As one would expect, the people working in the gym charged right in to demand an explanation. Reason for that is that their generators went haywire, causing some of the rune arrays working within the structure of the entire gym to go nuts and mess up quite a few apparatus that relied on precise measurements.

And of course they demanded on what the hell happened to the hall they were inside, completely broken down and filled with debris that would take months of construction and careful rune crafting to put it back together. Thankfully, Mikella offered her aid, by which demanding recompense from Alissa and getting Zeke to redo the rune arrays they messed up for free.

Just the runecrafting done by Zeke was enough to appease them, and if Zeke could do some extra alongside, not only they'll sweep up the entire problem under the rug, they would even make this particular hall their exclusive hall from then on–of course, by adding in some extra runes that would make this hall inconcevably more durable and capable of disabling any sort of perceptive skills. For Zeke, that was no problem, and he needed more of an outlet for the excess mana that he… sucked up from Janet.

Just thinking that he did such a thing made him feel shitty, as once the entire hullabaloo was done, Zeke went over to Janet who rested on the side.

"I'm sorry that this entire thing happened," Zeke said outright, seeing that Janet was slowly getting back to normal.

Just as they advised, Lyle helped Janet recover her missing mana by giving her some pretty potent potions he concocted himself. He even made it right there using the portable alchemy lab he had inside his storage pack. It wasn't powerful enough to make several high-grade potions at once like in his store, but this was good enough for a really good potion in emergencies. It was the sort of potion that was particularly good against mana burnouts that Janet was going through, so she recovered far faster than Zeke ever had when he went through his own.

"I should've noticed sooner, but I got so absorbed in making my own field. I fucked up."

He wanted to take responsibility, to take back the trust he so casually dropped for putting them in danger like that. Despite that, the otherworlders in front of him just stared at him in confusion. Mikella just stood to the side with crossed arms.

"Zeke, it's not your fault. It's nobody's fault, so stop apologizing," Mikella called out, making Zeke frown at her. Noticing that, she raised her brow. "This was gonna happen eventually. Better to let it happen now than to have it during a life-or-death battle. Besides, we didn't know that she had a higher realm attunement too."

"A higher realm attunement…" Janet repeated, her eyes still distant while looking at the ground, still messed up as Zeke didn't get to 'heal' the damage yet.

"Consider me shocked that Zeke here also has that crazy-ass attunement. Seriously, this is just nuts," Lyle shook his head, and with a bit of tepredation, he looked up at them. "And since we're apologizing anyways, sorry that I went all feral on you guys. Just… I got scared there."

"I said don't apologize!" Mikella nearly shouted, but considering the circumstances, she held back as she turned to the downcasted Lyle. "Seriously, everything is all good. Zeke, you did what you did, and we're safe. Lyle, you were only looking out for Janet. And Janet, I swear to god, if you apologize too, I'm gonna turn into a giant myself and kick everyone's asses. Nobody's at fault for having a giant meltdown or something."

Zeke was starting to notice that Mikella was still ticked off from trying to calm down the people working at the gym. Then again, she had a point–there really wasn't anything to gain from apologizing or taking blame.

As long as they were all safe, it was fine. And as though it was considered done, Mikella continued.

"Now that we're all here, let's talk about what happened. Zeke, it looked like you got more control now. You think you can do that more often?"

Zeke winced. "I'm so drained, I wanna go to bed already and it's not even half the day yet. I didn't even think I could go that far, honestly. Just… I knew Janet was in trouble, so I just focused entirely on keeping Janet safe."

Janet looked up to Zeke, her eyes nearly piercing him from how intense they were.

"But I was the one that went crazy! You should've run! The last time that happened, I almost killed Lyle!"

Hearing that, the two turned to Lyle who scratched his cheek awkwardly.

"It's not as bad as she says. I had to pass some stupid exam to get my alchemist licence, so we had to get a particularly annoying ingredient to make a pretty good potion for their standards. Skipping ahead, we got into some trouble, and that's when Janet took on the attunement that she had been holding back at the time. We just hit Level 30, which is why I was taking that test. She grew into that giant form too back then and just squashed the monster entirely. It was at Journeyman rank, but during that process, I almost got killed from the backlash."

"So in other words, it was just an accident," Mikella said, getting Lyle to nod. "Same thing as Zeke. At least you didn't blow a giant hole into the center of the world, right?"

The two looked back at Zeke with widened eyes. He wished Mikella didn't have to reveal that, but then again, it was good to show that even he messed up for Janet's sake.

"Yeah, that happened. It was in front of everybody too, so that was kinda embarrassing."

"Blowing a giant fuck-off hole in the ground was just 'embarrassing' for you?" Lyle shook his head. "Mate, you're crazy."

"I know, I know," Zeke answered, waving off his words. Turning to Janet, he spoke solemnly. "I know exactly how it feels to just lose control like that. That's why I wanted to make sure you were safe. The only thing I could think of to help was just to take all that excess mana away. It happened before, and that's how I managed to tier up my attunement. So I figured I could just do it again."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

And now Zeke learned that he can basically steal mana from others. That ability sounded incredibly valuable, but he also knew that such a thing would have too many downsides. It's not like it would just refill his mana bar like in video games. It became a whole process, and one wrong move can easily make him explode with his already high concentration of mana surrounding him.

Hell, even his consciousness wasn't entirely there. All he remembered was resolving to help Janet, and he let his attunement do the rest. That's how it worked when he saw Clara falling from the sky at the time. He may not have control, but as long as he has some kind of purpose in mind, his attunement would fulfill that purpose.

Thankfully, it stopped the moment Janet was down, so he was on the right track there.

