“Not like that! You have to inhale deeply and feel the burst of energy inside your heart.” -  I frowned as I wondered what it could be that was so hard for him to understand. – [Master! It’s not as easy as you say! You make it seem as if you knew exactly what to do and didn’t even need to practice, how am I supposed to do the same as you?!]

Mmm… Ok, it was true, I literally knew exactly what to do since the moment I unlocked the training, but still, I had described it perfectly, had I not? – “Let’s see, what could you possibly be doing wrong? Mmm…” – I pondered as I recalled the guide on the Berserker Rage, and analyzed the process. You had to force your heart to beat in a specific way, and then some kind of berserk energy would be generated on your heart…

“AH! Bob!” – I suddenly realized something, something I should have realized before, and called Bob. – [What, Master?] – “How many heartbeats do you hear when you listen to your own heart?” – I prayed to be right, because it would not only fix his problems, but also mean he was overly compatible with this method. – [Of course I hear two heartbeats, what could that have anything to do with the technique?] – He tilted his head, confused.

“Everything! You don’t have one heart, you have two, so you have to change both heartbeats!” – [Aaaah? You don’t have two hearts?] – He seemed lost. – “No, Bob, most creatures don’t, most probably even other Berserker Apes don’t have two hearts.” – [Is that true?! Ooh, I thought I was normal…] – He seemed somewhat depressed, so I hurriedly came to his rescue. – “No, Bob, you’re absolutely not normal” – He seemed even more depressed. – “You’re better than normal! You’re a wonderful Ape; you’re the Alpha of all Berserker Apes! Imagine all Apes’ communities under your watch, you could put together all of them!”

His eyes brightened as he wondered how that would feel, and he smiled as he forgot his previous depressed thoughts. – “Come on, Bob, try the Berserker Rage on both your hearts.” – I was hoping it would go well, but I also was afraid by what would happen. As he seated to start the beat synch, I remembered what had happened when I used Berserker Rage for the first time.

A week before:

“Ok, Bob, it’s just as easy as this, you use your heart to generate Berserker Rage energy, and then once the heart beats normally again, the energy expands around the body, increasing your strength, although it says something about control lose, I don’t think it’s that much of a problem, and it says there’s a way to control it, so go ahead, I’ll try it with you.” – [Ok, Master!]

I sat down and as when I breathed with the Werewolf Fury, I “looked inside myself”, only this time I was looking at my heart. I used all my strength and the method described to constrict my heart and make it beat following my instructions, suddenly I observed as together with a somewhat painful surge, energy started being generated inside my heart. I stopped constricting my heart, looking forwards to the effects of the energy, and then it started.

I felt the raging energy escape my control as it travelled through my veins towards every part of my body. One good chunk of it, though, went towards my brain, and suddenly all I saw was red.

I stood up and looked at Bob. – “GET OUT OF MY CAVE! THIS IS MY HOME, DON’T YOU DARE STAND BEFORE ME LIKE YOU LIVE HERE!” – I couldn’t comprehend why I would let a beast in my home. – “AAAAARGH! GET OOOOUUUT!!!!!” – I dashed at him as he realized something was wrong and his eyes reflected his fear. He dodged my first strike and started running towards the exit.

“DON’T YOU DARE TO TURN YOUR BACK AT ME!” – How dared this lowly beast ignore me?! I jumped forwards with all the intentions to kill that excuse of a beast in front of me, but Bob dodged my attack and punched back, hitting me straight to my face. I felt his punch crush my skull and part of my brain with it. I felt myself flying backwards while my consciousness both returned and left me. [What did I just try to do? Why would I try to kill him…

]

***

“Mmm… What happened to me?” – I woke up dizzy and confused. Last thing I remembered was releasing my heart from the pressure and all the energy went wild around my body, and then… into my head?! – “BOB! Are you ok?! Where are you?!” – I stood up in distress, worried that I had done something I would regret, but as soon as I stood up I noticed I was tied up, and in front of me was Bob, looking at me with a frown and with all his muscles tensed, ready to defend himself.

