"Hey! Wake up! you have slept long enough!

*Thud! *

Sorin woke to someone shouting then a sharp kick to the side.

"Oof! What was that for?!" Sorin said opening his eyes only to immediately regret it. His head immediately felt like it was going to split open. He squinted around as the light of the day was blinding. "What was that for...he asks. What do you think it was for, you daft bastard?" Linx replied. "You have been asleep for two days after doing the one thing we asked you not to do. Remember what that was?" Sorin sat up.

"Umm....no more explosions?" Sorin replied. "Yeah, no shit! Then what do you do? You create the not only a bigger explosion, but one that I have not ever seen before, shaking the ground like a damn earthquake and ruining a supply source." Sorin just sat there quietly taking all of this in fighting a splitting headache.

"I slept for two days. Why?!" Sorin asked concerned for the lost time. "We can only speculate as to why, but Cain thinks you severely overdrew your aether pulling from your body tier to make up the difference. Try moving and see if you feel weaker."

Sorin pushed his hands down and went to get up and noticed an immediate difference. He pulled just his rating stats up and was stunned.

Body: 38/50

Mind: 50/50

Spirit: 50/50

Sorin just stared at his body rating. "How much did you lose?" Linx asked. "12 points." Sorin numbly replied still shocked.

Linx let out a whistle. "Whatever you did pulled the remaining aether you had in your core but needed more so it pulled from your body setting you back from the sounds of it, quite a bit back."

"No kidding, it was terrible getting to that point, now I have to do it again." Sorin said offhandedly. He knew it was a simple process, but tedious to infuse his body but wanted to see what his body looked like missing that much aether infusion. He looked and saw that his skin was drained of its aether and it pulled from his blood quite a bit. He needed to reinfuse that power, but at least now he knew he had a costly reserve that he could pull from for absolute emergencies.

"Don't make a habit of drawing power from your body." Linx said reading the contemplative look on Sorin's face. Had you have reached zero in body; it would have killed you."

Sorin nodded. It made sense, and kind of scared him a bit.

"On the bright side." A voice from up above said. It was Cain looking down at them both. "We went down after you pulled your little stunt and found some additional gear from that one group we confronted at the lake. Apparently, they were following us. We now have two more healing droughts and some extra gear like our own. The tarps were damaged from debris but can still be used somewhat."

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Sorin slowly turned. He was back at the camp they set up. "I want to see the area for myself."

"I have no idea what you did, but it was powerful. The lake is still recovering." Cain said. Sorin began to slowly make his way to the other side of the hill. The weakness in his body made him feel so heavy and slow.

He eventually made it and was stunned by what he saw. There was a massive crater that was slowly filling up with water. The bank of the lake showed it was an extremely deep crater. He looked around the crater itself and moving 50-100 feet away from the lake all the trees were laid flat down. There was what appeared to be molten slag what was once a rocky shore.

His teammates looked in silence with him. "Yeah...we still haven't gotten used to this. A tier 2 shouldn't have been able to do that." Cain said. "I've heard of devastation like this from a tier 5 maybe. Some of our house elites could pull something like this off maybe."

Sorin saw a blinking in his vision and pulled up the notification. Perhaps there was more information.

Congratulations

You have learned the skill:

Thermal Ion Cannon(a) - A super-compressed beam of superheated aether followed by a massive thermal detonation. Requires an extreme amount of aether. Requires a long charge time. Warning: Will overdraw into the body if not enough aether is present within core.

Sorin smiled at that new skill, but then noticed a red icon blinking.

Warning!

Core unable to supply appropriate aether. Pulling from body.

Aether required: 240 AP

12 points removed from Body to sustain user.

Sorin closed the notification. "Well, that answered those questions. Yeah, you were right Cain. It pulled from my body and gave me the notification for it. Apparently, it needed 240 more AP than what I had available. After all my testing and skill collection last night I must not have had enough for that."

Linx and Cain both nodded as if saying "duh." Sorin turned and began to walk toward them. "Do we have any food still available? I'm pretty hungry and thirsty. I also need to begin restoring my body stats while I'm at it."

"Yeah man, we have food. We had to range further to find food because of the blast, but there is food in the new pack we have, and your water skin is there. We topped it off while you were out." Linx said.

"We also would like to move from this position as soon as possible. We have been here too long." Cain said.

"That would be smart. We can leave the traps in place in case someone was tracking us." Sorin said. "I'm strong enough to move out after I eat and drink something. I will fix by body back up when we stop. I have my new techniques so I can fight from a distance now."

Linx and Cain looked at him bewildered. "Absolutely not with us anywhere near that shit. Especially if you use whatever did that to the lake! If we fight, you're not using any of those techniques man." Linx responded in one of the most serious tones Sorin had ever heard.

"Fine....fine. I'll run defense for you guys until I get back what I lost." Sorin said. "You act like it's simple to get it back...you have to physically train it back. It set you back a long time with those twelve points." Cain told him.

"Yeah, I have my ways, I'll be fine." Sorin said as they returned to the camp.

He went into the pack with their food and pulled some meat out and some water. He picked up his own pack with the rest of the guys as they snatched theirs's up with the additional packs and they left their hill camp with Sorin munching and drinking away thinking about all the stuff he gained.