Okay, essence, like most energy, seemed to have the characteristics of both a particle and a wave. Imagine each ‘energy unit’, as I called it, as a conglomerate particle instead of a battery.

I was back on top of the school building, shadowboxing. Silly, but I just thought better, when I was in motion. The small observation deck could easily be covered in a few steps, but that just meant I had to make sure to get in arm motion as much as footwork.

Obviously, my nervous system uses electrical impulses to trigger chemical impulses. That was Biology 101. I had nailed down the exact reaction of those impulses back when I was trying to improve my body, which was why I had a lot more… short nerves than most people. Chemical reactions were slow, electrical impulses were much faster, so I had shortened the chemical reaction chains to the bare minimum. It made me fast, very fast, but it still couldn’t hold a candle to what a ‘fast’ alpha could do, either through some sort of speed superpower or due to bio-enhancement.

Most of the fictions had mentioned ‘body enhancement’ as one of the side effects of cultivation, and I had sort of done it in reverse. They usually mentioned flooding their body with chi energy and rebuilding it better, while I had taken the more intellectual route of making it better before even knowing what the hell chi energy, essence, or whatever really was.

The thing was, most of the novels that detailed how cultivation worked started with the same steps. Figure out where your energy pool is, start pulling energy into the pool, and then purify it to be what you need. Once that happened, there were apparently three possible paths.

1. Flood your body with energy, let the energy rebuild you, and get better and better at idealizing your ‘divine form’. Of course, how that worked was a mystery. You just did it and let your body handle it, as if there was some sort of blueprint out there for a ‘divine heart’ that started adding energy on its own.

If there was, I didn’t know what it was or how it worked, and I wasn’t going to just disintegrate my own heart, flood my system with energy, and hope something magically developed like there was a magical blueprint in the collective unconscious that knew what a ‘divine heart’ looked like. This was called ‘body cultivation’. Apparently, the way Graviton naturally worked, his body had already started doing this on its own using compressed energy without input. I would need to seriously scan some physical enhancement alphas since Bob’s method would likely kill me.

2. Keep growing my ‘soul’, stretch it out, fill it with energy, and then try to compress that energy down. Once I got my energy channels, or meridians, working, this was supposed to just naturally increase my ability to handle and manipulate energy in all of its forms. That was referred to as spirit cultivation, and of all three types, it seemed to have the most solid and consistent information, probably because there’s no way to prove anything about it, no external special effects, so everyone, from Tai Chi masters to Bodhivistas, seemed to have been working from the same internal alchemy stuff forever instead of making up cool new fictions to match their magical worlds.

Last, and probably least, was referred to as mind, or external energy. Of the three types, it seems to have been indulged in the most by fantasists, because it included the most blatantly magical stuff like ryokan fireballs and the ‘ninth tier heavenly divine sword of flaming dragon-fire moon ten thousand Li cuts.”

Depending on the fiction, primarily body cultivators were mystical martial artists, spirit cultivators were cultivators and mind cultivators were wizards or sorcerers. Supposedly, each had its own strengths and weaknesses, but few went with all three for various disconnected reasons.

Of course, in my case, I didn’t think it would be possible for me to gain power unless I went with all three. I just wish I knew how, but I figured I already had at least a basis in both body and mind cultivation from improving myself and learning to simulate various elemental attacks. Normal Alphas just had instincts that helped them… maybe body enhancers had an instinct for improving their internal organs and skin durability, but what it was, I didn’t have it, probably due to that missing secondary connection, those ‘concepts’ that Linker was talking about.

I felt through my body, based on what I felt when my energy was high. I didn’t need to just feel it, I needed to visualize it, just like when I was merging materials. The energy was sort of like light, but felt way lower on the scale, if not completely off the scale. I couldn’t make it flow like water, but when I treated and perceived it like particles, I could actually feel it all over my body.

Obviously, it was not sight, but I could still feel it. Was this what my power looked like? I started wondering… how did I detect it? Was it like light? Was my brain bouncing whatever this energy was off of this energy? After a few minutes I just...shelved it. That way lies self-crippling analysis.

