---James---
James did a quick scout of the area – the river flowed back a ways to large waterfall and forward towards a split. Not finding anything of interest he returned to his potential meal.
The smoking carcass billowed a smell that turned sweeter the longer it sat. The first problem on his lack of plate, was trying to butcher it.
The majority of the body was too tough to cut with any tool James had. He could make slight cuts with a massive amount of force but…it was just that tough even in death. Like a chunk of hot stiff rubber surrounded in crackly off orange skin.
Moving to the bits of the leg leftovers, James cracked and snapped off the largest chunk and peered inside.
The legs were a thin and brittle carapace holding a incredibly tender orange tinted meat – although most of the meat had fallen out when James smashed them. Tasting a tiny bit James found it reminded him of shellfish with a slight hint of sweetness.
There seemed to be a theme for a lot of big monsters, their meat had a high content of sugary – or more accurately sugar adjacent – elements in it. This wasn’t the first time James had bit into a monster and tasted sugar. Was a requirement for growing large having a lot of sugar? Like a massive humming bird? That didn’t seem right, sugar would burn too fast.
Best not to question it too much.
To the side his AI promptly began analyzing and spitting out facts.
James hadn’t needed the computer to tell him it was safe – his monster meat knowledge from long ago had made him pretty confident he could eat it.
…come to think of it that wasn’t something he had thought about in a while. The system handing out information directly into his head. Now that he had a moment to relax he also had to think about his ai. It hadn’t shoved information in yet but it was interfacing quite clearly with his mental state.
Should he be concerned? James felt concern but also felt slightly like a boomer adopting cellphones as a new technology.
The main reason he had wanted an AI was as a cellphone. Could he use it right away? Could James message Richard? That was literally the point.
Actively focusing on his AI James began to control the expanding panels pulling them about his vision mentally and flipping between panes. The correct areas appeared after a small amount of mental prodding – the AI really liked to hide and show things based on request so it only took a moment to pull up a communication setup.
Flipping through more options the AI seemed to pull the identifier for Richards ‘phone’ straight out of James’s memory. The ‘phone number’ or string of characters that translated to some trinary number.
Once again creepy it just read his thoughts but considering he was interacting with it using his mind it wasn’t that big of a stretch.
James immediately ran into a problem sending his first message. It simply stated Richard was out of his current range. It asked if James wanted to schedule a message for when he did get back in range…but that wasn’t good enough.
‘unsimplifying’ his interface and delving into the real settings James began to flip through options and information trying to find a good solution.
This felt familiar.
Technically he had been a programmer in his job. ‘Technically’ because he hadn’t really programmed much. At least not anything James considered programming. It had mostly been excel work if he was honest and running cobbled together batch scripts passed down and modified by others.
James didn’t want to think of those jobs – they had been stifling. He hadn’t been an extravert so there was no chance of success.
James shook the unwanted memories away and focused on cracking open his new device. He knew how to navigate a computer and while the initial interface was entirely different as soon as he dug deep it felt familiar. This is all his AI was currently. A high tech cellphone with all the capabilities of a miniature computer.
Okay. If James ramped up his power he would be able to boost the range. Assuming he could maintain that boost for a second or two he should be able to reach Richard – or rather than reach Richard reach an idle AI that could bounce his message to the real Richard.
Seems like a plan.
The AI itself didn’t see a way of increasing its energy draw so James had to step out of the interface for a moment and figure out how to move his energy manually. He fumbled. During the breaking ritual his AI had been sort of ‘cut off’ from the rest of his power. Instead of the skill being attached to his overall ‘pool’ it had been ‘sandboxed’. All its generation, linking, everything about it was isolated from his combined aether and mana. Trying to force a meld of the two didn’t work.
No mater how much James imagined grabbing and squeezing them together or pushing a pulling the areas into one they wouldn’t connect.
Ripping off one of the last legs James took a large slurp and tried again.
This time James stopped trying to force a full connection. After a bit of internal manipulation James finally bridged the gap. The idea wasn’t to ‘connect’ it but to pass energy and power from his normal pool to his cut off pool. Not a meld a simple hand off.
Collecting the majority of his energy and dragging it towards his head – feeling his face heat slightly – James grabbed and shoved all of his megar pool boosting the theoretical range…
And nothing.
Pushing his entire pool of energy towards it boosted the theoretical range…and did nothing.
That was anticlimactic.
James felt his energy splutter and slow. The speed infusing his veins faded to a dim flicker before he stopped.
What a waste of power.
James sighed and gave up for now, He’d probably have to cross the badlands again to send a message or two. There was a good chance that mess of nests was interfering with the connection somehow…or maybe he just wasn’t strong enough?
