15 Grinding

"Your power is bullshit," Blake said as I finished my brief explanation. While we'd walked back into the woods, I'd told her about everything I thought would be important in the coming weeks—about my Inventory and how it could be used to transport things undetectably, about how Skills and leveling up worked, and about how I could see the titles and levels in signs above their heads. Things that we might need to plan around or which would come in handy, such as if Blake saw someone suspicious and needed to know if he was a Level 52 Destroyer of Fools or something.

"I know, right?" I agreed, nodding with a smile.

"It was bad enough when you could just devour books, but…" She shook her head. "Well…I suppose I shouldn't complain, since that's good for us."

She frowned in thought, the bow on her head twitching.

"But let's be careful about this. Because of your 'Inventory' you have what amounts to a pocket dimension that you can store and retrieve things from effortlessly. Did you test if the things you stored inside it could be detected by others?"

"Of course," I answered promptly. "I passed through metal detectors and it didn't react to my sword. When I stole stuff and left shops with them, there was no reaction then, either. I can't say its undetectable because there was only so much I could feasibly test and I'm sure there's some power or another that could detect it, but nothing I've tried has been able to do it. And before you ask, there doesn't seem to be a weight limit in terms of how much I can carry, though I've only been able to store things I could lift, with a few other restrictions. If getting inside without anyone knowing about our equipment is an issue, I can handle it. And, for what it's worth, the food I've stored inside it hasn't gone bad yet, though the watch I put inside to test the passage of time has functioned normally. And no, I have no idea how that works."

She'd opened her mouth to ask a question, but I'd apparently answered it so she closed it and nodded thoughtfully.

"What you can take with you on a mission like this is always an issue, as is getting past security," She stated. "We're generally forced to travel light by necessity, but if your…Inventory can really do what you say, we can go in with almost everything we could want. There may be some issues getting Adam through the front door, but he and I can manage. Once we're inside, you can identify everyone important by their…name tags, I suppose? What does mine say?"

"The Beauty, LV36, Blake Belladonna," I recited. "Last time I saw him, Adam's was The Beast, LV41, Adam Taurus."

Blake's lips twitched downwards in displeasure.

"And just to make sure, they said that before you knew who we were, correct?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "For people who are vastly more powerful than me, it doesn't give all that information, but even then I can usually tell something's up because I'm seeing question marks."

Blake muttered darkly under her breath before shaking her head again.

"And you?" She asked, elaborating as I tilted my head. "What level are you?"

"Ah…LV13, now, but I was LV2 about a week ago. That whole mess caused me to level up eleven times, but I haven't gone up again since. You went up two levels, though," I said.

"And your 'Stats'…when you level up and put points in the stat, it really makes you stronger? Faster?" She pressed.

"Yeah. So far, the only things I've given points to are Wisdom and Intelligence, but it seems to improve them," I answered, nodding again. "So does normal training, though. I managed to raise all of my physical stats to near thirty with about a week of effort. Ideally, I'd like to get them all to at least fifty by the time of the mission, but I don't know if that's possible through training alone; after they hit twenty, the rate of increase got slower and slower. Intelligence and Wisdom are my highest stats, currently."

"I struggle to see it," Blake said skeptically. "I can't say I've had much time to get to know you, but in that time you've done a fair amount of things which seemed enormously stupid. Agreeing to help me, for instance."

"I'm aware of the smart thing to do; that's not necessarily the same thing as doing it. Nor is 'wisdom' a synonym for 'heartless'," I shook my head before taking a deep breath. "Speaking of which, the answer is no."

"No?" She asked, furrowing her eyebrows. "To what question?"

""Am I doing this just to gain levels?'" I said. ""Was that the only reason I helped them out?' I'm not going to lie and say I don't appreciate those benefits, just as I'm not going to claim I don't appreciate the skills I gain from the books I devour. I'll even admit that I have wondered for a long time whether I was being selfish or heroic a week ago. But this time, I can say for sure that it's not the reason."

Blake looked at me, silent and expressionless, for a long moment before slowly exhaling through her nose and giving me a nod of concession.

"So you claim, but how do I know that?" She asked.

"Because I'm telling you about my power instead of lying about it or changing the details—and I think we both know that I could, easily, and no one but me would ever know," I told her. "That's how you know I'm telling the truth about this. And I know, because I had chances to back out and didn't take them. I told my dad about my power and talked to him before I called you. If all I wanted was experience points, I had a better option in him then you, because I can gain that experience just as easily by defeating Grimm and with him there, it'd be a lot less dangerous to me than this mission. I could have spent a few more weeks working on my stats, asked him to take me out past the limits when he came back, and fought Grimm knowing he was there if anything went awry. And in case you didn't see the pictures, my dad has killed every monster in the book. Literally, every monster in the book. You can go check."

I took her wince as an 'I'd seen it.'

