SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery

Alexis's office had always been a fancy room, but it looks like lately she'd transformed it into something that wouldn't have looked out of place in a high-end medical facility. State-of-the-art diagnostic equipment lined the walls, from advanced imaging systems to specialized monitoring devices that could track everything from neural activity to cellular regeneration rates. The centerpiece was an examination table that could have been lifted straight from a research hospital, complete with integrated sensors and holographic display capabilities.

I settled onto the examination table, trying to maintain the careful balance of appearing injured enough to justify my recent behavior while not overdoing the performance. The padding was comfortable, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was walking into a trap of my own making.

"Let's start with the ankle," Alexis said, pulling on latex gloves with practiced efficiency. Her voice had returned to the professional tone she used during medical procedures, but I could detect an undercurrent of something else. Suspicion, maybe. Or concern that went deeper than normal doctor-patient worry.

She knelt beside the examination table and began gently manipulating my supposedly injured ankle, testing the range of motion and checking for signs of swelling or structural damage. Her touch was clinical but thorough, the kind of examination that would reveal any inconsistencies between my claimed injury and the actual state of my body.

I watched her face as she worked, trying to gauge her reaction through the subtle changes in expression that most people wouldn't notice. But Alexis was exceptionally good at maintaining her professional mask when she wanted to.

"Hmm," she murmured, rotating my foot in a slow circle. "The swelling has gone down significantly since yesterday. How's the pain level?"

"Much better," I replied, which was technically true. The Pain Resistance skill made it difficult to assess exactly how much damage remained, but the acute agony from yesterday had definitely subsided. "Still tender when I put weight on it, but nothing like it was."

She nodded and moved her attention to my chest, where the worst of the impact damage had occurred during my "accident" with the gym equipment. Her hands pressed carefully along my torso, checking for signs of internal injury or bone damage that might have been missed in her initial assessment.

"The bruising is fading faster than I expected," she observed, her tone neutral but somehow loaded with meaning. "Your body's healing response seems to be operating at peak efficiency."

That was concerning. I'd hoped the visible injuries would provide cover for several more days, giving me time to figure out how to proceed with my experiments. If I was healing too quickly, it would raise questions about why I was still limping around.

"I've always been a fast healer," I said, trying to sound casual. "Good genetics, I guess."

"Mmm." The sound was noncommittal, but her hands continued their systematic exploration of my injuries. When she reached the area where several ribs had been cracked, she paused, her fingers applying gentle pressure to specific points along the bone structure.

I managed not to react, thanks to the Pain Resistance skill, but I could tell from her expression that she was finding something unexpected.

"Reynard," she said slowly, straightening up to meet my eyes. "These ribs are showing signs of accelerated bone regeneration. The kind of healing pattern I'd expect to see after days of recovery, not a couple hours."

My heart rate spiked, but I tried to keep my expression neutral. "Is that... bad? I mean, healing faster is good, right?"

"It's unusual," she said, moving to a nearby cabinet and retrieving a handheld scanner. "I want to get some detailed imaging of the bone structure. This won't hurt."

The scanner hummed to life as she passed it over my torso, its light creating intricate patterns across my skin. A display materialized on her computer's screen, showing cross-sectional views of my skeletal system with remarkable clarity.

What I saw there made my stomach drop.

The damage from yesterday's training session was clearly visible, but it was healing at a rate that defied normal human physiology. Hairline fractures were already showing signs of calcification. Bone bruises that should have taken days to resolve were nearly gone. Even the soft tissue damage was regenerating faster than should have been possible.

Alexis studied the display in silence for several long moments, her expression growing more troubled with each passing second. Finally, she set the scanner aside and fixed me with a look that I'd never seen from her before—one that suggested she was seeing straight through every lie I'd told over the past two days.

"Your ankle," she said quietly, "shows minimal actual damage. Certainly nothing that would cause the kind of limping you've been doing. The injury pattern is consistent with a minor strain, maybe a day old at most."

I opened my mouth to respond, but she held up a hand to stop me.

"The rib damage is according to you an accident caused by you spraining your ankle near heavy equipment." She paused, her eyes narrowing. "Despite the fact that it's damage is to structured and looks more similar to you banging on a broken bone hundreds of times."

The silence stretched between us, heavy with unspoken accusations and the weight of discoveries I wasn't ready to make. I could feel sweat beginning to form on my forehead, my body's autonomic response to stress betraying me even as I tried to maintain my composure.

"And when I asked you about this in the kitchen," Alexis continued, her voice taking on a harder edge, "your sweat gland activity spiked like someone who was actively concealing information. Your micro-expressions showed classic signs of deception, and your body language suggested you were preparing to flee rather than face questioning."

She stood up from her chair and crossed her arms, the movement sharp enough to convey her growing frustration.

"So let me ask you directly, Reynard Vale. What the hell have you been doing to yourself?"

The question hung in the air like a blade waiting to fall. I could see in her eyes that she already suspected the truth, or at least part of it. The evidence was too clear, the inconsistencies too obvious for someone with her medical expertise and analytical skills.

I'd been caught. Thoroughly, completely, and by someone whose opinion mattered more to me than I'd realized until this moment.

"I'm happy to hear I'm healing well," I said weakly, making one last attempt at deflection. "I should probably get going—"

"Cut the shit and sit down."

The words came out with such venom that I actually flinched. In all the time I'd known Alexis, through every crisis and dangerous situation we'd faced together, I had never heard her speak with that level of barely contained fury. Her professional composure had cracked completely, revealing something underneath that was equal parts concern and rage.

