Chapter 25: Annoyance
Bones has been thinking about the long game. It’s all very well coming up with flashy abilities but they needed to keep in mind their prime directives. Keep Adam alive.
There are too many unknowns and unknowable factors in this new world, bones has discovered. Libby still hadn’t come up with a solution for their death by teleportation problem. Or thought of what they were going to do when whoever originally cursed Adam. Evidently a God tier being caught up with them.
He had been thinking about these things and many more but no one else seemed, well, worried was the word.
So he decided for direct action. They would have, a meeting.
“I hereby call all forth to our first general meeting. Ok. I would like to say that. I think you all have come up with some brilliant nay genius ideas which I and Adam are truly grateful for. But I think in order to proceed towards our objective. Which I’m sure you will agree is to essentially make Adam, truly immortal. By making him all powerful or destroying all other life in existence to achieve the same general effect.” Bones draws a breath. Did he go too far? He waits hesitantly.
A clamour of response all come together, in similar vein “I agree”, “Well said”, “Yes”. Bones imagined someone said “Long live Bones our illustrious leader” but they didn’t.
“But that is a bit of a big goal.” says Libby trying not to deflate Bones too much.
“It is our goal but maybe we should break it down a little.” suggests Libby, when there is no immediate response from Bones.
“Yes, I know it’s depressing isn’t it.”, says Bones, dejectedly. It had all seemed to be going so well until they had come up against the little problem of having to actually, to have a bullet proof plan.
At this point Libby and the others chipped in. Libby proposed that they make a list of things to work on a to-do list as it were. And allocate this to each based on their experience and interest.
From the meeting the to-do list drawn up was as follows:
* Halt or stop a potential teleportation - Everyone
* Construct any stealth skills they could for Adam, to keep him under the radar as it were – Libby, Echo and Huba
* Create an emergency plan B,C and D in case of attack by an overpowered being - Bones
* Continue to enhance Adam in any way possible - Everyone
4.1) focus on increasing mana pool and regen rate in order to have any chance of accomplishing point 3. – Bones, Echo, Meca and Trey
* Maybe stop dumping things in the shadow realm, as this left an unsavoury trail for their would be killer to follow – Meca and Trey
* Meet up regularly
They then only thought it fair to inform Adam of their plans.
“Ok. But is teleportation really that much of a risk. I mean don’t I need to just not step into a teleport?” Adam says quizzically.
“Well it is, I guess it is our main weakness. Except of course, being incredibly weak in terms of the multiverse.” Bones confides.
“Also if we can manage to perfect our first objective. It will mean you can’t be killed, right out, that is. And we will have the potential to bring you back, even if your body is destroyed. Our prime directive is to keep you safe, Adam. And that will protect you from a whole load of entities in this multiverse. Not all I know but probably a lot”, Libby says trailing off. Knowing that this will more than lightly give no protection from the one most probably coming for him. But they should be able to protect him up until that point. What a joke, if only there was something else they could do. She felt pathetic.
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“Libby its ok I know you guys are all doing your best. And you’ve saved my life innumerable times already. You’re doing a great job! I know I couldn’t be in more capable hands”, Adam doesn’t really know what to say.
“Ok. So have you got any ideas how to complete objective one.” Adam questions.
“Libby is working on it.” Is all Bones can think to say. A platitude. Maybe in hindsight the meeting was a bad idea. Meetings stink. Note to self: next time you get great idea, keep it to yourself.
Libby got down to some serious work with Echo, Meca and Trey. Maybe that meeting hadn’t been such a bad idea. Now they were all galvanised. Focused like a laser. Ok, they couldn’t risk using the energy from the foreboding black strand so they sent off Nanobots to follow it off into the void, dismantling and destroying it as they went. Next she copied the code from within Adam’s soul shell, left there by the black strand. The code that kept Adam from dying, when powered by the immense energy from the black strand. She and Meca’s Nanobots created a small test shell. Within the shell she embedded the code. She then placed some constructs inside the shell. She had planned to then supply power to the shell and then proceed to try to move the shell with as much force as they had available to simulate the initial stage of teleportation.
The plan was floored. That amount of power would empty their spirit shell in a very fast instant. She had to look at it from a different angle or perspective maybe. Yes, she needed to see how much energy A was needed to stop a force being exerted by energy B. Then just scale up the calculations knowing from Echo has much energy is used to teleport. Ok that would potentially stop teleportation assuming they have that amount of energy. But now that had started her thinking what kind of forces would this ominous entity put upon them when it found them. Adam. She calmed herself remembering it was that thing. Fear. Again. She would worry about that as they say, later.
It turned out they had enough energy currently to avoid one or two teleportation attack, as they were now calling it. Anymore and they’d have to dismantle most of the structures they had created in the spirit shell. After that they would be no more.
Adam was happy to hear they had found a potential solution so quickly and even happier to find out their new number one objective:
* Obtain more power
After all that would be his own favourite anyway.
They completed construction and powered up a shell encompassing all their inner shells, shortly after. Encoded with the mysterious code that could stop time? Create a stasis field? Libby didn’t know yet. But it worked and that right now that was all that mattered.
Libby decided she needed a little “R n R” she had been so stressed lately. She turned to her favourite texts on cultivation. She loved just the sound of some of the words they used. They were so evocative, yes and that was another word she liked. She got reading, savouring every word. She felt if she read it enough some further meaning might bleed into her.
Tempered Body is the first stage of cultivation. Tempered body is cultivation of one's body. In path of training one should first be training muscles and bones in order to strengthen them. This gives rise to a seedling of Yuan Power. Only then can one be called a true practitioner.
Cultivating in Yuan Power requires various amounts of nourishing elixirs to supplement the body in order to progress in training. However this is very expensive and only wealthy people can afford this. Others need to be lucky to find items. Talent here is important but is not a key factor.
Yuan Power is the most important thing in cultivation. It is said that a strong practitioner would be able to cause landslides with just a sweep of his hands. A type of miraculous force that floated between Heaven and Earth. Yet to absorb the Yuan Power from Heaven and Earth, one is required to train until a Yuan Power Seed is produced. Only then, could even more Yuan Power be absorbed into one’s body. Yuan Power takes color dependent on what type of Yin Energy and Yang Energy one absorbed.
Yuan Power Seed
From the depths of your bone marrow, a bizarre energy slowly flows as an incredulous force gradually spreads out from your bone marrow and starts coursing through your body, eventually encompassing every part of your body. This is a sign that you have entered Tempered Body 6th Layer
Libby found it a bit annoying to have so little to go on. But she was nothing, if not tenacious.
Ok. She knew she had gone wrong somewhere but she thought Adam must be at least equivalent to a Tempered Body 6th Layer. If only she could work out how to get this Yuan Power thing. No idea. What she needed was someone who knew or even better a practitioner. Then she could just take a peek.