Chapter 8: Accelerate

"Here you go, kid!" Uncle Robert throws me a plain black wristband that’s obviously much larger than my wrist. "Don't lose it okay? I worked hard on that." He leans over to me whispering, "I put a lot of extra functions there, make sure to find them all okay?" He's really fond of overdoing everything.

Mom comes up to him and then hugs him, "Thanks for this Robert, hope we didn't bother you too much."

"Thanks, Uncle! It’s a bit big though…” I say as I put my left hand through it. As it reaches my wrist, the band immediately glowed yellow before tightening slowly till it’s almost skintight. “Oh wow!” A hologram screen pops up on the band with the date, time, weather, and a bunch of random stuff. He grins at me, "I hope you're not expecting a gift next year okay? You already banked two gifts!" He points at my wrist "Also, try tapping your phone there."

I do as he says and touch my phone on the wrist part of the watch, which made it glow for a bit before dimming down again. "What did it do?" He grins and says nothing. Uncle Robert's always been like this, even the simplest levitating building blocks he made for me when I was little had secrets in them, like making them change colours if I put them in a certain order.

I pouted at him and asked him with exasperation, "Can you at least tell me how to do the illusion part?". He laughs and teaches me how to do it. There’s a button that’s secured with a password, which opens up a larger hologram window that looks like a character customization menu. It's surprisingly user-friendly, having presets and all that. There are also multiple slots to save different disguises, and change them on the fly. Oh wow... I shouldn't have expected any less… how is this powered though?

I saw that my current appearance was already saved in the first slot so activate it. I look at myself for a while, expecting some sort of glow or mist. But nothing comes so I just shrug and started the experiment. "I’m going to test it out now!" I announced.

Breathe Cas, you can do this...

*crack crack* The cracking noises return and a faint feeling of fatigue and heaviness assaults me as I activate the skill changing them into bronze this time. I look at my hands and arms and they're unchanged. Doubting whether the illusion was successful or my skill just didn’t activate, I run my fingers on my arm and sure enough, the sound of metal scraping rings out.

*clang clang* I clap my hands to tell them that the skill successfully activated. “So, it worked, I guess?”

Deactivating my skill, the drain in my stamina and energy went away as well as the feeling of heaviness that came with it. “But it’s still noticeable if I change into something metallic.”

Uncle Robert comes up to me and grabs my wristband, “You should really pay more attention, there’re sound dampeners here and…”

[an hour later]

It took a while to perfectly calibrate my disguise so that it's almost unnoticeable, and since it drains my magic whenever it activates I still have to be careful in using it. While it can get rid of sight and sound, touching it will still feel like metal. Also, people with the ability to see through illusions like this would be a problem. Well, I won't use it too much anyway outside of practising alone and life-threatening scenarios.

"Thanks again, Uncle Robert!" Apparently, I synced the watch to my phone when he told me to tap it there earlier. This makes it so I can access the wristband’s functions on my phone, and my phone’s functions through my wristband. It’s an interesting function, and it makes the phone almost obsolete since I can just use the wristband. Wristband UI is too blue and holographic though, and also a bit harder to hide than the phone screen.

“Stay safe alright? Make sure to tell me or your parents if there’s something wrong with it.” He ruffles my hair and apologizes, “I’m sorry about Sammy’s gift okay? I already talked to him about it and he says he’s sorry too.”

Maybe he feels guilty about it... "Don't worry about it uncle" I flex my non-existent biceps, "I got stronger because of it! And also I get a gift from you!” I grinned at him, “Tell him I don't blame him okay?" Sammy's not come over for a week now, but he's a child he might just be trying to find more of those black stones. And to be honest I kinda want more of the status boosts it gave. Also, I need to ask that mirror dude some questions...

He laughs and waves before heading back home. Alright! I can practice my skills now! There wasn't anything stopping me from practising my skills, only my caution from the previous events. Who knows what sort of effect has, it might even be worse than what happened before so we decided that I won't use it before getting this.

“Mom! Dad! Can I test in our backyard?”

“Sure honey, we’ll watch over and make sure it’s safe. Is that okay?” Mom grabs dad and drags him with her. “I suppose we don’t want last time to happen again.”

She’s right… well, an opinion from the strongest people I know should be helpful anyway.

We head towards the backyard and mom puts her hand on the wall at the back of the house. The wall suddenly lights up and a faint dome of light expands to cover the house. She fiddles with the wall like she's typing something on it and the sounds of engines and birds outside suddenly stop.

"What's this mom?" I ask, curiously looking at the dome. It looks like a mini version of the barrier surrounding the city.

"It's so no one can hear or see anything here from the outside Cas. We have to be careful after that stunt you pulled last week." Dad answers instead, smirking at me. I put my head down in embarrassment and he pats my back to reassure me. "It's alright, son, just promise me to be careful with your actions from now on, okay?" I nod at him with determination and start trying my skill out.

"I'm trying it out now!" wait... how do I even use it? Hmmm.. skill description!

Accelerate Lv 3 Increase velocity in exchange of fuel. Reduction of fuel consumption as skill increases.

Increase velocity? I mean that’s the simplest and most basic explanation, it doesn't help much, does it? I close my eyes and picture myself accelerating.

“Ohhhh!” I feel a new sensation inside me like having another limb or muscle that wasn’t there before. I try ‘moving’ the limb and a warmth spread throughout my body, making me feel energetic and giddy. Opening my eyes, I ran forward towards the wall at full speed. "OHHHH [email protected]$T!" *BANG*

"Cas!" "Son!" I hear cries of concern from my parents through the blurry world I put myself it. I hit the wall. I hit the wall HARD. Lying on the grass, I feel their hands on my head checking for damage. It hurts, but I feel more nauseous that pain.

