Chapter 35: Power Budgeting

The next time Rick had a match, he tried to decide whether to take his pill before or after. In the end he decided to take it before, just in case he was severely injured during the match. Though enduring the pain of his insides tearing apart wasn't a pleasant way to prep for a match, he disliked the idea of feeling that pain after a difficult fight even more.

As if that wasn't enough, Granny Whitney still gave him one of her foundation-damaging pills from before. So even though his internal injuries felt like they had recovered, he went into the match dizzy and drained.

Fortunately, he felt as though he had improved, or at least improved at fighting under such unfavorable conditions. It was far from a glorious victory and he fell multiple times, but he was the last one standing. Granny Whitney just smiled at him and wrote a note in a small book.

With the match complete, he had a bit of free time. Though he used some of it to recover and then train more, he also got the chance to watch Fist of the Sublime with Melissa. It was as gloriously stupid as promised and they quoted each other lines from it excessively until the jokes got old.

After that, however, he had an uncertain engagement: meeting with Emily. He hadn't seen her since the incident and he wasn't sure if she would resent being forced into it.

On that day, he got a text from Emily saying to meet him at some place called the "Recluse's Retreat." He hadn't heard of it before, but some checking on the internet gave him the address and a description. They had a fancy website that looked like it was designed to impress wealthy clients, emphasizing the luxury of the place without telling him overly much about what it was actually for.

In any case, he needed to hurry to get there in time, even using a taxi. Rick scrambled out the door and used the ride over to collect himself. Given how he'd fought alongside Emily, he trusted her - at least more than he trusted Granny Whitney - but that didn't mean their meeting would be easy.

The Recluse's Retreat was a boxy U-shaped building in the center of the city, unlike what he'd seen on the website... at least until he got to the main gate. There was a garden within, completely walled off by the front gate and the building around it. All of the photographs on the site had been cleverly staged to make it seem more expansive than it really was, though even the truth was more peaceful than the street outside.

When he stepped up to the gate, a man in a uniform he'd seen on the site stepped into his path. The man had a polite smile, but he also had a generation rate of over 50,000 lucrim and an active aura. "Excuse me, sir, but I don't believe I've seen you before. If you want to apply for our services, simpl-"

"He's with me." Emily stood up from one of the small ponds, having been so still that he'd missed her until she moved. The doorman immediately nodded to her and bowed away, then Emily waved a hand indicating that Rick should enter. "Let's get this over with."

"What exactly are we doing here?" He knew it made him look ignorant, but he couldn't help but look around as they walked into the garden.

"You haven't been to a place like this before? Well, maybe not. Basically, this is the modern version of going to train alone on a mountain. You can't find privacy like that in a city, and even the mountains are crowded with tourists these days. But what you can get are heavily secured, completely private rooms. Most of the space in the building is dedicated to those."

That made sense to him, and the prices on the website hadn't been ridiculous, but it was still a level of luxury he'd never even considered. Would his training have been more productive if he'd done it in a specialized chamber instead of at his strip mall gym, or in his crappy apartment? He wasn't actually sure, but it was obvious why people would prefer this.

One of the side doors led into what looked like a fully-equipped gym, but when he glanced toward it Emily waved him away. "That's just a secondary service. We're here for the place to train."

He followed her, looking over his shoulder as they went. This gym looked far nicer than the House of the Cosmic Fist, everything in pristine condition and waiting trainers who had probably been selected for both skill and attractiveness. It didn't need to give itself a grandiose name, just called itself the "Branton Recluse Center Gym" and let the quality speak for itself.

Trying not to let that get to him, Rick followed Emily into the building on the other side. She spoke briefly to the woman at the desk, then received a key and led them into a hallway that wouldn't have been out of place at a decent hotel. But when they stepped inside their door, it was obviously no hotel.

There was no free-standing furniture at all, just a set of cabinets built into the back wall. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all heavily ether enchanted, and when he tested them, they had just the right amount of give. Unless you were unleashing massive amounts of power, you could train in here without concern.