My soul? I had no idea what that would even look like. Was it like a balloon in the middle of my stomach? Or was it my whole body? I mean, soul energy was tied to life, and my whole body was alive, but at the same time it was supposed to be a container for my energy, and as I explored further, I realized that it seemed to have a place in my middle where it pooled more strongly.

Like radiation, the particles of different shapes seemed to be everywhere, with a slightly higher concentration of the same kind of energy particles that pooled inside of me. Some of it was coming, some of it was going, and a very tiny amount was changing, from one kind of shape to another. The fiercely organized part of my mind was creeped out at it, but I guessed it was natural, like fire shifting solid and gas into plasma and new shapes.

I added more breathing to the energy to try and create that spiral, and to my delight, it seemed to actually be adding more energy instead of simply leaching away the excess. I started stirring all of it to rotate around the area where it seemed to be slowly creating a whirling pool. In with the good, out with the bad and useless. Like fire, or the slow spinning of electrons around a charged molecule.

The fire metaphor actually made it a lot easier to deal with. While I had trouble thinking of the energy as a liquid, probably because my ability was tied more to particles than to waves, imagining it as a spiraling circle of shining bits of plasma was much easier. A plasma spiral that spun rapidly and burned away anything that fell into it other than itself, the bits of dirt, dust, and other, odder contaminants burning away…

***

The ceiling was interesting. There was a big sign over the bed that said “Call, don’t fall!” with a picture of a stick figure crashing to the floor between a hospital bed and a wheelchair.

A track, white panels, and an enormous amount of suspended medical equipment, some of which I recognized, a lot of which I didn’t. I had a pretty good medical education, as far as the body was concerned, but most of the tools were stuff that specialists learned to use. If I took the time I could probably figure out what each of them was, and how to use them, but right now I had a more important question on my mind.

Like why I was here. I mean, it was pretty obvious that I was in a hospital, since I was tucked into a hospital bed and wearing a hospital gown, and my left arm ached pretty harshly. I was tempted to reset it, but… there was something weird going on.

I didn’t have an IV, which was probably a good thing, since they weren’t used frequently with alphas. Not only because it was a nightmare trying to get through toughened skin, but also because, biologically, alphas tended to be very different from each other as well as different from normies in a lot of ways.

“Hello?” I asked. After a moment, I managed to find a call button on the bed and pressed it.

Minutes later, a dark-skinned, very large man dressed in scrubs stuck his head in, and smiled, “Hullo Mister Doyle! You are awake! This is very good!” He looked… I was thinking maybe Tongan or old-school Samoan. I wasn’t that good with accents.

I nodded and looked around. My neck kind of hurt as well. “Right, uhh… why am I here?”

He opened the door a little further, “You are not going to have spontaneous power fluctuations, yes?” he asked.

“No, not that I know of… was I?”

He nodded, “Yes, A teacher, Doctor Landhurst, was called to help you because you were shocking the paramedics after your fall.”

“I didn’t hurt anyone, did I?”

He shook his head, “No, not hurt. You are class two, yes? No, minor shock, but paramedics needed rubber gloves. Especially with your condition, yes?”

“My… condition?”

He nodded, “Yes, people wanted to know why you were climbing around roof coated with sewage and tar. Slipped, fell, and dislocated shoulder. Lucky you did not dislocate your brain. Flyer?”

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I shook my head, “So I just… fell?”

He nodded, “Yes, you fell. Landed right on lawn by the base of Quentin statue, lucky you didn't fall on statue. You were unconscious. No one was quite sure why. Sports medicine specialist said you had dislocated shoulder, but the X-ray machine come back blank. They were worried you might have head injury, but alphas are hard to read. Doctor Landhurst said your brain wasn’t damaged, you just had power exhaustion really bad. You are lucky you’re not dead.”

“Not flying? Sometimes folks fly, and burn themselves out by mistake and fall, thought maybe that was what happened, especially if you fly out of… sewer? Fighting shock rats?”

