Book 2, Chapter 11

There were piles of candles in the dining hall there to help you get to your room. He grabbed a dozen just in case there were none in his room. There would be, and his poor memory seemed to remember there being lots spread throughout the room when he woke earlier in the morning. Best to be prepared. They vanished into his bag of holding. Four flights of steps later he was unlocking the room.

Glancing around, literally dozens of candles spread throughout the giant room, including what looked like twenty on the desk itself. For fighting and moving his night vision was more than enough but it seemed silly to stress his eyes using it to read a book. Something told him Ambusher Steps did not come with a read in the dark disclaimer. Reading tonight was going to remind him of when he used to read books under the bedcovers by torchlight.

I miss you electricity

The stubborn part in him delayed the Bird core. That would be a reward for putting in the hard work to improve himself first. Meditation Techniques extracted itself from the bag of holding. The book physically was like a child's picture book, but with thinner pages. Opening it up, the first page was an elaborate index complete with flowery lettering. Twenty-five different techniques were listed down the page; Breaths of a Thousand Flexes, Dragon Channels, Shifting Mountains, Floating Connections.

The names sounded exotic. Which of them were going to call out to him and become a go to technique? Would any grant him attribute increases or an internal energy skill? As the book was part of the pathway to intelligence, there was no point relying on a name. It would never be that simple. Front cover to back was the best.

Breaths of a Thousand Flexes

Step 1. Support yourself with your three pointers in an even triangle on the ground

Step 2. Lower your body weight as much as possible, till it feels you can not push any further

Step 3. Focus on even breaths while tensing abdominal muscles. Remember to maintain tension to keep the pointers in position.

Step 4. When breathing out stretch arms upwards and then when breathing in bring them hard back onto the chest

Step 5. Split your breathing between your primary trunk and secondary trunk. Breath in with the primary while releasing air out of the secondary in order to create an even flow throughout the body. No Storage! When the sense of rising unbreath hits you close the primary trunk and breath in through the secondary. Once you have breathed in fully, expel all air from the lungs out though both trunks.

Three pointers, two trunks. The book fell from his hands onto the table. One candle rocked, but no flames went in areas where they should not.

Damn candles, so many houses were going to get burnt down.

The meditation technique was not for humans! It was for another creature and not even a bipedal humanoid type. It was for a creature with a completely different anatomy. Suppressing the hysterically screaming which aside from waking people would still have failed to reflect the disappointment that coursed through him. It felt like a deliberate affront.

A trick. The gamer in him had been convinced that Sam and the interface had been sliding him something special. Giving him a book that would serve the dual purpose of strengthening him while addressing the intelligence pathway requirements. Instead, the book was no more useful than the Art one, and possibly even less comprehensible.

The interface and Sam had not cheated. Some stupid rule based on some study that occurred hundreds of million or even billion of years ago stopped them. They intended the meditation book to do what the pathway had required. Grow his thinking, his imagination, his capability to link concepts and give him a headache all at the same time. Expand the mind, just like the pathway suggested. Providing a list of mental exercises to train his body would not meet those requirements, while presenting useless different Alien techniques would work a treat. Bastards.

When reading through the ridiculously named ‘Breathes of a Thousand Flexes’ technique, his mind tried to imagine alien anatomy. Speculate what body parts were referenced and what the intended recipient looked like. There would probably be common threads with the techniques once he had read through others, but for now it was hard to imagine what the pointer, multiple trunk thing looked like.

Stubbornly, he depleted the technique before putting the meditation book away. It was something that he would explore in more detail once his racing heartbeat settled and the blood left his face.

Stupid Book

With his current churning thoughts, trying to follow the meditation techniques designed for the mind and bodies of creatures he had never seen and probably could not imagine was not going to be productive. There would be time to do the mundane research later.

I need a win. Bird Core

It was time to finish his level up and master buff magic.

The core came out of his bag of holding. It still lay there filling the kid's backpack. The weight of the orb always surprised him. It was not as dense as he expected and would almost certainly float. The moment it was visible, the magical presence beat against him. It was so much more than the little cores. Even if you had a thousand, the Bird core’s pressure would be more. The Bird core thrummed with enough energy that. non-gifted people would have been able to feel it from across the room. Warm, glowing, and with a tiny bit of static electricity that made the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

Hand shaking slightly, he reached out and touched it. Instantly sensing the different groupings of knowledge that were claimable. Thank god. There would be no need to cut himself.

It was tempting to claim multiple groupings of knowledge, but deep down he knew that would be the height of foolishness. It would be a silly gamble to risk gaining the buff ability. A small part of him whispered that it was worth the risk. Claim buffs and healing and then at the next level up he could use a skill upgrade to gain true healing abilities. Taking only one school knowledge was wasteful if he could have two. Plus, if it failed, and he got none then he would have no choice but to acquire the shadow fighters ability.

