CHAPTER 66: New Skill

Body and Soul Shaping

This is a unique skill created by Adam Clemens.

This skill is powered by the holder and cannot be controlled or altered by the [System]. Created by using his memories of opposing and conflicting classes, this skill allows the holder to manipulate the shape of the channels between his soul and body. The stronger the holder’s understanding of this skill, the greater control he will have over the power and variety of shaping that can be done.

Adam sat there dumbfounded for a moment. He had a skill. There was finally something in his various status windows! Maybe he was moving towards having a class and being able to level up. Hope bloomed in his chest.

Then a new window appeared.

New Title earned:

Skill Crafter

You have created a new skill, something very few have done in the history of the [System]. Your understanding of how skills work has increased and you are now 10% more likely to create another skill in the future. This title is cumulative and will continue to improve each time a new skill is created.

New Title earned:

Unique Skill Crafter

You are one of a handful of people within the [System] to create a skill entirely separate from the [System]. This skill is shaped to your own soul and experiences. It cannot be replicated or used by another without them going through the same process as you. This title gives a 20% increase to the power of all skills.

Adam’s arms shot into the air. A feel of accomplishment filled him. He smiled as widely as possible. A skill and new titles! There were finally other ways for him to get quantifiably stronger. He could use these bonuses as a steppingstone to craft more skills. The sky was the limit to what he could make, and each one would give him more power.

…error. Soul corruption found. Unable to assign benefits of titles.

“Damnit all!” Adam bellowed, temporarily closing his connections to the girls before his rage and disappointment seeped through them. Heat throbbed through his body and Adam had to breathe deeply while pulling on the coolness in his mind to keep his river from boiling.

Getting out of bed, Adam went to his juice fridge and chugged some orange juice. He went outside and sat by his pool, concentrating on the fake night sky and looking out at the newly formed buildings. Now that he thought about it, there had been more people, especially soldiers, moving around when they got back. Adam hadn’t noticed at the time, since he was more preoccupied with returning from the raid, but now that he looked back maybe he had missed the obvious.

A display window was brought up showing places within the rift and Adam zoomed it around the rift base. Most of the new buildings did seem military in use. There was a second training building, almost like a stadium, and more barrack style buildings. Quite a few more. Yeah, Adam was going to need to check on that tomorrow.

Once Adam had distracted himself enough to calm down, he went back to considering the skill and titles. Somehow he had created a skill that was his alone, independent of the [System]. He had done this when he felt the power inside him burning his own body. It had happened more than once, and at that moment he had realized that the power was coming from his soul and that his body was unable to handle it. A metaphoric faucet, or control, had been created by him to regulate the soul and body connections.

It had only been once he had recognized the source and destination of the power, and the separation of his physical being from his soul space. That brought up the question of why he was able to visit and manipulate his soul at all.

“Created by using his memories of opposing and conflicting classes…”

Opposing and conflicting classes, the description said. He knew that what he called the “coolness” and the “heat” couldn’t coexist. They could get out of each other’s way, but they couldn’t work directly together. It was also obvious that the coolness allowed his manipulation of the soul while the heat powered his physical body. That much he had figured out long ago.

This skill said what those were though. Memories of classes. Why did he have memories of a class? And more than one at that. If they were memories of classes, could he watch them within his memory space? Could he learn more about the classes and the skills?

A simple line, half of it confirming what he knew, but the rest giving him much to think about and experiment on. Adam already suspected that he was learning skills, but without the flashes of red indicating skills triggering, he also knew that they weren’t skills. It was as if he was forcing his body and mind to do the equivalent of skills, though probably worse than if they were real.

Memories. If they were memories of skills, maybe it was like trying to recreate a move that a pro athlete made, but without the training or body capability. Maybe that was even why his body had been burning up when the river raged. If the power summoned in his soul couldn’t be handled by his body and soul because he wasn’t trained for it, then would it be possible to train himself?

His new skill was a faucet for the power. If he turned the faucet as low as possible and then did normal physical training, then could he handle the pseudo-skills better? Could he get stronger that way?

It also raised the question about the amount of power in his soul. His soul was head and shoulders more powerful than his body. He could only pull on a certain amount of that power or it escaped from his body, damaging it as it went. That meant he could get stronger. Much stronger. How powerful would he be if he could use 100% of the river’s might?

Soul space at capacity.

That was what he had been told when trying to select a class. If it was at capacity, and with the memories of more than one class, then there was already a lot of power in there. Probably a lot of remembered skills too. He just needed the means to identify it and use it all.

