I woke up tired and cold, but most of all, angry. Angry at the Elk, angry at the Dragon, but mostly, angry at myself. I had been training for too long with almost no improvement, and I had almost ended up digested by a Dragon, which would’ve been quite worse than dying.

I stood up as I made up my mind; I needed a power that would let me run away more easily. I had realized something while running from the Dragon, I didn’t need to win every combat, just be able to survive them; that way, I could always get stronger and make a comeback, but that would only work while I was alive and free, so I needed the upgrade. I opened the powers list and scrolled down in search of something useful.

It didn’t take me long until I saw something that caught my eye.

“Yes… if it’s this I’ll be able to not only run away, but fight more effectively.” – I immediately purchased the mutation, and I felt myself fall into a stupor. I felt as if even standing where I was standing, I was not there. I looked down, and felt my flesh turn into some kind of dust, and then disappear, before appearing again as dust and reforming into flesh.

When my flesh disappeared, I could still feel it, and it felt strange, as if something was crawling over my arm, yet this something wasn’t alive, or not an alive I could understand, and when the flesh returned, it had acquired an ashen bluish tone, not quite visible, almost as if it wasn’t there. That’s right; I had picked Nightcrawler, and the “living being” I felt was nothing but the other side, the dimension of shadows, which allowed Nightcrawler to teleport. And although my skin was not yet the color of Nightcrawler’s skin, it would soon, as long as I kept entering such dimension.

Luckily, though, I didn’t have a tail. At least for now, I was safe from that.

Shadow Dimension D low tier Progress: 0 %

Able to access the mysterious shadow dimension, entering it on one point and getting out at another, effectively teleporting. Right now, the range is 1 meter, and the maximum amount of time the user is able to stay on the Shadow Dimension is of half a second. This time is your dimension time. Time in your dimension and the Shadow Dimension flow diferently. Upon efectively teleporting, some of the Shadow Dimension sip onto your dimension, leaving traces in your body and a brimstone smell on the air.

Upon upgrade: Improve range, maximum time of disappearence and speed at entering the Shadow Dimension.

I understood the fact that I couldn’t teleport too far yet, but 1 meter? Really? I get that the reason was because I could only stay about half a second on the other side, but still. Well, at least I could teleport, and once I developed it further, I was sure I could do better.

The first thing I did, of course, was trying it. I breathed in and relaxed, then imagined the shadows crawling over me and I felt myself fade… except I didn’t exactly teleport. I just stood there, but I couldn’t even see my arms anymore.

*DING*

System Notification

The user has discovered the secrets of one of the powers he unlocked by himself, upgrading them efectively and fast. Such improvements will be rewarded by a percentage progression or by a full rank up, depending on the importance of the discovery.

Upon new discoverys, the system will inform the user with the sound it heard before, but will no longer open system alerts without permision.

Shadow Dimension C low tier Progress: 11.3 %

Shadow Step: Able to access the mysterious shadow dimension, entering it on one point and getting out at another, effectively teleporting. Right now, the range is 1 meter, and the maximum amount of time the user is able to stay on the Shadow Dimension is of half a second. This time is your dimension time. Time in your dimension and the Shadow Dimension flow diferently. Upon efectively teleporting, some of the Shadow Dimension sip onto your dimension, leaving traces in your body and a brimstone smell on the air.

Shadow Cover: The user is now also capable of covering himself with part of the Shadow Dimension while he's on shadows, rendering him invisible to the eyes. Also, as a side efect from the open portal, his scent will be contained on himself, rendering him odorless to others. Maximum time: 30 seconds.

Upon upgrade: Improve range, maximum time of disappearence and speed at entering the Shadow Dimension. Improved time of Shadow Cover, improved speed at covering himself in shadows.

Waw, I didn’t know the tables could do that, but at least it told me that from now on the table wouldn’t open automatically, so that’s good. And about the new ability I just unlocked… “I didn’t know Nightcrawler could do that!”

I could now turn invisible as long as I was in the shadows! Ok, it was only during half a minute, but it was good enough, and even though that the smell of brimstone would be left on the air every time I teleported, it said that it didn’t have the same result upon covering myself on shadows, so if I trained on this I could be totally invisible, and my smell would be covered by the shadows, making myself almost fully invisible.

