With a gasp, Eli woke up thrashing, yet the sudden lack of pain made him glance around in confusion. He was back in his room, lit with bright light streaming through his small window. The bed’s covers lay on the floor, thrown there at some point during the night. Holding his hands up, he was relieved to see only unblemished skin; the burns were gone as if they’d never existed. He couldn’t help the relieved sigh as the thump of his heartbeat slowed.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Yawning with a headache already pulsing at his temples, he grumbled a few more curse words under his breath. Feeling far too groggy, which was becoming a chronic problem, he looked out the window. He had to have slept well over eight hours based on the morning light, and a glance at the clock in his HUD confirmed it, but it felt like he’d only gotten maybe three or four hours.

Climbing out of bed, he gingerly stood up as if expecting more pain, but there wasn’t even a twinge. It was like the burning dream never happened. Pushing such thoughts away for the moment, he made a quick stop in the bathroom to do his business. Afterward, he pressed the chime to order some breakfast. He had plenty of work to do, and no dream was going to dictate anything to him.

***

A few hours later, Eli was in his room below Wolf’s Manor, hard at work on his research. Sitting at one of the tables and using a chair he’d snagged from his room upstairs, he stretched, glancing around at the nearly empty space. He would have preferred a nice stone tower high in the sky for magical research and experiments. Still, a secure room buried under dozens of meters of rock was great too.

A mage’s tower? Now that’s cool. A subterranean room built into solid rock? Not as cool. It just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Maybe it’s just a branding issue? Oh, how about a dungeon laboratory? That sounds pretty cool too.

Shaking his head at his silliness, he looked over his notes again. He’d started his workday with an easy warmup. Since he’d picked up a new aura ability while healing Wolf, he’d given it a new name that followed the same naming convention as his other sight-related abilities.

Name: Eli Tal

Species: Human

Race: Restricted (Anomaly)

Level: 9

Evolution: High Mundane

Abilities: Tracking, Identify, Manasight, Healing, Flamethrower, Lifesight, Aurasight

Modifiers: NA

Eli’s status hadn’t changed since the last time he reviewed it outside the edited ability name. He hadn’t gained any new levels, not that he understood what they meant, nor anything about the evolution section. As he couldn’t do much about either, he shrugged away the troubling concepts to focus on the topics he’d mapped out for the day.

Turning to his plans, he wanted to examine his body with his different abilities. He’d put it under a lot of stress lately and didn’t want some issue to sneak upon him. The problem was he couldn’t be sure what was normal. Did he have bones where he expected? Sure, the obvious stuff was easy, but the crux of the issue was he didn’t have a good idea of how the human body worked. All he could call on was what he dimly remembered from some college courses or random online videos and documentaries he’d watched at some point. It wasn’t exactly enough to inspire confidence in him screwing around with his own body.

How stupid would it be to have a sudden aneurysm that took me out? After all, I’ve had a ton of nasty headaches lately. I really don’t want to create a clot or some tumor. I’d just end up killing myself! If only I could see inside my head, but that’s pretty tough.

He paused at the thought as realization struck. “Oh, I’m such a dumbass,” he muttered.

Simultaneously amused and frustrated at missing the obvious, he pulled the small mirror from his DS. Holding it up and toggling Lifesight, he angled it to see his heart. Before, he’d only had one restricted view when he looked down at his body, but now Eli could see his heart from many different points as he moved the mirror around his body. His ability wasn’t exactly like regular sight, as anything he focused on had extra sharp edges like the ability somehow highlighted his point of interest. Still, it was strange to watch his heart pumping, aware that if it suddenly stopped, he was dead.

He brought the mirror close to his face, and his dark green eyes stared back. Focusing, he imagined seeing inside his head. The sharp outline of his skull, then different parts of his brain, were revealed as different layers seemed to dissolve one after another according to his will. It was a bit disturbing yet also fascinating to see at the same time as he continued to delve deeper within his head. He was cautious to only look, not trying to change anything since he didn’t want any stray energy doing something stupid to his mind.

Not that I have a damn clue what I’m looking at, sadly. I mean, is it a brain? Check.

