Jack floated away from the exterior of Drowl. The planet-sized rock was uninteresting from the outside, even the hole Jack had left from didn't seem to let out any light. Drowl was surrounded on all sides with other large rocks floating around it. It was a good disguise, and Jack could see how Drowl had remained hidden for all this time.
Jack had never been a big space guy, so he had no idea if there were any recognizable constellations nearby. Bob hadn't known how long this journey would take, and Jack wasn't confident that it would be quick. There was nothing resembling a star near him, which meant that he was far outside the solar system.
Jack had the screens securing him retract, only to find himself suddenly in zero-g. He shouldn't have been surprised, but with the speed of his departure, he hadn't really thought about it. He floated through the blue cacoon, slowly bumping into the walls. He felt himself smiling slightly. Everyone dreamed about floating in space at some point in their life, but most people never got the chance. It was a great feeling, a sense of freedom overtook Jack as he gently pushed off of surfaces.
Only after enjoying himself for a bit, Jack secured himself once again before opening his status screen. The blue rectangle appeared as normal, and his keyboard was still attached to it. It was good to see that those functions remained, even if he wouldn't be relying on them much. "Alpha? Can you hear me okay?"
A message appeared on the wall, but it was further from Jack than he expected. He couldn't read it from where he was secured, but before he could release himself and float over there, the message disappeared. The words quickly appeared and disappeared a few times, gradually drawing close to Jack before finally appearing next to his head. [Yes, I can hear you. Sorry, my body is more stretched out than I am used to, so it's hard to put the words in the right place.]
The words were slightly out of shape as if the new form was stretching them out. "Are you doing okay? No side effects from exposure to open space?"
[I don't think so. Being this shape is a bit odd, but it's not a big deal.]
"You might be stuck like this for a while. Are you sure you can maintain it?"
[You can count on me! I'll stay like this as long as you need!]
That was a small relief. Jack had been fairly confident that the butterfly wouldn't be affected by anything, but confirming that was good for his mind.
"Well, we're probably going to be here a long time. I should've brought something to do..." Jack suddenly realized that he hadn't brought anything with him. He wouldn't need food or anything with his body, but entertainment could be a real issue. The white void had been pretty unbearable, but at least he had been able to work on the system. Jack had never been able to break off screen pieces outside of the void, so he couldn't even use that as a way to keep himself busy.
Jack and Alpha talked for a bit before Jack decided to try to sleep. Sleeping had never been quite the same in his bore-bot body as his human one, it was more like a switch he could flick than a biological process. Even with that advantage, Jack couldn't quite bring himself to the right frame of mind to put himself to sleep. There was some vague dread about Alpha not being able to maintain its shape while he slept, but there was also the worry about his mission.
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Jack needed to meet gods he knew nothing about, and somehow convince them to help solve his problems without breaking everything further. This was the last ditched effort, there wasn't any guarantee that Jack could come back from this. If he couldn't come back, and if this didn't resolve the issues, it was possible that Drowl might go extinct. Just people trapped in limbo forever, souls that would never see the light of day ever again. He wouldn't let it happen.
Jack forced himself to sleep, desperately needing to stop thinking about this. He switched off his brain, and let his mind rest. When he woke, nothing had really changed outside the cacoon. He couldn't see Drowl anymore, but he wasn't sure if that was because of distance or because there was no light sources near enough to let him see it.
There was no real way of measuring how much time passed. Jack didn't really have any biological clock, and his sleep as a bore-bot could range from six to ten hours on average. He knew that he could sleep more than he needed, and took advantage of it. His awake periods were much shorter than his sleep periods by choice. Jack was treating the whole experience like some kind of cryo-sleep from a sci-fi.
When he was awake, he would check on how Alpha was doing. The butterfly seemed to be enjoying the whole experience, not minding all the downtime. Alpha typed about how much it enjoyed looking out into space. Jack was surprised to hear that space rocks had impacted the cacoon on several occasions while he slept, and that Alpha had barely felt a thing. Jack knew that things flying through space were likely moving faster than anything on Drowl had ever moved, and the fact that even that amount of force couldn't budge the butterfly brought him some comfort.
The rest of his awake time was spent adding skills to his status. Things like [Zero-G Movement] or [Tic-Tac-Toe] skills that he could use in the cacoon. Alpha could recreate basic games out of text and play with Jack, and he used it as a chance to track his progress. the [Zero-G Movement] skill ended up turning into something crazy. At first, it let him more accurately move around the cacoon, but at level five he could start moving himself without using any surfaces. Moving in zero gravity became more like swimming at that point, and Jack began using the skill to steady himself instead of manipulating Alpha to hold him in place.
Games and skill practice became his main activity, and he ended up prioritizing the [System Buff] skill. He hadn't personally used the [System Buff] and [System Debuff] skills very much, but some of the mercenaries had used them to great effect with the [Point Denfense] skill. Jack focused on other areas of skill application. He used the buff skill on himself and found that some of his skills would work better or grow more quickly. He was able to rapidly acquire things he knew to be skills and level them up quickly.
After Jack made this discovery and began exploiting it, he realized that a change was beginning to take place in him. He felt...propped up by the skills. Things that didn't come naturally to him were now simple, automatic responses. He could play a game of chess without looking, his body automatically piloting itself and his mind accurately remembering all the piece's places. However, the skill only did so when he was playing chess. When he wasn't playing, he had a hard time visualizing a board or formulating a strategy. But the moment he began a game, his mind snapped into focus.
If he had more skills about chess, such as [Chess Strategy], [Board Game Tactics], or [Internal Processing] that he had seen in others, he probably wouldn't have experienced such strong dissonance. Most people had skills that contained overlap or bled into each other, but Jack had to manually add each and every skill, and they would all start at level one. He realized that his skills progressed so fast under the effects of [System Buff] because it was only hitting one skill at a time. If he was buffing ten, or even twenty skills that all bled into each other then the growth would be minimal. It meant that he could potentially grow insanely powerful very quickly...in theory.
In actuality, Jack didn't like the feeling of losing control. His body reacted by itself, and that made him feel out of control. He didn't like it at all, though he understood that it might be necessary.
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By the time Jack became able to see Earth, he wasn't sure how much time had passed. but he did know that several of his skills were level ten. Whether he would need them or not remained to be seen. It was time to draw the attention of some Gods.