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Taming Destiny - a Tamer Class isekai/portal survival fantasy.
Book 5: Diplomacy - Chapter Fifty-Six: What Else Is Wrong?

Book 5: Diplomacy - Chapter Fifty-Six: What Else Is Wrong?

Come on, you stupid thing, I murmur to myself, frustration mounting. I’m currently sitting in the cart with several of the Pathwalkers, working on something that has eluded me for a while: my stamina.

I’m determined both to discover how to transform Energy and other resource pools into it, and to attempt to gain the third Masochist achievement that must exist – I’m sure it’s possible and the first will be the key to the second.

But, unlike both my health and mana, stamina is a slippery resource which I can’t quite put my finger on.

Sighing, I open my eyes and look up at the sky. Fully settled in my body again, I feel the movements of the cart beneath me. As would be expected when being pulled on a vehicle with no suspension, it’s an uncomfortable ride. There’s a reason the Pathwalkers only sit here when they’re tired or want to meditate – in meditation, the physical pains of the body slip away to become unimportant. Like the mind has a power over the body which makes what actually happens to it almost irrelevant.

The mind has a power over the body….

My mind snags on that thought. Could that be my issue? Am I looking in the wrong place for stamina?

I’ve been looking purely in the body for it, reasoning that it’s a resource which determines how far I can run and how long I can fight. The fact that it’s primarily affected by Dexterity and Strength, to my mind, gives further credence to that idea.

Dexterity seems to act on my body, giving my physical structure the flexibility, speed, and fineness of reactions to be able to do anything from dodge attacks at a moment’s notice to carve intricate details on a piece of wood. Strength gives the muscular power to do the same actions. It all seems very physical.

But what if it’s not only physical? What if it’s also mental?

In order to dodge, I also have to perceive the attack coming and react mentally fast enough to command my body to move. To create an intricate carving, I also have to be able to conceive of the design I wish to etch and how one part of it relates to another. What if stamina isn’t only about my muscles, but also my mental capabilities? Mental fatigue is a thing too – I’ve never checked to see whether it affects stamina as much as physical fatigue does.

What if Dexterity is a mental flexibility as well as a physical one? Mental strength is already covered through Willpower, so I don’t think that that stat has any relevance here. But Dexterity….

If my thoughts are true, then I’ve definitely done myself a disservice by focussing on increasing Intelligence and not increasing Dexterity alongside it. It would also explain what I saw when I levelled up recently to level nineteen and chose Dexterity as the focus: when the Energy didn’t just soak into the luminous blackness around my Energy channels, but also affected my channels themselves.

At the time, I couldn’t work out what it was doing. I could see it wasn’t lengthening the channels, or strengthening them. It wasn’t even creating more channels as Intelligence and Wisdom (Depth) both do. But it was still affecting them somehow. Now I wonder whether perhaps it was making them more flexible. Certainly, the main difference I’ve seen since that level up is that it’s been easier to move my mana through my channels in large clumps, my channels seemingly able to take more at a time than before.

Which is all well and good as a theory. The problem, of course, will be trying to test it.

My health is stored in my body. To access my health pool actively, I have to reach into the luminous blackness and pull it out of the space. Pulling out of one area has consequences, weakening and damaging that area. Pulling it out of the blackness as a whole spreads those consequences over my body. It naturally replenishes itself from Energy that seeps through my Energy channels and is transformed into health, or I can actively replenish it by transforming mana to health manually.

I’ve also discovered through experimentation that having health energy in my body has beneficial general effects. I don’t feel the cold or heat as much, and injuries are less painful,even without Sensation Management playing a part. My senses are improved, but are also more controllable. My organs work more efficiently, transforming less into more – I need to eat and sleep less. However, even if I overeat, very little of the excess is transformed into fat.

Instead, an amount of excess food is broken down and used to reinforce my body further. The excess fat that I saw with Flesh-Shaping that did develop was quickly eaten away after I stopped overeating. It’s like my body knows what shape I should be in to remain healthy and does its best to maintain that.

My mana, on the other hand, is stored in my Core. Actually, my mana is my Core. It took me a while to realise that – I had assumed that the outside of my Core was something different, I suppose because whenever I hold a Core, it always feels like solid crystal.

It was only after I worked out how to form Energy Hearts by using the Pure Energy stream – and earning a Skill for my pains – that I made my mental breakthrough. As it turns out, crystallising Pure Energy is very simple: just stop it moving. And by that, I mean completely stop it.

