[QUICK AUTHOR'S NOTE]Hello everyone! Your favorite author with the constitution of a fucking sickly Victorian lady here! Guess what happened to me---that's right, I GOT SICK AGAIN.
I'm taking much better care of myself these days, but the prolonged period of stress i had gone through had clearly taken a toll on my body. I've been sick like i think ten times in the last half a year. Sorry for these stupid gaps, it always takes every bit of wind out of my sails when i get sick. I hate it so much. I'm working on fixing my immune system tho, don't worry. I have no plans of continuing life with the physical durability of a hummingbird.
Anyway, enjoy!////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Mr. Stern. But you know, for your soul?” The soul therapist raised both thumbs up. “Absolutely fantastic! I’d say you cut down like seven months of healing with that. Any more tragic backstory you could unravel? Because this is a great time for bad news.”
Freddy sat at the soul therapist’s office, having come for his first regular appointment. He had just finished retelling what happened with his parents. He was mildly displeased with the doctor’s response.
The man clearly noticed. “Just to set the record straight—I’m not a mental health therapist. Well, I am a qualified professional in that regard, but that’s not what I’m here to do. My job as your soul therapist is to guide you on the best path to heal your soul. As unfortunate as it is, it is a fact that personal tragedy is one of the greatest sources of significance for purposes of speeding things up.
“If you want someone who will help you cope with your issues, we can add a regular therapist to your treatment schedule. Whether we do or don’t, I’d prefer it if you didn’t take my attitude towards your problems personally.”
Freddy took a deep breath to calm himself. “I understand. And no, I’d like to keep things as they are.”
“Good. Just off the record here, since I’m technically not allowed to tell you this: in my experience, regular therapy slows things down quite a bit.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. What can I say? Mental illness is amazing for soul healing. Schizophrenia especially. To the point where if I had a way to give it to you, I probably would.”
Freddy chuckled a bit. “Just a quick question, you mentioned I cut seven months off my healing before. Does that mean you have an estimate?”
The therapist made a so-so gesture. “Yes and no. Soul recovery is rarely, if ever, linear. Technically, if all you did was develop better habits, pursue some kind of hobby, and peacefully wait, I know almost exactly how long it would take you to finish healing.”
“Which is?”
“About six years.”
“Six years!?”
The man raised a finger. “It was around six and a half years before you found out the truth about your parents. See the problem?”
Freddy sighed. “So I could take anywhere between a maximum of six years and a minimum of what? Weeks?”
“I never said that’s the maximum.”
Freddy’s eye twitched. “Then what is?”
“There is no maximum. I mean you could also keep screwing things up and making your soul damage worse. I’ve seen it happen before.” The doctor raised a hand before Freddy could speak. “I don’t think that’s going to happen to you. I’m, in fact, here to make sure it doesn’t. And I’m also here to ensure you heal as fast as possible.” The man’s expression darkened. “In the vast majority of cases, my patients don’t make it to the finish line before deciding to just take the elixir and be done with it.
“My job is to get you as close to your old self as possible. But ultimately, it's your right to decide when you’ve come close enough. So relax. Don’t panic about estimates. Just take your time, see what you’re most comfortable with, and we’ll take things from there. We’ve already done most of the legwork to ensure you don’t develop extreme personality disorders. You aren’t going to ruin your life, no matter when you decide to bring this to an end.
“That being said, I highly recommend you stick through at least a year of treatment. Usually, that’s when people find most of the low-hanging fruit. Speaking of which, I think it's time to get into it.” He leaned forward. “Tell me—what do you plan on doing?”
***
Freddy came back to his luxurious apartment and crashed into the couch. He felt drained, despite the fact that all he’d done was sit and talk for an hour. Slowly, he extracted the small paper from his storage ring, and looked at the list written on it.
There, he had written all the things he wanted to try to see if they would help with healing his soul.
He read through the list one by one.
FIND A HOBBY.
For this, he planned on trying out everything from painting to playing an instrument. He didn’t have anything that particularly appealed to him, but according to the doctor, it was worth a shot.
FIGHT IN THE STARHOLD ARENA.
