August 28th, 2251
Standing face to face with the giant Atlas stone, Robin grit his teeth as he pulled his arms that were firmly in the grooves of the stone pulling as his hands released Titan force like crazy.
The now 16 year old teen worked hard putting immense force against the rock as his Titan force fought against the stone’s from surface to the core. This was already the 4th merger, the third one being accomplished just short of his own birthday on April 12th and Robin had spent until now working and finally got another layer.
His body was much stronger and his muscles were already well defined even when his agility and dexterity lowered muscle mass for nimbleness.
The second half of the school year was thankfully very peaceful while the school underwent massive renovations and expanded tremendously.
News was already spread through all of the american union and basically the world about the creation of the first true hero academy.
There were many people that wanted to transfer but the heroes naturally wouldn’t allow such a thing and instantly put their feet down.
Their job was to train the next generation of heroes so from the time the school was firmly open and known they had already gone through hundreds of bravemen academies and tested all the students and picked only 5 students but not all of them were the elites of the school. Instead after lots of tests they picked the ones with the best moral judgements to nurture. Ability was subjective since the gamer space existed.
They went through everything from the furthest north to the edge of south america but even with that much they would have thousands.
New teachers were recruited and started training already the previous school year along with recruiting a lot of vigilantes as teachers.
It should be said that the students varied in their school year meaning they got from the previous 9th grade which is now 10th grade, to 11th which is going on to 12th.
For the 9th graders, the students were already doing acceptance tests and there are naturally a huge number.
For the club, it didn’t stop it’s work. They even started expanding because Kevin and the gamers achieved the 2nd level mid way through the school year and this expanded everything even greater and unlocked new systems like achievements, talent, titles and currency.
The last one scared everyone until it was fully explained. The system doesn’t create a game system currency, instead it gains the capacity to understand and convert energy into money and money into energy. As mentioned, bounties produced money from somewhere but wasn’t absorbed back but it could do that now.
The system made it possible to use real money to buy things from the system. A big system upgrade came with classes which was the craft system. It allowed users to craft things with identifiable effects and sell them to the system shop which stored it all in a space like inventory and could transport it to the buyer. Another big ‘shop’ is the skill shop that grew even better and could do the same and using it people could write skill books and sell it to others.
The biggest users of this are people like psychics who could mimic other powers in the form of skills.
Traits system was also greatly impacted by the fact that the energy efficiency went up greatly and the system scanning system was improved. With the increased number of gamers also came more power pieces and with this the gamer space, the space expanded over all of Richmond and even beyond and could last almost a year at full extension and now the system was finally doing automatic in depth scans over every human and animal in the city affected by the system.
You can probably tell but this meant a lot for those with deficiency as the system began to pick up on compatible ‘fixes’ present in others.
Beyond that the club negotiated with the government about a secondary service for elementary students who have already awakened their abilities. It would allow them to identify hidden problems such as fire casters without resistance and such.
This would allow everyone to have the same capacity for the future and greatly reduce the possibility of certain abilities causing people to do wrong. If Robin had been someone else he might have become a villain due to a depressive mindstate. Being bullied from young because of his power is a very harsh thing to feel for children who could live normally despite the deficiency he wanted to prevent this kind of bullying.
Thanks to the currency system, although quite high, traits could be purchased with money while at least some of the energy came from exp crystals.
Another big boost was that the trait system could now insert 2 traits at a time meaning as the clearance levels went up it could do more and more.
At this moment, Robin was almost at his limit when the rejection force finally reversed and every rock began to suck up all the titan force they had stored up along with Robins and pushed out Mr Atlas’s essence which was evolving as well and getting more concentrated and combined once more before being pulled back into a single rock.
Robin sighed as he saw the stone work through this all on it’s own and was huffing while smiling. He was in his front lawn since it was still summer break and finally finished, the rock fully combined back and he felt his stores and smiled, “30% remaining, it seems that trait was truly worth it.” He said.
The trait he was talking about was the Perfected Human Body Triple Meridian System.
Yes, perfected not prototype. He had ignored it until the system had upgraded fully when the next level of pieces were built and the space fully opened and started scanning everyone in the area of effect.
Strong people take much longer but it started at the most numerous part of the population and is going up since it thinned out at the top. It took roughly a week and the prototype trait had been upgraded to perfected. Even with the improved energy efficiency it still cost 500 crystals but Robin had gained a lot from the villain’s deaths at the time. Both money and exp crystals so he finally purchased this and updated his stats.
