I open my eyes and try to take a peek out. After moving awkwardly not to disturb my wound, I can clearly see. The lack of light is not from closed doors and windows, but it’s because night has come around. Though I don’t know exactly what time it is.

With help from my roots, I lift my head again and lay there going over all that happened in my mind. After a few minutes, I communicate with Pando’s seed. I have no idea how he is still connected to the outside world. I’m not keeping any portals up.

After only an instant, I almost laugh. I feel the connection of the portal through him. It doesn’t concern me, and I could cut it if I wanted. It seemed being able to manipulate my Aether qualified him as part of me or something.

I spend a few minutes talking to the now another step smarter seed and looking around the world.

After taking as long as I dare, I stop delaying my next actions. No matter how much I dreaded the outcome, I still needed to know how much of my Aether I blew on that crazy stunt. Not that I wouldn’t do it again, the cost of doing otherwise was quite high, death.

I start to cycle the familiar energy around me. After a few seconds simply increasing the amount I pulled from my body I try to measure the bottom of my well.

A minute in, the distinct sensation of my well of Aether emptying is there, and I start to return all of it. Not as bad as it could have been.

I still had about 40% of the Aether, considering the amount system gave me on integration. Given I had donated almost half to Pando and used it a lot since getting here, It was not bad. But before this fight, I had about 45%.

I will need more Aether soon.

Shaking my head lightly, I go to the next Item of my mental self-assigned list of actions. And that is to look at my status. Opening the system prompts, I soon see my skill list.

Mana Manipulation

Lv. 71

Free Form Magic

Lv. 21

Deep Meditation

Lv. 68

Resource Infusion

Lv. 82

Fire Manipulation

Lv. 31

Water Manipulation

Lv. 54

Earth Manipulation

Lv. 55

Wind Manipulation

Lv. 25

Nature Manipulation

Lv. 63

Blacksmithing

Lv. 45

Staff Mastery

Lv. 57

Carrying Skill

Lv. 30

Running

Lv. 66

Unarmed Combat

Lv. 31

Runic Language

Lv. 48

Telepathy

Lv. 12

Your skill Mana Infusion has evolved to Resource Infusion. Resource Infusion (Mana based) You can infuse your body with any resource available along with mana. Moderate use does not bring any permanent harm to the user. Unpredictable effects if the user uses excessive or strange combinations of resources.

Looking over at this skill evolution, I don’t really know what to make of it. At first glance it’s scary, and there are some cryptic parts to it, but after a few moments, I believe I discovered the discrepancy and the subtle warning of the system.

The only reasonable hypothesis is that this is about my use of vigor. Ever since getting this new fangled stamina, it just seemed easier to manage things with it. This is not to say I stopped having my knowledge of vigor and occasionally making use of it, but this time it was different. I actually used it as a resource.

I have looked at stamina and vigor more like temperature probes on the water on a radiator. Being in different places makes it so their behavior is different, but for the laymen, they are the same thing. Perhaps I was too quick to file them both away in the same box.

All of that is interesting, and I will spend a lot of time on it later, but given my current state, it isn’t wise to start experimenting with it just yet.

As I go over the skill increase list, my jaw drops, and any other thoughts are driven out of my head. Level 84 in Resource Infusion. This is very likely the highest level skill from anyone on the instance, maybe from humanity. My heart beats faster and faster, as my breathing accelerates and my hands tremble. Instead of letting it in, which would be my normal course of action, I take a couple of deep and slow breaths to take control of the response.

In less than a minute, I stop wincing, as my side stops sending unhappy signals. Trying to contain the outward signs of my excitement, I continue to go over my skill list, although nothing gets quite to this level, I still lay there grinning like a little kid.

Nature mana is now exponentially easier to yield. Mana manipulation is more natural than ever.

But as much as I want to go ever every single of my skills mentally exploring them and what they allow me to do, I stop myself and continue looking over the system prompts.

What I see soon after is perhaps even more jaw-dropping.

You have participated in a trial of your village. Bonus Exp. 6x +25% Overwhelming victory. Enemies: Goblins Avg. Lv. 35 x1992 Wolves Avg. Lv. 25 x912 Archers Avg. Lv. 35 x102 Orcs Avg. Lv. 40 x101 Goblin Shaman Avg. Lv. 50 x25 Goblin Chief Avg. Lv. 70 x1 Your contribution awards you: 6.97 M Exp. (5.99%)

You have participated in the defense of your village against another village. Bonus Exp. 2x Enemies: Humans Avg. Lv. 31 x1992 Your contribution awards you: 1.58 M Exp. (5.16%)

Stolen story; please report.

