I thought I was strong and tough before I came to prison. I was a cocky youth that grew up on a cocktail of violence and misery in the Australian Neutral Zone established after World War III. By 12 years old I was in charge of my own gang of Runners and by 20 I had fallen in with one of the toughest outfits going. My trade was the specialised application of violence. Not just violence for violence sake, but violence to serve a purpose. A shake down, a con, a revenge killing contract. Like everyone in the Neutral Zone, you made credits how you could, where you could. Of course, no one gave a fuck what happened in the Neutral Zone. Life was cheap and the World Government mostly turned a blind eye to the hotbed of Violence and poverty they had created. That was of course as long as you didn’t drag outsiders into the mix.
That had been my mistake. I got a little……overzealous. Shot up a border patrol guard that got in my way when I was beating a man to death for sitting on my chair at my favourite bar. Gubba didn’t take kindly to that of course. 50 year sentence to a remote Prison called the Isolation Pit for my troubles. Of course the whole Neutral Zone was basically one big prison, but the Isolation Pit was worse. They strapped you into a sensory deprivation pod. The computers kept you healthy, but you just lay there. You couldn’t move an inch and you couldn’t see anything. Every month they played you a little video on rehabilitation and morals that lasted for exactly an hour. That was the only stimulation and light that came to your dark little frozen world. They did this as they knew as long as their was some minor stimulation the prisoners would not go completely insane.
I thought I was tough before they put me in the Pod. Thought I was the toughest cunt on the block. But that first month felt like decades as I lay their paralysed in the darkness. By the end of the first month they had already completely broken me. I cried like an old woman when the light of the rehabilitation video broke the darkness and I screamed like a newborn baby when it was taken away. Every day I begged for them to let me out, but no release ever came. It was only after they put me in the Pod that I understood time was merely an intellectual construct. A concept human beings had invented and imposed upon the world. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years. All these ways to measure and cut up our lives into these units of time.
And yet they were meaningless.
In the Pod it was like being trapped in some kind of cosmic black hole. Time warps around you, sometimes travelling fast and sometimes travelling real slow. By the end of the first year in the Pod I had stopped counting time. By the end of the second year I had entered a kind of Fugue state. I had tried to meditate, but that had failed me. It worked for a little while before I felt the madness begin creeping back in. Instead I tried rewind time and lose myself in forgetfulness. I let go of who I was, what had come before and what would come in the future. I became nothing and no one. A stranger to myself. I lost myself so completely that I barely noticed the monthly rehabilitation videos when they flashed on inside the Pod. There was no one to watch it because I did not exist. I don’t know how much time passed when I was in this state. Could have been a couple of years or it could have been a decade. Until one day a reprieve of a sort came, but not the kind that I could ever have anticipated. One day strange disembodied voice spoke to me. I ignored it at first but it kept penetrating into my thoughts. The same thought over an over.
What the fuck is that? I thought as I slowly focused on the alien voice. I laughed roughly at myself for a moment as the bold words floated in my mind. Had I gone mad? I whimpered in fear at this disturbing thought. Perhaps i had finally and truly snapped.
Neither! I projected in my mind. My response seemed to aggravate the voice as it begin to repeat more loudly.
Jesus Christ. I felt a strange pull on my mind as if the hand of god gripped my soul and was forcing me to choose. It occured to me then that this was not a figment of my imagination or some kind of psychotic break. It was like a God or a Devil trying to sieze my very soul. Blue or Red, Blue or Red, Blue or Red These thoughts began to obsessively swirl in my mind of their own accord. I felt like my mind was reaching out automatically to choose a team. No! I thought as I made these thoughts slip out of my mind like a sieve. I let the Fugue state flow through me and the pressure on mind lessened. Suddenly the pressure surged again and I felt a spike of pain as if someone had driven a knife into my head. My mind began to bend and bend and bend. It was like someone trying to snap a flexible bamboo reed and I knew soon it would reach its breaking point and I my mind would snap.
There is only one team I am on…….MY TEAM! I roared in mind. Something deep and primal inside me rose up and attacked the mental pressure. It was the Thug in me, the two bit punk from the streets who knew how to hurt a man in just the right places. Come get some bitch! I shouted mentally and finally I felt the pressure crack.