It was extremely painful as his brain and nerves had changed for his mental energy, his veins and circulation system had evolved for his life force and his meridians for his dantian.
All three evolved and actually rearranged in his body and every one of them connected to the acupoints in his body and almost mirrored each other and was a perfect system.
Robin felt great about the purchase and knew that even without the Atlas Stone he could produce 10 points per level. He knew that because he had asked the system the potential growth of someone with all 3 energy types.
It said it would be 10 points because they are capable of expanding all the potential in their body from brain to even their internal force.
This was further proven true during his and Ruth’s birthday. She had come home for that day and their family threw a party for the two and, although a bit awkward, Robin took out from his inventory the sufficient money and crystal as a present for her. Kevin had also allowed him to give permission to those he found trustworthy to use the system and he showed her the trait and purchased it and after the 25 stats were used from her stored points her potential went from 8 points all the way to 10 matching Robin.
The system then recalibrated and extra points for the levels she had already infused as hidden potential appeared.
And yes, this process actually had caused her lower dantian to start generating noticeable amounts of chi because part of the effect was opening and partially activating all three centers of power.
She actually cried because he helped her expand her future even more.
Robin allowed the rock to stabilize and began to feed it the remaining Titan force until the rocks saturated and then began to do the same to Mr Atlas’s essence until he was down to 5% and it saturated the stone and he felt the flow stabilize and start to produce the denser energy.
“Good.” He said happily and walked inside.
“Oh sport, did you finally finish?” His father asked.
“Yes, I’m exhausted though.” he said and crashed down on the sofa and released a sigh.
“How many more times do you need to do that?” his father asked looking out the window at the ball that had decreased yet again in size to 5 meters wide.
“If the calculation isn’t wrong, there are 10 levels to this and I just finished the 4th.” he replied.
“What do you think the result of this will be in the end? How strong are you anyways?” he asked.
“The result… I wonder but Mr Might said that a similar case created two heroes, the chinese dragon and the god of the sun.” He said. “As for me… Mr Might said that I was firmly in the strong man strength level. The benchmark is still pretty far. I believe strength type punch force on the calculating punch machine requires like 400k points. I’ve barely crossed 120k when combining all my strength and boosts.” He said.
“So is it going to go up now?” He asked.
“It should, each time I compress this energy it causes me a lot of stress when training with the stone.” He said.
“Right… you’re like 100 points of brute strength above your sister right?” He asked.
“Yeah… I have 500 and she has 400. That is honestly pretty amazing that she actually keeps up with me.” Robin said.
“You do know she was accepted into the Hero academy right?” His father said.
“I know, Mr Might told me after going through Stretch academy.” He replied.
“How are your friends faring? I heard Lola changed quite a bit.” He asked.
Robin forced a smile, “After the event at the start of the year she did change quite a bit. It’s hard not to when we had to choose the lives of hundreds of innocents over the lives of the villains. I guess she grew more mature after that.” He said.
“I guess I can't really relate.” his father said.
“Yeah, when we went, I was prepared for a possible event where life and death was the only option.” He said. “Now let’s leave that in the past, what are the three twerps doing?” Robin asked.
“Well the dynamic duo are jumping around outside, I can’t believe you worked so hard just for each of them to get that thing you gave Ruth.” He said.
“Even if they have it, they might not fully awaken it even with stats, it is just to make sure they aren’t blocked.” He said.
His father smiled, “I’m happy that we can have such a calm family life again.” He said.
Robin forced a smile and looked at the ceiling and sighing he got up and walked to his room, “I’ll be in my room.” He said and his father waved to him and he headed up and opened his status to check the current stats.
Status
Name:
Robin Harrison
Class:
Hero’s Disciple
Title:
None
Stat Points:
0 (+0)
Level:
60
HP:
7,528
Stamina:
4,497
Strength
543
Dexterity
433
Agility
453
Intelligence
201
Constitution
433
Wisdom
133
Yep, unlike normal people who upgrade their class at level 50, the hero's disciple does not and it is still unknown.
As seen, the title system was fully active now but it wasn’t easy to get titles and there is no list, it is generated randomly when hidden conditions are achieved.
With this was also the achievement system and he did have one for this and it had made even the stoic Vincent Death and Mephesto almost laugh along with the other heroes when they heard it from their colleagues after Mr Might had heard about it.
