With zero hesitation, Fen pressed and confirmed his purchase of the Vitality Lesson. The same pain in his heart appeared as he watched his point value drop, the numbers in freefall until they stopped at 1501 points.
There was no reason to deviate from his chosen path of a Knight anyways; the path seemed to fit him very well. As a Vitul, even if his transformation was still incomplete Fen felt his connection to Vital energy growing as more time passed. During the Task he had to use his Vital energy with more skill than he ever had needed to before, forced to be constantly aware of his body's limited amount of energy. The Mana constructs served as the perfect opponents for Fen to hone his skills with managing his Vital energy and conserving it at all times.
His Mana manipulation skills rose higher through the fight as well, although he was perfectly aware that he needed a proper Lesson for his skills to grow in the right direction. This entire time, he was depending on the memories of the magically enabled monsters and beasts he fought to supplement for an instructor. Although it was working now, eventually Fen would face someone who he couldn't beat by using Vital energy, and his magic might not be up to par.
Amelia was a useful source of knowledge, but she might be even worse than having no instructor. Every piece of advice that she gave him was influenced by her own thoughts, which might have the opposite effect and make his skills degrade rather than improve.
Sighing, Fen confirmed with the interface his purchase of the Basic Lesson for Manipulating Mana, leaving him with only 801 points. His eyes unconsciously started twitching as he saw that annoying 'one' value at the end of his accumulated points. After scrolling through the interface, he couldn't find any cheap item that he could buy that could remove the value, so it looked like he'd be stuck with it for a while.
Looking at the other items and Lessons that peaked his interest, Fen noted down anything that he deemed useful for later and swiped the glowing particles of the interface away, watching as they scattered into the air before being collected back into the wall of the Training Hall to later reform into a dormant interface.
Just before it finished being collected however, Fen called the interface back after remembering something.
While he was reading, he saw a strange text with the label 'Class Three Material', but he forgot about it before closing the Shop. Scrolling back down to his original spot, the message was still there, with a tag saying to press for more information.
Curious, Fen clicked the icon. With a whirl of light, the golden interface resorted itself from the organized layout of the Shop into a block of text and information, which increased in size before the interface zoomed into focus so he could read it.
His eyes lit up with understanding as he read, as certain subjects that he was confused about were provided with answers from the block of text.
[An Accumulation of the Various Material Classes and their Uses]
[Documented by the Foundation in partnership with the Narrator [Psychic, Stage Unknown) ]
[Class One Material: Common material even on planets with no higher being, with limited applications significant enough for documentation to civilizations above the Planet Grade. Examples of these materials would be iron, concrete, copper, and wood.]
[Class Two Material: Rarer than Class one materials, Class two materials are more likely to be alloys or other complex materials, although the material can be found on planets with no higher being. Stellar Grade civilizations commonly use materials of this Class to construct infrastructure and other pieces of technology. Examples of Class two materials would be carbon steel, brass, titanium, and petroleum.]
[Class Three Material: Although significantly rarer than other of it's lower Class materials, Class three materials can still be found on planets with no higher being to aid in the creation of rarer materials. Starting from this Class of material, Mana can be conducted through items built using Class three materials. Class three materials can also conduct other magical energies, although Vital energy has been proven to be more challenging. Although these tend to be more durable than Class two, Class three materials need only to be able to conduct Mana to be considered Class three. Examples would be silver, gold, and certain monster materials and biproducts.]
Fen tried to scroll down to read more, but the second he tried to a big error message popped up, telling him he had insufficient authority to access that information. Pushing back his brown hair from his eyes, he reviewed the information once more, to ensure that it was perfectly preserved within his memory.
"So this is why there are materials that I've never seen before..." Fen's eyes flickered towards the walls and floor of the Training Hall, made from the strange white-ish material. With this information at least he now understood a little bit about what he didn't know, so while he didn't know everything at least now he had a direction to start looking.
It was like now that he knew the general 'shape', he could start searching for the shape's substance.
With the error message, he could infer that there was at least one more Class of material, maybe even more.
"What would a material that could conduct Mana look like- would it's performance be dependent on the amount of Mana supplied to it? Or would the quality of energy matter too?' Fen mentally put away his plans for experimenting for later, right now he simply didn't have the time.
He inwardly sighed, realizing that all the information he received only increased the number of questions he had. Fen finally closed out of the interface and walked out of the Training Hall.
