Chapter 43: Researching a Solution

Though tracking down Granny Whitney wasn't easy, she was predictable when it came to managing fights in the Underground. It had taken Rick some time to set things up properly, but he did some of his training at the Underground instead of at home and eventually he got lucky.

He spotted her getting involved with another match and eventually figured out her interest: a woman in her late thirties who had a generation rate of well over 150,000 lucrim. Perhaps she was Granny Whitney's cruiserweight candidate, then. The match itself was intense and Rick almost got sucked into watching it, but he recalled his purpose at the end. When the two women met after the match, he followed them, preparing for his chance.

Rick noted with only a little bitterness that Granny Whitney didn't seem to be handicapping her newest candidate, and in fact seemed very helpful. There was tension between them, though, so he tried not to make judgments about the exact situation.

In the end, what mattered was getting a chance to talk to the old woman. He fell in beside her when she tried to slip out of the Underground. "So, is that our cruiserweight?"

"That she is, dearie." But Granny Whitney didn't smile as much as usual, a hard light in her eyes. "It's wonderful to talk to you, my dear boy, but I'm afraid that I really have a great deal to do. Just focus on training until the event, won't you?"

"That was actually what I wanted to talk about. I've been pouring most of my strength into getting rid of the aura leeches, but I've picked up a lot of baggage along the way. There's a nearly 6000 lucrim gap between my portfolio and my generation rate."

"Well, you've become a bit more sophisticated about such things! Never fear, dearie, Granny Whitney will take care of that."

"Wouldn't this be the time to try to purify those problems? I understand the methods can take a week or more to work." The size of the gap actually bothered him, since it reminded him of the rest of his family and their inefficiencies. Yet Granny Whitney didn't seem to care, just shaking her head.

"Purifying all of that is both difficult and expensive. There is a simpler solution, a medicine that will briefly bring out your full potential. I intend to give it to you just before the match."

Rick nodded in understanding, swallowing his disappointment. Perhaps that had been too much to hope, then. He'd known that Granny Whitney didn't care about his development, just wanted to use it, but he still slipped up and forgot sometimes. Her solution to the problem was best from her perspective, but useless for his challenge against Mike.

"Is that all, dearie?" She sped up, trying to leave him behind in the corridors. "I really must be going..."

"One more thing: if you wanted to really hurt someone in a single blow, how would you do it?"

That brought her up short and she turned back to him, eyes twinkling merrily. "Don't ask questions if you don't want to know the answer, dearie." But when he didn't back down from her gaze, she shrugged and went on. "Your question isn't really about me, of course, and you couldn't use most of the techniques I would. Frankly, that isn't a very good objective for the match."

"This isn't for the match." Rick folded his arms and stepped into her path so she couldn't move away. "Answer this last question and I'll leave you alone."

"Alright, dearie, alright. Settle down. If I were you... hmm... what you want to do is find your enemy when they're weak, then strike not to cause physical damage, but to push your aura directly into their lucrima soul. If you choose the right location, they'll be feeling it for a very long time. Look up what they call the 'dantian' in the east." Abruptly she reached up and patted his cheek. "You're a smart boy, you'll figure out the rest. Have fun, dearie!"

With that, she slipped past him and vanished. When Rick started to move, he found that his entire body had locked up. It faded after several seconds, but he realized that she had somehow disrupted him when she patted his cheek. That was frustrating, but at least she'd given him the answer to his question.

Since he hadn't expected a full answer, that was acceptable. Rick glanced at the time and left the Underground to visit the library again. If Heather was on staff at this time, she'd probably be able to teach him what he needed to know. He didn't need to develop a brand new technique, just understand enough for one good blow.

As he headed to the library, however, he found himself disappointed that Granny Whitney wasn't going to give him purification medicine. He'd looked it up online and found that it was absurdly expensive. It would have been worth it, to recover the large amount of strength lost in impurities and inefficiencies, but even if he saved everything he earned in the last month and spent it all on one dose of medicine, he'd only be able to afford sub-standard purification. Given his circumstances, better to keep slowly improving his strength with philosopher's elixir.

He thought about it, but couldn't come up with any real solution. It was a difficult problem and he realized that there might simply be no good solution. His life didn't have many of those. Perhaps all he could do was leverage the resources he had and make as much progress as he could.

The roots his uncle had sent him were potent, but nothing magical that would transform his life. Using them to charge his training, he'd increased his generation rate by over 1000 lucrim, yet almost all of it had gone directly into getting rid of the larger aura leech. Even focusing on it, he'd only managed to get the debt down to 549. He was going to have to accept that the last leech would stay with him, because there was no way he could make enough progress to get rid of it as well.

