Mike’s first order of business was to increase his passive energy collection. The idea had been floating around in his mind for a while, but with the System always watching, he had been unwilling to put anything into practice. The way he saw it, there was energy all around him, so why should he only have an Energy Sucking symbol by his stomach? Why couldn’t he have one facing the outside world that would passively pull in energy? It seemed like an obvious conclusion, so the only questions remaining were determining where to put it and how big to make it.

He was toying with two ideas in regards to placement. The first was to put it next to his core. This should, at least in theory, decrease the time required to suck in and deposit the energy. The second was to put it on his head, where no clothing would obstruct the symbol from completing its desired function. Not wanting to get it wrong, he settled on doing both locations. He could always git rid of one later if he so desired.

In regards to size, he was leaning towards bigger being better. He had already noticed how much slower his symbol absorbed energy than the one created by the System. Having checked many times, he was fairly certain that the symbols were identical, so he could only assume that size was what was impacting efficiency. The only reason he had made his symbol smaller to begin with was because he was limited when creating channels that faced internally to his anatomy–a problem that shouldn’t exist if he wanted the symbol facing outwards.

After deciding on two symbols, one stationed as near as his core as possible and the other on his head, he steeled himself for the immense pain that he was already expecting, and got to work.

He had only begun to grow the tiniest amount of the first symbol positioned above his head, when he became acutely aware of something. The pain he had felt before was nothing compared to what he was feeling this time around. In the first instant, he thought he had just forgotten how painful the process was, but within 30 seconds, he was already near blacking out.

“The accursed System must have dulled the pain.” he reasoned at length, “Why that would be, I don’t know. But nothing good ever comes without some amount of sacrifice, so the only way forward is through it.”

Minutes turned to hours, which slowly became days. Whenever he got close to passing out, he remembered how that had turned out last time, and forced himself to keep going. He thought of the hobgoblins, the fox cubs, and all of earth’s inhabitants were still being toyed with by some unknown entity. It was his duty to protect them. Even if, in the case of some of the humans, it was likely unwanted, he had an obligation to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves.

His thoughts often drifted whenever he wasn’t completely focused on his task. He found himself wondering about Bart. He had been good people before the System, so had the System caused him to turn into the crazed villain he had become, or had it simply brought forth what was already there? It was a question he never found the answer to, despite returning to it often.

Having already completed the process once, he was faster this time around. After only three days, the symbol on his head was complete. His eyes were bloodshot from the sleep deprivation, and blood dripped freely from his nose and hands–the latter because of how hard he had clenched his fingers, causing them to tear the skin. With his last bit of energy, he unstopped the symbol, officially making it a part of his channels. Energy began to flow in, slower than he got from food, but completely passively. As soon as he saw that it was working, he collapsed into a deep sleep.

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Sometime later, he awoke to the sound of his stomach angrily demanding to be fed. HIs face was pressed uncomfortably across the rocky ground, and drool dripped freely from his mouth, evidence of the near comatose state he had been put in. Opening his spatial storage bag, he found that he only had wurm meat, and not much of it. He did have plenty of cosmic water, which he had seen from watching the foxes, was enough to sustain him if he sat still and focused on his energy channels, but he really wanted actual food.

Sure wish I had thought to store some hashbrowns in my bag. He thought glumly, only to have his eyes shoot open in the next moment with alarm and realization.

“I don’t even know how to get back!?” he said.

It went against all of his training to not have scouted that out already, and after reviewing his arrival on this strange world, he could only attribute his lack of reconnaissance to the shocking absence of the System. Regardless of why he hadn’t done so already, he was determined to do so now.

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Chewing on a piece of meat, he quickly made his way up the tunnel, stopping when he was still one turn away and using Energy Sense to scout what lay outside. There was nothing in his immediate vicinity, although there were numerous energy signatures at greater distances.