Only a few hours has passed since he woke up and already he was feeling exhausted. If he was going to start his new Lessons the very next day, then he needed to start fresh otherwise he wouldn't be able to learn much.
And, because he was too poor to afford both the new Class three weapon and armor, Fen decided to simply not purchase them. It wouldn't give him any benefits if he died before he could swing the new sword because of a lack of protection, nor would it be advantageous if he survived but couldn't attack because of lacking a weapon.
Going off that very same logic, purchasing the Combat Lesson for Knights would also be a waste of points if he did so before he actually had a weapon and armor. Besides, he might not have the time to do all three; learning Intermediate manipulation of Vital energy, Basic manipulation of Mana, and combat training might actually overwhelm him.
He was skilled at managing his own time, but he wasn't THAT skilled.
Lessons on average took up eight hours, each. With two Lessons purchased, that was sixteen hours of work plus whatever time he took as a break to eat. Subtracted from the amount of hours in a day, that left Fen with eight-ish hours of sleep. And that was if, and Fen did mean if, he was going to spend his time sleeping instead of practicing with Dey. Thankfully, the increased amount of Vital energy pumping through his body meant that he required less sleep. But, that didn't mean he could ignore his body's needs forever, so Fen planned to take a day off every once in a while to recover
After all, rest was the most important thing in exercise. Which was exactly why he started heading to his room to catch some much needed sleep.
But before he could reach his room, he got stopped by Amelia, because when could he ever do what he wanted? Never, that's when... He put away his reservations and mentally prepared himself for social interaction.
"Fen, could I talk to you?"
'No! Fuck off!' His neck tensed as he strangled those words before they could leave his mouth. Angering her wasn't worth it. It took a month for them to have some semblance of a friendly relationship, and right now he was content with the way they helped one another. Exhaustion be damned, Fen resigned himself to having a long conversation.
An image of his family popped into mind, reminding him of why he needed allies.
With an apprehensive expression she led him back to the Squad room table, in which they were both alone. It seemed that Qin and Gray had both done what Fen was planning to do and went to bed early rather than continue training their tired bodies. A strange feeling of envy started growing in Fen's chest.
"Are we really tools to you?" After they both sat down Amelia immediately cut to the chase of the conversation, although Fen was a little busy sipping the drink that he ordered from the interface.
"Hmm?"
"That's what the Archon said during the evaluation, that you treat everyone else as tools." She had a patient expression on her face while Fen worked his brain to remember whatever she was talking about. An audible 'oh' escaped his lips when he recalled his own words.
"I don't treat everyone as tools, just everyone except my family." Fen nodded his head at the crestfallen expression on Amelia's face, unware that his own words were starting to destroy the cordial relationship he had with her.
"I see... Sorry, I just thought we were-" Fen interrupted her after finally realizing why she was talking to him. Waving his hands around, he tried his best to alleviate her fears.
"I don't know what my relationship with you, or Gray or Qin is, but I know that you're not just strangers to me." Fen scratched his head as he struggled to find the right words to say. "It's hard to live together for such a long time and not start to give a shit about them. Hell, I heard more about Gray's siblings than I ever did about what he learned in his Lessons, much as I loathe to admit it." His lips twitched just thinking about Gray's long winded talks. Why the hell would he have to know that his younger brother never learned to ride a bike?
"But to me, I still can't think of any of you as more important to me than my family. When she says tools, she means people that can help me survive the Program, just like what I am to you guys."
"Oh... Sorry, when I heard her I just got a little paranoid, is all..." Amelia looked a little confused about his explanation, but thankfully it didn't look like she had any other concerns. The two sat there for a while and talked. Thanks to her, Fen wasn't in the mood to sleep anymore so he adjusted himself to get more comfortable at the table.
They didn't talk about anything in particular, but whenever the Foundation came up he made sure to not mention anything about the Task. Amelia still wasn't ready to talk about her experience, and while Fen didn't urgently have to sleep, he didn't want to talk for more than an hour or two.
When they finished, they both went to their respective rooms and slept. It was only then that Fen woke up covered in sweat after realizing that he still didn't tell Amelia about the existence of his girlfriend Miko...
****
Just like the first day that he had a Lesson, Fen was the first to leave the Squad room. He knew the way, the Lesson took place in the same Training Hall as before, so he didn't have to waste any time asking the interface for directions.