James finished eating the scraps of his raw meal, reaching in and teasing out bits of the energy from his stomach. He could feel the foreign power slowly radiating out and running through his bloodstream. It deposited bits and pieces on the inside of his body – bits of the food changed into aether as his stomach began the long process of digestion. For some reason focusing on the process and manually attempting to direct it sped everything up by a order of magnitude.
Meditating increased the speed, but more importantly it brought something to James’s attention…what is that?
With a twitched James flipped to his AI after realizing it was acting strangely as well. As if eagerly waiting for him to check his AI needed barely any prodding to show what it was sensing.
Stat: +4 neck muscle might
Stat: +7 adrenaline production, propagation and effect due to danger and damage
There it was. The exact format seemed off – those were those monstrous stats his body would give him huh? They looked a bit weird if James was being honest. None seemed to match the format of normal stats – was ‘might’ closer to power or speed? It felt…it felt like a mix between the two with a more savage underpinning. The second stat seemed to be adrenalin power separated between the gland and anything it produced but with a…
Switching his lens to mana James felt the stats out a bit more. His senses slowly wrapped around and through the new areas before returning with their findings. Mana claimed it was simply a power stat bound to a concept – sort of like a pseudo skill fueled by a stat instead of mana?
Was that how regular stats worked? A sort of passive skill that slowly built upwards?
No regular stats felt a bit different.
Either way considering how relatively few stats they were, the effect wasn’t too significant. Every little bit obviously helped but the increase to neck might and adrenalin, whatever was overwhelmed by all the other modifications James had done.
Actually, this all isn’t a normal process. It’s because of my body mutation – its finally started working properly now that I finished my break. All the monsters I eat should give a bit of their stats as long as they are stronger than me in a certain way. Any foreign energy can be integrated – I already experienced that with the attack in that last fight. Can my AI pick up what was done?
Trying to analyze himself and trying to study his body with both lenses to his power, James slowly teased out…something.
There wasn’t fully a stat he could point to. No number attached to anything or concrete proof it had done something.
But he had felt something being deposited along his mana channels in that last fight and searching about the area did start to provide something no matter how faint. Despite the low feedback, from what James could tell, there was something like a ‘thermal energy conversion to kinetic energy’ sort of…efficiency? Speed? That power was very very thinly spread throughout his entire veins and seemed to be mixed with some sort of fire defense.
It was hard to tell the exact results because it felt almost like his veins were a metal that had been ever so slightly tempered and quenched in a blacksmiths fire.
All that mattered for now was James felt like if he tried to recreate the same feat he would have a better shot of things.
It felt like if he tried to recreate the same result, he would have a better shot of things. His veins better able to suck and hold onto the power without burning the rest of his body.
What about…
With a thought James’s status appeared.
Status [https://i.imgur.com/VQTpOPK.png] Rank 3 Total 754± Lots of unknown or altered stats, Still classifying Body defense 130± Roughly 1/3 reduction and limit cap applied. Body Power 300 Speed 243 Top body stat concentrations. Blood/circulatory system 59± High flux impacting readings Arms/chest 131± Legs 200± Mental power 13 Mental Defense 20 Mental speed 6 Esper defense 9 Body foundational mutation found, memory classified as Monster Kiln of Combat Eater. (Mana/Aether): ???
That…that seemed accurate? James felt about his body. Mostly accurate and with low fidelity – it seemed confused by parts.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The breakdown was nice but it appeared to be measuring the concentration or quality of his aether? It almost looked like his AI was attributing some of his skill to his speed stat the real breakdown didn’t seem that big.
James pulled mana through his circulatory system in a cycle feeling out every bit of his flesh and bones. In some ways he could better feel how the stats effected him, in others having a external description helped put some things into context. His AI Had better luck analysis specific parts of his body. Focusing on his stomach for example gave –
Stomach breakdown (to reasonable degree of confidence) Digestion 23 Core stability 50± (Fraction of total core stability)
While picking his forearm gave.
Forarm stat breakdown (to reasonable degree of confidence) Formarm Muscle Strength 32± (Fraction of continous total) Skin defense 1 Latic acid defense 1± (Fraction of continous total) Bone defense 1± (Fraction of continous total) Blood Defense 3± (Fraction of continous total) Grip strength bleedover 1± (Fraction of affiliated musclegroups)
As James continued to study the AI feedback, it started to filter in ways that were more useful for him. He already ‘felt’ roughly how his stats interacted, but putting numbers and descriptions to certain parts was helpful. Slowly teaching it how he wanted to see the information helped. Knowing that his defense had been effected and fluctuated wasn’t helpful. Knowing what his actual total was helped – the fact that he had reached the third rank meant he technically he could reach the next zone if he wanted to.
Should he do that? Move on already?
