Author’s Corner: This chapter is brought to you by insomnia. Enjoy!

“What happened to me, Celeste?” I looked over to the AI, and did my best to slowly sit up. I found that I was now wearing a white hospital gown, and had an IV hooked into my arm. Oh great, another hospital. Not even a super futuristic one, either.

Celeste sighed, looking at me from a chair next to the bed. “From what I have gathered, when you killed Legion, he sent a sliver of his soul into you, which granted you that new skill. Then with that, he tried to force you to absorb the rest of his soul after he was dead. That was the rush of memories you were feeling. If I didn’t stop it, you probably would have ended up in the same condition that he was.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. And how ‘did’ you stop it? At that thought, she turned away, somewhat bashfully.

“The only way I could. I made you pass out, by forcing a massive surge of information into your head. Sixteen thousand runes in ten seconds was your limit on Hascion, so I gave you a hundred thousand in one second, as well as some random trivia I learned while studying. Once you were unconscious, I was able to control the flow of memories and personalities as they tried to take hold. I tried to delete them altogether, but found that my control did not extend that far.

“The best I could do was filter them. You can try to view the memories, but it should look more like watching a video than experiencing it yourself. The thoughts are faded to the point where you shouldn’t be able to remember them, so you only gained the skill benefits that you acquired before I finished. Also, your Madness Affinity went up by a percentage thanks to this. For your own sake, do not use that absorbing ability again. I might not always be able to filter it out like that.”

I nodded, understanding the situation. Closing my eyes, I tried to call up the information that she had used to stop the process. Really, Celeste? The runes, I can understand, but did you have to include things like the mating habits of equestrian wolves?

There was a slight giggle from that. “Sorry, but I wanted something that would knock you out quick. I’m not sure how long you’ve been out for. They confiscated the bracelet when you were put in here, saying that the signal from it was interfering with equipment. But going by their conversations, I think it’s been a day and a half.”

Oh great… All of this, and nearly a dozen people still died. And all I got was a terrible skill and ability.

“Actually, about that. I’ve been doing some theorizing about this skill. Not a whole lot else to do while I waited for you to wake up, you know?” Celeste gave me a tired smile. “If I’m right, then it is usable for a lot more than just absorbing souls. You should also be able to bring back the recently dead, or empower others by giving them a bit of your own strength.”

I raised a curious eyebrow, waiting for her to continue as a nurse walked by and noticed I was awake, going off to get a doctor. “Well, the strength of the soul is based on experience and levels. My theory is that this skill allows you to give others your experience, maybe even your skills. If you did that to someone who had died, but still had their soul in their body, you could probably empower their soul and bring them back to life.”

And the cost?

“Your own experience and levels. As you remember, there are two main ways to level up. The first is to kill other people or creatures. The second is to train your skills and abilities. Now, if you take away your own levels, you can reduce yourself to the point where your skills would be top of the line, and the only thing you lose should be stat points. However, if you go further, you will probably lose skill levels as well.”

So, if I kill enemies, I can create a buffer zone for emergency transfer? I still did not like the idea of this new skill, but the fact that it could bring back the dead made me at least accept it as something useful.

“Basically, yeah. But enough of that, you should take a look at what you managed to get from Legion. I could only control the memories and personality as they flooded into you, but from your mana I also felt a sudden rush of the elements as well.”

Blinking with surprise, I looked at my status briefly, followed by skills.

NameJohn HulettRaceHalf-Elf(Woodland)TitlesVengeful Heart, Amateur Brain SurgeonFame400Level 2688%ClassDruidAdvanced ClassXeno-ShifterDeityMalthanHealth210/210Health Regen0.27Mana910/910Mana Regen1.91Strength15Wisdom120Agility21Intelligence91Dexterity22Charisma10Vitality21Luck20Points Remaining10Earth 13%Fire 10%Wind 10%Water 10%Lightning 10%Light 11%Dark 11%Plant 11%Void 10%Metal 10%

SkillsMana Manipulation - Advanced Level 1: 1%Nature Magic - Novice Level 5: 32%Wind Magic - Beginner Level 7: 5%Archery - Beginner Level 3: 0%Dagger Mastery - Basic Level 2: 1%Wild Luck - Basic Level 7: 0%Sketching - Basic Level 6: 60%Herbology - Basic Level 9: 10%Gathering - Beginner Level 6: 6%Alchemy - Basic Level 8: 23%Mana Signatures - Advanced Level 5: 0%Cooking - Basic Level 3: 55%Flight - Basic Level 1: 0%Aura Sight - Intermediate Level 2: 72%Technomancy - Intermediate Level 3: 21%Programming - Intermediate Level 4: 5%Runic Language - Advanced Level 4: 0%Enchanting - Basic Level 2: 30%Engineering - Novice Level 1: 16%Maintenance - Basic Level 9: 13%Dodge - Beginner Level 1: 20%Swordsmanship - Beginner Level 3: 20%Marksmanship - Beginner Level 9: 13%Energy Weapons - Beginner Level 5: 3%Soul Arts - Beginner Level 8: 9%

