Chapter 168 – Lending a hand

It was a month since he first broached the idea and only two weeks since the news had spread beyond the small working group, but spread it had. It was like an out-of-control wildfire, and not a Californian one but an Australian one such was the enthusiasm of the volunteers. He had been expecting to only impact the main dining hall and maybe the dorms, but so many people wanted to contribute that a team had even swept through the obstacle course. No where in the orphanage had been spared.

It made him smile.

There were no massive factories to produce the decorations, but there were skills, spells and a sufficient number of adults who had embraced the concept. They had donated their time and resources to bring their memories of earth to life and he guessed give joy to the many children in the orphanage. Streams of tinsel that moved to an unseen wind spiralled up the support columns, sprucing up the otherwise drab supports. A Christmas festival that was completely alien to Existentia conjured by a few weeks of enthusiastic work. A moment of joy for some, but that was not the reason Tom was smiling. This was a perfect way to launder the stockpile of tier three and four materials he had accumulated.

Kang had helped with his fate promoting support, but most of what he could see had been Dimitri and it was not visible details that were the most important. The main isolation rooms, the ones he used if he wanted extra privacy at night, had a post office like box installed.

It was simple to use, and everyone was encouraged to participate. The child would place the gift into it along with the name of the recipient or a designation of open. When it was shut, the gift would be transferred to the internal spatial storage and wait for collection and processing.

All the boxes were heavily shielded, with intensive security procedures in place at all levels. They were left in the room for a week, or at least until it was three quarters full. Then they would be moved by powerful scout classes to a warehouse and placed into a secondary randomisation vault along with similar donation boxes that anyone in the wider community could contribute to. Once that was done at the end of the three-week gifting period, the massive combined vault would then be processed by volunteers who would do the wrapping and assign the open gifts individually to ensure everyone got a similar number of presents.

Everything, at every step, was designed to anonymise the contents. Dimitri had even released spatial trinkets that could be borrowed to let you carry the gift into the isolation room in a way that would prevent people from spying and keeping a tally of content through observations in the corridor.

It was an amazing setup, and Tom was very grateful for the foresight the headmaster had shown. He had even grabbed one of the spatial trinkets and re-gifted a tier two sword a ten-year-old had randomly given him. From what Tom could tell, the boy’s not parents had bestowed the sword to encourage him to follow after his parents, but the kid had wanted to use an axe and had used the gifting circle to dispose of it. He had chosen MaySue as the recipient specifically. She was an eleven-year-old girl from the cohort below them who used a spear, but in Tom’s opinion moved like a fencer.

If he was under specific observation, they would see him being a child and gifting an unwanted item to another kid. His title would therefore remain hidden from observers.

The excitement that filled everyone was uplifting and the Christmas tree they had made was magnificent. It was ten metres high, like you would see in a department store, and had even made him tear up a little when he had first walked into the dining hall. It had been a wonderful surprise.

Tom consciously forced his mind away from the past and back onto his current task. It was time to get another personal best.

With a deep breath, he took off at a sprint.

This particular course was familiar, and he reckoned he could do it blindfolded, which was fortunate because he was using his ring to reduce his eyesight to twenty percent of normal a handicap which meant if he didn’t know the route he would be doomed to failure.

He rushed through the early easy obstacles and in short order found himself on the third highest level.

Turn, avoid the obstacle, build up speed, he reminded himself as he went around the corner.

He focused on the walls coming up, as they were tricky.

Distracted, he made a mistake and one of the spokes of the spinning wheel slammed him in the gut as he drifted to close to the centre. The force of the impact made him stumble and double over slightly.

Rotating Boom, he thought as he simultaneously entered into a forward flip and then transitioned into a handstand and pushed off with all of his strength.

He was slowing down too much. He needed more speed. Biting his lip, he focused on accelerating but then cursed when he realised the roof trap had triggered. It was bad luck, as it only did that in a third of the runs. Helpless to do anything else he threw himself to the far right and bounced off the railing.

