Our new condition bothers us slightly in the back of our mind, but I and my other half simply heal people on the other side of the world during and after their own attacks go through.

My attention stays firmly on the task for the entire duration, even as we are forced to become even more selective and use even less Life with each treatment. I still have a good chunk left, but it was coming down quickly with how many people were in the battles of ever greater proportions. This will force us to either slow down our healing drastically as the number of injured balloons to what might as well be infinity.

Luckily, while the numbers of injuries that happen are tremendous, most of them don’t actually need healing considering the system. Sure, it might take them days or weeks in pain to get even a minimal level of combat capability, but at least they are alive.

My mind is completely on the exercise. Even during the breaks between each of the fights, I don’t stop to experiment or train in other stuff, I simply keep working on my control of Life while trying to think of better ways to use this precious resource.

Millions of lives I nudged towards action are at risk because attacking now would limit their casualties. So the thousands that I’m sure wouldn’t make without help from a magical nature get that help.

So far away, even the smaller attacks end up with fewer injuries than we saw, and I’m thankful for it because working from so far away by itself already comes with significant resource penalties.

By the time the last attack is over and done with, the scattered soldiers from the Elven camp had all either returned to their city or they were captured by Pando. We still have patrols in the vicinity, but they were more for show and habit than strictly necessary for security.

The ever greater numbers joining around the world and donating Mana even if they aren’t well not suited to front line combat help immensely, allowing the flying vehicles the budget to move farther and for longer. Especially as we decide to be less circumspect in hiding how many can fit into a flying bus with a faux inner world of its own. What should have fitted 50 soldiers with their equipment now streams hundreds of soldiers or even thousands without breaking a sweat.

All around the Earth, tired soldiers return to their home bases.

Over the next few hours, the month hits the end and another levy of people, now once with slightly higher average levels, more driven and with a better idea of how things were started pop back from the instance. But that just means something similar is starting up in the enemy camps.

There is an argument to be made for attacking now, but we prefer to integrate the new arrivals, train them up with resources developed over centuries and raise their standards as much as possible before going on the offensive just before the end of the month.

The part of my mind tracking their moves and concerned with the enemy shuts off.

Sure conceptually I knew that we were always in danger and if they pull a rabbit out of a hat they might even be able to get me in a worse state if not manage to fully finish me off, but even with their increasing numbers, they don’t have enough of an edge to effectively go on the offensive.

Should they try to come for us over in our village, we would trounce them so thoroughly that I would almost feel pity for them. considering the relative level of troops and numbers on the table at this stage, realistically they can only defend or scatter and hope to get a few through to attack somewhere unprotected.

Though without full knowledge of our capability, they might judge the endeavor as a worthwhile risk. The underground root network however would pinpoint them in no time, even if they did manage to confuse us for a brief period.

All those concerns fade from my mind and I turn to what the future holds for me.

Something that is a lot more frightening than simply pondering on their attacks strikes my mind, but I don’t flinch away.

I look down at my prosthetic legs and arms. Sure, I knew that I could learn how to regenerate them, eventually, but that hint of dread still strikes me.

I’m too weak, way too weak.

And that other place that resembles the void… I never want to go back, though I may not have a choice. If they catch me off guard, even at the back lines. Maybe I won’t leave even a skull with the acrid surroundings burning away the rest of my body.

That place was different. Even the strips of Titan leather that made my armor were damaged enough that they lost integrity. Next time I will need a different design to avoid that. My own body surpassed the resistance from anything that was supposedly defending me except for the hints of mithril infusing the roots inside my body.

I knew there was a lot to explore there and I would probably take a few nights to do just that, but that is not the lesson I want to work on right now.

I’m weak and I need to remedy that as fast as possible.

There are two paths for me and by the nature of my situation, they had to come in a specific order.

I need to heal and I can feel that I would gain something from the exercise beyond just my limbs back.

Then I would take my class trial. That wouldn’t be some exponential leap to my strength, but it’s the only thing in the relatively short term that would give me a significant boost.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

It was risky, especially with the lack of knowledge of how it would turn out, BUT, even if the only thing that I get was the class multiplier from 1,2 to 1,3 that crossing past level 100 thresholded wielded, it would be worth it.

And maybe I would get a higher rarity class upgrade like the last time around.

With a proper plan in my mind, following it is easy. Even if I’m still not a hundred percent on how to implement it.

I knew I struck a cord when my conviction for reclaiming my body from the system firmed up, but that doesn’t sound like something to do in an afternoon, like so many of my projects.

That said I could probably see some progress along that line before striking out on my own. Likely, as I learned about the system and everything inside it, I would learn how feasible my plan actually was and what form it would take.

Sitting down to meditate I try to reacquire that sense I experienced only a day ago soon after I discovered my injury and failed to heal them. That dichotomy, the strange sense I had even before the system that I could regrow my limbs over months or years if I had to, but that was gone.

Those little intuitions didn’t make sense and I sometimes scoffed at, but that now I knew probably hold more truth than I wanted to admit. I trust my old instincts. I had seen firsthand and undeniable truth so many times that it was hard to ignore it. Predictions that I never imagined could come true from the unlikeliest of places.

