Source Substance Fusion Deepens

The next day, Gordon was woken by a patient's screams downstairs.

As he sat up, he first smelled the chemicals from the dental clinic, then the rusty scent of hot water, and only afterward heard water splashing.

In the living room, Vera was drying her hair, her clothes hanging out on the balcony.

She knew nothing about coordinating aristocratic clothes, but she understood very well when something was hard to come by.

That was how Gordon came to see the most economical bandage wrapping in history.

It precisely covered everything public decency demanded, and not an inch more.

Gordon had intended to remind her that this wasn't her... place.

But considering that Vera might interpret a "reminder" as an invitation to fight, he changed the subject.

"The clothes Charlotte bought were pretty expensive," he said.

"That's why they need to be washed clean," Vera said. "Stains would be hard to deal with."

"I agree."

Over the next few days, Gordon attended classes during the day, then reviewed his lessons with Charlotte in the afternoon or went to the tennis club.

He spent his evenings training.

On the first evening, Vera still threw copper pennies at Gordon.

Gordon wanted to catch them, but couldn't.

One, two, three.

He thought of tennis.

When a tennis ball flew toward him, he could indeed sense its trajectory, but copper pennies were different. Vera threw them so fast that they were difficult to see.

But there had to be a pattern to this, too.

Just like Charlotte swinging her racket, before Vera threw a coin, her hand moved, her shoulder shifted, and even the rhythm of her breathing changed slightly.

Gradually, Gordon began to pick up traces of these things.

That at least let him know when he was about to be hit.

Then he discovered that he could recognize the signs before Vera moved.

With his Source Substance regulating his senses, he connected to the chain of cause and effect governing the world.

"If I dodge these pennies, do I get to keep them?"

"Yes. You do," Vera said.

She threw a copper penny at Gordon, only to find that he caught it precisely, just as he had caught the Aberrant corpse she had thrown out that day.

So Vera threw a few more, gradually finding herself unable to hit him.

Gordon also earned five copper pennies.

Both were very satisfied.

This was only the beginning.

On the second evening, she stopped using copper pennies and used her fists instead. She also turned off all the lights.

"It's so dark," Gordon said.

"Can't be helped. Plenty of people die in sewers, in gutters, in places where no one gives you time to prepare."

Combat wasn't fair.

In a real fight, darkness, exhaustion, and misjudgment all posed enormous risks.

Gordon held his breath and focused.

A fist cut through the air toward him.

[Unbroken Strings: Synchronized Conduction]

Gordon quickly retreated, instinctively dodging.

Vera put it down to luck, then circled behind Gordon and kicked at him.

Gordon couldn't see her.

But he could hear the floorboards creak under the force of her foot, hear her leg sweep through the air, and feel a gust strike his back.

Then he established connections between those things.

He dodged with a large movement.

Though he struck a chair leg and nearly fell over, he was gradually growing familiar with the sensation.

"Again."

It was a little like [Foresight], but rather than seeing the future directly, it was more like sensing the connections between things.

When skin sensed heat, one might guess there was a flame or sunlight nearby.

When a spider sensed its web trembling, it knew prey had arrived.

Now, when Gordon sensed a gust, he associated it with something about to hit him.

Vera sped up: a right punch, a stepping elbow strike, then a knee.

Gordon dodged the first blow and took the second.

Pain instantly pierced his chest.

On the third, Vera stopped her knee.

Otherwise, the evening's only achievement would have been a thick stack of emergency medical bills.

Gordon rubbed his ribs.

Although ribs were among the easiest bones to heal, a blow like that was still punishing.

"Pain makes you grow," Vera said. "Once you can dodge three consecutive attacks from me, we can go catch Harold together."

"I can still-"

"No, you can't," Vera said. "You can dodge a punch right now, but you can't dodge the floor."

Gordon wanted to argue, but his head was already spinning, and his body felt terribly heavy.

That was the price of Source Substance.

Use too much, and his whole body would collapse from exhaustion.

Vera parted ways with him.

Gordon went back and lay down immediately.

Every nerve in his brain buzzed.

His hands, feet, forearms-every part of him still trembled faintly.

Despite the terrible pain, he could feel himself growing.

That was enough.

Gordon also tried testing his Source Substance ability at school.

Now, without looking up, he could tell how many people were in the classroom just by listening to their breathing.