I nodded, “Something like that.” My brain finally started to work and I started remembering what I was doing. I’d been shadowboxing and running from one side of the observation deck, so what happened?

I could feel the energy inside me right now, slowly revolving. No, it wasn’t power exhaustion, not at all… I could FEEL I had at least twice as much power as I had before, it was circulating through my core like a haze of lightning. It wasn’t power exhaustion, it was more like an overload. Had I damaged something?

I guess I had been so caught up in my exercise that when I suddenly started drawing power in, I’d stripped it from other parts of my body, maybe including my brain. I guessed that when that happened, my brain shut down, and my body kept moving because I was still moving… had I pranced my way right off the edge of the roof?

From what he was saying, I pitched right over the safety rail through the crenelations, hit the lower roof, and slid off with a good two-story drop onto the grass beneath. No kidding about getting lucky! I had dislocated my shoulder, but if I had landed on my head, I would be dead. No do-overs, no resets, no blueprints. D-E-D dead. I was tougher than usual, but tougher wouldn’t keep my skull from splattering if it hit concrete after a two-story fall.

Still, between me and Mister Bob, we had been right! The energy thing didn’t really match the literature very much, I didn’t have a magic lake in my crotch, or channels, at least not yet.

I needed to think, I needed privacy. I needed to exercise and meditate somewhere I wasn’t going to fall off the roof!

“Can I go?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you safe to go? You were banged up, and the doctor doesn’t know why you were unconscious for fourteen hours.”

I nodded and checked myself. I had some good bruising around my collarbone, but nothing I couldn’t heal up easily enough even without a reset. My brain seemed to be okay even though I had a headache… probably a bit of a residual concussion. My neck hurt, but that seemed part of the initial dislocation, soft tissue damage since nothing felt broken, and I had to be grateful that someone with likely stronger than normal strength seemed to have relocated my shoulder while I was out. Fourteen hours was bad, though, since that meant I had missed my classes. The rest of me appeared to be alright except for some bruising on the outside of my left hip and knee.

I nodded, “I’m a support healer. I seem to be in pretty good shape.” I had an idea about that tar sewage stuff too. One thing both the fictions and the internal alchemy books had stated was that impurities, the stuff that was getting sucked into my now slowly spinning energy core, would make their way out of you disgustingly. but that was one more thing I owed someone for, cleaning me up. My clothes were probably utterly wrecked, so I needed to heal myself and get back to the dorm.

“Support healer? What is that? You are not listed on reserve? Oh, I am Bill. William Enoha. Usually, anyone with any gifts related to healing or triage quick to get on clinic reserve.”

I shook my head, “I am Jacob Doyle. I guess you know that already? I have only been here a week, I’ve been in remedial classes. What is the reserve?”

He grinned broadly, “If you can help with medicine you can be placed on training reserve. That is, maybe, supposed to improve your experience healing. It will also help earn school credit and increase support rankings. I am on reserve. I am strong and have paramedic associate’s degree from the University of Oahu. Helps pay for school and improves ranks.”

I nodded, that was actually a solid plan. Yeah, his accent and odd word choice didn’t exactly inspire confidence in his intelligence, but with a plan and training like that, his intellect probably seriously belied his appearance. “You wouldn’t fit in an ambulance easily.”

He chuckled, “It has its compensations. You feeling up for getting checked out? Or wait for dinner first? Your sponsor was here… two hours ago? The cute girl looked worried.”

I shrugged and tested my shoulder. I’d probably just let it heal naturally in a day or so instead of wasting energy. “Go ahead and get a discharge started. Are we on campus?”

He nodded, “Yeah. The campus has a good clinic. Lots of minor injuries in training. We are behind the Bullworth building. I’ll get you set up for discharge.”

***

I was feeling alright, if in a little pain, but I had done more feeling worse, so I managed to get to Criminology class after I changed out of the academy sweats that they’d given me to get home. I had met Doctor Landhurst, a severe woman in her fifties who ran the trauma center. Most medical conditions other than trauma would be handed off to one of the city hospitals because the Academy was not exactly a hotbed of infectious diseases and age-related illnesses, but apparently training-related injuries in a place where combat dueling was a respected method of proving your value were common.

