Cal crashed head-first into the rock, crashing back down to the ground. “FUCK!” He yelled in pain. Nothing responded. The worst part of the crash was that this was his best attempt yet. He had actually touched the rock. He had been at this for weeks, and this was the first time he had managed to push himself high enough to come remotely near it.
The trick to this was to carefully charge the air particles around him, propelling himself as he did so. The problem was in the difficulty of aiming and retaining his focus as he pushed himself higher and higher. He didn’t like how slow his progress had been, but he also couldn’t argue with the results. His fine control of lighting had grown exponentially during this training, as had his ability to process the mana in his core.
Bolt had explained that these new lines he felt branching out of his core were mana channels. Apparently, their development was tied to how much mana he could store in his core and how efficiently he could push that mana around. Cal thought he would have preferred a magic system from any game to what he was working within reality.
He still felt like he wanted to die every time he emptied his core, which he was now trying to do as many times as possible a day. He was also now risking two fruit a week, against Bolt’s advice, but he needed to push forward. The attack at his house proved that things were changing, and he had to keep up.
The first time he had tried a second fruit in a week, he had only managed to get down half of it before crashing to the ground. Lightning had exploded out of his fingertips uncontrollably. It took him three hours to come down from that. The pain lasted for days. Nothing had been quite as bad as the first time, and he was planning to soon move up to a third fruit, but first, he needed to land on this damn rock.
Cal told himself to focus. He looked closely at the space between himself and the rock, concentrating on the particles that made up the air. He lifted his right foot and charged the particles below it. He did the same for his left. He did this step by step, slowly moving closer. Splitting his mana like this was causing his limbs to burn in pain. He ignored it and continued his climb.
He was nearly there. He reached out and touched it, moving closer. Now, he had both hands on it. This made the process easier. Step by careful step, he held the side of it as he climbed until finally he was standing on top of it. He jumped up and down in excitement.
“Bolt, I did it! I walked on air!” he yelled to his little friend, wherever she had gotten off to. He got no response, which wasn’t that unusual. She was likely busy with some monumental task of her own. She was connecting different pocket universes, after all. That was no easy feat.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out another fruit. This would be the third this week. With his recent success, he decided it was time and bit into the delicious apple-like object. The energy flowed into his core, pushing it to the point of bursting. Cal screamed in pain. He was worried he had made a mistake.
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He reached his hand out and fired as much lightning as he could deep into the sky. The energy continued to flow as he felt his pain increase. His core wasn’t bursting, but all the mana was coursing across his channels, creating new lines as old ones burst. His body was changing. The magic was becoming even more a part of him. He lifted his other arm and channeled more lightning through, desperately trying to discharge as much as he possibly could.
After hours of what felt like torture, Cal crashed, face forward onto the hard surface of the rock. He felt different, but he was too tired to understand why. He needed to sleep, and sleep he did.
“Cal, it’s time to wake up.” Cal heard a voice penetrating his slumber and forced himself awake. He was in the cabin bed. Bolt was next to him, floating in midair.
“Oh good, I’m alive. I wasn’t sure I was going to stay that way. I think I pushed my body too far.” His voice was hoarse. His fingers hurt. He realized Bolt had bandaged them.
“Yes, I don’t think you are exactly human anymore after that stunt. I can feel you much more closely now. Whatever you did to your core, I think you pulled in some of the ambient spiritual energy and rebuilt the damage to your body with it.” Her voice had concern in it.
“How bad am I?” He asked, worried about his ability to recover from this.
“Somehow, I think you are going to be fine. Your fingertips are burnt pretty badly, but they have been healing. I change the bandages daily. Your eyes changed, and I think that one is permanent. They are solid white now. I don’t think there are any other outward changes. I’m guessing you feel different inside, though.”
“Yeah, the magic doesn’t feel like something I need to drag out of my core anymore. It feels like it is just flowing inside me, almost like a river under my skin. Wait, you said daily?! How long have I been out?” He asked in shock.
“A few months. I tried to force-feed you at first, but it looks like you don’t really need to eat or breathe any more, either. I do not know if that will continue when you leave here and return to a less mana-dense area.”
“Well, hopefully, it lasts. If I don’t need to breathe, this should make space travel much easier.” Cal tried to smile. It hurt his head. “I think I’m going back to sleep for now, Bolt. I’m still exhausted.”
“It’s for the best. You need to let your body continue to regrow all the damaged pathways. Once that’s done, we can see just what you are capable of.”
Cal fell into another sleep.
It took years of slowly rebuilding his strength, but he was reasonably sure he was now back to where he had been the day he landed on the rock. Bolt guided him to a safe place to try a complete discharge of his powers.
And try, he did. He fired every bit of lightning he could, over and over. He dropped explosive balls. He chained blasts across the sky. It took him nearly three hours to feel his core empty. He had radically improved his channeling abilities. Dumb stunt or not, it had paid off. He thought he was entirely was ready to defend Dallas.