Slipping into a close by pit, Tetsu enters serene meditation. This would be the best time if any creature wanted to hunt him down. Not that he didn’t have the energy to escape. In his current state of overflowing energy, Tetsu could easily outrun any creature in his vicinity.
The real problem was that he didn’t want to run or fight. He wanted to try this experiment right now and didn’t want anyone to interrupt. Even if they did interrupt, he would rather concentrate on his experiment than run.
Another preparation will take time and he simply didn’t want to wait any longer.
Every muscle in his body cramped as they wished to rip away to freedom. The bones creaked under the pressure, while his veins strangled him from the inside out.
“Right.” Tetsu ignores the pain and tries to concentrate.
This was right. This is what he wanted.
Tetsu forces his hand to lift a stinger. Once in his palm, he tightens his grip, pricking himself.
Poison gets introduced into an even more chaotic environment. Tetsu’s blood pushes it around while his muscles try to pin it in place.
“Now... come forth.”
Tetsu slips into deeper concentration, immersing his mind into his body. While every inch of his body demanded the vital force to heal them first, his vital energy had to move and eliminate the dangerous poison.
There’s always a possibility that his vital force is as dumb as him. Yet Tetsu wouldn’t take no for an answer. He asked, no, demanded his vital force to banish the poison from his system. Poison is protein, so devour or destroy it without a trace.
Part of him relied on the sage, the incubation grounds, and his lowest stat. While they did their job, Tetsu did his. He concentrates on different parts of his body, trying to find its origin.
[Ding...!]
Tetsu declines the notification without a second thought.
“Where are you?”
He scans around his body with a single mind. The rest had to wait. He sensed the vital force target the poison running in his body, but from where did it arrive?
“Where are you?” He demanded an answer.
His vital force hits one part at a time. It appears, heals, and vanishes without a trace. Only during the healing process did Tetsu sense its presence.
Tetsu compared the sensation on his tongue, caught its every arrival, and tried to follow its every departure. Yet he was far from finding out its origin.
In frustration, Tetsu raises a sharp stick and jabs it deep into his thigh. Blood pours out like a fountain. His over-exerted veins working against him.
“Where are you?” He yells, tears filling his eyes.
Hours pass by and RJ approaches the pit. It was way too long for the dumb human to be quiet, and RJ didn’t like the unsettling feeling crawling inside of her.
She slowly peeks inside the pit and finds Tetsu covered in a small pool of blood. He looked above, past her, into the skies. His eyes moved around, but no life reflected within them.
RJ feared the worst until she found the human’s teary eyes. His tears cleansed some of the blood from his face, and it meant that he still lived. He’s alive, even though alive is a word that barely describes him.
His eyes lost their spark, the childish dream, and the only hope that he could ever survive this ordeal. A bloodied stick piercing a nasty hole in his thigh was the only visible wound on his body.
How did it get there? She didn’t know.
“Where am I?” Muttered Tetsu with a blank gaze.
Life throws many situations our way. Some bounce right off while some stick with us until the end. Some change us for good and some break us beyond repair.
Kile dealt with many such situations being born to immigrants. By the law and by common sense, Kile is an American. Yet the society never deemed him so.
His parents had to start from scratch, throwing them at the bottom of the corporate chain. Grandma Razz is much like Kile, or Kile is like her. Either way, she didn’t help them directly. She forced them to grow while she made sure they didn’t die during their growth.
Those were her exact words.
From a very poor background and with an uncontrollable mouth, Kile made an unpleasant life miserable. He never viewed poverty as a big deal. In fact, he encouraged it as a poor person’s path is more entertaining than a silver spoon brat.
Those were his exact words.
Born with an okaish spoon, Tetsu should’ve at least lived a below-average life. But Kile snatched that spoon away and spanked him with it as Tetsu jumped over hoops and loops to retrieve his spoon.
He never did.
The insignificant victories, a small family, and a pointless life. Tetsu always knew who he was and where he belonged.
The grandeur plans had a destination. His every misstep always led somewhere. When he had nowhere to go, he still had a place to call home, and people to call his own.
Now... For the first time in his life, he lost his sense of self.
Tetsu rechecked his notification. The notification that interrupted him was lost, gone, like it never existed.
He smiles meekly, dusting himself clean. The mud mixed in with his blood spreads with every touch.
“I need to train.” He looks up at RJ.
‘Is it worried?’ Tetsu couldn’t tell with his tears blurring his view. He pats himself down and finds no wounds to worry about.
Only after a while, Tetsu notices his body covered with blood. “Oh, Hah!” He chuckles. “I thought I was born red.” He turns to RJ. “Sorry. I am okay.” He double-checks himself. “Just need a bath.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
The pungent smell forces itself into Tetsu’s nostrils. “Or two?”
