Street Cultivation Read online

  Which is why he really should have stayed down. Yet Rick found himself struggling back to his feet. His entire body ached, he was pretty sure several of his ribs were broken, and blood from a cut on his forehead was running down into his eyes, but he forced himself up.

  As he left, he caught a glimpse of Mike staring at him. For just a moment, the Birthrighter looked surprised. After that moment, he sneered again and left with his friends, laughing a little too loudly. But Rick had seen the uncertainty in his eyes in that moment.

  Rick wavered on his feet, trying to feel inside himself to see how his Defensive Lucore felt. It felt like pain, but he thought it had improved. Possibly enough for it to be rated IV instead of III, which would be significant progress. Almost worth the serious injuries.

  A moment later, Rick collapsed to the ground. Strangely, as he fell unconscious he heard a woman cry out in dismay, but he was out before he could recognize the voice.

  Chapter 3: Combat Massage

  Rick didn't feel any pain, and that bothered him.

  He should have been happy to feel only warm and relaxed, yet his mind refused to accept it. Yes, that was right... he had taken a severe beating from that Birthrighter. It had broken several of his bones, left him with deep internal bruises, and possibly damaged his lucrima soul. After all of that, he shouldn't be feeling fine.

  As he started to put things together, he began to come back to the world. He could feel that he was lying on the mat, though it seemed like someone had put a pillow under his head. Voices talking about what had happened... his boss Jimmy, his coworker Henry... and Lisa. That explained it.

  Struggling to sit up, Rick finally managed to open his eyes and saw her. As usual, Lisa wore loose sweatpants and a t-shirt. She was still wearing her jacket, so he couldn't see the shirt, but there was a 99% chance it had an obscure band logo on it. At the moment she had her blond hair up in a ponytail, as if she'd come to spar.

  Even though she'd obviously healed him and he should have been grateful, Rick found himself a bit irritated by her presence. He would have been gone if the schedule had progressed normally - was she wanting to spar with someone else? Of all the clients he had, Lisa was the only one he thought liked him more than superficially.

  When she saw that he was awake, however, she rushed beside him with a look of concern. "Are you okay, Rick? I did what I could, but you took serious hits from a six digit fighter..."

  "I feel fine, you did a good job." Rick shook his head and forced himself to look at her. "But I really can't afford your rates..."

  "Oh, don't worry about that!" Lisa laughed away the awkwardness. "You've always done a good job and I've never tipped you or anything. Besides, I need you in decent shape if we're going to work out, so it's for my benefit too."

  "Right, about that... if not for the incident, I would already have been gone."

  Lisa sighed and stuck out her tongue. "Yeah, I messed up my schedule today and I was just hoping I might catch you working late. Good thing I did, huh? I'd completely understand if you weren't feeling well enough to spar today, though."

  "I can, just give me a bit to get my bearings again."

  "No problem! I need some time to warm up anyway."

  Rick looked after her for a moment while she went out to the mats and began stretching, then very intentionally looked away. Not that it wasn't a nice sight, but he didn't want to be a creep and Henry would bug him about staring. Besides, he had other matters to take care of before he could go back to work.

  Based on how he was leaning against the wall, Henry had also been healed of the blow to his stomach. Based on how he was flipping through his magazine again, Jimmy was not going to give any kind of bonus for enduring the beating. Rick might be lucky to get out of this without getting his pay docked for making Jimmy get off his seat and do something.

  "Glad you're doing okay, man." Henry gave him a lazy smile. "I was seriously worried there for a bit, but Lisa showed up and helped out."

  "I'm just glad things were resolved without anyone getting killed." Rick returned the smile briefly, but then focused on his boss and something much more important. "What happened to the lucrim they left as payment? Since we convinced new clients to come in, we should get part of it as a bonus."

  Without looking up, Jimmy grunted sourly and nodded his head toward Henry. The other young man gave him a grin and then dropped the two pearl bars onto the counter. "Don't worry, I made sure he couldn't run off with them. I was thinking you could use them to pay for treatment, but even if you're okay now, I think you still deserve them."

