Time To Finish Things

It was roughly three in the afternoon when Wang Xu returned to his apartment. He had spent over an hour enjoying his lunch, packing away quite a bit, before he took a light walk around the neighborhood as he waited for the food to digest. To his credit, with the amount of weight training and jogging that he did that day, along with the somewhat dangerous practice of absorbing solar energy rays in the morning, he needed to eat at least that much in order to regain some nutrients in his body.

Now in his apartment, Wang Xu was sitting on the floor in his living room in a meditative position, similar to what he does in-game. While doing this, Wang Xu was carefully controlling the energy flow in his body to direct the newly obtained nutrients to various locations. Although he couldn't direct all the nutrients where he wanted them to go, just being able to direct a portion of it was enough for him at the moment.

After doing this for roughly fifteen minutes, Wang Xu was now covered in a bit of sweat as he released a breath of toxic air from his mouth. It seems his action of directing the nutrients in his body led to him unintentionally forcing out some of the impurities that his body has built up over the years. Heaving a sigh of relief, Wang Xu took a minute for his body to regain some strength before he got up and went to the bathroom. This round of unintentional impurity removal requires a lengthy bath to remove the crime and foul smell that he was currently emitting.

Half an hour of vigorous scrubbing later, Wang Xu was once again clean. Looking at the time, he felt that he's been offline long enough and felt that he should take care of all the unfinished work he has left. After a quick trip to the kitchen and downing a few glasses of water, Wang Xu returned to his room. He sat with his back to the wall on his bed as he put the gaming helmet on. As his consciousness was being transferred to the game, his last thought was, 'It's time to end this annoying quest.'

*******

Logging into the game, Kirou was now standing outside of Elderwood Village. After lining his pockets with quite a bit of material from the mineral resource points earlier, Kirou made sure to rush back to Elderwood Village before logging off as he didn't want to waste any time rushing back, not to mention face any unknown threats that might have popped out.

Just as Kirou was about to step into the village, he received a telepathic call. Looking at the one calling him, Kirou raised an eyebrow before answering as he spoke, "Ms. Dark Elf, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?"

A calm yet tired voice came from the other end as Kirou heard Navi's voice, [You're a hard man to get a hold of, Mr. Wolf. Both Sister Reya and I have been trying to contact you all day, but you weren't online. We were starting to think we wouldn't have gotten the chance to speak until late in the night.]

Kirou chuckled as he listened to Navi's words. He then started walking into the village as he spoke up, "Sorry about that. I had to get some food in my system and get a bit of exercise in as I cannot allow my body to get too lazy from gaming all day."

[Player Navi: Oh. That completely slipped my mind these days. I should probably start going back to the gym or training center when I have my weekends free.] Although it sounded normal, Kirou detected the slight tone of embarrassment in Navi's voice. Being the kind gentleman that he was, he decided against pointing it out.

"Don't worry about it. With a body as nice as yours, you won't have to do much in order to keep it in shape." After saying those words, Kirou could imagine how flustered Navi was at the moment from the sounds she was making. Having accomplished his goal of teasing her a bit, Kirou decided to get back on topic, "The fun of teasing you aside, anything I can help you with, Navi?"

Doing her best to compose herself on her side, Navi coughed a few times before speaking, [Yes, Kirou, there is something you can help me with. We need to talk, face to face.]

Hearing those words prompted Kirou to drop all the mirth in his voice as he returned to his usual casual voice as he spoke, "Let me guess, it has to do with the intelligence I provided Reya with yesterday, right?"

[Player Navi: That's correct, Kirou. For now, I wanna have a chat with just the two of us.] The determination in her voice came over loud and clear towards Kirou.

Kirou unknowingly smirked on his side as he spoke, "So you've built up your resolve, is that correct."

[Player Navi:... Yes, I have, Kirou.]

"Good. You'll need to do at least that much in order to go along with what I have in mind. That being said, you should bring Reya as well. I've got something to discuss with you both, so we can have our conversation first while I let her explore. This will all have to wait, though, as I plan on finishing a quest within the next hour. Meet me at the entrance to SC Pier City within an hour. You and Reya should probably get some food in your bodies in the meantime." Kirou said all this with the same casual tone that he normally uses, but Navi could tell that there was something hidden underneath this calm tone. Whether or not it was her intuition that pointed her in this direction, she wouldn't know, but that was the feeling she got.

[Player Navi. Understood, Mr. Wolf. I'll inform Sister Reya right away. See you in an hour.] Following her words, Navi terminated the telepathic call, leaving Kirou now standing before the entrance of Senior Bladesmith's cottage.

