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--donation bonus (day #4, post 4/5)--
‘Those powers are the result of a marriage between something real and something imaginary. It’s the same for Geoffrey’s shield.’

‘I think I get it... maybe...’

‘So, in order to fight it, you have to add a mental--or imaginary--side to your attacks.’

‘And how do I do that?’

‘Oh, it’s not that difficult. Because your body has already had its soul “hollowed” out, so to speak, you’ll be able to gain a stronger sense of your own presence and even begin to manipulate your soul in different ways. You’ll be able to get the basics down fairly quickly. It’s only when you want to become genuinely proficient that things go less smoothly, but we won’t be worrying about that too much yet. For now, we’ll mainly focus on trying to grow your materialization ability. I expect that’ll be more immediately useful.’

‘Hmm.’

‘By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, there are actually two ways that your metal power can grow.’

‘Oh?’

‘The first is meditative training, just like you’ve already been doing. It takes a while, but it's the more reliable of the two.’

‘The other way is faster?’

‘Very much so, yeah. The second method is to throw yourself into an incredibly dangerous situation, almost get us both killed, and hope that the desperation and rush of adrenaline are enough to force a breakthrough.’

‘What the fuck? That sounds...’

‘Reckless and stupid? Yeah. We won’t be attempting that one. The almost-getting-killed part is a dealbreaker for me.’

‘Huh. Okay... But, um... about this soul power or whatever. When should I, uh... start working on that?’

‘We’ll get to--’

“Hector? You okay?”

Finally reaching his locker, he turned and saw Micah standing there. “Uh... hi. I’m--I’m fine. Why?”

“Well, it’s just, you’re walking like you’re half-dead or something.”

“Ha... that’s, um... yeah...”

“Did something happen to you?”

‘Shit, what do I say?’

‘Uh... You fell down the stairs!’

‘That’s stupid!’

‘Just say it!’