[CYA] Chapter 98: Moving Forward

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<Alex, Real - Endure, High School Main Hall>

Alex sat in a state of decision paralysis, looking at the three sets of rings:

First—and the most ‘hopeful’ choice—were three Rings of Regeneration (Health), Simple.

Second—and the ‘bolster his weaknesses’ choice—were three Rings of Regeneration (Mana), Simple.

Finally—and the ‘potential gain and utility now’ choice—were two Rings of Breathing and one Ring of Regeneration (Stamina), Simple. The breathing rings were especially interesting because they seemed to be an outlier. The System had given rings of regeneration for the three basic internal resources, then rings of breathing. He’d be a fool if he didn’t see that as a warning or hint at what was to come… or a red herring.

There just might be poison clouds or something similar in his future… or not.

Regardless, each set would be a distinct choice of path forward.

Yup, make this decision seem bigger and more impactful than it really is.

This was clearly the choice that would set his path forward. Nothing else he had done or ever would do mattered as much as this.

Alex chuckled to himself, the sheer ridiculousness of that internal assertion helping to break him free of a bit of his mental paralysis.

Ben glanced his way again, arching an eyebrow. “You alright, Alex?”

Alex nodded, waving absently in negation. “Yes, yes. Just had a funny thought.”

“I see… It seems like you’re done. Are you just choosing which you’ll keep?”

Alex nodded again. “A small part of me wants to just take all of them and run.” He looked up and grinned in mirth, but the man’s stony stare in return wiped the expression from his face. “I wasn’t going to do it… I was just saying a little part wants to.”

Ben grunted. “Good. I’m not fighting other Initiates to keep you safe when you are clearly in the wrong.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to?” Alex responded questioningly. “Regardless, I should be done soon.”

“Fair enough. Then, we’ll get you your shower and some sleep.”

Alex grimaced. He really hated how much time he had to devote to sleep… And that did help him make the decision, actually. If he could claim back even an hour a day—and he wasn’t about to assume that the ring would reduce his needs by more than that—he could use that hour to do so much more.

His Inventory training was set to resume again soon, and he wanted more time with Master Adam as well as to train with other Initiates to improve his and their skills. All told, what he really needed was time.

The mana rings would only give him time in one sense, that being in regard to using his magic and training those skills and spells, but since he had so much else he could and would be working on, that wouldn’t actually be a net gain in time overall. It might even make choosing how to spend his time harder.

That in mind, there was really only one choice he could make, and the fact that it came with the breathing rings was just a side benefit.

“I’ve decided.” He took up the three rings from the final group. “Can you tell Kaylee they’re ready?”

Ben nodded, getting up and going to get the Base Administrator… That was her chosen title, right?

It likely didn’t matter over much. After all, she’d never seemed like one who was a stickler for such things.

Kaylee came and did a quick inventory of the items he’d secured from the boxes and then waved him off, saying that she’d return those he hadn’t chosen.

With that simple dismissal, Alex practically took off toward the re-turned to give them another dose of his Life so he could shower, Ben following just behind, matching his quick walk.

After the thirty second drop through with the infirmed Initiates, he was moving again, the prospect of being clean enough motivation for an even faster walk.

As he moved, he slipped his stamina ring onto his left pointer finger, a little frustrated that it would take twenty-four hours before it would attune to him.

Then, he brought the two Rings of Breathing out of his Inventory and into his right hand, in contact with the ring on that pointer finger.

Synergy of System Granted Rewards Detected
3x Ring of Breathing, Simple detected.

As these rewards cannot be used together, would you like to combine them? Note, the resulting item will not be as beneficial as the three individually, if spread out among your companions.

Combine?
Y/N

Alex grinned and indicated ‘Yes.’

Ring of Breathing, Common
Once attuned to a wearer this ring allows the attuned to breathe as dictated by their biology.

Ongoing mana cost is determined by the normal infeasibility of this action. This cost will range from a minimum of 1 MP every five seconds to a maximum of 100 per second.

Note: This will not replace the need for the organs required for biological respiration.

