Chapter 19: Shadow skills

Fortunately for Adam only a few minutes had passed in the outside world, and he was yet to be discovered.

QUEST COMPLETED

Absorb the essence of a life form

Absorb the essence of any life form into your body using an ability

You have abilities, learn how to utilise them!

Congratulations!

You have Ability Points to assign.

Adam’s eyes flutter and he is disorientated to start with. His body swinging juddering and his forehead pressed against the cold metal of a rail. He’s starting to get Déjà vu but upside down is a different vu he supposes. He tries to stretch, rolls his neck then starts to pull himself painstakingly upright by pulling on the metal rails on the side of the shaft. Strangely he feels fine. More than fine he feels like everything is one smooth ride.

“Ok, Adam I’m sorry about this but Meca reminded me of something that I should have thought about earlier. You have been seriously affected by your Acclimatization ability. The reason you weren’t before was that you were always in the vicinity of the ship. May it rest in pieces?” Bones said sternly, as a parent should.

Meca had nailed the issue on the head, or should it be screwed the problem down. As the engineering AI in charge of all Ship board maintenance. He knew every one of the ships systems inside out. Apparently, experimentation on trying to enhance non-magics to use magic, was not Dr Miles only field of endeavour, in his race to save his race.

Magic had been a major problem for more than one reason for the Galtans. Firstly as a technologically advanced civilisation they were not prepared for the effects of magic. Disaster. In was well known throughout the multi-verse that magic stopped old tech from functioning properly. The Galtan star-system had never received the memo on this and so were completely unprepared. Most of their initial planetary level defences failed in the first probing wave of attacks from the factions of the multiverse. Causing billions of their forces to be annihilated in the first few hours alone.

So Dr Miles tried and succeeded to create a magic resistant barrier. Employing the first prototype on his spaceship. This had effectively erased Adam’s abilities. Except for identify. Maybe because it involved communication with the system and not manipulation of other things. At least that was the only logical explanations Bones or any others could come up with at the moment. The system connection had not been effected at all. Dr Miles prototype was only partially successful in that respect.

Acclimatization seemed to have come into full force, on leaving the ship. Making Adam function like he was on novocaine, 592 shots of it to be precise. This then of course was turned up quite a few notches when Libby added further juice to the ability to try and save Adam’s life. Libby and since reset things and it was now Bone’s job to try and talk him down. Was that even possible?

“You are not able to sense danger or react to life threatening situations as a normal human would. You don’t fear situations and you don’t fear pain. It would seem.” Bones took a deep breath before continuing.

Adam was now starting to see Bones point. He had from the accounts he had heard essentially been submitted to a death curse. Zombified. Not once but about 600 times. Evidently this had effected his psyche like a metaphorical or maybe metaphysical ice pick to the head. Repetition had caused him to have less and less of a reaction and more and more tolerance to the attacks. Resulting in Adam, feeling very different about the world.

It was all chill. Bones and the others had his back. They had healing powers and he had system given regeneration. Besides this was evidently a very hostile part of the multi-verse. He had lived in a very hostile part of the multi-verse, you had to still get up every morning and get on with your life.

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You couldn’t and he wouldn’t let those things define him. He was justice. He was his own law. And now he actually had abilities things were going to change. For those who messed with him and any other innocents out there.

“Bones if I can’t worry. How about you and Libby and the others do some of the worrying for me? You can alert me to any problems as they arise, ok. And I will act on your advice. Also I do recognise all you guys have done, by the way. I couldn’t be in better hands I know.” Adam said.

“Well, that’s good. And thank you, it is our prime directive and all. But praise is always gladly accepted.” Bones was touched and also elated that had gone so well. Without him having to do a thing. He would of course take all the credit.

“No this time I saved you. Or rather Libby did. Well, the whole team actually. Hell, Libby even brought your non-death back online again to save you. I have to give credit where credit is due and all that.” Bones is little surprised by himself but teamwork is dream work isn’t that what they say. And Libby did save his bacon. All of theirs in fact.

Adam was not totally listening as Bones went onto explain how the Ore beasts he thought he ate had not been digested at all by his body. He thought they were chewy but in fact they were quite inedible due to the incredible toughness of their bodies and the fact that their internal organs, were like steel spaghetti. Apparently only their blood had been digested partially, which was lucky as it was actually quite toxic.

But it had given him a completed quest, so it counted for something. No level up again though. Maybe he’d just have to go old school and kill some mobs for that. Now that was an idea.

He was also not listening because he was having a look at his STATS.

Name: Adam Jacobs

Level: 13

Tier-R

Human 61%

HP

45/45

MP

12000/12000

SP

11622/11622

STR

10

INT

3

SPR

74

DEF

3

MEN

122470

PRISM

122470

AGI

5

MAGI

592

SAGE

768

DEX

4

HEX

5

ESS

57

Abilities: 4 Quests: 3 Titles: 2

Let’s have a see. HP up a bit that’s good.

“Ok. Bones can we talk about the magical elephant in the room?” Adam askes rolling his eyes.

“Hahahaa. Now that’s the reaction I was hoping for. Good to see not all your senses are dulled. Well it’s partly just your ability Acclimatization coming into its own. But also our, well Libby’s efforts that have boosted your Mana pool. I think is easy to see why your MAGI has gone up so much also. However, there must be a hidden variable at work because SAGE has gone up massively too. Libby will probably be able to work it out, though”, said Bones ponderously.

“Shall I give you the good news or the bad news first? Actually, you being the new unflumoxable, you. I guess it doesn’t matter. So good news, your mana and health regeneration rate is about 100 mana and health per second, respectively. Bad news that means 2 hours to fully recharge your pool. No idea whether that regen rate is good or not. Probably is fair by your stats.” Bones drones on.

100 mana per second! If this was an RPG that would be completely insane, especially for a noob like me. Hahahaaa. Cool! All praise the coven of evil, zombie making witches, where ever they may be.

“Libby thinks MP regen is calculated as MAGI% x Regen% x INT, as that works out right. So if we figure out how to get you some INT, you should be good to go.” Bones confides.

“Well to cheer you up just have a look in your spiritual sea!” says Bones, oblivious to my elation.

I am temporarily stupefied. As I view a scene resembling a Christmas card I once made where I had gone mad with the gold glitter. The whole spirit shell seems to be full of golden energy, but still the globes in the centre stand out, almost white with their brilliance.

“What exactly did guys do?” I say a bit gob smacked.

“We, that is me and the team, upgraded the energy density of all the structures. Including your spirit shell. Everything has tiered so to speak. I’m not sure what tier. Haven’t decided what to call it yet.” Bones said proudly.