Careful Not To Break Reality

Rydel didn't quite know how much time has gone by when he left the main administration, but the sky has turned dark as the beautiful sunset of the academy dyed the sky red. He wondered if Valerie has also past the Test of Mind too. Though he wasn't expecting she to be having a heart to heart with Zero just like he did, it must have been something similar.

Even after the talk he has had with Zero, nothing in his plans have changed. He is still here to get Dolon back, though the difference being that he now understood what motivated every actions of the Absolute Being. Every move they make will contribute to the bigger picture, for sure, but the key difference here is how and what each individual steps entail. With sufficient mental gymnastics, one could be persuaded into doing all sorts of deeds for the sake of the greater good, and it is quite certain that neither Rydel and Absolute Being are good at walking the fine line. Though he is finally ready to face his very own hypocrisy, and walk a different path than before.

He may not have to face against Zero in the near future, but that doesn't mean there won't be any resistance to his plans. The head of the Absolute Academy, what he suspects to be the Lady Lily seemed rather adamant to take Rydel's plan out and prevent him from succeeding. And perhaps there are another few other artifact users around that are also intending on stopping him. Since if his plans are successful, that would mean Absolute Being will lost a net of two artifact users from their control, and it's going to be a bad look no matter how hard one squints their eyes.

A notification popped up from his personal interface, and it turns out Valerie has also passed the Test of Mind without much hiccup. To his surprise, she said she won't be back at her house relaxing and celebrating her victory on being one step closer to her goals. Rather, she let him know that she will be at the workshop working on her items, and said she wanted some alone time.

Right.

Rydel isn't exaclty the most versed in the dating scene, and Valerie is certainly the first one he has been with in the wild regions, but he had a gut feeling that similar behaviors might be exhibited by females all across the galaxy.

He quickly got home and took a shower after he became fully aware that he was drenched in sweat during the conversation with Zero and was smelling somewhat unpleasant. Then he returned to the main teaching and headed to the floor where most of the mechanical and electrical workshops are located. It has been a good long while since he has returned here, and just as he was expecting, Valerie took the work table nearest to the door and is focusing on her craft and busy soldering pieces of the circuits together.

Rydel walked in, and she looked up at him. There is no smile on her face.

'Oh look at you...' Rydel went over and sat next to her, as she looked down at her circuit board again, 'You passed the Test of Mind, so what's going on?'

'Did you have the headmaster as your examiner for that too?' Valerie asked without turning her head away from the task at hand.

'You mean the head mistress? No I had someone else.' Rydel shook his head, 'what happened?'

'She said its impossible for me to beat Gold.' Valerie answered through her gritting teeth, her hands gripping the soldering iron so hard and it starts to get squashed.

'...And I don't suppose you believe her?' Rydel reached out and took the piping hot soldering iron from her and turned it off, 'how do you know that she knows all that you have done to prepare for it?'

'She said she knew what I am going to do, and it's not going to work.' Valerie continued on.

'Did she specify what she knew?' Rydel asked, 'as far as I know, you are one hell of a person to hide most of your tricks.'

'But she said it with such certainty!' Valerie looked up violently at Rydel, and there are tears welling up in her eyes. She is uncertain of whether she could succeed, and the Test of Mind that's supposed to be just another step in her journey left some lingering self doubts within her mind, the doubt surrounding Gold's power, and that of her very own. Will all that she had prepared be enough to take down the Aquarian master swordsman, with added nanotechnology enhancements and the power of a single artifact?

All of the recruits from Rydel's class, most of them with military training back ground, couldn't even land a single hit on him at the start of training, and for Valerie to achieve her goals of revenge and get the artifact back, she will have to kill him.

'How much do you think she knows?' Rydel looked around, and there is no one else around due to a combination of now being dinner time and that the laboratory teaching modules were taught in the past and not many lingered beyond the core syllabus. But despite the calmness of the room, Rydel could feel the turmoil within Valerie slowly diffusing into the room.

'I should not let her words move me this much.' Valerie said firmly, as if she is trying to convince herself that what she said did not matter, 'she said Gold is way too polished, too skilled and driven at this stage for me to be able to kill him, and instead of wasting everything we have worked together to gain, she said I should save it.'

Rydel didn't say anything, knowing Valerie had other things bothering her.

'She said I should just work for Grey Wolf, and try to climb the ranks that way. Or else...'

'What?'

'...I won't be relevant in years to come.'