As soon as I calmed down, I tried to teleport again, but instead of imagining the shadows crawling over me, I imagined myself submerging onto the shadows, and this time it worked, I faded away and reappeared, and once I opened my eyes, not only I could see myself, meaning I hadn’t made a mistake again, I could see that I was away from the position I was before!

It felt so strange being on the other side. Almost like a dream, some kind of fuzzy memory I knew I should have but I couldn’t remember. It felt wrong, but at the same time right. As if the fact that I couldn’t remember it was the right thing to happen, but also that if I got to remember it, my powers would be complete. And ooh, was I right.

I didn’t know right there, but that train of thought would lead me to develop those powers incredibly fast. As I didn’t know I was right then, I just decided to practice with my dreams, and once I felt I could remember and “control” my dreams, as to say, have lucid dreams, I would try to do the same on the shadow dimension.

As I didn’t know any other way to train it, other than just jumping once and again, which would lead me to nothing because other than disappearing and reappearing I didn’t feel a thing, I decided that I should keep training on Gambit powers, and maybe try to upgrade them to mid tier.

I tried remembering all I could about Gambit, and I realized it was more than just charging. On the films and on the comics, he could control at some degree the small objects he charged as long as they were within a small radius. Maybe that’s what I was missing. I mean, I was already at 90% of S low tier, so a little bit more and I would get an upgrade!

I took a pebble, which remembered me of the first time I trained Gambit’s powers, and charged it a bit, far from my max, but the point was not to blow something up, but to feel the energy even when it wasn’t on me anymore.

I closed my eyes and tried to feel the pebble. I tried to infuse small quantities of energy and follow it with my mind while my eyes were closed. And even though I felt it somewhat as it was leaving my hand and entering the pebble, once I stopped infusing it, I stopped feeling it. As I kept doing it, I didn’t realize the stone reached its maximum capacity, and it exploded, burning a little bit my hand and leaving some small holes which regenerated in an instant.

“Damn! What the hell am I doing wrong?!” – I was annoyed at my failures, but I was sure Gambit could do what I was trying to do, so I needed to keep practicing. I tried it again putting my two hands onto another pebble and infusing very little amounts of energy from both hands, trying to feel the energy inside.

While I kept infusing with my left hand, I took my right hand apart, but I forgot to interrupt the energy flow, so I felt the energy escape rapidly my hand, yet I still felt that some of it was going into the pebble and not the air, and then, at the same time I stopped the flow, I realized.

“It’s not that he controls the cards that are charged, it’s that he controls that which he is charging!”

I immediately tried to do the same thing, sitting down on the floor, taking a little stone and putting it over my right hand. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do the same as Gambit, not at the start, so while I was charging it really slowly I took the pebble with my left hand and held it on the air while keeping the flow with my right one. I immediately felt the same kind of flow as before going into the stone, yet being lost over the air.

It felt as if I was holding upside-down a bucket full of water and trying that all the water would fall inside a glass. It was obvious most of the water would fall on the grown, or in this case, most of the energy was being lost onto the air. I stopped the flow and waited a minute, as all the energy wasted was coming from me.

Actually, after less than ten seconds I was recovered, which I should get used to and stop calculating wrongly my rest times.

I held the pebble in my hand but this time, I took it on the left hand and put a single finger from my right hand onto the pebble. I imagined that instead of charging it slowly or fast as I did before, I used less energy. As if before I was using the bucket, and now I was just using a bottle. It was really easy to imagine thanks to the fact that I was using only a finger, and it felt as if it was a bottle in comparison with my hand.

After feeling it for a time, I took the finger apart, and though I still felt some of the flow lost in the air, most of it was now going onto the pebble! Now that I almost didn’t lose energy, I could try the next step.

I placed again my finger onto the stone, without changing anything about the amount or the speed of the energy I was infusing it with. But I changed the way I did it.

Instead of injecting the energy as I had done until now, I tried to make it cover the pebble from all sides, as if soaking it on energy. I felt the energy flow bend to my will, and surround the pebble, and with the next thought, the energy started entering the stone. I suddenly felt that the stone was taking much more energy than it was before. Not as if I was using more energy, on the contrary I was using about a fifth, yet the pebble was absorbing it all, which until now I didn’t realize it didn’t, making it so that the stone was charging twice as fast as before!

