Please enjoy chapter 17. Rich's little POV towards the end is a bit crass, so just a forewarning.
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Cold.
Adrian had never felt so drained of warmth and energy. A bout of lightheadedness shook his consciousness and he slightly stumbled.
Maybe these past three weeks are finally catching up with me.
Sweat dropped down his back and soaked through his training clothes, turning his grey shirt charcoal. Rivulets formed down his arms, tracing his bulging forearms to the palms where each held a handled block of lead that weighed 700kg. His legs pumped tremulously, shaking with strain as he plodded towards the other wall in a farmer’s walk.
Gasping for breath, he suddenly noticed a strange, growing pull from within his body that caused his muscles to seize and his blood flow to slow. Heart surging at the increased pressure, he intuitively felt that something was dangerously wrong. Coming to an abrupt stop during his training, Adrian dropped the weights, walked forward, and then half collapsed into a seated lotus position.
This isn’t joint or muscular pain - just what...
As soon as he was on the ground, an overwhelming exhaustion slammed into him like a mountain. All of his prior strength seemed like an illusion or dream, fleeing when one awakes. Each of his muscles screamed in protest and his head swam dizzily. Adrian thought of calling out to Raide, but all that would come out was a quiet groan too silent to be heard.
The thing that scared him the most, though, was undoubtedly the striking absence of his healing factor. These past three weeks, he’d relied on it completely to shoulder the rebuilding and energizing aspect of his workouts; if it wasn’t for this, he wouldn’t have gained 5% of what his current body is capable of. His understanding of its ability and requirements were now on an intimate level, and every day he had to funnel 40,000 calories into his body merely to break even with what it needed.
Now, something had changed and he could no longer feel the warming itch of his muscles stitching themselves back together in a more dense configuration. The extreme exhaustion even robbed him of the ability to enter a completely lucid state, which was required to go into his mental palace. There, at least, he would have been able to analyze what was going on.
Furrowing his brow, he desperately tried to stave off the creeping fatigue that threatened to make him faint. Adrian’s eyes fluttered mightily, however it only bought him a few seconds before he was inevitably swallowed by the darkness, his body frozen still upright.
An unknown amount of time passed and his mind wandered within the void-like depths. The surrounding heat within the darkness gave a comforting feeling, wrapping and nourishing his consciousness. Without meaning to, he suddenly linked this feeling to the bliss of his first love. This warming darkness held all the emotions of the time and reminded him of what it had felt like. Love. Adoration. Trust. Being in each other’s arms had produced feelings like this. Josie...
His reverie was shattered a moment later.
The comfortable heat started moving away from him, withdrawing back into the recesses of the void. All that remained was a piercing cold that seemed to target his soul. Adrian desperately reached for the retreating, ethereal tendrils instinctually, but it was after all impossible to physically grasp energy. He became increasingly frustrated at his inability to keep the only thing that was comforting in this weird abyss he’d been dragged into. Why was it leaving? Where was it going?
Just as he felt the last vestiges of heat being sucked away by the insatiable darkness, Adrian’s senses broadened and he noticed a new, grander source of fiery energy that dwarfed the miniscule wisps that flickered around him as if on their dying breath. Better yet, this pool of heat seemed to surround Adrian. It was so near, how had he never noticed it before? With all his willpower and determination, he grasped mentally at that distant supply.
At first, all he felt was a wall. Like trying to draw air through a straw that had been sealed, he wasn’t able to feel any effect. The harder he tried, the more an impression of a massive water tank, separated by a wall of glass filled his addled mind. Adrian wasn’t deterred however. He kept trying, delirious and frantic, because he had the distinct premonition that if he wasn’t successful in accessing his target he would die. Laughable really. And here he thought was immortal. The reservoir was his lifeline and his instincts roared for self-preservation. He’d be damned if he didn’t get it. The ‘why’ of the question was important, but his consciousness was in no shape to try and tackle that kind of complex thought in a realm squashes between reality and the mind.
Little by little, holes started to appear in the vacuum and beams of light flooded through the void’s breaches like a conquering hero. It was incredibly painful, but the tiny moments where the light fell on his incorporeal state filled him with a sort of breathless ecstasy and made him to shiver in delight.
Moments crept by as the darkness became increasingly perforated. As for the golden energy that was inherent in the display, Adrian drew as much as possible to him, never releasing his mental draw at the outside pool. He greedily sucked it all in forming a ball around himself. He then condensed it, feeling the warmth and comfort increase, making his senses tingle with vigor. After that, he drew in more energy and then compressed it again, adding on another layer to the spherical cocoon he’d trapped himself in.