He focused closer on his brainstem, where a small flattened-looking pebble rested with no noticeable contacts within his tissues. The medical team and engineers had told him the links were state-of-the-art technology, but even though they’d spoken English, the details had been far too advanced for him. After all, what did he know about atomic-scale nanotechnology and single-atom chains forming connections within his grey matter at specific points? In the end, he’d learned enough to grasp the basic concepts but not nearly enough to muck around with the thing.

There you are, right where you should be.

The familiar nervousness surfaced at seeing the object, reminded of how much had gone wrong with Guide since Eli had landed in this world. He’d already had a tough enough time adjusting to Guide back on Earth for the few weeks he’d had, let alone now when the darn thing acted half broken. Still, he let out a breath he’d been holding when the little pebble looked just like what he remembered from the post-op simulation. For comparison, he toggled Manasight.

“What the fuck!”

Shocked, he nearly dropped the mirror but managed to catch the corner before it could slip through his fingers. With suddenly trembling hands, he brought it up again to see some sort of mass in and around his brain, centered right where he’d just seen Guide. It was dark in color, about a third the size of his head, yet didn’t squish his brain against his skull. Reminded of how his core seemed to exist in another dimension without disturbing his heart or lungs, the mass appeared to be the same. Hearing his sudden ragged breaths, he watched the thing pulsing slowly in and out as if alive while numerous tendrils spread like little roots digging inside his skull.

With the mirror shaking in his hands, he pulled the large Codex over. Propping the little object at an angle on the book’s spine, he returned to studying the monstrous growth. Feeling the pulsing pain inside his skull, he suddenly wondered if this was the reason for his headaches over the past days. The thing wasn’t there under Lifesight, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t affecting his body. With magic, who knew what was possible.

The way it pulsed in time to its own rhythm, how it reminded him of a black spider with far too many legs, his heartbeat started to thump loudly in his ears. A tightness blossomed in his chest like he couldn’t catch his breath as a tingling started in his toes and hands, quickly moving up his limbs. Holding a hand on the table and grateful to be sitting down, he recognized the symptoms as a sense of impending doom and death rose out of nowhere while the air seemed to thicken around him.

“Panic attack, just a panic attack,” he whispered, the sound of his voice helping center his thoughts. “Talay, just breathe through it,” he reminded himself as he closed his eyes and gripped the table's edge.

Focused on his breathing, he worked his way through his mental exercises while thinking about being in the moment. He was alive and could feel his body and the chair under him. From there, he moved on to different parts of his body, like his hands squeezing the wood hard enough to hurt and the feeling of a single drop of sweat trailing slowly down the side of his face. Even his breathing, harsh and ragged as it started, helped as he concentrated on slowing the gasps, realizing this was just a physiological reaction. Minutes passed, and he slowly relaxed while his thumping heartbeat slowed.

Opening his eyes, he continued his breathing exercises but felt antsy in his chair. Standing up, he started pacing the room, needing to move and reassure himself that his body was under his control. Sitting and thinking about the monster he saw would only make him spiral again.

“Come on, focus,” he told himself, walking back and forth before the table. “Work the problem.”

Trying to imagine a list of items in his mind, he started to go through what he knew, including his educated guesses and the many unknowns. First, the mass was centered right where Sahara installed Guide, which seemed like a pretty damn clear indication that the two were related.

Of course, that raised a disturbing idea since if they were connected, he had to be extra careful. Guide used Eli’s senses for telemetry and continuously tracked his vitals. As far as he could tell, Guide couldn’t read his mind, and he hadn’t turned on that Deeper Learning program to let Guide access his surface thoughts. Taken altogether, he’d have to watch what he said, which only reinforced his earlier decisions about saying anything out loud about Guide.

Unfortunately, I have a lot more theories than facts. Could this be related to my problems sleeping? My headaches? Could it be related to those files I received when I met Lugh on that first day? Am I possessed by that demon thing? Heck, could it be a magical attack? Or am I just going crazy? Given Occam’s razor, my grasp on reality, or lack thereof, is probably the most reasonable solution. But then again, I’m in a magical world.

Calm breaths. Gods, I fucking hate spiders!

