[CYA] Chapter 166: Training and Upgrades (Patreon)

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vN2U78eQJ9B1V4Pqu7VwKlnJDPMuYg1m3bkFZTIp8dk/edit?usp=sharing

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<Alex, Real - Dorgon Calls for Aid, Innominate Dining Hall>

Alex’s left forearm was bubbling unpleasantly even as he tried to focus on the magic within his System-made Minimalist Shoes of the Traveler.

He’d been at this for at least a couple of hours, and he thought he had been able to suss out some key details.

It helped that he had his Greatcoat of the Traveler, because the two shared a large chunk of their magics, and his new Magical Cognition [Interoception] was helping him parse through these instances of permanent applications of magic.

Interestingly enough, one of the things he was able to accomplish was a ‘diff’ comparison between the two items, finally highlighting the portion of magics that the shoes used to ‘secure footing on all sorts of terrain…’

His efforts were further helped by the fact that the effect was achieved via force magic.

Force pulled particles together, locking them in place to be stepped upon.

This is why the shoes couldn’t be used on all surfaces, or even just in the air. The trigger condition was also very obvious. As soon as he pressed down on a material it could act on, it would. Interestingly, the shoes didn’t lock themselves to that material, not really. That’s why he was still able to slide when he wanted to.

It was a fun bit of conditional wording that he understood definitionally, but the actual composition was a bit beyond him.

It’s like reading some more esoteric, famous poems… I understand every word, and even essentially every clause, but I still don’t really get it.

He had a building idea for a redesign, but he’d need Natasha’s help before he could solidify it as he wanted to pull from her hex-shields.

He knew that changing the footing to force hexes would move the item beyond the range of running on ambient mana, but if he could achieve what he wanted? It would be worth the cost.

I’ll have to pull from Shaped Force Burst as well… He bit his cheek, then a bubble of skin popped, and his carefully constructed veneer of ignorance popped along with it.

“Underage child in a house I want to rob!” He furiously Created Water over the limb, sweeping the harsh cleaning liquid from his beleaguered skin.

This was the third time he’d hit his limit and had to stop, but it wasn’t without gains…

Attribute Level-Up:Basic Resistance - AcidLevel 4 → Level 5

Magical Cognition [Interoception]Level 1 → Level 2

…and costs.

Wounds:Hydrolysate Flesh x 60[100 HP x 60 required to heal]

It would take him a bit more than two minutes to heal the wound and let his HP top off at its current maximum.

As he took deep, ragged breaths, he closed his eyes against the pain that he’d been trying to keep out.

Still, those efforts had yielded fruits as well.

Notice:Trauma Is Training, Right?

Mental Stat Trained:Fortitude: 178.2 → 179.3

Your Mental Fortitude has been trained. You cannot increase this trait through training again, until after you have fully recovered.

It had been quite a long time since he’d gotten a point from training, and the notification was a boon to his current mental state.

Okay, when this heals… He dry-swallowed. A quick Create Water wet his mouth and throat for another swallow, but he still couldn’t even mentally tell himself he’d do the acid training again.

With a grimace and sigh, he pulled the bottle of solution into his Inventory along with the rag.

He opened his eyes and forced himself to watch the healing of his forearm. “What does she even use that stuff for? Bleach isn’t this potent, and that stuff kills everything.” He considered for a moment, wondering if injecting it into his veins would be… He shook his head. “No. That’s just idiocy.”

He stopped talking and let his mind focus on the sensations coming from his arm.

First and foremost was something he felt through the new interoception part of his cognition attribute. He could perceive how his Life was moving, bringing mana along with it to heal the wound. He could even feel the power that had come to bear to resist the acid specifically.

That was interesting—and would likely yield fruit in the long run—but for now, it wasn’t the primary concern.

“It’s not painful. It’s just telling me my arm isn’t as it should be. This is just a mild inconvenience.” He swallowed again, fighting back a grimace at the sensation coming from his arm.

Pain was a trained response, and pain tolerance was directly proportional to what the brain thought the body could endure.

He would convince his mind that this wasn’t worthy of being painful. Uncomfortable? Absolutely. Painful? Nope. Not really.

Alex grimaced, biting hard on nothing. He’d made the same attempt the last times, but he knew that he was undercutting his argument because he’d stopped the training.

He was confirming that his mind was right to make a big deal about this.

Alex whimpered, not at the sensation, but at what he knew he had to do.

The still-chemically-damp rag appeared in his coverall-sheathed right hand, and he took a few shallow, rapid breaths despite himself.

Then, he wiped the rag across his still disfigured forearm.

His left fist involuntarily clenched with painful power, but something in his mind tilted.

Notice:Trauma Is Training, Right?

Mental Stat Trained:Agility: 288 → 289.2

Your Mental Agility has been trained. You cannot increase this trait through training again, until after you have fully recovered.

It still hurt like a violently stubbed toe, but that was immensely less than it had hurt just an instant before.

This was confirmation of his road forward, the path solidifying as his arm healed before his eyes.

This wasn’t a big deal. He would heal in minutes, and he would be stronger for it.

