Eli found himself lying flat on his back in front of the doubled doors of the Crucible. Notifications cluttered his vision from his murder spree, but they made little sense to him while he read. Shouldn't the numbers be higher or did it not count the ones he forced to kill each other? He forced himself to his feet with a wince at the deep ache that split down his spine from the base of his skull. Lumencloud mist wept off his skin before he caught himself and reabsorbed it.
Lumencloud Fortification and Enchanter's Dominion felt strained, as if he'd pushed them farther than they were capable. He swapped out Lumencloud Fortification for Hyper-Regeneration with a wobble as the strength of his foundation got swept out from underneath him. Relief washed over and through him as he walked over to the elevator and opened the doors with a muted ding. He leaned against the wall while he hardened node of space to push the button to take him up.
While Hyper-Regeneration worked its magic on his body, he felt like the power asked him a series of questions. It was far more passive than Restoration had been, but he could direct it within those bounds when it worked. It wanted to know if he wanted to modify his frayed nervous system so it wouldn't be overloaded from the same amount of stimuli, if he wanted his muscles grown denser for more immediate power or built for endurance. On and on the list went, as he tried to keep everything as balanced as possible until it asked him the final questions.
More water retention?
More lung efficiency?
Real physiological light storage?
Eli smiled while he confirmed all three, then grunted as his body squirreled away far more water than it had originally across his system. His ribs seemed to expand as his lungs swelled, then shrunk down. A shimmering mass seemed to wriggle across all his skin tissue as it expelled foul smelling muck with a series of stinging tears that rapidly healed. He vanished all the dark muck into his voidspace and marveled at his mostly normal, seeming skin. He used Body of Light to pull light away from his right arm and watched as the skin turned almost translucent while it visibly refilled with light.
Then it was normal again.
He walked out of the elevator and blinked at the sight of Dorian boxing with one of the training equipment that had transformed itself into an exact replica of Dorian. It wore the same athletic clothes and even had the same pair of headphones in his ears. They were both flushed from exertion and sweat seeped through his tank top, but not the replica’s.
Eli considered saying something when he noticed that Hyper-Regeneration had leveled up twice.
He must have made some kind of noise since Dorian flew through the air until he stood opposite of him with a wild look in his eyes that calmed. Dorian's fist stopped an inch away from Eli's face. All the redness and sweat had vanished. Barriers of force sprang around them, trapping Eli in before that too disappeared.
"Herbert. You startled me." Dorian nodded while he eyed him up and down. "Were you in the Crucible?"
"Yeah. I did a solo run." Eli shrugged nonchalantly, even though his heart pounded in his chest to the point that Hyper-Regeneration wordlessly asked him if he wanted to improve his cardiovascular system. He accepted with a shiver. "Tied with the Colossal Titan Spider."
"Wait. You ran the whole three tiers by yourself?" Dorian eyed him with begrudging respect. "How'd you do?"
"It was hard." Eli admitted, while Dorian chuckled.
"I sure hope so. Did you break your build or did something finalize?"
"Nah, I just wanted a challenge." Eli shrugged. He couldn't help but feel like he was drowning in the conversation full of context he had no way of knowing how to navigate.
"So you did a full delve solo instead of a solo challenge?" Dorian shook his head with a scoff. "Alright, well, if you were in the dungeon, you'll probably want to get dinner while you still can. I'll let you go."
"Dinner?" Eli blinked before he noticed that his phone had blown up with texts and missed calls from both Roman and Hazel. He had more notifications from his family and apparently Maeve had gotten assigned a case in a town nearby called Little Anchor. She was going to be here tomorrow and Herbert's parents were coming in a week for a quick vacation before they headed home after finals were over.
"How long were you in there?" Dorian asked with a frown.
"Noon."
"Shit, man. Be careful. I'd hate for you to get kicked off the team because you let classes slip." He walked back over to the dummy that had paused mid-blow.
Eli hurried over to the door to the staircase before running up a few stairs until he was fully out of sight before he teleported to the landing on the first floor to sprint down the halls. Multiple people milled around in the various rooms, both for private and public use. He pushed himself harder until he shot out of the facility doors and continued to sprint through campus toward the dorm room.
