As we arrive at a dilapidated building, the sun lowering to the horizon, I can feel my mind coming a bit more back to me. I’m just strong enough to stand by myself.

However, Gong clearly refuses to put me down.

Ah. I can sense that I will have to explain what brought this on, in more detail, when we get settled.

Dang.

Not being able to use my healing aura to fix this, really, really sucks. I couldn’t even think or speak straight, because everything was so muddled and painful.

Actually, if I consider the pain and effects… even if the pain wasn’t there, I believe I would still have issues with thinking straight. I fear what state I would be in if I went far enough to stop feeling the pain.

As a second test, while feeling better, I attempt to direct my healing aura at myself again. I immediately know that for this specific injury, I cannot heal it using the aura.

This is a restriction on the ability itself. It feels like I’ll never be able to use it to heal my scanning damage.

As I struggle a slight bit and attempt to let Gong know I’m feeling better, she seemingly ignores me. Oh, wait. I’m not speaking.

“Gong, I-I’m feeling better. You can put me down now.”

All she does is tighten her grip on me, as one of her spider legs spins a sticky thread and attaches it to a collapsed portion of the building. This pile of rubble lifts up in one cohesive piece, seemingly all held together by web on its underside.

It’s actually quite remarkable, because there is no indication of there being web on the side facing the surface.

I could easily see Gong doing this, but if this as I suspect it, done by her spiders instead… then I can see why she was already doing well with them. It also reinforces how much work she’s put into protecting this portion of her territory.

What really surprised me is the apparent size of the area she controls. We went through a longer portion of her territory and if I had to guess, she controls at least 30 square kilometers. That doesn’t even cover the areas we haven’t gone or seen. Considering the pace they were going at and the fact that I wasn’t all there during the trip, probably means it could be much more than that.

From there, it is similar to the last time we went through the caves. She disarms the traps along the way, seals everything up behind her, and has the spiders take care of the rest.

Once we reach the safety of the main room, Gong finally lets me stand on my two feet.

There is a pause and a silence.

Even the ambient underground noise seems dim.

The three of them seem like they want to say something, but instead excuse themselves and say good night.

I find myself alone in this room.

That’s a bit strange, I was completely expecting them to ask me what was going on. They must be waiting for me to bring it up myself. Honestly, that was a bit scary.

I’ve never, in my life, been that… hindered.

Considering that I can easily feel that what I did only scratched the surface, of how much further I could have gone with the power and then quickly would have been put out of commission.

I’m not one for pain. I’m not some protagonist that is willing to bear through absurd amounts of pain, struggle, and torture to get better at something. Nor am I willing to experiment on myself to find out how far I can take this ability.

So, even if I can go further… I refuse to. Not only that, but if something goes wrong, being in that condition relies on me being in a safe location.

If there is one thing I’ve begun to learn… you can never assume yourself to be safe.

The main issue is, there’s no one to heal the healer if I go down. So, the less risks I take with these abilities, the better.

With this in mind and a diminishing headache, I head to sleep. The most restful I’ve had in what feels like a long time.

For what I hope is the last time, I do not activate my nightly awareness technique.

The next day, I wake up late, probably since my body was recovering. I feel like I am almost completely healed, at this point. I also feel that my scan has improved by leaps and bounds.

Since it has been a little since I’ve last checked, I pull up my stats:

James Delinion

6 Rose Man–Spiritual Root

Mana: 289991/289991 (327680) [-37689 mana]

Taming Maintenance 1 mana/ 1 human biomass – insects, no cultivation 1 mana/ 1 human biomass – arachnids, no cultivation 50 mana/1 human biomass – bacterium, no cultivation

Transferred Gifts:

Passive Scan: Max

Active Scan: Max (Increased Strain)

Healing Aura: Level 4 Exp: 100/320

Beneficial Taming: Level 12 – Exp: 4385-> 17119/20480 rounded down

1 xp per 1 human sized biomass – no cultivation, tamed

Current Direct Tames

No cultivation/no contract Cockroach – 1 – 1 human biomass Insect Horde – 97+58= 155 human biomasses worth (232.8 cubic meters) Spider Horde – 24757+12674= 37431 human biomasses worth (59416.8 cubic meters) Bacterium – 1+1= 2 human biomass

Healing Constitution

Proficient Languages: Common Speech (English)

Literate Languages: Common Speech

Well, this is pretty good. Looks like my mana went up again, as well as my healing aura.

…

…

Sigh.

I need to talk to them about what happened. I can’t just ignore this. While they are apparently letting me keep this quiet and not asking, I don’t feel it’s right to keep something like this secret.

I’ll see if I can find Gong and bring everyone together.

With that in mind, I activate my awareness technique and use my scan to find Gong. Quickly seeing that she’s in her room, I walk over to her, making sure to step on the transparent lines. She still doesn’t move from her spot.

Reaching her room, I knock on the side of the room entrance. Because it is a rock covered in webs, it barely makes any noise and hurts my knuckles a little when I attempt to knock harder. A piece of the rock crumbles a bit though, showing the difference in my body yet again.

Oops.

Not appearing to worry about it, Gong gets up and approaches me. “Hey, how are you doing?”

“I’m pretty good, how about you?”

“Just thinking about a few things.” She looks away for a moment.

Yeah, I should bring it up.

“So, about yesterday…”

As I say that, she sucks in a cold breath of air, her head snapping up towards me.

She was totally thinking about it.

“Do you mind if we all meet together in the main room? I’d like to tell you guys what actually happened last night.”

After a delay, she nods and heads to find Lin and Ai.

For my part, I head up to the main room and try to figure out how to word this.

I already told them about the scanning ability, though they seemed to have trouble believing it because of the roundabout way I spoke about it.

I think at this point, I can just explain a bit more about how it works… and the side effects of pushing it too far.

As I think about it as well, I definitely messed up. I should be working at a consistently lower rate for my constant awareness. That way when an emergency happens, I can increase the usage without it completely overwhelming me. I had assumed that it would simply be an increased headache, one that would go away as quickly as the others.

Clearly, as it gets to a certain level, it gets to be an actual impairment. After this talk, I’ll make sure to figure out what I can consistently use and plan for any spikes in activity or usage.

As I finish thinking about this, Ai and Lin come into the room, followed by Gong. Lin has a worried face on, while Ai appears to be resolute, but also sad face on, though I can’t figure out why. Gong looks like she is nervous, but resigned to something.

Almost as if she is prepared to make a hard decision.

Okay, there are definitely some misunderstandings going on.

“So, let me try to clear up what happened yesterday…”