That meant that it actually was charging 10 times as fast, because I was charging it five times less energy, so it should charge slower. I then realized I had been doing it wrong all the time. I also felt that the pebble was under a lot less of stress, and it could absorb more energy, almost 4 times as energy as it did before!

I forgot about the point of doing it so when I had to stop because it was full, I couldn’t help but laugh.

I took another one, and repeated the same thing, yet this time, while charging it, I used some of the energy surrounding it not to enter, just stay there, and then I took my finger apart. Some of the energy was still lost, but most of the “lost” energy was going onto the stone, covering as I had willed it to do, and I felt connected to it. I willed it to go up, and fucking hell it went up.

*Swish!* *Boooooom!* *DING*

“Hahahahaha” – I couldn’t help but laugh as the debris fell around me. I did it! I controlled the stone! Ok, yes, it hadn’t done what I wanted, but I had controlled, so it was an improvement. And I also had heard the ring from the system, so it seemed I had unlocked something.

Kinetic conversion and acceleration G mid tier Progress: 2.1 %

Kinetic Energy Control: Able to transform potential energy inside objects into kinetic energy. Also able to charge objects with kinetic energy from other sources, as himself. Also able to charge himself with kinetic energy at low quantities, improving speed, strength, agility and even endurance. The better the material of the object to charge, and the size of it, the more energy the user is able to charge into it. The more energy it has to charge into an object, the longer it takes him.

Energy Strings: The user is now able to cover the objects in energy while infusing them, and control them up to a certain point. The farther the object is, the user will have to use more energy and concentration to control it. Maximum range: 10 cm. A poor control or too much energy can result in explosive escape of control, endangering the user and anything around him.

Upon upgrade: Improve speed at charge, quantity to charge, and efficiency at it. Improvement on control.

“Nice! I got it to mid tier!” – I couldn’t help but exclaim, and I immediately picked a new stone to keep practicing. I was decided to improve on the control of projectiles, because if I could control them like this, I would be upgrading my power, and as such, improving all the other perks on the power. Even though most of the upgrades were done by me and my insights on the power, the boost I got whenever I leveled a grade, was amazing, so I wanted to improve it as much as I could.

As soon as I started infusing the energy I felt this time I was not infusing energy, but controlling it to enter. This can sound as if there was no difference, but there was. Before, I just was taking the energy from inside me and then infusing it on the pebble. But now I was soaking it on energy, and I felt all the energy outside me as long as it was connected, and I felt I could absorb it inside me again, meaning that all the “lost” energy from before would not be lost anymore, and that the energy I used to hold the pebbles would be recovered as soon as I threw the pebble.

I kept training for hours, discovering a lot of things I could do, and only stopped at noon to train on the Werewolf Fury, where I couldn’t slack on. I trained on that one for two hours and then I came back to the Energy Strings practice.

At first I only used pebbles, but now I was using claw-knives, which were a lot harder to control. To start, the energy in each part of the knife had to be different depending on the form of the knife, as not every point could support the same amount of energy. The tip of quite bit knives, for example, exploded quite a lot of times, even with my improved control, because it had a smaller mass, and so a lower total capability than other parts of the knife.

On the pebble the difference was too small to even realize, but here I had to be much too careful, increasing the amount of concentration and effort I had to use in order to charge them and successfully maintain them on the air, but by the time I went to sleep, I could maintain the knife on the air without it exploding.

I discovered quite a lot of things, like the fact that I could cycle the energy going inside to go out and the one outside maintaining it on the air to go inside, accomplishing a perpetual sustain, which even if right now was useless, could develop to something interesting.

Also, I had difficulty doing anything else than maintaining the knives on the air, but I could move around the pebbles a little bit, even if it was only a few centimeters and only so slowly. I felt that this would develop to an interesting ability on the future, and with such thoughts I went to sleep.

I laid down on the floor, head resting on a pillow made of lion skin, and felt my consciousness fade away, as I entered the world of dreams.