The prudent choice would be to stop and bypass the walls by the going the longer way, but that was not Tom’s style. While he was not sure he had the required speed, he wasn’t about to give up so easily.

Two smooth walls about two metres apart greeted him and beneath them was empty space until you hit the floor six metres below. Even with the spongy matts that height, Tom knew from bitter experience was broken ankle territory. 

The idea was to spring from one side to the other in order to gain both height and speed to reach the platform almost eight metres away and two higher than from where he stood. He made the first leap and drew from all of his acrobatic training to keep the momentum required to make it all possible.

Anyone watching would have been amazed by the grace he was showing, but he knew it was not enough. Unless…. He nearly lost his footing, but at the last moment Fateful Earth Body triggered, the laws of physics were briefly bent, which allowed him to push off it instead of slipping.

There was a ding, but his focus was on the problem in front of him.

His speed off the wall wasn’t enough. The angle was too much forward and not enough across.

He was going to fall.

His feet kicked helplessly and for a moment, it was like there was a slight foothold on the smooth surface of the wood. The extra support was enough, and he propelled himself across the chasm. He struck the next wall at extra speed, and that was sufficient to launch himself onto the final platform.

His shin crashed into the sharp, hard edge of it and his body thumped unceremoniously down onto the unpadded flat surface.

He clutched his injured leg and howled in pain like a twelve-year-old would have reacted. As he rolled on the platform pretending to react to the impact that was sure to leave a major bruise, his mind tried to understand what had happened. He had been going too slowly and should have fallen. But he hadn’t. He remembered those two leaps before the penultimate one. They both should have been impossible. The first’s success was probably due to the laws of physics bending, but the second that had been unexpected.

The sensation of the wall under his foot for that jump had been like when he created footholds in stone. A perfect moulded shelf for him to leap from. He glanced back at the spot, but it was as smooth as ever. Something unusual had happened. A magical foot platform like Eloise did was not part of his ability set, and then there was also the ding.

Something had changed.

He shut his eyes and stepped into his system room, wondering if Fateful Earth Body had evolved somehow.

Metal walls greeted him for a moment before they shifted in response to his desire to see what had changed. Text flooded the wall, and he read with mounting excitement.   

Earned Skill: Special Acrobatics -Tier 2 – Level 1

Grants all the benefits of the acrobatics skill at a proficiency equivalent to three times this skill’s level.

Special Ability: If you have released fate in the last 0.45 seconds, any part of your body can find minor purchase on the surrounding air or physical matter.    

Requirements

1.      Does not possess and acrobatics skill or a close cousin. 

2.      Fate was released in conjunction with an acrobatic manoeuvre over 1024 times.

3.      Acrobatics has prevented falls that would have resulted in serious harm 512 times.

4.      Acrobatics has prevented falls that would have resulted in possible death over 256 times.

5.      Performed at the pinnacle of body capabilities for over two seconds on 128 or more occasions.

6.      Proven Technical acrobatic skill level of above 64.

“Well, that is interesting,” he said as he re-read the description. His initial instincts to assume Fateful Earth Body had been responsible for the ding had been wrong.

Those requirements he decided on his third read through were brutal.

He had always known that earned skills were near impossible to achieve naturally and were intended to aid those people who trained and lived without expert support. But those requirements felt unachievable.

Ninety-nine percent of species would be blocked by the second point, alone. Yes, there were species that would also meet that requirement effortlessly. Just like monsters, there would be some people that would release defensive fate whenever they got in danger. Combine that with a hostile environment, they could hit those requirements, but it was the next two that shocked him.

Acrobatics having saved someone’s life over two hundred and fifty times was the one that felt particularly impossible. How that sort of language worked is that for everyone who earned this skill, hundreds and probably thousands would have died.

Tom having been successful with the benefit of hindsight was not surprising. He was regularly performing dangerous stunts ten metres above the ground and while it had not killed him he had been seriously harmed more times than he could count. The only reason he had dared to do what he had done was the nearby healing crystals and, more importantly the community prayers made it basically inconceivable that he would die within the orphanage.