I screamed then as my entire soul felt like it caught fire and something alien wormed its way into my mind. An alien energy thundered through me and I felt every cell in my body begin to change and vibrate at a molecular level. A sharp pained gripped my chest as I felt my heart seize. My mind expanded like I had received some kind of divine enlightenment and it was if I could see the interior of my body. I could see my heart melting under the onslaught of a thick black energy and soon it was replaced by a solid black orb. My blood went into black orb red and came out black as slowly all the blood in my body was changed into a this black liquid.
Just as I began to breathe easier, knowledge began to enter my brain and I felt a power rise up in me that I have never felt before. Violence had made me feel powerful in the past. Beating another man to within an inch of his life. Having others fear me, but the taste of that power was nothing compared to what thrummed through my entire being now. My mind grew sharper and sharper until it was like a thin deadly knife filled with a fierce and uncompromising intellect. And even stronger was another feeling, The Hunger. As I concentrated I felt the knowledge that had been inserted into my mind take shape as a strange Sigil floated in my mind. I focused on it and information ran through my mind’s eye as if I was reading a piece of paper.
[CLASS: SYLER][CLASS TYPE: UNIQUE]
[AN INTELLIGENT AND ADAPTIVE KILLER WHO PREYS ON OTHERS. A NATURAL PREDATOR OF THE STRONG]]
As I stared at the information I saw two smaller shapes inside the Sigil and I tapped them lightly with my mind.
[SKILL: INTUITIVE APTITUDE][SKILL: QUALITY: INNATE]
[THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND THE STRUCTURE AND OPERATION OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS AND SKILLS. THIS ALLOWS THE PLAYER TO ACQUIRE ONE SKILL FROM EACH CLASS THAT EXISTS. RECOMMEND THAT THE PLAYER ONLY ACQUIRES ONE ADDITIONAL SKILL FORM OTHER CLASSES EVERY 10 LEVELS. IF RECOMMENDATION IS NOT FOLLOWED POSSIBILITY OF PLAYER GOING INSANE. GREAT MENTAL FORTITIDE IS REQUIRED TO WITHSTAND THE HUNGER CAUSED FOR NEW SKILLS. THIS IS AN INNATE SKILL WHICH MEANS IT CANNOT BE RANKED UP]
[SKILL: TELEKINESIS I][SKILL QUALITY: BEGINNER]
[ABIILITY TO MANIFEST QI. CAN FORM TELEKINETIC SHIELDS AND MANIPULATE AND MOVE EXTERNAL OBJECTS]
Another announcement occured as i finished reviewing my Skills.
I flinched as the countdown finished and lay there waiting for an explosion of some sort. But nothing happened. I still lay there in the Pod bathed in utter darkness. Instinctively I tried to move and for the first time in God knows how long my arm actually responded. The Pod has ceased working! I thought in joy as I squeezed my arms up inside the Pod and tried to press the lid off. Quickly the joy at being able to move wore off as I realised I had no way of opening the lid of the Pod. Fuck I could starve in here before anyone found me if this thing has malfunctioned!
I pounded on the lid fruitlessly as panic began to sit in. Then out of nowhere a clinical logic spread through my mind as I felt the innate properties of [Intuitive Aptitude] manifest. I lowered my hands and my breathing calmed in an instant. My mind stilled and a series of logical options began to flow through my thoughts one after the other. I called up the Sigil for my Class in my mind and activated the smaller Sigil for [Telekinesis]. Focusing my mind I felt the Black Core in my heart jump to life as I activated the Skill. An energy I knew instinctively as Black-Qi began to circulate through my body and threaded out of my Black Core and soaked into my bloodstream.
I manipulated the Black-Qi in my body for awhile as I got used to its feel and texture and then I fully activated the Skill. The Black-Qi manifested outside of my body and I pressed it up against the top of the Pod. The Black-Qi felt like an extra set of hands as I gripped the top of the Pod and began to pull. The lid resisted for a few seconds before it went flying off at an incredible speed and smashed into the ceiling of my cell. Freedom! I thought as I climbed out of the Pod for the first time in years. Stretching my body I cracked my spine as loosened up and realised I was completely naked.
I didn’t even spend a single second worrying about my nakedness. Instead I was telekinetically manifesting a small ball off Black-Qi in my hand. I manipulated the Black-Qi into various shapes before slowly sending it around the room. It’s like an extra limb I thought as I touched it to the wall and other surfaces, it was almost like an extra set of senses providing me with tactile feedback on whatever it touched. This power. I almost felt drunk as I revelled in the feeling. But just as I was bathing in the dizzying heights of power a massive feeling of fatigue flooded through me and I dropped to my knees.
