Although he had never been in a small community like this before, Freddy decided that he hated all of them with a burning passion.
"Hey, I've never seen you around. Where are you from? Just visiting, or?"
"Are you...? No, wait, I don't think I've seen you before!"
"Did you just move in?"
One person after another greeted him and tried to make small talk—realizing without fail that he was an outsider.
There were only maybe around a few thousand people here, and they seemed rather interconnected. It wasn't like he was introverted, strictly speaking. However, he had actively avoided people for the longest time. At the bottom of society, there was no such thing as good company. Even good people would become liabilities when they got themselves into trouble.
As a consequence of his avoidance of human interaction, his social skills were lacking, to say the least.
He toured the neighborhood, his practice showing as he grew more proficient at answering the greetings, and it wasn't long until he ran out of places to discover.
There were a few cafes and restaurants, some miscellaneous offices, and a rather big gym in one of the smaller buildings. He was sure there was more to be seen inside these places, but going in was...
The thing was, right, every public space gave off a... kind of intimate feeling. The people inside moved chairs and tables around as they pleased, and telling who was hanging out with whom was a line that got so blurred that it might as well just be a private party. The idea of walking in on that was awkward.
He had business elsewhere anyway, even though it was even less appealing—he was going to the gym.
It was a three-story high section of a building painted in black and gold, with the words Kargon Gym plastered right above the entrance, which was about as intimidating as a damn passage.
But somehow, through whatever delirium was carrying him, he managed to walk through the door. The loud groaning and steel colliding made his heartbeat immediately speed up. The space in the gym was expansive, and quite a few people, more than he had expected, were already working out.
Now, he didn't have a frame of reference for either how much those weights weighed or how much a human was supposed to be able to lift—but holy fuck.
Some man was in the middle of benching a metal pole with dozens of fat weights on both sides, and when the man finished the last lift and placed the bar on the holders, the ground freakin' vibrated.
He briefly contemplated leaving until he was confronted by a tall man sporting a buzzcut and wearing gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt. "Hey there, pal, I don't think I've seen you around before."
After flinching at the unexpected interaction, he chuckled a bit. "I've heard that probably twenty times this morning."
"New to the community, I see?" the man asked with a chuckle. "So, you here to get a membership or just a tour?"
"No, I, uhm... I think I have a membership?" he said half-inquisitively. "Or, at least, I hope I get one."
"What's your name?" the man asked him.
"Uh... Freddy. Freddy Stern."
"Ohhh!" The man's face lit up in recognition as he leaned forward to give him a handshake. "You're Madame's guest!"
That got a few people to turn around. He winced.
"Yeah, you're right," the coach confirmed. "You do have a membership. And you—" the man started and then paused as he turned to face the entrance. He clapped his hands once and pointed a finger at someone who had just walked inside. "You also have a personal trainer."
He turned around and came face to face with his first neighbor—the person he had thoroughly embarrassed himself in front of earlier that morning.
"Mark," the coach called. "Come here! This fella is your client!"
The ridiculously buff young man walked forward and shook his hand, his skin rough and his fingers carrying the power of a metal vice. "Nice to meet you! I believe you already know my name," he said somewhat teasingly.
This time, he firmly grabbed his hand and even made eye contact. He had gotten enough practice for a lifetime in the past few hours. "You, you, you," he said, wagging his finger at the blond man. "I'm not a morning person, man. You just caught me off-guard. I'm Freddy Stern, by the way. Nice to meet you." Then, with an awkward chuckle, he added. "Also... Uh," he stalled with a chuckle. "I don't remember a word of what you said this morning."
"Yeah, you did look like you weren't listening," the cheerful man teased with a cheeky grin. "I'm Mark Afronte. Nice to meet you, Freddy."
"Well then," the trainer interrupted, hurriedly giving him another handshake. "Also, I'm Steve. Nice to meet you, too. Uhm... So," he said as he pointed at Mark, "you don't start work until Wednesday, so, like..."—he waved his hands around until he finally remembered what he was trying to say—"our boy here came to get a tour of the place, and you aren't obliged to do it or anything since you haven't started yet, but I think it would be nice. Up to you."
"Absolutely no problem," Mark confirmed and turned to face him. "But he needs some clothes."
"Yeah, yeah, uh, just go back to the changing room. There's plenty of stuff there, all clean."
"Gotcha," Mark said, fist-bumping Steve as he walked to the locker room.
He briefly glanced at the gym employee and followed after his new trainer. The locker room had an entire damn wall of clothing, footwear included, all in every color and size.