The healing path was soft and calming. The potential even after just a touch of his mind was clear. More than mere knowledge would be gained by consuming the core. It would boost his healing and vitality with a permanent imprint into him. Then there was the knowledge itself. It would be a command of healing. A true master, potentially instantly catapulting him above Lucas in terms of his healing abilities.

Pulling away from its siren call. Such sweet masterful power, mend bones, regrow limbs so much potential there to be mastered. However he had agreed to do buffs and as seductive as a combination of bluffs and healings where he understood intuitively it would fail. The knowledge dragged across would not be enough. The results would be a mixture of the available buffs but not enough specific knowledge to let the interface build a viable pathway linked to his latest level up.

The noise focusing capability that the Bird had used to such devastating effect was also there but he paid no mind to it. Not even bothering to taste it and instead moved on to the Birds understanding of Strength and Vitality increases.

There were no prompts to accept or refuse. Instead it was a simple matter to let his mind sink Into the core and grab the knowledge that he wanted

There was so much there, yet it was not a raging torrential downpour instead it was a slow flowing stream that picked him up and carried him along. There was a sense of the Bird and its life.  An impression of the World that it was original from. A foreign place where its nest rested on top of a true mountain with natural steep cliffs. There had been no need for the rough earthworks required on Earth. In this other world the Bird was still the master of its Territory. There were other things bigger and better out there and when the Giants flew it would hide just like everything else. They flew so rarely that they were barely a concern. The climate was perfect and the food plentiful. The caterpillars were everywhere; they were a lovely meal for the Bird, a perfectly sized morsel and whenever it flew they were always lots of them. Occasionally other animals were taken as delicacy but always the Bird willingly went back to the large slow succulent caterpillars.

Then the experience started flowing into him. He recalled the memories of the Birds magic during its life. The Bird, barely able to think coherent thoughts beyond; eat this, sleep here being driven by instincts to train its strength, not with weights but with magic at the individual cell level. Grabbing energy that had a similar flavour to Susie's healing spells and directing them into each cell. Usually it was a slow process, one muscle at a time over weeks, laboriously increasing how quickly and strongly each fibre would flex. Building the power  available slowly and surely, but then threats would come that challenged the Bird. At those moments, it required a more immediate boost.

The creature was attacking the nest. A ground hogger which could climb because of its multiple long arms. Her young was behind her so there was no fleeing to safety. The creature had to be dealt with. Memories from when she was a much younger and the many close escapes from ground hoggers. It could use every appendage like a spear, able to punch straight through a bird's chest to kill it instantly. Yet they were vulnerable from being plucked from above. Like they preyed on her, she preyed on them when they were smaller. Catching them unaware, lifting them into the sky and then dropping them to let gravity do its work. Their deadly legs never getting the angle to strike and afterwards eating their gooey insides. Not nice food like the caterpillars, but when you are starving, it was enough to tie you over till the next meal.

Pumping strength to all of its muscles burning longer-term potential to make the muscles stronger for a one off battle. There was no permanent damage, but it would weaken the Bird for hours afterwards. The buff taking hold and immense power flooding each of its limbs. Lifting off and plucking the ground hogger into the air. Wings strained, but then it was airborne and the Bird only had to hold on for four wing beats before letting it go. The long fall was deadly. Flying straight back to the nest, ignoring the corpse. Experience had taught the Bird that Ground Hoggers were bad eating.

Similar fight and similar outcome, but this time defending the nest required size to scare off the enemy. Green energy twisting throughout so that cells expanded and subtly the bird became larger than it ever was. Almost as large as a giant. Lashing out a talon and cutting the attacking creature. This time it was one caterpillar, but it was larger than an office building. The slug like thing registered its massive opponent and retreated. Nothing wanted to fight a giant. She suffered for four weeks after that, but the chicks lived and her strength returned.

Vitality worked on the same pathways, all of it utilised Susie’s green magic that he labeled as druid in his mind. It was Susie's core magic, Druid or Beast or Nature, who knew what the right term was. There was probably a correct name somewhere, but for now he would call it nature. The memories once more carried him along. Lots of repetitive reinforcing single cell enforcement. The Bird had been alive for a long time, building up its strength, health and size. The three techniques were different. Size was about splitting cells, strength was about infusing nature energy into cells that was then used whenever the cell needed to contract, applying more power than flesh and blood could achieve and then finally vitality was about increasing reserves of a slightly twisted form of nature energy. It left the reserves free in the blood while strength got trapped within individual cells. The whole Bird’s existence was just a continual application to build herself up till she exceeded the norms of her species.