Not only was the place simply cool as hell, it would allow him to fight without having to worry about soul damage. There were absolutely zero consequences for anything that happened in the arena, and this included tearing his soul apart by using abilities. It would have to wait a bit, though. As he was, using abilities would cause too much soul pain for him to find any enjoyment in fighting there.
SOCIALIZE.
Have sex. He should have just written HAVE SEX since that was pretty much exactly what this item meant. He wanted to have sex. At this point, he was no longer just down bad, he was under terrible. If he didn’t have 1% Lifesteal, he was half certain his balls would already be atrophying from the lack of use.
DELVE.
This was mostly for the sake of making money. But frankly, he did find a good deal of fulfillment in going out there and killing monsters. It was a small thing, but important nevertheless. He had worked hard to get to where he was. His ability to provide for himself in the exact way he’d always dreamt of was naturally pretty damn significant to him.
He would definitely need the money, though. Especially for the next item on the list—
GET EDUCATED.
Freddy had missed his chance to enter an academy. But that didn’t mean he had no way to go to school. He hadn’t known this until the therapist told him, but apparently, there was no prior education requirement to join the university.
The University of Starhold was quite different from what he’d imagined. Apparently, it wasn’t organized into years and fields, but rather, individual professors held classes anyone could join. There were two problems with this, however. For one, Freddy was an uneducated moron, so if he wanted to jump straight into university-level material, he’d have to catch up with a ton of basic knowledge, first.
And second—for someone like Freddy, who had no prior academic accomplishments or referrals… the university was going to be expensive as shit. In fact, it would cost him almost a billion dollars per year just to be allowed to take classes, and the classes themselves would cost him another arm and a leg.
From what he gathered, this price was deliberately inflated. There was no shortage of young scholars with connections to big factions who wanted in. There were so many, in fact, that the university was struggling to accommodate everyone, and was being forced to restrict access in whatever way possible.
Of course, those from influential factions could get scholarships and then pay only a fraction of the cost. But Freddy would be hard-pressed to get one.
Even with his medals, apparently.
Freddy’s accomplishments ensured that the empire would take good care of him, and almost anywhere he went, he’d get preferential treatment. But in the empire’s eyes, he was ultimately just a single talented two-star who may or may not reach the third star one day.
For a spot in the university, he’d be competing against countless factions who had spent generations contributing to the empire in numerous ways.
When the empire offered a scholarship, they weren’t giving it to the spoiled rich kid. They were giving it to the spoiled rich kid’s grandpa, a Lord who had fought in the Eternal War for decades. And if that Lord was refused a scholarship because the empire wanted to give it to some no-name rando without a background, he wouldn’t be happy about it.
And the next time the empire needed said Lord to do something, he might just be busy doing something else.
Of course, Freddy wasn’t exactly a no-name nobody anymore. He was the fiancee of Emily Umbra. But that hadn’t been publicly announced yet, and he’d have to go out of his way to ask the clan for a push. And he didn’t want to do that. Not yet. A favor given was a favor owed, and he’d rather not owe the clan anything until he got more familiar with how they operated.
With that out of the way, there was just one more thing on the list.
GET STRONGER
And speaking of which—
He looked down at the bracelet on his left wrist. “Let’s see if Bloodshed made any progress.”
He sank into his soul, drifting over to Bloodshed’s cage. “Anything new?”
The skeleton’s eyes cracked open. “I apologize, Master. The concepts within are too far removed from bloodshed for me to infer anything.”
Freddy sighed. “So I’m guessing it's likely a defensive item, then?”
It shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Well then. I guess it's time to take it to an appraiser.”
***
Archumanity’s Trading Association was one of the biggest organisations in the entirety of the empire. Given the fact that it was owned by the empress herself, it could be argued that it was the biggest, but they operated within strict bounds. Still, bound or not, the ATA was respected by everyone.
Its status was readily apparent just by seeing the sheer immensity of its Starhold headquarters. The towering structure of marble was covered in extravagant sculptures from top to bottom, with massive arches leading into the building itself. The defenses, namely in the form of floating, vaguely purple orbs that could turn even three-stars into charred smears on the gold-plated flooring, made for a constant reminder not to cause trouble.