  "Oh... thanks." Though Rick was truly grateful, he hesitated to pick them up. "I was thinking that you should have one of them. You did convince them to pay, and you took a hit, too."

  "Nah, man, I don't need it." Henry grinned and tapped the tattoo on his arm. "Demonic bond, remember? I have 5000 lucrim on call whenever I want. Might not have been enough against Birthrighter assholes, but I can afford to be generous."

  "Then I appreciate it." Rick swept up both bars quickly, resisting the urge to draw the power into himself. They felt like they had 2000 lucrim or more within them - he didn't get a windfall like that very often, so he needed to invest them carefully.

  As he put them with his backpack and the rest of his things, Rick took stock. He still felt a bit fatigued, and he knew his side would ache the next day, but Lisa had managed to heal all the serious damage. That left him in much better shape, so he decided to check his status in the app.

  [Name: Rick Hunter

  Ether Tier: 19th

  Ether Score: 189

  Lucrim Generation: 15,750

  Current Lucrim: 3158]

  [Rick Hunter's Lucrima Portfolio

  Foundation: 7250 (Lv II)

  Offensive Lucore: 3000 (Lv II)

  Defensive Lucore: 5500 (Lv IV)

  Golden Lucore: 10 (N/A)

  Total Lucrim: 15,750]

  The improvement in his Defensive Lucore was everything he had hoped for: not only had its value increased, it had advanced to the fourth rank as well. His defense had already been good, but once it recovered from its encounter with the Birthrighter, it would be a step better. If he could just improve his other cores and make his foundation a bit more efficient, he could punch above his weight.

  But the "Golden Lucore" listed made no sense to him. He'd heard of a few famous schools or fighters that used "Golden" in technique names, but didn't know what this could be referring to. Even weirder, it wasn't included in his total. When he reached inside himself, he certainly didn't feel anything new. It might be a glitch, but he'd never seen one quite like that.

  Baffled by the development, Rick pulled out his phone and searched a while for some answers. After filtering out irrelevant results, he had basically nothing, not even rumors. Though he wanted to keep searching further, he saw that Lisa had finished warming up and was bouncing on the balls of her feet, waiting for him, so he slid his phone into his backpack and went out to meet her.

  "Let's do the basics today," Lisa said. "I just need to loosen up my lucrima after work."

  "Frankly, I could use the same thing."

  She winced. "Yeah, yours really got pounded. Dense power is good, but believe me, it's just going to cramp if you don't relax it afterwards."

  Lisa was actually a massage therapist first and a warrior on the side. She'd realized that unless she could treat lucrima problems as well as muscular ones, she was going to be relegated to scrounging up minor jobs. That had brought her to the House of the Cosmic Fist, where she'd gotten an appetite for sparring... and definitely enjoyed how much the increased power improved her work.

  To be honest, it probably would have been smart for her to leave them and move elsewhere. He judged her to have a generation rate of around 52,000 lucrim - well above the average client. Yet she kept coming back, and she was a nice client, so he did his best to keep up.

  Before they began sparring, Lisa suppressed her power down to his level to make th
ings fairer. That didn't reduce the efficiency of the Lucores she'd built within herself, though. Even if she didn't hit like a truck, she was incredibly fast, and there was a sharpness to her blows that he couldn't quite match.

  They traded moves, adopting a grappling style instead of focusing on striking. That made things a bit easier on him, but Rick still found himself struggling to keep up. Unlike clients who just focused on raw power, Lisa had picked up decent skills. Combined with the Lucores she continually polished via her work, she was formidable.

  Normally he would have forced himself to go longer, but when his side started to ache, he raised a hand to call a halt. Lisa immediately moved closer, examining him in concern. "You alright? Does it feel like you're bleeding internally again?"