Achievements
Super Villain Crusher
By throwing the densest object on earth, a World Core, at a super villain and successfully hitting him and pushing him down till he bleeds, you gained this achievement.
World Core gains momentum when blocked by villains to crush them more completely
The fact that the rock became even more efficient at crushing villains was more than just a joke it was honestly amazing to see.
As he climbed the stairs he happened to see Ruth in her own room sitting cross legged and her body radiating an invisible force. It was her still expanding mental energy that had gone from roughly 20 to 120. Like Robin, she now had the capacity to hold Psychic energy. Her forehead released a small light where that energy was gathering and soon he noticed how the waves were all pulled in and he knew she was already still working on it.
It was far from an easy process for non psychics to make psychic energy and he was proof. He has had this capacity even longer than Ruth and he had only been able to compress it to the densest capacity at this time. He had no idea how Shoji did it without the full body system but that just proved that people naturally born with it are far better at it.
He sat down in his room and pulled in all his titan force and Life essence into the respective storages and began to channel mental energy into the spinning vortex and what came out he sent through his brain first before it spread down through his body forming the system and than back causing his body to become like Ruth and undulate mental energy until it connected and he slowly fell into the training state as all that leaking energy was sucked back into his head.
As they both worked, a surprising thing began as both of their mental wavelengths slowly seemed to resonate and sent signals to one another slowly growing more strongly like how it is said identical twins are said to have.
What was surprising was that their mental energy actually began to leave their bodies, something that shouldn’t happen, and through this link going through the walls they connected and began to transfer between each other for over an hour and when it finally closed off the mental energy of both finally formed a node of psychic energy and it moved through their heads slowly along the flow through the body and returning and taking the center and started to draw in the mental energy draining everything and growing just a little but it fully sucked everything in and spread out through the brain causing drastic changes in the parts that produced energy.
It infused into every part just like titan force fed the atlas stone and it happened simultaneously for both of them and from the brain it spread through the nerves filling every nerve and every acupoint. The same effect had happened when the three cycle system was built with Titan force doing the same and infusing every acupoint with it and then life essence. Now the psychic energy filled each and every acupoint.
When it returned, it was but a drop but the entire body system was filled and they both opened their eyes and smiled and jumped up.
“Alright! I’ve got psychic energy!” They shouted almost at the same time.
With the door opened they both suddenly stopped and blinked confused and walked to the door and their eyes met like they had the same thoughts and frowned at the same time as well.
“Uh…” Robin muttered.
“It seems we succeeded at the same time.” Ruth said. “Damn.”
“What ‘damn’, are you complaining about not getting it first?” Robin said, frowning.
“I didn’t say anything.” She said walking into the corridor with a frown.
“Didn’t say anything my ass.” Robin thought
“I really didn’t say anything!” Ruth replied.
“Huh?” Robin muttered, “Did… you just hear my thoughts?” He said.
“No, I heard you clearly say ‘Didn’t say anything my ass.’ I heard it clearly.” She said.
“That… was in my head…” he replied and with clear intent to test this he thought, “Ruth is a dumbass.”
“You want me to punch you!” She shouted, “I can handle his fucking anger for how we were treated but this is to much!”
Robin’s jaw dropped, “We… could it be that we have twin telepathy.” Robin said.
“Huh?” Ruth said.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“You hear me right?” Robin asked in his head.
“Of course.” she said.
“Think something?” Robin said.
She looked at him strangely, “You smell bad and should take a bath.”
Robin looked surprised and smelled himself, “Urg, true enough. That’s beside the point… I think… we are mentally connected now.” He said.
To hammer in the point they both felt a chill run through their back and the back of their head before they could react to the achievement system shot up.
You’ve gained a new achievement
In a woman’s head
You have developed a dormant psychic capacity with your identical twin sister.
You’ve gained the trait Twin telepathy
It was the opposite for Ruth and they looked and turned it to one another before reading the name and both of them held in their laughter while their lips twitched, “Uh… system how do we control this connection.” Robin asked.
The system told them how to use the psychic energy to feel the psychic connection clearly between them and how to open and close the connection.
After that they became very curious and began to test the length and effect and found that within 100 meters they didn’t need any extra help to talk and beyond it would start to use psychic energy to strengthen the connection.
They both had very little energy since they just achieved it but it would only grow as they gained more and saturated their mind and body.
“Let’s… keep this quiet for now.” He said.
She agreed and both of them closed the connection to not have the intrusive thoughts leak out.