There would be no dramatic transformation there. If he wanted a qualitative difference before the fight, he needed to take more drastic steps. Hopefully the library would help him get a bit closer to another one of those.

When he entered the library, he asked around after Heather and was pointed toward the computers. She was helping someone get a document printed and looked utterly bored, but when she saw him she grinned. Rick nodded to her and headed back toward the lucrim section, and she caught up to him before he arrived.

"Hey, it's you again. Fuckin' A. I hope you have more interesting questions for me than basic computer problems?"

Rick nodded. "Yes, are there any lucrim techniques that let you update printer drivers?"

She punched him in the arm, not lightly. "Don't even fucking joke like that. Seriously, what's your question this time?"

"Someone I work with told me that I should look up information about dantians."

"Oh, sure. I can get you some books right away." Heather got the door opened and led him into the lucrim section, moving randomly but finding books in the end, as usual. "Kind of an odd research topic, though. They're really not part of modern lucrim theory, and I didn't take you for the type to be interested in historical curiosities."

"Really?" Rick frowned. He was no expert, but he didn't think it was purely historical. "I thought it was still a part of certain lucrim arts. People still believe in them, right?"

"People believe in a lot of things. Tell me, what do you know about dantians?"

"Well... they're body parts that supposedly gather and collect lucrim. I'm unclear on if there's one, three, or more."

"Typically people say three: one in your head, one in your chest, and one just below your navel. And it's true that those parts are critical to your lucrima, so an injury there is serious." Heather stopped with a book in hand, using it to point at him. "But think about it. That's your brain, your heart, and your gut. How could those areas not be important to the process?"

Having no expertise on the subject, Rick could only shrug and accept what she said. "As it happens, I'm most concerned about injuries there."

"Sure, I can find you some resources about that. Just because some writers were a bit off base about this sort of thing doesn't mean they were spouting nonsense. I haven't actually looked too deep into this myself, but I can get you started."

Before long, Heather had a small stack of books for him and took them to a small desk hidden away in the archives. She'd finished her job, but she stayed and slipped down into the chair opposite him. As he began looking through the books, she leaned forward, giving him a curious look.

"What's this about, anyway?"

Since he didn't intend to tell her the truth, Rick had a lie ready. "My sister has been sick her entire life. Do you know anything about ether voids?"

"Hmm, only a little." Heather sat back and considered him seriously. "I don't think you're going to find an answer here about that. If somebody told you that her dantian is broken or something, they have the wrong idea."

"No, I understand her condition. At least I understand a little. I'm just trying to understand more about these sorts of injuries in the abstract."

Heather grinned and nodded. "Yeah, I know about just needing to sate curiosity sometimes. Actually, I read one of these... just a sec, let me find the right page." She grabbed one of the books and began flipping through it, still speaking. "You might learn some interesting things, but I hope you don't try anything here with your sister. Letting lucrim flow into her would help her condition, but if you tried to insert it straight into the void, that would be bad for her."

Though he latched onto that statement, Rick kept himself from looking too eager. Instead he waited until Heather found the page she wanted and slapped the book down on the table. It appeared to be a diagram of the body, lucrim flowing in various passages. However, instead of focusing on the three points she'd emphasized, the central core of the lines seemed to be a spot between the heart and the stomach.

"Okay, this guy was practically thrown out as a fraud in some places, but he was right about a few things. The core of most people's 'soul' - if you're okay with calling it that - is right here. There's no organ there or anything, but it's the point where all the flows come together in most people."

"And? What about it?"

"Most likely your sister was born with it, but if it happened because of an injury, it'd be right here. So yeah, if you want to learn more about it, keep reading about this stuff."

"Got it. Thanks, Heather."

"No problem!" She beamed at him and seemed to want to linger, but instead sighed. "Welp, I gotta get back to the old fucking grind. You bring any questions you have, okay?"

He agreed and smiled at her as she left, then began to read the books. Though he didn't have time to read all of them, he didn't need to. It might be interesting to learn more about the theory behind Melissa's condition, but he suspected that she herself might be a better source of information. From what he'd read, a lot of ancient sources were based around finding universal truths about lucrima, which led to flattening natural human differences.

In any case, Rick was interested in causing injuries, not healing them.

Combining what he'd learned from Granny Whitney and from these sources gave him the final pieces he needed. It would take him a while to work out the details, but he thought it was possible: a blow to the chest that would ram aura straight into the heart of the opponent's lucrima.

Just surviving the match against Mike wouldn't be enough, since another challenge could easily follow. No, he needed to end it decisively. Since it was impossible for him to gain so much strength to dominate the match, what he needed to do was focus on one strike at the end. This one would leave Mike with an injury that would make him hesitate to ever attack Rick's family again.

And that would be the end of it. Hopefully.