Holy cow. That’s a boatload of Exp. If the exp calculation for higher levels doesn’t change that is well over Lv. 100. The impulse to just chose a random class, right now is nearly overwhelming, with the right choice I may even be able to walk out of here completely healed. I however get my twitching fingers, that wanted to open the class selection screen, under control.

The short-term gains may be amazing, but if I managed to do this by myself this early, it doesn’t make sense to just choose a random class. I also shouldn’t wait for years, I need to capitalize on all my advantages as soon as possible. Though I had a feeling a class that suited me was just around the corner. I just need to…….. do something. What, is the imperative question.

Finally, I open my stat screen and look at what has changed there.

Name: Nash

Level:10

Titles:3

Class: [Expand]

8.77M/0 EXP

Strength

34

Soul

36

Constitution

29

Agility

31

Dexterity

34

Endurance

43

Perception

38

Intelligence

38

Willpower

51

Health

263/515

314

/day

Mana

636/636

58,24

/hour

Stamina

336/336

4,68

/min

Over 8 Million Experience in the bank. There is no way I could have half of that even if I spend an entire month hunting non-stop.

There must be a way to game the system into sharing the next bounty of Exp with other people. I can just imagine the growth of someone talented like Alex, or a monster like Greg was instantly level 100.

My eyes go to the soul stat next. Finally, I gain a point there. In everything actually, but my eyes are glue there for a few moments. It was the first and only increase I saw. At least considering the ‘normal’ way. I also gained at least two in all my stats except this little stubborn number that seemed to work on different rules somewhat.

Wondering at the new size of my inner world, what initially is a modest grim becomes a full-blown smile as I remember the options I had to choose from.

I close the stat screen and open the systems options to change how the size is calculated.

Possible primary parameters: Level Lowest stat * 2 Highest skill * 0.9

Choosing the highest skill without excitation, I watch the size increase by a fair amount.

Inner world: (82*0.9)*10*36*1=26.56 m of diameter

I can’t wait to get some more soil in there. After flattening it a bit, I can probably get near 35 meters of diameter in the middle. Soon the rabbits and Pando’s seed would have over 10k square feet to play in. Still, with how fast my stats were increasing I doubted the highest skill level option would be the best for long. Even without a single additional level, we still talking about less than a month. Maybe much less, if I healed up fast.

Each and every single new class I unlocked were somehow wrong. I didn’t even need to look over the descriptions and stat makeup of the class the know that. Just from their name I simply knew…… Or at least my gut knew.

I spend another few minutes laying there, but to stand around doing nothing is against my nature. I think of going into meditation, to increase my regen rate, and get my Health to 100%, but the exercise would be nearly futile with the days a wound like this will take to heal. With my mana, I tighten the roots over most of my body, and lift myself, to move out of the recovery room.

As I pass the door, another Nurse is heading in my direction. Likely, coming to check on us. Expecting to find me in my cocoon while sleeping in my bed, she is startled are me moving around.

“Nash… what are you doing? You should be in bed. You nearly died.”

With a low voice, trying to strain my ribs and the muscles in my abdomen as possible, I say:

“Just taking a stroll.”

A grim slowly forms in my face over the next minute, as she tries to convince me to come back o bed, but I’m not dissuaded. So I end up not answering anything else until she gives up.

“Fine, If you are going to do it anyway, don’t talk if at all possible. And no physical activities, just lay in your coffin thing and use magic to move around.”

Slowly forming a facsimile of a hand with the roots, I give her a thumbs-up. With a sigh, she walks off. For some strange reason, I got a kick out of teasing her. It however is brief-lived, and I concentrate on what I need to be doing right now.

A quick look at the town clock gives me the time. About 4 am. My stomach grumbles slightly, but I just ignore it, letting my abdominal tissues heal for a while longer before I eat again. What I focus on, is moving at a decent pace.

Relling only on moving my cocoon around with the roots, I’m about as fast as a snail slithering on the ground. I slowly develop strategies to increase my speed. In the end, I continue to lay almost touching the ground, and thin roots that leave and return to the ground push me along almost as fast as a person walking.