“Ungghhh.” I groaned as I vomitted on the ground and curled into a ball. The Black-Qi vanished leaving me feeling hollow and empty as the rush of power left me. I cast my mind’s eye into my body and I saw that my Black Core now had a dull sheen to it. I stretched out my mind and immediately realised the problem. There was now only a tiny amount of Black Liquid left in my Core. The Liquid must be my Qi. If I use it all up it has negative effects. My Telekinesis can only last as long as the amount of Black-Qi I have stored in my Core.
Instinctively I knew how to fix the problem. It was knowledge that had been imparted to me along with my Class. As I lay prone on the ground I calmed my mind and began to pulse my Black Core in a strange rhythm. It began to beat like the tide, rushing in and then flowing out. After a few moments my Black Core begin to vibrate at a particular frequency. Slowly it began to emit a suction force that drew strands of energy from the space around me. Slowly, too slowly for my liking, energy began to flow into me from outside of my body. It absorbed through my skin and into my blood before finding its way to my Black Core. As I settled into this strange rhythm something strange occurred. I naturally fell back into a Fugue State I had developed to survive the Pod. My thoughts disappeared and all that was left was the vibration of my Black Core.
As I fell into the Fugue State it was like any impediment to the energy flow had been removed and energy from outside began to rush in at ten times the previous rate. What had once been a trickle now turned to a flood as a river of energy began fill my Black Core and I felt a pleasant feeling. It almost felt like I had two minds. One was in a Fugue State and was in state of ‘no mind’ while the other part of my brain was the precise logical machine that had been imbued into me by [Intuitive Aptitude]. This part of my brain was calmly analysing what was occurring.
Yes. This is Power too. Draw in the energy from the outside world. Circulate it. Bring it into the Black Core. Hmmm this Black-Qi is simply energy it can probably be further condensed and made more efficient. Thoughts cascaded through my mind as countless experiments and mental models of how to improve the flow rate, usage, storage and purity of my Black-Qi were generated and examined.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Deep in my mind two new Sigils emerged. I touched upon them with the analytical part of mind and brought the information up.
[SKILL: FUGUE STAT][SKILL QUALITY: INNATE]
[FUGUE STATE ALLOWS THE PLAYER TO COMPLETELY ERASE THEIR THOUGHTS. THIS REMOVES ANY IMPEDIMENT TO GATHERING QI. WHEN GATHERING QI IN A FUGUE STATE THE RATE OF QI GATHERED IS INCREASED BY A FACTOR OF 10. FUGUE STATE ALSO ASSIST THE PLAYER IN RESISTING MENTAL ATTACKS. FUGUE STATE IS AN INNATE ABILITY AND CANNOT BE RANKED UP]
[SKILL: SPLIT MIND][SKILL QUALITY: INNATE]
[SPLIT MIND IS THE ABILITY TO FOCUS THE MIND ON TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TASKS AT ONCE BY LINKING TWO OF YOUR SKILLS. [FUGUE STATE] CAN BE USED TO PROCESS AND AUTOMATE INSTINCTIVE FUNCTIONS WHILE [INTUITIVE APITUTDE] CAN ANALYSE OTHER SETS OF INFORMATION AT THE SAME TIME. AS AN INNATE ABILITY THE SKILL CANNOT BE RANKED UP]
Finally I gasped as my Black Core was full of Qi again. I snapped out of my Fugue State and it felt like only a few minutes had passed. But in reality the cold logical part of my mind had tracked the time to the second. It had been over 5 hours. Hmm 5 hours to restore all my Black-Qi at my current level I thought. At that moment a now familiar voice echoed in my mind.
Well………Shit. Wasting no time I walked up to my cell door and felt it gently with my hands. It was sealed with a Cyro-Lock and would be difficult to open. Calculating the amount of Black-Qi [Telekinesis] used to open the Pod lid, I didn’t feel comfortable attempting the same on the door. Doing so would leave me dramatically weakened and against the other teams. I could only assume that whatever had happened to me had happened to everyone else in the Prison. And they would either be on Red or Blue team, leaving only myself as the lone member of Black Team. This meant I had to be far more careful than anyone else.
Gently I executed the mental models I had created on Qi manipulation and activated [Telekinesis]. A tiny strand of Black-Qi manifested and I sent it inside the Cyro-lock. Slowly I sensed the internal workings of the locking mechanism before flipping the right sequence of parts internally and with a loud click I felt the door unlock. Well that was easier than trying to blow it down I thought gleefully as my experiment was a success. Already my mind was racing on the possibilities of [Telekinesis].