Tetsu gets out of the pit and dives into a puddle, turning its lush blue hue into a bloody crimson color.
“Another failed experiment.”
Tetsu notes down all the areas he can improve and tries to plan his next steps.
Memories of his family invade his mind, obstructing his plans. On reflex, he suppresses his mind from going rampant.
“My family is way too religious and Kile’s family will be fighting over the MVP position.” He assures himself.
Just for a flash moment, Kile’s final smile pops into Tetsu’s vision, forcing a smile onto his face. “I know, I know... I’ll leave them to you and worry about my ass first.”
Tetsu raises his fist toward the imaginary Kile with a challenging smile adorned on his face. “My promise still stands.” He looks deep into Kile’s dead eyes.
Those eyes that never felt a sting of excitement since birth. For nothing could challenge him or light a spark that fired up his soul.
‘Kile’ is the sole definition of search, and you shall find. With god-level perception, his every exploration was fruitful before he even took a step to explore.
Tetsu stared through those defiant eyes yet again. Promising the impossible. “I will surpass you.”
For once he had a head start, having spent a little over a month in the incubation grounds, while Kile floated in an abyss, one step away from catching up to Tetsu.
“Where did I misplace that darn stick this time?”
If upgrading a single aspect of an object doesn’t work, try upgrading two, then three, until it becomes an artifact.
The theory of increasing the sharpness of an object didn’t turn out as Tetsu expected. Even though the idea was preposterous, Tetsu wanted the stick to become sharp enough to pierce through anything. He forgot the runes were lower level than the creator and his mana control made matters even worse.
“Or maybe gaining a skill compromised the artifact?”
Too many possibilities clouded Tetsu’s next step. For one there did lie a possibility that skills can conflict with artifacts and vice versa.
“Back to the basics.” Tetsu cracks his neck and gets to work.
First and foremost, he focused on recuperating and topping up his safety orbs. Once his smoke orb and echo vault held a sufficient amount of his mana, Tetsu meditated to regain his mana.
Under serene meditation and using the devour rune with succession, Tetsu topped himself and his orbs much faster. He wasn’t going to do the math to figure out the percentage. That ship has sailed, sir.
With some charcoal shards and two safety mana pills to help him run away from any threat, Tetsu started his training montage.
“Before applying an aspect to something else, one has to understand said aspect himself.”
Tetsu spoke like a wise master who made little sense to himself. Then went on to devour different materials he gathered.
The environment is the easiest target, so he chose it as his first opponent to familiarize his senses.
He consumed vital force, then mana, and later moved to convert the many mana types around him.
Each environment consists of various mana affinities. From the basics, fire, water, wind, and earth, to the more complex types like dark, shade, light, and Thar.
Near an ocean, you have an abundance of water and salt, while near a volcano you get fire, molt, rock, and so on.
Gather enough fire mana and you can tap into heat or volcanic affinity and gather enough water affinity to tap into frost and glacier affinities.
Water can beat fire. This is a well-known science fact. But once a water user is placed near a volcano, desert, or even a burning forest, they will lose against the weakest heat user.
Heat affinity is much weaker than water, but because of their environment, the heat user can draw in more heat mana with ease while the water user will struggle to find water affinity to draw power from.
Tetsu deduced all of this by simply analyzing all the different affinities he sensed and the good old fantasy novels. To his surprise, all the wild assumptions hit right on the mark as his inner sage nodded along.
Tetsu differentiated one affinity from the other based on his gut feeling and a new seventh sense. Earth affinity had a certain weight to it while water carried a certain depth. All of them have unique ethereal essence to them and Tetsu picked up one of each unique essence to sort them out.
It was like feeling the heat and guessing its fire affinity or a sudden calm and guessing its light affinity. Similarly, Tetsu used the different affinities of pressure on him, his gut feeling, and a unique sensation to separate one affinity from another.
The incubation grounds brimmed with vital force and pure mana. Both of which should be unique and foreign, even to a world that functions around mana. It made sense as it helped speed up the recovery process, just like in a womb.
This also made Tetsu’s suppressed fear of losing three-fourths of his powers rise again. Once he gets out of here, things will only get harder, much harder.
His gut also told him that vital force isn’t normally in the environment. The incubation grounds have fucked up the environment and made it possible.
“Use the incubation grounds for now and let the future Tetsu worry about this problem.” He consoles himself.
Tetsu required more proof to confirm this theory, but it made more sense than the rest. Also, Kile told him to trust his gut more than anything else and so he did as the master said.
A living body creates vital energy, while mana is ever present, enforcing and reinforcing every construct.
The third mental power is unique and limited to intellectual beings. Everyone has it, but based on how likely it’s developed, you can either be a sage or a fool. A double-edged sword that can rise you up to the peak of existence, while at the same time, it can devour you from within. Either you control it or it burns you out.
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