"I'm okay! I'm okay I just feel dizzy!" I brush their hands off and sit up. Taking a few minutes to gather my bearings, I asked them "What happened?"

"You suddenly just ran straight towards the wall really fast," Mom says while checking again if I had injuries. My head feels like it hit a wall, which it did, but other than that numb pain I feel fine. Good thing I have semi-stone skin, and innards too, maybe?

"I guess it's just what it says on the skill name, that's good," Dad says and then looks at the wall. "You did damage to the wall though, a lot more than I expected. Good thing you ate that black stone last week, else you’d be more injured now."

Mom was thinking for a while before speaking up, "Was that the fastest you can go Cas?"

"I don't think so?" Thinking for a bit I tried to recall what happened. "I could still go faster, but I feel like I’ll break something if I did. I just ran as fast as possible without straining myself." I stand up, feeling exhausted. "I feel like I ran more than a few minutes though."

"Hmmm... I think there's more to your skill Cas, what does the description say again?"

I tell her the description and she starts thinking a bit. I stand up and start shaking dirt off of me in the meantime. I look at the wall and dad was right, I did quite a bit of damage on the wall. Like a sledge hit it repeatedly, it has stone pieces scattered about and a dent the size of my forehead. I probably could have killed someone on the previous earth. My stomach grumbles from hunger even though we just finished eating breakfast earlier. Fuel... huh I guess that could be the fuel part?

“I’m not in trouble for this, am I?” I ask dad and he shakes his head, making me breathe a sigh of relief.

"," Mom says and a stone wall rises from the ground. She then turns to me and says "Cas, try punching that wall but use your . Punch it with your hand okay, not your head." She giggles at her own teasing and I roll my eyes.

I stand a bit away and used while running straight towards the wall, slower this time so that I can stop. It should still pack a punch, but I'm more worried about my fist more than anything, I guess it's also time to test my stone. I run towards the wall, barely stopping before punching it.

*BANG* there was less damage on it than the earlier wall but I still made an impact on it. My hand hurt but it doesn't hurt like I punched a wall, it hurt like I punched something softer. I look at my knuckles and they weren't even red from the impact. Suddenly mom says "Try punching it from that distance."

"What are you looking for honey?"

"Just wait I'm experimenting." She says while looking at me with a sparkle in her eyes. She was a professor and researcher before I was born, researching skills and magic. So I guess this is really interesting for her. She quit for reasons she doesn't ever tell me but I can see how she's really into finding out about my skills.

I punch the wall at close quarters and it shook a bit, making smaller and fewer cracks compared to the one I made earlier. I'm this strong and they could still instantly kill me? How monstrous are the people here?

"I meant to punch it while speeding up your punch!" I tilt my head at her from my confusion. "Don't speed up your whole body, just speed up your punch." I didn't think of that! The description never said I can only make myself run faster.

I do as she says and try to control the skill to affect only my right arm. It took a bit of time before I got the warm feeling to only cover my arm, but eventually, I did it and punched it straight towards the wall.

*BANG*

My fist punches through the wall, with enough momentum carrying me through it too. "Agh!" My whole arm is now on the other side of the wall. I wiggle and pull it back out, wincing at the pain. Now that felt like I really punch a wall.

Mom's grinning like a child, proud that she's right about her assumptions I guess. Dad looks surprised but then warmly looks at me with a smile.

"Yes!!! Your ability is amazing Cas! Huhuhuhu my baby boy is a gifted genius!" She runs and hugs me. "Be careful with using it son, losing control leads to accidents. Like what you did earlier with our fence wall."

“Yes, dad. Using it like that hurts though!”

I nod and think more about what uses the skill has. Maybe I can combine it with my . An iron body ramming something at around the speed of a truck should do some damage, even to the monstrous people of this world right?

"I have to go to work honey, make sure to do things in moderation, okay? Try not to overwork our son." Dad says ominous words to my mom before taking his leave. Mom then looks at me like a tiger looking at prey. "Well then, on to the next experiment Cas". She smiles sweetly at me but it looks more like a hunters smile to me.

I have a bad feeling about this...

[Lunchtime]

"I'm so tired... ughhhh..." I plop down on the table while weakly munching on some fruits. Rocks are good, but a balanced diet is a must to stay healthy! Anyway, mom made me do simple things like punch or kick or walk or even just blinking. But she made me do it hundreds of times, repeatedly...

"Oh don't be such a silly, you're young! You should have more energy than this!" She pinches my cheek before continuing to peruse her notes on my skill.

skill description

Accelerate Lv 4 Increase velocity in exchange of fuel. Reduction of fuel consumption as skill increases.

[Body Acceleration]

Isolate the effects on a part of your body. Fuel consumption is based on mass and speed.

[Mind Acceleration]

Increase the mind's processing speed. Slows the world around by speeding your perception of time. Can be used concurrently with [Body Acceleration].

Due to the extreme workout she had me do, it's skill level increased by one, and unique skills are known to level slowly. However, we learned that I can speed up my thought process. I used it while running faster so that I don't run into anything. It's great but it's as tiring as using [Body Acceleration] so it's like having double the energy cost. I haven't tested the limits yet because I have to take a break now and then to rest and she was sensible enough to not let me try my limits for now.

What did you do to my cute and caring mother! Bring her back to me!! I say while glaring at her. I continue nomming my food before trying to run back to my room, in fear of more experiments. "Cas!" She calls out to me and I freeze. I turn around trying to smile. "Yes, mom?"

"I'll be in the basement for a while okay? Call me back when dad comes." She then walks towards a cabinet under the stairs and enters it. We have a basement? They never went there for the whole time I've been here! Well, at least I've never seen them come there. I shake off my curiosity in fear of the famous saying and went to lie on the sofa to rest. My eyes grow heavier and I slowly entered sleep's embrace.