Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 76: Interlude Wirt

Polizeiobermeister Lukas Wirt made his way across the university campus, sounds of fighting echoing in his ears. He knew it was occurring underground, in a properly secured place, but it was still alarming to hear. His [Threat Sense] certainly wasn’t helping, either.

Unlike [Dangersense], which warned him about threats to his person, [Threat Sense] made him aware of situations in which he, as a police officer, should intervene in.

And right now, that [Skill] was going a little crazy, yelling about how many living beings had already died and about how the perpetrator was at a very high Level, and wouldn’t shut up until he was either off the clock, or actually went to investigate it. To be fair, he was heading over there right now because it had been his destination this entire time, but the [Skill] didn’t care.

Unconsciously, he tightened his [Aura] around himself while scanning the surrounding area for a clear place to direct incoming attacks. It wasn’t even something he was really aware of anymore. After that email describing the power of [Auras] had made the rounds, a pretty significant focus had been put on that, and the following email with some basic yet also extremely helpful tips on its proper use had certainly seen heavy use, once people actually hit the required Level.

Ahead, a pair of signs hung. The first was a basic printed sign that said ‘[Aura] training in progress, some discomfort may be experienced past this point (it’s perfectly safe, but it can feel a little weird)’.

Below that, someone had scrawled ‘TF are you talking about’, followed by a barely legible yet still correctly spelled ‘what kind of pussy cares about weird vibes?’.

His [Evidence Sense] lit off suddenly, pointing out the faint traces of beer and Schnaps around the two ‘additions’. Drunk students, of course. Who else would write on random signs?

As a tactical officer, Wirt very rarely did any investigating, meaning he rarely needed that [Skill], but he’d gotten it as a matter of policy, along with every other member of the department. After all, they were at crime scenes all the time, and being able to spot useful information at a glance was damn useful. Given how much time he spent at various crime scenes, it was levelling at a decent speed. Nowhere near the speed of his core [Skills], mind you, but still rather quickly.

Below the scribbled-over note was a rather professional looking declaration, complete with the dean’s signature, properly protected in a plastic cover, declaring that there was experimentation with [Aura] occurring nearby, and that odd effects might occur, nothing dangerous, but possibly disturbing.

Down below, the battle seemed to reach a fever pitch, the several large beings torn to shreds audible only to his vastly enhanced senses, followed by an explosion of [Aura] that he could feel all the way from up here. It felt intense and intrusive, but it was also incredibly powerful for a sensory [Aura]. Another loud crash followed, and then there was silence.

Suddenly, a young man emerged from the ground, as if he’d jumped up onto a rock, except he hadn’t leaped from somewhere lower, he’d leaped straight through solid rock and concrete. For someone who’d clearly just been fighting an entire horde of monsters, he was surprisingly clean. In fact, there wasn’t so much as a hair of place.

“Good afternoon Mr. Thoma. It’s nice to see you again under less … dire circumstances.” He greeted.

“Likewise, Mr. Wirt.” Thoma replied “How much did they tell you about what you’d be doing here?”

“[Aura] testing and training, mainly, but apparently, you also want another body in the building in case your current experiment goes pear shaped?”

“That’s true for the most part, but not the whole story. I did ask around to see if I could get some help from someone with an [Aura] so I could train with a new person, see how well that works without a preestablished relationship. I mean, the two of us have met before, but we still don’t know each other particularly well outside of the stories we told on the car ride back here.

“That being said, for the most part, it’s the university higher ups and Polizeidirektor Kaiser who aren’t all that enthused with me being the only one sitting on a dozen monsters crated up until they end up autonomously summoning more of their kind.” Thoma shrugged, clearly not even slightly concerned about that.

“In that case, where are all your coworkers?” Wirt asked.

“Dealing with the shark. I wasn’t allowed to go because someone needs to stay here and watch over the caged monsters, which really stinks because I made sure to get myself a water breathing Aspect because I fuckingknew someone would eventually summon something in the water and it would be damn hard to get at, but no, they had to introduce that damn ‘make sure you can kill three times as many monsters as you are storing in under five seconds’ qualification, and refused to test everyone in the time between us getting the call and needing to leave.” Thoma grumbled, then caught himself.