***

Hours later, Eli leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead, feeling his growing headache acutely. He wasn’t used to switching between Manasight and Lifesight so often or focusing down as far as he could with his abilities. The strain in his eyes throbbed almost in time with his temples, feeling worse than ever before. Early on in his studies, a cold, painful pressure had started at the back of his head, and whenever he focused his abilities, the sensation intensified. He hadn’t written any new notes since he was extra cautious with what Guide might see. He wasn’t even sure Guide could or would do anything if it understood Eli’s goal.

It’s not sentient, after all. Well, at least it sure as shit wasn’t back on Earth. What kind of a sick thing would that be?

He’d first focused on his Lifesight, looking at Guide as closely as possible. Zooming in, he still couldn’t get his vision down to the same level he seemed capable of with Manasight, and trying had hurt his eyes enough to force frequent breaks. At those times, he’d just sit in his chair every twenty minutes or so, his head in his hands as he let his eyes rest. After about five minutes, the strain and pain would go away enough for him to continue.

Some surprises had cropped up, like how he couldn’t see inside Guide using Lifesight. With how well the ability worked for other things, it had seemed only natural to try and peel away the outer metallic layer in the flattened pebble to get a look inside the troublesome tech. Instead of seeing the metal dissolve away like expected, Guide simply disappeared. Trying a few times provided the same results as his ability somehow slid past the pebble. He thought he’d been onto something but tested the metal in the mirror’s frame to double-check.

Same damn thing. Okay, this is why we test things. So maybe it is down to the type of material I’m looking at with this ability? But wait, how does that work? There are metals in the human body, like calcium, sodium, potassium, and all sorts of things. Oh, or maybe it’s a concentration thing?

Testing out his newest ability Aurasight was a bit of a bust and didn’t reveal anything special around Eli’s head or body. In fact, he didn’t see anything at all, which was confusing since he remembered Wolf’s yellow aura while healing him. But no matter how he panned his little mirror around his body, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Finally, chalking it up to his ignorance about auras, he made a mental note to talk with Dara about the subject soon.

After hours of testing the various abilities, he still returned to one of his first questions around Guide’s problems – was it a software or a hardware issue? He had suspected it was a software problem days ago, as Lugh had done something to him when he waved his glowing green hand at Eli and some programs loaded into Guide. But he couldn’t be sure if what Lugh had done caused the scary spider creature. After all, one of the things Lugh had given Eli was the language program. So, he returned to the same question about whether the spider was related to the software or the hardware.

Shit, or what if it’s both?

He already had an idea on the way to test it – a reboot, but it scared the crap out of him. A part of the pre-op procedures during his Beta had included the Beta team walking him through the different troubleshooting situations, including use cases he'd had to complete. They’d even had him sit down for quizzes in front of a suited guy who looked far too serious as he quizzed Eli. With all the preparations, he was well aware of the potential consequences if things went wrong, and death was high on the list.

Sure, he could reboot Guide, but would that fix anything? If the software was installed, then it was installed, and a reboot wouldn’t change that fact. At least it should return any software to its clean state, but how would that help him unless the software was acting up?

Of course, he could try something else they’d called a “hard reset.” It was only supposed to be for an emergency – only used when the User had a “catastrophic event” with Guide. The engineers had been a bit wishy-washy on what a ‘catastrophic event’ even was to them. Still, if he was desperate after all else failed and couldn’t get to one of their specialist doctors in time, the reset was his best shot at keeping his brain intact.

Looking at it from different angles, he didn’t see that he had a lot of options. He could do nothing about Guide or the spider-shaped mass but quickly rejected that thought as soon as it reared its ugly head. In the end, he had nowhere to run and no one to ask for help that understood the technology, let alone Guide’s quirks. He’d rather just know if he was screwed than hope like hell that everything turned out okay.

He yawned and looked at the clock in his HUD, noting it was 9 o’clock already. One of the minor tests he’d run earlier was to have Guide calibrate the internal clock to match the day-night period observed over the past week. Happily, it seemed to have worked well, which was a welcome surprise for once, but he’d periodically check to make sure.

Deciding it was time for some food and a break from all the work, he called it quits for the day. Organizing and cleaning up his space didn’t take long since he hadn’t written anything new while doing his experiments. Storing his notes and chair in his DS, he turned off the lights and climbed back up the stairs.

Maybe I’ll try the fix tomorrow. Or next week. Yeah, I like next week a lot more.