There was hope here. Not only was there hope, but if his ideas proved correct then he could build himself into something separate from the [System]. The [System] that he felt was suspect and responsible for the invaders arriving on Earth. It might have unlocked all this, but if he could shape his own skills and create his own power, then he might be the only being within the [System] who could be free of its influence.

Adam was left with three main questions:

1. Why did he have memories of classes in his soul?

2. How could he unlock the skills and power from these memories, or create new skills of equal power?

3. What else could he use his new skill, [Body and Soul Shaping], to do?

The best place to start seemed to be looking into his own memories. Adam had been into a few memory areas inside of others but never looked within his own. As he entered it, his mind perceived it as visual objects even though it was all just non-physical essence within his soul.

The memories appeared to him as rocks. Some were smooth, some jagged. Others were rounded, while more jutted out from any particular angle. Connections could be felt between some of the memories, as they lead off to further ones. All the memories floated in a massive glittery dust cloud.

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Distance between the memories had no meaning as they continually shifted location, looking far but within reach, while others looked close but took effort to arrive at. From the other spaces Adam had been in, he knew the most recent memories were formed in the middle of the soul space sectioned off for the memories. The memories closest to the borders of the area were the furthest and often lacked much detail.

Adam wasn’t sure what he was looking for here, although he knew it would be something that he hadn’t seen before. He allowed himself to drift, following the connections between memories. Occasionally he would touch one and relive a moment of his life. It was so surreal being able to experience a past moment, but instead of a video it used all five senses.

Eventually he drifted to a memory that was shaped oddly. The memory shape was jagged on one half, but cut smooth on the other, as if it was only half a memory. Out of curiosity Adam touched it.

“Why did you…” he started but was unable to finish as a gunshot rang out and pain bloomed in his neck. It was all Adam could do to steady himself, swaying dangerously. Wet heat poured down his whole body, coming from his destroyed carotid artery on the left side. His eyes watered and glazed over. The river boiled.

Adam tried to speak one last time, but his neck was so damaged that even his vocal cords would not work. The muscles on his neck were having trouble holding up his head. Blood was seeping into his throat and lungs. He tried to breath in and failed to, uncontrollably weak. Air would not fill his lungs. What should have been a roar came out as a hiss.

Inside himself, the river grabbed Adam’s consciousness and pulled him under. The feeling of choking and suffocating was felt as he was pulled into the intangible rapid waters, unsure if the sensation was coming from his body or mind, and that was the last thing Adam felt.

Just as his friends were about to reach Adam, he moved one foot forward and in one single move…stepped…all the way to the police officer. It was about 30 feet away. He went from one place to another without having to cross the space.

Adam removed himself from the memory. Previously when he touched a person’s memories, he would become a part of them, taking on the person’s role and thoughts until it finished. In this case Adam was experiencing his own, but also aware that they weren’t the current him. He was surprised how easy it was to back out of them.

This particular memory was the first time he had used the teleport step. He hadn’t been conscious when it happened, which might explain why the memory shape looked like part of it had been cut out. You can’t remember what you weren’t aware of. However, clearly his body had remembered something to use the step without him. Or maybe the river had already been drawing from its own class memory, which contained the knowledge of the teleport step.

Adam flew off in the direction that this memory connected to. He would see if there was a purpose to these connections. It took longer to move along it, which made him ponder how time worked when he was in here. Was he moving at the speed of thought or did time shift as each action in here represented a concept more than anything tangible.

As he approached the end of the connection, he noticed that he had reached the boundary of his memory area. It was immediately clear that this was something different. The connection with the last memory touched something that was not one of his memories. It was not conceptualized as rock, like his other memories. This one looked like a congealed splatter of blood.

The blood memory was also only halfway within the boundary. Memories usually floated and moved within this space, but this memory looked trapped, caught in the boundary and unable to move. Adam could see the connection between this memory and his last watched memory changing angles constantly as the previous memory shifted around in his mind.

There was no hesitation or questioning in Adam as he reached out and touched this memory.

Adam ran through a jungle. He was breathing heavily. The trees didn’t provide much space for his massive body, but the enemies were all around. He called for the skill in his mind, [Gladiator’s Approach], then there was a flash of red and he appeared in the sky where a battle drone flew. An enormous explosion of his power radiated out when his skill had reached the drone and …

… Adam was thrown from the memory.