“Sorry, still a little salty about that. They can handle themselves, but I don’t like being stuck here while they’re off putting themselves in danger.”

Ah yes, the shark. Some kind of gigantic, monstrous shark that eyewitness reports put at least twenty-five meters in length had somehow ended up in the Bodensee, a very large lake and now there was chaos. There were rumors of plans to carpet bomb the lake with depth charges being worked on by the Luftwaffe and Marine, though personally, he doubted that they were true. Or at least, they weren’t the government’s first choice. It seemed like right now, they were content to send in the ‘experts’ first.

Wirt shook his head “I think that’s a very understandable sentiment. People you know are off, putting themselves in danger and there is nothing you can do but sit and wait for news, imagining all the many horrific messages you could get even if you’re desperately trying to think happy thoughts? I know a little something-something about that. It sucks, it always does. Also, what’s up with that ‘qualification’?”

“Basically, fully autonomous summoning by leaving monsters to their own devices is just about the most dangerous thing we could do here and the powers that be have finally settled on a specific procedure with regards to how they want these to be conducted.

“The first they want is someone who can kill all of the monsters, as well as any that they summoned autonomously, in under five seconds, which is an utterly arbitrary number, go figure. To test that, we needed to show that we can take care of all the monsters we’re keeping here until they start autonomously summoning more, as well as two more of each, to account for the additional monsters that would then appear.

“We can all do that, but the others are [Mages], and the big spells that could destroy the monsters would also end up bringing the building down on our heads, but I’ve recently gotten a [Skill] that means I literally can’t cut anything unless I want it to be cut, which lets me unleash a fully empowered attack with no fear of collateral damage. And now, I’m stuck here.”

“Postponing the experiments wasn’t an option?” Wirt asked.

“Of course it was, but these things can’t be sped up by any method we’ve been able to find. Killing all the crated up monsters now and starting over would cost us five days of work, and no one want to waste that much time. Doesn’t mean I’m happy to be left behind, though.” Thoma sighed “Still, it is what it is. I suppose it’s time for the grand tour, then?”

“Haven’t shown it to many people, have you?” Wirt asked, a slight twinkle in his eyes. The pride and anticipation in the young man’s voice was unmistakable. If he’d already been forced to show around a bunch of people, it simply wouldn’t have been there anymore.

“Nope. It’s still being built, but there are already so many cool features in there.”

“Not bad. Actually, now that I have you, there’s something I’ve been wondering about.” Wirt began as they headed over towards the half-finished building “I’d like to get some kind of secondary melee weapon, something that can actually take advantage of my physical power. I got a new, bigger gun that I can only use because my stats let me pretty much ignore the recoil, but that isn’t really what I was looking for in a weapon. I was thinking about getting a sword, maybe a katana?”

“A secondary melee weapon isn’t a bad idea, per se, but don’t get a katana.” Thoma replied “You need a relatively flexible weapon that, while it will bend a little if exposed to forces coming from the side, will flex back into its original shape. Katanas are thicker, sturdier blades that won’t bend for something that will have a European sword make a very convincing banana impersonation, but by that same metric when they bend, they stay bent, it just requires a lot more force.

“And given the current state of the world, basically everything can exert that kind of force. Sure, there are limits to what even reasonably flexible swords can endure, for example, a multi-ton golem falling on your weapon will break basically everything, but a more flexible sword is still more likely to last you the full length of a fight.

“All that being said, you wouldn’t happen to have picked up the [Toughened Gear] [Skill] would you? I believe it is a part of the [Police Officer] [Skill]-tree? If so, it might be better to go with an extendable baton or something else that works with your [Class], that way, there’s a higher chance to get other [Class] [Skills] that work with it.”

“Huh, that’s actually a good idea. How come you know so much about what kinds of [Skills] I get?” Wirt asked.