To Adrian, this process repeated on for an unknown amount of time. Here, in the bliss that was his consciousness’ golden paradise, he could honestly not care less. The comfort carried a hint of nostalgia that he couldn’t quite grasp. It was only after all the great majority of energy in the surroundings had been stripped and he could no longer feel its presence that he regretfully stopped his actions.
Opening his eyes that were previously useless in the void, he gazed out through a solidly spherical, translucent membrane that surrounded him. Refreshed and no longer exhausted, he saw that the darkness was no longer there in the truest sense. It was gone. Defeated. The energy that Adrian had wrapped himself in tinted his view golden, but nonetheless showed that the world outside of his consciousness was no longer blackened by the absence of light. Here and there, he could see tides of energy start flowing in from equal distances spaced in the environment. Pondering for a moment, an expression of realization spread across his face and he simply smiled before losing himself to the heat that began to refill the reservoir of his surroundings.
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It was several minutes later that Adrian finally roused himself back to reality. Still a little bleary eyed, he blinked several times before rotating his back and stretching the muscles in his neck. Everything seemed to be okay now with his body. It was still sore - no miraculous, instantaneous recovery from the training induced tissue tearing - but the itch was back, signifying that his body had started operating smoothly again.
Turning his gaze outward, he regarded his surroundings thoughtfully, noticing with his thermal vision that the majority of the room was bathed in a deep, icy blue while the ventilation ducts were working overtime to pump copious amounts of intense, red heat into the room. Adrian lightly smirked to himself as he realized the culprit. At least he noticed.
Looking down, he saw a blanket of water vapor and ice in a 3 meter radius around him. The rest of the room was less pronounced, but it all looked similar to a meatlocker nonetheless.
Feeling a presence to his back, he scrunched his brow and leaned back, resting his hands on the icy, gym matted floor. He turned his head to look over his shoulder, saying, “Am I that scary? Why don’t you come in?”
Inori’s figure could be seen huddled near the closest vent to the door while her teeth chattered uncontrollably. Ignoring his question, she continued to stare at him dumbly seated amidst the surging mist of vapor that hugged the ground near him.
Raide finally made his appearance on the wall display that had just stabilized, answering in her stead sarcastically, “If she had tried to come away from those vents, she would have frozen in less than 5 meters.”
Adrian confusedly looked towards the AI. “Excuse me?”
“I have no idea what’s happened to your body, but the air in your immediate vicinity is currently minus 80 degrees…”
Adrian let out a quiet whistle.
“...celsius.” The seated man gave a start and then cut his eyes at Raide before the AI remarked. “Congrats, you’re only 9.2°C away from the lowest recorded record on Earth.”
Shaking his head on the screen, he added, “I really can’t rationalize this. Judging by all recorded biological precedence and how long you’ve been sitting there, you should be one peaceful looking human popsicle right now.” The AI paused. “In fact, even my thermal readings are showing that you’re just a human-shaped blob of darkness. It’s like you’re a piece of icy stone - no, worse than that.”
Raide manipulated a few data tables onto the wall before saying, “You’re still emitting black body radiation, but it’s not consistent with anything living. There’s so little leakage that if I didn’t have audio and visual data to offset the evidence, I’d almost say you weren’t in the room. What do you say, Inori? Is Adrian actually there?”
Finally snapping out of her stupor, she nodded slowly while looking at the man like he was a monster. A slow, chatteringly quiet voice leaked out, betraying the concern that she felt. “A-Adrian, are you okay? I can’t even get close to you...how are you able to stand this?”
Adrian’s eyebrows raised as he looked back at her warmly. “I’m fine, have no fear. As for how I’m able to stand this temperature...well, that is the question, isn’t it.” He lapsed in silence for a moment before turning to Raide. “Pull up a thermal visual of me seated before I blacked out and place it beside my current readings for comparison.”
Immediately, two lotus seated figures appeared on the screen. The one on the left had all the usual tellings of orange and red that blazed like fire. The one on the right however looked as if Raide was merely outlining Adrian’s form. Tiny tinges of blue could barely be seen from moment to moment as the three individuals gazed upon the two.
Nodding, Adrian said, “Alright, give me a minute, I have an idea. Keep funneling heat into the room while I work.”
