[CYA] Chapter 190: Advancement and More Repairs (Patreon)

NOTE:Patreon does not like formatting/different 'alignments' of paragraphs that help make this fiction what it is.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N6l5eMTT-jZ0vWlFuEAemr7eqBBIoI_K3L1aOOGwVIc/edit?usp=sharing

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<Alex, Real - Dorgon Calls for Aid, Innominate Quarters>

Alex sat in his chair, a long sigh escaping his lips.

He was sore in a way that made no sense.

His body recovered quickly enough that his muscles weren’t really in a state of fatigue, but Fan had pushed him and pushed him hard. Alex had even been eating sporadically around the clashes to ensure he didn’t hit a nutrient deficit.

The core of it was likely the fact that Alex was mentally fatigued more than almost anything else, but he really wanted to take the next step in his Speed Reading skill, and that would take a bit more than he had.

He nodded to himself and leaned forward before beginning work on what was fast becoming his favorite spell.

Create Rations drank in his power as he let it fill with as much mana as it would take, leaning on the desire for his needs to be met through this food.

Following instinct as he read the magics coalescing before him, he closed his hands around a sesame seed bun.

With a mental flick, he pulled a plate from his Inventory, pulling it out to rest on his lap below the burger as it formed.

It. Was. Glorious.

There were two layers of meat, three of cheese, and more bacon than was strictly reasonable; lettuce and tomato slices; grilled veggies ranging from mushrooms and green peppers to jalapenos and onions; and the whole thing was complemented with ketchup, mayo, and just a bit of mustard.

It was… It was frankly ridiculous, but Alex felt a tear come to his eye.

His thoughts went back to a friend he hadn’t thought of in years. The first time he’d had a burger like this was when he’d met up with her to talk about a boy she was interested in.

Man, college was so long ago…

His mouth opened wide, barely able to get wide enough to make it fit, but he did manage.

The first bite was bliss. Crunchy and soft, savory and just a bit spicy.

He exhaled long and slow through his nose, slowly chewing.

Alex could practically feel his stamina ticking up even as his heart warmed in his chest, emotions thick.

I hope she’s alright… He hadn’t seen her in… ten years? That sounded about right. They’d sat at the same table at a mutual friend’s wedding.

My… time flies.

She hadn’t come to mind in at least five years, but such was the way with old friends. He had no doubt that if they saw each other, they’d pick up right where they left off.

I pray you’re well, Catrina…

The next bite was just as delicious though  less emotional, but he continued to feel as if he were laying his burdens down through the sheer catharsis of eating the meal in his hands.

It was good to remember others who’d been by his side in years past.

Friends and companions come and go, but that doesn’t make their mark on his life any less meaningful.

It was a messy meal, and the plate had quite the smattering of various bits and drips when he was done.

Alex only paused for a moment before he licked it clean. Then, he used the magic in his coverall to actually scour it.

He stretched back, feeling tension bleed from his back.

He was ready to make the attempt to upgrade his understanding and utility of his Speed Reading skill.

Alex had quite a few books in his Inventory, and he’d found that he could see anything within his Inventory if he wished, even the pages of a closed book.

So? The logical extension was to attempt to speed read the entire book at once.

He focused, pulling the entire book into focus at once.

If he wished, he could read any word of any page—front or back—but that wasn’t his desire.

He dumped stamina into the skill, leaning on the section of the description that promised he could spend stamina to go faster.

In an instant, he pulled the entirety of the book into his head all at once.

He managed to keep his eyes open just long enough to feel the arrival of a System notification.

Then, darkness of near-total stamina depletion claimed him.

<Alex, Real - Dorgon Calls for Aid, Innominate Quarters>

Alex groaned as he came back to wakefulness, sleep in his eyes and the lingering taste of spicy bacon on his tongue.

He blinked a few times before he remembered that he’d been working to improve Speed Reading.

With a shake of his head to clear it and an excited smile, he pulled up the waiting notification.

Skill Advancement Achieved:Speed Reading (Common) to Flash Reading (Uncommon)

Flash Reading (Uncommon)What better way is there to spend an afternoon than reading a book?But what if you could read the same book in five minutes, that’d be better, right?Right?What? Still not good enough? Well, if you’re willing to pay the price…

Physical and Mental Agility have a boost when using this skill.Grants the ability to heighten focus on what is being read, greatly increasing speed of consumption and retention of knowledge.Grants the ability to spend stamina to increase these effects even further, including the heightening of focus up to the exclusion of all else.

You can read all that you clearly perceive—or any subset—instantly, so long as you pay stamina equivalent to the task.

He whooped and immediately felt through his Spherical Sense.

There were magics all around him, and he could perceive them all.

He almost triggered the skill to drink them all in, but his danger sense—honed and refined through the sparring sessions with Fan and Imotih—niggled at him, and he realized that the cost in stamina would be… rather high.

He grimaced, instantly irritated at the skill’s limit, while still being excited for the improvement. Baby steps, Bob. Baby steps.

Alex mentally focused on the magics surrounding his quarter’s morphic wall and used Flash Reading on just that minimal subset.

Even so, the stamina drain was immense. He reeled slightly as it was drained away, and became more unbalanced as the information flooded in, quite all encompassing.

The feeling was akin to coming home from a hard day’s work, back when he worked construction during high school summer breaks.

Still, he wasn’t fully exhausted, and now he knew all that the wall could accomplish for him.

