It felt strange to be sleeping in a bed again; over the course of my travels, I had become used to sleeping on what was effectively the ground, and it made sleeping oddly difficult. What sleep I did get was filled with dreams about my friends; intellectually, I knew they’d be fine without me, they were all technically stronger than me after all, but just because a thing is true, does not always mean it is relevant.

When I woke in the morning, I was still tired despite being fully rested, and resigning myself to the feeling for the rest of the day, I sat on the floor to meditate, both on the fights the day before, and on my new circumstances. That was when I came upon my first surprise; my Core - judging by the steady purr – was close to full again. After pausing for several seconds trying to figure out exactly what had happened, I shrugged and allowed myself to cultivate. Which is when I encountered my second surprise; the energy that poured into me was like standing beneath a waterfall when expecting a drip. I felt my body flush at the influx and reflexively cut it off as my eyes show open wide, shocked at the strength of the joy cultivation shot through me.

“Wow, ok, that’s weird! Awesome, but weird. What the hell?”

After a few long seconds, I felt my heart rate slow again and I closed my eyes, dipping back into meditation with one metaphysical toe. I felt myself tense as my Core pulsed in great, deep heaves as Praxis was created and went to replace that which I had spent. Growing as used to it as I could in such a short period, I let myself ease further into it and was astonished to see my reserves refilling at a rate that I would have considered impossible previously.

Was it possible that the phenomenon was the result of the lack of life on that world? Was the gaining of Experience a conversion – or absorption – of something native to the world, produced at set rates but usually absorbed by potentially billions of things, as well as apparently the planet itself? No wonder DUK3 had come here to run experiments, if it meant they could refill their own reserves this quickly.

Within a fraction of an hour, I was completely topped off, and I pulled myself shuddering from my meditative state as my skin tingled all over, like a weirdly pleasurable version of pins and needles. Once that sensation started to fade, I began to notice something I had not been aware of before; there was a constant pressure against my skin, like the energy in the world was trying to push itself into me. When I had first arrived, Walker had told me that a normal person would have passively absorbed enough Experience to begin the basics of cultivation by the time they were my age, and that was something I had noticed. When I had arrived on that world, I had felt great and now knew that was less to do with my new body and more to do with the abundance of energy I was absorbing. Of course, as I had progressed, the passive absorption had become fairly insignificant compared to my total cultivation, but here, on this apparently dead world, the energy was apparently so much denser that I could feel it trying to drive my Core into motion.

Sitting on the strangely warm metal floor, I considered what this meant in terms of training – normally, I could only go all out for a limited amount of time before having to spend days gaining back that energy, but on this barren world, I might not even need to recuperate, as the influx might be greater than my output. Which provided the possibility that I might be able to experiment with my Path in much more... extreme ways than what was normally possible.

Not knowing how long I would have to wait until DUK3 or Lucas came for me, and being done with my meditation far, far faster than I had anticipate, I went looking for somewhere more spacious to practice. I had seen a few likely halls during my tour, and while they had not been explicitly pointed out to me as places in which to train, I was sure they would serve well enough. Of course, I got lost several times; it turns out that navigating a mostly strange complex was way more difficult without friendly risi to ask directions of. Speaking of which, the quiet was eerie; back on Earth, whenever you saw a place like that depicted in movies or games, there was music, or dialogue, or even just hums and random sounds if it was meant to be creepy, but in this pastel yellow place, it’s dead silent, besides the faint sound of my boots against the floor, to the point where I was even starting to hear my own pulse.

Humming to myself deliberately in an effort to keep the maddening silence at bay, I eventually found my way to one of the halls I had seen, a hall at the very least. Standing at the centre of the room, and making sure there was nothing breakable nearby, I Focused, trying to put the idea of restricting my electrical output into action, my mental eye on my channels as I diverted the raging river of power away from my skin to remain spinning within me like a dynamo. I felt time slow, though it was tough to tell in the featureless room, but I had come to be aware of the sensations involved, and at least so far, it seemed to be going well, though it was taking more concentration than I liked, and it made me feel like I should be moving, filled as I was with bottled lightning.

Maintaining my concentration, I pushed more and more Praxis through my Focus, making sure to go slowly in order to keep a rein on the unruly power as it sought to leave me and seek to earth. It was at that point I realised I was standing on a metal floor with unknown conductive properties. My Focus had never behaved well when jumping directly to metal, and I would much rather not get blasted by an arc blast there and then, especially given that I was at the bottom of an ocean and damaging the structure was probably a bad idea.

Sweat began to bead on my skin as I tightened my grip on the electrical stream, still pushing more into the circuit, and glancing down as a drop of sweat fell from my chin, I realised that my reactions and speed had reached heights that I never had before, outside of the use of my Path. The drop seemed to fall in slow motion, taking several subjective seconds to hit the ground. With a grin, and still trying really hard not to lose my grip, I began to move through my forms, trying my best to ignore my missing arm as I did so, knowing I would have at least some kind of replacement soon enough.

After an hour of that – and a great deal of sweat – I came to a stop in the centre of the room once more and turned my inner eye to my reserves; despite pumping as much power as I ever had – or perhaps more – by that point, my Core thumped deep and slow as the energy I used was replaced just as fast as I used it.

I knew I could go for more, I recalled burning through my entire cultivation in moments, emitting blasts as thick as tree trunks back in the Black, but I was still a little afraid of losing control, and besides, I wanted to pour the rest into my Path.