Dropping into a pseudo-conscious state, Adrian peeled off a section of his thought processes to stay and monitor the changes on the screen and sent the rest to the room in his mind palace that regulated his bodily functions and settings. Walking through that solid door again, he soon found himself in front of the console that he’d visited several times before months ago. A holographic projection of his body floated up in the center. Quickly manipulating through the pages of settings, he soon happened upon some strange data concerning the skin, nerves, veins, and an area located in his sternum.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Adrian’s fingers drummed on the glass panel lightly as he perused the gene sequences. If it was the him from several months ago, he would have just headed to the lab and run a bout of tests. Now though, he was sufficiently familiar and capable enough to look at his own genetic coding. By comparing the strands from the key areas that are showing anomalies, perhaps he’ll be able to get a picture of what’s so different faster than running a bunch of tests will. In any case, he’d not only be able to find the knowledge of what’s going on, but also reach a degree of familiarity and maybe be able to manipulate the changes. At least, that was what he hoped.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Show me your secrets, he mused.
Two hours passed and Inori evidently got tired of braving the chilling room just to wait around for Adrian to figure out what was going on. If he couldn’t get this under control, it looked like he would be stuck in a state of making his immediate surroundings extremely cold. Excusing herself, she went back to work in the Church after making Raide promise to let her know when Adrian came up for air.
Raide also didn’t waste this time. Numerous simulations and conjectured theories were being run on his end, trying to formulate a biological model to explain his master’s current circumstances. The problem he undoubtedly kept running into though, was that he hadn’t been able to run any tests or scans on Adrian’s body after he blacked out. How was he supposed to help him if he insisted on doing it himself? Frustrated, he could only make very uncharacteristic leaps in logic and start looking into all sources of theories including fiction.
Snorting in disgust when he came upon one genre of literature, he mockingly whispered to himself out loud, “Like hell it’d be that…”
Adrian’s eyes fluttered open. “Be what?”
Rolling his eyes, Raide gave a slight grimace. “The only similar scenario I could find was rooted in Chinese literature. Anyway, how did it go?”
“I...wait just a second…” Adrian brought his left arm up excitedly and held it so that the scanner could get a full, unobstructed view. Little by little, heat bloomed on the display, moving in a crackling wave. It was as if he was unsheathing his arm from some unseen scabbard. Soon, the entirety of his arm matched what it looked like before he blacked out.
“Hehe…”
Raide looked quizzically towards Adrian, but the subject of scrutiny suddenly lost it and began cackling like a madman. Several minutes passed as the AI tried to get a response. Alas, all he got were unintelligible gasps.
Wiping the tears from his eyes, Adrian finally calmed down and sat back up ramrod straight. Spreading his arms out wide he watched the monitor and forced his right arm to go through the same unsheathing. Soon, both were blazing brightly on the screen.
Adrian didn’t move his eyes, but asked of Raide, “What’s the limit of the infrared sensors?”
“250°C. Any hotter and it’ll fry the circuitry from the feedback.”
Adrian hummed and increased the heat flowing to his arms. He felt a surge of energy rushing through his veins like lava from a centralized core located in his sternum. On the screen, his two arms steadily reached a bright white brilliance as if it were day. There were no areas of coldness or lower blood circulation like the extremities. The entire surface of each arm, for all intents and purposes, was on fire.
215°C...Not bad at all.
Smirking slightly, Adrian breathed in and then steadily reduced the amount of heat flowing to his arms and allowed it to circulate back to the core in his chest. With a further thought, he unlocked the rest of his skin and enabled the rest of his body to enter into a normal, balanced thermal state, thereby blocking the suction force that was previously generated on the surface of his body. Soon, all of the heat that had been pouring into the room took effect and the ambient temperature shot up.
With a sigh, Raide manipulated all of the highly stressed AC units to return to their normal settings. Turning to scrutinize, he said emphatically, “Well? Going to enlighten us on whatever the fuck just happened?”
Adrian’s eyebrows raised as he heard the cursing come from the AI. He didn’t recall having ever heard something like that come from him. Blinking a couple of times, he said slowly, “You will want to get Inori back here before I go over my findings. They’re a doozy.”
A few minutes later, Inori returned and was surprised at the change in temperature. Adrian merely motioned for her to join before getting up and leaning against a wall while collecting his thoughts.
“Okay...to be as straightforward as possible, my body underwent an unexpected evolution.”