“We got a pretty complete list during the LA incident so we could figure out which [Skills] would work best against the Gestalt.” Thoma explained.

“I see.”

“Once you’re figured out what you want, I know a guy who makes excellent gear and has access to monster materials. You won’t find finer gear anywhere.” Thoma said.

“Is that safe? I mean, a [Blacksmith] or [Machinist] hunting monsters sounds like a recipe for disaster.” Wirt asked.

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m the one who supplies him with his stuff. Aspects too, by the way.” Thoma shrugged “I figured it might be a good idea to have access to someone who can create powerful items. Right now, his stuff is damn tough and sharp, but who knows what kinds of things he’ll be able to make once he gets his third [Class]? Anyway, here we are.”

He made a sweeping gesture, pointing towards the under construction building in front of them. It really did look weird because it was oh so clearly already in use, and there were already windows put it place on the bottom floor even though the ones above it were clearly still being constructed. Wirt was hardly an expert in the regulations covering this stuff, but this still looked odd.

A temporary tunnel of wood and metal, designed for easy assembly and disassembly lead from outside the fenced off construction site into the building itself, meant to allow safe passage inside, mitigating the risk of things getting dropped by construction workers working overhead and braining an unsuspecting passerby. These things were rather common, often protecting parts of the sidewalk near construction sites, but they rarely lead into places that were actively being built.

On the inside, the building was rather … different as well. Wirt had been inside university buildings once or twice before, people getting mad at professors over grades, accidents in laboratories being taken as deliberate assault or destruction of properties, etc. Therefore, he was familiar with the usual decoration of posters showcasing past projects and display cases containing objects befitting the faculty that worked there. Deer heads, complex mathematical formulae, even the occasional pinecone … but this wasn’t what this place contained.

Several monster bits were wrapped in glass, not just inside a glass case, but literally sitting inside a solid block of the transparent material, which had to cost a lot. Also, how had they gotten them in there? Molten glass was damn hot, but those materials didn’t look scorched in the slightest.

… magic, of course.

There were also several interesting diagrams on the walls, showcasing basic magic and [Aura] techniques, and Wirt was sorely tempted to just head over there and examine them, yet there was more besides.

On the wall of the central stairwell, several different weapons were located, also encased in solid glass, closer inspection revealing that it, as well as all the other glass around the room, had been magically reinforced, putting it somewhere close to bulletproof glass. The good stuff, the kind he’d had the supreme misfortune of having to have to get through, once, to get the body of a man who’d had a heart attack and died inside his heavily reinforced car. Stealing anything out of this place would be an exercise in frustration unless one was very powerful.

As for the weapons themselves, they ranged from medieval style swords to more modern military and self defense knives. The center of the display, meanwhile, was a massive, two-handed sword that had been broken in half in several places, the damage quite clearly visible due to the fact that it had been repaired with a different material. That had obviously been on purpose, likely to demonstrate that this weapon had, in fact, been used in combat.

“That example you mentioned, about a golem falling on the sword, I’m guessing that’s what happened there?” Wirt asked, pointing at it.

“Yep. First Tier 5 we fought, big ass ‘The Crusher’ golem. Stabbed the core and it toppled over like a felled tree. I dodged, but didn’t get the chance to remove the sword before it hit the ground.” Thoma shrugged “Anyway, I just need to clean up the one summoning room not currently stuffed with crated up monsters, it’ll just take a second, and then we can start figuring out what kinds of tricks your [Aura] is capable off.”

“Thanks. If you don’t mind me asking, what were you doing earlier. It sounded pretty hectic.” Wirt asked.

“Ah, I was testing some of the limits of the Lair type summon. You feed it an Aspect, and then you end up facing a flood of monsters until you break it, but you don’t have to keep spending mana. Unfortunately, a Lair counts as its own type of creature, so you can only create one for each Tier and gain XP, but on the other hand, it is a chance to gain a little more XP from a specific monster you’ve maxed out in the past. That being said, I did just max out my XP for Tier 3 and it’s quite the mess in there.” Thoma said.

