Chapter 19: A Lot to Process

Chapter 19: A Lot to Process

Focusing on the tamed spiders, I direct all of them to follow her orders as if they were mine own and to have at least the same level of dedication to her.

Automatically, I feel a shift in the relationship. While they still are completely under my control, I can feel their previous connection to Gong, turn rock solid. Instead of a boss-employee relationship with her, their allegiance feels like a fanatic army for her use at this point.

Gong also feels the shift as she gasps. Did you? No, that cant be You made them completely loyal to me! She seems a bit too excited.

She pants.

Can spiders even pant?! Also, is that drool?

Licking her lips thirstily, she gulps and follows up with a question, S-so, does this mean I have sole control of them?

I immediately retort against that, Definitely, no.

She immediately pouts, but then regains her happiness soon after, while a mysterious smirk and upturned eyes shine at me. Well thats not bad in its own way

Ignoring that previous comment, I think this will be a big value add for our little group. Well, I guess a sizeable group now. God, I hope this was the right idea to give the crazy spider lady a spider army.

As I internally ponder whether this was actually a good idea, Gong turns somewhat serious.

Hey. I know you wanted time to work on figuring out your abilities. Im pretty set over here. When we meet back up as a group, Ill let you know how we can use this to our advantage. Ive been thinking of something like this for a long time, but I never imagined having this much control.

Before I can say anything in response, she lowers her hand to my chin, in a quick, but soft move. She tilts my chin up to look at her, as she moves her face closer to mine.

o-oh.

My, my. You just keep helping me with things, dont you? Ill repay you for this someday good luck on your side, Ill make sure it was more than worth it to do this for me!

My mouth hangs open as she releases my chin with a sly grin. Turning away to the opposite direction. I can see the hint of reddened ears, as she turns (with my scan).

With that parting statement, she rushes down into the tunnels. I can practically feel the air shift, as the many many spiders flood down behind her. Even the big ones squeeze past me to follow.

Thats not the scariest part though The scariest thing about these tunnels is the fact that even with all these spiders, there are still deeper tunnels below, that they werent living in. What lurks in those dark places?

Moving on from that disturbing thought, I head back to the room.

Gong must have forgotten in her excitement, but there are ton of passageways I could get lost in. If I didnt have my scanning ability, theres a chance I could have gotten lost in here. Especially, since there isnt that much lighting this deep in the ground.

Note to self: Be careful when Gong gets excited about her favorite things. She forgets about other important aspects for surrounding people.

Though honestly, who doesnt go through the same thing?

After my journey with Gong and my return to her room, I pace around the edges of the giant webbed bed for a bit.

First things first, what the hell is going on with my large mana count? It feels like it has ballooned up so quickly!

After pacing around the room and running numbers, it becomes apparent. Every time one of my skills levels up, my mana amount doubles. When I query for a formula, to make it easier it is: [10 x 2x], where x = (Combined Skill Levels 2). In this case, 14.

Thats absurd. I run the numbers again. And again, and again.

Isnt this too crazy? This is more than enough for what I need it for. Honestly, with this kind of growth, do I even need to train it?

Adding to that, further scanning reveals that my mana regeneration is percentage/time based. It also seems to run off a formula connected to my skill levels: Mana Regeneration to 100% from 0% = (300 seconds [5 mins] x (Combined Skill Level -2))

it seems to be (300 x 14) = 4200seconds [70mins].

That means every 42 seconds, Ive recovered 1% of my mana which is almost 34 mana per second. Based on what Ive seen I could passively heal a ton of people, without putting a dent in my regeneration.

The taming maintenance fee seems to be a bit of a counterweight to that, though. It permanently takes away mana from my pool of sorts.

Even with that, I could have a vast army of creatures and also still be able to have a ton of mana left to use!

Its probably best I focus on the here and now, and how I can improve what is available to me. Ive never been a theory crafter, but I can at least come up with some ideas.

With that in mind, I turn to my other abilities.

