After having woken up and eaten a good breakfast in the mess hall I talked with the others telling them about how I wanted to train my powers, and confirmed that no one was using the marble room this morning, only that Victor and Glassmetal might go use the lab, but that wouldn’t trouble me.

I also talked with Araphel, and he promised to meet me later there before going away. I wanted a sparring partner and also to reevaluate his matrix, so that would be great.

I wanted to train with everyone and yesterday LED had reinforced once again the need for some team exercises and trainings.

I went down to the training area, passing the lab and entering the marble room. The smooth tiles all around gave it a weird ancient feeling, but I knew ancient they weren’t, Glassmetal having to fix it constantly.

Okay then, I rubbed my hands in one another. I rolled my shoulders, trying to relax all my body as I stretched and thought about how I was going to go with my whole training.

Today I came alone here just for that. I wanted to lay the groundwork mentally of everything I had available, and what I could work on, to improve in the time we were staying here, waiting for the new contact.

Started with defining what I was dealing with, asking myself how my power looked right now? What it was, exactly? What it did, and how.

It’s a metaphysical matrix that works as a program, a software for reality. It can shape and alter things in the way the instructions ‘written’ on it dictate.

Every power has one such matrix with different instructions and mine is completely geared toward copying the ‘ideas’ these other powers have. Making itself stronger, focusing on survival and defensive aspects.

It creates counters to what I enter in contact with.

It’s a passive bio-kinetic power, as it can change my body in extreme ways to make me resistant to the forces I encounter, I have become a blob of shock absorptive flesh, developed skin resistant to impacts burns or slashes, and even changed my body to sustain electricity.

More than just the biological changes, though, the real golden part of it is its capability of analyzing other powers.

At the same time, I’m suffering from any power. My matrix analyzes these other powers and finds, by using the way the other matrix is composed, the way for me to counter it. Creating new programs, new powers, by modifying my matrix.

The powers that I encountered along the way each contributed to a block of the path it is growing in now, and it’s possible that it could have developed in other ways had I encountered other types of powers. But that’s irrelevant for now.

It started already with spyglass’ power. Even when I couldn’t use even a sliver of my matrix manipulation, it had taken from her power a way to better analyze other powers just from her analyzing mine.

Now, using the trackers’ tethers and the copying mechanism of Davids’ power, I’m at a point where I can copy any other power.

This raises the question of what am I going to do with the tracker’s power. My matrix right now is the central and consolidated part, where I was able to fuse everything with my power, including the attention manipulation from Spotlight’s power.

That left out only Rebeca’s power of creating the purple liquid, that I can’t even use without changing my matrix even more, and the tethers, which don’t really fit into the overall system.

The system in this case is what I’m trying to form so I can grow my power in a hopefully linear base to being stronger.

It will be like a catalogue of transformations, a library my power can look at to know what to turn into, because for now it’s a reactive power, but as soon as I find someone who can transform with any other way, I can add that mechanism to my transformations.

But coming back to the matter of the tracker’s power, what other way could I combine it into my matrix, if I could fuse it with Spotlight’s power it might lead to me being able to form the tethers using people’s attention on me, but the way Spotlight’s power interact with them is really different, and I would want to make them into targets that aren’t paying attention to me as well.

the best way by far is using something that I have been using for much longer already, only then incrementing its ability.

The ‘tentacles’. Ever since I started manipulating my matrix to enter into contact with other matrices these tentacles naturally formed, it’s easy to extend them for my matrix and put the needed pieces into them to do what I want.

My matrix also has lots of sensing interactive abilities, to help it better get a read on powers. These I gathered from various matrices I encountered along the way. These senses are necessary, as I want to integrate all types of powers into my matrix, but aren’t too relevant now.

One interesting bit is the one I got from thunder: being able to be empowered by electricity, I’m glad Araphel is here as I want to see his matrix again and see what I can get from it this time.

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So, I’m able to sense people’s matrices and take information from them already when their powers act on me directly. The capability to form tethers would be a direct upgrade.

I nodded to myself. Yeah, I think that will work. I don’t want to lose the ability to form tethers through blood though, so I’ll also keep that into the tentacles.

I’ll be able to construct the tethers to any power that is close enough and interacting with my matrix, but also by touching people or by touching their blood. Which, as long as the tether making power is concerned, is just their body as well.

I made the changes as I thought, moving my matrix around like a fractal flower that bloomed and shifted. I’ll discard what I don’t need, maintaining only the tether creating mechanism, and this part that makes a connection with another person using their blood.

It makes sense in a way that the body and, in addition, the blood has a connection with power. But it is curious that this connection is present seemingly in all types of powers and not just in the ones that change the user’s body in some way.

I remember looking over David’s power, the part that my matrix had gotten when he connected with me. Davids power was being able to know everything someone knew by the person telling him their name, the matrix itself was something that created a connection with someone’s mind but passing first power to power, that would indicate that powers also have a connection to the user’s mind.