Moving on silent feet, he stole from his burrow and made his way up to the crater’s edge, seeing the world for the first time, and he turned in a circle to take in his surroundings. If the sky was the most amazing view he had ever seen, then the planet itself was somewhat lacking. Calling it a planet was a bit of a stretch; as far as the eye could see, the world was mostly flat, aside from small craters which resembled the one he found himself in. No, rather than a world, it was more of a moon or an asteroid as far as he could tell.

I never would have thought that I would be relieved at no longer needing to breathe… especially twice in only a few days. He chuckled to himself as he completed his circle.

“The good news is that I found the way home.” he mused, wishing someone was there to hear him, “The bad news is that there’s no way I will make it back alive at my current strength.

Around a half mile away, a large rip split the otherwise monotonous vista. It was hundreds of feet tall and a few dozen wide. Between its edges, daylight streamed through, illuminating the surrounding world, and the dozens of monsters queued up to walk through.

The sight of the massive titans, each of which stood at least 10 feet tall, combined with his native desire to protect others, was almost enough to convince him to at least try to protect earth. He was still contemplating it, when what appeared to be a small fighter jet flew into view, blasting the monsters with explosives and (was he seeing this correctly?) lasers?

First hippies and now sci-fi finatics, he thought glumly, you’d think the people most lacking in basic survival skills would be the ones to fail in the System, but by what I have seen so far, they seem to be curiously well adapted.

The monster currently at the front of the queue roared in defiance, pushing its way into the explosives, and for a moment, Mike was worried that it would somehow manage to get past the Star Trek zealot. However, as it entered the actual tear, its forward momentum stuttered, and Mike was reminded of the great pressure he had felt when being brought here. A second ship flew into view, adding its artillery to the barrage.

A squelching noise, the the popping of the grape, loud enough for Mike to hear from his current location, marked the demise of the would-be intruder, causing him to sigh in relief. He watched as the next in line made its attempt, meeting the same fate, as did the few after that. By this point, it was readily apparent that earth had protectors other than himself, and he decided to head back to his shelter to continue getting stronger.

It turned out that adding the second symbol came with some difficulties. Firstly, he found that the channels nearer to his core were more resistant to change and growth, making the process take longer, a lot longer. It wasn’t until five days later that he finished the process. Secondly, he found that the energy responded more slowly than ever before, and the pain was greater. Still, he had pushed through. Thanks to the Energy Sucking symbol on his head, he had been able to maintain the constant stream of energy necessary to complete the process. With the second symbol at work, he once again fell into a deep sleep.

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Mike awoke to a well of dense energy in his center. Despite the amount of energy, he found that the energy was slow in circulating his channels, which reminded him of the hard time he had when building the final symbol–he had thought that the slow circulation was due purely to him renovating his inner world, but appeared that that wasn’t the case. Taking a step back, he tried to analyze the situation.

He had two problems, the first was an oversupply of energy that was beginning to get uncomfortable, which he had no way to use since he couldn’t level his skills. The second was that his energy was responding slowly.

One way of alleviating the first problem was to add more channels to his body, a process that took energy. The problem was that he didn’t know what other symbols to add. The only one he had successfully added thus far was Energy Suck, which would only exacerbate the problem.

Not seeing an easy solution to the first problem, he put his mind towards the second. Why would his energy suddenly not react as quickly? He had plenty of it. Upon double checking, both symbols had been done correctly, so that wasn’t the issue later.

What do I know for sure? He asked himself. I know that I have increased the rate at which I passively gather energy. By doing so, I have increased the channels in my body. Wait, could that be it?

A brief perusal of his body only heightened his suspicions. Using the segment of straight channel from his core, behind his navel, to his heart, which he estimated to be around eight or nine inches a reference, he determined that the total length of channels he had added to his system exceeded 400 feet. Not that the symbols themselves were ginormous, they weren’t. Rather, they were incredibly dense and intricate, with thousands of twists and turns.

If I added another 400 feet of sprinkler pipe to my yard, it would have trouble getting enough pressure too. He concluded, feeling that he was on the right track. So where do I get a bigger pump?