Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 32 preview (Patreon)

If I had to guess at what level I was at, I might have been around the 50-60% range of being fixed. Humans aren’t a video game though, and being only 60% of the way to being fully healed meant that I was significantly worse off than you would think. Consider how it looked in terms of bones – if you had broken half the bones in your body, you would not expect said person to be moving.

Now, mind you, some of those broken bones were in things that were less necessary – like my fingers and toes and tailbones and ribs – but others were highly important. Pretty sure I had cracked a couple of my vertebrae, the bones in my ankles and heels were mush and my shin bones had parts that were entirely cracked. All of which meant that moving – fleeing – was not possible right about now.

I turned inside my mind, searching for the information offered to me by the core.

Skill: Conserve

Level: 15

Potential: 118%

Target: Self (Only)

Siphon Level: 8%

Extrusion Control: Low

Number of Vaults: 2

…

I killed the viewscreen once I spotted what I needed. I had potential, enough so that I could throw it at another level. Through the fight, I had felt it nearing; in the battle and the necessary pushing of my mind and soul in the desperate last moments, I had come to expand it.

It was why so many adventurers were adrenaline junkies; why they sought trouble so much. There was a certain degree of Pavlov conditioning involved, but that was a consideration for another time. Right then, I knew what I needed.

Turning inwards, I pushed at my vault. Rebuilding quickly based off an idea that had come to mind. I targeted the extrusion control portion of the soul-engine, the onboard computer and pipes that controlled the outflow of energy from my vault.

I was rebuilding the entire thing, the concept of it, outside of the actual placement, and then cutting everything off for the few moments necessary to swap everything over. It was soul surgery, and done at speed when it should have taken me days or weeks.

However, I had no time, so I pushed it, hard and fast, and bore the pain. What was another soul-wrenching moment of agony when layered on the existence that I already floated within? On and on, I pushed and wrenched and replaced everything.

I could feel potential gushing out, first to create the conceptualized booster and then for the addition of the outflow valves itself. There was the normal portion – and the injection portion – in the replacement module. When everything clicked, I let myself relax for a brief second before reopening the flows.

Healing energy rushed in, helping to wipe out the adrenaline and other chemicals that had poured into me whilst this happened. It gave momentary relief, as I began the process of putting myself back together, even as my soul thrummed with pain.

Wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand, scrubbing away tears, allowed me to see a little better. I looked around slowly, wincing in pain as the bones in my neck ground together. Grimacing, I kept turning, till I was certain there were no monsters coming for me. At least, not unless they were directly behind.

If they were coming from right above me and behind, I was dead. No way I could turn, not at this moment.

In the meantime, I listened and verified that, yes, the noise had come closer, but there was some snarling and fighting. Probably beasts doing battle for the chance to eat me.

Lovely.

Not enough time to wait anymore, I threw the extrusion overdrive into play. I pulled up the new line, smirked a little – or tried, the inflammation and bruise along one cheek kind of blocked that – as I read over the information.

Extrusion Control: Low (Potential Overdrive Enabled)

It was a bad idea to use this, since the entire overdrive ability – the booster jets to supply me with even more energy than what I normally could do – was entirely powered by potential. Utilizing it was basically robbing me of future gains, but if I didn’t get myself out of this and survive the next half hour, all the potential of the world was not going to matter.

Problem was, I didn’t have much potential left after all these adjustments. Not that I could worry about that as I basically opened up the floodgates, poured energy through me and utilized as much stored healing potential as I could.

I focused first on the legs and bones there, fixing up the portions that I needed to get up. Then my hips and tailbone, so that I could stand up a little, while sending tendrils into the cracked spine so I could move without sending shards of agony through me. It also meant that I was not damaging nerve clusters each time I moved, though I refused to move any further for the moment.

On and on, I poured energy in till all that potential petered out and the overdrive shut off. It was not enough, not by far; I was maybe at 70% fighting efficiency and 60 to 65% healed, but the rest of it was torn muscles, bruised organs, minor concussions and swelling. Bones broken that didn’t matter.

I could live with that. Had to.

The fighting outside the massive hole that was the stone imp’s body had grown quiet, and the creatures were coming, finally scrambling up over the edge of the rock walls. Poking their tentacled, feeler mouths above the edge, dozens of eyes gleamed as their grey, bulbous and segmented bodies stared at my prone form.

Joy.