The sudden increase in several skills, most notably Runic Languages and Mana Signatures, made me a bit happy. More importantly, though, when I sent my consciousness into my grove, I was startled to find that its size had drastically changed. Before, it was at a mere twenty something meter radius, but now its radius was over two hundred meters! The secondary grove had also improved, but only to a size of fifty meters. I absorbed part of his grove…

I found new items lying around in my grove, a set of high tech armor, and weapons similar to my own. Wasn’t this supposed to be a bloody landscape in his memories?

“Ah, yes, I think that was the work of the souls he had absorbed. They weren’t able to directly influence him yet, so they changed what he saw when he looked into his own soul.”

That helped me to understand it a bit, and I was surprised that my other affinities hadn’t increased when I was taking in this much mana. Still, though, this gave my ore veins more room to grow once I absorbed more of that mana. First I would need to cultivate to balance out the elements again so that it could properly grow.

At this time, a dark haired man in a white doctor’s coat came in, smiling to me. “Awake at last, are we?” I flinched unconsciously at his use of the word ‘we’, as if it triggered a bad memory. “Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble. The police brought you in here yesterday saying that you had collapsed while helping them with some business.”

“What about my bracelet?” I looked over to him, holding up my wrist. It’s not that I was ungrateful or anything, but it felt wrong not having it.

“Ah, you mean that companion device?” The doctor smiled knowingly. “I play the game too, son. Took quite a bit of research before I figured out how you got it here. But again, don’t worry, it’ll be returned to you when you are ready to leave. An Officer Monte said to call him when you woke up, so I’ll bring in a phone for you to use. We’ll be keeping you overnight for observation, but you should be able to leave in the morning.”

After getting a nod from me, the doctor left for a moment, coming back with a small holo-phone. “He said you’d know the number to call.” With that taken care of, the doctor left the room again, leaving me surprised. Celeste, did he ever give us a number?

“Uh… not that I can remember?” She tilted her head from side to side, as if trying to think about it. With a shrug, I dialed the only number that I could think of.

“911 operator. What is your emergency?” There was a male voice on the other end of the line.

“Officer Monte told me to call, and I’m guessing he’s expecting me like this…” There was a sigh from the other end, before the call was transferred.

“Mister Hulett?” I could hear the familiar voice on the other end, and Monte’s face appeared above the holo-screen. “Good to see you are awake. What happened to you?”

“A mean prank of the new world?” I responded, thinking that was honestly correct. When I had received the quest, it obviously knew that my skill levels would suddenly rise and that I would get that new skill when I completed it. The only explanation was that it had all been predicted by whatever higher power there was.

“Okay then… Whenever you get the chance, we need you back at the station. We don’t have another mage practicing Technomancy, so until the AI is able to be fixed we’ve had to take it offline. It seems that traditional tech support can’t handle an AI altered by magic.”

Yay… more work. And I still have to refine those seeds as well. “Alright, but they won’t let me out of here until tomorrow. I can refine some of the items for the protective barrier in the meantime, but I don’t have what I need for it. Also, what happened to my slime?”

“What do you need? And the slime is still in the office…. it’s too big to force out, and since you said it was with you, we didn’t want to kill it. We’ll be counting on you to retrieve it when you visit as well.”

I thought about it for a moment. I already had a medium quality water seed from the big slime fight. “A rock the size of my fist. Everything else I should be able to manage on my own.” I needed at least some form of earth mana if I was going to refine that seed.

“I’ll… see what I can do.” It was obviously an unorthodox request, but getting a simple rock into the hospital shouldn’t be too hard for the new chief of police.

With that taken care of, I began the refining process for the Seed of Wind. I actually found it much easier to gather and control the mana now. Maybe that was because my Mana Manipulation had advanced so much, along with my Mana Signatures skill? Either way, I felt like if I had to do that fight again, it would be over much more quickly. I thought back to the deaths that had occurred during that fight… If I had woken up sooner, maybe I would have gotten there in time to resurrect one or two of them, at least. This new skill should try to make itself useful at some point.