“Well, that answers that… sort of.” Alex grunted. “Well, I guess I don’t know what the MP cost was at ‘Simple’.” He glanced toward Ben. “Do you know if anyone else has a Ring of Breathing?”

Ben shrugged. “I’m sure someone does. We can ask for the information once they’ve attuned it? I assume that’s what you’re curious about.”

“True. Thanks. Yes, that’s what I was thinking.”

The bigger man grunted.

As he considered the description, Alex was marginally disappointed, thinking that the ring might not continue to work if something crushed his throat or something similar… which he hoped never happened, but it had crossed his mind.

As he continued to contemplate it though, Alex frowned. Was a throat actually biologically required for respiration? It wasn’t, as many medical interventions proved. Lungs were, a circulatory system and blood were, but other than that?

He nodded once and smiled. He wasn’t going to test it out, but he thought that so long as he wasn’t bleeding out and his heart, lungs, et cetera were functioning, he should be fine.

He muttered to himself. “Again, Alex, it’s just breathing. If someone cuts off blood flow to your brain, you’re still going to pass out.”

Ben grunted again. “You’re an over thinker, aren’t you?”

Alex glanced toward the spear user. “I mean… yes? It was sort of my job before all this. I had to think about edge cases, unintended consequences, and odd interactions. Moreover, I had to try to figure out what might have been missed in various plans or proposed solutions.”

Ben grimaced. “You were a PM? Great…”

“What? A Project Manager?” Alex barked a laugh. “No. No, I was not.”

Ben’s face shifted. “What? Then… what did you do?”

“I was a facilitator of sorts.” Alex shrugged. “It was my job to interface between tech and non-tech people to ensure they were communicating well about expectations and things like that. I helped them build out projects, their scopes, and solutions.”

Ben raised an eyebrow, and Alex shrugged again.

“I did other things too, but that was the overarching theme.”

The man grunted. “Well… that actually sounds useful.”

“Thank you, I suppose?” Now curious, Alex inquired, “What did you do?”

“Hand model.”

Alex stopped in his tracks, turning to regard the other man. “What?”

Ben lifted a battered hand and waggled his fingers. “This is the money maker.”

Alex gave the man a flat look. “Seriously.”

Ben just shrugged. “Believe what you will.”

Alex sighed and started walking again. “Alright then… That’s unusual.”

“You should ask Jacob what he did.”

Alex gave Ben a narrow eyed glance. “Oh?”

“He was a Naval Officer.”

“Well, that’s not too unusu—”

“And he did brisk trade in collectible toys from all over the world.”

“...Okay… that’s a new one for me. Not strange by any means, but I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who did that.”

“I know, right? I just have pretty hands.” The man waggled clearly scarred and scuffed digits once again.

“Right…” They arrived at the locker rooms and went inside, finding a pair of showers open side by side. Given the stalls were only about half taken by various people cycling through, that wasn’t too difficult, even if Alex didn’t really like the idea of a ‘shower buddy.’

Still, Ben hadn’t insisted on joining him, so he decided to count his blessings and get cleaned up.

For kicks, after he was clean, Alex put his head back and tried to breath under the flow of the showerhead. To his surprise—though it shouldn’t have been—he drew in a lungful of fresh, clean air, though it was still humid.

He felt the ring pull magic from him, but it was minimal. That made sense, as only a very little water would have done anything to potentially make his breathing difficult. It shouldn’t take much to allow normal breathing.

As it was, the drain was less than his natural mana regeneration rate, so while it took mana from the base due to what Kaylee had set up, the ring didn’t actually cause him to dip lower in that resource.

That is right useful.

Once he was clean and he and Ben were both dressed and back in the main hall, Alex decided it was time to sleep.

He wanted to play with the spearhead he’d gotten from Natasha, but he was starting to feel incredibly exhausted.

He’d have to figure out a good time to look at the spear. And to try mana circulation again…

Honestly, there were just too many things he wanted and needed to do.