But that also makes sense, otherwise how would we control our powers.

What my matrix seems to show me is that powers are like a metaphysical layer to ourselves, so it would make sense that our whole bodies are connected to our powers.

I finished the alterations, having shrink my matrix a bit. I left Rebeca’s power aside for now, having already copied the parts that mattered to my own power. I planned to use it before sleeping everyday just to make a storage of healing potions for the base’s use.

Next, I want to connect again with everyone. Now that I have a way better handle in analyzing their matrices, I want to see everything I can get from their powers.

Then, what I can’t wait to test is if I can combine their powers, it would be awesome, if possible, but some stuff that I can see getting in the way is the lack of a connection to a central nucleus to power it up.

Each power needs a connection to one of these mysterious cores at the center of the matrices, and I only have one of those, so I would need to combine the powers in such a way that they use energy from the same source.

What is what I’m doing integrating them into my matrix in such a way that they work with my original power.

Because something I’ve realized trying to use other powers completely different from mine is that these power sources are keyed to the original power.

My matrix uses far less energy when transforming me than when using another power that I put in its place. It’s part of why I don’t want to change it too much and instead grow it, it seems like the smarter choice in the long run.

“Hey matrix,” Araphel called as he entered the room, disturbing me from my concentration.

“Hey there Araphel, finished up with everything you need to do on the base?”

“Yeah, pretty much, I was about to go, but I did promise you that we would meet to train.”

I nodded seriously, “you’re correct, I would like you to let me see your power again”

“Yesterday you were telling everyone some pretty interesting tales.”

“You heard me talking with them?”

“Hmhumm”

“Well, then you know what I want to do,” I said, not really ashamed of wanting to copy his powers if that was what he was getting at. “Now I’m much better at dealing with powers in general I can make greater use of, yours I think.”

That’s fine. He looked at me for a bit seriously. Can you do it while fighting, though?

I frowned, but answered all the same. “I think so; I have done so even; I don’t think it’s as easy to analyze things though.”

“It’s good to get some practice then right”

I nodded, seeing where he was going with this.

“Well then, let’s see how well you fight, Matrix.” Araphel said, cracking his fingers.

“Already?” I asked alarmed, but instead of answering me and keep talking Araphel’s demeanor changed, giving him a much more sinister aura as black electricity started arcing from him.

I caught a glimpse of a smile, and he was gone.

My eyes darted around all the corners, searching for the sign of something in the shadows as my matrix got all agitated.

Adrenaline pumped through my body as it knows what was coming. I bent my knees and raised my arms.

I heard his voice coming from behind me.

“At least you’re trying”

I spun as fast as I could, but there wasn’t anyone there anymore.

I just realized my mistake when there was a dark flash and I was suddenly tumbling through the air.

I hit the ground once and spun in the air to fall crouching facing in Araphel’s direction.

He was standing watching me on the other side of the room. I knew the distance meant nothing to him.

I could feel my mind sharpen as my power came alive, my matrix tasting the residual energy coursing through me like a beast getting a taste of blood.

It resonated with that tiny bit I had gotten when I was electrocuted by thunder. It was electricity, after all.

I felt energized. I chuckled at the thought.

“Having fun?” Araphel asked, seeming like he was having fun himself.

“Not yet, but soon.”

He charged me again, in a more literal sense than usual, becoming black lightning.

My reaction time must have been enhanced because I could just barely start to move before being hit again.

It didn’t help much yet, but it would add up.

This time, he put even more power into the attack. It was gone and absorbed in a second all the same, and now I could start to make out him moving.

I was starting to understand his power as well. It was a completely different flavor from thunders yet similar in some aspects.

I could feel Araphel’s attention on me and I tried to use that to predict his movements. It didn’t seem to help me much

The next time he hit me, I latched onto with the tether making tentacles in that brief second that our matrices came close enough to connect. Using that to bridge all the gaps in my knowledge about his power.

I tried evading and defending while I was hit around the room, only getting stronger and faster because of the electricity.

I couldn’t absorb it completely and it wreak some havoc inside my body, which it promptly healed back, each time getting more resistant to this type of lightning.

Araphel got a particularly heavy hit on me and I went sailing to the ceiling, hitting it with enough force to crack the marble. Energy exploded around his form, the same energy flowing through me.

I smiled, having completed all the alterations I needed to make.

The energy did no damage at all to me, being completely turned into power.

I fell from the high ceiling on my feet, and Araphel stopped his attacks.

“Took you a while,” he joked, letting his menacing demeanor go away completely.

“I told you it was harder during the fight. It’ll get faster with training, I think.”

He nodded, conceding my point. “Wanna keep going, it’s rare to be able to let loose and train without any risks.”

“Of course, there’s still plenty to test.”