Chương 175: Chapter 168 - Ideas & Plans

"I'm genuinely not sure what advice I can really give you, Kenzie," I said at last, opting for honesty over trying to sound helpful with some token-gesture.

"I'm not Miss K. I don't really know how to teach other people anything… and most of the stuff going on with me? I barely understand it myself. Genuinely, I have no idea, most of the time." I grimaced a little as the words left my mouth. That sounded very weak. Worse—it all sounded like excuses. But it was still the truth.

"If you don't want to fall behind," I continued, "then Miss K's shard is probably your best bet. Just… grind it. As hard and as thoroughly as you can. It's still the beginner version, after all. Once we finish this one, I'm pretty sure she'll make us another—something even deeper." Seeing Kenzie's ears droop at that made my chest tighten uncomfortably. Yeah. That definitely hadn't been what she was hoping to hear. For a second, guilt tried to creep in—but I pushed back against it.

This wasn't me withholding some secret master wisdom to be mean, or anything. I wasn't a prodigy of any kind. I wasn't some hidden genius who could just spit out advice that would magically catapult her forward. If anything, I was probably the least competent person in the group when it came to that. The only reason I was keeping up at all—let alone pulling ahead—was the damn System. And the System was a straight-up cheat.

Without it, I'd still be getting my ass handed to me by all three of them, session after session, and probably would be for a long time yet. It wasn't just the raw Attribute boosts, either. Those alone wouldn't have been enough, I knew that now. It was the knowledge downloads that came with the Skills. The way muscle memory just… slotted itself into place without really requiring me to do anything but get the necessary experience for the Level Up. The others were bona fide scions of their respective families.

People with years of training, money, tailored education, family backing—advantages stacked on top of advantages. Without the System pumping me full of exactly what I needed, I'd be years behind them. And slipping further and further every time we stepped onto the mat.' And the muscle memory…

'the thought continued.' That's not even something you can really teach without a ridiculous amount of eff—' I stopped mid-thought. My eyes widened as something clicked." Actually …" I started. Kenzie's ears snapped upright instantly, her whole posture perking up as she looked at me like I'd just dangled a steak in front of a starving predator. I raised my hands quickly, palms out.

"Hold on—hold on. Don't get too excited! This is just an idea… I don't even know if it'll work." She froze in place, vibrating with anticipation.

"But," I continued slowly, choosing my words carefully, "I might be able to help you train more effectively. Maybe. I can't promise anything—but I had a thought that could potentially work out…"

"Let's do it!" She immediately agreed, nodding profusely and bouncing on her toes. I made a few more calming gestures, palms out.

"Kenzie. Please don't get too excited. I really don't want to be the reason you end up disappointed, okay? I have no idea if I can actually help. This was just a spur-of-the-moment thought, nothing more."

"I don't care, Sera," she shot back instantly, her voice way firmer than I'd expected.

"I'm desperate here! Don't make me spell that out… Even just a spur-of-the-moment idea is more than I had five seconds ago. If it doesn't work, I'm in the exact same spot I've been this whole time. While it would suck, of course, I'm not exactly going to be worse off for trying." …Yeah. Hard to argue with that. No matter how I tried to twist it around in my head, she was definitely right on that one. I let out a long, heavy sigh, already feeling the weight of responsibility settle onto my shoulders.

"Alright. Fine. Let's do it, then. But we'll need to set up some meetups without the other two… Preferably somewhere we can actually train—like Miss K's dojo. Maybe we could ask her—?"

"You can just come to my place," Kenzie cut in immediately.

"We've got a dojo too." I stared at her, then blinked twice, taken aback by that revelation.

"My family won't mind," she continued cheerfully.

"Especially if it's to help me. I can convince my sister to vacate it for a few hours, no problem." I just kept staring.' Of course. Of course everyone and their damn mother has a private dojo at home,' I thought bitterly.

'Meanwhile my weird, dysfunctional as hell family is hopping between ever-changing apartments. God damnit, Valeria. Where is my private dojo, huh?!'

"That's… good, then," I finally said, still mildly offended on a very personal level.