Fighting the undead really was helping him refine his skill usage, and he felt like he might be able to improve the rarity on a few of them with another few two hour blocks of combat.

That set the pattern for the next few days for Alex.

He gave Life to the unturned whenever he’d recovered from the last impartment, fought as much as possible, only being called for ‘emergency healing’ of another Initiate twice, when one of them over-extended. Even so, the very fact that he could get there to help them let everyone be more comfortable continuing to train and level.

He ate his meals on the go, trying to take blood from Ben every so often—sometimes with explicit permission, sometimes without asking to see if that made a difference—but couldn’t get it to work. Honestly, he wasn’t sure it could work, but since a non-Initiate had been the one to suggest it, he felt like the System itself had told him it was possible.

Frustrating that.

Beyond simply fighting, Alex took two of the blocks between meals for less martial practice.

The first block was originally going to be dedicated to investigating the spearhead.

He had found a quiet place, but one with easy access to the street around the high school just in case he was needed, and focused in on the weapon.

His Life was running through it, holding it together and making it more.

It was easy to see how verdant green ‘metal’ bridged the cracks and chips that had been evident when he repaired it, looking much like his own dadao. But in the case of the spearhead, the green was more… vivid? It was more alive, and there was an energy to it.

Alex could actually still feel his Life within the piece of metal, unlike when he put HP into his weapon to fix it. In the latter case, the HP seemed to pour into the material, vanishing to return structure and durability to the weapon. This? The spearhead seemed to have his Life acting as a patch between the pieces… pieces that were slowly coming back together?

He couldn’t be sure, but he thought that the amount of the weapon covered in the green cracks had lessened, and those that were still there were both more concentrated and smaller than when last he looked at it.

With a shrug, he pulled out his tutorial phone and took a picture of the thing, wishing he’d thought to do that before.

There, now I can compare how it changes over the next day or so.

With that done, though, he didn’t want to mess with it any more, else he might change the baseline.

He also didn’t want to put it into his Inventory, as that might slow the process down.

He honestly wasn’t sure, as it seemed like time stopped for everything inside, but he didn’t actually know that for sure. Magical effects might be different after all, and he wanted a true baseline.

As such, he hung the thing from his belt and looked up, seeing that the whole process had only taken about ten minutes.

He could go fight more, or try to find someone to train with… or he could do what he’d already planned for the next ‘non-combat’ block.

Yeah, that’s a better idea. He glanced up and saw Jacob standing nearby, watching over him. “I’m going to try mana circulation.”

Jacob shrugged. “Fine by me. Don’t blow yourself up or anything.”

Alex opened his mouth to say that he’d never do something like that, but then he remembered his little incident with his pinkie. “Ahh… sure thing.”

Jacob gave him a narrow-eyed look, then shook his head and turned back to looking around the area.

Alex shifted himself, tucking his legs beneath him in a crosslegged position. He tried to center himself, falling naturally into box-breathing and meditation that he’d practiced for so many years.

From there, he did as he’d promised himself that he would try that day, he leaned on his  Basic Mana Manipulation skill, trying to feel what it could tell him about manipulating mana.

He was sure nearly an hour passed as he tried various things until he finally settled on a pattern for his torso that worked.

Something like a tornado was beginning to take shape in his torso, spinning counter clockwise if viewed from above.

One result from this was that mana was practically thrown down his right arm at a constant rate.

As that started to build pressure, Alex fought to compress the mana to the center of the limb as it shot outward. That compression gave space around the outside for the backpressure to flow back up his arm and out, but it was turbulent to a crazy extent as it rushed back into his torso, coming out fully surrounding the ‘ingoing’ stream. That meant that most of the flow was fighting the tornado he’d already created.

Nausea immediately began to build, somehow originating from nearly his entire body. Alex grimaced and growled. No.

He cancelled the circulation technique before it could make him truly sick and broke out of his meditation.

Jacob was looking his way, and Alex noticed the fading sound of the meal bell. With nothing better to do, Alex sighed. “Food?”

Jacob nodded. “Yeah, let’s eat.”

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