No other species, as far as he knew would have had that advantage, but he had been given that opportunity and had the courage to grab it. 

He left the system room and got to his feet with his mind racing. He had to test this. When jumping across to a climbing wall, he attempted the impossible and twisted midair while attempting to alter his trajectory. Fateful Earth Body predictably activated, and he felt physics distort slightly to shift him sideways, but he wanted more. He pushed hard with his right arm and leg and the air momentarily felt solid.

It was enough. He felt the extra force imparted, and afterwards he was on a new trajectory. He crashed against the wall and his feet found the foothold he was aiming for.

Internally, he shivered as delight ran through him.

It had worked.

“Yes,” he yelled in triumph. “Yes. Yes.” A couple of younger children from the starting area of the easiest course looked at him quizzically, but he didn’t care. They could think what they wanted. As far as they knew, he might have just made this leap for the first time and given he was doing the hardest run as a short twelve-year-old they would admire his persistence, anyway.

Tom put them out of his mind. This was a great day. The ability was awesome and he couldn’t wait until he got some more levels in and provided Eloise didn’t cheat with a burst soon he would be beating her easily.

A day later, Tom was heading with the other two toward April’s trial.

It was interesting, he thought, how things had changed. Back when he first came everything had been heavily regulated with strict lines and timings. Now there was no order or even a specific time that he was expected to arrive. Anything within an hour window was fair game.

As they approached, Tom felt his stride lengthening, and he moved ahead of them, eager to truly test his new ability.

As his hand reached for the perfect sphere to enter it, time froze.

An invitation from Briana appeared in front of his eyes.

Mentally, he considered whether to accept or not. She had obviously spotted his excitement and wished to know why, and it was not a conversation he wanted to have.

Damn it, he thought. He had no choice. If he rejected the invitation, she would know. 

A moment later, he found himself in her system room.

It hadn’t changed.

All the walls projected the image of an underwater paradise, with bright corals and lots of fish. It was a scene from an ocean somewhere and once when she had called one of these meeting there had been a massive shark in the distance. Eloise had created a fuss, which had ruined the purpose of the conference because Briana had collapsed into hysterics. A distant shark was apparently nothing. Once she had watched a fight between a whale and a kraken where the whale’s eyes had briefly been pressed against the wall of her room and it had been bigger than she was. The kraken had won, and the blood had turned the water so opaque that she hadn’t been able to see anything for a day. Allegedly at least. The shifty way she had told the story made him think that she was exaggerating, but there was no way to prove it.

Currently, nothing was happening, so he focused on the room itself.

She had chosen a massive floor space that was probably six times the area of his own system room and was noticeably larger than what both Everlyn and Kang had used. It was a curious design and reflected her love of water. A stream flowed from one corner to a large pond that dominated a third of the room. Looking across the stream from where he stood was her working area with screens styled like those in the isolation rooms. That was where she did all her serious planning. The final third, where they had been summoned to, was a small dojo type of arrangement complete with multiple combat dummies.

Finally, he looked at the two girls. Eloise appeared bored, but Briana was studying him like you would an insect you were about to take apart to see how it worked.

Subconsciously, he stepped back.

Her eyes flared. “What’s up Tom. I know it’s something. Usually, you’re a gentleman and let us go first.”

“Nothing.” He protested with his hands rising in the universal human gesture of ‘I’m innocent. Calm down. I don’t want a fight.’

“Bullshit. You were almost skipping.”

“I was not.”

“Maybe, but you were hurrying. I want to know why.”

“It’s nothing.”

She clearly didn’t believe him, and her eyes narrowed. She pointed at his chest. “You’re not planning on trying to run away and doing something crazy when you exit are you. Is that why you were anxious to get in first.”

Understanding flowed through Tom. She had picked up on him hurrying and leapt to the wrong conclusion. “No.”

“Then what?”

“It’s nothing.” But even as he protested, he knew the deflexion was pointless. She wasn’t about to let this go. He sighed. “I got a new skill, and I was eager to test it.”

She clapped in excitement. “Really. What?”