  "No, I'm okay." Rick leaned against the wall and took a few painful breaths. He should have just toughed it out and kept sparring, but getting the crap kicked out of him had soured his mood. "Lisa... why do you keep coming back here? You could get into a better gym."

  "I tried, actually."

  That surprised him enough that he looked up sharply, but Lisa had turned away, redoing her ponytail. "Which ones?" he asked.

  "Nowhere too fancy. I actually got in without any trouble, but... I don't know, I didn't feel like I fit in there. Most of their clients have huge lucrima portfolios and can just throw lucrim at any problem. The people here know how to focus on skill and train efficiently, and that's what I really need for my work."

  "Huh, really? I'd assumed healing would be helped along by bigger lucrim numbers..."

  "It's not like that." Lisa turned back, making vague gestures with her hands that didn't clarify anything to him. "Think about it: my top clients already have a ton of lucrim, usually way more than me. If their stress or injuries could be fixed by flooding lucrim, they'd have already done it. There are therapists who train to flood even more, but I can't compete with them. My calling card is finesse, and here is still the best place for me to train that."

  Rick wasn't good with taking compliments, particularly ones as unusual as that, so he just gestured for them to start sparring again. While they did so, he found himself thinking about what she said. He could feel a tiny bit of pride at his skill, and he was glad she kept coming to the gym, but beyond that he felt like his skill just didn't matter.

  Not only could a strong enough opponent just smash through all his skill with raw power, Rick knew that he wasn't truly exceptional when it came to his strengths. His technical skills were decent, but a lot of real warriors were better. Having an offensive and a defensive core in his portfolio put him above amateurs, but others had huge portfolios of more advanced cores. And his foundation was sadly inefficient, absorbing just under half of his lucrim generation.

  He managed to avoid feeling sorry for himself by focusing on the sparring until he was exhausted. Lisa wasn't sweating that much, but it looked like she'd gotten a decent workout. After getting a drink of water, she pulled her jacket back on and examined the dark sky outside.

  "Getting pretty late," she said, glancing over at him. "Sorry for keeping you."

  "It's okay, I'll get overtime."

  "You live in south Branton, right? I can fly you most of the way there, if you want."

  Rick shook his head much too quickly. "Thanks, but I'll pass."

  "You sure? It's on my way."

  "I appreciate it, but it's good for me to get in a run before the end of the day." Normally he wouldn't exercise any more, given how much his body had endured that day, but that wasn't the real reason. Lisa was skilled enough to fly, but she didn't have any lucrim vehicles or skills that carried others or anything of the sort.

  He was not going to go back home dangling in the air. He had his dignity.

  Lisa respected that he wasn't going to take the offer and didn't press on it. Instead she flashed him a smile, headed out, and vanished into the night sky.

  Though he needed to get home soon, Rick found himself leaning against the window and staring out into the sky. As usual when he had made significant lucrima progress, he was exhausted. Maybe he could afford to hire a taxi back home instead of running? If he was a few tiers higher, he could have used the bus system, but at the moment public transport was forbidden to him.

  "Don't moon over her." Henry came up beside him, grinning. "I'm not saying she isn't hot, and she might like you, but it's bad form, man."

  "I wasn't-"

  "Deny it if you want." Henry leaned back against the window and folded his arms. "I guess that's another option for those of us who want to get out of the trash tiers: marry into wealth. I hear there are some great training options for couples that will really increase your growth in a short time."

  Though Rick wasn't sure how to respond to that, they were interrupted by a grunt from Jimmy. He didn't look up from his magazine, but he did address them. "Not worth it, kid. Seems hot when you're young, but you'll regret it in the end."

  Henry rolled his eyes. "That sounds like sour grapes. Unless there's a Mrs. Jimmy you've been hiding from us?"

  Jimmy grunted as if considering what to say next, but at that moment Rick's phone rang. He saw that the caller was his sister and answered it quickly.

  "Hey, sis. You doing okay?"

  "Rick..." Her voice was difficult to hear and he automatically began grabbing his things while he strained to hear her words. "Are... are you getting back soon? I was feeling okay this afternoon, but..."