He picked a plain white T-shirt, blue shorts, and white running shoes. It all felt pleasant as hell to the touch, and frankly, it allowed the air to flow through just a bit too easily. It was hard to believe that he was even wearing clothes.
Once his trainer started changing, he almost dislocated his jaw in awe. This man was ridiculously shredded. His muscles looked like they had muscles, and the man was so vascular that looking at his veins made him feel queasy. Both of those details were quickly pushed aside, however, when he noticed the numerous faint scars lining the man's skin.
"So," his trainer said as he finished dressing in an entirely black set of clothes. "How old are you, Freddy?"
"Me?" he asked, tearing his gaze away from the grisly marks. "Uhm, I'm twenty-one. What about you?"
"You're kidding?" he asked while adjusting his shorts. "Wow, we're the same age!"
"We are!?" he asked in turn, utterly bewildered.
"Yeah, I thought you were a bit older."
"Same."
A presumption they had likely made for entirely different reasons.
His trainer grabbed two towels off a pile and handed him one as they left the locker room. They exchanged a few basic questions; the more they asked, the weirder the atmosphere got between them.
From his perspective, this man was absurdly high-class—to the point where it made no sense. Not only was the man a resident of the 25th district, but he was also a highly qualified combat-oriented archhuman with an academy diploma.
That castle Freddy saw on his way to work every day? That was where this guy went to fucking school!
On the other hand, from this man's point of view, he must have appeared ridiculously low-class. As the atmosphere got too awkward to bear, they both reached a tacit agreement to shut up and stop asking things. Everyone had their story.
Although a good part of Freddy's was locked behind a non-disclosure agreement.
Their tour started on the first floor. It was where all the heavy weight-lifting contraptions were, and Mark walked through it, pointing at and naming random objects.
He did not understand what any of this was, but if he stopped to ask for every individual thing, they'd spend the entire day here.
The second floor was filled with things to be punched and kicked, ranging from simple punching bags to more complex dummies with either moving parts or solid but specific poses. There were also some ropes hanging off the tall ceiling for whatever reason.
Finally, the third floor had a large area that appeared to be for either stretching or Pilates or something, as well as a wall lined with treadmills. A part was walled off, and walking through the door revealed a massive swimming pool.
After giving him a brief overview of where things were, Mark took him to a corner of the third floor. A few women were stretching right next to them, and they eyed the admittedly beautiful trainer as he explained a few things.
"So, what's your history with sports and physical activity?" Mark interrogated casually.
There was a lot of material, and the man suggested he buy a standard guide for beginners. The perfect place to start, he thought—until the cashier informed him that it cost nine-hundred and thirty-seven dollars.
Lord almighty, what is this book made of? he pondered internally.
Although his poverty instincts did their best to dissuade him from buying it, he knew damn well that he would have to get used to pricing like this sooner or later.
The scan of the card took a piece of his soul with it, and he walked out holding the single most expensive object he had ever purchased.
Once he returned to the apartment, he cracked it open and quickly learned why it cost so much. Would he say that the price was entirely justified?
Absolutely yes.
Even putting the animated, moving drawings visualizing what the text was saying and the shimmering runes that helped him feel a particular flow of essence aside, the book held broad sections on just about every class of water art.
Offensive, defensive, movement, martial arts, short-range, long-range, hell, even how to summon water elementals—even though that was a pipe dream without a designated talent.
The only thing it was missing was a direct ether imprint like those that the scrolls he had used had. They imbued his soul directly with an ether shell, while this book merely taught him how to develop one himself.
That was still precious information, and with how well-telegraphed it was, he didn't doubt that he had just made one of the best purchases of his life.
Unless he had gotten scammed like the ignoramus he was. But he doubted that. If anything, he felt this was too cheap for what it provided him with, even with his instincts trying to convince him otherwise.
While he wanted to spend today planning out his schedule, it wasn't long until the book consumed him, and one shiny page after another flipped.
***
Two hundred years ago, something weird happened on an otherwise unassuming day. The laws of physics suddenly changed—the world expanded in every direction, the distance between locations growing ten times what it used to be.
Gravity no longer worked by the same principles, nor did leverage and pressure. Heat and cold went from abstract concepts that were only valid from the human perspective to diametric properties of matter. Electricity was still real, but it no longer followed the principles of the old, and it was debatable whether electrons even existed anymore.
Space became malleable. Light was split into information that traveled infinitely fast but carried no energy and destructive particles that could travel so slowly that relatively ordinary humans could perceive them moving. Darkness became more than just the absence of light.
