Excruciating pain erupted from Nik’s chest area as he pushed with his entire will and a singular focus. The already existing pores were different from what he was forcing open now. And even worse was the fact that it took ages.

Refining his body to gain the trait [Mana Pores] had been uncomfortable and seared all the hair off of his body. The wounds, to be precise the highly agitated and sore skin, back then had been nothing compared to what he was experiencing now.

Currently, Nik was gunning for [Stamina Pores]. What had been uncomfortable back then with mana was now all the more painful. What was painful back then, the regions he now called DERP zones - definitely especially receptive to pain - like his fingertips, nipples, private zone, chins, throat, and head, were outright torturous.

The system hadn’t even been forthcoming with a skill like [Pain resistance] or [Mental Fortitude], forcing Nik to endure his current plight. At this point, he wasn’t willing to turn around either.

Having gone through so much pain already was disgusting on its own. Not getting anything out of it was just unacceptable.

Nik however had considered pausing on the stamina pore progress and seeing if something of the sort was also possible with health. Which in itself had been a lot of work to figure out and discover.

Not wanting to bear the pain any longer Nik tried a different approach.

Now that I know that mana pores exist, and stamina pores seem to exist as well, it might be worth a try checking out health more specifically. I can’t really see it with [Internal Energy Sight] but it has to be there, right?

The other two energy types his status showed were visible with varying effort after all, so health should appear as well. The only issue with that idea was that Nik had been able to heal his body pre-system similarly well, all be it slower.

Pre-System Health appeared to be an intrinsic factor of one's DNA. At least that is how Nik had always thought of it, and it somewhat worked. Which would mean that health would be distributed all throughout the body.

Stamina on the other hand was primarily found in muscle tissue, but also ligaments and joints. Mana was different it cycles along some pathways throughout his body. Originally he had mistaken those pathways for his cardiovascular system but the changing nature of the pathways made that highly unlikely.

Nik found the first traces of health in his spine. Several hours of inspecting his body actively with [Internal Energy Sight] as well as trying to inspect his skin with [Unobstructed Optics] were required to get him there though.

The usage of [Unobstructed Optics] had happened accidentally but somehow synergized with the other skill.

It went without mentioning that Nik would not gonna touch the health located there. He had started to grow confident in everything about himself. Keywords being “started” and “to grow” in this case. That meant he was almost certain he couldn’t survive messing with his spine and its contents at all. Health was different from the other energy types. The name alone had a different connotation and it felt different for the lack of a better word.

Not more dangerous but maybe more essential.

Almost an entire day was spent in experimentation. After getting more familiar with his health he found it easier and easier to find it all throughout his body, in his bones, veins, skin, organs, and all other types of tissue. Finally allowing him to move and focus on other tasks while observing his health and collecting metallic rocks.

In the waning hours of the day he had come to a decision. Partially driven by his rapid skill growth over the last couple of hours, partially by curiosity and a drive to progress and not feel the pain that came with creating stamina pores.

He was gonna try for health pores too. He would do so in as small an area as possible and would be careful doing so. With preparations in place, a lot of food, and especially berries by his side he laid down on his oversized hammock and begone testing.

He felt confident because the skill gains were insane. Nik wasn’t sure why that had been but he didn’t mind them in the least.

[Internal Energy Sigh]t, one of his earliest skills had more than doubled in level, now sitting at level thirty-one. [Internal Energy Manipulation] went from twenty to twenty-eight, [Tracking] leveled trice oddly enough, the same as unobstructed optics, placing them at eight and seven respectively.

Whereas previously he had only moved minuscule amounts of health without changing its distribution he now actively created a flow. A change of pressure so to speak. Pushing health through his hand.

There was no pain, no discomfort, only nothingness.

Not the nothingness of death, rather the nothingness of absence of energy, like passing out.

Nik came to some time later. The sun’s stand hadn’t changed much, so he assumed it was still the same day and that only a few minutes had passed.

He could really be bothered with that though as a blinding notification was visible in his mind’s eye.

Epic Deed Unlocked - [Premature Physical Manipulation] Manipulate the energy that is vital to you.

Which was surprising in and of itself. But the accompanying level-ups were insane.

Nik Thems: {(Evolving) Extraterrestrial Human} 2x Level up! You have accomplished the Epic Deed [Premature Physical Manipulation]. 39 Stat points have been awarded. Two General Skill Slots unlocked.

Damn, that’s awesome. The biggest level-up since when, the dungeon visiting one? That was weird regardless. Maybe climbing the mountain? Regardless that is awesome. Also kinda worrying that I really did pass out. I thought that something odd would happen but nothing that bad, he mused while looking over his status.

Nik had now fifty-nine free stat points and it honestly felt like a waste to not use them. And in the end, using them wouldn’t be detrimental if he didn’t overextend into a specific direction, that was what he thought at least.

Especially his physical attributes were good and helpful in most everything he did. The only issue being that he would much rather have a more magical-focused class.

For now he would keep his magical attributes in balance. Investing into the regeneration attributes still felt somewhat like a waste as he could just eat stamina and mana berries, hadn’t there been a line in the description of [Lesser Intrinsic Willpower] mentioning increased effect.

