Jose had gotten little rest, wavering in and out of consciousness for the first half of the night.
At some point, he regained full awareness. Sitting up to check his wounds, he froze—the sound of sniffing drifted through the cracked door as a Tainted passed by, close enough to hear.
He sat in rigid silence, sleep teasing the edges of his mind. But every time he drifted off, the Tainted would return. Their laughter—unnerving and guttural—echoed faintly through the hallway, accompanied by the persistent sound of sniffing.
At some point, exhaustion had finally won out, and he'd slept through the rest of the night. Still, upon awakening, his body was sore and battered.
Groaning, he sat up and mentally called forth his status page.
[Health: 280/305 Ether: 56/56
Level: 8
Soul: Ancient
Race: Sapient
Genus: None
Species: None
Strength: 16
Constitution: 13
Endurance: 16
Agility: 22
Dexterity: 15
Awareness: 17
Wisdom: 14
Capacity: 24
Free Points: 12
Skills: Strike, Orb, Volt-Gen, Crafting (Beginner), Bolt, Thunder Wave]
He considered spending his stat points, but first, he needed to heal. The Tainted had quieted. It felt safe enough.
He activated Volt-Gen.
The skill pulsed from his chest, erupting in white lightning that radiated outward. The arcs licked across his body, depositing sparks onto wounds and fractured bones.
'Good thing I didn't use this last night,' he thought, 'Those Tainted bastards would have found me and torn me to pieces.'
The thought quickly vanished as the skill began healing—the healing process burned—each mending muscle felt like a fire ant bite, each bone like a blade driven into his marrow. He clenched his jaw against the pain and trembled as his body knitted itself back together.
Sweating and panting, he moved on to examining his stats. He mentally poked each one, receiving more detailed information.
[Strength: Increases muscular density adding explosive power to physical attacks.
Constitution: Toughens musculature and bones, increasing resistance to physical damage. (Adds 5 to health per point.)
Endurance: Reduces physical fatigue and allows for sustained exertion. (Adds 5 to health per point.)
Agility: Increases speed and cognizant function accordingly allowing for faster movement and reflexes.
Dexterity: Makes muscles and joints more limber allowing for finer, and more precise motor control.
Awareness: Sharpens spatial and environmental perception.
Wisdom: Improves cognitive processing. (Adds 2 to energy per point.)
Capacity: Determines ether pool and regeneration rate. (Adds 2 to energy per point.)]
'Hm, I'm sure there is more to each that isn't mentioned, guess I'll have to figure those things out myself as I progress.' Jose thought.
He had some decisions to make. After the fight with the Armored Rats he'd been simply trying to keep his stats even to some extent. His agility and capacity had taken the lead, but not by much.
Thinking back to his days playing video games he figured people would naturally begin trying to specialize in specific stats to fit an optimal build. For instance, brawlers would likely put the bulk of points into strength, or sorcerers would likely split it between wisdom and capacity.
That all made sense in a game world where one had infinite lives to perfect that build. But in real life, such a strategy wasn't optimal, or even viable, not unless one was always in a group to cover their weaknesses.
Right now, he wasn't in a group or team, and considering his demeanor, he likely would never be. At least, not for any meaningful amount of time.
It seemed his current strategy was the correct one for him after all.
It may make him weaker than anyone who might be more specialized, if they survived, but adaptability was what humans were best at, and making his build adaptable to any situation had kept him alive thus far.
Considering his current situation, he realized he was more than strong enough to kill any Tainted with one hit. What he lacked was the constitution to withstand more damage himself, the endurance to fight longer, and the capacity to regenerate his ether faster.
Dividing his points, he brought constitution and endurance to twenty each and put his last three points into strength, dexterity, and capacity, respectively.
The next thing to consider was his skills. Clearly, they were much more versatile than the simple descriptions suggested.
The fact that the orbs stayed dormant till they were needed, and could follow him had eluded him. But now that he thought about it, it would be easy to prepare several and simply bring them along already primed for combat at a moment's notice.
Jose didn't feel the presence of the Tainted in his current surroundings, but it didn't hurt to be prudent.
Having spent the better part of the night fighting and the rest in fitful sleep, he was now exhausted and starving.
It was hard to tell exactly what time of day it was from inside the building, there were no windows in the halls, only the stairwells and rooms. But he'd always been good at intuiting the approximate time of day, so he was fairly certain it was mid-morning.
Cautiously, Jose opened the closet door just a crack and peered into the hallway. The air felt calm. No Tainted nearby. Still, he moved slowly, methodically, checking each door. He avoided locked rooms—too risky to force his way in and leave himself exposed. Halfway down the corridor, he found a door unlocked.
