Eagerly

Betty sits there blinking for a bit.

“Umm… are you okay?” You look at her with concern as you get dressed.

“You need new clothes,” she blinks again. “Sweats. Tank tops. Has to go well with green…” she walks over to her notebook, picks it up, and pauses, “Or does it? How hard is it to change the appearance when it looks nothing like you to begin with?”

“Not very, I can do that whenever,” your body guest fills in.

“We can change it, but I like the green,” you reply.

“We can work with that…” Betty considers, “...extra stretchy sports bras, clearly… do you know your size?”

“I haven't felt the need as Anvil…” you consider, “...we can measure me that way.”

“Perfect!” Betty smiles, “I'm just going to love figuring out costumes for you! Now swap!”

You undress, trigger the ring again, and feel the tension and tugging, and you're Anvil… and starting to get light-headed? “Umm… I need to sit down…” you begin.

“That's enough for today, then…” the ring speaks into your mind as the form is snatched away from you and you're just you again, “...don't want to pull a muscle when it's your soul doing the work.”

You're still a little light-headed, and sit down naked on the bed anyway, “...what do you mean, my soul is doing the work?”

“Everyone has a little spark from The Creator,” the ring begins.

Betty interrupts, “Who are you talking to?”

“My trainer, shush,” you shake your head to clear it, “although it's a bit mumbo-jumbo right now.”

“Hardly ‘mumbo-jumbo’ when it's demonstratably a real thing,” the ring chuckles, “...my anchor on your hand is based on technology that simply does not work if it is not true, even.”

“I'm sorry, please continue,” you assuage him.

“Anyway, this spark, which we call a soul, seems to need nothing external. Fully self-supporting once established, capable of growing in a vacuum,” again, why does a voice that speaks only in my head need to take a breath to speak? “But they… we, really, as your soul is the deepest, most essential piece that makes you you, need exercise to grow. They get tired and need rest. They can be overloaded and injure themselves. They can be moved around. They need a physical link to affect the world. Your link is your body. My link is my anchor that you wear.”

Another breath… why? “Magic, super powers, super tech… it's all manifestations of the same thing: The soul doing work directly. The stronger a soul, the more work it can do. The more work one does, the stronger one gets.”

“Surely there's a point of diminishing returns…” you frown.

“Doesn't seem to be,” the ring chuckles, "I improved steadily my entire life, and have kept improving steadily within my chosen afterlife.” Another breath, “But the soul still needs periods of relative inactivity: Rest to recuperate. You're feeling the strain, so it's time to give it a rest for today. In an emergency I'll run it all entirely, but you need to rest for the rest of the day.”

“I have class…” you begin, trailing off.

He laughs, “Different… ‘muscle group’ so to speak. Sitting down and writing things out, listening to lectures, reading books, and such is all fine. You've never really used that ‘muscle’ before, so nothing you regularly encounter uses it. You're fine with your normal activities.”

“Okay… guess you're joining me, for class then…” you dress up and head to your classes.

The ring can't help chortling a few times in Quantum Physics 324… guffaws outright during Evolutionary Biology 212… and groans during European History 232. You don't ask about any of it during class, of course.

After you've had dinner in the dining hall, though, and you're back in the relative privacy of your room, “Okay, what's your problem with my classes?”

The ring is silent for a bit, then answers with a question, “Tell me: If you were to sit through a Dark Ages nobleman's son's lessons on, oh, how burning wood shows the fire escaping and demonstrates how the four elements are present in differing amounts in everything, how would you react?”

“I'd probably laugh at the teacher…” you answer off-handedly, then pause, “...are my lessons that far off?”

“The Lorentz factor is simply everything always going the speed of light, just through time as well as distance, and that complicated equation is easily derived from that fact and the much simpler theorem of Pythagoras. We've proven The Creator exists and that Evolution is a joke, the second half is simple to show even with the knowledge that is available in this day and age for anyone with an open mind: There are cultural blind spots at play. Shakespeare was a front man for his sponsor's wife, and wrote naught a word of ‘his’ plays or poems… except when he couldn't remember his lines and flubbed them, which is why he stopped appearing on stage: I was there.” The ring pauses, and takes a slow breath, “...but you still need to study all of these wrong things, because you need to know them to have a degree, which you need to get a good job. Additionally, these wrong things function ‘well enough’ for the scale you'll use them. So I bite my tongue as much as I'm able, but I can't help but laugh sometimes.”

“So I probably shouldn't ask you for homework help, except maybe for Math…” you muse.

“Probably not, no,” your super sponsor agrees, “and even with math, I'd usually end up referencing theorems nobody else recognizes that would need separate proofs.”

“Ah… is there any way I can get in on the other half of that conversation?” Betty interrupts, “It's really annoying to always be on the outside.” As noted: Privacy is relative.

“It's cheap, I just need to enchant some kind of earpiece for her,” your guest answers, “but not wise: Too easy to lose, and then a potential bad actor could listen in.”