Chapter 26: Rescue mission

Adam wanted to play with his new senses. But Huba and Libby have gone all scientific on him and are trying to set something up that he can use for a few different scenarios. Firstly, energy sense highlights his surroundings in hues of many colours. It reminds him of infrared colours as seen by bees and other animals. Only instead of heat patterns he is seeing energy patterns.

They had originally planned for Adam to walk around with Libby scanning his environment using her mana field at the same time. Only problem is the mana field, being energy, of course messes everything up. It shows up in his energy sense blocking out all but the strongest energies. So Adam has to patiently take part in their silly experiments.

By walking 20 meters then scanning using his energy sense then using mana field. Then repeating walking to a new area. Otherwise the mana field effects the surroundings and takes to long time to dissipate. He feels they take the fun out of things a bit. It reminds him of news articles back on earth, where experts tell you something bleeding obvious, and annoyingly get paid for doing so. Experts say “jumping of high building can be dangerous when wearing flip flops”.

Thankfully it does not take them to long to work out what each colour means. It appears to be quite simple and really he could have gone with his original guess. Bright colours are high energy, dull low energy. Different colours are for different elements. And he just wanted to know can they spot an energy weapon and at what distance!

Adam felt like he could wrestle an Ore beast. Unfortunately, he kept being reminded about how easily the Galtans had sliced him up using their energy weapon. He supposed there will always be someone stronger but instant incineration is no fun.

“Libby, could I dodge an energy blast? And at what distance?” Adams says thinking he already knows the answer but hoping that prompting Libby will give take some worry off his mind. Running around in the wilderness with nowhere to call home. Makes anyone feel a bit skittish.

“Dodging is possible. Certainly. Especially now you have your energy sense. We can detect when the energy weapon is about to release a blast and shadow jump you. I and Mecca have something to show you. Stand still and close your eyes.” said Libby. Adam didn’t need to stand still but it would be more dramatic, they felt.

They had finally finished testing his terra vision (TV). Luckily for Adam he didn’t have to be involved in any ‘Live testing’.

Adam closed his eyes and watched as a 3D representation of his surroundings appeared in his mind’s eye. It was a bit difficult to get used too at first. It was like seeing a translucent image of the world. He could see through all the trees around him to the trees behind them and so on. It was easier to spot things, he found if he moved his head.

“Ok. Now try it with eyes open and see if you can find an Ore beast or something living.”, said Libby trying not to laugh.

Adam paused it was a bit jarring, so many things moving at once. It was like having travel sickness. They had clearly done something incredible to try and stabilize the image as he ran along. But it was still making his head hurt. He began to run through the forest, his head spinning. It was like running through an earthquake zone. Until he stopped dead. He had seen something red up ahead, broken lines of red. Then as he came to a stop the lines solidified into a red outline of an Ore beast. It was about 50 metres ahead with dozens of trees in the way, yet he could see exactly where it was. Amazing!

“If you can do that, can you not make it so I can see the outline but not anything else? I mean any other terra vision.” Adam queried.

“Oh, yes. I can do that.” Said Libby a bit taken a back. She thought Adam would love this still.

The view switched and now he could see a magical outline, that was somewhere in the distance. It looked a bit funny but was better than the headache inducing full on TV.

“Combining your energy sense and terra vision. We should be able to spot most life forms or even interesting objects. Like traps for instance. With enough live testing.” Libby said hoping Adam would understand the scope of this new ability, if she upped the sales pitch.

“Libby. What can I say? You and your team are a geniuses!” Adam laughing to himself about more ‘Live testing’ still this might actually be fun. Pokémon hunting! Well Ore beast and human, but still.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Adam was very, very happy with his new sense. No more getting sat on by Ore beasts or coming unawares upon people with energy weapons, he hoped. So Adam continued running through the forest, spotting Ore beasts with his new combined sense. Adam wanted to call it LCD for ‘Let me Calm Down’, at least that’s what he told them, and so they did.

Mecca and Trey, Skill Terra Vision consolidated with Energy Sense

New skill created LCD level 1

Adam kept running on spotting Ore beasts but realised he might be able to spot things before he could see them. But they could probably hear him before he could spot them. His tread was thunderous. He was leaving a muddy trail of heavy footfalls in his wake. So he thought about asking Meca to refashion his heavy boots into trainers or something. However before he got a chance he came across the outline of some humans and slowed rapidly. Trying to keep his clumping to a minimum as he came closer.