He dialed the regulator to forty-five for both Wisdom and Willpower, and for the stamina related attributes Physique and Endurance. Leaving him with a buffer of twenty stat points.

He liked the thought of having a buffer to give him some semblance of savety, where he could just gain another two-hundred for any pool in an emergency.

But that in itself was also what could lead him into such a situation in the first place.

The safest bet in that regard would be strength, it would not only give him more direct power, but also allow for greater health regeneration which he couldn’t access through berries. He hadn’t found anything that gave health at least.

Twenty points in strength would result in an over ten percent strength increase which was pretty good in his book. Vitality would offer a greater buffer for survivability.

But whether that would even be necessary he wasn’t sure. Nik hadn’t encountered anything dangerous for some time now. Excluding the flying shape which he wouldn’t have had a chance against anyway going by the deed he had been awarded.

In the end strength would boost his speed and overall power more, overall just seemed to be the most effective choice. The uneven number of his overall health irked him though. So he invested two points there and ten into strength. He would keep the last remaining eigth for emergency allocation.

Energized and full of expectation for the next couple days Nik got up and began collecting stones once again.

I really am a hypocrite, used to make fun of people who collected crystals now I collect rocks. At least I don’t assign them any magical properties.

----------------

For the last two days, when Nik hadn’t spend time working on energy manipulation and the other energy traits - sometimes even as he was doing so - he had gathered stones. An almost literal boatload. In the beginning, he had only gathered Iron-rich stones. Ranging from high to very high iron content. Though as the first day progressed he got slightly bothered by the low amount of rocks he had gathered.

The last time he accumulated around thirty kilograms of very high iron-rich stones in a few days, and a couple of hours searching had only lead to a few kilograms at most.

Those hours had shown something else though. There were rocks with other “high” and “very-high” ratings for different metals. None were as numerous as iron, in total maybe amassing to double to amount of iron-rich stones.

This lead to Nik abandoning his search of iron in the hopes of finding loads of high-content rocks in general.

The most common were tungston, tin, manganese, nickel, and copper, thus also the ones he had gathered the most of. Though there were a bunch of singular pieces for most of the more common metals. Oddly enough, one of the rocks he found had shown up to a low silver content, which he promptly pocketed.

Without any previous knowledge about geology he found that odd, having never heard of silver being found frequently.

His final tally had him at somewhere around his own body weight of ninety kilograms - something he wasn’t sure was up to date anymore.

I guess it now comes down to what I want to fashion my anvil, he mused about for the tenth time in the same amount of hours. The solitude giving rise to the same few thoughs frequently.

Bronze would be a solid enough choice I think. Especially if I knew a proper copper-tin ratio and knew the refinement method. Both are pretty liquid so mixing them should work well enough. But I still have the issue that I would rather just work with iron, especially if I work with iron a bronze anvil is just not gonna cut it, he thougths drifted.

He had done some basic maths already. Some vague impressions he had from the odd medival fair made him pretty certain that anvils clocked in at over forty kilos, possibly more.

That would require at least two-hundred kilos of iron-rich stone. Just not a possibility any time soon. But a flat anvil as well as a pair of real metallic tongs would be key for any sort of improvement of his smithing situation.

With those thoughts he smiled. He wouldn’t have imagined ending up in such a situation ever. His degree had come along well and he liked the mostly dry theory stuff well enough. Looking forward to more physical work was weird for Nik but he truly did. He wanted to be done with looking for potentially useful rock, he wanted to get his hands back close to the heat of the forge.

Coming back from the stray thought he considered his next step one last time. A bronze anvil could work if he were to figure out the proper ratios of the alloy.

Tin and copper were both less hard, meaning more prone to deformation under stress, compared to what was commonly referred to as bronze. Bronze also had the potential to be harder than regular iron, which was not that hard, at least when compared to stainless steel.

The fact that his identification of his hammer in its pre-ingot stage had not mentioned steel led Nik to believe that he hadn’t managed to create a proper steel ingot. There would no doubt be some carbon in his wrought iron though it wouldn’t even exceed one percent by weight.

Thoughts and considerations swirled through Nik’s mind as he considered the implications of hard and soft work surfaces and the work required to gain either, on his way back to the forge.

He had some iron refining to do.

When he got back to his forge took his hammer and prepared to use it for the first time. Not for its intended purpose but to pulverize the iron-rich rocks to seperate the iron and other rocks.

He began once again with laying rocks inside of his woven matt and began to grind down the stones with his hammer.

The initially adrous task proceeded now a lot faster. Each hammer strike split rocks up further instead of having to used several rocks to grind them down on each other.

It was a breeze and it felt like one.

Wait, how am I feeling a breeze at all. Observing his surroundings he was confused by the his eyes and the disconnect to his body. He was currently sitting shirtlessly in front of his charcoal storage cave enjoying the heat of the sun on his body, and swore to feel the light prickling of wind on his body.

That sensation was not replicated by the grass around him however. All the grass stalks stood bolt upright not experiencing the breeze whatsoever.

After a few more minutes of observation Nik focused back onto his self imposed task. Whatever was going on was only an idle interest of his, nothing he could influence and nothing that would even matter.

At least that was what he thought until several hours later. When the usual white light of the sun started turning into an unearthly blue, with sudden bursts of more and less light.