“I thought you weren’t allowed to use any kind of autonomous summoning, nor is anyone else.” Wirt frowned, hard. Dungeons and a lot of other things like them were solidly illegal right now, and keeping monsters around long enough for them to autonomously summon more was also severely frowned upon outside of such experiments.

“Dungeons are an issue because they need time to build and grow, but when they do, you can’t really predict what they grow into, which is a little too scary for the people that be. We’ll be heading to Korea later this month, where they’ve been using dungeons, safely, for a while now, and see if we can change some minds here.

“But that’s beside the point. Lairs just dump out more and more monsters until you break them, but they will not deviate from the type they were originally set to, nor will they deviate from their spawn intervals. You create them, use them, and break them when you’re done, just like summoned monsters. Sure, there’s still a danger, but right now, we’re sticking to Tier 3 monsters despite the fact that Lairs can be created up to Tier 5, and my combat [Aura] lets me handle a literal horde of Tier 3s.”

Hol’ up. Thoma had a sensory [Aura], Wirt had felt it. And in the currently still very basic [Aura] training manual, which he had written, it had been one of the two [Auras] being used as an example.

“Wait, so the blood [Aura] is yours, not the sensory one?”

“Actually, both are mine.” Thoma replied, holding up his right hand. The faint, ethereal threads of the sensory [Aura] that propagated everywhere there weren’t people, winked out like a light. Then, a red glow manifested around his hand. It held echoes of war and blood, but despite that, it felt oddly … hopeful?

At first, Wirt found it odd that someone who was generally a pretty private person and very careful about sharing information about his Status sheet would put so much about themselves out there, but after he’d thought about it for a little bit, it actually made quite a bit of sense. Everything he’d put out there was something that anyone with auric senses would be able to tell at a glance.

There were secrets that you simply couldn’t keep, and merely trying would make one look like an idiot. Of course, Wirt worked for the immense bureaucratical mess that was the German government, and wasintimately familiar with people doing just that.

And then there were secrets that simply weren’t worth keeping, like that secret family recipe that people treated as if it were the secret of transmuting lead to gold.

This one sort of fell into both categories. It would be damn hard to keep and revealing the most basic information wouldn’t really come with any inherent downsides while allowing Thoma to use concrete examples in that instruction manual. Besides, revealing a complete looking set of information lent the appearance of openness to the things attached to it.

The police did it often. They gave out very basic pieces of information to the public while protecting the actual casefiles like a dragon hoarding gold.

It really did make plenty of sense how that had been handled, Wirt just hadn’t expected it from someone so private … and then he remembered that they’d basically had that exact same conversation after arresting Krebs.

“Ok, so you have two [Auras]. Didn’t the [System] explicitly warn against that?” he frowned.

“Yep. But I’m a scientist, I need a sensory [Aura], and I’m the team’s primary combatant, so I need something for combat. Therefore, I grabbed both.” Thoma shrugged.

“Right. But the [System] had to have issued that warning for a reason, is there anything actually dangerous about it?” Wirt asked.

“Not dangerous, just … possibly unpleasant.”

Suddenly, the red aura wreathing Thoma’s hand was invaded by a sliver of clear energy, the sensory [Aura]. For a split second, nothing happened. And then, a sound like the world’s largest vase shattering echoed through the room while the energy fields crackled, a jagged line of energy like a bolt of lighting raced through the red glow, looking like a jagged crack in a piece of ceramic, ripping and splintering as it further shredded the field, racing up his arm, the red [Aura] becoming visible and cracking.

With obviously great effort, Thoma stopped the shift at his shoulder and the red [Aura] swelled, erasing the sensory [Aura] and returning to invisibility now that it wasn’t actively being strained.

“Basically, that’s what happens. The two [Auras] glom together like a pair of magnets and stay that way, completely and utterly useless. Their special abilities will not work, they can’t be projected more than a few centimeters from your body and you can’t shut them off either. And they’ll stay that way unless you manage to unstitch the pair and shut down one of them … or you somehow manage to forcefully power them down.” Thoma explained.