Quantum mechanics who? General relativity what? Everything mankind knew of reality shattered in an instant. As far as old world archs, some of whom lived to this very day, claimed, the way things felt in everyday life remained precisely the same. But almost none of the old-world technology was usable.
Yet, the most significant change of all was the appearance of ether.
While reading through his book, Freddy found himself... not disappointed, per se, but more... No, he was pretty damn disappointed.
Half the book was just, Here is a cool idea... but wait, it's actually stupid as fuck, and we included it here so that we could preemptively crush your dreams before you waste your time trying to make it work.
What's that, a water blade!? Water shaped into a sword can't cut shit, dumbass!
Oh my God, a water bullet? You're an idiot for even entertaining the idea.
A shield of water, you say? What are you defending yourself from, a warm gust of wind?
However, it didn't dismiss any idea as objectively bad, which made sense. It simply gave a run-down of what to expect and, if one wanted to, how to make it work. Usually, by the time one made one of these ideas work, they could have done far more with an ability that suited the water affinity, but that didn't mean that the less appropriate ones were always the wrong choice.
After all, talents could easily make a stupid idea brilliant.
Still, that didn't change the fact that water had clearly defined strengths and weaknesses. Water spells doing damage firmly belonged on the side of its shortcomings, with a few notable exceptions, like Pressure Jet or Dehydration.
Water affinity thrived at two things: support and martial arts—
A strange ringing sound echoed around him, and his attention was violently ripped away from the book. His heart raged in his chest, and he sweated profusely. It wasn't long until the ringing sounded again.
"Wait, is that a doorbell?"
He had never lived in a place with one, so it surprised him. Although, now that he knew what it was, it didn't make his anxiety magically vanish.
The clock showed that it was almost 6 p.m., and it wasn't like he had been expecting guests.
The bell rang again, and he realized he had no choice but to answer the door.
Could it be the assistant?
For a second, that made him panic. What if his visit to the gym today or the preemptive meeting with the trainer violated the contract somehow? No matter how he thought of it, neither should be a problem.
Oh fuck, what if I wasn't allowed to spend money with the card yet?
Had he misheard the man? Had he been too dazed to hear that he could only use it after Wednesday? What if he—
His thoughts were interrupted by yet another ring, and he knew that, no matter what or who it was, it was time to get up and open the door.
One step after another felt like they were dragging him to an executioner, and with great reluctance, he opened the door—only to spot his trainer, Mark, in the middle of turning around and leaving.
"Oh," the young man said. "I thought you weren't home, so I—" he started but stopped as he instead bowed. "I am here to apologize for my behavior today."
"What behavior?" he asked, relieved that it hadn't been trouble but also confused.
"I shouldn't have laughed at you," the man said simply, clearly ashamed.
"Oh, that?" he asked, chuckling slightly. "Honestly, man, that was pretty funny, even in my—"
"No, I really, really shouldn't have laughed at you," he insisted as he got up from his bow. "Technically speaking, I haven't started work yet, but ridiculing you in any way is a pretty clear violation of my employment contract."
"Oh... that's what you mean."
"Yeah. Uhm... That was pretty inexcusable, not to mention highly unprofessional, and if it made you uncomfortable, you should request that I be replaced with someone more qualified."
"Well... shit, man, you're putting me on the spot here, uhm," he said, scratching the back of his head. "I really don't mind."
"Are you sure?" he asked, deflating a bit.
"I mean, as you said, you aren't working yet, so technically, I've forced you into unpaid overtime, not to mention disturbed your gym schedule. I think that makes us even."
The man forced a laugh out, but his smile looked forced. "Still. There is no need to be considerate of me. Being comfortable, especially when getting started, is essential for falling in love with the process and building motivation. Think about it and speak to Matt Canstone about this," he suggested. "Have a good evening, and I'll see you around." He turned around and walked away, but before he could get far, Freddy walked over and grabbed him by the arm.
He didn't know why he'd done that, but his mouth opened before he could even begin questioning his actions. "Do you want to have dinner with me?"
"Uhm... excuse me, what?"
"No, I—" Freddy pulled his arm back. "Not like a date or anything, God, I'm—I don't swing that way," he rushed to explain. "It's just that, you know, we're neighbors, and I thought it would be uhm... I thought it would be cool."
The man paused for a moment, then snorted out a small laugh as he scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, all right, that sounds great."
It was a small gesture. It was no big deal.
But to him, who hadn't tried making friends in far too long, this seemed like an excellent opportunity to start.