At the urging of my acquaintances, I decided to go visit the gym so I could start getting more into shape. Since I didn't really want to interact with anyone while exercising, I woke up and walked over at four in the morning. To my slight surprise, there were a few other sociopaths like me that were already there. I suppose that most gyms that were open 24/7 probably had a few people that went at odd times, and with an MG’s reduced requirement for sleep it makes sense that there would be more here.
Since I had no clue how to actually use any of the weights and felt weird asking, I found a treadmill in the corner and started running. From the tests done when I first showed up, I knew I was much more athletic when compared to how I was before becoming an MG, but as I ran I realized that I had become more fit since then.
Out of boredom, I tried to see inside myself. I had toyed with the idea of doing so before, but ultimately ended up deciding to do anything else. I had a rough idea of what to expect, and it wasn’t pleasant. Unlike my surroundings, it took a lot more effort to get enough clarity to make anything put- then some mental strength to not throw up when I succeeded and confirmed my suspicions. Thank fuck all the writhing, pulsing meat that makes us up is concealed beneath our skin- and even more so for the various fleshy, wet sacks that we have for organs.
The only good thing I noticed was that minuscule amounts of ULE were being siphoned into my muscles as I ran. If I had to guess, I was instinctively supplementing or boosting the chemical energy my body was using to move and repair muscles. Since I had a few more day’s experience getting used to manipulating ULE, my performance naturally increased as well- allowing me to jog for what had been fifteen minutes without needing to stop and catch my breath.
Since running isn’t the most entertaining thing to do in isolation, I decided to try actively supplementing my energy requirements with ULE. Theoretically, any MG should be able to manipulate raw ULE without the help of any perks- if what I had gathered from yesterday’s magic lecture was correct- it’s just that doing so would be like trying to carve a statue with nothing but the simplest of tools and no experience: completely doable to a masterful degree if you spent your entire life practicing and training, but made easier with the help of better tools or knowledge.
The first thing I tried was just mentally pushing the ULE already being used harder- but that didn’t do much. Without knowing what my body was doing, just giving it more energy to work with plateaued in effectiveness with only the smallest extra push from me.
Next, I tried adding more energy to the force of my steps pushing against the ground. With only a little tinkering, I got that technique working. The good news was that its effectiveness was probably only limited by how much ULE I had access to. The bad part was that I was still subject to Newton’s third law and could seriously injure myself if I put too much energy into assisting myself that way.
More pressing was figuring out how to absorb the extra force when I landed. With more careful timing on when I applied the ULE, I could keep as low to the ground as with normal running, but even that still was starting to hurt my knees and ankles.
I decided to take a break before I really hurt something and moved outside to do some stretches. Since it was so early in the morning, the cold almost made me give up and go back inside- but enough of the ULE leaking from the seabed all around the island became heat, so it was a bearable forty-five-ish degrees. The main reason I had come out here was that running on a treadmill wasn’t good for messing around with your form while running, so I needed an actual track.
The first attempts didn’t go so well since I hadn’t tried to run as fast as I normally could in a few years. Or maybe more accurately, quite a few. Once I had dredged up various coach’s lectures on how to run with good form- which mostly boiled down to trying to take longer strides, then speed up- I added back the kinetic boost from ULE. After almost twisting my ankle from a bad launch, I came to the decision that you needed to have enough momentum for adding more energy to result in it working like anything but uncontrollable pogo-sticks.
Stolen story; please report.
Pogo-sticks are actually an apt comparison as I figured out that I could create a ‘cushion’ of ULE under my feet just before I impacted the ground which would convert some of the force of the impact into my ULE, which could then be pushed back into becoming kinetic energy… somehow.
The mechanics of the energy conversion process for ULE in general was inconsistent at best and tended to be summarized as “random bullshit.” The only people who could consistently manipulate it were MGs, and most only did so through perks. There were cases of normal people apparently violating the laws of thermodynamics by developing a transient connection to the energy- but that too was completely unpredictable and mostly useless for everyone involved.
All this to say that after about an hour or messing around, I was able to increase both the efficiency and speed of my running and had a tentative set of principles on how to expand the idea to other applications which were:
1- ULE only does what it ‘wants.’ Making it do stuff is like trying to convince any other probably non-sentient object to do what you want. All the bargaining and coercion you try shouldn’t do anything because it is incapable of perceiving you, but it seems to help. Like threatening printers.
2- ULE doing different things have different… personalities. This might make more sense as principle 1.5, but the point still stands. Trying to get it to add more energy to your steps? It's an excited dog that’s really enthusiastic but has no clue what you want from it. Trying to get it to absorb some when you land? It’s a cat laying on your lap that has decided it isn’t moving for the next ten hours but will begrudgingly move with enough prodding.
3- Trying to figure out exactly how much energy is in an area is pointless. Instead, you have to act like you know exactly how much there is. Be so convinced that you know that the ULE (the non-thinking force of nature) decides it’s easier to just agree with you rather than do or be anything else.
4- There's always ULE. If you’re an MG, you have a ton of it in you at all times, which means that at least some of it is going to contribute to whatever energy you use or exert. It's pointless to try stopping it. I wasted a solid ten minutes trying to create a ‘baseline’ free of ULE before I gave up.
The other important finding I had was that I could only use ULE to increase or decrease ‘my’ kinetic energy. Running, jumping, throwing stuff, and landing from jumps or steps were fair game- but stuff like the wind or getting hit in the face by litter kicked up by said wind was beyond my control.
As I was showering off from all the running and jumping I had done, Cleo telepathically told me, {your comfort with personal kinetics is beyond what I expected and is reasonably impressive. While not uncommon in the slightest, being able to mimic the abilities of a perk through direct ULE manipulation is still quite the feat for an MG. If only you had some more experience to spend on things to boost that further.}
Trying to keep the shampoo from getting into my mouth, I replied, “well, that was just me doing my usual thing of finding a way to cheat by something that would require actual effort. Working out until results show is both tedious and time consuming. Using ULE only took a few hours to see improvements.”
{If that’s how you see it, I suppose it’s alright. Regardless, when you meet up with the others to practice magic again tonight the work you just put in should make it easier.}
“Makes sense. Also, for future reference, is there a perk that lets you turn other energy into ULE more efficiently? Being able to effectively cancel impacts would be nice…” As I finished saying that, I was struck by a great- and incredibly stupid- idea.
{There are a few off of the [MG Suite], although if I knew what was making you grin like an idiot, I could give more accurate recommendations.}
Toweling off, I explained, “well, I have a really nice motorcycle sitting in a parking lot around here somewhere. If I remember the marketing correctly, it has a mode where all the power comes from in the form of jet-thrust, so traction doesn’t matter. So I was thinking, you could probably drift it really well and if I could, like, stick a foot out and eat some of its momentum- without pulling a leg off or destroying a shoe- I might be able to stop and turn really fast. Depending on how well I can exchange ULE and kinetic energy, I might be able to do even more stupid things. Don’t quite know how it would help with demon killing, but that can be figured out later.”
Blinking at me a few times, Cleo responded, {I’ll keep that in mind for when you have more experience to work with. For now don’t push it if you don’t think you can take it.}