At first, Kirou was going to knock on the door, but then he just changed his mind midway and just opened it quietly before walking inside. Like usual, after entering the cottage, he closed the door and went over to the forge area and joined Bladesmith in hammering away at some materials.

Bladesmith heard Kirou entering the cottage and saw him setting up his anvil next to him as usual but said nothing as he resumed his focus on the material before him. Kirou was naturally aware of this as well but he too said nothing as he focused on the material sitting on his anvil. Like that, both Lycans focused on their own tasks, completely ignoring the existence of the other as they both hammered away at the material before them. This went on for roughly twenty minutes before both had somehow simultaneously dropped their hammers to the side of their anvils and went over to the lounge section of the cottage to rest.

With both now sitting down across from each other, Bladesmith took the time to examine Kirou. Although there was no outward change or any physical growth like the other times that Kirou had visited, Bladesmith could tell that there was a change in him this time around. Thinking back to the quest he had issued him earlier and seeing him now, a wolfish smile formed on Bladesmith's face as he spoke, "Since you are here, I take it that you've completed the other objectives and are ready for our spar? You sure about this, Lad?"

An equally wolfish smile formed on Kirou's face as he responded to Bladesmith, "You know me, Senior. I wouldn't be sitting here if I wasn't."

Seeing the confidence radiating from Kirou's body language and hearing his words prompted Bladesmith to slap his hand down on the couch's armrest as he released a hearty laugh. A few seconds later, this laugh was reduced to just a casual smile on Bladesmith's face as he spoke up in a calm voice, "Very good, Lad. I was growing tired of the wait. It's not often that I get to have a spar with a youngster as good as you, Lad. I'll be sure to evaluate how you use those wires of yours properly."

At those words, Kirou could faintly feel an aura slowly radiating from Bladesmith's body. He could tell that Bladesmith was someone that enjoyed combat, probably a bit too much, but Kirou didn't consider this a bad thing. In fact, Bladesmith's aura had unknowingly caused him to release one of his own, proving that he was the same kind of person. Bladesmith noticed the aura slowly rising from Kirou's body, prompting the class instructor to form another smile on his face at this wondrous find.

While Bladesmith's aura was that of a feral beast, slowly awakening from its long, dormant slumber, Kirou's aura was that of a predator, slowly stalking its prey, waiting for the opportune moment to land the killing strike. Although both beasts wanted nothing more than to attack the other, ripping each other limb from limb, their respective masters were in full control, reigning them back in place.

Both Lycans shared a smile before they wordlessly walked towards the door leading to the <Unnamed Training Grounds>. After both Lycans had entered, Bladesmith stood in front of the door as his shadow extended outwards, prompting another Bladesmith to rise up.

Kirou watched as the clone solidified as he equipped his wired gloves. He was just about to follow the clone deep into the area when he noticed an abnormality with the clone. Looking at the clone's level caused Kirou's eyes to twitch slightly as a certain prediction of his came true.

Monster: Weapon Master Bladesmith's Clone

Level: 28

HP: 75,000/75,000

MP: 20,000/20,000

...

Kirou then took a look at his quest window, where he actually saw the quest being updated in real-time.

*Defeat Weapon Master Bladesmith's Clone: 0/1 (Combat will take place deep within the <Nameless Training Ground>. The clone will be at level 25 and will only use its claws. Escape .....

Defeat Weapon Master Bladesmith's Clone: 0/1 (Combat will take place deep within the <Nameless Training Ground>. The clone will be at level 28 and will only use its claws. Escape condition is to make it through the area and get to the door where Bladesmith will be standing in one piece)

This time, Kirou wasn't sure if the change in the clones level had to do with Bladesmith himself or if the system decided to screw around with him once more. Regardless of the reason, however, he was not going to take this crap lying down. Already, his mind got to work formulating how he would go about screwing over Bladesmith's clone during this quest and the system afterward, but externally, Kirou only had an eyebrow raised at seeing the change in the clone's level.

Seeing the raised eyebrow, Bladesmith thought that Kirou must have noticed something so he spoke, "Though you haven't gotten stronger physically since you haven't broken through the bottleneck just yet, I can feel that you've managed to refine your power quite a bit since I've last seen you, so I've adjusted the strength of my clone accordingly. No need to thank me." By the end of Bladesmith's speech, he had a cheeky grin on his face, prompting Kirou to look at him in a deadpan expression.

With Bladesmith's words spoken like that, Kirou had the answer he was looking for and now knew how he was going to deal with all those involved. He just shook his head as if he had given up and followed behind the clone, giving Bladesmith the impression that he had pulled a fast one on Kirou. Contrary to his thoughts, however, Kirou was now formulating a few more dastardly ways in which to screw him over. Oh well, that isn't something he will be aware of until much, much later.