Chapter Fifty Six
Joe woke with the irritating glow in his eyes. He grimaced and squeezed his eyebrows shut but the glow did not diminish. It was still as irritatingly bright in his eyes. He flipped his head away from the window, trying to get his eyes out of the grating beam of light. Even after he turned over, the light continued to shine and Joe felt his frustration rise. He turned again to no avail, and soon began turning incessantly but was unable to find any peace from the burning light. He was finally yanked from his sleep fully into awareness and with it came the realization that he’d had his status on the whole night and he quickly dismissed it.
With it gone, darkness brought blessed relief. He lay in his bed relaxing, comfortable once again in darkness but soon frustrated for another reason: he was awake. Joe waited for another few moments, hoping he might be able to sleep anyway before giving up in annoyance and opening his eyes. Sitting up in his bed, he opened his eyes and found the room completely dark. Groaning, Joe collapsed back against the wall his bed was leaning against then grimaced at the loud noise he’d made. Well… this sucks! I woke up too early!
The light of his status window must have woken him before the sun would normally have. Joe took a deep breath and considered what he could do this early before glancing down at his hand, pressing his finger nail firmly into it. He felt no pain, but his hands were incredibly toughened by his training so moved his hand to his thigh and pressed a thumbnail into his upper thigh. He pressed quite firmly but felt nothing but a phantom twinge. Trying again, he pushed much harder but again only felt a phantom hint of pain. There’s no way… Joe remembered the knife from the other day and frowned a bit. He then reached down with his hand and pinched a thigh and gave it a savage twist. Again, nothing more than a subtle itch that didn’t leave a mark on him nor an impressionable pain.
This is… too weird. Cool! Definitely, but too weird. Joe looked at his unblemished skin before bringing up his status to look at his HP. He found his HP at max. He thought a bit about this, considering, but then decided to restart his test. A fingernail pressed as hard as possible into his thigh only dropped his HP four or five points, the difference seeming to be about his strength being just shy of being able to regularly induce five HP of damage. The strange thing, however, was how quickly his HP recovered, jumping back to max almost as soon as he removed his fingernail. That seems…
Joe let his thoughts go and moved on to a hard pinch and twist, as he did before. The HP dropped by almost fifteen points this time, and took a bit more time to recover but was still quite rapid. He swapped between a twisted pinch and a fingernail stab a few times and found that the HP recovery speed wasn’t just based on the amount of HP lost. It seem the pinch twist, even a minor one, recovered HP just a bit slower.
Joe’s eyes narrowed with that observation and he pulled out his knife before pressing it into his thigh, pushing carefully until he hit five HP of damage. This also recovered almost as quickly as his fingernail thrust. Why? Shouldn’t it be worse? Why is the recovery… Joe duplicated the knife press again, freezing his movement at five HP lost once again before looking down and that’s when he noticed he’d not broken skin either. Huh! Duh! Basically the same as just stabbing myself with a fingernail, huh?
Joe thought a bit and then decided to slice instead of stab, pressing the knife against his thigh in the same spot but sliding it across the skin slowly as he stared at his HP reading. He held himself firm despite wanting to shiver at the feeling a knife sliding across his skin blade down. He saw his HP rapidly drop much faster than his stabs and stopped quickly, although still overshot to six HP lost instead of five.
His eyes flickered down to see blood beading along the entire blade and cut before he ripped his eyes back up to his reading. After seeing the six HP lost, he removed his knife and saw the HP begin to recover, but this time at a speed easily able to register, each HP taking almost a second to recover. He glanced down at his cut to find it gone and even the blood on his knife removed from existence. Joe grimaced at the observation, disturbed by what he saw but then glanced back up at his HP to keep his eye on it until it recovered. Almost a second per HP. Definitely A LOT longer than the pinch with fifteen lost HP. HP recovery is at least somehow linked to the damage you take. Is it crush damage or …
Joe took a bit testing different forms of damage but it seemed, from what little he could ascertain, it wasn’t really about damage type so much as how bad the damage was. Although, piercing damage is a lot worse! Is it … maybe our body is just more susceptible to piercing damage? Something to ask Kukurnal… Human bodies sure can take blunt damage a lot better than being stabbed, for the most part. I bet if I hit the wall hard and fast enough, my HP would be pretty slow to recover.