He hesitated a moment with his eyes flicking to the silent Eloise. Showing the ability meant they would never be able to earn it. That was dangerous. He shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t share any details as it’s an earned skill.”

Briana paused. “And you think we might get it?”

Tom shrugged helplessly. Briana almost had no chance. She was practical efficiency and wasn’t taking the risks necessary, but Eloise was a different matter. With how much she showed off and her liberal use of fate for all manner of silly things accidentally getting this was not beyond her. “No, I don’t think you will, but… but you know how it is. There’s always a possibility. So…”

“Wait that’s unfair. You can’t say something like that and not tell us.” Eloise demanded, leaping into the conversation and once again demonstrating her complete lack of common sense or any sort of mind reading capability.

“My lips are sealed.” He teased.

Eloise stamped her foot. The impetuous child had not fully matured out of her. “No. Tom! That’s unfair. At least give us a clue.”

He answered with a perfect back flip and a smirk.

Both their eyes narrowed.

He raised his hands defensively. “It wouldn’t be right to tell you.”

“Tell us.” Eloise insisted dangerously.

“Nope.” With a smile the time ran out, and he returned to the real life. Before another invitation could come through his hand landed on the perfect sphere in front of him.

A moment later, he was in the trial and then cursed as he found himself free falling. His hip hit a branch, causing him to spin. Desperately, he twisted, and the world submitted. His hand lashed out, reaching for the branch he had struck. His arms weren’t long enough, but both his feet conveniently found a small amount of purchase on the air and he kicked out and that slight bit of extra upward motion allowed him to reach the branch. Fateful Earth Body pulsed again and somehow his fingers secured a grip.

His shoulder was almost dislocated by the force of coming to a halt, and there was an ominous crack. The branch he dangled from wasn’t going to last very long. He looked down and spotted a thicker branch two metres below and a meter to the right. Beyond that, there was nothing all the way to the forest floor.

He knew what he had to do to reach it and hoped the wood would endure. Gently, he started swinging.

There was another crack from above him. He had a second at most and he threw everything into his swing and the thin branch creaked alarmingly and he felt it break and come loose but the effort had been enough. He released it and went into a flip. Once more Fateful Earth Body triggered, and he kicked off the air to extend his range and he landed panther like on the branch that he had been aiming for. It was only the thickness of his leg, and it wobbled worryingly, but there was no warning crack.

Breathing heavily more from the effects of the adrenaline boost than physical exertion he took the opportunity to glance around.

He was in a nontraditional forest landscape, perched on the last branch before a fall to the dangerous-looking forest floor forty metres below him. He wiped the sweat from his brow. If he hadn’t caught the branch when he did, he would have fallen all the way and the only reason he had been successful was that Fateful Earth Body had triggered first.

April was playing a dangerous game. Then again, she would have saved him if he had fallen. Probably saved him, he corrected in his mind after a moment’s thought. Sometimes she let him experience the results of his failure as an object lesson.

The branch he had broken with a poof and a spray of bark like leaves landed in the thick ground cover below. It was difficult to see, but it felt like everything, including patches of ground well beyond the impact sight moved in response. He spent a moment longer watching and his mouth went dry. No matter what he did not want to fall. The leaf like cover seemed to go up and down like something massive breathing underneath them.

He forced his eyes away to study the surroundings in more detail.

April had clearly seen his new skill and had put him here to test it. Which was great, but also annoying because this was not an arena that he would have chosen.

The trees were not like earth trees and what he had thought of as branches anatomically probably weren’t. For one, they lacked leaves and their purpose was unclear. They started off at a set thickness and maintained that for their entire length with each branch, at least the unbroken ones, extending for about two-thirds of the ten metres distance that separated each tree. This meant that the centre spaces away from the trees had more branches than the middle areas. At least typically. The specific location April had dropped him was different from elsewhere. It looked like a massive monster had fallen through, shattering most of the supports that should have been there for him.

If you took into account, the broken branches just like on Earth, it would be easier to climb closer to the trunk, but like with the ground there was something about the trunk that worried him. If a tree didn’t have leaves, then how did it create food?

