The dumplings were still steaming when Zhong set the plate down in front of Rowan.
"Eat, eat." Zhong waved his chopsticks toward the food.
Rowan glanced at his plate, which contained roughly fifteen dumplings.
Zhong turned to his son. "Lee, pass the vinegar."
Lee slid the small ceramic dish across the table without looking up from his bowl.
He'd barely spoken since they sat down.
They ate in comfortable quiet for a while.
The kitchen smelled like garlic and hot oil.
Zhong cleared his throat.
"About today." He set his chopsticks down carefully, lining them up parallel to his bowl. "I did not say it properly before. Thank you. For my son."
Rowan shook his head. "It wasn't a big deal."
"No, no." Zhong's voice got firmer. "You did good thing. Big thing."
"It was my job anyway. No need to think much about it." Rowan picked up a dumpling and ate it.
"Hm, pretty good!" The juicy flow of broth and meat surprised him. Such a simple but delicate and warm taste, and exactly what he needed after a day full of misery.
Zhong watched him chew for a moment, then looked down at his tea.
"Back in China," he said, his voice softening as a flash of sadness crossed his weathered face.
"Our country is too big. Not enough hunters for all the places. Small towns, nobody comes when the dungeons break." He turned the cup slowly in his hands.
"My wife died. And that is why we are here now." Zhong's fist tightened around the cup. As just a chef with no power, he could do nothing but grab his youngest son and run when his wife was torn apart by a monster.
"You are a hero. Please be proud." He said, looking at Rowan.
Rowan paused and let out a quiet sigh.
He had not expected to hear someone call him that again.
"I'm sorry," Rowan said. He meant it.
Playing himself down in front of someone who had been helpless against the very threat he faced every day. It could easily be interpreted as an insult.
"Thank you for your kindness, Uncle Zhong." He did not know what else to say.
Zhong waved his hand like he was brushing off a fly. "Long time ago now."
Rowan took another bite, thinking. Then he looked at Zhong. "So, aren't you worried? About Lee doing this, I mean. He's supposed to be premed, right? Becoming a doctor?"
"I worry." Zhong said it simply.
"Every day. But whatever my son chooses, it is his life. I cannot live it for him."
"I'm just doing it until semester starts." Lee finally spoke up, lifting his head.
"If it's not working out by then, I'll go back to focusing on med school. It's a trial run."
"You never know until you try," Rowan said.
"But the way you went about it was still really reckless. Did you even do any research beforehand? Any training at all?"
"I did do research. I watched a lot of videos. Raid footage, training channels, the whole thing."
Lee gave a dry little laugh and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Watching a video and being in an actual fight are completely different, though."
Rowan said.
"When you're watching something, you're just consuming it. Being on the field is different, your brain has to think and act at the same time."
Lee's expression shifted.
"How long until the semester starts?" Rowan asked.
"Three months."
"Hm." Rowan set his chopsticks down.
'Three months...'
He tried to remember what he'd been like three months into his own career, back when the military had been hammering fundamentals into him.
He'd still been getting his teeth kicked in at the end of that stretch.
And he'd had drill instructors screaming in his ear the whole time.
That was not enough time.
"What level are you? And how are your stats allocated?"
"Level two." Lee said it a little sheepishly. "I'm a healer class, so I put every points into magic."
"All of it?"
"All of it."
"Good." Rowan nodded slowly.
That was indeed how E-rank hunters could get a good start, by focusing on one specific aspect.
"Do you play video games, Lee?"
Lee tilted his head.
"I was always studying so only a little, but it did help me a lot to understand the raid mechanics. Why?"
"Forget everything you think you know about how this works." Rowan was serious.
Lee blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Like today." Rowan leaned forward.
"You were treating your heal skill like it was a button on a controller. Activate, wait for mana, then activate again. That was how you were sustaining Kale, but only when you tried to focus it did you actually manage to close the important wound."
Lee opened his mouth.
"The skill is only a tool. It helps you access the skill. But don't think of it as a game mechanic, because it isn't one. This is real. Magic is real. And here's the thing, the simpler the skill looks on paper, the more it can actually do if you understand it."
"I don't..." Lee frowned. "I don't really follow."
"Take your kit." Rowan tapped the table. "You can create light. You can heal. Two skills, right? But ask yourself why a class would give you both of those. Is it random? Or are they connected?"
Lee stared at him. "Maybe connected?" He tried.
"You're a future doctor, Lee. Tell me. What do light and healing have in common?"
Lee's brow furrowed. "Energy," he said after a moment.
"Yes." Rowan grinned.
"Light is energy taking a form you can see. Healing requires energy to push cells to repair themselves faster than they normally would. The keyword of your class isn't light, and it isn't healing. It's energy. Those are just two expressions of the same underlying thing."
Lee's eyes had gone wide.
"So, if you understand what you actually have access to," Rowan continued, "the applications open up. Can you flash your light brighter in a pinch to blind something coming at you? Probably. You won't know until you experiment."
Rowan had learned this from a dozen different specialists over the years, each of whom had shown him a different angle in their own class.
A fire mage who preferred flash fire techniques, burning the hottest in the smallest possible window of time.
A wind user who had taught himself to carry whispers across an entire battlefield as a messenger.
"And one more thing." Rowan pointed at Lee with his chopsticks. "Your mana reserve. Train it. It works like muscle recovery, the more you spend, the more capacity you'll have later. But it takes a long time, so I'll start now. Drain yourself on purpose, rest, do it again."
Lee was nodding fast, already reaching for his phone to type notes.
Zhong, who had been quiet this whole time, smiled.
It had been a long time.
After they had gotten on the plane and moved in with his oldest brother halfway across the world, Lee had gone somewhere inside himself.
He was never fully present anymore. He became like a thoughtless puppet, always doing what was expected and never showing anything that came from within himself.
Even the dream of becoming a doctor was the last parting gift he could offer his late mother, not a wish of his own.
Even when he'd brought Cordelia home last year, Zhong had seen it right away.
Lee didn't look at her the way a boy looks at a girl he loves.
Two damaged people clinging to each other because it was easier than being alone with themselves.
Zhong had never said anything. It wasn't his place. And anyway, he'd hoped he was wrong.
But now, watching Lee lean across the table and interrupt Rowan with a follow-up question, hands moving while he talked, eyes bright and focused.
He picked up his tea and drank it.
The dumplings dwindled.
Rowan leaned back in his chair.
Across from him, Lee had set his phone aside and was idly turning his palm up, letting a small soft glow bloom and fade above it.
"Yeah, just test it as much as you can. Push it, bend it, whatever you think of, just do it."
Rowan encouraged him. This was the flexibility that martial classes simply did not have.
'This kid is learning pretty fast. As expected of a... no.'
Watching Lee train, something clicked in Rowan's mind.
'I wonder if...'
Rowan stroked his chin, eyes fixed on Lee as he experimented back and forth with his skill.
A way to motivate E-rank hunters. A way to market modern weapons.
Both at once.
"Lee." Rowan spoke up, his face breaking into a smile that was not entirely trustworthy.
"Y-Yes?" Lee had never seen Rowan make an expression like that before. It made him nervous.
"What do you think about being an influencer?" Rowan presented it with grand, sweeping enthusiasm.
Lee stared at him, confused. "A what?"