While he ran, he did damage control.
He sent text messages rapid-fire to acknowledge Herbert's parents and their change of plans, to set up a meeting with Maeve at the Pandemonium Cafe. He apologized to both Roman and Hazel by saying he had been in a Delve that had gone on too long, then skidded to a stop with a wince at Roman's lone response.
WE'RE AT THE LIBRARY.
Eli rushed over until he stood lightly panting in front of the library's imposing doors. His backpack appeared out of his voidspace on his back while he took a deep calming breath and stepped inside. Study rooms cluttered the sides of the room surrounding an impressive lobby of sorts with various computers and terminals. Staff worked quietly at the circulation desk. A bulletin board showed which collection was on each floor.
He checked his phone again and started running up the stairs to take him up to the sixth floor, which was the predominant study area. Before too long, he found Roman and Hazel at a table together in a secluded corner with three other people. Eli kept the frown from his face when he recognized them. Gerald and Jane, Les's friends, were there, but so was Lacey Blake.
Eli marched over to the table with a growing sense of unease. Why was Lacey there? Was she mad about him winning, or was this completely unrelated?
"Of course you were Delving." Hazel smirked at him once he reached the table. She moved her bag off the table in front of the chair next to her and set it down beside her. He took the obvious hint and sat down next to her with a smile. She had her laptop open in front of her while she worked on some sort of simulation software that had her city model spread out in different layers.
"I thought it'd be quick." Eli shrugged with a wry smile while he turned to study Jane, who had pages of schematics and designs scattered in front of her and Roman. Gerald sat next to her with a textbook and laptop open in front of him, which seemed to be long forgotten in favor of the handheld game console he was playing on. Lacey sat at the foot of the table directly across from Roman and she had a single page in front of her covered with precise scribbles that were beyond cryptic.
"I can't believe you won the debate and took the power immediately to go Delving." Lacey scoffed derisively as she laid her pencil down. Her eyes narrowed behind her lenses as she glanced at him, then at Roman as if she noticed something different or odd about them. "I have to say... you seem different, Herbert. You've lost approximately 12.69% of your muscle mass along with a few other significant changes. "
"Lacey." Jane said warningly as she pointed her pen at her. Lacey shook her head.
"No, I don't get it. You're also 0.6858 centimeters shorter." Her eyes flitted back and forth while her lips moved silently. "There are other inconsistencies, but the math isn't lining up."
"What are you getting at?" Hazel asked gruffly.
"I'm not sure yet, but I'll let you know once I figure it out." She turned to pin Roman with the same piercing stare. "I don't know what your numbers were before, but there are still irregular variables present on you. It's the same set of numbers screaming out at me from both of you."
"Leave them alone, Lace." Gerald said as he set his game down and frowned at her. The screen flickered and flashed as the joysticks and buttons moved with nearly silent tapping clicks. "You already cried to mom and dad about losing the debate and not getting the power even though you couldn’t use it past evo-0. And I already told you I disagreed with your take. You're obsessed with overspecialization."
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"As if you'd understand, Ger. You take any power that seems remotely interesting. You only have a mediocre Body of Light and your build is a fucking mess! Everyone pats you on the back and says you'll do fine, but oh no, I have to have my build perfect front and back. It doesn't matter. I shouldn't have lost and there's something wrong about them!" She hissed while she looked at each of them, even him and Roman, as if she expected any of them to have an epiphany and point out what it was or to step in and defend her. No one did.
She left in a huff.
"Sorry about that, guys. She hyper-focuses on whatever she doesn't understand." He shook his head before nodding at Eli. "So, you got that Charge power, huh? Any idea what you want to do with it?"
"I have some ideas, but I'm not really sure." Eli admitted while he tried to put the awkwardness of what had happened out of mind. He pulled up his status and trimmed down the other notification, so it was only his new power options. "One second."