"Yeah. Let's do that." I'd expected something like that from Tom—he was a Laken, after all—but Kenzie? Jin too, probably?' I guess I should've seen it coming,'I admitted to myself.' Valeria did say pulling favors to get us into the dojo had been expensive. That alone should've tipped me off… And they're all in the same group as Tom, which Miss K probably did very deliberately. Private tutoring on top of hers, keeping everyone more or less on equal footing and all that. Makes sense.'

The thought trailed, then circled back on itself.' Which kind of begs the question why I'm even in there in the first place. But maybe it really was just the last slot she had open…? That other blue-group I saw already had five members…' At least my vague, half-formed hint of an idea had done its job. Kenzie's usual energetic nature came roaring back, her posture loosening, her ears flicking happily as she practically bounced beside me.

"Thank you so much, Sera. Seriously," she said.

"I… I'm sorry for putting you on the spot like that." She looked away, ears angling back as if she could hide her face from the world just by turning her head.

"I—seeing you today was a shock," she continued after a moment.

"I could tell you were different the second we walked into the dojo. I—I could smell it on you. Just like last time. But… it wasn't the same kind of smell. Not that cold, predatory… thing you had going on that one time." She hesitated, searching for the right words.

"It was warmer. A lot… calmer, in a way? Like… confidence, maybe?" Her gaze flicked back to me, eyes tight with something between awe and discomfort.

"And then watching you fight? Seeing you take on everyone, and then even catch Miss K off-guard with whatever the fuck that whole thing was that you did…? It was confusing. And honestly kind of scary." She exhaled sharply, shoulders tensing.

"It just made me feel like I was wasting my time with my own training, you know? Like I was just spinning my wheels. You were gone for a week—a week. And you came back like… that. And even before that, you were already making leaps and bounds I still don't really understand how." Kenzie shook her head hard, hair bouncing with the motion, like she was trying to physically fling the thoughts away.

"Anyway… what I'm trying to say is—thank you. For considering it; even trying to help." She glanced at me again, expression softening.

"If it doesn't work out—and honestly, I don't think it won't, because even just getting extra time training against you is going to help me figure out where I'm screwing up and where that gap between us really is—I won't be mad. Or blame you. It'll suck, yeah, no doubt. But at least I won't be stuck staring into a black void anymore, with no clue what to do except ' work harder on the shard,' which I'll obviously be doing the entire time as well. At least I've got something, you know?"

She gestured vaguely between us.

"A direction." I honestly hadn't expected that level of honesty from her, not over something I'd thrown out half on instinct and half out of desperation myself. It caught me a little flat-footed.

"Hey," I said after a beat, scratching the back of my neck.

"I'm… I'm really glad I could put your mind at ease. Even just a bit. And I mean that." I hesitated, then added, "I still don't know if this'll actually work. I really don't. But I promise I'll try my best to make it work." Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Kenzie's ears perked up immediately and she nodded hard, a bright, almost feral grin spreading across her face.

"That's all I need," she said.

"I'll message you the second I clear it with my family. Like, immediately. Then we'll set a date, yeah?" I nodded in agreement and after that, we fell into a surprisingly comfortable silence. Kenzie bounced along beside me, practically radiating good mood now, her steps lighter, her tail flicking lazily behind her. She looked… relaxed. Genuinely so. And honestly? That alone already made whatever effort I was about to sink into this whole thing feel worth it. Because the idea itself was still very half-baked.

It went as follows: If my Skills came packaged with this much muscle memory and raw knowledge, then… was there actually anything stopping me from trying to pass that on to someone else? From everything I'd seen so far, it shouldn't have been impossible. That alone was why I felt at least twenty percent confident this might work. Trying to teach any of it, though? That was the really scary part. After all, I hadn't learned any of this the normal way. No drills, no repetition, no gradual understanding. It had just…

been dropped into my head, fully formed, with zero instructions on how to internalize it—much less how to explain it to someone else. Trying to translate that into something usable for another person was going to take some serious effort, no doubt. The muscle memory part, at least, might actually be easier to teach. Weirdly enough. But with [Elemental Balance], I could control and isolate my movements perfectly.