'How much has it affected you?' Putting his hand around Valerie's very own, Rydel asked calmly. Her hands were icily cold.

'Quite a bit, apparently.' Valerie sighed and shook her head, 'I trained for this. I prepared my body and my mind for this very mission. I needed to be better.'

'And you will be.' Rydel said, gripping Valerie's hand as tightly as he could, 'now it's too soon for you to properly think your way through this. Don't you agree?'

Valerie nodded and she looked down at the half finished circuit board.

'I soldered on the wrong parts anyways...' She murmured and wiped the table clean, dumping the unfinished work into the bin located near the edge of the worktable, 'let's get the hell out of here.'

They went back to Valerie's accommodation and had dinner, not speaking a single word about the Test of Mind ever again. Deep down, Valerie knew what she had to do, how she had to think and act. Though the uncertainties from the very test itself and that surrounding Gold's powers only compiled on the previous stresses she experienced. Seeing how close she is to her goals, all of that internal pressure has finally broken through her perfectly maintained shell, and left Valerie in the state she was in.

Fortunately, dealing with life stresses are what the late and post modern age humans have gotten quite used to, and Valerie knew exactly what she had to do. She needs to take a few days, step away from what she is doing, let out all of the negative energy piling inside of her through one way or another, and reframe her perspective. Both Rydel and herself have come a long way since the beginning, and they are still progressing rapidly in all the key areas that will be essential to accomplishing their goals.

They have done well, and they deserved a little time off. After dinner, they headed for a walk outside, and had some primal fun during a sleepless night.

When Rydel next saw Valerie a few days later, she was back to her original self, and working harder than ever. She had created a plan of attack, plotted out all of the devices and contingency plans that she would need after issuing a challenge to Gold, and have just started creating all of her devices in the labs.

But the purpose of their meet up right now is to train the use of the nanotechnology enhancements, especially the shielding function. Gold has mentioned that shielding is one of the functions one could create with the nanotechnology enhancements, and said that he isn't that good at it. This could be because his very own skills with the blades and the armor he is wearing will provide sufficient protection for him, and expanding energy and focus onto something else simply isn't worth his while overall.

For Rydel and Valerie, this won't be the case. They will need every advantage they can get, and shielding is certainly one of them.

'You ready?' Rydel asked, and looked at Valerie, who's sweating quite heavily after the brief warm ups. They are in the gymnastics room, and Rydel is currently holding a plastic model of an Aquarian blade and preparing to chop down on Valerie's exposed arms.

She concentrated, and waves of movement started appearing throughout her arms and swarmed towards the center of attention, her forearms. Soon, a patch of silver underneath her skin appeared.

'Ready!'

'I hope I don't give you any new scars here...your skin looked perfectly fine here...'

'Just bloody do it.'

'...OK.' And with that, Rydel mustered up around half the power he could maximally generate, and sent the blade down towards her arms. At the exact same time, Valerie lifted her arms just enough to create an upward momentum and met the tip of the blade head on.

The blade snapped off with a pop and Rydel tilted his head to dodge the flying blade tip that landed a few meters behind him.

Valerie looked down on her arm, apart from a tiny bruise, nothing was there.

'Right, next...;

Then, they tried the same exact procedure on blades made with harder plastic and sharper finish, and then some softer metals. With each strike, Valerie is learning to control the nanosized drones within her body with her very own thoughts and command them to move exactly where she wanted. They are still nowhere near using an actual blade, but the durability enhancements is really noticeable.

With a tearing squeak, the second hardest Aquarian blade was bent to the side and tore half way through, and a small cut became visible along Valerie's arms. Though she is extremely happy with the results.

'So, what do you think?' Rydel felt a bit like a blade master himself after performing the exact same swing over and over for a couple hours.

'Pretty good.' Valerie shrugged her shoulders and reached her hand towards Rydel, 'now, it's my turn.'

'WHAT?'

The artifact usage practice he had done over the past year had once again bailed him out, as he simply have to shift his sharp focus from external objects when he is trying to warp things in to internal parts of his body when he is trying to create shielding. Soon, Rydel caught up to Valerie's levels and have started experimenting with creating to patches of shielding in different locations, either on opposites on his body or a bit closer. As they expected, the strengths of the shielding are a little weaker if the nanodrones have to be split into two to protect a small region of one's body, and also one can sacrifice the strengths of shielding for the sake of creating one quickly in order to minimize the damage to a certain part of one's body.