When someone pushed the door open and entered, he could immediately identify them.

He could also notice Charlotte from far away.

Only then did he discover that she sometimes deliberately arranged their chance encounters.

But even at a distance, Gordon could already sense the body heat, heartbeat, and breathing unique to Charlotte.

On the tennis court, the change was even more obvious.

Charlotte discovered that Gordon had become very difficult to handle.

Gordon no longer chased the ball.

The moment she swung her racket, Gordon calculated where the ball would land and moved precisely where he needed to be, as though he had read her intentions in advance.

After a few rallies, she could no longer tell whether the balls Gordon missed were truly excellent shots on her part or ones he had deliberately let through.

At first, Charlotte simply refused to accept it. Later, that feeling turned into admiration, along with a competitive streak.

In the safe house, Gordon could tell whether Vera was truly asleep.

He knew when her whole body really relaxed and she rested completely, where her first step would land when she got up, when she would stare out the window in a daze, and when she would simply sit there eating.

He understood that if he wasn't strong enough, she would go after Harold alone.

It would be like Gordon throwing a knife into the water: it might come back, or it might not.

Gordon still wanted to go.

After all, in a truly dependable partnership, one person shouldn't always have to stand in front.

The training slowly began to bear fruit, while Vera returned less often.

Sometimes she had to spend more than a dozen hours on surveillance just to confirm which ship a member of the Wet-Foot People delivered a wooden crate to.

Fortunately, she was narrowing down Harold's location ever more precisely, eliminating many false leads and killing a whole bunch of Wet-Foot People who didn't know better.

The information gradually came together, and the time to close the net wasn't far off.

She was confident she could track the man down.

But one thing still weighed on her mind: whether Gordon could actually keep up.

Gordon opened the door.

She instantly drove a fist toward his throat.

A few days earlier, that single blow would have been enough to take Gordon down.

Now, however, he dodged instantly.

The moment Vera saw him retreat, she threw a second punch.

Again, she felt no contact.

The third attack was a kick.

Vera's kick came fast and vicious. This was the blow she truly intended to end the fight with.

[Unbroken Strings: Synchronized Conduction]

Gordon pulled the silver strings.

For the first time in his life, he truly extended his Source Substance power to cover the entire room.

Every vibration flowed along countless threads into the depths of Gordon's mind.

By the time Vera launched her kick, he had already read every cause and effect connected to the attack.

-Gordon judged the distance precisely and shifted just enough to avoid the attack, leaving his body unharmed and only the hem of his clothes slightly dirty.

Vera glanced at Gordon.

He was clever, but that cleverness shouldn't remain trapped in an ordinary person's body forever. That was also why she wanted to train him.

And his performance had exceeded her expectations.

From this moment on, Vera understood that Gordon was no longer the mortal employer he had once been. He had become a genuine Source Substance user.

"Although I don't know what kind of Source Substance that is, it qualifies as 'usable,'" she assessed. "If we go after Harold together, our chances of winning will double."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Vera instinctively guessed that it was a power similar to sensing killing intent.

Or, to put it more dramatically, briefly predicting reality two or three seconds ahead.

However she looked at it, it had great potential.

At that moment, Gordon felt an agonizing pain in his head, as though millions of fine needles were stabbing it over and over, yet his mind was both clear and exhilarated.

[Source Substance fusion deepening... do not fall during this process.]

His fusion had deepened once again.

He felt many more tiny, distinct movements in the world.

His heart beating in his chest, for instance, his ribs burning, his blood vessels twitching, and the dentist downstairs returning steel forceps to a tray.

Outside, a carriage rolled through a puddle, splashing mud onto the curb.

Previously, his mind would have automatically discarded all these noises.

Now they separated into distinct layers, clearly discernible within his web of perception, all information he could use.

Then he focused his awareness on Vera.

Her breathing was calm and steady.

Gordon suddenly realized that she hadn't even broken a sweat, nor had her heartbeat quickened in the slightest.

The three attacks he had needed to activate his ability to handle had been nothing more than ordinary attacks to her.

"You weren't serious," Gordon said.

"I'm training you, not fighting to the death. If I set the bar really high, you might not get anywhere even after three or five years. Besides..."

Vera paused for a moment, then quietly added:

"I really want to go on an adventure with you."