“Oh god, Bob, what did I do?” – I was scared; I didn’t want to lose him, not after I finally got a friend. – [It’s ok, Master, you lost your mind and tried to kill me, but I was able to leave you unconscious. I was really worried after I crushed your head.] – I couldn’t help but sigh of relief. – “I’m glad you were able to stop me. And you don’t need to worry; a simple wound wouldn’t be able to kill me, not even in the head.” – I didn’t tell him I was immortal, better to keep some things to myself.

[What happened, Master? Why did you lose your mind?] – Bob asked me worried, but I knew exactly why. He was worried that the fighting style was not usable, and he would have to wait even more. – “I think I know exactly what. The raging energy went mostly straight to my head, and I think that’s where the problem resides. If I’m able to deliver the energy around my body and still avoid my mind, it should be a good boost in strength… Wait, how were you able to crush my head?”

[I wondered too, but didn’t you say Berserker Rage lessened your defenses? Maybe it was that] – Ooh, that made sense, I attributed defense to my capability to block, not my toughness, but it makes sense, is like when I charged too much energy in a material, it would eventually blew up, so charging it with Berserker energy also decreases its integrity, it’s nice to know.

“Ok, I think I’ll be able to fix the control loss now, but just in case, take a rock and prepare yourself to knock me unconscious if I try to attack you.” – I told so to Bob as I sat down and started controlling my heart again. It felt like grabbing my heart with my hands and stopping it from beating, while at the same time I massaged it so the blood wouldn’t stagnate. As soon as I started, Raging red energy started generating, but instead of letting go, I kept “massaging” my heart.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

After what felt like hours but were but a single minute, I managed a heart full of energy and I noticed I couldn’t generate more, so I had to stop, but I didn’t just stop suddenly, I slowed down and concentrated on guiding the raging energy just as I did with the breathing technique I used with WF. I let it flow towards all my bones, but made the energy soak my bones instead of just inject it to them as it would’ve done if I wasn’t controlling, allowing a lower degree of fragility on my bones.

I followed by soaking my muscles and finally my skin. As I opened my eyes I found myself face to face with a worried and stressed Bob. – “Hey Bob, you can let that roEEY!” – I suddenly jumped backwards to avoid a giant rock from crashing onto me. – “What’s wrong with you, Bob?!” – [I-I’m sorry Master, I thought you would attack me again…] – He seemed honestly worried and sorry, so I decided to accept his apologies. – “Ok, Bob, doesn’t matter, and I’m fine, nothing wrong with me. Now let’s try the extent of this power.”

I walked towards the rock Bob had almost crushed my skull with, and punched it with all my strength.

*BOOOOOOM!*

“…”

[…]

“…I’m sorry?”

[WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!] – Bob screamed as he had to take quite a few rock pieces out of his skin. Luckily he was far from the rock and they didn’t do any serious damage.

“I said I’m sorry! I didn’t think I would blow the entire rock up!” – I apologized as I looked in wonder at what was left of the rock, that wasn’t much. As soon as my fist had hit the rock, it had cracked entirely, and as my fist went through, it had started to jump around, only this happened in less than half a second, and the rock was 3 meters wide and tall, so blowing it up like this was amazing.

[Well, at least we now know that the “amazingly great increase in strength” was no exaggeration, and probably the speed one won’t be something to joke about either.] – Bob was right, this was amazing, I was now at least ten times as strong as when I was not in kinetic energy, and if I infused my body in kinetic energy while I was on Berserker energy then what kind of power would I have?

I immediately tried to infuse kinetic energy in my arm, slowly and steady I felt my bones and muscles greedily absorb the kinetic energy, and as soon as they did, I felt the Berserker energy absorb the kinetic energy, becoming even more powerful, yet more stable. I then punched in the air, only to hear something rip apart, and then a thunderous sound.