Inori’s jaw hit the ground and Raide snorted like it was an obvious conclusion to reach. Perhaps it was because she was new, but she turned and gave a small glare to Raide to express her displeasure on being the last one in the room to the conclusion. Adrian found it amusing. You’re trying to size up against a quantum AI? Cute, but pointless.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“When I was going through the introspection, I found multiple mutations in the gene sequences for all structural aspects of my body. There seemed to be layers of a strange pseudo-crystalline boundary that covered everything. At first, I thought it was just the skin, organs, blood vessels, and an area in my chest…”Adrian minutely paused as his eyes flickered towards the screen that still displayed the two infrared readings of his body from a few minutes ago. “...But I soon started to find the same changes in practically every other bodily category. Thus, I decided to approach the problem methodically, examining area by area.”
“The first question I asked myself was: “Why is my body not emitting any heat radiation?” I now knew that everything was coated in this strange restrictive layer, so I started playing with my blood flow rate to try and create more heat in particular area to measure the effects. This worked better than I could have ever hoped,” he laughed. “The pseudo-crystalline layer acts as a gatekeeper for energy particles. Whatever its subatomic constituents are, it effectively insulates the body its protecting from heat transfer. This may sound dangerous, but you have to keep in mind that it also affects heat retention as well. After this exploration, since I’m able to alter processes within my body, I was finally able to control it. That resulted in the display earlier. I can control the shielding capabilities of the layers.”
Inori was standing off to the side shaking her head. “While that sounds good, you never did tell us what happened to trigger all of this. Why did your body suddenly evolve?”
Adrian looked at the two sheepishly for a moment before replying, “It was because I grossly miscalculated my body’s energy usage and how many calories I would need to offset it.”
Inori slowly turned her head looked at him incredulously. “Since when does being hungry after working out equate to you going X-Men?”
Adrian chuckled lightly. “Well...the root of the issue lies in the fact that I altered certain limits placed within my body. Back before I went through the upgrade and first rigorous training regimen, I was pretty chubby. In fact, I’d never been skinny before. So, when I realized that I’d gained this wonderful ability to control how much fat storage my body would have, I lowered it to a level of what I thought would be reasonable. This was a hard-coded change into my body that it couldn’t violate. Furthermore, I cut off its ability to eat away at muscle and organ tissue if it were to overtax itself. This created a… tenuous.... balance.”
Adrian shook his head at his own stupidity. “It all culminated in the result you saw today. My body was extremely deprived of energy and started to shut down, drawing all the energy possible inside in an attempt to conserve my life. In that brief moment of extreme distress coupled with my highly adaptive genes, my cells mutated and gained the ability to retain or block heat absorption. This is just the surface level. Since I’m able to control the passage of heat, I’m able to create the illusion of a temperature differential.”
Inori looked slightly confused. “Layman’s terms, please Adrian. I haven’t taken thermodynamics yet.”
Adrian thought for a second. “Basically, heat always moves from an area of higher heat to a colder one to form an equilibrium - a state where the temperature is equal in both areas. For example, when you take a shower your body warms up from the hot water because its temperature is greater than that of your body.” As Adrian listed out the example, he couldn’t help but recall when he first met Inori clad only in a bra and panties. Shaking himself, he went on, “The Second Law of Thermodynamics describes this balancing effect.
My cells are so good at shielding themselves now, that they created an extreme temperature difference or imbalance, resulting in the whirlpool like suction that turned this room into a Russian icebox. All the heat poured into me continuously because my body wasn’t allowing it to draw closer to an equilibrium. All of the energy was being funneled to a core that was created in order to store it all for future use, since, you know, I forbade it from effectively creating fat.”
Adrian could see that something was troubling Raide so he stopped and looked at him quizzically. Seeing the look, Raide shook his head and mused, “This is what’s bothering me. First, even if your body had the ability to retain convective or radiative heat energy, so what? The body has no way to process this energy. It’s only through the digestion system that you can get the proper nutrients and energy into a format that your body can use.
Secondly, how is your body able to force energy into an area of higher concentration? You just described the effects of the second law, but your so-called ‘core’ ignores this completely. I poured several kwhs worth of energy into this room, but you absorbed it all. This couldn’t be possible without something else at play.”
Adrian nodded his head, impressed with his AI’s deduction. Smiling, he said, “You’re right, there is another piece to this that answers both of those questions. I found a veritable horde of a new protein type in my bloodstream. From what I can tell, it has two functions: energy transport, and energy processing.”