Before I opened the door another idea occurred to me. Walking back to the wreck of the Pod lid I found the most solid part and used a fine stream Black-Qi to bend and cut dozens of small sharp pieces the size of a finger free. Then I cut a larger part out and folded and compacted the metal into a small weighted club. I swung the club in one hand a few times and smiled. It was about the size of a baseball bat with a bit more weight to it. Carrying the small metal shards in one hand and my club in the other I wedged the cell door open with my shoulder and sneaked out into the hallway. The light in the hallway was faint and came from a full moon that could be seen outside one of the windows. The power seemed to be out as all the lights were dead. The hallway was chaos. Multiple other Cell doors in the hall were caved in and blood was splattered all over the floor. A dismembered arm with its hand and fingers still attached was embedded in a broken door and poked up strangely as if asking for a high five. Strangely the blood looked like a lighter shade of red than was usual and a strange blue liquid also seemed splashed everywhere.
As I thought about the Black-Qi filling my veins I made the conclusion that the red and blue liquid was what blood looked like now. No doubt if someone cut me I would bleed black. I had been wary before coming out but now I could see that I had totally underestimated the level of danger. Creeping through the wreckage I saw more bodies as I walked. A man in a guards uniform was propped up against a wall at the end of a hallway. He looked lean and muscular like an olympic athlete as his dead eyes stared at me listlessly. At first I couldn’t work out what was wrong with him but then I realised a massive piece of metal had pierced through his chest right where his heart was. A thin blue liquid leaked out of his chest.
“He…..help me.” The man suddenly whispered. Shit! I almost jumped out of my skin when he spoke. How the fuck is this guy still alive? I crept up the guard and looked at his wound. Despite the severity of it he didn’t seem like he would die anytime soon.
“It’s right through part of my Blue Core. Please pull me off the metal and I should be able to heal. Fucking Red Team bastards.” The gasped. He looked up at me with pleading eyes and then suddenly he tensed.
“What’s wrong with you. I can’t smell the stench of red team on you. But your not Blue Team are you? You don’t smell like Blue Team.”
“It’s ok friend. I’m here now.” I said in a calm reassuring voice. I stared down at him as my innate skill [Intuitive Aptitude] flared automatically.
[PLAYER IDENTIFIED][CLASS: SUPERMAN][CLASS LEVEL 1][BLUE TEAM]
As his information displayed in my mind I smiled as I cocked my head slightly to the left. I couldn’t help but lick my lips slightly as I stared at the man as if he was a meal. Under my intense gaze the man tried to weakly struggle as he realised something was wrong.
“No……no….please…..I have a family. Please, just don’t.” The man whimpered as if he could sense death was near.
“Shhhhhh.” I said as I put my hand across his mouth silencing him. I locked eyes with him for a moment before the hunger surged.
The mans eyes suddenly glowed red and i felt an instinctive sense of danger. I activated [Telekinesis] and exploded with Black-Qi to form a shield in front of me. Some kind of laser beam shot out of the mans eyes and pressed against my Telekinteic shield. I grunted as i felt my shield collapse, but fortunately the laser beam had been dissapated. Seeing that the attack had come out of the mans eyes i simply turned his head to the side with the force of my hand. As long as he wasn't looking at me directly i didn't believe any future laser beams out of his eyes could hit me. Part of me viewed my actions as they happened and was disturbed by my lack of emotions. It was like i had entered a diassociative state, at the very elast i should be afraid. But all that thrummed through me was a hunger and a curiosity about how his laser eyes worked. It was the kind of clinical detachment a Doctor had when they conducted autopsy's on dead bodies.
“Well that wasn't very nice friend." I leaned down and whispered in the mans ear. I felt him tense in fear at my words as he weakly tried to struggle.
"Let’s find out what we have in here shall we?” I said as one of my small pieces of metal floated in the air as I activated [Telekinesis]. The metal shard floated slowly towards the man’s forehead before it began to sink into it. The man screamed into my hand but I held his face firmly to limit the sound. His skin and skull demonstrated an unexpected resistance to my metal shard at first. But after exerted more strength with my [Telekinesis] his flesh and gone began to cut nicely. Fascinated I watched how much his flesh and bone resisted as i slowly cut open the top of his head. Finally the bone cut through completely and gently I lifted the top of his skull off and exposed his brain. Fine lines of Blue Qi pulsed in his brain like little lights as I stared into their complex structure. He whimpered under my hand as his life force dimmed, but I barely noticed. I was too caught up in the complex array like structure of Blue Qi that was woven into his very being.
