Rest. I must rest. I expanded too quickly. I will restore myself. In doing so, I must also find myself; for, it pains me to say, I have felt less than myself, lately. Side-effects of the new integration, surely. The workers have time to recuperate. So will I. -107.3 Seconds Post-Integration.

  Another League Tutorial, another day...

  Once again, he was in the training stadium with too little sleep.

  Initially, he had intended to spend the day cleansing what he could of the Interior. It was a proper day off for him, so he could have done so without worry over being called in for anti-monster services.

  Such a desire was too little, too late once the System notification buzzed.

  The Tutorials were important. If he skipped one, he had no idea when the next one would be and he sure as heck didn't want to wait until then. So, he hauled his arse out of bed, put away his pecker, and rushed on down to the basement stadium.

  Predictively, Salsa was at the front waiting for everyone to finish filing in. "Everyone. Today we continue our engagement in magical interactions within the store environment. Today's lecture will be, well, a lecture. Like last time, you will identify what is and is not a magically imbued substance within the confines of company property."

  Leave it to Salsa to somehow make magic boring as feck!

  "First up is Water: yes, water. Look at these two pictures. Which one has been infected with runaway magical from a damaged leyline?"

  He looked carefully at each image. One image was of plain, ordinary water. The image next to it was of water but it looked different. Like the fire from the other day, this water appeared as slightly sparkly, somehow. As if it was a higher summer day and the sun glinted off its surface far too radiantly to see as normal.

  Clark raised his hand to answer and was called upon. "The second image, sir! That is the magified water."

  "Correct! Moving on."

  For nearly thirty minutes, they were shown slides containing two images each. One of normal water and one of magified water. Per the norm, Clark got most of them right. Except for what he saw as trick questions when both were magified bodies of water but magified to different degrees.

  After far too many slides shown and student groans, Salsa finally moved on to the next 'magically imbued substance on company property.'

  Gods! He couldn't even mentally recite that without groaning. Or feeling like he was an overly glossed janitor training to deal with some natural disaster's aftermath.

  "The next magified substance will be harder to pinpoint," Salsa said. "Because it is light. Yes, light as in Light. As in 'darkness versus light.'"

  A click of a button and two new images appeared on the projector screen. Light beams.

  One light beam was... well, light.

  And the other light beam was... harder to say.

  "This is trickier to define." Salsa continued. "But look carefully. Consider the previous two types of magical run off. How did water differentiate from fire? With light, it is almost the opposite."

  The opposite? Clark had no clue what that meant but he looked deeper.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Clark! Care to take a guess?" Salsa called upon him, and which set his heart aflutter.

  "Um..." he stuttered for a moment. With a deep breath, he regained his composure but was no closer to the answer. So, he did what Salsa said -- he guessed. "The image on the right?"

  "Correct!"

  Yes, yes, yes, he knew he was wrong, Salsa didn't have to rub it -- wait, he was correct?!

  "Do you know why?"

  He shrugged. "Because the light looks different?"

  What a pathetic answer.

  "Mostly true. Let me explain it all: magified light, recruits, has a much blander coloration than typical light. Look carefully at the righthand image. Do you see how the light, when compared to the lefthand image, looks, for lack of a better term, paler?"

  Eye squinting later, he did see it. "Ah! There it is!"

  Several moments later, other recruits joined his awed chorus.

  With the discerning detail revealed, the class continued. Salsa showed dozens of more slides, each with an example of normal light and magified light. Unlike with the previous elemental magic runoffs, he got a much lower percentage correct.

  Thankfully, he still got enough correct to pass.

  "And that will do us for today." Salsa concluded the tutorial and said their grades, their ranks, would be in shortly.

  Like that, it was over, the hardest tutorial yet. Or certainly the most draining.

  "I need a coffee..." he muttered as he went off in search of a cafe he had never been to before. Which, blessedly, was easy to find since he had in his head an A.I which made finding such places a snap.

  "Mmmmm! This is what I need!" Clark hummed after he took the first sip of a specialty coffee that mixed black tea with coffee and hot chocolate. There was some flavor confusion with so many substances mixed together, but it blended better than he would've thought.

  As usual, though, his private time after class wasn't his own. Theo found him.

  "There you are," his buddy said to him as he was about to take another sip. "I have an update. About the marketing issue."

  He stifled a groan, which was becoming more of a habit of late, and asked Theo to lay it on him.

  Theo obliged: "After much haggling, I have done it! I have sold the three unique items we have been building at the pod. Which is why I wanted to chat with you in person. What should I do with the profits?"

  What to do with the profits? "I have no idea..." Clark laughed.

  Theo smiled back. "I figured since you're the leader, you should hang on to them. Not that I would object to hanging on to all the money, especially for a small holder's fee..."

  Clark ignored his friend's insinuation. "Let me hold onto the funds for now."

  Theo sighed comically but handed over the money -- 250 Standard Credits! -- before getting up from the seat. "Anything else?"

  "Not right now, bud. To be clear -- the money is to help pay for Brenda's services, not to fill my personal coffers. Got it?" he looked directly into Theo's eyes.

  "Yeah, yeah, I know. Keeping you on your toes."

  "Good. I figured. Once I have a long-term solution to our money issues, I will let you guys know. Are we on for another sleep over, soon?"

  That perked Theo right up. "Feck yeah, bro!"

  They fist-bumped one another and were off back to their respective demands. Somewhere in the back part of his mind, Clark wondered how Theo spent his days. Working? What else would any of them do?

  Alone again and with still some of his specialty drink in hand, he asked SIMP how he should handle the funds: "Is it possible for me to set something up with my bank account where Theo and Hera and deposit and withdraw funds?"

  Beep: "I am not connected to the banking systems, so I cannot do that for you. I do know that yes, it is possible to do. I understand the basics of how to set that up, so I can walk you through it."

  Clark opened his banking application on his HUD and navigated through the menus as SIMP explained.

  Twenty minutes later, he had set up a sub-account labeled 'Dwarf Pod.' All three of them could make deposits, withdrawals, and place blocks and holds on transfers if the occasion called for such.

  A minute after that, he informed his team via a voice message of his action and sent them confirmation links.

  Moments after the voice message, all of them accepted the link and were on the record as joint account holders.

  Needless to say, it had been an eventful little meet.

  As if that wasn't enough, after, he received his notification of passing the League Tutorial.

  [Congratulations! Your League Ranking Has Increased: Rank 'M' Obtained!]

  Then, a moment later: [Congratulations! Your League Ranking Has Increased: Rank 'L' Obtained!].

  Two ranks in one day? He would take it!

  What he wanted more than anything was a raise. And wouldn't you know it, that was what he got:

  [Congratulations! You Now Qualify for a Merit Raise: +1.50 SC: New Rate of Compensation: 24.00 SC].

  It was a good day! Clark found he couldn't stop smiling.

  But if Clark thought that was all the day would be, that it couldn't be any better, he was wrong.