…it felt like he still had stuff to do here. Heading onwards was bound to put him as one of the first and yet…he still had to practice a bit with his final break. There was still the dungeon he had run with those people from the magic side…
James kind of felt like leaving without finishing that was running away and yet if R was to be believed, the so called curse couldn’t happen?
…how much leeway did he have? He knew how the ‘level’ caps worked but…he couldn’t memorize it and doing the math was annoying.
Thankfully he had a calculator already implicitly calculating his rank to do it all for him.
Rank Tier Stats total 0 0 0 0 1 27 0 2 54 1 0 81 1 1 116.8222152 1 2 168.4867897 2 0 243 2 1 350.4666456 2 2 505.460369 3 0 729 3 1 1051.399937 3 2 1516.381107 4 4 2187
...rounding down the tier totals and then looking at the list for a moment James nodded. Rank 3 had been passed at 729 stats. Sometime around the last dungeon?
The most he could gain was 1051 before the system acess was cut off and he couldn't gain more achivements. Could he grow beyond that with monster meat?
...probably. R might interfere if he broke whatever systems the shapeshifter had in place too badly however.
Closing the panes, James looked towards the main body in front of him. He was kind of surprised no predators or scavengers had come sniffing around the meat.
Staring about carefully, James noted a bird flitting about on a nearby branch. A pair of tiny fish swam against the current. A few bugs crawled across the bottom of the meat.
In many ways the world around him was alive. It was easy to feel alone in emptiness, but this forest was full of life in a way the empty plains of grass hadn’t been.
What should I do now?
Taking off his pants and shirt, James slid into the water.
It was a spur of the moment decision and yet it felt good. Sweat from the fight and days of dirt caked off and were caried away in a rush of nature.
As James held himself against the water he felt about. The water…it called to him. It moved past…it moved.
Reaching out with his new senses James twisted and found he was no longer being pushed by the water. He could feel a faint trickle of power run through his veins as he sapped the energy to refill his stores.
Suddenly gaining an idea, James swam up the river pulling himself to the waterfall and stepping up onto a rock roughly in the center of it.
The waterfall was around 5 meters long – in comparison to the rivers 12ish meter width. It thundered and beat itself into the rocks below it and yet James felt nothing more than a soothing shower as he got comfortable.
This was a much better power source. Within a minute of rest, his pool was filled to roughly what it was before he had attempted to boost his range.
James continued to sit listening to the surroundings and relaxing in a way he hadn’t ever done before.
Sitting there, ripping kinetic energy from the water as it beat itself across his back, James felt like a lizard basking in the sun. His muscles loosed as he allowed a bit more of the force to impact his muscles. It felt so weak… playing about with forcing some of the stolen energy into the water James boosted the power of the waterfall and sighed with contentment as tense muscles were massaged.
James continued to sit under his waterfall for over an hour just slowly feeling out his energy and practicing. He shot little streams of water away from him and tried to twist the direction of the entire waterfall. He could grab a good solid handful of water to divert but even when struggling the entire water was beyond him.
It wasn’t a measure of strength – it was a measure of distance. He just couldn’t affect anything that far away from his body.
James relaxed further and pulled as much energy as he could into his veins and then pulled more – till his heart beat fast enough to worry him and a faint pain sunk out of the core of his being.
He pushed all his mana into a single punch that broke the sound barrier and caused his ears to ring for minutes afterwards. He refilled his pool to bursting then threw an even louder aether punch, feeling out how the energies reacted and burst away from his skin.
The practice was exercises in a way. There was pain as his pool was forced to hold more than it could handle and yet it was a good kind of pain. The burn of a good workout.
The practice was good too. There was only so much you could read about aether and mana. You truly had to ‘feel’ them out to get what they ‘felt’ like. It helped they whispered slightly to him – a flicker that was more obvious when he swapped which Lense was active.
Beyond the obvious differences there were deeper feelings associated with both powers. Because the powers weren’t necessarily mana and aether. They were magic and…Esper?
Whatever the method of manipulating aether was called, it had some differences that James only really started understanding when he finally started using it.
Magic for example seemed to have a result based scaling. More powerful magic could do ‘stronger’ ‘things’, but the limit seemed to be ‘how powerful’ the ‘thing’ itself was. It didn’t care about how much energy should be needed for a result – a similar small amount of mana could create something technically massive but useless or small and weak but useful. Could create matter from scratch despite that being one of the most expensive things to do on the aether side.
The results you could achieve with a set amount of mana was variable and more dependent upon the concepts and other parts of a ‘spell’. Essentially you couldn’t ‘cheat’ it. There was no clever trick to abuse. What you could do was engineer your results. Tell your mana you didn’t want to ever use a sword or spear and commit to that limitation. The mana would then give you strength for that limit – a strength that grew the longer and more deeply you committed along with how ‘hard’ a commitment that was to take.