"I could have refused, walked away, and asked him to help me train and gotten the same reward as this mission; more, in the long term. My dad is gone a lot, but I'm sure he could make arrangements. I already intended to ask him and Mom for training when I was ready, in fact. If anything, I think that would be the fastest way to level up, and the method with the least amount of moral quandaries: kill the monsters, save lives, get stronger. But here I am, because you were right. I want to help those people and I want to help you. So I'm going to trust you and tell you the truth and hope you trust me, too."

I saw Blake's eyes move over my face, her gaze intense enough I thought I could feel it—and then I saw her nod.

"Maybe I can see it…just a bit," She said, looking at me considering. "I trust you, Jaune."

I smiled at her.

"Out of curiosity, would it have made a difference if I was just a greedy bastard?" I wondered.

"What do you think?" She asked, raising a questioning brow.

I laughed.

"Nah, I already know the answer," I said. "It wouldn't matter to me, at least, if I was in your shoes. As long as you did what I needed and helped people in need, would it really matter why? Just wanted to see what you'd say."

Blake rolled her eyes but smiled.

"What is it you need?" She asked, expression becoming serious again in seconds. "You'll want to fight the Grimm to…level up, I assume, and you need someone to watch over you while you do. I take it this entire spiel about trust is to convince me to take that role in place of your father?"

"Among other things; I just think this will go more smoothly if we're all on the same page and not worried about one another. I'll need to grind some of my skills, too," I said. "Disguise, computers, my new fighting style, stealth, and anything else that might be useful. We'll need to work on our plan whenever possible, though I have a few ideas I'd like to put into action. The fact remains that there's a lot to do and not much time to do it—but thankfully, I don't need to sleep."

"I do," Blake said flatly. "I can go without it, but only for so long, especially if I'm pushing myself. If you need me for any of this, you might want to build your schedule around that."

"I know," I assured her. "Which brings us to a rather large issue. You're bringing Adam into this, right? Now that you have me on board? I suppose it's about time he and I talked again."

Blake's hidden ears twitched again but she nodded.

"It'll take a day or two to arrange everything on that front. It's not just Adam and now that we have your Inventory, we'll want to bring in more resources, if possible. The White Fang moves fast and Adam's been lingering nearby, I'm sure, but you'll be on your own for a while," She said. "What do you want me to tell him?"

"Didn't we go over this?" I wondered aloud, stretching as I rose. "Tell him what you want. I trust you, Blake. Just send him to me when he gets here so we can talk."

"And you?" She asked. "What will you be doing until then?"

"Can't you guess?" I asked, smirking. "Training, of course."

I drew one of the books Tukson had given me about Bai Hu's martial art from my Inventory, holding it aloft.

You obtained the skill book 'Jaws of the White Tiger.' Would you like to learn this skill?

Clicking yes, I paused for a moment, expression softening as I drew in the knowledge—and the power, for wasn't that what knowledge was in the end?

And then I slammed my left hand up to the second knuckle in the trunk of a nearby tree, fingers flexing within its wooden confines and sending cracks trough the bark before I ripped a chunk straight from the tree. These were the 'Jaws of the White Tiger'—it was an active technique like Power Strike but with three parts, consisting of the initial attack, a crushing attack to gain a grip, and then a ripping attack to finish. From what I had learned from the book, it was intended to be used on spines or throats. However, as a three part attack, the total MP cost was high, especially when enhanced by Power Strike, as I'd just done.

I did it again before speaking.

"Most of my skills are good even at their baseline, but the Active ones are too expensive to use consistently. A week ago, I tested myself to see how long I could last fighting at full power, using my Aura Channeling, Power Strikes, and everything. In total, if I enhanced every attack, I could only last a minute or two. But the MP costs go down as I level the skills up—and that's in addition to the power increasing. I retested mid-week and I lasted five times as long. I haven't gotten a chance to check again yet, but…"

I shook my head, tearing another handful of the tree away.

"But now I have more skills and they each start at level one," I said. "I'll need to level them up until I can at least fight effectively in combat; if I train them constantly for a day or two, getting them to twenty or twenty-five should be possible. There might be a limit to how far the MP cost can be reduced—my Aura skills stopped at five MP a minute—but that should let me use them for real in battle. I was aiming to get all my skills to fifty before, but…"

"Which ones are you going to train?" Blake asked.

"All the ones I can. The martial arts techniques, Summon Elemental, everything I can train on my own out here. I can only train skills by using them properly, though, so Stealth, Disguise, and Computer Mastery and such will have to wait for now."

"You think we'll run into trouble no matter what we do," Blake said, understanding.

I looked at her oddly.

"Don't you?"

She chuckled before disappearing—but for just a moment, her voice lingered.

"At the very least, you're thinking like one of us."

I snorted and attacked the poor tree again. I'd need to heal it soon, no doubt—

A skill has been created through a special action! A skill that uses excessive strength, 'Rip,' has been created!

A skill has been created through a special action! A skill that uses excessive strength, 'Crush,' has been created!

Huh…?

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