“Jake!” I heard Mindy’s voice as I exited the class, and noticed her standing next to another young lady, a somewhat mousey girl wearing glasses. Short, very much a fan of the color brown, yes, unattractive, no. She was definitely working the hell out of both the ‘beautiful all along’ and the nerdy sexy librarian trope. I could tell just from the way that energy was circulating that she was very definitely an alpha. Was this a new facet of me unlocking my abilities? Being able to detect alphas at a glance? If so, it was definitely not something I wanted to share. One more secret that could get me black-bagged.

I stopped, “Hi Mindy.”

“What on earth happened to you? I came by the hospital but you wouldn’t wake up. Are you okay?”

I nodded, “Yes, I am fine. Do you want to go to dinner? I can’t really talk about it here.”

She nodded quickly, “Sure. Oh, first I’d like you to meet Abigail Snow. Abbey, this is the guy I was talking about, Jacob Doyle. Abbey is remedial also, and got rushed here yesterday just like us! She was pushed into the PR classes too, for the next two weeks until the mid-break.”

Abigail pulled off her glasses with her left hand, which I noticed didn’t seem to actually have any magnification, which meant that they were a prop. She held out her hand for me to shake, and as a seeming habit, bit the earpiece of her glasses, calling attention to both her lavender eyes and her lips while I shook her hand.

Oh yes, I was very familiar with the look, and she was playing it quite expertly. Christine had played a similar game, although in her case it had been a bit more genuine, since before her awakening, she really was a lot more of a bookworm. The difference was, that I recognized it instantly this time and had to wonder exactly how accidental this meeting was. “Hi, Abigail, a pleasure to meet you,” I said, shaking her hand lightly.

She wanted to play the game, I could play the game, at least until I knew what her angle was… It could just be her way of dealing with people, or it could be intentionally aimed at me. I knew damned well I was paranoid, but I also knew that just because I was paranoid didn’t mean someone wasn’t out to get me. In my head, Admiral Akbar was screaming “It’s a trap!”

She smiled, showing off a hint of retainer. Small signs of imperfection and vulnerability? Check. If she’d been a redhead, I would have been instantly sure that she was a plant, because she would have been TOO obviously targeted at my history.

If she was a weapon, though, someone knew my history and emotional vulnerabilities very well. If I weren’t Paranoid I’d probably be drooling over her, since even her short height, slight dusting of brown freckles, and compact, curvy body concealed by shy, slightly-too-baggy clothes were right in my preferred sweet spot. Not traditionally beautiful, since most guys seemed to prefer overfull lips, D-cups, perfect complexion, and long legs, she probably would be considered an eight or nine instead of a ten, but definitely in my strike zone.

“Hello Jake,” she replied, seeming to linger just a bit too long before she released my hand. “I understand that you are Mindy’s support?”

I nodded, “Yes. And since you know that, I suppose that means you are an alpha?”

She nodded, “They rushed me in here, I just assumed that meant that other rushes were here for a reason. I doubt very much that after we work and fight together there will still be a lot of doubts about our identities, but in the end, we are all on the same team.”

I nodded, “At least I assume we will be on the same team unless you plan on putting on a cowl and monologuing about world domination?”

She blushed a little and then laughed, “Right, No more internet! The world will return to printed books and newspapers! Muahahaha!”

I nodded, “Is that a key to your psychology?”

She shook her head, “No, but I think that would be interesting. I am not a huge fan of social media, but I read my books online just like everyone else. Why, are you looking for keys?”

I nodded slowly, another quirk in my strike zone. Shy but confident, too. Either she was sincere, or she was very well trained. “Maybe, maybe not. Will we be seeing you in teamwork training tomorrow? I have to ask my sponsor’s advice on a few things tonight.”

She nodded, smiling brightly, “Yes! I’ll look forward to seeing both of you tomorrow!”