I need to get my low concentration/effort scanning to always be on. Using it as a pulse isnt enough. Unless I recognize Im in danger, it will be useless.

I turn my focus back to my bodies state. I didnt notice it, but I am exhausted. Mentally and physically. The healing constitution helps me to recover, but this seems to be a different form of training. I think I need to learn this, rather than exercise it.

It definitely will still take some time to train my body in, based on what Ive seen, but this awareness ability will definitely be a cheat in its own right.

Ill use my scanning ability to support my learning of it, more than support the ability itself. That way it will be like having a teacher that can see every muscle, thought process, and even cell. If Im able to master the awareness ability, Ill be able to autopilot the passive scanning radius. Combined with my scanning ability, it actually will give me a true 360 spatial awareness, even while sleeping. The while sleeping part, is the most important aspect.

My ultimate goal for this scanning ability was to make it as intuitive as possible.

If I continue to use it in this manner, I believe that might not be a pipe dream. Considering how it works, I could even imagine my shadow ability turning into something that could allow me to dodge arrows or attacks without seeing them. I dont even want to imagine what will happen when I get access to an actual spiritual sense.

Quite exciting.

While I think of all this, though, one of the beetles had landed on my shoulder to rest for a bit.

I totally didnt notice it. Totally cute. Frightening how open I was.

I definitely need some work.

Moving on to my personal healing, I need to figure out the extent to which my abilities can heal.

Since Im not one for hurting myself, this is one that I must use my detailed scanning ability to determine the information. I cant risk working off of guestimates when Im bleeding on the ground, dying.

This is a desperately important question. With my beetle buddy on my shoulder, I look down at a scanning sheet for the specifics. I unconsciously ask it to move a bit.

It basically lists that I can instantly heal one-hit KO, fatal obliteration wounds.

As my jaw drops open, I then see the mana cost, which actually causes me to fall to the ground.

Beetle buddy leaves me. Traitor. I believed in you.

Oh wait, I had sent him away.

As I look into the ability a little further, by tying this healing to my healing constitution, I can make it an instant heal for myself. It is still a high cost, far beyond my current mana count. In the millions of mana. What is interesting is that I can do lesser versions of it. It appears the closer to death I am, the higher the cost is. Spread out the time to heal, lessens the cost significantly.

If the instant heal is the heal back to perfection instantly from death, with optimization, the lesser version is an instant version of coming back from a lethal wound.

I do find out that I can have this automatically paired with my healing constitution, as a reactive ability. Obviously, only once I can actually come close to actually paying the cost. From what I can tell, the healing constitution plays a huge part to making this work. However, there appears to be a large maintenance cost to keep the reactive healing active, even for normal injuries. Overall, Im not able to afford the cost at this time.

However, a thought sobers me. No matter how high my mana is, whether I can heal instantly, or even how fast my regeneration is, if I cant use it right Ill die like anyone else.

I can feel it. Even at my strongest with this ability, I might survive a lethal blow, but there will be a time when I can no longer come back if I rely on it too much.

Not only that, but as I query the ability further using my scan, I can see that the ability still has limitations though I cant see them.

Literally.

It wont let me view it, even with my high-powered version. Almost as if it isnt allowed. Not yet.

Its easy to forget, but these powers didnt come from me. I was given them. Something is telling me to not probe any deeper. Im not one to test those kinds of limits.

This is pretty exciting, though!

With this, I could take an assassins blade to the neck and still survive. Considering how my healing works, I might also have to train regularly. Honestly, this ability is absolutely absurd, though.

Not even thinking about the full heal, since the healing optimizes the body after injuries or conditions, each muscle tear in a workout will build it stronger immediately. Ill try every exercise I know!

Feeling pretty proud of myself, I lay back in the webbed bed. Before I feel myself drift off to sleep, I work on my awareness technique and activate my autoscan ability.

I lie awake, unable to sleep.

Dont think about those limitations. Dont think about those limitations. Don Dang it!

ang it!