He grinned. So, that’s what that part is for?

With easy commands, the chair he’d slept in changed to a tub, filling with water even as he put his clothing into his Inventory.

Then, the morphic material shifted again, beginning to roll and knead even as he luxuriated in the bath.

He’d tried lots of massage chairs in his life, everything from the thirty dollar chair-back things all the way up to full dedicated units that cost tens of thousands of dollars.

This? This was better than all of them.

By the silver lining, it was better than massages he’d received from professionals.

He groaned in contentment and began considering how he could rip this wall free to take with him when he left.

…but later.

For now? He input the commands for an hour long, full-body massage, all while submerged in gloriously warm water.

When he was done, he had a lot yet to do, but approaching it with a refreshed mind and body would get the best results.

Yeah… This was just preparation for training.

He smiled to himself even as he drifted off once more.

<Alex, Real - Dorgon Calls for Aid, Innominate Staging Bay>

The Innominate had finished its spin-up and jumped to fulfill a mission that made quite a few of the crew happy, each in their own way.

A mining trawler was having technical issues within a ‘wild’ or untamed star system.

What that translated to varied from crewmember to crewmember.

John got to work with the mining ship to get it back up and running at full capacity.

Audry was given the ability to take advantage of the ship’s mining rights while it was out of commission.

Grant was on full alert because there were phase-entities that could board the ship, bypassing many of its defenses, and he would need to repel them.

Similarly, Lenka and Natasha were on-deck to keep a look out for hostile entities of all kinds and to assist in keeping them at bay.

Juba had nests and bases of operation that he could sally forth and conquer as sub-misssions—Pilar happily in tow as ‘smash in and burn everything’ was a very acceptable tactic, here—and Kaylee was happily coordinating all the moving parts.

Alex had work here and there helping out the various groups and tasks, shuttling them around on occasion, but mostly? He was free to be with the Fire Drake Platoon, continuing to assist in the repair of their armor, one suit at a time.

Even though he felt it was selfish, it really wasn’t. Just like Audry’s mining and Juba and Pilar’s sub-missions, every repair he executed would gain contribution for his ship and his crew, lifting them all higher as a matter of course.

Imotih’s suit had been just about as easy as Fan’s, but after a rather… resounding spar with the woman herself, the next they’d pulled out of the line belonged to their scout, apparently one of the most critical positions for such a platoon.

The nine foot tall grey skinned woman that came out of the suit definitely didn’t seem to fit the standard model for the role as Alex understood it, but once she learned of Alex’s Spherical Sense, she spent the moments between recounting issues tossing stinging rocks at him.

Another way to put that? They were magical, dangerous rocks, tossed from within his sphere, and impacting his head.

And he couldn’t sense any of them due to her interference.

It made Alex a little concerned, if he were being honest.

Still, with her help, he got the point that he could feel that something was coming at him, even if it didn’t quite feel dangerous or magical.

She sparred with him once, and it was an exercise in humility for Alex.

The massive woman wielded twin axes with decades of skill, and her abilities for masking the danger of the attacks meant that Alex couldn’t rely on that sense, as he’d been wont to do so often of late.

Still, even in the one session, he felt some of his rough edges get knocked off, and he once more began to feel the odd sensation when her attacks were inbound.

Her suit was done, and she was going back to sleep for the time being. As such, Alex decided to just ask. “Why can’t I sense the danger in your attacks?”

She grinned broadly. “Because, small one, I don’t let my desire to damage you create ripples in the world.”

She then stepped inside the armor, and it returned to position.

Like… killing intent? That’s a thing? It bore consideration…

The next to be assisted was Gamble, a burly dwarf whose skillset seemed based around drawing enemy attention and attacks then weathering them so his fellows didn’t have to.

As a result, his seemingly pristine, white armor was riddled with little issues.

His voice was a pleasing basso as he explained the thirty-seventh such problem. “And when I step back with my left foot and crouch like so, the right knee stabilizers force a flick inward by a quarter-inch, ruining my alignment for attacks from…”

Gamble was very detail oriented, and for any other voice, his constant stream of words would have quickly become overwhelming, annoying, or both.

Alex just let the sound wash over him, using it as a guiding tide as he sought out one problem after another.

That suit took nearly six hours, with Alex taking time to switch around his Inventory expansion boxes, create food for himself, and spar with Imotih and Fan a couple of times each.

He fit all of those in—with the exception of leaving to do the Inventory adjustment—while Gamble continued to talk about the various issues his suit had manifested.

It would have been comical, except every single one was both legitimate and led to Alex finding the issue with incredible ease.

They’d been three hours in when Alex had finally broken down to ask. In response, the dwarf had grinned broadly, stroked his corn-yellow beard and laughed. “I’ve a skill, lad! Defect Memory. Any issue I experience—any inconsistency I come across—no matter how small, I can’t forget until it has been addressed. If I can’t change the problem, I must, at the very least, tell someone about it.”

Alex stared at him, slack jawed for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, he shook himself. “Are you sure your name’s not Karen?”

The dwarf tilted his head to the side, frowning. “I’m not sure what that means.”

Alex sighed, shaking his head. “It was a joke.”

The diminutive man shrugged. “My skill says it wasn’t very good.”

Alex winced, clutching at his heart in mock hurt. “Oh, you wound me, sir!”

Gamble simply gave Alex a flat look, and Alex corrected the imperfect posture, receiving a nod of approval from the dwarf.

This is going to be a long one…

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