I could break things down step by step, repeat them exactly the same way every time, show what each muscle was doing and when. Just clean, repeatable motion for Kenzie to take a look at and try to internalize, if it became necessary. Of course, that was probably going to raise even more questions for her. Questions like how the hell I was even doing that in the first place, because that was definitely not something a person should be able to do, unless they were Miss K levels of trained in doing exactly that. But…

that was a problem for future Sera. Kenzie had probably already noticed something was off anyway. With senses like hers, there was no way she hadn't picked up on my weird muscle control by now.' I'll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it…' We reached the elevator a few minutes later. Kenzie slowed to a stop, then turned toward me with an easy grin.

"I'll message you," she said, pointing a finger at me for emphasis.

"Soon as it's cleared. Don't dodge me."

"I wouldn't dare," I replied, smiling back.

"Get home safe, yeah?" She waved, tail flicking once as she headed off to go for another elevator, and a moment later the doors slid open for me. I stepped inside, tapped in the clearance for my floor, and felt the familiar, subtle shift as it started climbing toward the restricted levels. The ride itself was uneventful but my brain absolutely refused to shut up. Tomorrow was… empty. Completely empty. For the first time in what felt like forever, I had nothing planned.

Which meant it was probably the perfect time to finally get a handle on all the stuff I'd been pushing off so far. First thing that came to mind was [Venombite]. It worked, sure, but "functional" wasn't exactly good enough for an Operator wanting to be considered a viable Netrunner. I needed to refine it, tighten it up, and then copy it over to a blip for Mouse.

The Credits from that alone would be very useful—especially if I wanted to stock up properly before my next Operator gig instead of scrambling last-minute like an idiot. They could also be enough to finally let me push [Medicine] and [Jury-Rigging] onto the first levels, which would be huge just for the Knowledge downloads they would both come with. Right now, I was mostly feeling in the dark with it all, trying to do just about anything I could think of that might provide experience for the Skills.

But once I actually had the first level? I would actually get some very clear instructions on what recipes existed for that level and how I could progress faster. Then there was also Miss K's shard, of course. Telling Kenzie to grind through hers while half-assing my own would be a bad look at best and downright disrespectful at worst.

Especially as Miss K had been putting in a frankly absurd amount of effort updating my shard every time I showed up—basically rewriting the thing from scratch because I kept turning into a whole new person between sessions. Entirely by accident, but still. The least I could do was actually put in the time and appreciate that work properly. And then… there was the next Operator gig. That thought made my stomach tighten a little. Going at it alone still didn't sit right with me.

I had zero real experience with dangerous work from my past life, and the one gig I'd done with Cryo and his crew had been a complete mess on my end. I'd survived, sure, but "survived" wasn't exactly the bar I wanted to set going forward. And while Cryo had mentioned that I had done well enough, there was still a massive gulf between that and going at it solo—shouldering all the risk and responsibility myself.' Maybe it'd be smarter to tag along with another crew again…? Not permanently, obviously—just…

observe, learn, get some reps in without everything riding on me. As long as they seem trustworthy, anyway.' Cryo's warnings about Operator groups echoed inside my head.' Would need to make absolutely sure they're trustworthy… Somehow.' The elevator chimed softly as it reached my floor, the doors sliding open. Decision made, I pulled my comm out and sent Cryo a quick message as I stepped out, asking if he had anything lined up for tomorrow—or if he knew anyone solid who might need an extra hand.

Netrunner, muscle, whatever. I wasn't exactly picky on what I gained experience with. By the time the message was sent, I was already at the apartment door. It slid open, the familiar interior greeting me, and just like that… I was back home. I went for a quick shower to get rid of the last dredges of blood and sweat from today's dojo session, slipped on some comfortable clothes and headed back into my room to get the last administrative tasks out of the way that were waiting for me today.