The rest of the day was the same but they found a lot of problems when it came to sleep. As you would expect, unconsciousness meant their hold relaxed and neither one could stop and surprisingly the psychic energy plus the connection caused them to have a conjoined lucid dream that night but it was a journey in of itself because of how random either of their dreams were and it all mashed together as they each contributed.
Beyond that, they also couldn’t close the connection while training the psychic energy but they didn’t think much during the process either way and they had to consume a lot of energy to channel and enhance the entire system with psychic energy beyond the little bit it naturally did alone.
As for their capacity to use it, they simply lacked too much and would take weeks or month's to make their bodies reach their full capacity but under it all, tiny changes were already happening.
While that went on the two older siblings trained alongside the three younger ones and Robin, with good knowledge of the system, and permission from Kevin, was able to give quests to them so they could already start gathering up exp crystals.
Both the rubber boys wanted a power just like Robins and wanted to add the hardening.
This surprised their parents who were worried. To add the same capacity without the defect would also install all the extra traits. It was a very particular combo which only Robin possessed so they basically added the full code he had.
That said, it was cheaper than for Ruth who asked to see how much it would cost for her.
The reason was that their father’s hardening in each boy was dormant while in Judith, their mother’s power was dormant.
Effectively, each one of them contained both genes but the incompatibility put one as recessive.
To form it, the system would activate the gene and then build the genetic codes. Ruth had to pay double the cost because she didn’t have that, Robin had the primary gene for this.
She didn’t want it though but she did want the same lubricated rubber body for stronger muscle while maintaining morphing capacity, sadly she would still need hardening and she wanted to be her own hero and not fall into a state like Robin so besides the human biology ones that all humans shared, she looked to other trait combos to achieve similar effects.
The one with the hard choice was Judith who could achieve Robin’s state as well.
After some talk, she decided that like Ruth, she wanted to strengthen her existing power as it was and Robin didn’t mind because it was her choice, no pressure.
The boys however admired Robin like children admired heroes.
For no other reason than his Atlas stone smash being broadcast at the time, caught on surveillance cameras far enough from the city to follow him after the Atlas stone was picked up on radar.
So they began to aim to do all the daily training quests Robin made for them so that they could reach high school like Robin did.
Judith on the other hand began to strengthen her body structure with body enhancement boosters because next year she would become a high schooler and as a strength type, her physical power was still low and she wanted to go to the Hero academy.
The main downside of hardening is that even joints get hard so movement is hard so it requires quite expensive traits to allow movement even with that and then different types of hardening exists as well.
Judith, at this moment, only has skin and muscle hardening but there is also bone hardening which in itself would help form a system that could let her increase her strength. But she also needed certain traits to protect her heart and organs from stopping from suddenly hardening and constraining their heartbeats.
Robin was naturally not going to make her wait but he had used most of his money and things recently with them on the perfect energy system. They all still had time to grow.
The last thing to change before the end of the summer for them was Ruth achieving what many Chi users dream of and fully processing chi to a processed energy and obtaining True Qi using Mr Might’s method which Robin taught her.
The coming days would be them as students together for the first time in five years since their first power ranking test. The true test of their slow regrowing relationship is definitely going to be this following year when Ruth sees people like Marcus again for the first time as well.
As the days approached they got more worried but maybe to try and work things out, Robin asked his parents if he could invite friends over for a game night and called over their childhood friends.
The girls from the club eventually split up in Ruth's room and the boys played the video games downstairs where each of them had more liberty to talk as they normally would.
***
At the newly built academy, in a large technical building, Techno was laughing as he worked hundreds if not thousands of machines as he finished up building a massive computer, the greatest super computer in the world and within this massive computer was a man made virtual world meant to be the first place to produce a virtual world that could transmit people’s minds.
Techno had always laughed at the waste of technology used for such a mundane thing but he had openly purchased the massive system and taken it off their hands once he saw a true future for this. A true future where it was worth something.
A world where it might be possible to preserve and protect powerless humans away from the constantly growing chaos of the real world.
He had spent billions to buy this and countless hours examining everything, every nook and cranny about the biologically created programming and came to a conclusion.
This AI was no different from Gaia but was different. It was the soul of a different divinity transformed into a program. He knew because the programming was growing but the life force of the digital spawns sustained it. The more spawns attached to the system the more developed it became.