At first I thought the ripping part was my arm, until I heard the thunder. As soon as I heard that I recognized the sound. It was the sound of the sound speed being broken!

“HAHAHAHAHA! I BROKE THE SOUND SPEED!” – Of course I realized that being able to attack at this speed and moving at this speed were worlds apart, but it still fell wonderful. That was until I felt the Berserker energy dissipate and I felt the pain.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” – I couldn’t help but scream, I felt as the bones of my right arm were pulverized while the rest of my bones “just” fractured. To resume it, I wasn’t fond at all of having my bones broken. In less than a few minutes, I was entirely healed already, but still hurt like hell.

[MASTER!] – I suddenly realized Bob had been calling me all the time while I was healing. – “Sorry to worry you, Bob, I’m fine now, but it was a hell of a painful experience. I think I’ll have to find a way for you to be able to use this without having all your bones broken.” – I made a sad smile while I sat down again.

“I now know I can control my mind, so I guess you can train on the stances we practiced already. I guess that even if you only get the stances, it will be a great improvement on your fighting strength, but either way, I’ll be trying to find a balance, a way for you to be able to use this power, while I’m at it, just practice, ok?” – [Ok, Master, thank you for everything.] – I didn’t answer him, I just smiled and closed my eyes, then went again at the training.

***

*Crack*

“Mmm… just a clean fracture and just on the arm I used Kinetic energy in. Still, if I am able to stay entire, is because I heal incredibly fast. Can’t risk Bob for my complacency.” – I sighed and went into meditation again, trying to figure a way for Bob to practice the energy infusing technique from Berserker Rage without being torn to pieces.

I had been practicing for five days straight, and I had almost full control over the energy, yet I still broke some of my bones, even if only when using both types of energy at the same time. I had tried almost everything, and although I had achieved not to break my bones and only put them under a mild stress, it was still too much.

True, if I didn’t hit anything they didn’t break, but the moment I was hit or I hit something, they most of the time broke, so it wasn’t viable yet.

I generated the energy again, but instead of soaking my body in energy I did what I had thought to be the way to go. I had simply avoided because it was the most hard to try. I stood up and brought the energy in my heart towards my arm just as I was hitting the wall.

*BOOM!*

“YES! FINALLY!” – I screamed of joy and almost lost my concentration and ended badly, luckily, I was able to stop the Raging energy before it went into my head. What I did was infuse my bones only at the time to hit, and then take back what was left of energy into my heart. It worked fine; instead of breaking, my bones had resisted perfectly the energy excess and just went along without so much as snapping.

This would require some work, but it was a good method. I exhaled as I released all the Raging energy through my breath and saw a red mist get out of my mouth. I had to think a way to automatically generate small amounts of Berserker energy and exhale it unless I decided not to. This way, I would have access to immediate strength without endangering either my bones or anyone else. If I didn’t even have energy inside me, it couldn’t go to my mind and make me lose control, no?

“BOB! COME HERE! YOU CAN START PRACTICING!”

***

And here we were. Looking at an enraged Bob with red eyes and trembling muscles. He was struggling to get from under me, yet unable to even though he was more than twice my size.

“Bob, calm down! You don’t want me to knock you unconscious; I know you can hear me. Drag the energy back into your heart and then exhale it!” – I forced my will into him, as I had done when he had tried to run away when we first met, and he stopped struggling somehow. I saw as a red mist went out of his nostrils and I smiled.

“I knew you could do it, Bob, you’re my pupil after all!” – I stood up and let him space. – [Thank you Master…] – He seemed mad at himself, and I get why, it was already the seventh time he lost his mind, and he thought he had disappointed me. – “Bob, you know I trust you, and hey, you’ve achieved the exhaling thing, now you can exhale the Berserker energy all the time, until you’re able to control it well enough not to let it go into your head. Think about it, you generate twice as much energy as I do, it’s amazing!”

[Ok, Master, I’ll try.] – And so, we went back to training, to make him the Berserker Ape more powerful that this forest had seen!