"...You saved me, Zeke. Thank you. I don't know what would've happened if I lost control again. That's why I was… I wanted to get stronger, so that I can control my attunement better. But if you have difficulty controlling it, then what can I do?"

"Just keep chipping away at it," Zeke said, kneeling down to the sitting Janet. She looked up at him, her position so painfully similar to his own. "It's hard, almost like trying to stop a waterfall with your bare hands. I found that training more and more on all kinds of things helped me get to where I am now. I promise we'll help you do the same."

Janet took a moment to ponder at his words, then smiled. "I'd appreciate that."

"Me too, mate," Lyle answered, smiling. "So on that note–what the hell is a higher-realm attunement?"

Figuring that they hadn't really explained that, Zeke and Mikella explained what they learned of it from their benefactors back in Eve Glade. Hearing the details, Janet was still upset that there wasn't much to learn from it, which was exactly what Zeke went through as well. Lyle, however, tapped his chin in thought.

"That's really interesting… so your attunement is called The World."

"You emphasized 'The' before," Mikella pointed out. "What's Janet's attunement called?"

"It's called 'The Justice'," Janet said. There was a hint of bitterness in her eyes as she spoke. "Kinda ironic that an assassin gets something called The Justice for an attunement. I knew it was some form of concept, but I really have no clue. I thought that maybe I can figure out who are the bad guys and who are not, but no dice. Just a huge power that just explodes whenever I try to use it."

Zeke thought about it as well. For a power so similar to his own, the name was very thought-provoking. Then, he recalled the black claws she used against him. Everything else was bright white, but the claws were the only ones that were entirely dark. On the other hand, Zeke just grew large.

"Maybe there is a difference in there somewhere, but I don't think you should be afraid of it. It's the only power capable of scaring our angel to try and take it away."

"My brother, if the angels are fucking scared of it, why shouldn't we?" Lyle responded, and now Zeke felt a little silly now that he thought about it.

"...Okay, bad wording there–but I got a good feeling about all of this!"

"Says the guy that was moping about when he blasted a hole and stayed inside the whole day," Mikella grinned, getting him to glare back at her. She promptly disrespected him with a tongue before giggling to herself.

"Well then, guess even the almighty Journeymen here can't escape from fucking up," Lyle turned to Janet, a sheepish grin on his face. "Guess we got ourselves some good teachers, huh?"

"Yeah…" Janet smiled. It seemed brighter than before. Zeke thought that compared to before, the image of a cold-hearted assassin would've been alien to him by this point.

"So, what's the plan now?" Mikella asked, turning to Zeke. "I'm guessing it's not a good time to get back to training?"

"Yeah…" Zeke winced, feeling a nerve pinching when he even thought about moving his arms. "I'm still sore from that. Sorry, I really wanted to make the most out of today."

"Hey, as long as we don't have to pay for anything, bother us all you like," Lyle waved it off. "It's also good to know about these high-realm attunements. I'm guessing this ain't something you can just casually train?"

"Well…" Zeke mumbled, turning to Mikella. When she tilted her head at him in confusion, he went over and whispered something in her ear.

The otherworlders saw this and showed puzzled expressions before Mikella eventually responded.

"Sheesh, yeah, that does sound like a good plan. Not sure if Janet would like it, though."

"She probably won't, but I think it might be good for her," Zeke said eventually, turning to the one person they were speaking about. "Janet, come here. I got something for you."

"Hearing what you said, I feel like I shouldn't," Janet tried to say casually, but the wary look in her eyes didn't waver an inch. "What is it?"

As she came over per instruction, Zeke pulled out an oldie but a totally-not-goodie item out of his pack. He knew this would be a good thing to have around, even if it didn't bring good memories.

"Is that… a collar?" Janet said, taking a step back.

"Trust me, it's not what you think," Zeke quickly shook his head, showing the collar off to Lyle who immediately took attention after hearing the word. "Listen, it works like this…"

…

"Ugh, it feels so gross."

Janet said, tugging on the collar around her neck with a displeased frown on her face. After explaining the function of the mana collar as well as Zeke's experiences with it, Janet took it upon herself to wear it despite Lyle's apprehension.

In her mind, this sort of thing is the kind gamers would use to suffer now and then reap the benefits later on. While Zeke gladly accepted her notion, he felt guilty for not saying that it felt nothing like that for him. Still, with the collar on, Janet can practice her magic however she wants without falling into the overwhelming power of her high-realm attunement.

"I'm glad I still had it for the future, otherwise I would've chucked it out the moment I was done with it," Zeke said, feeling sympathy again for the girl who had the wear the god-awful collar. Lyle looked at the collar himself, this time looking at it with a careful eye.

"You know… you actually look kinda nice with that on," Lyle said, surprising Janet enough to leave her blushing. "Like it's one of those fashion statements in those magazines. With the assassin look, you look like one of those models with stone-cold looks on their faces."

"Oh… r-really?" Janet said, all of a sudden not tugging on the collar now as she instead rubbed it. "Well, I guess it does look kinda cool now that I see it."

"Trust me, you look way better than when Zeke wore it," Mikella said with a teasing grin. "He looked like he just got out of a Hot Topic store after getting lost for a good while."

"Mikky," Zeke said in disbelief, his hands outstretched. "Come on. That hurts."

"Hurt more than our usual sparring?"

"Honestly, yes."

Lyle couldn't help but laugh out loud with Janet joining in. Even when Mikella joined after, Zeke still felt a bit miffed after getting slammed like that.

It wasn't his fault that he just wasn't built for fashion even in this fantasy world.

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