It was to the point where as an internal mana user, if James made one of these commitments and stayed true to it for long enough he would be physically unable to break it – that ‘cost’ embedded into his body. His own power would rebel against breaking his self imposed oath. Of course magic also scaled upwards based on ‘meaning’ which was a nebulous sort of thing.
James could twist his powers to be specifically weaker in certain ways to increase their strength in others but all that was something that would come with time and experience.
Aether on the other hand felt…almost weaker initially? You needed roughly the amount of energy that a result would achieve. If James absorbed a punch with a kilojoule or so of energy and somehow achieved 100% efficiency…he’d only have a kilojoule or so of energy to redirect back into an attack. There was no 110% - no way of breaking the conservation of energy that he could see.
On the other hand, there wasn’t that sort of artificial cap to things. If James amassed his maximum aether, the amount of force he could produce was limited by the amount of energy he could expand, not how ‘strong’ of a result he would achieve. It scaled based on a more logical base – in exchange, to achieve greater results you had to take advantage of things. You had to abuse edge cases, a bullet used less energy to shoot than a cannon ball after all and in some ways could kill easier. You had to understand reality deeper – from what James could tell you could do some really wild things with aether but it was all much harder to access.
All of that was of course just the feelings the lenses gave him. His mana responded to his thoughts and desires – dragging itself around his body and flexing into new shapes. When he flipped all his mana to aether it was suddenly a wild thing. It no longer listened to him. It still directed itself where he aimed it but it no longer did anything if there was nothing there to activate.
James stopped and restarted.
It felt like he had had a painting in a glass case. When he broke to aether he had smashed his hand into the case and pulled out the now damaged canvas finding it could unroll into something bigger. On the back was a barcode he could use to return the painting and exchange it for another.
When he broke to mana, his painting had been taken away. Mana had turned around and given him a brush and some coloured paints and told him he could make his own painting. A new one – this time mixing the concepts together into a different shade or painting an entirely different scene.
Except again that didn’t feel quite right. It wasn’t a painting even though magic gave him the base ingredients instead of the finished product.
His aether skills were transplanted sprouts. They would now grow semi randomly both with and without his involvement – if he wanted to modify them, he would have to act like a gardener. Pruning the growing plants, feeding them nutritious soil. Pollinating them or placing them under a microscope.
Mana was still a paint set however. If he wanted to make a tree he’d have to get much better at art.
James stayed under the waterfall for a second hour partially meditating partially practicing. He felt grounded.
…he felt like he probably looked sort of silly. Monk mode – wasn’t this some ritual ancient warriors did?
…James kind of got it. This felt good. He wasn't even getting wrinkly with all the defensive stats in his skin!
James also felt like trying to reach Richard again. This time he put a super charged amount of aether into the range boost – pumping his veins full of kinetic potential gathered from the waterfall and then throwing it all into the altered device in his head. James felt his teeth chatter as the energy was momentarily compressed into his flesh before pushing out and creating a almost visible pulse in the surroundings.
It worked. The message sent – a single message sent…and then the energy was expend without a response. It had only been boosted for a second or two after all.
Spending a while to recharge James sent a second pulse noting both that it lasted a bit longer and that he had a response.
James: New phone who dis.
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Richard: Hey you finally joined society! What have you been up to?
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James: Sorry, signal is shoddy. Pretend this is email instead of text and send big ass packets. I’ll send my adventure in a bit, I’m still figuring out how to attach videos to this thing.
James spent a bit of time detailing a rough outline of his adventurers since the last time they had been together. His AI didn’t seem able to give him videos of his memories, but it could transcribe a lot of the conversation with R, even though James hadn’t had the thing till afterwards. Ending the message by bending gravity and flying out of the cave, James filmed a quick drone shot of his kill as a flex. He then traveled back to charge his burst and sent it off. Waiting a bit to refill his stock he sent another pulse and was disappointed to note no response had come. Another charge and connection and he finally got a response.
Richard: How the fuck are you rank 3? My stat totals only at 611 – still in the 2++ range. I call hacks! Anyways, looks like its easiest to meet up in the next area. Grinding the same dungeon gets barely anything stat wise and other than the initial achievement and one device, I haven’t gotten anything from the knowledge grind. Might go fight some crime or beat up a homeless woman to catch up... Shouldn’t be more than a few days if I really focus?
Richard: Fuck I wanted to try and figure out how resurrection works but I got distracted. You say R called a clone of you an extra life? That’s…I’ll see about focusing on that angle. Of course it makes sense they are cloning us. How do they transfer consciousness and shit? Anyways, here’s a few snippets of my last week or so, Let me tell you about what those fuckers in the guild were doing behind our backs...