“Forcefully power down an [Aura]? Is that even possible?” Wirt had never even heard rumors of such a thing existing, and while it was perfectly possible for it so simply be a secret, if that was the case, it was incredibly weird that Thoma was talking about it so damn openly.

“The same way you can forcefully power down any [Skill], use astral weapons to damage the spiritual body.” Thoma shrugged.

“You mean the thing you used against Krebs? The thing that you were almost certain made her pass out from the pain?” Wirt practically gaped at him.

“Yep. Hurts like a son of a bitch, but using your [Aura] with a damaged ability to channel mana is pretty useful for practicing control.” Thoma shrugged, again. He threw open the door to a stairwell that lead downwards, lights switching on automatically thanks to a motions sensor located somewhere out of sight.

“Anyway, like I said, I have to clean up a little and then we can see what you’re capable off, [Aura]-wise. Now, you know I have a sensory and blood aspected combat [Aura], but what about you? … no, don’t tell me, I want to figure it out myself. Mid-range, combat and utility, aspects of unyielding force, defense and self-sacrifice. Kinetic and magical redirection, slight sensory component to sense the power and vector of an incoming attack, with the primary power allowing you to draw the attacks at yourself and then tank the attack.

“In essence, the ultimate tank’s [Aura] in the video game sense of the word. You can defend yourself or draw attacks away from your team-members and at yourself, but you’re tough enough to tank basically everything. What’s it called?”

Wirt chuckled softly. Thoma certainly never failed to disappoint when it came to figuring out things like this. And there was an entire team of a total of six people out there, all similarly focused on discovering the secrets of the universe. … did privacy even exist as on a conceptual level around a group like that?

“[Aura of the Sacrificial Lion].” Wirt explained “It’s my [Class’] [Aura], designed to make sure everyone else stays fine in a fight.”

“Not bad.” Thoma said “I’m going to head in there, I’ll be done in a couple of minutes.”

Then, he phased through the closed door in front of them, with Wirt opening it and following immediately … and froze at the sight. It was a charnel house in there, blood and scales covering the ground, the heads of massive serpents lying all over the place, at leat that’s what he thought before he caught a look at a relatively intact body and its multiple necks. A hydra. This guy had killed … more hydras than he could count without a forensic team and didn’t think it was a big deal.

“You know, you could easily do this too.” Thoma said, turning. A large part of the mess around him vanished as if it had never been there, and then he jumped, nearly reaching the ceiling before coming back down. The moment he touched the ground, more of the mess vanished, he jumped again, the process repeating itself over and over again while Wirt just stared, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Thoma, meanwhile, just kept talking.

“These monsters are all between Level 6 and 8, meaning the two of us around 20 Levels and an [Aura] on them. It’s just that your lizard brain still equates something being big with it being powerful and dangerous, and you’re age and professing means you’ve been in situations that confirmed this instinctual assumption over and over again. Soon, though, you’ll realize how little size matters in combat outside of how it pertains to someone’s reach.”

“My age? I can’t be more than ten years older than you?” Wirt threw him a dirty look.

“But those years were spent as an adult, in a very stressful day. Most people in the western world do not get into fights like you do before they’re 18.” Thoma shrugged, the last bits of monster disappearing as he made his final jump.

“Maybe. But how the hell are you doing that?” Wirt asked, unwilling to stay quiet any more.

“Inventory, basically. I moved mine here for the duration of this experiment, and I can open it basically anywhere in the building, but I can only pull stuff in or out near my body. So I walk towards the mess, suck it into my inventory, then jump up so the biohazard waste container is within range, and then I deposit the waste into it, rinse and repeat until everything is clean.”

Wirt had heard of these things, but he’d never seen one in action before. Also, he’d moved it, just for a few days, so he’d likely be returning it, which required a total of two space elemental cores? Things that cost 50,000 €, each?

… they got them themselves, of course.

