I heard a whistle on my ears, and I felt heavy on my heart, lungs and stomach, and I felt how the floor was getting DAMN CLOSER!

“AAAARGH! STUPID POWER!” – I couldn’t help myself but to scream, as I realized how bad I had fucked up. I didn’t realize what I had been doing on the other side until I teleported back here. I had been moving, why couldn’t I expect the same to happen here?

Well, not the time, now, I needed to recompose myself, and enter the SD again. I closed my eyes and tried to feel myself submerged in shadows, entering the other side… but the damn whistle of the wind against my ears was getting in the way!

I knew I wouldn’t die, I was immortal, but heck, it would hurt a lot to fall down from such height, and I didn’t want to experience it. So I kept trying, closing my eyes, ignoring everything, and imagining myself swimming on shadows again. I felt as the shadows were starting to creep over me, even thought very slowly, when I heard a scream, and I lost my focus.

I snapped my eyes open only to see a Gryphon flying extremely fast towards me, claws first. I tried to look for my knives, but I realized, I didn’t have them, I was not supposed to leave the cave yet, so I hadn’t taken them with me. I resigned myself to feeling pain, but I made my mind, I would decide which kind of pain.

When the Gryphon was getting dangerously close, I brought my arms close to my body, I brought my legs together, and I leaned forwards, making myself a human arrow. I felt the speed increase fast and I dodged the Gryphon, who didn’t seem happy at all. As I kept falling the gryphon made a close turn and flew towards me again, but this time with its wings close to its body and feet backwards.

That damn bird pretended to skewer me with his beak! Like hell I would let him. When he was almost on me, I extended my arms and legs, trying to oppose resistance to the wind, and it worked, I suddenly decelerated, a deceleration which could’ve been dangerous to me was it not for my resistance increase and my high regeneration. Again the Gryphon went past me, but before it was too late I brought my legs close to each other and my arms in front of me, as if I was diving into a pool head first.

I accelerated towards the Gryphon, which had yet to start decelerating, and when I was about to reach him, at around 20 meters, I extended my claws and pointed my arms towards its head. I hastily charged my claws, using my new method of threads layer and covering and soaking my claws in energy, which was highly abundant as I was falling at such a speed. I took advantage of the energy produced by the resistance of the air, decreasing it in the process and so increasing my speed, that in turn increased the resistance of the air which I again absorbed, and in such a cycle, I accelerated.

I arrived at him in less than a second from the moment I extended my claws, but even thought I had barely had time to charge my claws, they were fully soaked in energy. I made my mind as I punctured its head; this was going to hurt a lot.

I felt my bones screaming, my veins rupturing and my muscles tearing apart. I felt my skin rip and the blood in my arms evaporate by the sudden explosion. It felt more painful than when the bear devoured me, and that had been much too painful, so here I was, without arms, with a dead Gryphon under me and we both falling at more than 20 meters per second towards a dangerously near floor. I knew this would hurt, I had known it when I decided to kill the Gryphon, but I didn’t want to resign.

“LIKE HELL I’M HITTING THE FLOOR!!!” – I screamed very loudly, a scream that came from the depths of my soul, and I felt my arms regenerate, regenerate at a speed which they had never done. I was surprised, but I took advantage of it. I used my not yet fully grown arms, which were bones and tendons, and just a little muscle, and grabbed the now headless Gryphon’s wings.

I used all my strength to extend the wings, and even when the air resistance was making my arms break again, I kept them there, I used all my will to stay awake and keep my arms in place, and as if responding to my will, my arms accelerated their regeneration again. I couldn’t help but feel this was something important, yet I couldn’t focus on it. I leaned backwards while holding the wings in place, and thanks to that the gryphon decelerated.

I embraced myself because even if we had decelerated, this would still hurt. I bared my teeth and held strongly to the Gryphon. And then…

*Crash!* *Krack* *Kreee*

Trees broken, a cloud of dust in the air, and me flying forwards. I impacted onto three trees before I stopped moving. The first two trees were blown apart; the last one only had a mark on it. But they all felt the same, painful.

“Ghargh” *cough* *cough* – I couldn’t help myself and threw up blood, then coughed to clean my lungs of even more blood. I stood up and helped my bones getting in place, then walked towards my prey. Once in front of it I breathed in deeply, and then… I kicked it strongly.

“You damn overgrown bird, you almost kill me!” – Yeh, yeh… I can’t die, but whatever, I was angry, so bear with me. I sat down on the floor and breathed out as I tried to calm my heart. I decided now was as good time as any other to open the system, so I did.

By your will you have unlocked part of the hidden power of one of your powers. Now you will be able to affect the reality of your body just by sheer strength of will.

Even thought the user has upgraded the power, he has yet to discover its origin, resulting in an unknow amount of developement. For the user to see the progress of its power, he has to discover its origin.