He would have taken a huge breath if he had his body in here. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if his body outside had taken a deep breath. That was definitely not one of his memories. He guessed that the memory being stuck half in and half out of his space was why he was able to connect to it to use his teleport step, or rather [Gladiator’s Approach].

The skill in this memory was much more powerful than his. That explosion of power at the end might have been a self-buff or a literal energy release. Either way, the man in the memory had felt so much more powerful than Adam ever had. The very thought of that much power caused him to shiver.

Adam picked a direction and drifted in it. He made sure to stay near the boundary of his memory space. It didn’t take him long to find another blood splatter shaped memory that was half in and half out of his boundary. He touched it.

Hundreds of lizard-like men surrounded Adam. Their faces were flatter and their arms more human like, with opposable thumbs. Every single one had some type of rifle looking weapon aimed at him. The numbers were great, and Adam could feel their power, but it was nothing compared to the power he felt inside himself.

Adam filled his lungs with energy, opened his mouth, and then he used [Incapacitation Shout]. Every one of the lizard men began shaking, unable to move. Some fell, others had their ear membranes burst with yellow blood oozing out. Adam knew it would last for at least half a minute against such weak enemies.

Yeah, [Incapacitating Shout] definitely blew away the power of his own roar, Adam thought as he fell from the blood memory. One thing he was confident of was that both those memories were from the same person.

Adam wondered what would happen if the memory moved past the boundary and fully into his memory space. He moved himself closer to the boundary. It wasn’t like the boundary could hold him, it was meant to hold memories, so he drifted out of it with no additional sensation. Once out of it, he tried pushing the memory through the boundary. It didn’t move.

Of course it didn’t move! This wasn’t a physical space. He tried willing it forward, tried blasting it with a mental bolt, tried reshaping his own boundary. He even tried just thinking happy thoughts. Nothing moved it.

Looking around Adam noted other blood splatter memories fully outside of the boundary. He reached for them and touched them, but nothing triggered them. On this side of the boundary, they weren’t memories. Somehow, they had to be draw in. Currently Adam had no clue how to do that.

Adam was about to float around more, to see if he could find something, but then he noticed a ripple inside himself. Something was happening to his body. When he entered his soul, he had been comfortable on a floating chair in his pool. He sure hoped he hadn’t fallen off it. Adam willed himself back to his body.

“…m.” The voice sounded far away and muffled.

“…dam.” The voice was closer now and sounded concerned.

“ADAM! WAKE UP, DAMNIT!” The voice was right in his ear, full volume, and someone was shaking him.

Adam opened his eyes as fast as possible. “Youch! I’m here! Calm down!”

Brittney was staring into his eyes, face close to his, breathing heavily, and she was panicky. “Adam, are you alright?”

He looked behind her to where a pool skimmer lay, probably used to pull him to the edge of the pool.

“Yeah, Brittney. I’m alright.” Her strength was so great that she was able to yank him off the floating seat and into a tight hug. She sniffled a little.

“You didn’t respond and that wasn’t sleep. I was really worried.”

“Sorry, Brittney,” he apologized with genuine regret at making her worry. Then he realized the connection to her was plugged so she hadn’t felt his regret. He unplugged it and she softened her grip on him a bit.

“We were worried something happened. All our connections stopped feeling you, though we knew our feelings still went through.”

“Sorry, I was doing an experiment, and I didn’t want it to accidentally affect you guys,” he admitted.

Adam had learned quite a bit about himself tonight and felt certain that he shouldn’t tell anyone about it. The supposedly beautiful woman who mind controlled was still after him, and the rifts clearly could do more than he knew. It wasn’t safe to even let this knowledge into someone else’s head. He would keep this to himself until it couldn’t be used to harm him, or his friends.

Brittney gave him a deep kiss. It was better than the first one she had planted on him, though it still had her own style and personality to it compared to other’s kisses. Their practice had paid off.

“Please warn us next time. You’re too important for us not to be here for you.”

“I’m sorry about that. It just kind of came to me in the night. Either way, I’m fine. Tired, but fine. You were right, that wasn’t sleep.”

“Well, as long as you’re fine,” Brittney squirmed a little and then stood up. “Ok then, what are we doing today?”

“We?” Adam asked a bit confused.

“After what happened yesterday and last night, we drew lots to see who would spend the day with you. I won!” Brittney pumped her fist in victory, in a super cute way, and her smile was as bright as the not yet risen fake rift sun. Adam gave her another kiss. He was suddenly very much looking forward to the day.