“How do you get the cores for that? I’m under the impression that those are damn hard to come by.” Wirt asked.

“We fight them, they’re damn annoying but not that dangerous. How about you fight one, see for yourself?”

“I’m very much not supposed to fight anything like that if I can avoid it, department policy. I believe your guys’ research is responsible for that.” Wirt frowned.

“The real problem with them is how hard they are to get at, but they are highly unlikely to be able to harm you with your regenerative abilities and defensive focus. As in, the odds are mathematically indistinguishable from zero.”

That was supremely unusual way to phrase that.

“That wasn’t a ‘perfectly safe’, though.” Wirt raised an eyebrow.

“I’m a scientist, Mr. Wirt. We’re all about precision, and that results in us being worse than lawyers when it comes to qualifying statements. There is no situations I’ve ever seen that would even remotely put you in danger, but what happens if this thing creates a rip in space and this place swaps places with a part of the sun’s corona? I mean, it’s never shown any inclination to be able to do anything even remotely like that, it can only warp space around itself, but we’ve also not disproven it either, nor have we disproven that it has a million other weird powers it almost certainly doesn’t have, but you can’t prove a negative, so … you know what, I’m rambling.”

Thoma sighed and gave him an apologetic look “Point is, this will be an exercise in frustration, but not dangerous. Would you like to try it?”

“Sure.” Wirt replied, intrigued. Even if this went off the rails in the most extreme of ways, there was an expert here to deal with it. It would likely be the safest way to try this out in the near future.

And then, a couple of minutes later, there was a glowing circle sitting on the floor against the far wall.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

And then, the world turned into a funhouse mirror, space bending and twisting, warping and shifting. Wirt’s [Aura] burst out of him, pushing the effect back and holding it at a distance of maybe five meters from him. Space itself shuddered as the twin forces of his [Aura] and willpower grappled with the intrinsic abilities of the Lesser Space Elemental.

He continued to move forwards, making slow but constant progress, the monster still sitting against the far wall … and then the far wall suddenly was behind him. He whirled and charged, but was forced to slow down quite a bit to focus on beating back the spatial warp as he chased it.

Then it relocated. Again.

He whirled, and activated [Breach]. The [Skill] had initially just been a [System] empowered way to kick doors in, but with Level 10, he’d gained the ability to smash it into less physical barriers.

The spatial barrier shuddered slightly, but stayed up, so he threw in more mana, and when that only garnered a slightly stronger reaction but didn’t break the effect, he added more still. It shattered and he lunged forward … it reestablished itself, and the monster was gone. Again.

Eventually, after what he thought were a mere five minutes, but it could easily have been as many as fifteen, his fist finally hammered through the fractal that was that thing’s core, and it vanished. Finally.

“You cannot expect me to believe you do that every time you want to move your inventory. What’s the trick?” he demanded. Normally, he would have found a better way to say that and do so in a far less abrasive tone, but that had been one of the most frustrating experiences of his life, and given his choice of profession, that was saying something.

“The trick …” Thoma announcd, striding over to the summoning circle, dropping in the required materials and charging it “… is to have something it can’t throw around like a leaf in the wind. That either means throwing an attack at it that is so massive it can’t move it, like a gigantic explosion … or you have something that literally cannot be shifted. For example, soulbound weapons are considered to be a part of the user’s body, and that is a bond these things can’t mess with, at all.”

Thoma threw out his hand, Kabar manifesting within and flying towards the monster … it missed by a mile. But the scientist mere grinned and held out his hand for it, causing the blade to stop in midair and come flying back. Two more weapons, the saber he’d used again Krebs and an oversized sword similar to the busted one upstairs, manifested next to it, and then each of the three weapons gained two copies on top of that.

The literal cloud of blades flew straight at the core, which moved slightly, but Thoma stepped to the side, ensuring that it lay right on the straight line between his outstretched hand and the cloud of blades.

Predictably, it died.

By the time the weapon returned to its owner, it was once more a mere combat knife, the rest of the weapons nowhere to be seen. The small orb the monster had dropped upon death had also vanished.