"If you don't have access to a corporate or university training facility," Emily said, "I find this is really worth the money. Aside from the obvious, the privacy shielding is excellent. Nobody can observe any techniques you use in here, so it's the perfect place to prepare in private."

"Does that mean a lot of crimes are committed in here?"

His question prompted an odd look from Emily, but then she tilted her head to consider. "Most likely, though I'd imagine they'd be white collar crimes. It's not like you could cover up a murder in a place like this. Plus, they do record everyone who enters and exits."

"Yeah, it was just a question." Rick pulled off his jacket and set it down in one corner. "I'm happy to learn, but I'm not sure what Granny Whitney wants you to teach me."

"A little more meditating or sparring isn't going to help you all that much. We need to make a qualitative change to have an impact." As she explained, Emily sat down with her legs crossed, so he went to sit across from her. "I thought we'd start with lucrim budgeting, unless you already know it."

Rick watched her thoughtfully. It sounded familiar, but... "I don't know the technique."

"It's not a technique so much as a method of organizing your techs. Most people who focus on lucrim generation rate are shortsighted about this sort of thing, so they often don't wield as much power as you might expect. For example, someone who is rolling with 100,000 lucrim might generally have a lot of power. But when they exhaust themselves and only have a little left, they won't have enough to keep their cores operating at full power and major weaknesses start to appear."

"And this 'lucrim budgeting' helps with that?"

"Essentially, you plan out exactly how much energy you're going to devote to each aspect of your lucrima portfolio. That way you won't overextend yourself and waste all of it on an excessive technique. Likewise, when you're running low on power, you're prepared to operate with less overall while keeping yourself balanced."

As she explained, Rick felt a growing level of resentment rise within him. While admittedly he'd never heard of this exact technique before, it was based on the idea that he was an idiot who wasted any power that was given to him. He'd never had an excess of lucrim, so how could he waste it?

Seething internally, Rick threw himself into the exercise. It started with mentally considering the exact proportions necessary and then modeling it in his aura, but he skipped all that. He'd been using those skills for years to get by. Instead he switched directly to modulating his lucrima as she'd instructed.

Emily frowned and tilted her head at him. "Hmm... reduce yourself to 50% of your maximum generation rate."

He did so without blinking.

"10%."

That took a little more effort, but he managed it without too much difficulty. Emily gave him a long look, then sat back. "Maybe you don't need this exercise after all."

"Do you really think I have enough lucrim to be throwing it away?" His voice sounded angrier than was polite, but Emily didn't flinch even slightly, so he pressed on. "I don't have some amazing job that pays 80,000 lucrim a year and my Birthright Core was a net negative. Operating on low energy is what I do."

"That isn't a universal law. I've seen fighters with only 10,000 lucrim who manage to squander half of it on unnecessary aura flashiness. But... that isn't a problem for you." While she didn't look exactly apologetic, Emily did give him a respectful nod. "It looks like your balance is already very efficient. You might be able to gain a little from the exercise, but not much."

To prove that he could, he lowered himself to 5% and stayed balanced, though that proved difficult. It wasn't that this "budgeting" technique offered no benefits at all, just that the approach treated him like he was a fool. Though it wasn't as direct as clients like Darin, it was still blaming him for the situation he had been born into as if it was his fault.

Emily sighed and held up her hands. "Alright, you've made your point. I can see that I've offended you. But I'm just as tired of people treating me like I was handed all the power I've worked hard for, especially when they're as sloppy as some."

"That's..." His instincts were to argue back, but after having grown up with people like his parents and Uncle Alan, he couldn't deny it. "I'm not saying you're entirely wrong. I'd just prefer to spend this time on something more useful instead of Baby's First Aura."

"Fair enough. If you had your choice, what would you want to learn?"