Deliberately, he held still, with his enhanced balance from the new skill making it effortless. Drawing on his decades of experience from the tutorial, he searched for the monsters he knew would be there. He took the time to ensure that there was nothing camouflaged. His next steps were clear in that he needed to climb higher.

The question was how?

Out here, an equal distance from all the trunks, the branches had an uncomfortable interval between them. The fact that contribution came from up to four trees meant it would be more straightforward than the middle areas supported by only one, but close to the trunk would be easiest he decided.

He stepped in that direction.

Danger Sense screamed a warning, and he froze, staring in shock at what looked like a normal tree trunk. It clearly wasn’t. The alarm had been an unavoidable, instant, death kind of threat. The worse type.

Before making a decision Tom knew he needed to gather more information. See if the alert was repeatable or not. Mentally, he went to step forward again, and the skill screamed at him, paralysing his limbs. He tried different ideas, but any of them that had him getting within a metre of the trunk sent his skill haywire. Even going on the offense with his spear was a death sentence.

“Got it.” He muttered. “I have to stay away from the trunks. What else do I need to know?” he asked rhetorically.  

“The quest is to kill fifty Slatflows and they’re immune to electricity,” April’s voice reached him impossibly from every direction.

His head snapped around, searching for her, but of course she was not visible. “What’s a slatflow?”

Amused laughter greeted the question.

Tom sighed and then looked up. He needed to get higher so that if he made a mistake, he couldn’t fall to his death. If the target was fifty kills, it was only a matter of time before he discovered a slatflow. April wasn’t about to volunteer any information and make things less amusing for her.

As he mini jumped from branch to branch, everything felt a little easier than it should of. That was the new acrobatic skill at work, but there was no reason to use fate in order to trigger the second part of the effect.

He moved steadily higher with two tier three knives in his hand. They were gifts for others that he had repurposed from his spatial storage. He carried them because he needed a weapon and a spear would be too cumbersome and impractical in this environment. Their high tier worried him because April would have immediately increased the difficulty in response to his superior equipment and the practical benefit he got from them was far lower than their technical value. Unfortunately, his inventory didn’t have any normal daggers in them.

Climbing with his years of experience was not difficult. Within a minute, he had scrambled up thirty metres and moved away from his dangerous starting location. The density of branches had actually increased, but everything was still a step and a half away, which annoyed him. While there was no danger of falling, he had to move with little hops.

Mid step pain flared through him, causing all of his nerves to scream like he was being burned alive and only his iron will allowed him to keep his footing. Instinctively, he stabilised his physical position, perching on a branch no thicker than an inch across. It both wobbled and bent alarmingly under his weight but despite the fragile look he already knew it was strong enough to support him.

The shock and intensity of the agony meant that it took him over a second to realise what the cause was. It was a soul attack because of course, that’s what the enemy would use. April knew he was trying to evolve his Soul Bulwark, so that was the type of enemies she threw at him.

The pain receded, and as his eyes searched for the culprit, he shivered. That had been intense. It had not been a weak strike. 

Despite his efforts, the only thing he could see were the criss crossing branches.

Another attack hit him from an enemy he could not spot. He winced at how the strike had dug into his soul. He knew staying still while being attacked was suicidal, so he jumped forward with the branch snapping behind him as he did so. Hopefully, if he was moving fast enough, the enemy would make a mistake. It was challenging to watch for an ambushing opponent while doing the equivalent of sprinting through the branches, but he persevered.

Other strikes landed and based on the varying intensity he figured three different enemies were attacking, but he still hadn’t spotted an enemy. It was frustrating because Danger Sense wasn’t triggering. He concluded that by themselves each strike was below the threshold of the ability, or they couldn’t be dodged, so a warning would be pointless.

He started switching up directions and doubling back on his trail at random intervals. The soul damage was building. He felt like screaming in frustration and detected the coppery taste of blood that had clearly run down from his nose into his mouth.

