The woman looks at me in horror as she tried to back away, but the hair rope is to tight. I send another dose of pain through her nerves before I remake her vocal cords. “First of all, I want you to lie to me, because… it turns me on” [I want to see if I can detect lies while being connected to her body.] “Ok I ah um ah.”

“Oh come on, It doesn't need to be anything fancy just lie and say it's day time or something.”

“Oh ok it is a nice sunny day, the houses are made from broccoli, I am 50 years old and, and ‘sob’ oh please don't eat me I don't want to die, not like that, not now ‘sob’.”

“Ok now tell me some truths where I know you are not lying and I won't make your death as painful” “ok ‘sob, it is night time, we are in the slums and I am 20 years old.” [When she is untruthful, two different chemicals are produced. (Epinephrine and norepinephrine are two hormones that are naturally produced within the body.) With this information I am like a biological lie detector.]

“Ok enough playing around now, explain this, is it magic?” I say while waving her still struggling detached hand in her face. “No not magic, it is my power.”

“Explain the difference between the two.”

She nods and begins to explain, “A power is something certain people are born with which they can use naturally without having to learn it or use an incantation, but it still requires mana or aura. Magic is affecting the outside of your body and requires more mana than a power as well as an incantation.”

“How and when can someone use their power or magic, and what is an aura?”

“A person naturally gains access to their mana around the age of 13 to 14, when they start puberty. 'Sob' Aura is the natural power the body makes, some people can use it to strengthen their bodies and enhance their movements, it can only be used inside the body as far as I know. I have also heard rumors that some auras have special properties but I don't know anymore”

“Thank you, now tell me about the local gangs and groups” As a reward, I send a dose of pleasure into her nerves. [I did not think that through] looking at the now moaning woman on the floor. “Well?” I say as I stop the wave of pleasure.

“ Um oh yes. Oh, the gangs well there are three mains gangs in the slums and two guilds. The gangs are the wolf’s gang, the Scorpion gang, and the Falcon Gang. Even though there are more gangs and people in them the guilds are more powerful. The Gangs pay the two Guilds, thieves and assassins, to keep the authorities off of them and to leave them alone. I don't know anymore about the Guilds, sorry, please don’t hurt me.”

“It is fine, continue about what you know about the gangs. How do you identify each other and any powers you know about?”

“Yes right. This area is in the territory of the wolves gang we have a tattoo on the left forearm in the shape of a fang and the password ‘5 is my favorite letter’ with the response ‘mine is a square’. While the scorpions have a tattoo of a claw on their right forearm and the Falcons have an eye in the middle of their chest. I don't know about any passwords for the other gangs and the only power I have seen someone else use is the vice-captain control fire in a display of power. That's all I know please don't eat me please I will do anything please.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” I say as I send a wave of pleasure and sending a bone spike into her skull. Once I finished eating her and absorbing the hair ropes back into my body I stand back up and consider what to do next. I noticed that sludge that is usually moving around inside of me was still during this process. [It's like my personal, physical embodiment of carnage. Well, it's not like I am a calm and loving person in the first place, but I seem to become increasingly merged with it when my actions are more violent, selfish and brutal. ]

Thinking back to the topic at hand, I begin to process what the lady has told me. [The energy I have been fucking around with is probably ‘mana’, which along with my ‘aura’ I shouldn't be able to use until I am 13 or14. But why is that? Is it the physical process of aging? Mental development, absorbing the surrounding energies of the world or another reason I can't think of? If I could use my potential power/aura/magic I would become a lot stronger so I will add meditation to my daily routine to try and learn to control these energies.

On to the next topic. The gangs. I think I will use them as a source of training and food; the city won't bother to look for dead criminals so it would be relatively safe. As for the guilds, I will try to avoid them for now.

Next, is that I don't think I need to sleep, or if I do then I don't need as much as normal people. I was woken up early this morning, have not stopped all day and have gone late into the night and I feel fine. So how should I spend my nights? I think that I will alternate from meditating, fighting the gangs and sleeping when/if needed.]

With these points decided I walk back to my normal sleeping spot to meditate. Now that I am back with a full stomach and new information I sit back down and begin to meditate. Looking at the energy again all the nubs I created before have disappeared along with any minute changes I managed to make [That bodes well for future training] I think sarcastically.

Planning to spend the rest of the night in meditation I start trying different ways to move the energy but each barely has any effect on the energy, but it does slowly get better. Very slowly, but there is progress, the ripples become more frequent and the nubs become bigger. But it is exhausting and I have to take a break every now and then.

By the time the sun comes up, I am mentally exhausted but I still don’t need sleep. Getting up from the meditation I start my morning exercise but I add a second tentacle into the workout. Finishing the workout I head to the higher sector because I want to buy better quality things as well as trying to pickpocketing to gain some extra finances.

It takes an hour to walk to the higher sector of the city, on the way I experimented with the space ring. Once I was there I realized how much I stood out. All the people were cleaner and had much better clothes than the people in the slums and the middle district. The people here also looked more handsome and beautiful which I suspect is the result of selective breeding. A few of the people have guards and servants out with them. [I will stay away from those people; I don't want to test my ability against a guard just yet, especially in broad daylight.]

I decided to target the richer looking people without guards. From experimenting with the space ring I have discovered that the space ring can put an object into itself if it is less than 20cm away from the ring and touching the finger wearing the ring.

With this information, I would extend the finger wearing the ring as a very thin tentacle into my targets money pouches and take no more than 2 coins a person as to not raise suspicion. I did this all morning without being caught although I was however given dirty looks and yelled at for ‘daring to get close to my betters’.

At lunchtime, I go to a street corner and count my ill-gotten gains. From this morning's work, I got 37S altogether, that gives me 57S and 90C total, which is a lot more than when I first left the church.

After lunch I go into the stores and by two new flame gems for 10S each, an air gem for 10S, a for month's worth of good quality rations for 8S, a better backpack for 5S and a single good quality throwing knife for 5S, All together this cost me 48S, which is fucking expensive but also good value when you consider that I used other people's money to pay for it all. This leaves me with 9S and 90C. These items aren't all I managed to ‘acquire’ as I stole 1 flame gem, 1 air gem, and an extra throwing knife.

With my business done for the day, I headed back to the slums. Changing my body on the way. I make the bone spike on my left forearm hollow similar to when I exploded it in the sewer, but this time I make it stronger as well as putting the two air gems at the back of the hollow space while putting the flame gems in front and then filling the rest up with unneeded fat and methane a flammable gas that my body produces. I did all this with the idea that it will work as a flame weapon in the future. The air gems will provide the flames with oxygen while the fat and methane will act as a fuel [I hope I don’t blow up my arm again because that shit fucking hurts].

When I am back in the slums I do my work out while simultaneously working on the two tentacles and trying to remember all the street and shop names I have come across today. While doing three things at once my brain undergoes a mini evolution but it is not as prominent or painful as the last one. When I am finished with the workout on multiple fronts and it is dark I grow my hair clothes into a cloak with a mask. It is time to have some fun.