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Joe dropped the thoughts as he had no real way to accurately or safely test it. But… so… when does the pain set back in again? Joe pulled out his knife and began stabbing himself but then froze as he realized he was basically disabling his HP shield for the day. Huh… maybe … Joe glanced around to the window, still finding the outside dark with only the glow of the gas giant showing through. He wouldn’t be able to do anything meaningful here without waking someone up, so he decided to head downstairs and into the courtyard.
He dressed quickly and took several weapons to practice his forms before he slipped out of the room, down the stairs, and into the courtyard. He took a look around, considering where he would be able to do it. He didn’t like his options, but decided that he really only had two options: the back stone wall or the lone tree in the yard. He finally decided the tree would most likely allow his HP recover the fastest, although… I could test blunt damage! But first… the wall.
Joe decided he could at least test if the type of damage was not important, but the deadliness of the damage. He leaned his various weapons on the wall and then stepped up to punch the wall as hard and badly as he could. This is going to hurt! He grimaced even as he did so, a bit worried and fearful of the pain that was to come, but still firm. His fist crunched into the wall in the worst way he could manage and he felt his knuckles shatter and wrist sprain. His teeth clenched even as he waited for the wave of pain, but nothing came. His rapid heartbeat calmed even as his panting breath slowed and he quickly looked at his HP before grinning in excitement. Yep! How bad the damage is slows how quickly the damage recovers. Ha!
His health was recovering even slower than before and it took almost five minutes for the twenty HP to recover. Only twenty HP though… that… doesn’t seem right, but I’m not going to complain! Joe decided he wasn’t going to wait for his HP to recover wishing to continue his tests and actually pinched his skin but found his damage dropped another fifteen health points from the pinch but did not recover quickly as it had before. Slowed recovery stacks? Slowest reco… no… it’s a bit faster. Joe noticed that the HP he lost to the pinch did recover faster than what he’d lost from a broken hand, but was significantly slower than if it had been done on its own. It seemed a deadly or very bad injuries slowed recovery and actually slowed recovery of minor injuries as well. Huh! Another good test!
He attempted the exact same injuries, punching the tree and then pinching quickly, right after one another. The total damage was the same as before but stacked, now having him down by forty five hit points. Man… so weird… not hurt at all… just… He waved a hand and chuckled before he sighed and focused on the HP recovery. His HP hadn’t recovered a single point yet and he began to frown. When it did tick up, his frown deepened. That… seems… really bad! Joe decided he would count the time as accurately as possible.
Joe then went through a single form about seven times, checking his recovery after each time to get a decent count, as he knew how long it took for him to complete the form. With that, he was able to guesstimate about twenty minutes or so, maybe twenty one, before his HP recovered to max. Thirty seconds per HP now… is it slowly loosing efficacy? Or… is there something else?
He then immediately stabbed himself with a fingernail and saw his HP drop five before once again very slowly recovering, taking another five minutes or so to recover that missing five HP. When Joe saw this, he grimaced, concerned with what he was seeing. Is it a permanent HP recovery loss? That would suck! Joe calmed himself and went through another three forms on top of the two times he did to recover to max so he had ten minutes between full recovery and his next test.
When the completion of his next test, he cautiously stabbed himself with his fingernail again, seeing his HP recover in a flash as it had before, and he felt relief flood him. Right. Need to take a rest after significant damage. Makes sense! Joe pressed harder and saw the same rapid recovery before he did his pinch twist and again was recovered fully in seconds.
Joe then stepped up to the tree and ripped off some of the rough bark to leave behind the smooth trunk underneath before punching it firmly once, watching his fluctuating HP. Its recovery was a bit slower than his stabs and pinches, but still had him back to max in almost ten seconds. He hit much harder this time, unconcerned with shattering bones as he’d hardened his hands with this form of practice for years while training in the east. Chinese and their body tempering! His fist pounded against the tree, and it shook, as a few leaves shook loose and fell to the ground.
His eyes darted to the HP status and held his breath, noticing his HP taking about five seconds per HP to recover before smiling. OK. Not bad. I can work with that! I have… a hundred and twenty eight HP, so five a second gives about six hundred seconds… so… hey… ten minutes! Nice!
Even with all his HP lost, he could recover it all in ten minutes, which would mean he would have his HP fully recovered long before he made it to the dungeon. He then settled into punching the tree firmly, his fists punished against the hard trunk of the tree, but not enough to harm him too badly. He kept his eyes on his HP, his fists landing about one time each second, each fist, rapidly draining his HP. Every once in a while, he would try to get a feel for the pain he was experiencing, but it didn’t matter how low it went, all he ever got was a minor itchy twitch. It was such a strange experience as his fists continued to pound against the tree.