He exploded upwards through three layers and out of the corner of his eye he registered movement and immediately switched his direction. It was using some kind of stealth ability, but now that he had spotted it, the monster couldn’t re-trigger it and it was revealed in full.

The creature was weird. Its furry body was about a metre long, twenty centimetres thick, with no visible front or back. From its top, four monkey tails emerged and then three more out of each side, which bent down kind of like crab legs. The side tails were slightly longer than the ones on the top.

It saw that he had spotted it and immediately tried to flee. Its ability to do so was impressive. It used its tails to wrap around branches and then launch itself forward with all ten appendages working in unison.

His attributes had been boosted since the first attack on him and they had been scaled up by between four and five times. It was not the strongest soul monstrosity she had sent him against and with a rank of twelve to thirteen it was a dangerous opponent even if its relatively low rank meant that the knives he carried would quickly tear it to shreds.

But it was quick with its anatomy, allowing it to use its attributes to their maximum efficiency. Tom burnt a burst that should have made him faster than it, but it only let him match its pace.

He cursed.

If he could get close enough, his knives would slice it into pieces, but with its speed and agility that was not as easy as it sounded.

With a flex of his will, he unleashed the prepared Soul Stun. All he needed was to distract it for a moment, which would allow him to close, but unsurprisingly, given its own soul speciality, its defences absorbed his attack effortlessly. He wouldn’t be shocked if it hadn’t even felt it.

Tom flipped through the trees, drawing on all of his abilities to chase it down, and he was succeeding.

Abruptly, it flung itself downwards. As it fell, aided by gravity, it used every branch it passed to increase its momentum.  

Tom was forced to adjust midleap. Fateful Earth Body bent the physics, and he kicked off the thick air near his foots to mimic its modified trajectory.

As it plunged downwards, it abruptly looped all the tails on one side around a branch. It broke with a large snap and its velocity slowed slightly.

Whooping with delight, he did the same. The branch he sprang off also cracked, but it let him change direction.

Another slash of pain went through him as its soul magic lashed out at him.

Tom’s grin became wider. He was catching it and it was getting desperate.

What he presumed was a slatflow released five fate in response and the tails on the top of its body looped a branch above it to let it shoot upward. The support it had used shattered, and Tom realised it had chosen the location strategically. There was a dearth of branches at a similar height. With a curse, Tom selected a higher one and triggered the barely functional internal mana jumping technique. For once, it executed itself near perfectly, which allowed him to leap well over a metre straight up and his hand snagged the branch he was aiming for. It was an impossible jump, at least for someone with his size and attributes. An Olympic high jumper could have duplicated the feat, but not when they were a short twelve-year-old. None of that mattered. He had been successful. Clear evidence that his hard work was paying off.

The creature might have thought its surprise manoeuvre, and its fate enforced lucky branch break would have lost him, but it failed.

He was laughing in delight. This was so much fun. A playground to use his extra skills.

With a cry, he spotted an opportunity, and he lunged forward. His flashing knife looped off thirty percent of one of its tails. Dark orange, almost red blood dripped from the wound.

A flurry of soul attacks struck him. They were weaker than normal, but there were more of them, and they hit the cracks the earlier blows had caused. He shuddered as they dug in deeper than they should of, but there was no time to hesitate. It was trying to escape and cut in near the trunk.

Danger Sense warned him away, and he went wider, intending to catch it again on the other side. Because he didn’t want to lose sight of it for even an instant in case it used its stealth, he saw the moment the trunk rippled and its ethereal claws lashed out.

There was a spray of orange blood as the slatflow he was pursuing lost half of two more tails. It had made a mistake, and Tom had no doubt that if he had followed it, the tree would have targeted him instead of it. 

Once more, he felt like his opponent reacted to the situation far too intelligently to be a normal monster. Knowing it was injured and so had no chance of avoiding him, it altered its strategy once more. It plunged straight downward, presumably making a run for the dangerous forest floor. As it did so, it used its remaining tails to enhance its falling speed.

