Hilarious. With a grunt, I headed to my chambers, delusion of Kallisto flanking my side. When the door closed behind me. I started peeling off my suit. It had burns from Simon’s energy chains spell, but they didn’t go all the way through, only the heat did. So, I had burns, but the suit was kind of fine.

  It was still going to end up in the incinerator, most likely. I took it off and stretched, which went much better without the eighty or so pounds it weighed. At least I was leveling up nicely.

  Surviving a meeting with Kallisto got me a level, most likely a level and a half, so beating up Simon and Marge got me another level.

  I still didn’t feel like I was catching up to Isabella’s ninety-four was clearly going to take a while.

  I put on my house clothes and focused. The System screens popped up in my mind, but I had a specific spell in mind. I activated a system skill, agent materialization.

  Shadow appeared, looking just like always, exactly like in the picture in Takezo’s photo.

  He couldn’t talk while materialized, but that wasn’t the idea, anyway. “I need a spar,” I said.

  He angled his body sideways towards me, one hand raised, taking a stance.

  I went on to spar with him. Or, well, to get beaten up by an endless barrage of pre-scient jabs. He could predict every move I tried to make and shut them down with a jab before I got going.

  On the one hand, that felt frustrating and one-sided. But on the other hand, I had to figure out a way to fight against someone who could do that. He wasn’t the only man in the world with this ability, hundreds had it, most likely.

  I couldn’t think of a way to advance. From the corner of my eye, I caught the delusion of Kallisto observing us. “Help me out a little. How do I get around the jab?”

  She smiled. “Why don’t you ask him? He knows.”

  “I’ve tried, but he never answers. I think he realizes that his techniques and moves are far too advanced for me. Since I can’t do them, he doesn’t bother trying to teach them to me, and hopes I figure out something of my own. He clearly has no idea how to teach someone with as little talent as I have. Neither does Isabella, and Takezo’s style is too different from mine for him to help me.”

  Kallisto clicked her tongue. She tilted her head, visibly amused. “That’s the problem of the geniuses. They got carried by their talent, so they can’t guide anyone who can’t do that. The way to get through prescience is through, not around. You need to figure out a follow-up after he hits you, because he will hit you every time, no matter what you try to do, master or figure out.”

  Right. I changed my approach, bracing for the punch, planning how to move through that. That got me nowhere, but the logic checked out. I did put all my points into endurance, anyway, so getting hit had to be a part of any of my plans.

  I ran out of strength in not too long though. With a grunt, I unsummoned Shadow. Appropriately beaten up, I crashed into the bed.

  Kallisto loomed over me. "Not going to shower?"

  "Too tired to care."

  "You know what would help you relax?"

  "Sleep."

  "Exactly. That’s going to be difficult if I don’t shut up, won’t it?"

  “You’re immaterial. You can’t smell me.”

  “My imagination is wild enough.”

  How wonderful. That was exactly what I needed. My own delusion threatening me. She could carry it out too. With a groan, I got out of bed and headed into the shower.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  I got undressed on the way.

  This time, she hung close to me, even in the shower.

  I glared at her. “Can’t you give me a bit of privacy?”

  “I can.”

  But she wasn’t going to. Mightily annoyed, I started showering.

  Kallisto stepped so close to me that if she were real, I would feel her breath on my face. “Now, we need to talk about your sexual life.”

  My cheeks flushed, and I sped up the showering. “No, we do not.”

  “We very much do. I’ve been around long enough to see what there is to it, and it’s, frankly speaking, insufficient. You aren’t getting under Isabella’s panties anytime soon, especially not at the current rate. Even Takezo is making more progress than you.”

  “I’m not trying to make any progress with her. She is my mentor, not a love interest.”

  “But you don’t have a love interest.”

  Damn soap, it took forever to scrub myself with it. “I don’t need one.”

  “You do. You need both a love interest and at least three side bitches.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Said who?”