Even with its size from the outside, the internal space expansion was extreme, to create as much room as humanly possible. The countless rooms dedicated to every aspect of every layer of the empire’s economy still managed to make it feel cramped.
Freddy, given he was still sensitive about his identity, made the decision to walk inside wearing a mask. Thankfully, he was far from the only person to do so, so he didn’t stand out like a weirdo.
As for badges, to avoid attracting too much attention, he settled on the humble fifth-rank trooper medal. It would have been better if he had a fourth-ranked one, instead. At that point, he would have gotten plenty of respect without—
“Esteemed customer! Would you like—”
“Hello there, good sir! Do you need—”
“Greetings—”
“Are you interested in—”
“Would you like to—”
Having long lost his patience, Freddy was pushing people aside to make it to where he wanted to go. He was getting literally swarmed by salesmen, and the only offer he was even remotely interested in was the one guy who offered to act as a gofer so he didn’t have to personally deal with coming here.
And seeing his experience? He might very well pay someone to do just that.
There were so many people inside the building that Freddy found it hard to breathe. The auras were suffocating, and the blurred mess of people running around the excruciatingly long hallways made for the most unpleasant experience.
Eventually, he made his way to the appraisal section.
He vaguely recalled his first visit to the ATA all the way back in Pittersville. There, he had seen a lineup of doors in different shapes and colors—colors that he now recognized as badge ranks. “Ah. I see.”
There were many rooms for those with lower-ranked badges, with each rank up getting more and more restricted. Back in Pittersville, the highest-ranked doors had only been rank three. Here? They went all the way up to shimmering white.
The doors leading into the basic rooms had long lines before them, but anything rank four and up had nobody waiting.
Part of him was tempted to swing his cock out and just march to the white doors, but opting to keep attention to a relative minimum, he confidently strode towards the beautiful violet doors—those reserved only for those with a fifth-ranked badge and above—and stepped inside.
“Greetings,” an aging man respectfully standing behind a table said. “How may I help you?”
Freddy offered the bracelet.
The man nodded as he accepted it. He then picked up a paper and handed it to Freddy, together with the bracelet. “Anything else?”
Freddy stared at the man. “Yes? I’d like to have that appraised.”
The man simply gestured at the paper in Freddy’s hands.
Freddy scowled, flipping the paper over and taking a look. No fucking way.
The paper had an extremely detailed description of the item, including several name suggestions, price estimates, what exactly it did, and even a list of potential buyers. “Holy shit…” he muttered. “Thanks, I guess. What do I owe you?”
“Your first ten appraisals with us are on the house.”
Freddy smiled beneath the mask. “I highly appreciate that.”
“And while it might not be my place to say this, I believe you should have no problems with using the special-ranked services. If you are concerned about your identity, we can arrange a visit to wherever you please, instead.”
Freddy halted at those words, caught off-guard. Well… I don’t know what they pay him, but he definitely deserves a raise. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“You will find a contact on the bottom of the appraisal.” The man bowed slightly. “Feel free to call us whenever you please, Sir. Have a wonderful day.”
“I sure will… Thanks.” Freddy turned and walked outside, mildly unnerved by the encounter.
He glanced over the appraisal.
The bracelet was apparently a pretty damn good find, with a notable list of buyers looking for an item just like it. It wasn’t a unique, but that didn’t really matter. Its function was simple—once every five hours or so, it could negate about a mid-stage 1 Tectonic Strike’s worth of damage. That didn’t seem like a lot, but for an early one-star, it might as well be a second life.
And there were plenty of brutally rich old farts who would gladly cough up a fortune to buy their kids a second life.
Naturally, this was completely useless to Freddy. The billion and a half dollars it cost, though? He wasn’t going to say no to that.
He cupped his chin as he made his way down the ATA’s halls.
Given the Cycle Scythe’s gluttony, he was lacking in cursed items, which left a notable gap in his power. He still had around 30 billion dollars left after buying his apartment.
It was time for both of those things to change.