Then a tiny flurry of panic at the end of the memories. The Bird not knowing what was happening when an unknowable force ripped it away from its mate and chicks. Casting it out into a new sky all alone. The continuous worry about trying to work out what was good to eat and what was not good to eat. Was there something out there that could destroy it? There might be because it knew nothing about where it was. Everything tasted different even the air was wrong

The core crumbled in his hands, leaving behind weird waxy stone substance. Changing it instantly from a basketball size down to a tennis ball. The weird stone crumbled away when he touched it, shrinking the mass further. Was there a similar residual left with the minor cores? He did not think so, but his memory was hazy and the other cores were so small that the residual would be minuscule.

The poor bird. Its final weeks had been hard. Its small brain missed its family just like he missed Emily and the kids. All these Alpha creatures were probably the same, torn away from their homes and lives. Not that it mattered, Human killers had to die.

The interface flashed

Clicking through knowing what it was going to show

Do you wish to enable Major Pathway of Buff magic as your level up?

“Yes.” No point speaking in his head when he was alone in his room.

The torrent of knowledge flooded through him, delivered by an attractive blonde lady with impressive assets. Maybe the pretty lady was intended to help him maintain interest and learn the buff magic quicker. It was difficult to understand the quirks of the system and why sometimes he got this drop dead gorgeous personable professor and other times someone little better than a tax accountant. The lectures were all theoretical around anatomy and cellular structure and how nature magic could influence cells. There was none of the practical experience that had gone hand in hand with learning archery. Without the Bird experience, Adrian knew it all would have gone over his head and he would have wasted the level up bonus. Together, however, the theoretical knowledge with the Bird’s dumb, simple animalistic application combined to be far more. The knowledge crystallised together.

The path that he took needed to be different to the Bird’s. The steady increase of strength, cell by single cell, was not immediately possible. For his level of skill, it would literally take a lifetime. The Bird’s battle magic however was different, that was obtainable. First, he would gain a buff to Strength and Vitality. Those two felt like they were on the edge of his tongue, and he would acquire at any moment the permanent knowledge to cast the spells. Growing larger would take longer, as would buffing his companions. Yet the journey to achieve all of it was laid out in front of him. It was a simple goal, and after that another mountainous track presented itself. The pathway had taught him the ability to extend his skills above and beyond the three specific buffs. Ultimately, with a little stretch he could buff other with both his resistance skills and aura.

In time and with application, he could grant Jules a fire aura that would result in her doing fire damage to everyone around her.

Other ideas warred within him. A healing aura, if he ever got a chance to master healing now that the Bird path was closed, an animal fear aura if he could learn what Susie did or more exotic combinations. The thought of giving everyone a lightning aura was tantalising. Mind you, he would have to be able to cast lightning first.

First checking the stats

Please See Attachment

Pathways skills in progress

Intelligence Pathway    - 8% (+8%)

Identification Rank 5    - 3% (+3%)

Pathway Regional Temperate Climate - 48% (+3%)

Pathway Regional Lakes and Waterways - 16% (+2%)

Gathering     - 46% (+2%)

Bush Alchemy     - 89% (+10%)

Self Buff - Vitality    - 0%

Self Buff - Strength    - 0%

Self Buff - Growth    - 0%

Party Buff     - 0%

Flame Sprout     - 1%

Skills obtained

Ambusher’s Fade, Ambusher’s Step, Magic Focus, Identification Rank 4, Stealth, Fireball, Fire Hands, Ice Missile, Dark Bolt, Earth Spike, Wind Gust, Earth Bolt, Fire Aura, Ice Aura, Air Aura, Dark Aura, Earth Aura, Guided Potion Throw, lay of hands

Experience 820 of 20,000 required for level 3

The bonus to strength and vitality had come through as initially indicated.  0.3 to each statistic was a big jump. For a standard interface, that was six levels of attribute bonuses, three to strength and three to vitality. With one core, he had almost exceeded all the progress Susie had made since the Armageddon event itself. Looking over the stats sheet, he was proud of his overall progress. Only agility remained as a black mark. Even in a world where you could assign stats, he was still uncoordinated. Admittedly, not being able to catch the ball was hardly a problem when you could cast a Fireball across a football field. Shadow steps from one spot to another and probably bench presses as much as an Olympic athlete, though on second thoughts being twenty-seven percent stronger than the average person pre-apocalypse was probably a fair bit away from a professional athlete standard.

The buff spells were now on his stat sheet; it was just a matter of practise. The pathway to learn the buffs seemed a little convoluted. First using the magic deliberately inefficiently and the next time focusing on buffing just a single muscle.

Step one inefficient application. Rehearsing the process in his mind before trying it. First gathering the green flavour magic into his centre, shaping it just like the Bird did and then releasing it.

Settling down comfortably on the floor. After this he would be at the Olympic level, at least in strength.