  “I have decided that. And I’m right.” Kallisto smirked. “But right now, your main problem is that you lack drive. Because of this deficiency, you are unsuccessful at making your life difficult for your mentor, and completely ineffective at getting any side bitches.”

  “And you’ll help me with that, right? Even though you aren’t physical or real.”

  “Precisely.” She spun a bit, twirling a string of her hair around her finger. “Think about it for a second. People spend their entire life savings just to chat with women a tenth as attractive as me. They subscribe to their fan sites, call them, watch their videos, and never even know if there’s actually a woman on the other end. As opposed to the e-girls, I’m real, straight next to you, and I can both see you and talk to you, just you.”

  I finally finished washing. So fast I almost slipped, I got out of the shower and dressed into my sleeping trunks.

  Kallisto didn’t miss a step. “How exactly do you plan to outrun me when you’re going to sleep?”

  I wasn’t planning anything. My mind knew there was no escape, somewhere in its deeper depths where reason remained. But right now, I just slipped into bed, hoping she would vanish as suddenly as she once appeared.

  That didn’t happen, of course. Kallisto pounced on the bed next to me. “We will explore the more elaborate ways of doing this later, but for today, I’ll let you off with the simplest resolution.

  She slid up the bed to lie on me. She weighed nothing, and my attempt to push her off made my hand pass through her. I turned on the side, looking away.

  With a chuckle, Kallisto lowered her mouth straight to my ear. “Let’s see how long you last if I talk a bit dirty and moan into your ear.”

  I didn’t last ten minutes.

  I woke up with the hardest boner of my life. Before I even opened my eyes, Kallisto moaned into my ear again.

  So, she did that as an alarm clock. Great. Time for the morning round, apparently.

  I solved the problem, took a quick shower, and did my best to avoid Kallisto’s pleased smirk.

  I wondered how much willpower I would have needed to resist that. A lot more than I could have had, most likely. Even Isabella, who built willpower as her secondary stat, didn’t seem to be able to control her basic urges all that well.

  With a frown, I started dressing up in the usual suit outfit I always wore.

  The door burst open, and Isabella marched into the room. “What’s taking you so long?”

  “Almost ready,” I said as I was adjusting my tie.

  “Well, I can certainly smell what has delayed you. Your beddings will apparently need to be incinerated.”

  “Yep.”

  “Yep? Really? Is that what you’ve got to say for yourself?”

  The tie finally looked straight. I caught my jacket and slipped into it, closing the top two buttons. “Yep.”

  Isabella clicked her tongue, her hair extending, turning into chains. “I seem to have become too lenient lately.”

  Kallisto observed us from the bed, dangling one foot from over the other leg. “Babygirl’s mad she wasn’t invited.”

  “Or your apprentice has grown.” I pulled out my phone and checked the time. “And you’re early.”

  “I’m always precisely on time.” She smirked. “But anyway, we need to move. There’s a pre-alert for the area. Come.” She bolted out of my room and towards the elevator.

  Takezo already waited in the lobby, not even bleeding.

  I followed Isabella. “I’ve got no idea what that means.”

  “A rift is a temporal reality tear. It’s a gate that takes you to a pocket dimension that thematically matches a moment from the past, almost always a violent one. It’s full of monsters and dimensional crystals that are probably valuable.”

  “So, like a dungeon in a video game.” We all got into the elevator. “And what do you mean by probably valuable?”

  Isabella pressed the garage floor. “All main corporations hog the rifts, both to train their mages, and to get the crystals. As of right now, in spite of easily a trillion dollars being spent on related research, no one has found any use for the dimensional crystals. Like, literally none. They aren’t even pretty. But you can only get them from rifts, so we might as well get all of them for the case a use is found, eventually.”

  I scratched my head. “I remember you saying we had a division that hunts rifts.”

  “Exactly, and the man we need to talk with is leading it.”

  “Can’t you just, I don’t know, call him?”

  “He doesn’t have a phone.”