Rick hesitated, wondering if that was a test. Obviously she wasn't going to teach him any of her own skills, and though the room was equipped for sparring, based on her attitude he thought she didn't want that. He was tempted to ask for everything he could, but instead decided that this was a time for humility. "You and others have talked about how lucrim generation rate isn't a good measure of strength. I'm afraid I still don't understand why."

"Ah. That's not so much wrong as it applies less and less the further you go." Emily sat back, considering it for a moment. At least she didn't find the question stupid or insulting, even if it seemed like a simple subject for her. "Basically, novices gather as much lucrim as they can and expend it just as fast. That's why generation rate is a good measure of their strength."

"But even I invest what I can into cores, and I'm no expert."

"That's right, you're a step up from novices. But the stage beyond that is to supply your own lucrim with cores that can generate it." She held up a hand quickly. "Now, I know you've already started on Graham's Stake. That's good. But you're still dependent on salary or purchases for your lucrim, which limits you."

Though that was obvious, he didn't think she was talking down to him anymore. "I can see how it would make a difference once you have that established. How do you measure strength, then? Is there another shorthand, or do you just have to evaluate everything in a more complex way?"

"Based on how well you fight those above you, you should already know that more complex evaluations are more valuable. But yes, there's another way. You can't usually do it at a glance, but once you have experience with it, you can evaluate someone's entire lucrima portfolio. That gives you a much better approximation of strength."

"What about me, then?"

"Go back to full strength." Emily closed her eyes for a moment, considering, then nodded. "Roughly... 22,000 lucrim invested. Then we add your generation rate on top of that, though since yours is hindered by the aura leeches... about 42,000 total."

Rick considered that quietly. That was getting into respectable territory, though he wasn't sure about this new method. "I don't really have a point of comparison... your generation rate is about 85,000 lucrim, but what's your portfolio?"

Instead of answering, she taught him the basics of how to approximate it. Though he didn't feel like he would be comfortable using it in real life for a long time, in conditions like this, he was able to get a better sense for Emily's strength. It was higher than he expected and he paled a bit.

"Yours is... high. Hundreds of thousands."

"That's right." Emily nodded, only slightly self-satisfied. "For comparison, Glenn has a generation rate of 110,000 lucrim, but he blows most of it. In terms of invested cores, he only has 25,000 or so. Now, his overall threat would still be evaluated as 135,000, since he can pour an enormous amount of strength into his cores, but you see the difference."

That explained why Glenn had seemed to defer to her, since Emily's overall threat was much higher than that. But he found himself more curious about something else. "So... just theoretically, if Glenn and I had both nearly exhausted all our energy, we would be about equal?"

"More or less. The lucrim intensity he regularly deals with has a quality of its own, but there's also intelligence and skill and other factors. Of course, since he can afford to restore himself regularly, you aren't going to fight him at low strength."

It was still something to think about. Emily seemed to relax as they continued the training session, and after a while he figured it out: she'd been dreading giving a remedial lecture to him, but now that he'd earned a bit of respect, her irritation faded. She was sharp-tongued and not exactly kind, but she knew what she was talking about and he found himself enjoying talking to her.

They didn't spar or do any explosive training, yet he found it more useful than many hours in the gym. She taught him a few useful tricks that could spike his generation rate a little more - and more importantly, how he could apply that strength toward increasing practical power.

She had less to say about how exactly to deal with his foundation, just confirming that it was probably fine for now and he could focus on other things. On the subject of the aura leeches, she had suggestions for how to pay them off faster that surprised him, making him wonder if she had experience with them. It must have shown on his face, because she gave him an odd smile.

"How do you think I paid my way through university? Sure, I still have a few normal loans to pay off, but the biggest debt is always based in lucrim. I graduated with a nasty set of leeches."

He hadn't considered that before, but considering the cost of good schools, it made sense. "How many have you paid off?"

"Actually, I tried something else: I reconsolidated most of the leeches into a single one at Stage II. It's a huge leech that will take a while to pay off, but the overall drain is much less than multiple leeches. I don't recommend you do that, by the way, since you can just get rid of the ones you're carrying without excessive trouble."

