. This might be a bit remedial for you, but it's important to have the fundamentals right. Your basic foundation supports your life and lets you develop Lucores. You want it as compact and efficient as possible, because it doesn't do you a lot of good otherwise."

"Right. Those are basics."

"What's more advanced lucrim theory is that you don't have to build your foundation that way. If you have the resources and expertise, you can either build a much better foundation, or a secondary foundation that will allow for something greater. There are more scientific ways to categorize things, but to keep it simple... if you're featherweight or welterweight class, what matters more is building some good cores. But to get into middleweight, you really need a better foundation."

He'd been shoveling food into his mouth while soaking up what she was saying, but now Rick hastened to swallow. "So which is better? Rebuilding or a secondary foundation?"

"Oh, the choices are way more complicated than that." Emily sat back and waved her fork in the air, which probably wasn't good manners, but she clearly didn't care. "If you want the most common option, there's something called an Investment Foundation. It lets you put away a lot of lucrim for your kids. Or for you, it could let you re-purpose all the lucrim you've invested in Graham's Stake."

"You mean... is the fact that it's in my lucrima soul hurting me in some way?"

"Think of it as carrying a generator around with you. It's useful, but it's slowing you down. With an Investment Foundation, you'd make it weightless. Then you could advance faster while simultaneously improving your generator."

"Huh." Rick realized that he'd heard hints of this in a few places while reading online, but the conversations had always seemed so far beyond him that he ignored them. Yet somehow, now he was in a position where he needed to care about this kind of thing. "You said that was one of the most common options. What else?"

"One that's harder, though even simpler, is getting a combat foundation. Those vary, but at the most basic the purpose is to let you invest lucrim into new Lucores even when the growth of your generation rate is flagging - which it will, though you haven't run into that yet. Anyway, the point is, Jack almost certainly has a combat foundation."

"You said that was at the most basic... don't dumb it down for me."

Emily shot him a wry grin. "The more complex part is that there are endless types of combat foundations. Some are like nothing but storage containers for lucores. Others are more expensive, but grant some benefit as an inherent property. And I don't mean just benefits like a little technique, I mean things like biological immortality. That's far beyond what you should care about right now, of course."

Though there was a lot to keep in mind, Rick was more interested than overwhelmed. "And none of these things are the same as an M-type foundation?"

"Nope. That's actually a much more complex lucrim asset, something that has advanced significantly since ancient times. Old fighters always worked on their core foundation, referring to it as reforging themselves. An M-type..." Emily fiddled with her fork for a while, trying to decide how to put it. "Think of it as a large chunk of power that brings a nasty aura leech along with it. Potentially a huge boost, but a calculated risk. And that's not even getting into other forms, like RR-type foundations. I'd advise not worrying about it."

"Is doing one of those as risky as a demonic bond?"

That got an odd look from Emily, but eventually she shrugged. "They're actually considered the standard safe path in some combat sects. But for my money - literally, I suppose - I think that they're a risk that most people shouldn't take. M-types work fine when life is easy, but one bad accident and everything could come falling down around you."

Realizing how long they had been chatting purely about lucrim techniques, Rick felt vaguely guilty. He didn't want to hijack the conversation, but saw a chance to ask about her instead. "What about you? Out of all these options, which did you choose?"

"I have three: my original foundation, an Investment Foundation, and a combat foundation I designed myself."

"Oh, really? I don't know enough to say if that's impressive, but... it sounds impressive."

"Not something to do lightly, anyway." Emily seemed slightly uncomfortable, eyes wandering around the restaurant. "But that's my choice. As for you, I advise thinking carefully before you make any decisions. You can liquidate foundations later, like Lucores, but it's not a trivial process. Better to analyze carefully and choose the best option for the long term."

Since she didn't seem to want to talk about herself, Rick asked a few questions about what advice she had for him. Emily answered gladly, though in the end it seemed to come down to his exact portfolio and his priorities in life. Which wasn't helpful, since there were still so many questions in his mind about what he wanted to do.

That conversation carried them into more general topics, which lasted until they'd finished all their food and even after. Emily certainly seemed to enjoy herself, and so long as the conversation was flowing smoothly Rick was happy too. It didn't seem quite like they were dating, since they'd had talks like this before, but he supposed that wasn't a bad thing.

The bill was a bit pricey for him, but Emily paid the entire thing with a credit card so smoothly that he didn't have a chance to object. A stubborn traditional part of Rick felt like that was wrong, but he wasn't going to be an ass and insist that he had to pay. Especially not given the price and the fact that Emily was a lot richer than him. She didn't make any more of a deal out of it than she had the difference in their combat strength, and in fact she didn't seem to even think about it at all.

When they walked out of the restaurant, Rick wasn't quite sure what would happen next. The conversation had faded on the way out and he didn't want to force it to start again. Before he could decide, Emily stepped up beside him and slid her fingers through his, giving him an almost shy smile.

"I had a good time tonight, Rick. Let's do something again soon... eating or fighting, I don't mind."

"Right, definitely." Since that seemed to be farewell, they split up there. Part of him wondered what Emily would be like just relaxing, or if she was constantly driven by something or other. He could honestly see it going multiple ways.

As he walked away, Rick discovered he had a spring in his step. They'd gone on their first date and he hadn't screwed anything up. He felt a bit weird that they'd barely talked about anything personal, but he couldn't deny that he'd had a good time. Though someone like Emily was out of his league in multiple ways, she wanted to be with him and she'd had a good time.

He was in such a good mood that he got several blocks down the street before he even thought about his bike.