It’s beautiful. So beautiful. I thought in wonder as [Intuitive Aptitude] analysed the structure at a rate faster than any super computer could possibly rival.
Massive amounts of information on the Superman Class began to feed into my mind. I could see he had three Skills. [Flight], [Heat Vision] and [Solar Cultivation]. My mouth began to water as I saw the effects of Solar Cultivation. Immediately I utilised [Intuitive Aptitude] and I felt my Black-Qi surge as it flooded into the man's brain. It separated and wrapped around the cluster of Blue-Qi that was responsible for [Solar Cultivation] and began to absorb its components. Once I felt the process was completed I withdrew the Black-Qi back into my body and I felt knowledge return with it. The Black-Qi carried an imprint that snaked up into my mind and formed the shape of a new Sigil in my mind.
“Fufufufu.” I laughed as I felt a tremendous flood of power surge through my body. My muscles began to bulge and grow as my body thickened considerably and my eyesight sharpened. An incredible sense of physical power filled me as I smiled. I lost my smile though as series of emotions began to wash over me. Pride, righteousness, an iron clad will to defeat all enemies and protect those I love. The emotions washed over me in a storm as strange thoughts began to take over my mind. It was like the personality of the [Class: Superman] beign absorbed into me along with part of the power. That was when a predatory killer rose up inside and me began to eat away at the new personality. It was like a hungry cannibal feasting on its essence as laughed at its pain. For the first time i caught sight of what my Class truly looked. And it was fucking scary.
Finally the Superman personality was subdued and absorbed by the Syler personality which settled back down into my mind. I sat their half crouched for few moments as i thought. The Syler Class was now a part of me but it had some of its trace kind of will. A hunger and a the seed of a personality. For the first time i began to serious misgivings about the this so called Unique Class i had been awarded. It seemed like all the Classes came with a kind of 'spirit', a fundamental nature. I would have to give this serious consideration when i absorbed new powers. As it currently stood my mind was far too weak. Turning my mind back to the task at hand, I hovered over the Sigil in my mind and watched as the information revealed itself.
[SKILL: SOLAR CULTIVATION I(ACQUIRED)][SKILL QUALITY: BEGINNER][CLASS: SUPERMAN]
[SOLAR CULTIVATION IS THE METHOD BY WHICH SUPERMAN DEVELOPED HIS TREMENDOUS PHSYICAL ABILTIIES. BY FOCUSING ON THE QI IN THE WORLD THAT IS STRONG IN SOLAR RADIATION THE PLAYER DRAWS THIS ENERGY INTO THEIR BODY AND INFUSES IT INTO THEIR CELLS CAUSING THEM TO TRANSFORM AND STRENGTHEN. EACH LEVEL OF THE SKILL PROVIDES +2 POINTS TO STRENGTH, SPEED AND DURABILITY AND +1 TO REGENERATION EACH TIME THE SKILL LEVELS]
Where the hell are attributes? I wondered as I cast about in my mind. That was when I saw that near the Class Sigil was another Sigil. I cast my mind across that and saw all my details emerge in my mind.
[STRENGTH: 12/210]
[SPEED: 12/210]
[DURABILITY: 12/210
[REGENERATION: 11/210]
[PERCEPTION: 10/210]
[INTELLIGENCE: 10/210]
Ahh I must have started with 10 in each attribute and then the extra points are from Solar Cultivation. I thought as I looked at my stats. The extra attributes I had didn’t seem to correlate with the durability of the mans bones. I shrugged as thought it through. Must be a special bonus he got from acquiring his Class to begin with. Like a +10 boost to all Attributes or something. That was when I noticed I still had my hand over the mans mouth as his breath began to fade. A deep greed rose in me as wished I could rip the other Skills right out of him as well, but unfortunately I could only take one Skill from each class.
“Sorry my friend. I thank you for your gift.” I said as pressed my hand into his chest. I reached my fingers around his Blue Core and crushed it in my hand. The mans eyes widened for a moment and then the light in his eyes finally faded away.
I looked at the Blue liquid on my hands as I pulled my hand out of his chest. The Blue-Qi did not seem to have any natural corroding effect on my skin. I pulled out what remained of his Core out and held it in my hand. I don’t know what made me do it but for some reason I placed a small part of the Blue Core in my mouth and tasted it. A surge of pure Qi went through me as tasted his Core.