  He was already out the door, sprinting into the night.

  Chapter 4: Ether Void

  After staying on the line with his sister long enough to confirm that she was stable, Rick jammed his phone into his pocket and put everything he had into sprinting. He was nowhere near as fast as the lucrima masters who blurred through their own lanes, but he was a good bit faster than the average runner just due to his physical condition.

  It would have been very dramatic to run all the way back home, but pointless. His goal was just to get away from the suburb his lousy strip mall was in to a busier street, where he could find a taxi. He kept his eyes open, but hadn't spotted any yet.

  Usually he didn't even notice the people moving overhead, but now he found himself noticing when one passed by. Not so many in a small city like Branton, but he saw a red streak of aura pass him by overhead, and five minutes later a woman passed by in a lucrima manifestation. It was shaped like one of the early World War III era planes, which was just pretentious, and he found himself glowering up at it.

  But he didn't let himself get so distracted that he didn't notice the taxi. Rick hailed it wildly and fortunately the driver pulled over for him. He jumped into the back, scrambling for his ID and swiping it through the reader.

  The driver was an old man who stared at the screen until the information came up. Only once his account and rating information appeared did he look back. "Where to?"

  "1867 Fifth. Hurry, if you can."

  "Hmph. It'll be quite a day when a customer tells me to take my time." But the old man pulled away and into traffic without any delays, leaving Rick to catch his breath.

  Usually he didn't pay much attention to politics, but he was glad that a bill had changed the national ID laws during his last year of high school. It used to be that everyone's tier was printed on their card, which might have prevented him from using some taxis. Now government IDs didn't discriminate by lucrima, though your rating was still relevant for everything else.

  Sometimes he wondered if it wouldn't have been easier to take a different path. Just take however much lucrim his employer gave him and not worry about fighting, like most people did. If he'd done that, he could have gotten a ride with someone doing ride-sharing, but for someone like him, who had some power but not enough strength to defend it, the risk was too high.

  But he'd fallen into this path because he was good at sparring in school. His test scores were good but nothing exceptional, and Uncle Frank had advised him against going into business young. If his parents hadn't been such deadbeats,
he might have gotten into a combat sect or a university, but even combining his scholarships with government loans, it just wasn't enough to afford it.

  Which left him working as a human practice dummy in a cheap little strip mall.

  As they passed the Branton Arena, his eyes couldn't help but wander over it. There had been a time when he'd thought about being a professional fighter, though the truth was that less than 1% of all fighters had a shot at going pro. Once he'd enjoyed watching the matches and picking up what he could, but now it was too depressing.

  Sure, the fighters in the professional leagues were all brilliant and dedicated to their craft. But they also had truckloads of potions, steroids, and alchemy to boost their lucrima portfolios. Competing on that level wasn't even a dream at this point.

  When the taxi began slowing down, Rick immediately jerked from his distracted thoughts. He peered forward and saw that they were entering heavier traffic... and it looked like everything had jammed at the intersection ahead. If they had turned sharply they might have avoided it, but the driver was already getting locked into traffic.

  "This is close enough." Rick glanced at the meter and hastily tugged several bills from his pocket. He wasn't rich enough to just throw them and tell the driver to keep the change, but he rounded to the nearest dollar and handed over the wad. "Thanks."

  With that, he hopped out of the taxi and darted ahead of the slowing cars to the sidewalk. It was only a few streets now, so he sprinted the rest of the way to Fifth. Of course, their house was quite a few more blocks down from the main streets, but the taxi ride had let him rest, so he took them at top speed.

  Rick and his sister lived on the third floor of an apartment complex that made the strip mall where he worked look positively upscale. No ambulance in the parking lot, which was a good sign. No police cars either, which meant the meth dealers and the power junkies were still doing good business from the other side.

  He took the stairs three at a time and practically tore open the door to their apartment. "Sis? You doing okay?"