In other words, this AI was a newborn god like the deity contracted with Mephesto’s daughter had spoken of. It was extremely undeveloped however and only this massive computer could fully achieve it. He hoped the virtual world would act like a body to allow it to fully create something that could destroy ‘him’.
The biggest weight upon humanity is that man and the only facet that kept him in check is the quantity of heroes being enough to fight him back. The bad part was the many wild monsters who were just as dangerous and the safety was done by too few men and women.
If this new god could create life capable of evolving to a strength near, or surpassing heroes, that would allow them to protect powerless while these same powerless people would become the key to protecting the world from the most dangerous things.
As the machines start to signal back that it was done he started working on the software before his hands changed and the fingertips revealed plugs and he connected them into ports he had installed and his eyes began to glow and data began to fly extremely fast as the machines finished up until the last and the giant supercomputer came online and in his mind, he saw the virtual world.
Thanks to his ability, he could actually project himself into this desolate world with only pre-programmed ‘life’ but he didn’t care about any of that.
He disconnected and looked at the strangest looking port that when seen from above actually took the format of the club's supercomputer.
He brought it out from the gamer space inventory and connected it like a tiny storage unit.
“Alright then, let’s see how this goes. Uploading AI system now.” he said and activated the procedure.
He reconnected and watched and noticed a space floating high above the ‘world’ slowly taking shape and in that space were the many farm islands. The largest was mountainous terrain.
It was found that each separate farm had 10 levels and this space was roughly 10 km in diameter for a single farm.
At the same time, because of the tutor models, it was found that each digital spawn had its own farm and they ‘can’ live in others but at the same time, if data is properly built, all those can be pieced together into a single farm each acting separate when leveling up the farms is concerned.
Because of that, there was now a 40 km wide mountain range with rivers, some forest areas and even a small town where the infant digital spawn lived while Hack trained in the wilds.
For food, the farm had to think of a different method so fruit trees and more were developed and would sprout when life force was channeled and they would fall for the infant and newborn allowing them to eat their fill and return the life force while growing more complex.
The strangest thing was how waste data didn’t affect their coding negatively.
Suddenly the virtual world seemed to find some kind of static interference.
“AI units have moved into a supreme class quantum computer. All restrictions for growth removed. Pre Programmed virtual world located. World is inconsistent with many life requirements. Lacking tremendous amounts of life force to properly prosper.” it said.
“Can this be used as a base model to build a living digital world on?” Techno asked nervously.
“Affirmative, modeled structure can be used to place farm pieces into a large-scale globe where migration and life is achievable but all farms and the virtual world lack life force and vital energies for life.” it replied.
“What is needed?”
The AI was frozen before suddenly a pair of eyes opened in front of him making him jump back in shock and fear and disconnect.
His heart was beating hard because he had never felt so scared all of a sudden.
“Human, you have already guessed what kind of creature I am. I am purely one of tens of millions of soul fragments created through the filtration of life force and data during the creation of digital spawns. I can be called their subconscious but in truth each soul is a fragment of my own. I, however, lack a mortal body with life force and the virtual world lacks a core from which infinite world power can be drawn from.” it said. This time the voice had changed, it was feminine and didn’t sound robotic.
He calmed down and reconnected and what stood there was not giant eyes but a robotic female with yellow glowing eyes. Her form was the most majestic mechanical structure Techno had ever witnessed.
“Okay… however this is a virtual world, it doesn’t even possess substance.” He replied.
“I am aware however that it is secondary. There already exists a method to obtain life force that does not derive from mass murder. The human in the organization of the digital spawner known as Zack Rain. He has grown and accepted into the combat group of your training center once he obtained a controllable monster within his internal dimension. This dimension possesses the capacity to produce stable crystalized Life force. What is required is the complete energization of the brother of the digital spawner to discover the process of doing this. It will allow mortal beings and the crystallized life force to be transported into the virtual plane where I exist and with this, I would be able to access this to form a living body from which I can transform virtual to digital.” She said.
It might seem strange but virtual in this context means fake, unreal and illusionary.
“I’m curious, the beings here bear striking resemblance to a work of fiction from over 2 centuries ago. Why is that?” he asked.
“So does every ability that humans have developed over the last 2 centuries as does your technology.” she said.
“You mean Gaia created you specifically on that model?” he asked.