With that, Raide immediately put it all together. “So these proteins are somehow able to collect ambient heat energy and then transport them from the extrema of your body to the core, where they are probably able to pass through the core’s thermally insulated membrane to deposit their load. Like a worker ant gathering food.”
“Right, and in reverse, they also have the ability to carry this energy away from the core and pair it with the proper macronutrients my body still needs or deposit it at the surface of my skin where I can forcefully expel it which is what I was testing with that last display of mine. I can’t survive on energy alone since I’m still a biological organism, but this energy can cover up to 95% of my energy needs. The rest is all vitamins, nutrients, and minerals I’d have to supplement in. I’m anticipating that I’ll be able to continue a normal diet, but with a backup in case I need it.”
“The term ‘windfall’ doesn’t begin to describe this for you...although, it could be useful in other ways.” Raide pondered over the new information for a moment. “If we were able to discover the intricacies of how this layer achieves such a thermal resistance, we could use that in a number of our designs in the future.”
Adrian nodded. “Personally, it opens up a lot of doors, but I’m like you and mostly excited for what it could mean for tech applications. I’ll have to play around some more to get the full specs of what this is, but that can wait until after the bloodwork. Also...” He had to gather his thoughts for this. “I’ve decided that we’re going to move up the timetable for upgrading the rest of the crew. We’ve basically got everything ready, right?”
Raide nodded his head absentmindedly, “I pretty much finished all of the simulations and variations to the serum you requested three weeks ago. I didn’t think it would have an effect on your decision to wait though, so I held off on telling you so that you could singlemindedly train.”
Inori leaned in and gave a confused look to Adrian. “What made you change your mind?”
Adrian smiled. “I just realized that if it was possible we might as well upgrade them so they can begin working. So far, I’ve just been training them as regular humans. Sorry to say, but their mental capacities and physical abilities aren’t quite up to par with what I need.”
Inori light snorted. “Kinda arrogant, don’t you think?”
Raide started rubbing his temple on the screen while Adrian’s mouth widened into a grin. “Inori, I don’t guess you know this, but I can lift over 1400 kg and I can split my consciousness into 3 separate thought processes at the same time while each utilize an IQ 3 times that of the smartest human on Earth. It’s not about arrogance, but reality. Is it really fair to hold a regular person up to my standards?”
The girl just sat there dumbly before she started chuckling at herself. She then raised her hands, “Alright, alright, forget I said anything.”
Raide started doing some preparatory work on the wall, allocating certain gene sequences to reconfigure when stopped and turned to Adrian. “Do you want to include the newest changes to your body in their upgrades? Needless to say, for the purposes of stealth and mission longevity alone this change could be bountifully helpful.”
Adrian pondered over it for a moment before giving it his blessing. “Sure, it can’t hurt anything, but let’s fully sequence it out first so we aren’t met with any nasty surprises in the future.”
Raide nodded and turned back to his data, responding, “Of course. If you’ll go ahead and head to the lab, we’ll get all the tests out of the way. What I wouldn’t give for more non-intrusive ways to scan the body…”
Adrian laughed and walked over to Inori. “We will, we will, but we’ll have to slot it for a future project. Alright, let’s get going to the lab Inori!”
Inori looked bewildered as Adrian suddenly grabbed her shoulder and started pulling her along with him. “Wait, what? Why do I need to go?! I still have to go assemble the rest of the display arms for the Church!”
Adrian just looked at her like she was an idiot, saying, “You’ve got to get your bloodwork and scans done as well. We can’t formulate a proper serum without fully sequencing your genome. What... did you think I’d restrict you from getting an upgrade, but allow everyone else to? Do you not want it?”
Inori’s shocked facial expression froze after hearing his words. Looking to the side, she searched his face for any signs of it being a joke, but upon finding none, tears started brimming in the corners of her eyes as she thanked her lucky stars for running into such a man.
“Ah, don’t give me that look. Come on, let’s get going! Oh, Raide, can you notify everyone else to come in as well?”
“Doing it now, sir.”
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Rich groaned, groggily reaching out a hand for his phone. Last night was just a blur. He hit up some bars, met a few ladies with a couple of friends, and then he’d reached the blackout drunk level. No matter how much of a tolerance he boasted to Bearcat and the rest, he was powerless just like anyone when he passed that threshold.
His bedroom was a complete wreck. Wrappers and beer bottles were strewn in an arc surrounding the bare single-size mattress that he’d thrown unceremoniously in the middle of the room. A few posters adorned the walls in a lackluster attempt to reduce the amount of white. But really, how could he bothered to do such a mundane thing? He wasn’t some fucking interior design enthusiast.