"But if your generation rate is really 85,000, couldn't you get rid of it fairly quickly? Especially given how efficient you are with everything."

"I could, but a Stage II leech isn't that big a deal. Right now, it's more important for me to invest in other cores - some of them generate lucrim faster than the leech can drain it, so it's actually a net positive to keep the leech. That's a bit advanced for what you're dealing with, though."

She sounded condescending, but he'd come to understand that she was just blunt. The concept seemed easy enough and he accepted that it was indeed more advanced than he needed at the moment, so he set it aside. "I think I understand everything we've talked about, but it's a bit difficult to put together. Will you give me permission to check your profile so I can see your portfolio directly?"

"No." Emily didn't sound angry, but he didn't think that answer would change.

"Okay, that's fine. Just asking."

"I'm not offended, just private." She tilted her head at him curiously. "I think we've done enough for today, but I wanted to impose on your own privacy. It's fine to refuse the questions."

"No harm in asking."

"Why exactly haven't you developed more? I've been running numbers in my head based on your efficiency levels, and you should be further along, even assuming you were less efficient in the past. Getting about 20,000 per year from work should add up..."

Rick shook his head. "No, the gym where I work pays about 15,000 lucrim per year."

Emily's eyes widened just a bit. "That's... I don't see how you manage with that little, but I suppose that explains why you're so efficient."

"My sister also has a medical condition... instead of a normal soul, she has an ether void that burns up her lucrim. Though her condition has improved now, for most of her life I needed to drain a lot of lucrim to keep her healthy."

She didn't answer for a long time, staring at him with a look he couldn't quite interpret. After a while she closed her eyes. "I... apologize, Rick. I made a lot of assumptions about you, and even after you disproved some of them, I kept making others. This is no comfort at all, but... you've been dealt a pretty bad hand by life. That you've come this far is impressive."

"You're right: it's no comfort at all." Rick smiled to soften the words. "I just hope I can do enough that Mike and his buddies don't end up killing me when he gets his revenge."

"Life isn't fair." Emily stood up, stretching her body after sitting for so long, and glanced at him through her hair. "Realistically, Mike and Glenn are going to be handed a lot more things in life, so it'd be hard for you to catch up. But if you had the same advantages or were on a level playing field... I'd definitely bet on you."

"Thanks, Emily." He stood up as well and went to get his jacket. "At least I'm catching up a little, thanks to Granny Whitney wanting to use me. Most of her training is double-edged, but at least... oh, no offense."

"None taken. However much you trust her, you should trust her even less. For whatever it's worth, she didn't have any ulterior motives sending me to help. I'm not going to bail you out or shower you in lucrim, but I'm happy to help."

"I appreciate it. On that note..." Rick reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle. "Do you think I should be concerned about these? She has me taking them and the side effects are pretty bad. Nothing I've read has been able to tell me if those are normal or if I'm going to cause problems for myself."

Emily barely glanced at the bottle, instead opening it and examining the pills before looking back to him. "I'm no expert on medicine, so I can't tell you a lot. But based on some research I've done for myself... maybe you're right to be concerned. If there was a medicine that gave you an immediate benefit and caused long term damage only after the match, Whitney wouldn't hesitate to give it to you."

"Yeah, that's what I was afraid of."

"I suggest getting a full medical exam. Ideally as soon as possible, but it might make sense to wait until you can stop taking the medicine. Then you can probably get the damage healed before things go on a bad path. You need to be careful about any training that alters your physical fundamentals."

And like that, a bit of distance appeared between them again. Emily lived in a world where she could just get a medical exam if that was best for her health. That wasn't an option for him, and the surgery or healing would probably be far beyond what he could afford.

Still, he thanked her as they headed out. It might not be enough to bridge the gap, but now he felt like he could at least see how far away his opponents stood.