Chapter 24: Mentalist
Sporting his fashionable new look Adam, thought he’d take a look at his new internal look too:
Name: Adam Jacobs
Level: 13
Tier-R
Human 59%
HP
45/45
MP
16400/16400
SP
11622/11622
STR
12
INT
3
SPR
74
DEF
11
MEN
122470
PRISM
122470
AGI
12
MAGI
592
SAGE
768
DEX
4
HEX
5
ESS
57
Abilities: 4 Quests: 2 Titles: 2
An increase in mana of 4000, he had been hoping for more. But it was still worth it despite the hefty price to be paid each time in terms of SP.
Acclimatization and Absorb would not do the job all by themselves. Libby needed to feed into them a hell of a lot of SP from, their reserves in Adam’s spirit realm. They had a massive amount of reserves apparently but the figures still seemed worrying. Around a million SP for every enhancement. Rebuilding a body, did not come cheap. At least it didn’t require getting builders in.
He supposed he couldn’t expect the same massive jump in stats that he had received before, each time. He guessed he would just need to work on his hunting skills. Luckily, he discovered an easy way of doing just that. Thanks of course to Libby.
The Ore beast he came across was almost as small as the ones he had found in the tunnels. The fantastic thing about Ore beasts was that due to the fact that they presumably had few predators except other Ore beasts apparently.
Also as they lived underground they could not see so well and were quite oblivious to him. Even when he was right up next to one, close enough to be squashed, again. Regardless of the size. This turned out to be just the thing he needed. The next beast didn’t expect a thing as its body was totally encompassed by one of Libby’s mana fields.
Adam had found that Libby had switched from a shadow field to a mana field. When he asked about how they filled his leather bottle with water. Apparently the shadow energy caused most things to perish or become toxic, poisoned. So instead Libby had started using pure mana energy for the field.
This allowed them to harmlessly collect water from the air and soil in a surrounding area of 20 metres, in radius. Neat. He had actually forgotten about the whole dying of thirst thing. Maybe because every time they fixed him up. His thirst temporarily went away.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Once the small Ore beast was within the mana field. It was metamorphosis time for Adam. At least that’s what he had decided to call it. Bones said unfortunately they couldn’t let him go lights out. As they still could not protect him when he was unconscious. A bit of a problem that. He was sure that was up on their in list of priorities though.
It was a weird feeling that he just had to get used to. He tried not to watch as his body changed. And prided himself that he had not thrown up. Was that even possible while they were rebuilding him? He thanked Bones for dialling the pain filter up to the max. He imagined maybe contorting octopuses knew the sensation or gutted fish for that matter.
Each time Libby and the others became more skilled at using the mana field to select only the bits of the beast they wanted to incorporated.
Bone density needed to be increased and tendon strength to support my new frame. So they tried to select those resource materials from the corpse.
My mana went up by 3 thousand this time, so clearly it wasn’t totally related to the size of the beast. Merely the strength of something inside it. All he knew was that he was getting stronger and he felt fine in this new body. In fact this latest upgrade was way more useful.
Name: Adam Jacobs
Level: 13
Tier-R
Human 59%
HP
45/45
MP
19100/19100
SP
11622/11622
STR
35
INT
3
SPR
74
DEF
23
MEN
122470
PRISM
122470
AGI
27
MAGI
592
SAGE
768
DEX
9
HEX
5
ESS
57
Abilities: 4 Quests: 2 Titles: 2
His agility had just more than tripled. How had that happened? These Ore beasts were not exactly spritely, the reverse. But Meca and Trey explained to him that it was the strength increase combined with the almost metal sinew of the creature’s tendons. If I was the size of a large Ore beast I would be sluggish but putting that sinew and strength onto the frame of beast, a fraction of the size. Me.
Although Libby and echo disputed this point saying that by their calculations it shouldn’t have gone up by quite so much. So Jury out on that one.
But it meant I could now power through the grassland, like a cheetah. Well maybe an ostrich as I had the speed but not the agility to match, as yet. They would have to work on that.
And though it wasn’t shown he felt he had way more stamina. As he jogged along at break neck speed looking for his next, meal.
It seemed in a strange way cruel perhaps but these beasts were his ticket out of here, he hoped. Or at least would help him survive. If he could get a beast within Libby’s mana field. He could drain it dry, of all that was needed, or rather Libby would. Leaving a pile of steaming flesh and unused body parts, presumably in the shadow realm.
The next few hours were spent scouring the length of the forest for beasts and avoiding the local people and their weird antics. Which now he could run almost three times as fast was much easier.
Meca and Trey had made a breakthrough with the body parts within Adam’s bag. They kept them topped up and asked Adam to stop every now and again so Libby could apply her mana field. Allowing them to manipulate the contents of the bag. They wanted to see if they could isolate the tissues involved in these sensory inputs. Stringy squishy bits probably.
Ore beasts tracked ore using a powerful energy sense, they also had an earth senses as well. They could not transfer these directly without rewiring Adam’s brain. Something that was a no brainer at the moment. In that he would not be Adam anymore if they went that route.
At the moment they could stop a human from dying if they had brain problems but repairing a brain that had been enhanced with unforeseen negative consequence not something they had much of a theoretical grasp on, at the moment at least. Also Bones, Libby and Huba all said no way. At least not until Adam had been thoroughly briefed.
So instead they planned to transfer all the physical parts of the ore beasts, the sensory receptors as it were. They would then build their own interface within the spirit realm, to analyse the incoming information. This would allow them to do two important things. One not mess with Adam’s brain. Two allow them access to sensory data, particularly if Adam was unconscious. Allowing them to defend him. Prime directive met. Job done.
He had managed to find a fair selection of metal ore beasts. Which meant, along with the original ones he had found which were rock ore beasts. He had found a good selection. But this now meant, the ore beasts were getting less and less useful to his enhancement. He was getting close to 36 thousand mana.
Libby then told him that Meca and Trey had come up with a way of enhancing his sight. So that he could see energy and sense movement in the surrounding area through a kind of terra sense, through vibrations. Also his night vision would be like day vision. Hell, yes. Do it now!
Name: Adam Jacobs
Level: 13
Tier-R
Human 52%
HP
83/83
MP
36400/36400
SP
11622/11622
STR
47
INT
3
SPR
74
DEF
39
MEN
122470
PRISM
122470
AGI
43
MAGI
592
SAGE
768
DEX
11
HEX
5
ESS
57
Abilities: 4 Quests: 2 Titles: 2
Adam could only see one downside with this state of affairs, his stats were very unbalanced as he had not levelled in the normal way at all, yet.
Still he could remedy that if his AI friends only let him.