When I woke up I was feeling a ton better physically than I ever had before. Mentally however I knew I was fucked.

Before I opened my eyes I started to consider some cover stories for why I was sitting against a tree in agonizing pain, but before I could even start I felt an extremely pleasant feeling on my head.

Cracking my eyes open I could see a hand on my forehead enveloped in a beautiful golden energy that I could only assume was the source of the great feeling I was getting. Opening my eyes wider I could now see that the hand belonged to Clair who was sitting on the ground next to me.

“Clair” I creaked out. Clair looked physically exhausted and almost immediately took her hand off my forehead when I called out her name.

“Jake, are you ok?” she asked in a tired voice.

“Yea I’m fine” I responded back.

“Good” she sighed back and all at once passed out on the ground.

Startled I quickly jumped up and kneeled down beside her. She was still breathing but faintly, logically in my head I figured it must be some sort of backlash that accompanied whatever skill she used. But I wasn’t gonna take any chances.

Lifting her up by her arms I placed her on my back and started booking it back to camp. Not even questioning my extreme recovery and the fact that I felt like I could take on the world.

The first one to spot me when I approached camp was Dave, he helped me lay her onto one of the benches inside one of the tents. In almost the same moment he turned on me with a knife in hand.

“What happened,” he asked in a very intimidating manner.

I replied back quickly and a little out of breath from my run, “she used some kind of golden light ability, then she passed out.”

Looking into my eyes for a moment he seemed to accept what I had said. This was further helped by the fact that Clair started to stir.

She opened her eyes slightly and yawned, it didn’t even seem as if she was in any pain. Just like she had woken up from a long nap.

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Putting her arms out behind her she sat up and noticed where she was. Looking me in the eyes she asked me a very direct question.

“So anyone want to tell me why you were sitting out in the woods in intense pain?”

Wincing a bit I weighed my options. The thought process for what I should tell them was actually surprisingly simple, I decided to tell them the truth. The fact that Clair was willing to use what seemed to be a very draining ability that put her at basically my complete mercy afterward solidified my choice.

“Its one of my abilities…” I said.

Clair looked pointedly at me clearly indicating she wasn’t going to stop at the ‘its one of my abilities’ barrier again.

“It essentially gives me a free ability when its cooldown comes up, but I have to deal with a bit of pain in return when I use it.” I finished.

“Well, was it worth it?” she asked.

“Wha.. what?” I responded back.

“The ability you got this time, was it worth the pain?” she said.

It hit me then that I haven’t even looked at the Empowerment I got. I noticed the speck at the corner of my vision I got when I slept through an announcement previously and like before I focused on it.

Empowerment Gained!

Attune Area: Convert the ambient Life-force in a 25-meter radius to an element you have an affinity for. Spells not of that affinity are unable to be cast in the area and spells of the affinity cast have increased power.

Looking at my new empowerment I could already see a ton of uses for it. It would make me unstoppable in a mage battle if I played my cards right, with enough rare affinities I could make any mage become powerless in the AOE of the empowerment.

Looking up to her eyes I broke out in a huge smile, “Well worth it” I responded.

She continued to look at me expectantly and finally she broke down my defenses.

At some point, Dave had quietly slipped away and I mentally conceded that she was the person I trusted most out of the group so far and even if she told the others what it did it had no direct negative consequence for me as none of the others used magic.

“It lets me attune an areas ambient lifeforce to an element, spells not of that element cant be cast in the AOE and spells of that element get extra power” I explained.

I felt like I could literally see the gears turning in her head before she responded with a slight head tilt.

“It lets me turn a point of collected life-force into recovering energy, the conversion is exhausting though.” she said.

I was very confused and it must have shown on my face because she clarified the next moment.

“My ability, the one I used to heal you when you fell over in pain. You shared one of your abilities so I figured I would return the favor” she clarified blushing and looking down slightly.

No longer confused I smiled slightly, a rarity for me, and looked into her eyes again.

“You are very trusting,” I said.

She started to respond but was interrupted by Roger calling everyone to get food.

“Welp looks like its chow time,” I said and walked out of the tent

She followed me about a minute later.

----------------------------------------

Dinner was a quiet affair, Dave must have told Roger and Samantha about what happened so they were a bit standoffish towards me but they seemed to trust Daves intuition on the matter and kept silent.

We ate a birdlike creature that was apparently called a ‘lesser forest cock’ clearly someone at the interstellar naming office was using google translate when they made that name.

After dinner, Dave handed me a sleeping bag and said he would wake me up for my watch at midnight. He then walked over to speak to Clair briefly before walking off to a small watch post they had set up.

Dave told me I could use his tent while he was on watch so I gratefully laid down and got a non-pain induced bit of sleep for once.