He’d long ago been told that some people felt true pain when trying to workout, and that for some, it was because their mind and body didn’t believe that the exercise was good for them and didn’t understand that the soreness would pass as a normal, bodily process.

Many of those people could change that, could drive away that pain response through effort and persistence.

Alex gave a mirthless chuckle. He had that reaction, to some extent, toward exercise. From his years in martial arts, his legs effectively never hurt when he worked them. They just got sore and weak as he pushed toward failure.

His arms though? Before he got even halfway to fatigue, his arms would be whining at him like it was the end of the world.

He frowned, glancing down at his leg before returning his focus to his healing forearm. “Huh… I wonder if I should have been doing this on my leg…”

He sighed. Maybe next time.

Still, he’d taken a very important step.

He created water again to clean his arm and slumped. It was high time he took a long-needed rest.

<Alex, Real - Dorgon Calls for Aid, Alex’s Quarters on the Innominate>

Alex opened his eyes and released a contented breath.

Three days.

They had ended up taking three days to raid the asteroid base—stripping it of everything that was even marginally useful—repair and upgrade the Innominate, and train.

All of the Initiates had gone through the bio-clean-up now, and they’d all also negotiated for their own participation in the assault on the planet.

For Alex, the days had been filled with a cycle of acid training, work preparing to modify his shoes, sparring, mana manipulation practice with his triune rings, and sleep.

He also confined himself to eating his Create Rations results, but that took hardly any time.

The Innominate had spent the entire time docked to the blacked asteroid, even as the defensive buoys were drawn in to be stripped as well.

Pilar was practically maniacally happy as they’d taken dozens of the light weapons from those buoys and integrated them into the exterior of the Innominate.

Generally speaking, they were a longer range option for her, but her spells and skills would seemingly allow her to enhance the imparted heat from the otherwise minimally damaging, disruptive shots.

That, coupled with the fact that there were literally dozens capable of firing into any given arc away from the ship, and the Innominate was in a much more potent position.

Kaylee had been instrumental in incorporating the weaponry with her ship, and John had been required to help increase the energy output through the integration of three smaller power cores into the ship, two from the recovered pirate vessels and a third from storage aboard the base.

That, once again, relied on Kaylee’s talents and abilities, the otherwise kludged together engineering bay melding and flowing into a sleek, scifi design, magical elements blending in seamlessly.

Bev congratulated them as the Imperial representative aboard, assuring them that this was a common practice for new vessels and crews.

The ships were privately owned, afterall, and it was expected that they would be enhanced through the tenure of their service life.

The enhancements would increase the sale price of the vessel on the far end, when they all moved to assault the planet and the Imperium reacquired the vessel for use once they were no longer in need of it.

Obviously, only those things which stayed with the ship would affect that bonus, but the upgrades they were adding would still be quite wonderful and would be folded into and influence their kit for the drop assault.

Regardless, Alex was getting far better in the sparring, finally settling in with his bodily changes; though Juba was still, by far, the more skilled and talented fighter.

Alex practically vaulted out of bed, moving through stretches just for the sheer joy of feeling his body move as it should.

Today was the day that he’d be using his dadao for the first time in sparring. Both he and Juba believed that he was to a point where using his true weapon was advisable.

Speaking of which… He checked, and found the sword at 7998/7998 [8000] HP.

He pulled another thirty Life from the sword raising his own Life up.

He let out a contented groan as he checked his health.

Alex JohnsonHP: 8,930/8,930 [13545]

He was incredibly grateful for the extra Life regeneration from the sword, even if it was only a bit more than a twelfth of what he already recovered on his own.

He’d hampered his recovery a bit with his acid training, but he still felt that that had been worth it.

It was also a fantastic training for his focus and cognition.

Attribute Level-Up:Basic Resistance - AcidLevel 5 → Level 8

Magical Cognition [Interoception]Level 2 → Level 4

Basic Resistance - ExaminationLevel 8 → Level 10

Notice:Trauma Is Training, Right?

Mental Stats Trained:Agility: 289.2 → 291.6Fortitude: 179.3 → 181.5

Your Mental Fortitude and Agility have been trained. You cannot increase these traits through training again, until after you have fully recovered.

The acid barely registered as pain to him any more, and he knew that would be valuable when he was fighting face to face once again. He also had gotten as much as he could from the acids that Bev had on hand… unfortunately.

The training had also opened the floodgates for his pain tolerance in sparring as well, and while that hadn’t resulted in any System recognized increases directly, he was losing what little involuntary flinching that he’d had left, and even no longer taking even a moment to recover from bruising strikes that were all too common when he fought Juba.

He’d sparred against Natasha, but her hex-shields were all but unbreachable with a sparring weapon, so he was looking forward to fighting her after his initial bout with Juba, using his weapon for both.

He dropped toward the ground, triggering the magic that would manifest his chair, landing in it with a sigh of contentment.

Before he could go spar, he had just a bit of reading to do.

He closed his eyes and dove into the pamphlets of magical instructions that were a maelstrom around him.

Alex felt himself smiling as he dug in, his Spherical Sense and Speed Reading working in concert.

Things were clicking into place, and he was finally finding a rhythm.

This… He could get used to this.

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