“Jesus Wept.” I said out loud as I felt the concentration of power in the Core. I bit down on a small piece of it and began to chew. It tasted soft and fleshly like chicken. Delicious! I thought as Blue-Qi ran down my chin as I feasted on the Core. The Blue-Qi entered me and was then turned into Black-Qi when it entered my blood. From their it pumped its way into my Black Core. Soon I lost any sense of decency as I consumed his Blue Core like a starving animal. An enormous stream of pure Qi filled me that was countless times more powerful than the amount of Qi I had managed to gather even with [Fugue State]. Just as I finished eating all of his Blue Core I felt as if a critical amount of energy had been gathered in my Black Core. The Black-Qi suddenly contracted and condensed and small tiny marble formed inside my Core.
<+6 ATTRIBUTES POINTS ACQUIRED FOR LEVELLING UP CLASS>
<1 SKILL POINT ACQUIRED FOR LEVELLING UP CLASS>
Booyah! I thought. Excitedly I pulled up my attributes again. Just by thinking of it I could assign the attribute points where I desired. Thinking carefully I decided to assign one to each attribute in order to create a generalist build. This way each time I levelled [Solar Cultivation] I would gain addiitonal points to Strength, Speed, Durability and Regernation attributes and then every time I levelled my Class I would gain an additional +1 to all attributes. Combined this should raise all my attributes quite quickly and in a uniform way.
I pondered briefly on where to apply my Skill point. If you only got 1 Skill point per level then they were a precious resource indeed. [Telekinesis] had already proved very useful and seemed like a very flexible form of energetic manipulation. [Intuitive Aptitude] was of course godlike, but could not be ranked up. [Split Mind] and [Fugue State] were also Innate. I suspected depending on the persons previous life experiences they might be able to trigger the creation of all sorts of Innate Skills over time.
Upon reflection the biggest synergy I had right now was in Skill that improved my attributes. This also seemed a smart way to increase my survivability if the corpses in the hallway were anything to go by. I carefully applied my Skill Point to [Solar Cultivation] and pulled up the information.
[SKILL SOLAR CULTIVATION II (ACQUIRED)][SKILL QUALITY: BEGINNER][CLASS: SUPERMAN]
I quickly looked over my attributes and saw they had risen again.
[STRENGTH: 14/210]
[SPEED: 14/210]
[DURABILITY: 14/210
[REGENERATION: 12/210]
[PERCEPTION: 10/210]
[INTELLIGENCE: 10/210]
Yes this is the money I thought as I looked at my Skill. Some deep instinct told me I was on the correct path. I would focus on raising my physical attributes as much as possible first in order to increase my survivability. After my Class levelled up I had also felt something else that was a little strange as my Black Core had reacted. I send my vision inward and examined my Core. The small little marble inside was floating in the sea of Black-Qi. Sensing its composition I discovered that it was full of a dense amount of concentrated Black-Qi as well. Ahh I understand. Each time you level you gain a greater capacity to store Qi. Previously I could only store Black-Qi in my Core. Now my Core has a marble in it that also stores even more Qi inside it. If this happens each time I level up then eventually I will have dozens of small marbles in my Core.
Remembering how quickly I had run out of Qi when I ripped the lid of the Pod off I could see how important levels would be. Without an energy source most Skills would become useless very quickly except for incredible passive skills like [Solar Cultivation].
There were two other deductions that could also be made. Firstly, the Core was fairly fragile. I had crushed one with my hand alone. I would need to think of ways to protect and reinforce the area around my heart. I had no doubt if the man with the Superman Class had not been already injured he could have easily killed me. The other conclusion was that not everyone could see someone’s Class like I could. This seemed to be a unique attribute of [Intuitive Apitutde] though one had to assume other players may have Skills that could also identify.
How the man identified me as a foreign Team was actually through smell. Red Team and Blue Team must naturally give off a scent that is easily identifiable. This is how they know its an enemy. But as for Team Black we didn’t seem to give off any scent and when I sniffed my fingers I couldn’t detect any particular smell from the Blue-Qi. It appears I was odourless. Clenching my fist and feeling the new found strength in my body I looked down at the corpse at my feet. Now that my body had filled out from [Solar Cultivation] he was about the right size for me.
“Sorry mate. Gonna need these clothes.” I said as I stripped him down.
Minutes later I was ready to continue my exploration. I placed the metal shards I had created into a pocket and then I hefted my metal bat and held it gently in my hand. Time to find this fucking Node.