The old Knight was in the same position that he always was, bent over in his seat, all his attention focused on whatever game caught his interest on his mobile interface. From the looks of it, today it was another RPG or something similar.
Looking around at the empty room, Fen asked, "Where's Erik? Usually he's here by now."
"Ah! Fuck, you scared me..." Raisen shot out from his chair, his mobile interface clattering on the floor from his body jerking up. Taking deep breaths to calm his beating heart, the old Knight replied to the question Fen asked him.
"Here, let me check, it should say on the interface..." For the second time that day, Raisen jolted upright as he read the information presented to him on the tablet. "He's... dead."
"Oh."
Raisen looked up to see his expressionless face.
"Really? That's it? And I thought I was cold..."
Fen shrugged. "I didn't know him for long. He was a good guy, but we weren't friends or anything." In secret, Fen was cursing the Death Mark for Erik's death, it was too unusual that such a genius died in the Task. The Death Mark probably manipulated reality for him to be killed, otherwise there was no way the genius got killed that easily. It explained why Fen was unaffected by any strange events after he returned from the Task; the Death Mark was too busy killing Erik. May he rest in peace.
"I guess so... That leaves just you and me then." A shiver went down Fen's spine as he considered the meaning behind those words.
Weird cracking noises filled the Training Hall as Raisen got up and stretched his back, using Vital energy to heal his sore body in what was probably the most useless way Vitality has ever been used in the history of Knights, ever.
"Alright~! So, as always, at the start of a new Lesson I have to explain history and give a lecture. Well, I didn't do this in the Basics but that's because Erik already knew because of his family, and I dropped the knowledge on you before you even purchased my Lesson... for some reason..."
"You already know about using Vital energy to strengthen your body temporarily and permanently, so I don't have to go through that again. So, next comes the next stage in your Knight Training. There's five Stages, or levels, of Knights that are achieved through training. Right now, after passing through the Basic Lesson you have the official title of a Stage one Knight, though your current strength far surpasses that rank."
"To put your strength into perspective, your regenerative abilities are at the level of a Stage three, maybe a Stage four Knight while your Vital energy control is around the upper Stage one range. Based on the records, your Chosen opponent had achieved the strength of a Stage three Mage.
"Stage one Knights can do everything you can at the most basic level and are essentially the most basic of elite soldiers in any civilizations." To emphasize his words, Raisen pulled up a statistic from his mobile interface, making the words float in the air so Fen could read them. "Of all the people to undergo a Knight's training after undergoing the operation to awaken themselves to Vitality, roughly forty percent of them succeed into becoming Stage one Knights. Up until that point, they could only consider themselves Squires, because Knights are the level up from a Squire- you know what? It's not that hard to understand. Basic terminology."
"Anyways, to get to Stage two, you need to be able to materialize your Vital energy in reality." Fen frowned at the old Knight's words.
"To give you an example of what that looks like, here:"
Fen leaped to the right as a massive wave of energy passed where he just was, sweeping the chairs and other furniture around the room as they miraculously survived against the wave of energy. Seriously, Fen needed to find whoever created those to make an armor set for him; he'd be indestructible against anything the world threw at him.
Although he was impressed with the durability of the furniture, Fen's anger at his attempted-killer wasn't so easily forgotten.
"Were you trying to kill me?!"
Raisen waved his hand around. "Of course not. You'd survive anyways; just think of it as regeneration practice."
Still grumbling about the attempt to kill him, Fen moved and sat down at one of the unmoved chairs.
"Ahem, as I was saying. You probably won't be able to do that- that's a little too advanced even for you- so for now you should try to create a blade of energy. It'd be useful if you ever lose your weapon in a fight, and it could even replace that flimsy sword of yours." Fen's eyes twitched at the insult to his property, even if it was damaged.
To prove his words, the old man conjured a green blade, swinging it around in the air to prove it's quality. "It's like a blade technique, but for Knights instead of Warriors. We call it a 'Vital Blade'. The difference between them is that Warriors use their innate senses to stimulate their bodies to project their strength outwardly to create an energy called Aura, while we use Vitality. " A smirk spread across his face.
"It's part of the reason why Knights are so much more powerful than most Warriors. A blade technique can be manipulated, or even destroyed, it all depends on the strength of the Warrior. But not our Vital blades. Our constructs are as powerful as our Vital energy, we can control it's toughness, it's sharpness, it's shape, with nothing more than a thought and push of energy. Vitality isn't some pushover energy, after all."