“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.”

~Amelia Earhart

POV - Tad

I focused on my Body.

I needed to increase my STR and AGI urgently.

I was so tempted to forego my vital need and pursue my deep desire, my craving even, for Magic. Yes, who wouldn’t want to do Magic, to have Magic, to be Magic? Magic was everything wonderful and fantastic. New and unknown. It was everything my old life was not. Having experienced the absolute joy of rejuvenation as part of the initial System Uplift I was absolutely convinced that Magic was the future. My future.

There was no way in the world, no; no way in the System, that I would settle for something as mundane as a barbarian or warrior. No disrespect Dom, but these just didn’t thrill my Soul when compared to the absolute wonder of Magic. And I hadn’t even experienced any direct demonstration of Magic. Nige had mentioned teleports and of course I had completed a lovely swan dive through the Portal of Doom. Oh, of course, my Perk was a form of time Magic. There was no other way to explain it. Even my Stats were Magic. Totally inexplicable. And I remembered the Auras of TSB and RDF when they accosted Dom and I in the Library. Yes, Magic permeated the System. And I would make it mine.

But not yet. Not now. No now I needed to build up my resilience, my durability. I needed a solid foundation of Strength from which I could Magic my way through the System. I needed my Body to have sufficient robustness and I was in the perfect position to correct this. To exploit this opportunity. To game the System.

I needed thirteen Stat points to unlock my Body. I had six free ones to allocate as I chose and then I would need to [Basic Cultivate] the remaining seven. I checked my Soul. I had 32 Imbued Essence so I was still short 38. This would be my first priority. I activated [Advanced Meditation], [Observation]; setting it to alert me for movement, and [Basic Cultivation.] As my internal focus sharpened I felt my Perk activate, speeding up my subjective time . I had an impulsive urge.

I activated [Delve] and dived in to explore my Body from the inside out while I furiously cycled my Essence through my Core.

I was pretty sure that I was abusing the Skill. [Delve] was a Skill for searching out treasure, exploring ruins and dungeons and rifts and the like. It was not about self improvement. But neither was [Prospect] about safety. [Delve] was about unearthing, uncovering the hidden, the unknown. It was all about going deeper and seeking the treasures waiting to be found.

And what I knew about my Body could be summed up on my fingers. Yes there were lots of mysteries to be uncovered. Where was my Core actually located? Did I have meridians to open? How did I empower my Strength? Were my organs still all necessary or would they be superseded by my Stats? These were all treasures of knowledge and understanding and way more valuable to me than those of precious metals or even artefacts.

And [Delve] came through. There was my Core, hovering above my belly button. Central in my Soul Space. Spinning and acclimatising my Essence, aligning it with my SPI. And there were my three Mind Stats, up in my head space. INT and MEM to the left and right with IMA arching over the top linking and drawing on both. But what about my Body Stats? Where were they? How did I go about cycling my imbued Essence through them?

My Body was awash with a current of energy. I couldn’t discern any meridian paths or blockages. It was too bright. There was even just a faint outline of my body, my skeleton and the odd organ fading in and out amongst this torrent of energy. My intuition kicked in. This was my Stamina. It was significantly higher than my other two Body Stats, and this imbalance, while not harmful, was majorly inefficient. My muscles were awash with energy, way more than they needed, my organs were hardly even drawing on it. This was awesome. I revelled in the wonder of my new Soulscape.

And so I was at the crossroads. I needed to act. To take control and change. I was no Marty Stu, with everything stacked up to fall in my favour. I knew just how tenuous my situation was. If I didn’t take this step, this leap, I would stagnate and be swallowed up by any one of a multitude of threats. No, I would act. My fears were but paper tigers. The real danger was in not acting.

I selected STR and allocated one of my free Stat points and watched as the System allocated the Stat to my Strength.

My muscles, my bones, my organs and my skin all received a surge of energy and flared with an infusion of Essence directly from the Stat point. They settled back down but now ever so slightly more distinct in my Soul sight. Aha. Now to try it myself. I refocused my Core. Rather than infusing my Essence I changed to cycling the Infused Essence into my Body, directing it to follow the same pattern as the free Stat point.

Success. I rejoiced as I opened my Stat breakdown to confirm I had lifted my Base Stat.

STR:

8.05

Level Stat Cap

9

Base Stats

5

Bonus Stats

0

Cumulative Stats

5

Gear Stats

0

Applied Modifiers

3.05

Exempt Stats

3.05

While nowhere near as fast as applying one of my free Stat points it was still absurdly fast to cycle my limited Imbued Essence through my body. Now to rinse and repeat. This time with Agility. The free Stat point imbued the actual mesh, the fine latticework that encased and defined my body. A network that was currently swamped by my STA. My AGI was all about the connections within my Body. It was my reactions, my flexibility and dexterity. The control and response of my nerves. My twitch, my mental chronometry; how fast I could respond to threats and opportunities.

