Chapter 66 (2/2)

The man shrugged. “What does it matter? I’m trying to just move more quickly.”

Randidly sighed. “Reaction improves your nerve endings and increases your sensitivity to tactile feedback. You feel better. More than that, you might not be able to control your speed without Reaction. No matter how good the acceleration is, a car that can’t turn won’t win many races.”

The man just gaped at him.

A small asian woman to Randidly’s left looked up at him. “Did you hear that at one of the university lectures?”

Randidly frowned, then shook his head. “...No, just from my own observations.”

The woman muttered something and looked away, ignoring Randidly again. But Randidly made a mental note to as Tessa about these lectures, and to go to one. Why hadn’t the woman mentioned it when he asked earlier…? There might be more people he knew there, if it was sponsored by Rawlands. Maybe people who knew Ace and Sydney.

Randidly reached into his unfinished bin, and found nothing. He looked around the room. “Where do I get more carrots to him.”

Everyone looked at him in shock. The supervisor saw the situation and came over. Then he scratched his head shocked. “I...I guess you can go?”

Nodding, Randidly walked out, relieved.

“Wait, you forgot your tokens-” But Randidly was already gone. Shrugging unhappily, the supervisor returned to his spot, wishing he had thought to ask the guy to come back again tomorrow.

The man who had put all of his points into agility looked at Randidly’s neatly cut carrots, his eyes bright. “Reaction, huh…”

As Randidly was walking away, a notification popped up.

Congratulations! Your Arbor Lvl 1 is ready to level up. Due to its nature, your first choice is set: Give Arbor either “Vanity” or “Sloth”.

A vein in Randidly’s temple throbbed. It was bad enough when he had checked the seed he had left, which he had named Arbor, and saw what it grew off of. Randidly brought up its status screen again.

Arbor (Attention)

Lvl 1

Survivability: 2

Physicality: 1

Magical Aptitude:3

Brain Function:7

Particularity:6

Battle Ability:1

It was a hard thing to stomach. Randidly wasn’t sure where he went wrong with this Soul Seed. Perhaps it was the weird skills, perhaps it was the abandoning it and leaving it with those kids, but this one grew based off of attention.

Randidly swore to himself to not make another Soul Seed until he had time to purposefully nurture it.

And now he had to choose between Vanity and Sloth…

Sighing, Randidly selected Vanity. It was better that it like looking at itself in the mirror than it being unwilling to work. He supposed Vanity wasn’t that bad of a flaw, for a tree thing.

Arbor is now Lvl 2. Particularity has increased by 2. It has learned the skill Elaborate Dance.

Randidly closed the notification and the Soul Seed Menu before he did something stupid. And so, with a twitching smile, he arrived outside Tessa’s apartment, settling down to wait. He just hoped that no one gave Arbor any sort of weird attention, that would warp its growth.

Looking around at the passing people, he considered asking around about Sydney and Ace. But seriously… what was he expecting? Maybe there was some sort of giant missing person board.

Randidly supposed that he could ask one of these people, but decided it was fine to wait for Tessa and ask her. It was… nice, being alone, one of the crowd, without people freezing up in some strange mixture of awe and fear when he passed.

For a while, Randidly enjoyed the simple feeling of being treated like a normal guy.