As long as the damage is subcritical, the drones will eventually heal them back into fighting shape, or at least keep everything together until the end.

After a few weeks, Valerie and Rydel can now spar with weapons of choice, and Valerie occasionally exposed parts of her body and allow Rydel to strike it quite hard with his mace/club, testing her ability to create shielding rapidly. Most of the time it works out perfectly, but sometimes Rydel could sneak in a hit or two from an angle she didn't expect, and what ended up happening was Rydel feeling extremely bad for the rest of the day, or until the very next spar where he lets up his defense can get whipped by Valerie. Despite the heavy shielding Rydel always managed to create, the point of impact still stung minutes after.

Outside of the training hall, Rydel have started to try to emulate what Torelamri had done to create the shock mechanism within the mace he has given to Rydel before he left for B1, though little success came. And knowing that, Rydel simply chose to spend most of his time refining his techniques with the clubs and started transitioning it to the use of maces and getting use to its weight and moment of inertia in his hands. Alongside the martial arts practice with the droids, he also started practicing with his artifacts discretely the best he can, and kept forcing himself to create shielding around his body at rapid speeds and multiple locations.

Though he isn't really expecting a fight with Dolon, he may have to step in when Valerie challenges Gold if the worst is about to happen. No matter what it takes, he cannot allow it to happen.

He will do the best he can helping Valerie prepare, formulate her plan of attack against Gold and train her in the basics of fighting an artifact user, despite his very own lack of experience, and preparing for himself to step in when needed. Though Valerie is the only one who knew Lock Down's power the best.

'I think...I am ready.'

One day while Rydel, Valerie and her sister is having dinner together, she finally decided to spoke it out loud.

'Tomorrow, I will challenge Gold to the Test of Brawl, for the possession of Lock Down!'

Her sister is visibly concerned, but Valerie did not waiver. She knew what she had to do, and there isn't a more perfect time for it. Rydel didn't say anything, and simply looked at Valerie, her beautiful features, her marvelous hair and body, those scars she had acc.u.mulated had all lead her to this very moment. This is what she had always wanted since they have met, and now, they are so close to their end goals, it almost felt unreal.

'You got this.' Her sister said, while reaching out to her. And Rydel nodded in agreement.

The time has finally come.

The very next day, Valerie issued the challenge towards Gold, and it certainly became a bit of a shock throughout the entire upper echelon of Absolute Being.

'I do not understand why master is doing this...' Lady Lily scratched her head furiously as she spoke with Sir Deva through the communications channel, 'I have enough things to work with on my hand, and the second stage of pseudo's for Lock Down is just about to begin! If this Valerie girl succeeded in her little revenge mission, it could set back our process for months if not years!'

'Master has his reasons.' Sir Deva said calmly, though his eyes gave away what he really felt. He didn't want Lady Lily to feel this way, but despite his own overwhelming strength, words aren't his forte, 'I think it's best to follow the rules and trust his judgement.'

'Arghhhhh!' Lady Lily yelled angrily and slammed her fist into the table, shattering the surface and almost cut off the transmission with Sir Deva, 'And there is the other artifact user that just happened to be here, which I don't believe a single bit. Master said he would handle it, but from the look of it, he is going to cause some troubles here no matter what his plans are and Master is not going to do anything about it!'

'The Master must have had his plans.....' Sir Deva repeated, and tried his best to calm Lady Lily down, 'For the girl. Do you think she has a chance?'

'Gold has progressed massively since his battle with the Black Wolf, and it won't be an easy feat for anyone to pull off, fighting against an user.' Lady Lily said, 'but I somehow have an uneasy feeling about this one.'

'And what are you going to do about the artifact user?'

'I don't know.' Lady Lily admitted, 'Come back here, Deva. We might need you here.'

'...Understood.' Sir Deva blushed a little, though he knew that's not what Lady Lily meant. Still, if it's for her, he would return whenever she needed. After the transmission ended, he looked at the holograms floating above his ship counsel, and focused his sights on the two people he had been looking for the past many months.

'Guess those will have to wait.' Sir Deva lets out a long breath, and plotted a course back to the Academy.

'You have certainly found yourself deep in trouble here.' As Rydel is working quietly in his room, a soft voice spoke from behind him. That's a voice he hadn't heard for a long time, and something have changed. The sadness and strain that continuously lingered through and through were gone, 'Well done.'

'Good to see you have received my message.' Rydel said with a smile on his face without looking back, 'nice to see you here, Zel.'