Oh boy. This was so going to be my focus as I considered all my insights into Agility. Speed was king. I was slow, swamped with energy I could not use. Yes, my speed was my number one priority.

I allocated my remaining four free Stat points to AGI to bring my Base Stat up to the Individual Stat Cap. I started a new manual imbuement of STR. I was down to just three Imbued Essence. It took a third of the original time. Unbelievable. This was incredible. Now I would focus on refreshing my Imbued Essence and cycle out to a Stat as soon as I had the minimum ten Essence needed to be embedded in my Stat.

And then I would need to replenish my depleted Essence from the free System Essence floating nearby.

While I cycled my Essence I returned to [Delving] my Soul. My Body was a mesh of Essence with Three distinct nodes for my Mind Stats. But what about my Soul Stats? Where were they nestled?

Ahh. There was my SPI. Snuggled in just behind my eyes. That fitted in with the strong link I had intuited with Perception. And there was HON and CHA each echoing a side of my heart. This was where my emotions were housed. That was quite weird, I hadn’t thought of Charisma as a heart matter. It had always felt like such a superficial and shallow metric. But I suppose it made a sort of sense. Charisma would have a deep impact on interpersonal relationships and yes surely relationships were a heart matter.

And then there were three stands of my Soul that stretched out from my Core into the ether? What were these. Was I being tracked by something. On a spiritual leash? I followed one out from my body. It curved out and back down and into my iAPD. Oh, that’s right. This, and my bucket and spade set were Soul Bound. Of course they would be attached to my Soul as well. I noticed that the connection to my iAPD was slightly thicker, perhaps because I had owned it longer?

I wondered if I could enhance the connections by cycling my Essence through them. I gave it a try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I cycled my five Imbued Essence through into the spade and out again. Yes it was faint but the linkage was ever so slightly brighter. Yet another thing to explore. I needed to be able to split my [Basic Cultivation] into multiple tasks. Just as I was about to reset to simply cycling my Essence, the System alerted me with a new notification.

Imbue Essence?

You have selected your Red Adamantine Spade to enhance.

Please select which aspect you would like to imbue and nominate how much Essence [1-10] [1-5] you would like to invest.

[Indestructible]

[Unbreakable]

[Adaptable]

[Penetrating blow]

Fabulous. I could grow my Soul bound equipment as well as myself. This opened up a whole lot of possibilities. And yet another demand on my Essence. I looked at my spade. It was light and somewhat small and flimsy. A child’s toy rather than a proper spade. I experimented.

Bother. There were degrees of indestructibility and unbreakableness. That was not right. These words were absolute. It was either [Unbreakable] or it was not. How could there be degrees of [Unbreakable]? I couldn’t get my head around the concept. This was more System semantics that I would need to explore.

My attention turned to the third aspect. [Adaptable]. Now enhancing this was more logical. Could I reshape my spade? Sharpen it? Strengthen it? Making it longer and giving me some reach would be excellent. I still needed a total of 30 Imbued Essence to get my STR up to the base attribute cap. Should I delay that and enhance my spade? It looked like I could imbue a maximum of ten Essence at a time but at the moment I only had five available.

I made a split decision. I wanted to see what I could do. I selected just one Essence and cycled it through [Adaptable]. I concentrated on how I would like to adjust my spade. I narrowed the head and removed the Dee handle, thickening and lengthening the shaft. Hmmm. I had a baby trenching spade. I really wanted more reach. I allocated another four Essence. This allowed me to grow the length and heft of my spade. It was really a shovel now. I tried to reduce the blade down even more. Turn it into a full on spear. But no. It was a Spade. It needed to be a spade or some variation of one. A spear was a step too far. I settled for sharpening the three edges of the blade and bringing the centre ridge to a sharper point. Yes, that would improve the piercing qualities of my [Penetrating Blow]. I rested my newly shaped spade across my knees and returned [Basic Cultivation] imbuing my Essence.

Eight hours later, I had cycled my Essence four times into STR and reached the Base Attribute Cap. Now just once more for the final point in STA and I would be able to unlock my Body Attributes. I couldn’t wait.

[Observation] flared.

There was movement just outside my cranny of a fort.

A skittering. Multiple skitterings. No! I was so close. I carefully got to my feet, grasping my Spade in two hands. It had a much better heft to it.

It was time to do battle.

With no handy meat shield.

This was going to be a real challenge.