Still once more, I turned my attention to my frog, careful to keep one metaphorical hand on the wheel of my Focus. With a deep breath, I began to pour Praxis into my little passenger, and I felt the world slow again as I gave it everything I had left, until I felt my Core begin to dip and my channels started to ache strangely at the sheer volume I was demanding they carry. I knew that a person with normal channels could not hope to match what I was doing; my energy system might make parts of the process take longer, but they basically removed any bottleneck, allowing me to push my entire stockpile of energy through them at once, though apparently, doing that for longer than a moment did make them – and me – a little uncomfortable.

I was by that point at what I considered my true upper limit, a point that would have seen me completely exhausted second to second under normal circumstances, but even with my Core actually draining now, it was doing it so slowly that I was sure I could go on for hours still without having to worry. I gritted my teeth and began to pull my time-aura, for want of a better term, in towards my body, intensifying the effect of the compression until I felt my concentration starting to slip. Steadying myself, I stopped pulling and began to move once more, my speed multiplied by time, moving at a relative velocity that might have even been able to give a trying Cad a run for his money, for the moment I could maintain it, at least.

Over the next several hours, I practiced moving my aura to increase the speed of my limbs independently; I was still unable to increase my whole body to nearly the point my limbs could strike, but I was starting to notice that the refractory period between concentrated bursts was shrinking slightly, though some of that was only noticeable due to my accelerated perception, I was sure. I did however have a couple of accidents, as the increased power level at which I was using my Path resulted in significantly more blows when restricted to my limbs, and which when translated to my compressed dodge, smashed me bodily into the walls and ceiling. Hitting a hard, metal surface with that kind of force would almost certainly have resulted in a loss of control, allowing my lightning to escape my careful grasp, if I had not also immediately lost focus. And consciousness... I may have knocked myself out a few times. OK, maybe six times.

After the sixth time, I came to aching all over and popped a healing pill; I was starting to run a little low on the things, and I knew I would have to be more careful in practice if I did not want to be out of commission for days at a time as my Lesser Regeneration fixed my bones... and brain. Ouch.

“Interesting; I have been told that the ‘Apexes’ of your world were capable of such speeds, despite a relatively inefficient energy system, but it was quite remarkable to observe such a thing in one with such low energy density, Hunter.”

Turning, I found a DUK3 looking at me impassively, though since I had never seen the metal face change shape, I guessed they always looked that way.

“I’m not usually that fast. Back on my world, I could maybe do that for a second before I exhausted myself, and probably die from being starved of Experience. I was taking advantage of the really damn insane energy levels on this world to do some intense training.”

“Dee Yu Kay Three. I see. It had not occurred to me that this facility could serve such a function for those below my level; I will retain this information in order to potentially facilitate the training of others. Thank you, Hunter.”

“Uh, you’re welcome.”

The idea had seemed pretty straightforward to me, and I had no idea how somebody could not see it, though I did have to admit that I had no idea what sort of energy density higher order cultivation used; maybe to a Construct – or Apex – the energy density here was not anything special?

“Dee Yu Kay Three. If you would follow me, the replacement appendage I have constructed is ready for implantation, Hunter.”

I could not restrain my smile as I jumped to my feet, brushing aside the lingering aches even as they faded as I followed the oddly smooth gait of the Construct ahead of me.

As it turned out, I was not far from the room with the comfy chair – and the spider. We arrived after only a few minutes, and I saw – unsurprisingly – another DUK3 placing some kind of box on a table next to the aforementioned comfy chair. What was surprising was that the DUK3 that had brought me there had vanished as soon as I looked away.

“Please sit. I will need to unseal your arm in order to attach the new one, but do not experience fear, I will block the pain before I begin the procedure, Hunter.”

I looked up at the metal spider-thing above, hesitating for a moment before shrugging the disquiet away; if DUK3 wanted to hurt me, there was not much I could do about it. As I sat, one of the long, segmented arms reached down and retracted the clothing from my stump, and another with a ring on the end fell to encircle it before a third – this one ending in a wicked looking knife – descended and before I could react simply removed the circle of flesh where my forearm had once started. I yelled out and tried to jerk away, but I found myself unable to move, which was a good thing, as a moment later I also realised that I had not felt it, and that despite the red wound I now sported, it was not bleeding.

“Ok, that’s a kinda freaky.”

“I am not familiar with the term, Hunter.”

“Uh, it means I found it strange, or out of the ordinary? It’s an idiom from my home.”

“Dee Yu Kay Three. I see, Hunter.”

“Do you mind if I ask, why do you keep saying Dee Yu Kay Three?”

“You are persistent in failing to refer to me as such, Hunter.”

“Oh. I guess you do keep saying my name, I hadn’t realised. Sorry, Dee Yu Kay Three.”

“It is expected, Hunter.”

DUK3 was reaching into the box as he spoke, their hands emerging with a gleaming black arm with red veins running through it. I was no judge of prosthetic arms, but it certainly looked cool as hell.

Without any more words, the Construct placed the arm against my arm and yet more arms descended from the spider, these all sporting metal rods and crystals. I watched as they moved around the intersection of my arm and the replacement and in amazement, I saw the flesh merge with whatever material the false arm was made of. This took no more than a few seconds, and I found myself thinking of the money I could make if I could ship something like that back to Earth.

My dream of swimming in a pool full of gold coins was quickly interrupted though as the nonchalant Construct spoke once more.

“If you would direct some energy to the arm via your energy systems, the device will imitate your channels and complete the joining process, Hunter.”

Focusing on the arm, I pulled loosely on my Praxis and began to feed it into the arm; as I did, I began to feel the arm, to gain sensation in it. I could feel the arm rest beneath the glossy black surface, and like a limb waking up that feeling spread as energy flowed into it. The red veins began to glow and pulse, faster and faster as I gained sensation and awareness of the internal structure.

And that was when it exploded.