Jose didn't know how long he'd been unconscious. Judging by the sky, at least a full day. The sun had barely risen now, and it had been early noon when he'd fought the Harbinger.
He rose, peeling himself from the pool of congealed blood beneath him. Though healed, he felt far from whole. The blood loss, the ether expenditure, the toll of surviving that battle—it all lingered. He needed to think carefully now.
Standing at an impasse, he pondered what the right move would be. Forge forward into the desert? Or retreat and recover?
His ether reserves were low, dangerously so. Yet he would need to use Volt-Gen at least once more soon, and that meant further depletion. Looking around, he saw tracks—hers and her group's—leading straight into the desert. Heading to the very place he had originally intended to go.
Jose found the nearest building that seemed stable and secure, slipped inside, retrieved his duffel bag, and laid low. He ate, drank, and gave his body the rest it cried for.
***
Once rested, he scoured the buildings at the edge of town, replenishing his supplies, and used what extra water he could get to cleanse the blood from his body.
The betrayal weighed on him. Since becoming galvanized, he'd wondered what might happen if the wrong person gained a mind-control skill. That woman had used it not to survive or protect, but to dominate and control
Guess he didn't have to wonder anymore.
It was a shame that controlling other humans was exactly what most people would likely do with such a skill, that it would be the only use they would see for it.
How could he protect himself from something like that? The question loomed, unanswered. But as he rested, another thought bloomed.
Why were his lightning effects different colors?
It was time to delve deeper into the meditation exercises he'd been doing and become more intimately familiar with his ether, hopefully that would also provide an answer to the mind control issue.
He sat cross-legged in the lotus pose, entering the trance he'd cultivated through daily practice. Inside, he saw his ether network: the dynamo at his pineal gland, drawing in gray ether particles from the void, converting them to lightning, and feeding them into his core—the nucleus.
That nucleus pulsed—red, black, and white lightning writhing together.
He drifted closer and reached out. A ghostly, translucent hand—his—touched a red arc.
It burned. Rage erupted within him like a tidal wave. His body trembled, mouth curled in a snarl, as anger and adrenaline consumed him. For long minutes, he writhed in fury before regaining control.
Opening his eyes, he stared at his hand. No marks. But the sensation lingered.
All of his offensive skills seemed to use red lightning, the implication was that it was an offensive lightning, but he needed to get a feel for the other two colors to get a better picture.
He dove back into his meditation.
He prepared for a shock to the system as he floated up to his nucleus, ready to feel what the rest of his ether was like. Reaching out, he touched a white arc this time. The feeling of overwhelming vitality flooded his system.
This also fell in with the theme, red for offense, white for healing. What would his black lightning feel like, he wondered.
He reached out and touched a black arc. Jose hadn't been prepared for the devastation that hit him.
He curled into a ball as despair flooded him. The sensation was suffocating—emptiness, loss, the cold burn of death. Depression incarnate.
When he finally opened his eyes again, he was drenched in sweat and gasping.
Jose had been wholly unprepared for such a visceral and overpowering effect. If this was what his enemies would feel when attacked with the new skill he felt pity for them. Such a feeling would drive anyone mad or cause them to despair so much they would simply lay down and die.
It was terrifying.
He'd spent the entire morning meditating, but each experience had left him drained. Still, he pressed on. He needed to understand—not just the sensations, but how to control the source.
The first order of business was to flood his system with the ether. He wasn't sure what that would do to him, but considering that using individual skills hadn't evoked any particular pain or emotion, he didn't think just allowing his ether to run the length of his body would either.
One by one, he opened the vortices surrounding his nucleus and allowed ether to circulate freely.
He was correct in that it didn't evoke any particular emotion or pain. But at first, he felt as if he was in overdrive, as if he'd overloaded his system. In addition, the vortices were fighting against his control, the pressure in each building as they tried to close and re-contain the ether.
He held them open—for one minute the first attempt.
Afterward, he laid flat on his back in intense pain, the type of pain that lived in the bones. It began at the joints and radiated out, enveloping every muscle, every bone and organ, every inch of his body, rendering him near comatose.
The pain was unreal, as though lightning had torn through his bones and organs. He lay motionless for half an hour, letting the agony slowly fade.
Then, he tried again.
Every day, he sat. Trained. Endured. And for every minute he gained in control, the pain afterward decreased.
Eventually, it stopped altogether.
[You have learned a new skill, Flux-Bod.
Flux-Bod - Through the crucible of pain, your body has been strengthened and optimized. You have gained some immunity to the electromagnetic spectrum. Your physical stats have been permanently boosted by 5%.
Note: This skill is passive and is always active.]
Pleased, but still unsatisfied, Jose sought the missing piece to his ether cultivation.
'What could I be missing?' He thought as he took a break to scavenge for food.
In his travels, something had caught his eye. It was an electric meter box on the side of a building. Not a monumental discovery by any means, in fact, Jose wasn't even entirely sure what about it had drawn his attention.
On the way back to his apartment, he'd noticed more and more of these on the sides of buildings.
He was aware that electric meters ran to every building and house before the blackout, of course. But like most other people, he'd come to take it for granted, and with time, they'd become invisible. Just another background process that he barely understood and, like most others, didn't really need to at the time.
By the time he'd made it back to the apartment, he was aware of what about it had drawn his attention. Not the box itself, but the function. A circuit. A completed path that allowed current to flow.
Was that what his system lacked?
Tunnel vision was a term he'd heard frequently in his life. He would too often find himself pursuing an interest with single-minded determination. It made him seem aloof and unapproachable many a times.
Not that he minded it. He would often categorize himself as "not a people person" or "a loner" even. These days people were more apt to label him "too self-aware" or "too critical of others," also known as an asshole.
All descriptions that he was fine with. Other people unnerved him, especially stupid ones, and he found too many people to be ignorant of the real world around them, whether by choice or learned ignorance.
In any case, he felt that tunnel vision was indeed a term that applied to the current situation. Had he not taken the time to rest and scavenge the area, he might not have ever been able to see a possible solution to the problem. Not that he was sure the solution would work just yet, but it was as viable as any, and had the biggest potential to work, considering his ether was lightning-based.
He dove into his ether realm again, observing the full system—the dynamo, the nucleus, the network. He noticed something: the braided ether cord that passed through each node didn't activate the node. It flowed through, but not into.
He reached out to his neck node and tried to fill it with ether. It was an exercise in futility; he was able to fill it like he'd seen his skills do. Maybe he didn't need to flood the node for what he wanted. Maybe just unbraiding the ether and letting the lightning expand within them was the solution, Jose pondered.
At first, that was exactly what he tried to do. He pulled strands of lightning loose, one at a time, and allowed them to wander the empty space in the node. It felt like he was on the right path, but what he'd done just was not enough. There was still something missing.
Changing his approach, he decided to try and mimic the nucleus. Taking hold of the ether passing through the node, he forced it into a dense sphere in the middle.
The ether seemed to come alive part way through, finishing the process itself. He was left with a small braid of ether entering from both directions, forming a small sphere in the middle of the node with lightning shooting out and caressing the rest of the node.
It was like he'd made a plasma lamp in his node.
He felt something click, and the process repeated itself in every node across his body.
[You have learned a new skill, Ether-Cell.
Ether-Cell - Optimizes your ether, providing a more intimate bonding with it. Continuously boosts your ether control and regeneration by 10%.
Note: This skill is passive and is always active.]