Finally finding purchase and grabbing his phone, he hefted it to peer at whatever message came to him whilst scratching his hairy chest with the other hand.. After struggling to read the message, he finished it and dropped the hand that held the phone to the side. Smiling nervously, he sighed and started thinking about what he’d do after the upgrade.
Unexpectedly though, his hand met a springy, mountainous resistance on the way down.
That’s weird, that feels like…
Rich froze in horror and then the mountain moved. A husky voice drifted over the many blankets, the only type of cover he had to sleep with, whispering dreamily, “Richy-baby, don’t lick me there again. It’s dirty…” She slurred.
Aghast, Rich brought up his right fist and bit down on his knuckle to prevent him from yelling out in terror. No... Allowing his head to roll slowly to the side, he was met with a sight that would give young boys nightmares. As a result, something inside Rich broke a little and his head lolled back to stare at the ceiling in abject denial, desperately trying to wish her away.
But reality is never so kind.
Minutes went by and the girl finally stirred herself, like a lumbering leviathan at sea, and rose up from the blankets. Rich faintly heard a rustling as she shimmied out and put on her underwear with an elastic snap, thoroughly crushing his hopes that they just ended up in the same bed somehow. Cutting his eyes to the side, he immediately wished he hadn’t.
The big, black...can I even call her a lady?...reached down, revealing a gaping ass crack and fished her phone out from underneath a pile of used condoms. To such a sight, whatever broke in Rich earlier completed its splintering in that moment. Shame, unending shame, welled up from within and he could only close his eyes, playing dead and praying that she left quickly.
For once, he lucked out. A few seconds after she took out her phone that was now slightly crusty, she gave a low, meaty shriek and started to go as fast as possible at putting her clothes on. Rich, still playing dead, waited until he heard her arrive at the door and then fly out for whatever she was late for.
Eyes opening slowly, he muttered dazedly, “I’m gonna...I’m gonna have to burn the mattress now.” Looking over to the side where she slept, he added, “The blankets too.”
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Opening his eyes, Adrian felt the needle piercing into his arm. He’d done so many of these damnable tests that he truly understood and empathized with the term ‘lab rat’ now. Inori was off to the side, casually looking at some of the monitors. Somehow, this sight made warmth spread through his chest. Such a good girl.
If she were to hear his thoughts, she probably would have hit him. But really, Adrian always felt that he had an old soul when comparing to these young adults around his age. It didn’t really bother him most of the time, but at times like these the difference was made all the more apparent.
An incoming ding erupted in his earbud, indicating the start of a conversation from Raide. “All of the team members have indicated their acceptance and are coming in. Earlier, I didn’t want to ask out loud, but what do you want to do about Nova? If fence-riding were a profession, she’d be deemed an expert.”
Adrian sighed. “I know, but she has seen marked improvement in her drive in the conversations I’ve had with her since the sex trafficking raid. Go ahead and call her in. I just have this feeling that there’s more to her than what she’s letting on. I have high hopes for her after going through the upgrade.”
“You got it.” Raide’s voice then disappeared from his ear and Adrian once again rested his eyes on Inori sitting off to the side, giving her a warm smile when she caught him looking.
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So, what do you think? Needless to say, I was partially inspired by Qi Cultivation from some Eastern philosophies, but with major differences that I sought to root in science.
Main differences include:
1. Adrian can gather heat energy, not spiritual energy.
2. The heat energy is gathered by exploiting the 2nd Thermodynamic law which goes over how heat will always diffuse, or move, towards a region of lesser heat. Adrian's body gives off the illusion that there's no heat, so it all comes flooding in.
3. The heat energy is usable for metabolic functions. He still needs nutrients and minerals, but the whole 40,000 calories a day think has been shot.
4. He's able to manipulate the heat to anywhere in his body via proteins that gang up and transport all of the energy. There are no meridians that he utilizes to magically force energy through these channels, nor can he manipulate energy outside of his body.
5. The core is fundamentally different from a Dantian. It's an actual, physical organ that resides in the chest cavity where the sternum is located. It's not big, only the size of a small bouncy ball, but it's capable of storing energy for future use.
Some may get upset about this pseudo-inclusion, but it's a necessary step for some future inventions that I have in mind. The ability to store a gigantic battery in your chest is a pretty big advantage, especially when it beats the socks off of modern day battery equivalents. There will be other uses, but we'll run into them later on when the circumstances arise.