I sat down.

The silence that followed was deafening. Alexis stared at me with an intensity that made me want to shrink into the examination table, her analytical mind clearly working through every piece of evidence she'd gathered over the past two days.

"You sprained your ankle working out," she said finally, her voice cold and precise. "And that caused you to fall onto gym equipment, which resulted in multiple rib fractures and extensive soft tissue damage."

It wasn't a question. It was her repeating my story back to me, and somehow hearing it in her clinical tone made it sound even more ridiculous than it had when I'd first invented it.

"That's..." I started, but the words died in my throat. There was no point in continuing the charade. She'd already dismantled it completely.

"Your ankle injury is minimal. Your healing rate is superhuman. And you've been lying to all of us since the moment you walked into that kitchen yesterday morning."

She moved closer, her eyes never leaving mine.

"So I'll ask you one more time, Reynard. What have you been doing to yourself?"

The weight of her stare, combined with the accumulated guilt of two days of deception, finally broke through my defenses. I could feel the truth rising in my throat like bile, demanding to be released regardless of the consequences.

"Pain Resistance," I said quietly. "And Poison Resistance."

The words seemed to hang in the air between us, their implications spreading like ripples through water. Alexis's expression shifted through several different emotions in rapid succession—confusion, realization, excitement, and then something that looked very much like murderous rage.

"Resistance skills," she repeated slowly. "The System gave you resistance skills?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice to remain steady if I tried to speak.

"And you acquired these skills how, exactly?"

The clinical tone was back, but now it carried an undertone of barely controlled fury that made my skin crawl. I'd seen Alexis angry before, but this was something different. This was the rage of someone who'd discovered that a person they cared about had been systematically destroying themselves while lying about it.

"I pushed my body beyond its limits," I admitted. "Deliberately. Repeatedly. Until the System recognized that I was qualified for the skill and it actively gave it to me."

"You tortured yourself," she said flatly.

"I trained myself."

"You nearly died."

"I survived."

"You're an idiot."

The last statement was delivered with such matter-of-fact certainty that I actually laughed, a short bark of sound that held no humor whatsoever.

Alexis fell silent, but I could practically see the gears turning in her head as she processed this new information. Through Psychological Insight, I could detect the complex mix of emotions warring within her. There was excitement—the kind of scientific fascination that came from discovering something completely unprecedented. Resistance skills had never existed in the System before. I was quite literally the first human being to develop them, which represented a revolutionary breakthrough in our understanding of how the System worked.

But underneath that excitement was a much darker current of absolute fury. Not just at the recklessness of my experiments, but at the fact that I'd hidden them from the people who cared about my wellbeing. The betrayal of trust was hitting her harder than the physical danger, and that realization made my chest tighten with guilt.

"Recent events," I said quickly, hoping that Persuasive Speaking and Persuasive Argumentation would help me explain myself in a way that might minimize the damage. "The assassination attempt, the increasing sophistication of our enemies... I needed to find ways to survive attacks that normal training couldn't prepare me for. Poison in my food, torture if I'm captured, weapons that could bypass conventional defenses."

I leaned forward, trying to project sincerity and rational decision-making rather than reckless stupidity.

"I know it was dangerous. I know I should have told you. But I needed these capabilities, and there was no safe way to develop them. The System only gives skills if someone qualifies for them and how else do you show qualification for these types of things?"

Alexis remained silent, her expression unreadable. The longer she stayed quiet, the more my anxiety ratcheted upward. I could handle anger, arguments, even demands that I stop the experiments immediately. But this cold, analytical silence was far more terrifying than any emotional outburst would have been.

"Please say something," I said finally.

She was quiet for another long moment, then let out a slow breath that seemed to carry some of the tension out of her shoulders.

"I'm disappointed," she said finally. "Not in the decision to pursue these capabilities—that actually makes sense, given our situation. I'm disappointed that you felt you couldn't trust us with this information. That you thought you had to face this alone."

The words hit harder than any accusation of stupidity or recklessness would have. She was right, of course. I had chosen to face this alone, had decided that the people closest to me couldn't be trusted with the truth about what I was doing or why.

"But I also understand why you made that choice," she continued. "We would have tried to stop you. All of us. And you're probably right that there was no safe way to develop these skills."

She moved to her desk and pulled out a chair, settling into it with the air of someone preparing for a long conversation.

"I won't tell the others," she said. "That's your responsibility, and your decision about when and how to share this information. But I have one non-negotiable condition."

I waited, knowing that whatever she was about to demand would fundamentally change how I approached these experiments going forward.

"No more solo experiments. If you're going to continue developing these skills—and I assume you are, since you've barely scratched the surface of their potential—then I'm going to be supervising every single attempt."

The relief that flooded through me was so intense it was almost dizzying. Not only was she not trying to stop me, but she was offering to help. To provide medical oversight and expertise that could make the process safer and more effective.

"You realize what this means," I said, hope creeping into my voice for the first time since this conversation had begun.

She nodded slowly, a calculating look entering her eyes.

"Quality over quantity becomes viable with proper medical support. We can push me to much higher extremes if we have you for real-time monitoring and emergency intervention capabilities."

The prospect of having the world's best doctor overseeing my experiments opened up possibilities I hadn't even considered. With her expertise, I might be able to compress months of gradual progression into single, carefully managed sessions. The kind of controlled catastrophes that could rocket these skills to levels that would actually matter in life-or-death situations.

"When do we start?" I asked.