Planets are always stunningly beautiful to look at from space in person, photographs just didn’t do it justice. That was true for both Earth and Reyath, and I’d heard it was true for the Mars settlers too. And from those in other colonies. It could very well be universal; looking down on a celestial body from orbit with your own two eyes just hit differently.

The only thing that put a dampener on my mood was the long train of rainclouds forming in the ocean not too far off the coast and stretching in a wide band right across the top half of the continent. Ie, the half that my Tower was built on. It looked as though the rain wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

Dammit.

I spent the rest of the day sorting out a couple of bits and pieces to do with the space station, the most important being the installation of a simplified breach bulkhead; a structure that would close and seal itself shut if air was moving past it. Now, if the station ever developed a hole, or failed catastrophically, there wouldn’t be any problems caused by a direct portal to vacuum.

I rounded the day off playing Scrabble against Tear; having carved a stone board and letters earlier. While you might think a game between a well-educated 20 year old and a half-illiterate former street urchin would be one-sided, it was actually fairly balanced since the letters were the local language’s and It Can Talk?!’s translation Title effect was wreaking havoc with my ability to string them together coherently. We had a dictionary on the table; it was checked often.

During the game, I was quietly pleased to learn that Tear had taken up my suggestion of keeping a diary.

The next day dawned bright and clear- just kidding, still raining.

I groaned and rolled out of bed, landing face-down on the floor. I then proceeded to grumble into the rug for a solid 5 minutes before getting bored enough to stand up and go find breakfast.

Some part of me, deep inside, was uncomfortable, as though I’d overused a muscle or something. I could tell instinctively that it was due to me going over my limit of active Title effects the previous day. It felt weird, so I decided to create some noise to disguise it by giving my actual muscles a full and proper workout. There was just one problem with that: I had no weights. Shouldn’t be too hard to put some together though.

I hopped down to the crafting floor and pulled out a couple lead bars. This revealed another problem: I was too strong. I could lift these 2x2x2 cubes of lead with one hand, without any lifeforce boosting. Any weights made of lead would just be impractically large. Bugger.

I hummed as I dug around my world storage, pulling out various materials I thought could be heavy placing them on the ground. They were all too light. I was just about to throw in the towel when I remembered the one item specifically designed to be heavy: the Encumbering Stone!

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“Oof-” I grunted, hurriedly pulling my foot out from under the Stone before half-dropping it. “Yup. That’s heavy alright.” I rearranged myself, taking a proper standing row posture, grabbed the handle, then heaved the sizeable grey-black object into the air. My arms protested, so I lowered it back to the floor. “So it’s heavy, but maybe too heavy? Hmm.”

While I was considering and planning out in my head, Tear entered the floor, heading down the stairs. She spotted me and wandered over. As she did, I braced myself against the Stone and gave it a push, moving it a short distance then stepping back to think. Tear arrived at my side, then stepped forward and gave the Stone a push. It didn’t move. She scowled, and gave it a harder push.

Much to my surprise, the Stone moved! Albeit with difficulty; what looked to be the same level of difficulty it took me.

“Does its weight change depending on how strong the person lifting it is?!” I exclaimed, earning a weird look from Tear, prompting me to give a quick rundown of the situation to the catgirl. She expressed interest and settled down to watch attentively as I activated Legendary Craftsman’s active effect, gaining guidance on how to use the materials available, and set to work carving, compressing, and combining Encumbering Stones to craft two sets of weights; one heavy for power muscle building, the other lighter for endurance muscle building.

My weights crafted, I set to creating other miscellaneous pieces of gym equipment which I then set up on the floor up from the Guest Rooms, moving the portal to the space station and associated trappings up one floor.

I demonstrated the proper usage and weightlifting forms for each of the weights and pieces of equipment, partially for Tear’s benefit, partially to remind myself. It had been a long time since I’d done some of the leg-related ones, so long in fact that I had to consult a book from the library to ensure I was remembering correctly. At least I didn’t have to actually go down to the library, instead just holding out a hand, the Master of the Abyss Tower passive causing the book to fly up and into it, then returning it to its shelf once I was done with it.

A solid 30 minutes of actually non-trivial exercise later, I straightened from my squat, returning the bar to its rack, and stretched my legs out, revelling in the burning feeling. After years of no feeling, anything was very welcome.

“Now that I’ve done some weights work, time for some skill work,” I mutter to myself, making my way over to the clear area in the middle of the floor. I shook myself out, loosening my tight muscles, and took several deep breaths.

On Earth, I’d practised several martial arts to keep myself fit, as well as helping synchronise with my exoskeleton, though I was never very good at them… largely because of how the exoskeleton failed with the fine movements. Now that I’m in a world where fighting is important for survival, it would definitely be worth improving, and with my new body’s speed and reflexes I should be quite capable.

I took another deep breath to centre myself, then shifted into the first stance of one of the several dozen katas I know. I paused after the first few movements. Something was off. I started again, more slowly this time. Shift the posture forward as if to grab, then back to disrupt balance, then twist the upper body in a throw, sliding the leg- my legs!

“It’s so much smoother without that damn exoskeleton!” I exclaimed aloud, Tear murmuring something inaudible in response. I raised an eyebrow at the watching catgirl. Her brilliantly blue eyes met mine for a moment then flicked away.

The catgirl seemed as though she was wanting to ask something but was hesitant. That was weird, Tear was the type to just say what she thought.

“What’s wrong? You can tell me.”

She chewed her lip for a moment, a sharp canine protruding from her mouth, then met my gaze.

“Lyte, are you an otherworlder?”

Wait, what?!