There you are. Ryan, wake up.” Alexis’ voice tore him from pleasant dreams of quieter times. Vacationing at the beach, catching fish, drinking beer and chilling out. As a matter of fact, he had just grabbed an icecold beer from his coolbox and was popping the tab when her sultry voice interrupted the vivid experience. Blearily blinking his eyes he stared at Alexis, dishevelled blond hair, crumpled outfit and with the barest sign of bags under her eyes in the early pre-dawn light she was still a sight to please sore eyes.
“Hey minion. Did you miss me? Pine for me?” Ryan could vividly see the boisterous smirk that accompanied Fury’s sending. The little lioness padded into Alexis’ room, jumped onto the cot and made herself comfortable, draped over his legs.
“Morning…” Ryan had to admit that his grunted reply wasn’t the most communicative response he could have given the two, but well, he hadn’t had coffee yet so they could sue him. Or actually, he thought, they couldn’t, not anymore.
“Time to become awesome.” “I’m here to supervise your mutation.” near simultaneously Alexis’ voice and Fury’s sending informed him of their reason in bothering him this early, as if he couldn’t have guessed.
“Just give me a minute to wake up, then we can go ahead. Alexis, where would you prefer to do it?” he addressed the Healer.
“Here should be good, means we don’t have to relocate. I doubt I’ll need any tools.” Satisfied with Alexis’ plan Ryan relaxed back into the cot. It took him somewhat longer than a minute until he deemed himself sufficiently aware to initiate the mutation process in his Interface but eventually he told Alexis “I’m good to go.”
Ryan waited for her acknowledgement before he entered his Interface, studying Alexis’ face, scrunched up in intense concentration, as she touched his leg and initiated her Scan. Taking a deep breath he toggled the process.
…Refractive Shield Mutation selected…
…Warning… Mutations will irredeemable change the Player’s DNA and may result in unfortunate consequences. The System Administration is required to inform the Player that no DNA template of the Player is held on record and that it cannot accept liability for any losses, whether tangible or intangible, the Player may suffer as consequence of voluntarily undergoing mutation. Be further advised that it is recommended that the process only be initiated under supervision of a suitably qualified medical expert. Please confirm whether or not you are willing to proceed.
Yes
No
Now slightly apprehensive Ryan nonetheless confirmed his choice, releasing his held breath and expecting to pass out into the black void of unconsciousness.
Several seconds passed before Ryan decided that he wouldn’t fade away and hesitantly took a deep breath, releasing the tension he had subconsciously held in preparation for oblivion of thought. “Uhhhm, Alexis. Anything happening?”
“Quiet!” Alexis most definitely did not appreciate the interruption to her concentration before she relented with. “Your heartbeat sped up by about 30 beats per minute and your appendix is doing something weird.”
“Oh, wow. How did I miss this?” she breathed out in fascination an uncomfortable minute later. “From what I can see your appendix is functioning as a sort of receptacle for material processed by your stomach now. It’s weird, it looks sorta like a combination of a stomach and lymph node now. Or testacle. I can’t believe I didn’t notice before. I’ll have to scan the others later to compare. Shit, I’ll have to find out if anyone has had their appendix removed. How did I miss this?”
Alexis’ litany of inspired insights and self-recrimination continued for a minute or two before Ryan dared interrupt her, growing increasingly uncomfortable. “Alexis, the itching is killing me, anything you can do?” Ryan’s entire body was itching furiously and he barely suppressed the urge to wildly scratch himself bloody. “This is worse than being devoured by a swarm of mosquitoes.” He thought to himself.
“Don’t be a wuss.” Apparently his thoughts hadn’t been as private as he assumed Ryan realised after Fury’s admonishment.
“I could probably paralyse you from the neck down and heal you later. Or maybe knock you out. I’m not a qualified anaesthetist and don’t have the required drugs available here anyway. What would you prefer?” Alexis reply was matter of fact and if he was honest with himself, scared the living shit out of him.
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“No, uhmm, that’s okay. I can suffer through it.” Ryan quickly stopped her from doing something he would regret. “Why is it itching?”
“It looks like the cells in your shield cell clusters are replicating at a prodigious rate and that millions of them are dying and being shedded. That’s probably why it’s itching like mad. Ugggh, you better clean my cot mister. I can see your skin flaking off.”
Following Alexis’ reply Ryan observed his skin more closely. It was violently red and Ryan imagined that he could see it sloughing off in the tiniest increments. “Like the worst sunburn in fast-forward.” he commented.