Fenrir, the Immortal Wolf E mid tier Progress: ??? (Knowledge insuficient)

Immortality: Regeneration beyond comparision. It regenerates so fast that is at practical efects, immortal. As long as some part of him is there, be it a hand, a finger, a drop of blood or a mere cell, the user can regenerate. Sharp claws made of bone can surge from between the knuckles. Bones as strong as marble, and better senses than wolves, be it in smell, hearing or eyesight. The holder of this power becomes a born predator.

Hunter Claws: User has retractable claws made of bones. They are sharp and stronger than other bones in the user's body, and are a weapon to be careful of.

Undying Will: The will of the user is more powerful than others. This doesn't mean it has a stronger will, which isn't true. The point is that the will of the user afects his powers, making him stronger the more he wills it.

Upon upgrade: Sharpen claws while strengthening bones. Develop instincts which help the holder to be more effective on the hunt. Accelerated regeneration. Will eficiency upgraded.

The fuck? I upgraded my power yet my knowledge is still not enough? How the hell you buy that?! And then there’s the other notification.

By experiencing the feelings a winged being feels when flying, you have developed towards unlocking such powers. Experience different feelings related to flying and keep devouring winged beings to unlock Angel's powers.

Angel 12 %

So not only eating winged beings was what increased my unlocking, but also experiencing what they felt? I dare assure that it was the fact that I felt the air resistance when I tried to slow us down, that felt damn painful and hard.

Wait… with my Shadow Step I should be able to fall down again from the sky, which in turn would allow me to experience more things aerial-wise, and in due time, unlock Angel’s wings! But… first thing, I didn’t want to experience crashing on the ground again, and second, I didn’t control the Shadow Step yet, so I couldn’t exactly teleport up there…

Well, whatever, I would find a way. As I decided it wasn’t the time to think about this, I started ripping the Gryphon apart, and then eating each and every part of it I could. Mmm… maybe I should also try to feel if I can change the breathing technique? I digested what I had eaten and then ate another piece of meat while closing the eyes and experiencing what my body was doing. And then I felt something.

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It was some kind of viscous energy that originated on my heart, traveled to the stomach, dissolved the meat and then went towards the heart again, where it fused with the blood and with the help of it, went towards all of my body. I could feel that everywhere the blood was going, the cells around were like leeches in need of blood, only that instead of blood they were sucking the energy on it.

As soon as the blood was devoid of energy, the cells quieted down, and fell into some kind of stupor. They felt like throbbing eggs, as if they were incubating life inside of them.

I took another piece of meat and ate it, focusing on the energy on my blood, except this time I directed some kinetic energy inside the energy. It’s weird, I know, but that’s what I did, like feeding the energy with more energy. As soon as the charged energy touched the meat, the meat disintegrated. It wasn’t like the fast dissolution it had happened before; it felt more like turning the meat entirely into energy, leaving nothing for the stomach to use.

The vicious energy then sucked all the energy and I felt it throb. It was much richer in energy than before, but I still felt something was off. I slowed down the energy the most I could, as I knew once it reached the heart, I wouldn’t know what it was. I focused myself on it, listened to it, look at it, touched it with my mind, and then I felt it.

It felt similar as to when I charged the pebbles. It was losing energy, it was not a closed conduit, and as such it couldn’t carry well enough the energy. The sudden revelation made the energy escape my grasp, and it reached the heart. This time however, the veins almost ruptured as the blood charged at a much greater speed than it had ever done, and had it not been for my regeneration, they would’ve been ripped. The blood had absorbed the energy rich in kinetic energy, and so had accelerated; I needed to be able to control it.

After the blood was devoid of energy again, I took a new piece of meat. This time however, before I ate it, I closed my eyes. I willed energy into my veins. This time, however, I didn’t let it just charge the veins. Once on the veins, I molded the energy into threads, similar to the layers I used when charging objects, but this time inside the object itself. I noticed they brimmed with energy, and seemed tougher than before.

[Ha! Seems I made a new discovery about Gambit’s power, I felt it was weird that when hitting so hard he didn’t end on a hospital, but I guess he didn’t just blindly charged himself, he armored himself with energy.] – I smiled at the thought of being able to have an explosive damage without blowing myself up.

After all my principal veins and arteries were reinforced, I ate the meat. This time I immediately surrounded the viscous energy before it got to the stomach. I made a layer of energy threads and then soaked the energy in my own energy. Once I thought it was enough, I willed my energy to guide the viscous one towards the stomach. This time it happened the same thing as the last time; it instantly devoured all the energy in the meat, disintegrating it completely, and once it was done, it tried to go towards my heart.