With an internal curse, he followed with all of his instincts, screaming this was a trap. Deliberately he didn’t follow directly behind it but moved to be descending parallel with it. They were over a hundred metres above where the branches stopped. They were a long way from the ground, but it was reckless in its efforts to reach it. To keep pace with it, he had to allow himself to free fall. Despite his attempts, the distance between them lengthened, but he was fast enough to stop it from breaking eye contact.

Fate burst out of it, and Tom reacted instantly by attempting to slow down. It was doing the same and as it did, so every branch it used shattered. Luckily, his paranoia meant he was falling off to the side of it, so there were unbroken branches he could use to decelerate. If he had been following directly behind it, he would have fallen to his death. As it was, he was able to bring himself to a stop on the second last branch before the empty space.

The slatflow’s more destructive descent had created a six-metre void that was suspiciously similar to the emptiness that he had been dropped into. They had both, by coincidence came to a halt on the same side and it was mere metres away from him.

Without hesitation, it launched itself into the branch free space.

How? Tom thought having seen enough to know it couldn’t cross that gap. But as it leapt its forward tails dragged a thin layer of skin out of its body it to create a type of sail. Like sugar gliders did on earth it was gliding through the air, which was more than sufficient to cross the gap.

If he went around, it would escape.

Anger flared through Tom. He could feel it build. Unhinged Fury that he couldn’t control.

He focused, knowing that the extra attributes would let him leap across the distance and then he could close to it and rip it apart with his bare hands. Two daggers fell from his hands towards the mock leaves below.

Danger Sense screamed a warning.

He ignored it.

Making a kill, destroying it, was the only thing that mattered. 

He crouched and pumped extra mana into his internal mana manipulation technique, and then he leapt.

The mana failed to integrate correctly.

Muscles tore all the way to the bone. But that wasn’t the real problem. The issue was that there was no power in his leap.

Anger flared.

His prey was going to escape.

It was intolerable.

He was plunging toward the ground, and probable death, but Tom found he didn’t care. With pure white hatred, he watched the escaping monster. If looks could kill, its entire bloodline would have been wiped out. Below him, the leaves moved as something anticipated his fall, a whirling motion that made the entire surface look liquid.

A mouth opened that was three times larger than him. The fury in him wondered if he could use it to launch himself back up to the trees to kill the escaping enemy. There were thousands of teeth. He tried to step on air to propel him to the edge. The effort worked the air was briefly as hard as rock, but then the monster adjusted.

It snapped shut.

The world blinked.

The anger fled like a horse startled by a lion, and two daggers fell on the table in front of him.

He was in the café.

April was opposite him and doubled over laughing. “That was so funny. I can’t believe that happened. One, you didn’t even kill one.”

Tom sat there, contemplating the encounter. Triggering MAKROS fury didn’t worry him. It was safe to do so here, but unfortunately the benefits wouldn’t extend to the real world, but it would protect him for the rest of the session. Instead, he focused on the whole experience, the climbing and chasing the monster that had been perfect to test the extent of his new skill. He could remember exactly what he had done at the end, how the air had felt like rock. He looked April straight in the eyes. “Please send me back. That was awesome. I want to keep going.”

“Fine.” She waved her hand. Once more, he was in the trees and this time he would be more careful.

“Remember the target is fifty.”

Tom nodded. Fifty was good. It would give time to test his ability to the fullest.

AG. Sorry about stopping writing so abruptly. My wife got a bad MRI result... We thought it meant she had MS, she didn't but for over a day we beleived that and it kind of shook my already delicate mental health.

I've also decided that I need to get more finished words out per hour as I have too many stories I want to write. During the last six months, of, I guess you can call it depression, I've scoped out three fascinating stories and systems that I want to at some point create. Add that too my two unfinished series under Alex Kozlowski and two stories I planned out last year its clear I need to get faster.

At this point I'm not changing any of my writing steps but I'm not going to be producing an audio file as that process probably takes an extra hour relative to doing the same step in word.

I'm also having issues with annual memberships not extending with the pauses. Everyone one should have got an extra three months. If this hasn't happened then contact me and I'll find a work around. I've raised it with patreon support and got a response but that only happened yesterday.