It took plenty of attempts, but I found out that if I form a hole in the Pure Energy tunnel, let the Pure Energy go in, and then block more Energy from entering, within a few days, that pool would become a massive Energy Heart. It hadn’t happened with the basin I made for Raven’s eggs because that was always moving, the Pure Energy entering and then the extra overflowing and continuing its journey.

Once I realised that static Energy becomes crystalline, realising that the apparent crystalline surface of my Core was in fact static Energy – or rather, for me, static mana – was an easy mental step to make. When I grow my mana pool, I grow the size of my Core. When I use my mana, I pull my mana from the inner layers of my Core first, and then steadily make my way outwards towards its surface as I drain my pool.

Now I understand why the first Masochist achievement warned about me having put myself in danger. The nausea and aching I get when I empty my pool is because my Core outside becomes very thin. In fact, I suspect that I could draw more mana even when my pool is at zero – but at a cost. I don’t know what would happen if I started accessing the most crystalline mana of the outer layer of my Core, but I suspect it would be nothing good. Perhaps I could even break my Core completely.

When Energy goes into my Core, it is stored inside and is transformed into mana if my Core is not full at the time. Mana is the product of Energy being transformed by my soul. When I go into the Challenge space that my Dominiate Skill offers, I can even see the process, the fog that surrounds me being transformed into a faint sparkling in the air directly around me. And if I push my aura, my ‘domain’, further away from me, I can see it even more clearly.

As for stamina, though….where else is there for it to be stored?

Perhaps if I can see it replenish, it will help.

Hopping out of the cart, I start jogging alongside it, activating both Fade and Stealth in an attempt to use some of my pool.

It’s harder work than it should be to start using my stamina – we’re not travelling fast enough for me to consume it very quickly, and Fade and Stealth aren’t massive drains. However, they are still drains so it’s not too long before I’ve dropped by twenty points or so.

Coming out of Stealth and Fade, I apparently surprise the samurans running around me – evidently they had forgotten I was there. Although my Bound using stealth abilities doesn’t affect me, I can still affect them.

“Sorry, just testing something,” I apologise.

It is of no concern, Honoured Tamer, the samurans murmur in response, both of them Warriors I don’t know very well – I vaguely recall sharing a few conversations with them, but nothing that sticks too well even in my improved memory.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Hopping back into the cart, I quickly go back into my Core space, wanting to watch my stamina replenishing itself.

At first, I don’t see anything. Well, nothing beyond the normal movement of Energy towards my Core as I build up more towards my next level.

Unless….

I zoom in on something I noticed. It’s very faint and I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t been looking for it. In fact, I almost mistook it for just normal movement of Energy into my body to become health energy. But the Energy I see seeping into the walls of my channels isn’t going anywhere – it’s becoming part of my channels.

Focussing even closer, I see that my channel walls look very slightly thinner than they usually are – but that that is rapidly changing. I watch until my channel walls return to normal, the Energy stopping its seeping into them and instead going directly to my Core.

Is it stamina which actually makes up the structure of my Energy channels? Like mana makes up my Core and health makes up my body?

I have a good feeling about this.

Reaching out with my mental touch, I attempt to pull at the very substance making up my Energy channels. It resists strongly. More strongly even than health. Yet I am persistent and it pays off.

A chunk of my Energy channel comes free and moves towards my Core, Energy immediately rushing to start filling in the gap.

Pulling out of my Core space, I check my status screen, a feeling of success going through me as I see that my stamina has dropped by a single point.

Time to experiment some more.

*****

I keep experimenting throughout the day – which fortunately is uneventful – and into the night. Finally, when my companions have already almost all gone to bed, tired after the day of travel, I get the notification I was hoping for. And more.

Achievement awarded: Masochist III

You have proven yourself a true masochist, tearing at all three aspects of your body without mercy. If you are as ruthless with your enemies as you are with yourself, Tyrant is likely the least of your titles. Idiot, Foolhardy, and Suicidal are also appropriate as only those who truly have no care for their lives and wellbeing even attempt to attain all three Masochist achievements.

As a result of ripping away and replacing your stamina in such quick succession, your Internal matrix has now become more able to hold stamina energy. Each point in Dexterity now offers 15 units of stamina.

Next message / Close messages

I can barely contain the elation running through my body, though it’s tempered by a wry agreement with the achievement’s words. Honestly, now that I know why pushing each of the resource pools so far is dangerous, I can see its point. It’s only because of the fact that I’m capable of healing my own body and Energy channels actively that the pursuit has been a bit less dangerous for me.