Impressions about people, paths to follow in my research and even choices as simple as should turn left or right were guided by my gut and I got the right answer much more frequently than a coin flip.

It isn’t perfect and sometimes being rational is the right answer, but when I don’t have enough information, I can lonely be guided by impressions and I let them guide me now.

I try to reach specifically to that ‘ownership’ of my body, but the sense is gone. Replaced by a hole the system imposed in my ‘spirit’. Now I have to revert it. I allowed someone to push the truck down the hill, now I have to take the manual winches, find a path with a nice and smooth road, plenty of trees to leverage against and warm up my arms because it will be hard work.

I head as deep into my meditation session as I can go and beyond. I stretch time and my perception to work in a rhythm similar to how Pando used to move.

Slow and languid movements which any other time would be folly, but now I need to listen to the echoes of my former self.

I had progressed in a lot of ways, but in this, I regressed, so I need to recapture my lost ‘glory’. This strange legacy that someone, consciously or not, must have left for me. Maybe even for everyone, but seemingly only I unlocked it to any meaningful degree.

A thousand malformed thoughts flit through my head, but I breathe life into all of them, looking at each revolving around my mind and then rejecting them in turn.

Simply forcing the system out like I learned using raw will and the power of my soul or trying I exclude its new Aether constructs might be useful under different circumstances, like when I was increasing my stats.

But those other times, the calculus was very different.

I need a sustainable way to do it. A way that would require conscious control every moment of every day at the extreme of my capabilities. A way that would work.

I might be to create constructs of my own to replace the system’s, though I doubt that it was as shallow as that would work without centuries, millennia of work to discover and understand how the system guided and constructed Aether.

My meditation feels stale, even if I can gain from this exercise, the lack of motion is hampering me.

If I want to reclaim my body I won’t do so while standing still, I need motion, I need to put into practice what I want, to call from my depths the change I desire and let it manifest in reality, manifest in my very flesh.

So like a dancer, I move through martial arts katas, poses from calisthenics and several forms of yoga all the while using pulling on all the books I read on Meditation written in the instance and even the ones recovered since my return.

Even without me trying, the ground extends around me connecting my root limbs to the new ‘ground’ above the city eliminating any hint of concern as I step off I will step off the ledge of my home’s terrace. Motion is the only thing I can interact with and I give myself to it.

In counterpart, I start to get a deeper sense of what my soul could do and both soul and body seem like two halves that combined would wield more than apart in every measure that I can imagine.

Glimpses of what I might one day achieve show up even as my muscles burn with exertion. I don’t stop even for a moment to breathe or to rest trying to reach that impossible goal.

I keep going and going and going until I have nothing left. Hours, pushing and pulling without letting Aspen or Pando give me any Vigor. Hours until I reach my limit and it is not my mind but my body.

I open my eyes and instead of sticking the landing after a 30 meters high jump, I tumble to the ground utterly exhausted.

“Well, I guess that is what happens when someone like me lets loose.”

I lay there, for probably half an hour, resting and recovering while my mind goes into the memory palace trying to piece a few things together. Something I would have continued for another while, but a messenger climbs to my level, some 15 meters above the ground and he speaks through the mesh of roots:

“Nash, we have news from southern Africa. They figured out what was going on with the gems.”

“What?”

“Gems, you were the one that told us about the hints everywhere they can interact with magic, not just metals. Hell, they seem to be essential to high-level engravings and the normal forms of compact mana storage.”

“And what is the trick to it?”

“We aren’t sure, but they found two gems that simply took in mana and they can make very, VERY compact batteries, surpassing even pure Mithril batteries.”

“I want one of these gems, no… a few of them.”

He grimaces and I sigh, but instead of letting it bother me, I just take on a simple shell to serve as an aerodynamic device and take off to another continent. If they won’t negotiate at a distance, I will show up in person. I’m way more persuasive like that.

“Take me. “ He screams far below and for a moment I wonder how did I hear him so high in the air, but even his next whisper is clear as day. “Bloody hell, you could….”

I open a portal to the inner world that will remain in place as long as I’m in range. Then I adopt that same lighting pattern that we settled to use during attacks after I was ready to fully expose the inner world. Which after a fashion had already come. He looks that the yellowish green rapidly passes through pure yellow and starts to turn red. He overcomes his momentary shock and leaps inside well before the Portal will have to abruptly shut off.

I extend my will and perception to someone on the edge of Pando’s city, it couldn’t be called a village any longer, and I see that all my hard work in the perception field finally paid off. In halts and starts, I don’t just get the general meaning or read the lips of this random person, I can truly hear him.

You are welcome. Arives from my other half and I just snort. Indeed this is an amazing gift.

I climb higher and higher. Freed from the mortal bonds of gravity, my mind lights up. My body and healing are still important and I have all the trip to explore them, so I won’t even lose any time, but something else that is very important is happening with gems and I cannot in good conscience ignore it.