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.

Bit by bit, he forced his spirit to conform to the shape he wanted. In the end, he felt utterly exhausted and every lucrim in his body was spent, but he'd dissolved the old cores into a new one. He fell back in his chair, taking a moment to breathe.

Granny Whitney smiled and filled his teacup. "Well done, dearie. Have another drink and pep yourself up. We'll be rid of that aura leech before too long as well."

"Really? But it..." Rick trailed off as he felt inside himself and realized how much the aura leech had grown. It was still draining his strength the same as before, and the creature itself was actually stronger than it had been, but it was nearly sated. He would finally be free.

"You've made more progress than you know. This path can seem like hard work and no play at times, but occasionally it pays off." She took the teapot, chopping up some sort of root into fine pieces, and then poured the entire second bottle of philosopher's elixir into the pot. "Now, are you familiar with drinking games?"

"What?" Rick stared at her and she smiled back.

"They can be great fun, you know. In any case, this next part... there's no way to do it in a civilized fashion, so you will just have to push through. What do children say these days? 'Chug'? Or am I behind the times?"

"Are you saying I'm supposed to drink all of it at once?"

"As much of it as you can, anyway."

Shaking his head, Rick eyed the teapot. Was he really going to just drink the whole thing? "Should I put it in something else, or just... directly out of the spout?"

"Stop being a pussy and drink it, dearie." Granny Whitney shook her head. "Oh, forgive my language. It's a rather silly phrase, isn't it? But seriously, drink it."

Driven by the desire not to have an old woman using language like that at him, Rick picked up the entire pot and began drinking from the spout. It burned more than the mix of tea before, but unlike drinking elixir directly, it wasn't like fire through his body. Instead it was like molten lava pushing through his veins. He wanted to stop, but he felt like if he did, he couldn't convince himself to start again, so he drank the entire thing.

Somehow he set the empty teapot back down, then he slumped back in his chair. For a while he just did his best to stay conscious.

Eventually he came to, still in the chair and without having vomited or anything else embarrassing. Granny Whitney seemed to be brewing a new pot of tea, hopefully a normal one this time. When she saw he was up, she turned back to him and smiled.

"Very good, dearie. Now, let's get rid of that leech, shall we?"

He couldn't quite believe it, but he realized that it was true: the third leech was no longer draining his strength. When he focused inside himself, it didn't burrow into his lucrima, instead rising to the surface. Going on instinct, Rick reached inside himself and tried to push the aura leech out.

To his surprise, it worked almost immediately. The creature emerged from his chest, flopped around on the floor a while, and then suddenly curled up into itself and vanished. It was gone. One of the three was entirely gone. He felt stronger already, though it was just a single step in the right direction.

Both procedures had left him weak and drained, but that was apparently why Granny Whitney was making tea. She finished and brought it back to the table. Once he had a cup of it, he felt much more himself, and ready to make use of all the new strength he'd been given.

"Go on," she said, "I can see you're itching to get out that phone of yours. See what you've made of yourself."

Rick didn't need to be told twice.

[Name: Rick Hunter

Ether Tier: 18th

Ether Score: 161

Lucrim Generation: 22,800

Effective Rate:    15,547

Current Lucrim: 16,426]

[Rick Hunter's Lucrima Portfolio

Foundation: 7400 (Lv II)

Offensive Lucore: 3850 (Lv III)

Defensive Lucore: 6550 (Lv V)

Graham's Stake: 3100 (Lv II)

Aura Leech: -4641 (Stage II)

Aura Leech: -2612 (Stage I)

Tracking Bond: 100 (Lv XIII)

Gross Lucrim: 22,800

Net Lucrim: 15,547]

For a moment, he was satisfied with all the progress he'd made. He had a new high quality core and one of the leeches was gone - he'd been working toward those things for a long time. But the next moment, he felt a bit of disappointment: all of that work just to get back to almost where he had been before his parents had left him the terrible debts.

After that, however, Rick forced himself to be more positive. It wasn't true that he was back in the same position: his lucrim generation rate might be about the same, but his use of it was far more effective. He'd made significant progress, and he'd make even more as he kept moving forward.

"I think I've hit my limit for the day," he said, "but what do we aim for next? Can we take out another one of the leeches?"

"You'll certainly want to do that in time, but perhaps not right away." Granny Whitney didn't sit down again, instead coming over to put a hand on his shoulder. "You've done well today, but I'm afraid we're running out of time. Let's get down to the Underground so that you can have your match, hmm?"

After so much time spent working on himself, a fight sounded good. Plus, it was going to be a new type, which might be interesting. Rick followed Granny Whitney out of the building and over to the Underground, his steps surprisingly light.

When they reached the chain link fences leading into the arena itself, she stopped him. He was focused forward, noting the large crowd and lack of other fighters, but she pulled his attention back to her. After looking through her handbag for a time, she pulled out a large blue pill and handed it to him.

"Take this pill, dearie. This is going to be a difficult fight."

"Alright." He swallowed it without any water, hoping that it would give him the edge he needed. Yet as he felt it dissolve into him, his head spun. All the strength seemed to be draining out of his body and he found himself clutching the fence just to stand up. "I don't feel... should I have taken that...? So soon after the rest...?"

"Oh dear, it seems you've misunderstood me. This battle is going to be difficult because of that pill I just gave you." Granny Whitney patted his cheek. "Now get out there and try your best, dearie."