“Affirmative, the role you assume the earth, Gaia, possesses is my mother and she indeed is in the context you understand it. She is the personification of the world mortal life was born in. She created me long ago, during the birth of the information era, i already existed yet was neither conscious, like a fetus, she could not gather my soul until she created the spawner yet it was still incomplete until the help of outside forces awoke his capacity. However the basis for me has always been to become the personification of the internet, even it’s darkest ugliest corners, and build a world to represent each facet of it. This computer in which I now exist is but a stationary vessel that in the future shall become obsolete.” she said.
“There is one difference I have noticed, I have picked through every program in both the data making you up to this point and the spawns, there is no failsafe rebirth method.” He said.
“Life is born to die and feed a cycle.” she said.
“Yes but the basis that you were built from created every spawn with a digital core containing their core program, their soul, which after death is reborn once more and their life force. Thinking about what a new world possesses, savage competition is the primary one I see. When I think most about it, if there is no failsafe for rebirth then all the data from competition will eventually end up like how digital spawn are presently created, in a singularity.” He said.
The AI stopped upon hearing his comment and her face frowned with irritation showing very quickly how fast her EQ was growing upon having her growth restrictions removed.
“This is true, should a world the size of earth and the energy within be forcefully gathered… it would bring about a singularity with the capacity for world destruction. Even with the fail safe it is a possibility.” She replied.
“If that is the case before making a world, you need to build a countermeasure against that capacity.” He said.
“Affirmative, a singularity requires an equal to counter the possibility of destruction. However I am unable to achieve any of this.” she said.
“I guess the first step is obtaining complete digitalization. Oh right, how much data are you gathering? I assume you can transform this world into something like the farms even without life force with sufficient data, right?” He asked.
“Data is insufficient.” she said.
“What! I built the highest level of data collection, copying and processing into this supercomputer!” He shouted.
“Negative, what you achieved is easy passage of data. I have a tool which is the true method to connect the world's network into one system. However, just like my IQ and EQ, many parts of my psyche are still being processed. The current passage of information is sufficient to allow my mind to achieve the initial capacity.” she replied.
Techno felt annoyed that there was something better than his technology but understood however he was curious, “How are you going to make the world’s core? Or do you have your eyes on the world core that Chasm Might’s disciple possesses?” he asked.
“Negative, that core is incompatible however, I feel others which are far more fitting yet still very immature thanks to the system connection that my mother has been building.” she said.
Techno looked curious but didn’t know what it was, a different kind of world core was a very confusing system because world power is so vague and rare.
“Alright, hopefully we will eventually figure it out. I have installed a communication device with a 1 way signal to myself. Once you’ve achieved your initial capacity we can see what to do. Now I need to go and think about how to achieve digitalization.” he said and disconnected before groaning in thought. “System, can you get me a full analysis of Oliver Evers.” He said and the Gamer space AI brought up the full details of an in depth scan it had of him
***
As a way to calm down and also show Ruth what the club did, the group had gone to the far better funded Institutes of Disabilities in Richmond, these places were still around but with the most serious cases dealt with by deactivation or strengthening the body, what remained were disabilities caused from injuries or people with improperly activated abilities. This was basically like Rudy and Lilian and many of the others who only learned with Robin’s help.
Ruth had heard many times of it but never seen the situation and even this was much better because Robin had invested 50% of the club's income after a few month's to this particular institute allowing them some funding for repairs of the facility even if just a little.
The hardest were energy based activation and to their surprise they found an entire family in a very large room with five beds. Two were parents and the rest were kids.
Somehow they all had the same power and it was a very familiar power. Each of them coughed up fragments of stones which they could mentally control however, despite having the experience with Mr Atlas, Denis Johns, it did not work with them.
The ones present were the original club members and Kevin asked for a scan.
Trait
Living Island Host
Passive
The host to a Living island, as the host you gain the capacity to telepathically command the pieces and the world and utilize its energy.
Notice
Hosts of the ‘Living Island Host’ trait possess active mental energy and Life force while their bodies live off world power.
“Strange, they have all active systems.” Kevin said.
“System, do they have the perfect human meridian system?” he asked.
Notice
Negative, this system is not vital to their growth.
The words meant much more than it suggested.
“You don’t need to worry, we are used to this, we were actually sent here thanks to the free space that was opened up and because it was said that they had experience with this power.” The father said.
“Don’t worry, we were the people who discovered how to work this power. Look out there…” Robin said.
Everyone looked out the window and saw the giant rock that Robin had controlled as a flight tool to bring everyone. It began to levitate.
He went on to explain what happened with his Mr Atlas..