Although Tarra is able to create potions which help heal, none of those I’ve yet encountered have been capable of healing like I can, and only those I’ve shown have been able to work on healing their Energy channels like I do. Perhaps Nicholas’ world is different, but if not, then perhaps this is why so many die.

As it is, I’m just glad that I have the advantages I do.

There’s another message waiting.

Achievement awarded: Tri-pool Manipulator

You have discovered how to access and transform each of your resource pools into the other. This has had a strengthening effect on your system as a whole. You have begun to understand the connections each pool holds with the others and with your mind, body, and soul.

10% to Intelligence, Constitution, and Dexterity5% to Willpower, Strength, and Wisdom

Close messages

That…is big. And even bigger is a realisation I’ve come to while doing my experiments. The last line seems to confirm it.

My resource pools are not merely linked to one of my stats, though of course one is more important. Stamina is connected to my body, yes, but it’s also connected to my mind, and my willpower – even when my stamina is low, I can force myself to continue if I have the strength of will. Mind and body are connected.

My mana isn’t only connected to Intelligence; it’s also connected to Wisdom. And it is transformed by my soul. Mind and soul are connected.

And my health…it’s connected to Constitution, but it also dictates my strength, and thereby is connected to my stat Strength. And yet, it isn’t just body. I saw that from the effects of the Pure Energy on me: when I had no soul in my arm, it was weaker and the effects of level ups were unable to affect that limb. Body and soul connected.

I just know that when I look at my status screen, my Energy Manipulation Skill will have gone up.

Opening it up, I see all the changes but there’s one thing I frown at. Dexterity and Strength.

According to my status screen, It’s not Dexterity which is linked to my stamina pool – it’s Strength. But with what I’ve learned, that makes no sense! I flick back to the Masochist achievement and my frown deepens. The achievement says ‘Each point in Dexterity now offers 5 more units of stamina.’ But shouldn’t it be stamina regeneration?

Or is my status screen just plain wrong?

Or…not wrong, perhaps, but not necessarily the best representation. I remember studying Chemistry at school. My teacher showed us a picture of the atom with its nucleus in the centre and the electrons whizzing around it. He then told us that it was wrong, and demonstrated how electrons weren’t little balls that moved around a bigger ball, but in fact areas of probability that looked more like balloons emerging from it. And then he said that if we went on to study Chemistry at university, the professors there would tell us that this model was wrong too.

The experience impressed on me that we often try to create models which represent reality but which are not themselves real. Is this the case here? That the people of Nicholas’ world have misidentified Dexterity and Strength?

Because to me, it now makes far more sense that Strength with its subcategories of Power and Endurance are linked to stamina regeneration, and Dexterity, which is clearly linked to what I’ve just been doing to my Energy channels, is linked to my actual stamina pool.

As if responding to my certainty despite the evidence of my eyes, the text in the status screen shimmers and changes.

Level: 19

Energy to next level: 34%

Energy absorption rate: 91u/hr

Energy towards debt: 116% (169)

Intelligence

40+6 (+15%)

Mana: 690/690 (15u/IP)

Wisdom

44+4 (+10%)

Mana regeneration rate: 1200u/hr

Willpower

67+21 (+32%)

Health regeneration rate: 88u/hr

Constitution

32+3 (+10%)

Health: 515/515 (525) (15u/CP)

Strength

21+1 (+5%)

Stamina regeneration rate: 130u/hr

Dexterity

28+2 (+10%)

Stamina: 112/450 (15u/DP)

Special: Fire Affinity (25%)

Class skills

Dominate – Journeyman 5

*Companion Bond

Tame – Journeyman 7

* Alliance

Fade – Journeyman 1

* Darkvision

Inspect – Novice 5

Elemental Bonding - Beginner 2

Management – Novice 3

Non-Class skills

Flesh-Shaping – Master 2

Stealth – Novice 9

Animal Empathy – Journeyman 7

Meditation – Journeyman 9

Energy Manipulation – Master 5

Sensation Management – Novice 3

Spearmanship – Initiate 5

Archery – Beginner 9 - Novice 9

Blunt Weaponry – Initiate 5

Short Blades – Novice 7

Fire-Shaping – Initiate 5

Earth-Shaping – Journeyman 1

Energy Crystallisation – Beginner 5

Teaching – Beginner 7

Rune-Carving – Beginner 4

Enchanting – Beginner 8

While the switch between Dexterity and Strength for my stamina pool and stamina regeneration feels right, it opens up a worrying thought. If that was wrong, and appeared to be right all the way up until now…what else might I ‘know’ that is also wrong?