[Stats:
Body: Light (Photon Shot)
Perks Equipped: [Might]
Mind: None
Will: None
]
[Equipped Power List:
Slot One -- Enchanter's Dominion Ev. 0/Lv. 4
Slot Two -- Hyper-Regeneration Ev. 0/Lv. 3
Slot Three -- Voidspace Horizon Ev. 2/Lv. 0
Perks Equipped: [Subspace]
]
[Unequipped Powers:
Lumencloud Fortification Ev. 0/Lv. 5 (Maxed)
Charge Ev. 0/Lv. 0
]
[Unequipped Perks:
Blight
]
Terranean Proprioception Ev. 1 (x 800) Terranean Sovereignty Ev. 3 (x 1) Titan’s Vault Ev. 3 (x 1) You may select from one of the following options: Siphon Power Experience Gain a Power Perk Obtain Power from the Conquered > Eli looked over the list again with a frown. Charge would let him build up and release potentially any kind of energy. That would be a huge addition, but he didn't need it as an additional power. He'd almost rather break it down into a perk along with his other three new power options and see what he could make and then push the rest where they belonged. Proprioception, for instance, would be a huge help if he put it into either Body of Light or Voidspace Horizon. He looked into Titan's Vault then smiled as he felt its impression bloom in his mind. There was no way he was taking it as it was with how the penalties would last until he leveled it to the same level it had been when he'd gotten it. He had no idea what that would be like with a 'condensed' power. But it'd let him create an alternative space like his voidspace, but it was a real place and anything he stored in it could be copied and changed. If he stored a rock in it, he'd be able to shape and enlarge it as well as allow him to create multiple copies of it. It'd be a great tag on to Voidspace Horizon, but he felt like if he dismantled it for perks, he could flip it another way. Terranean Sovereignty was all about absolute control over the other, mixed with a domain power. What would happen if he merged whatever perks he could get from it together? He dismantled them down into perks with growing satisfaction at what he picked for each of them: Proprioception Absolute Sovereignty Demispace Vault> Eli declined it before he studied his available perks again. The way this potential power was shaping up felt like it'd be an obvious power merge for Enchanter's Dominion. He added Might and tried it both with and without Proprioception, but he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the result. What would happen if he broke Charge down? He glanced at it again while he bit his lip. As it stood now, it was an open book on how it'd progress and evolve, but he'd need to max it out and merge it with something else to be useful in the first place. He dismantled it. Charge Energy Store Release> All three were obvious, but had interesting results when removed from the other. Charge would pack in whatever he sent it without fail until it was forced to break free without a way to store or vent it. Store was a bit of a wild card with how it relied on the other two perks to give it a function, but he felt like it could have an interesting effect on the resulting power. Release would be a full release or incremental release of whatever something had stored. If he found ways to use it, it could be a very useful aspect to add to a power. Eli was leaning toward picking Store or Release though. Charge could have its uses, especially since Store would only allow an instant storage without further boosting or accumulation of whatever was stored. While Release would probably let him push whatever power it became attached to that much harder. He chose Store. It fit what Warmonger's Vault seemed to be pushing toward, but it'd also potentially let him store more dubious things such as enchantments or more conceptual objects. Would you like to equip it? Y/N> He looked at his powers eagerly while he tried to figure out which one he wanted to swap it out with, but both Enchanter's Dominion and Hyper-Regeneration were close to getting maxed out. It was only a difference of one or two levels. There was no way he was unequipping Voidspace Horizon, especially not after he equipped [Proprioception] into it. Clarity streamlined his spatial field around him, turning the grainy silhouette field into a colorless second sight, but more like touch. Avaricious Vault took Hyper-Regeneration's place. Enchanter's Dominion was far closer, and he felt like this would help him. Instantly, he felt a sense of another place weigh on his mind and body. It felt like he could slip inside of it just like he could fall into his voidspace, but it felt different too. It was empty, but he it begged to be filled. "Does anyone have a pencil?" Eli asked as he pulled his backpack open and searched while he prepared to teleport an old yellow wooden pencil that he'd packed into a spatial bubble ages ago when he first learned how to create spatial bubbles. "Yeah, here." Jane