Looking at the 500 pounds of roots involving me, I judiciously change their shape and makeup and send most of them intact to my inner world. Only enough to provide minimum defenses against the random parson accidentally stepping on me, and enough stiffness to hold my body still.

Now with only a fifth as much mass, and improving control of the awkward movements required to cart myself around, I slowly gain a little speed.

I look ahead and try my hardest to match the speed of a well-armed foreigner walking in our city. Not sure what he is still doing here, I would have thought the reinforcements to have returned by now. He might be a straggler behind or was to accompany the wounded back when they can make the trip.

I move to the main street next, and soon, after entering another less traveled road, am standing in front of Alex’s room. I knock with my staff, wielded by my roots, now even more convenient given I can take and withdraw any item they touch from the inner world. I guessed that Pandon’s seed capabilities were even more incredible than I realized, but I had no frame of reference. So I let the question wither in my mind as I focus on the immediate things I will be paying attention to.

A few seconds later, I see Alex dressed for battle.

“Nash, it’s so good to see you are fine man.” With a wide smile and open posture, he looks at me with relief. In a careful and low tone, I reply.

“It’s good to be up and about. You are leaving the village?”

“Yeah, I hunted a little at the beginning of the night, but after the battle, I was just too tired to fight properly. So I came back to catch up on sleep. I’m going back writ away for as long as possible. Still, I can take a few minutes.”

“Let's walk out together.”

“Fine with me.”

After he comes back inside and finishes getting ready, we set out to the village gate at a relatively slow pace. He starts to talk first.

“After you were downed, I got close to Max and was helping Greg and the others to fight him. Truth be told, I did nearly nothing, but I could tell after using so much of his aura that he was straining to keep up. If he did it again, we could have taken him down probably.”

“And I’m guessing he did not give even half a chance for the fireball turrets, or whatever they are called to strike him.”

“You assume correctly. They were also using mana a little conservatively, we can't just use massive mana amounts for meager returns. I think Charlie still had a surprise or two he was saving, and they would have required a lot of mana. Mind that is just speculation.”

“I think so too. Though I would guess, he just didn’t have a good opportunity to use the other surprises. He did use the firewall I assume.”

“Yes, it only turned on for like 10 seconds, and it was just after that they ordered the retreat. It must have cost at least 100k mana. It didn’t even injure them too much.”

“The main problem is transporting the mana around. Even at the relatively short distances, the village works at, we are still talking about hundreds, or thousands of times the speed of the link to my house. I’m gonna help with it, but there will always be limitations.”

“I guess so. Either way, I felt as if I was close to wielding my Aether. But without any real feedback, I have no way of knowing if I was actually making progress or it was just in my head.”

I look over the gate, just fifty meters from it, I speak:

“If you want, I can help you. Five minutes and you can be on the way.”

“Five minutes or five hours, if I’m learning about Aether, there is nothing else that matters. I just didn’t want to spend too long catching you up if it was stuff you could get from people without anything else to be doing right now.”

We both grin at the efficient mindset we seemed to share. But it seems he has come to realize even more than before, the importance of Aether. With no compunction, I prepare to sink a little of my own Aether in the endeavor of teaching him.

“Ok, try to wield this Aether, and I send a stream of Aether in his forehead. At the same time I spin and slightly stronger stream around him. I don’t go too specific on the story this second stream tells, just focus on teaching him about how to yield Aether in his own right.”

He tries for a few moments, and though his results are slightly better than before, I see nothing extraordinary at first. From him what I sense is a little frustration at failing to elicit the state in which he felt closer to the Aether, even if it was not quite there.

I hear his breathing get deeper and more regular slowly, and in an impulse that I not expected, but did not stop my efforts, he starts to move around. A couple of people passing in the street, distance themselves from us, as he spins and moves with his spear.

Not in a way, a highly trained performance artist might do, but like a kid trying to imitate his favorite martial artist actor on a movie. What I soon see, is that each of his moves, by the second grow more refined, and free. My story and the tendril going into his forehead, now extend further, but they continue to serve the same function.

Although I continue to wield the Aether in the way which will maximize its results, the story is not told by me, it’s told from the eye of the storm, it’s told from within the very source of his make up, and because of that, it will be orders of magnitude stronger and more resilient.

And that story begins today as I feel the slightest stirrings against my Aether.