Opening the System Interface, I let the Notifications slide by. [System]: The following Skills have gained experience: [Athletics], [Acrobatics], [Contortion] [CQC], [Martial Arts], [Deception] (+ Bonus XP). [System]: Skill gain Highlights: [System]: [Deception] Skill is 300xp away from reaching Level 4. [System]: 400xp gained for [Martial Arts] Skill. [System]: 300xp gained for [CQC] Skill.

[System]: The following Attributes have gained experience: Body (+ Bonus XP), Reflex (+ Bonus XP), Intuition, Edge, Ego [System]: Remaining Bonus XP Available: 2300.' Slow and steady wins the race… Or whatever the fuck old people always say.' With the Notifications checked, it was time for the more difficult part of the administrative tasks: Perk choices. Opening up the Interface for the [First-Aid] Perks, I was greeted with the whole array of choices available to me as part of the Level 3 upgrade.

[Bleed Break] [Requirement: Level 3 [First-Aid]] Your hands are magic…! You gain the ability to stop most forms of bleeding instantly with direct pressure application of your hands. Pressure needs to be maintained to hold this effect. [Expert Voice] [Requirement: Level 3 [First-Aid]] The only sane voice in the room. You gain the ability to issue calm, clear instructions to injured individuals, regardless of the surrounding soundscape. [Double Sling] [Requirement: Level 3 [First-Aid]] Garden-centers would love you!

You gain the ability to move up to two wounded individuals your own size and weight without sacrificing your own mobility. [Vital Sense] [Requirement: Level 3 [First-Aid]] Just like in the movies! You gain the ability to instantly assess whether someone's vitals are stable, spiking, crashing and the general form and severity of the main injury present, by touch alone. [Improvised Gear] [Requirement: Level 3 [First-Aid]] No Medkit? No problem! You gain the ability to turn common materials (wire, cloth, plastic, etc.) into effective medical tools in a pinch. My eyebrows shot up as the list of options unfolded in front of me. I honestly hadn't expected [First-Aid] to come with five different Perk choices at Level 3—but, thinking about it for more than half a second, it made sense. First-Aid wasn't exactly a simple Skill. There was a lot of room for nuance there.' Great. Making the right call here actually matters quite a bit,'I thought.' Getting this thing to Level 3 was already a pain in the ass…

I don't even want to think about how long Level 6 is going to take for the Tier Two Perks.' At a glance, the Perks split themselves pretty cleanly into two camps. There were the ones that were immediately useful to me, right now—[Bleed Break], [Vital Sense], and [Improvised Gear]. Straightforward, practical, "this might keep you alive or be immediately useful to you in the next five minutes" kind of stuff. Then there were the more synergy-heavy options. Team-focused in some aspects, socially angled in others.

[Expert Voice] and [Double Sling] clearly fell into that category. Some of them also overlapped hard with other Skills. [Expert Voice] practically screamed synergy with [Negotiation], [Deception], and [Intimidation]. [Improvised Gear] was, for all intents and purposes, just [Jury-Rigging] wearing a medical coat.' There's probably experience bleed-over too,'I mused.' If I grab [Improvised Gear], using it might feed both [First-Aid] and [Jury-Rigging]. That'd actually be pretty nice...'

But theory-crafting aside, the real question was painfully simple: What did I actually need right now? My eyes kept drifting back to [Bleed Break]. Not subtly, either. That one had a very direct line to Gabriel—and an even more direct line to me nearly bleeding out during the whole Valir mess just a couple of days ago. It made sense why my brain liked it. But it also came with a pretty grim implication.

Taking a Perk that only really shined when someone was already leaking all over the floor wasn't exactly a healthy long-term strategy.' Do I really want to plan around people—myself included—getting that fucked up?

'I wondered.' Because that feels like tempting fate, in a way...' Then again…' I'd still rather have something that keeps me alive than die on empty principles,'I countered immediately.' Bleeding out fucking sucks. Zero out of ten. Would not recommend.' With a groan, I flopped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, hands folded on my stomach as I shifted into a more serious thinking posture. This was one of those choices that looked simple on paper, but really wasn't.

And I had a feeling I was going to be lying here for a while before I committed to anything…