picked up one of the spare mechanical pencils she had lying next to their designs and schematics that she tossed at him. The instant it touched his hand, he felt the new path leading to Avaricious Vault for him to send it down. It vanished from his palm to reappear inside the space in Avaricious Vault. A plinth rose from the darkness to cradle the pencil as if it were a prized artifact. He tried to summon it then frowned as a copy of the pencil appeared in his hand instead. When he let go, it crumbled to dust that disintegrated further until there was nothing left. "Is that a new power?" Gerald asked as he leaned forward. "Decided to finally move away from the plasma, ice, and storm theme, huh?" Eli noted that combination down while he nodded. "Called Avaricious Vault, I dismantled Charge for it, but I'm trying to figure it out." "So... I'm not getting my pencil back?" Jane shot him a dour look alongside the incredulous stare Roman sent his way. Eli couldn't help but notice how close they were sitting, but he couldn't really say anything considering that his shoulder was practically brushing Hazel's. "Um..." Another copy of the mechanical pencil appeared in his hand that collapsed upon itself the instant he let go of it. "Maybe not?" "Try this!" Gerald practically bounced in his seat as he rummaged through his backpack before he pulled out a crumpled notebook that he ripped a doodled on page out of. Eli took it and watched as it vanished into the vault too. Another plinth rose from the darkness to hold the next most prized junk in the universe. He summoned the crumpled ball while he tilted his head. "Can you write on it?" Hazel asked with a small nod. Another pencil appeared in his hand while he tried to write on the page, but it tore then disintegrated when he tried to color in a part of it. Irritation flashed through him. All he wanted was a smooth sheet of paper to— The page in Avaricious Vault changed as it flattened and all the micro-tears and smudges of graphite disappeared. He summoned a blank sheet of paper that he drew a small picture of a basic house with a sun that his mom would've been proud to put on the fridge eighteen years ago, but probably wouldn't care to now. Hazel touched the paper hesitantly once he stopped and he felt a question from the power. He accepted and watched as she took it before his connection to it severed and it vanished. It had only lasted for a few moments, but what if he wanted to give it up? He created another copy of paper and set it down with a smile when it didn't disappear along with the same pencil as before. Ideas started spinning in his mind. "Quick, give me another sheet of paper." Eli took it from Gerald while he pushed Enchanter's Dominion and some light from Body of Light into it. Another plinth rose next to the other piece of paper as it vanished. He summoned a copy discretely as he willed it to break down before appearing as a small rush of light reabsorbed into his body. Darkness vanished from Avaricious Vault as he stored light inside of it too. "Huh, I was able to store light..." Eli muttered as he tried to summon both light and the regular sheet of paper, then yelped as the paper smoldered harmlessly on his palm before they both vanished into Avaricious Vault as well. His eyes widened as fire got its own place of recognition. He looked up at the alarmed stares from everyone as he beamed. "How much do you want for it?" Gerald leaned forward desperately as he stared at him. "It's not for sale." Eli said as he tried to summon a paper folded in the shape of a pencil and it appeared. This was going to be revolutionary for him, especially if he figured out how to do more than scratch the surface of what it could do. Plinths and displays sprouted from the dim light of the vault as he shoved everything he didn't mind losing into it from his hoard of spatial bubbles in his voidspace. He wished he could... oh. Eli stuck his hand into the vault and ignored everyone's exclamations when his hand vanished, then reappeared with Jane's mechanical pencil held in it. He set it down with a wide smile. He summoned a shimmering calculator out of the vault and smiled as he felt the lumencloud enchantments double and persist. Enchanter's Dominion flared out as he tried to snuff the enchantment out and push it over back into the original, but instead, he watched as the calculator teleported into the vault where it doubled with the original. He felt the enchantment double in strength along with the material as it was refined. Lumencloud Fortification Ev. 0 Enchanter's Dominion Ev. 0 You may now select from one of the following options: Evolve Power Merge Power Obtain New Power> This was going to be fun. Only two powers left to max out. He swapped Enchanter’s Dominion out for Hyper-Regeneration, then frowned at the cooldown message.