"And here goes the last one," Alonso muttered, a satisfied smile spreading across his face as his sword thrust effortlessly through the leech in a well-practiced motion.
> Stage 1 - 1.416%
"That’s the 49th," he noted, glancing up at the sky. The sun was beginning to set. If you ignored everything trying to kill you—leeches, worms, panthers, and, well, humans—this place could almost pass for a nice vacation spot. It was quiet, with perfect weather, soft sand, calming waves, a stunning view, a virgin island, and... exotic fauna, though it would’ve been better without the deadly kind.
“What do you reckon, Houston? Should we go for the next leech and test if 49 is the limit?”
“I’ll ignore the stupidity of that question.”
Alonso chuckled and kept his attention on his makeshift setup, waiting patiently for the next leech to come. Truth be told, even if it wasn’t to prove the limit, he was also looking forward to gathering more of those orbs, physically that is. He had lost all they gained during his expedition with Abhijit, and he really wanted to study them.
So, he waited patiently. He knew the leeches took their time, sometimes with more than 15 minutes between one another. It also depended on how much blood he put in.
The breeze was calm, and lying prone, gazing at the waves, had a sort of relaxing, almost artistic presence to it.
As he settled into the rhythm of waiting, Alonso’s mind wandered back to the orbs. How could something so small and lightweight be so impossibly durable? And the way they interacted with his EM waves—well, they didn’t interact at all. The waves passed through them as if they didn’t exist, an ability that could have countless applications if he could figure out how it worked.
Alonso’s thoughts were interrupted by a faint ripple in the water, a subtle vibration that signaled another leech was approaching.
Here it comes, another one of those disgusting abominations. He watched calmly as the leech made its way toward the cleverly disguised rocks and the enticing bait of his blood. It moved quickly, unaware that it was about to become just another casualty in his relentless purge.
As it neared, Alonso’s sword was already in motion, slicing cleanly through the creature. The leech didn’t stand a chance. It was skewered like some alien equivalent of a sausage on a stick.
He extended his arm, catching the orb as it floated up. It remained solid in his hand, not absorbed.
“So, 49 is the limit. Note that down, Houston.”
“I reckon you could simply carve another scar to keep it as a reminder—if there’s any space left after all those others.”
“Oh, come on, Houston, tone it down already. You sound like the voice in the head of a 2000s emo kid.”
“Well…”
Alonso chuckled as he inspected the orb. Even with him stacking nine pulses together—his current limit—and considering how much his capacity had increased after Jonah and the leeches, poor Jonah, his high-frequency waves still couldn’t detect anything in the orb. It was completely invisible in the EM space. Interesting.
"An invincible little mystery, aren’t you?" he muttered to himself, rolling the orb between his fingers.
He sat down in the sand, cross-legged. There was still some time until nightfall, so he could practice a bit with the orb before going panther-hunting.
Something so hard and invisible to EM waves seemed like the perfect stealth weapon against another Jonah, but there were two major flaws. One, it could be absorbed by the other person, effectively handing them the orb. And two, even if the opponent had already reached the limit, the orb’s mass was so low that its momentum, even when thrown at high speeds, would be minimal.
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So Alonso’s main intention with the orb wasn’t as a weapon, not even as a distraction, but rather as a study material. If he could recreate its EM cloaking effect, making himself, his sword, or even rocks invisible to EM waves, it would give him a tremendous advantage. Anyone going up against him would lose the use of their most powerful sense, even if they had reached the stage of non-metallic 3D mapping.
He rolled the orb between his fingers, its eerie lightness and imperviousness to his EM waves drawing him deeper into thought. The sensation triggered a memory, a conversation from years ago during his Master’s program. One of his colleagues had been working on a project involving metamaterials designed for advanced electromagnetic cloaking. By then, EM cloaking had already been around for some years—since the late 2000’s—but the goal was to push beyond the basic principles, to create materials with broader applications, more effective cloaking across a wider range of frequencies.
He recalled how they had discussed the challenges involved—how manipulating the interaction between EM waves and matter required precise control over the material’s permittivity and permeability. By tweaking these properties, they could theoretically bend EM waves around an object, creating a cloaking effect. The trick was in achieving that control on a consistent, scalable level.
As he thought about it, Alonso wondered if the orb in his hand functioned on similar principles but at a level far beyond what he had studied. It was an intriguing thought, and it pushed him to try and replicate the effect using his EM waves.
He sat still, focusing his mind, trying to visualize the complex interactions needed. He sent out a pulse, carefully controlling its frequency and amplitude, attempting to create a field around a small rock beside him. The goal was to bend the EM waves around the rock, making it disappear from his EM perception. But as the wave passed through, it barely registered—a far cry from the complete invisibility of the orb.
He frowned, adjusting his approach. The principles were familiar, but the execution was proving far more challenging than expected. Alonso’s current ability to manipulate EM waves was like trying to sculpt with a blunt tool—it lacked the precision needed to achieve the desired effect. But he wasn’t discouraged. The challenge only deepened his stubborn researcher side.
He tried again, this time focusing on increasing the intensity and precision of the wave. The problem was that merging multiple pulses together—his main technique for increasing power and control—became exponentially harder with each additional pulse. The complexity increased not just in the amount of energy required but in maintaining the coherence of the waves, ensuring they interacted constructively rather than destructively.
Hours passed, the sun sinking lower in the sky as Alonso continued his work. His body ached from the earlier fight, and his mind was beginning to tire, but he pressed on. Wave after wave, pulse after pulse, he attempted to wrap the rock in a cloak of invisibility. He focused on the finer details, adjusting the frequency, tweaking the timing, and trying to keep the pulses in sync.
But the results were frustratingly minimal. While he was able to slightly reduce the rock’s EM signature, it was nowhere near the complete cloaking effect of the orb. It felt like he was trying to replicate a masterwork painting with nothing but a stick of charcoal.
After several hours, with the moon already high in the night sky, Alonso finally had to admit that replicating the orb’s effect was beyond him—at least for now. He hadn’t managed to recreate the cloaking field around the rock, but he had made some progress. His control over the EM waves had improved, and he had a better understanding of the challenges involved. Merging ten pulses together still eluded him, but he was getting closer.
He got up and stretched his aching body. While it had mostly recovered, there were still some lingering effects. That said, the fact that his body had reached this point in less than two days highlighted just how absurd his current regenerative capabilities were.
For some reason, that made him think back to how useful this would have been for the rock climbing he used to enjoy before the accident. With his enhanced EM perception and a body far beyond the level of any normal athlete, he might as well treat a 38 (AU grading) climbing route as a joke right now.
“A grade 4 was your limit back then. What the hell are you proud of?”
He shook his head with a smile on his face, pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind. All of that was a "what if" for after he managed to get out of here—if he ever could.
Then there was the stage progress. It had been bothering him, as he had been trying to correlate the stage progress with his physical and mental improvements, but the exact correlation still eluded him. He had compared his body since he came to the island (1.000%) to his current stage progress (1.407%). He would have expected a 40% increase, but the reality was that his body wasn’t much stronger than back then. Perhaps a 10% improvement? That said, a 10% increase was more significant than one might think. A 10% difference could be what separates a below-average athlete from a world champion.
And then there was the mind. He recognized that his mental acuity had increased at a faster pace than his physical strength, perhaps closer to that 40% increase, or maybe just slightly less. It was hard to quantify, at least for the current him.
He took a deep breath. There was still so much to do. But, following his plan, he would first maximize his stage progress and then start thinking about how to develop all those ideas he had. And for that… he stared at the night jungle: he needed to kill a lot of panthers.