***
Jose wasn't in any rush considering that it would be hard to find anyone if he got himself killed running around half-dead as he was.
After securing the door and eating, he'd taken the time to rest properly, afterall, he was surrounded by monsters and would most assuredly have to fight his way out.
Now that he'd gotten some proper rest and filled his stomach, his thoughts were much clearer, allowing him to better consider how his skills worked. He knew that Strike and Orb worked with the same basic principals, that is, he could activate them, and they would stay primed till needed.
He also knew that combining Strike and Bolt during combat had produced a new skill. Still, he had questions that needed answering.
He summoned an Orb and tried to move it with his will. It buzzed with latent energy, reluctant to obey—but it moved. Slowly. Awkwardly.
Next, he tried to control the output of ether. Could increasing the flow improve the damage? That answer, he knew, would require a deeper understanding of his ether system.
Jose sat cross-legged on the floor in the back bedroom; he'd attempted meditating before with varying degrees of success. He closed his eyes, relaxed his body, and took deep, slow breaths, clearing his mind. Within minutes, his awareness shifted inward.
Feeling around in his body, he felt several nodes of power. It appeared there were shallow ones at every major joint: kneck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, knees, and ankles.
There were also two dense nodes.
One in the center of his brain—his pineal gland, the so-called third eye.
One in his solar plexus, central and stable.
They were connected by a network resembling his circulatory system, though different—more energetic. The third eye felt like an engine, converting atmospheric energy. The solar plexus, like a power bank, storing and distributing it.
These were his internal power centers.
Also, the mind's eye and solar plexus nodes were currently the only active points.
That was a mystery he aimed to solve and fix if need be, but that was for another day. Today, he simply needed to become more familiar and in tune with his ether.
Entering a deeper state of meditation, he became aware of several energies in the atmosphere around him.
Five to be exact.
One vibrant and fidgety, constantly in motion.
One bubbly and curious, probing junctions.
One confident and dominant, shoving others aside.
One elusive and fleeting, blinking in and out.
One warm and inviting, thrumming with power.
That last one orbited his head in a vortex. He followed it.
In the darkness behind his eyes, he found it: a tetragonal dipyramid prism, spinning rapidly. Gray particles streamed into it, transforming into red, white, and black lightning. These struck the walls of the prism, bouncing wildly before weaving into braided currents.
The braided lightning flowed down two different paths, bypassing the neck node and colliding in the center of his solar plexus. There it coalesced into a slow-spinning plasma sphere—a miniature sun. Lightning arced from it like solar flares.
A dynamo and a nucleus.
The words came unbidding, as if revealing themselves to him.
He could see the inner workings of it, the particles entering his body, the dynamo as it churned and whipped them into lightning, the lightning as it flowed down and through his nucleus empowering him.
Jose bathed in it for a time, familiarizing himself with his ether's process and flow.
He activated Strike and observed. Red lightning surged from the nucleus, following his inner network, branching to his arms and legs. It stayed primed at those nodes—ready.
Jose took hold of the nucleus and dynamo trying to push more ether out but felt a resistance.
The resistances felt similar, but not the same. The dynao was akin to pushing against the tide, while the nucleus felt more like a barrier needed to be removed.
First he studied every single aspect of the dynamo and then the nucleus, it was there that he found the answer.
There were vortices leading out from the nucleus that worked like constrictors, opening to feed ether to his network. So, instead of squeezing out the ether, he realized that he merely needed to open these vortices and let the ether flow.
It was easier said than done. There were eight vortices:
Two down (legs)
Two up (arms)
Two forward (chest/head)
Two back (organs)
He did not need to open all of them, but after some time observing his skills work, he knew he had his work cut out for him.
Strike required the chest and leg pairs. Orb needed only the head.
Each vortex acted like a diode, sending ether one way—from nucleus to body.
Jose focused on one vortex. It took several minutes, or hours—he wasn't exactly aware of time while under his deep meditation—before he was even able to open the vortex slightly. Even then, it was like pushing a car, alone, and up a hill—agonizing and exhausting.
He persisted. Over time, the effort became natural—like blinking.
Eventually, he opened his eyes.
The room was hot. Steam rolled off his skin. He felt lighter. Stronger.
Looking down, he saw it—his body had changed. The belly fat was gone. His form was compact and lean. Not overly muscular, but powerful. Efficient. Like a sprinter in peak condition.
His stats hadn't changed, but something deeper had. The sluggishness that had plagued him was gone.
His body had finally caught up with his ether level, and for the first time in a long time, Jose felt whole.
Plugged into the grid. Ready.