We arrived at Neo Brasilia very early in the morning. I went on top of the wall and then I checked the East gate, no guards in black armor. I entered the city, but there were no guards at all. I returned to where Bao Wang was with the cart.

We entered the city and made our way to the plaza. It was the middle of the night, no one was moving about. Well, I wouldn’t complain about being given such an opportunity right in front of me. The city was still level 4.

I began cashing in crystals. I ended up with around 88 million points, not counting the 2.5 million points I had reserved for my health insurance. I could afford 1,620, which would put me up to 11,400 stat points.

Body-1,330; Mind-700; Spirit-4,000; Perception-400; Aura-400; Regeneration-2,300 (+1,000); Endurance-200; Absorption-1,500; Sense 570 (+570) for a total of 11,400 stat upgrades.

I stumbled backwards from the store pillar as there was a big visual shift. Where before there had been solid colors, there was a slight sheen to everything and a pressure. I looked at Bao Wang and saw him increase his stats and he seemed to glow and release just a bit more pressure. Like a wind blowing across my skin.

Holding up a hand, it was filled with energy. My energy. I could feel it move inside of me slightly. I focused on forming an energy shell around me and understood much better what was happening. There was so much energy being lost.

I could see flecks of it breaking off into the air and dissipating. It reminded me of how the monsters dusted. I moved my hand in front of my face and then let go of the energy shell. I thought of my right arm and felt and watched how my energy shifted. I closed my eyes. There was something more to the air.

My sense of smell had never been that great. But now there was something else. The more I focused the more I could pick up. The same with my ears.

It wasn’t Perception. That just made things clearer and gave me a danger sense. I could focus on a sense and hear or sense the physical better. The Sense stat was opening my mind up to energy and how it moved all around. It allowed me to sense things outside my normal range of senses, I would have never realized before.

For some reason it wasn’t overwhelming. Most likely whatever safety feature the Almighty System had put into stats. If anything, it felt like augmented reality. I was getting the power lines that ran everything in a sense through the walls.

It was completely and utterly alien to anything I had experienced before. Augmented reality coming the closest. Time to see what I could pick up from my skills.

“Acid Shot.” I used my skill. The energy pulled from the air and propelled the skill. No that wasn’t right. It was like thousands of tiny holes opened up and the energy was forced through to form the skill.

I saw various colors swirl about. The main color was the blue that was the liquid-melt type that primarily composed the energy of my skill. But there were other types as well. I saw the brown of the force-solid energy type included as well. Imparting the initial momentum to the skill.

“Acid Shot.” I used the skill again and this time I saw the energy instantly leave me to join the energy that was flowing out for the skill. If I had to guess my energy was providing the power, but the Almighty System was providing the majority of the structure for the skill.

Like a scaffolding for my energy to fill in and empower it. I felt like a super idiot for not putting stat points into Sense while I had the chance, before my run in with the Divine Empress. I wanted to know how she came across with this new stat.

It would give me a very good idea about the number of stats a person had. That was something I would need to find a way to hide. I had no doubt that the Forbidden City had people with this stat observing everyone who entered and left. It would also tie into the stat control that was practiced across the population.

I would have to take my time to find a way around this stat. This was exactly the kind of question that the Astrologer would have been perfect to answer. I focused on stilling my energy, to stay within me. I immediately began to feel bloated. I looked at my arms, but I could still see my energy. I lost focus and the bloating feeling disappeared.

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This was complicated. I might not be able to conceal myself at all. That would mean I would need to assault the Forbidden City directly. It wasn’t too helpful at the moment either. It was a nice addition, but it wasn’t game changing.

I didn’t regret investing 570 stat points into Sense. It gave me a much clearer idea of the capabilities of the people I might have to face and how they would be able to track me. I would need some enchanted clothing or something to block my energy. I pulled out the headlamp I had gotten.

I checked it with my energy sense. I could see the flow of light type energy within the enchantments. It was as clear as day. I still needed to focus. The more I focused on something or someone, the clearer my sense of their energy became. Like a blurry picture quickly coming into focus.