I knew it was the way he thought more efficient, but I wanted to guide it differently. First I took it outside me, carefully avoiding letting it sip any of the energy to any part of me. As it was contained it wouldn’t be lost, but once it was out I had to contain it with the help of my hand, or it would’ve been released. I guided towards my mouth, and then I breathed in.

I had not only reinforced my veins, I had also reinforced my lungs, and as soon as the energy arrived at the lungs, I connected little energy veins towards every bronchi in my lungs. I waited until each and every bronchus had an energy vein in front of it, and then connected them all at once. I felt such a rush that I wouldn’t be able to explain it. As I had predicted, the bronchus redirected all this energy towards the oxygen in my blood, which in turn charged the blood which in turn was released into the cells of my body.

It may seem the same as before, but this process meant that the energy was refined down into more “digestible” energy. The cells, as opposite to the first time, instead of just taking the energy and storing it, they were able to digest it immediately, and reinforced themselves, allowing a bigger influx of energy into them because one: they were stronger, and two: they were not full.

I repeated this process with the rest of the Gryphon, and when I finished I laid down on the floor as I opened the system.

Status X-System Status Name: Lyon Ironblood Soul Points: 26.770 Mutations: 4 Powers: 3 Mutations Acquired:  Wolverine Locked Deadpool Locked Gambit Unlocked Angel 20 %

Nightcrawler Unlocked ----- ----- Powers: Power origin: Fenrir, the Immortal Wolf E mid tier Wolverine + Deadpool Kinetic conversion and acceleration G mid tier Gambit Shadow Dimension B low tier Nightcrawler

“Haa… I knew it, when I do the things on my own I am rewarded more heavily. It seems from now on, even if it takes me longer, I will analyze everything I do, feel it in the core and improve it if possible.”

I stood up and decided it was time to go home.

“…Home? It seems I’ve grown attached to a simple cave, hahaha.” – I couldn’t help but smile at the thought. I had spent all my life since the death of my mother feeling as if I didn’t belong to anywhere, and now, after not even 7 months, I felt that I had a home, and it wasn’t even mine!

I decided to try again using the Shadow Step, this time with the objective of going home. I closed my eyes and willed the Shadow Dimension to embrace me, to carry me to the other side, and it did. Once there, I opened my eyes, but I didn’t move on my own. I willed my thoughts into the shadows, trying to convey the feeling of going home, asking to return to the cave, and suddenly the shadows which normally just crept over me and pushed me around unless I commanded them to do otherwise, relaxed.

It’s weird, I know, but it’s the only way I could describe it. It felt as if before they were the mass you see when you walk by some great city, cold, indifferent, trying to do what they want unless asked otherwise, and now, they felt warm, familiar, as a small town of barely a hundred people where everyone knew each other and everyone helped each other without asking.

I had a feeling that they had resonated more deeply with me, and they liked it. They embraced me differently than when I had ordered last time to push me. The later was as if a mass of people literally pushed me in a single direction, while the first one felt as if a family was walking besides me and carrying me as I was unable to move by myself.

I was so lost in this feeling that I forgot that I couldn’t stay here forever, and suddenly the shadows stopped carrying me. It wasn’t as if the feeling disappeared, I felt they still cared about me, but couldn’t help but return me to my dimension. This time, however, they didn’t push me out, they accompanied me out.

It felt almost as warm as when I was with my mother, they were like brothers helping the little one of the pack, protecting me from the Shadow Dimension itself. I embraced such feeling and conveyed my thanks and warmness towards them as I willed myself towards the exit, and even thought I couldn’t move myself, the shadows seemed more at ease, as if I had been resisting to leave, and now I had accepted it, so they didn’t need to protect me from the Dimension to help me out.

I exited the Dimension with warmness in my heart, and willed part of the shadows over me without any orders in particular. I just asked them to stay with me, and I kept conveying my warmness. This all ended with a sudden roar.

*GROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!*

I immediately recognized such roar, and ran towards the nearest tree with panic in my heart. Once I was under the tree I asked the shadows which still were over me to hide me, and this time they did it on their own, covering me much faster than before. Once invisible, I silently climbed the tree and crouched down, ready to run at the first notice of unavoidable danger.

I instinctively knew this time the shadows wouldn’t just leave after half a minute. It was a different thing. While inside, they weren’t in control, they couldn’t disobey the Dimension, they had to obey. But here? Here they were free. Of course they couldn’t stay forever, but that was referring to a single shadow. I didn’t even need to observe to see that after half a minute the shadows over my body returned to the Shadow Dimension, but before doing so, other shadows crept out of it and covered me.

After making sure I wouldn’t be visible for some time and thanking the shadows in turn, I looked towards the place where the roar had come from. And I saw it appearing, some kind of reptile big enough to make an elephant look small, and fierce enough to make a dinosaur seem a pet.

Yes, it was the Dragon.