“More or less.” Alexis grunted in reply before she once again became absorbed in observing the process through her Scan. Ryan chose to leave her concentration uninterrupted and suffered through the remaining minutes in silence, gritting his teeth and violently suppressing his rampant urge to scratch himself. A little eternity later, like a wave retreating down a beach, the all-encompassing urge receded and Ryan sighed in relief. His skin still felt inflamed and hypersensitive to the touch.
Alexis straightened from her bent crouch and announced. “I think you’re done. Heartbeat is back to normal and I can’t sense anything else happening. You should take a pee, you’re bladder is fairly full.”
Ryan blushed in embarrassment. No matter how often he went through the process, he knew he wouldn’t ever get used to the fact that he bared the secrets of his body to Alexis to such an extent when he consented to her scanning him. Worst off all, she often managed to tease him with off-hand comments like the latest one. Not rising to the bait Ryan wanted to reply with an inane and non-committal comment but before he could formulate the proper response he was interrupted.
DING! New Skill granted. Refractive Shield.
Refractive Shield (Active): On activation, Player can modify Shield to refract and reflect electromagnetic waves in a broad spectrum (including commonly visible spectra) so as to disappear from all senses tied to observation of electromagnetic waves.
Warning. Player lacks processing capacity to instinctively use this Skill. Processing capacity in existing Quantum Crystal Lattices has been reserved for partial utilisation* of the Skill.
1. Processing lattice (Designation: Bifröst) – 5% of capacity
2. Storage lattice (Designation: Recombinant Data) – 10% of capacity
Recommendation: Player should purchase the ability to grow a general purpose Quantum Processing Lattice and Quantum Storage Lattice. It is further recommended that the purchased lattice diagram be capable of being upgraded to a minimum of Sky Realm equivalent, preferably Ruler Realm grade to allow for possible infinite acquisition of Skills.
“Goddamnit.” Ryan thought. Nothing could go smoothly. He selected the description for the partially functional Skill and read through it.
Refractive Shield (partial functionality)(Active): On activation, Player can modify Shield to refract and reflect electromagnetic waves in a broad spectrum (including commonly visible spectra) so as to appear as an undefined blob in all senses tied to observation of electromagnetic waves.
“The Skill is broken.” he explained to Alexis and Fury before detailing the matter further. On Alexis’ suggestion he linked into the System Obelisk to find out if he could purchase the recommended quantum crystal lattices only to be disappointed. The enhancement was available from the system store, but the upgradable versions cost a whopping 13 earth grade crystals each. Ryan checked his Interface, like everyone else in the Guild he had activated the functionality to convert a portion of his Energy regeneration to creating currency. He had it set up at 0% when he was prepping for or involved in combat, 5% when he was generally busy and a whopping 100% when his Energy pool was at 95% of capacity, all pre-sets either activated automatically or through a simple mental command. Even given all that he had only managed to generate roughly 90 mortal grade crystals since he started. Making a rough calculation he figured that he’d need another 90 months at his current rate to purchase the enhancements. Seven and a half years.
“That can’t be right.” he muttered. Even factoring in that his regeneration rate would probably increase, that didn’t make sense. As an aside, he didn’t actually know what his rate was at the moment. He’d have to check up on that, or rather, maybe John knew what the correlation between his regen stat and the actual regeneration rate was.
“What can’t be right?” Alexis asked.
“The price is 13 earth grade Crystals each. I have 90 mortal grade Crystals so far. At this rate it’ll take about 7 years to purchase the enhancements. So I’ll speak to John about the correlation between regen stat and actual Energy regeneration.”
“You have 90 mortal grade already? I’m at 15.” Alexis cry contained overt tones of jealousy. She continued; “I’m actually more concerned about the fact that there seem to be grades of quantum crystal lattices. I’m sure John has picked up on it but it won’t hurt to discuss the matter with him. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has managed to go through the offers in the trade section in detail and has some recommendations to make. I’ll see if we can meet after breakfast. In the meantime Ryan, I strongly suggest that you remove your samples of DNA, or former DNA, from my bedding. Have fun.”
With the last parting shot fired Alexis headed off to find John. Ryan grumbled a bit and then, without warning, swung his feet of her cot. Fury, dislodged unceremoniously, was less than thankful and communicated her indignation in exhausting detail while she accompanied him to the tub that had been set up for washing. Ryan, in acknowledgement of his lazy self, realised that it would be the first time that he actually utilised the set-up and reluctantly headed to his cot to grab his bedding and spare clothes too. He hated to admit it to himself, but even with repeated rinsing in the pool, they were getting a bit rank.