Just doing a casual glance at someone, would have me completely miss things that I might have otherwise picked up. That was the problem with the Sense stat and how it was similar to the Body stat. It stopped you from accidentally hurting yourself and let you use the stat to some degree. But it did not provide mastery.

Just looking around and my quick experiments showed there would be a lot of learned knowledge. Similar to how I had to know how to put my feet down at high speed to quickly kick off again at the right angle. The same issue applied to the Sense stat.

I could see a lot, but most of it went completely over my head. I only had some knowledge based on energy types, but that was clearly just the surface based on everything I was able to observe. There was far more going on.

The more I focused on the air itself the more a haziness seemed to hang in the air. Like a thin smoke. I blinked my eyes and shook my head. It went away. That was the nice part. The Sense stat had a much greater toggle on it than all the other stats. I would have to routinely switch in case I was missing something and to get used to the extra feedback.

Taking a deep breath, I felt the energy move inside of me. I let my breath out, not trying to take in that energy. I had been warned off by the Astrologer. His talk on curse damage had made quite a bit of sense. The Sense stat was really opening a lot of doors at the moment.

It felt like the shackles of the Almighty System itself had loosened up a bit. On the flip side it would be very easy to screw oneself up playing around with energy like this. I thought of the people who had used negative energy training and consumption.

They could sense energy, but it clearly wasn’t good as having the original stat. At least that was how I thought back onto the several conversations I had. Or it was just a limitation of language trying to convey something so reality changing.

It was trippy if I had to pick a word. Or extra-sensory, which made sense for the Sense stat. It was about sensing the stuff that a human couldn’t sense. It made me curious what Earth would look like? Or anything in my time in the Systemic Lands up to this point. Skill crystals, monsters, skills, and tethers.

The world of possibilities had opened up and I just needed to explore them. “All set?” I asked Bao Wang.

“Yes. Most went into Mind, almost half. Like you suggested. With the rest of the stats being spread out in the four stats I didn’t have yet.”

“That should make things a bit easier. A Body build would need to focus on Body, Mind, Perception, and then Aura. Spreading some of the stats out so you have some in each will help. They have a much greater impact per stat point at the lower amounts as far as I can tell.”

“Hopefully it helps make the killing of monsters easier. So right back out?” Bao Wang asked me, and I nodded.

“There is no point to stay around this city. And it is creepy that no one is here. If we make good time, we can follow our path back without the monsters bothering us.” It wouldn’t be that long since we had entered the city just before midnight. But I would take what I could get. The level 1 monsters were quite annoying.

Wang Bao nodded and started pulling the cart that had been loaded up with supplies once more. I purchased the food and water in bulk. If he wanted personal items, he could purchase them himself. I was already more than enough of a charity with Bao Wang.

Back to the grind and I wouldn’t complain about the city being empty. It was nice not having to worry about ambushes and attacks. Even if it was creepy and I would have liked to have run into one of Clarissa’s people. Instead, there was an empty city.

As we made our way out, I considered how it could happen. Probably a sweep through by another force. The Divine Empress and her Empire sure were unhappy if they hadn’t taken the city for themselves. Or perhaps it being level 4 made it unacceptable for various reasons that I didn’t know.

Bao Wang didn’t know why the cities of the Empire hadn’t been upgraded best level 3. It was just a rule. It made sense if people couldn’t beat level 4 monsters since the tribute system was taking their strength and wanting to limit the Sense stat to certain key people.

There were Diviners that just specialized in this stat. Just staring out at the sky, trying to sense and observe the slightest change in energy at a distance. I thought it was stupid, but apparently the Divine Empress wanted people like that, so there were people like that. It seemed insane to me, but I was probably missing something.

The sky part was my personal guess. For all I knew was they had a device like an astrolabe which picked up on disturbances that they interpreted like sonar or radar. I knew radar was actually an acronym but had forgotten it. Might as well call the energy sense at long distances, e-dar.

It sounded stupid, but it couldn’t be any worse than deek. The fact I still remembered that word, was a testament to how awful it was.