He could make out seven or eight shapes, as he got closer still hidden by the trees he stopped. He could now clearly make out quite a few with spears and one with some kind of staff. He was impressed by the detail. He reckoned it must be the ones in feather and bone he had seen before.

As they hadn’t seemed to have any long range weapons and didn’t seem threatening at all to Adam now. He snuck closer and let Libby have a listen in to them. Libby had listened to them before but had not heard enough to be able to decipher their language. Not Galtan at all.

Adam thought he’d cut to the chase and went to introduce himself. They were just harmless locals after all. What could they do? Throw a spear at him?

“Hello”, Adam said for want of anything better. ‘Greetings Alien life forms’ didn’t seem to fit the bill.

They couldn’t understand him so what did it matter? ‘Pizza delivery?’ A passable alternative.

The figures froze as one and turned slowly towards him. The one with the staff surprised him the most. But fortunately not his crew.

Adam appeared near a wide pool. The sun was shining and it seemed like it could even be warm enough to take a dip.

“Interesting” said Libby

“You’re under some kind of mental attack. We’d like to spend more time looking at this but some guys with spears are approaching you fast.” Says Bones.

Adam vision switches back to the grassland and the approaching spear men. One coming at him from each side. He is quite proud to deflect the first strike on his bracer but the second one he just grabs the guys thrusting spear and yanks it out of his hands. I might add this is not due to skill on Adam’s part. The spearman are skilful, he can tell. But his crazy stats in particular it seems, AGI, means he moves like a tiger on Vaseline, to quote Bowie.

Now armed with a weapon he thwacks, for want of a better word, the spear length against the first attacker who tries to block with his own spear. All that happens is Adam breaks the spear. But fortunately, his attacker is sprayed with splintering wood, like a mini firework bast. Allowing Adam to get in a jab through his defence. Jarring his jaw and knocking him to the ground, out cold. The second attacker takes a blow to the side of his head as he tries to stab Adam in the side. Adam has better reach than an attacker using a short blade and Adam can see 360 degrees thanks to LCD vision. So just swing his other arm back, resulted in another combatant out of the race.

Both lay , playing snow angels, in the mud. The guy with the staff looks on dumbfounded then gets to his knees, jabbering something.

The others follow suit. Adam walks over to them and keep gesticulating to give Libby more information to try and decrypt the language. This seems to be going nowhere fast. So Adam starts pointing at things to get the man to name them. This goes on for quite some time until Libby comes to the rescue. Adam tries out different suggests for speech Libby comes up with and eventually they get some results. If only he could read this guy’s mind, thought Adam and all concerned.

Adam finally got the guy to start talking about himself and his village which gave Libby far more useful data. Meaning Adam could talk back to him in a very bad accent probably. Libby would say the words and Adam would try and repeat them. And anything the people said now Libby could interpret for Adam.

Adam found out that they were locals. What a surprise? What was a surprise was that the guy practically broke down in front of him. He felt bad thinking he had perhaps scared the hell out of the guy but no it turned out they had already been through hell. When Adam told him he was not affiliated to any faction within the multi-verse, as yet. The guy told him everything.

The Galtans who had settled on their planet to carry out mining had originally negotiated with them and they had had many years of prosperous co-existence. But over the last week there had been a change. They had been attacked by the Galtans and persecuted. From his own tribe all but their children and the old folk to lame, to leave the village were killed. It was a massacre. Adam had experienced the Galtans weapons first hand. This really pissed him off and gave him an extra reason to kill those with those dam energy weapons. Energy weapons were his nemesis.

The man, Thawain as it turned out, confessed that he had capitulated with them when they revealed that they were not Galtan at all but members of a high ranking faction. They had showed him their insignia and that had made him lose all will to fight. What could he do against a faction held in great esteem across the whole mult-verse. But he felt I was strong. I had resisted his mental attacks and disarmed his men in mere seconds. I could help them escape. The children of his village had already escaped to somewhere he believed the Racin would not easily find them. Would I help him?

Sure. But hiding wasn’t really what I had in mind.