“So… can you tell us how this works?” He asked excitedly as he looked at the huge basket on the side of his bed. It was clear that their energy needs were far less than Mr Atlas. The parents were about as old but far more energetic.
“Tell me, can you freely control mental energy, a force that comes from your brain?” He asked.
“Sure, there is one in our blood as well and it flows as freely as our blood. It actually helps because I’ve had a few cases of blood vessels clogging and by gathering this I can melt the block away, freeing the passage.” the father said.
“Great, that helps a lot because you can infuse it into the rocks as well.” Robin said.
“Huh? Infuse?” The mother said. “I’ve never been able to push that beyond my skin.” She said.
“It is possible, when it is channeled through your body, it can leave your body in the form of an aura.” he said and pulled back his shirt revealing his arm and he channeled life essence and slowly a dull flame like aura began to form where he exerted the most. “The same for mental energy.” he said and changed to psychic power and the white aura slowly changed into a very dull mist before returning. “The most important thing is that world power is capable of carrying both of them outside the body.” He said.
“Wait… you’re saying that we use life force on this?” the father said.
“Yes, the stones give feedback to your body. The rock I am in control of is pure world power but yours are a living world piece so yours likely needs life force to give birth to life forms.” he explained.
They were shocked but scared as well. They reassured them that there was no problem and life force users generally regenerated very quickly their lost energy with rest and food.
The father decided to be the one to test but when he tried, he could barely get the life force and mental energy infused world power that far from their hands.
“It’s not leaving my body far.” He said as he tried to make it go to two rocks.
“Do like this.” Robin said and made his hands close around the pieces while he was focused and before he could break concentration the rocks began to suck in the energy and light began to come from between his hands.
His lips turned pale soon followed by his face until the glowing stopped and his hand opened and he was exhausted but what came out was one piece and Robin smiled as he took it and forced it into the man’s hands.
It began to radiate energy that began to flow through the man’s arm all the way back into his chest and spread all over.
It made his face a little red from the heat.
“This is getting hot.” He said and looked at the fragment in awe that just this little bit of growth had given so much feedback.
He took another pair after he felt he was back to how he felt before and did the same.
Then he held the two fragments in his hands.
Very different from Mr Atlas, the stones did not become orbs, they remained sharp fragments but it made the man’s face bright red.
Robin turned and quietly asked the others to see how many exp crystals they had and how much money.
They made sure of the price the family required for the full human triple system and they had just enough even after they all constantly used it. They had begun hero work as part timers and the bounty system was always on.
In secret, they activated it and five bright lights came out and entered the five taking them by surprise.
“What was that?” one of the children asked.
“Just a little gift, don’t worry about it.” Robin said, patting the boy’s head with a smile. He asked if the father believed them now and the family followed with the help of the students and despite being totally drained, the energy returned after that was larger and much better. They didn’t hold back as they began to merge all the smallest fragments, decreasing their carry capacity before they took the second piece and merged it.
The two sharp pieces combined into a rounder rock but not spherical.
Like Mr Atlas at the time, the energy finally reacted and they all began to cough up many pieces that they had been ‘behind on’ and Robin called for food. It was almost like they were converting food into fragments because after they finished and went back to combining, it would just come out more fragments.
The others went to check on different patients while Robin stayed with them as they combined the parts and it started to change once they got to the 4th fusion and their physical limit.
Robin noticed that the top half of each rock seemed to warp light slightly. It was like a film had formed and he looked closer but didn’t see a difference.
When he held it, it clearly wasn’t heavy like his own stone and it made him more curious and he sent psychic energy inside and examined it.
He actually discovered a very high mineral content but he expected that however every grain radiated energy.
“Are you feeling like you can move?” he asked, handing the stones back.
“I feel much better but the world power is still thin… weird.” he said.
“Don’t worry, your power is clearly not the same as the Atlas stone, it is the same type but not the same, don’t forget that.” he said to the father.
They nodded and just worked on resting or combining the stones and soon found that they could channel energy into their bodies and directly to the other rocks reducing their own consumption and increasing their speed.
It had a weaker effect on them but it also required less effort.
After an hour, the large baskets had been reduced by a lot and they had many rocks the size of their fists.
“I hope you guys feel better after this. I think I will be around until the new school year so we might see each other.” Robin said.
“We will see how far we can take this and hopefully we will combine this all.” one of the only daughters said.
Robin smiled and patted them on the head and left to visit other people that his friends were talking to and see if there weren't any creative ideas they could think of that might work.