“Basically, if you have a trick that can bypass the defense those things can erect, you can kill them quite easily. The problem is, those abilities are rare and the demand is insane.” Thoma shrugged “But that wasn’t really what you’re here for.

“So, [Auras]. They’re awesome powers that can wreath the wielder in a field of energy, but they’re also the single most missexplained part of the [System]. Auric categorizations are a great overview, but vastly incomplete.

“Only sensory [Auras] can give you information? All [Auras] have a sensory component to them. At a bare minimum, you can tell where other living beings are because your [Aura] moves through them less easily than unliving materials. They also tell you where the thing they can affect is, or if it is even present.

“Only combat [Auras] can be used to fight? We both know how unpleasant sensory [Auras] can be, how is that not a mental attack? Or, what about your [Aura]? If it can redirect things in motion, why not redirect your opponent’s face into your fist?

“Your [Aura] isn’t classified as a mobility [Aura]? You can still use it to speed up your movement with a little creativity.

“That’s what I’ve found to be the secret of proper [Aura] use. Now, how about a little sparring?”

Two hours later, they were both soaked in sweat and breathing heavily despite never having used anything other than their [Auras].

Wirt saw the young man across from him in a new light. He’d seen him as rather impressive since witnessing that fight with Krebs, hell, immediately after seeing that, he’d applied to and gotten a spot in the police force’s enhanced training program, which was the only reason he’d already hit his second Evolution already.

But now, he was in awe of his creativity as well. The first time, he’d merely seen the power gained from the [System] through great effort, but when it came to [Auras], they were pretty equal.

Yet even with that, he’d gotten his ass whopped by someone using a sensory [Aura] and only a sensory [Aura].

“How did you get so strong? What’s the secret?”

“Practice. It’s godsdamned hard to seriously hurt yourself with your own [Aura], so you’re free to try out very extreme things, so extreme that trying it with any other [Skill] would be truly insane. But with [Auras], the worst that can happen is you end up with a bruise or headache. It’s like trying to punch yourself in the face. If you’re not drunk or an idiot, it’s damn hard to do at full force and to actually hurt yourself.” Thoma shrugged “Like I said, when it comes to [Auras], push boundaries, experiment, and come up with new tricks, that’s how you become truly strong.”

Later still, the two of them were sitting on the edge of the first floor, legs dangling over the side where glass would be put in when the building was finished, eating sandwhiches and watching the sun fall below the horizon.

“So, is this what you thought you’d end up doing as an adult?” Wirt wondered.

“Use magic and work with someone who has a pet dinosaur?” Thoma replied thoughtfully “No, I thought I’d be the one with magic and the pet dinosaur.”

Wirt had been taking a drink from his water bottle while that comment had been made and ended up performing an unwanted spit take.

“I suppose that’s fair. It’s an entirely new world, isn’t it?”

“And a hell of a lot more dangerous.” Thoma sighed “You know, we, the two of us, are going to end up having to deal with a lot of messes going forward. We’ve already seen superpowered serial killers, city-wrecking lighting monsters and now prehistoric monsters in lakes. I’m glad to see others levelling at the same madcap speed I am. Eventually, we’ll be needed.”

“There are people in the news with Levels as high or higher every day.” Wirt reminded him.

“Perhaps, but they’re on the news. That always feels … distant, somehow. It’s stuff happening elsewhere, the people are not ones I can just randomly talk to.”

“You were in the background of the Tagesschau just a couple of weeks ago after helping catch the serial killer.” Wirt reminded him.

“It’s a psychological thing, those don’t have to make sense.” Thoma shrugged, chuckling softly.

“Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, I just wanted to say, I learned a lot today, even if you are a little bit of a crazy teacher.” Wirt winked at him “Anyway, I’m off shift in an hour, someone else will show up here, and they’ll probably start sending in people specifically for training. After all, everyone knows that one person could oversee that experiment downstairs on their own …”

“… but I’m still getting a babysitter. Lovely.” Thoma sighed.