Careful Not To Break Reality

Everything. Is. Out. Of. Whack.

When Rydel woke from his recovery sleep, he felt like his body and soul have been cut apart by a mystical knife, and there is a layer of mist in between his conscious thought and actions. To his surprise, hours after he woke up and lied in bed contemplating about why he has ended in such a situation in life, Valerie came to visit him.

Rydel couldn't physically get up to open the door for her, though he could voice the command for the door to unlock, and Valerie as someone who has been through the fire knew exactly what Rydel is going through.

Over the past week or so, the two have gotten into a rather intimate relationship, and Valerie turns out to be an extremely caring person, despite the cold impressions it first gave off.

She leaned against the door after seeing Rydel lying in the bed struggling to turn his head and look at her and chuckled out loud.

'Will you leave the laughing until aft...aftoooor, the door is shut?' Rydel suddenly realized that his voice is also slurring, but he stopped keeping track of things that felt wrong in his body.

'How are you feeling?' Valerie slid the door shut behind her and asked. It is the afternoon the day after his operation, and the accommodation is mostly empty as the other recruits are busying having their second block of training for the day.

'Horrible.' Rydel admitted, 'I knew...it bad, but not this bad.....' He tried to raise his right hand, but the anterior deltoid muscles first refused to move, and then overshoots when Rydel increased the amount of neural drive into that part of the body, shooting the hand around and smacking it against the wall. Then pain came feeding back to his body half a second later, 'things are too slow, and then too fast...my nervous system is overcompensating, and also lagging.'

'Well, at least you know exactly what the problem is.' Valerie said as she came and sat at the bedside, though she made sure to keep out of Rydel's reach so she won't accidentally get smacked in the face, 'fine motor control would be hard, as your brain needs time to reestablish a mind muscle connection. But your bones, tendons and ligaments have become more durable and stronger, and there are more structural protection around your key vital organs and other places. There is a thin layer of carbon fiber around most of your body, so your skin would be very hard to cut, though trauma will still damage you....'

'Everything sounds good down the line.' Rydel knew that the physiological enhancements will undoubtedly set people back initially like most training programs, though it raises the ceiling for ultimate human performance by a rather large margin, and all he needed to do now is to do what he has been doing so well in the past little while and fill in all the gaps. At the end of the process, he would become a much more formidable fighter.

The mental edge the enhancements gave Rydel has already been kicking in, and Rydel's thought felt incredibly clear and concise, despite what his body is telling him, and Valerie caught onto that too.

'It seemed like your head isn't affected as much.' She commented and sat closer to Rydel, rubbing shoulder to shoulder, 'if you are done, then let's set up a plan of attack for the next few weeks.'

'Agreed....ah f.u.c.k me!' Rydel tried to nod, but instead his neck cramped hard, pinning him in an awkward and painful position.

'What?' Valerie looked at Rydel all shocked with her eye brows raised, 'that sounds like a bad idea, you know?'

'not even close to what I meant...Plan of attack?'

'Yeah, right.' Valerie continued on as she activated the projector in her personal interface, 'Three to a week to regain basic motor control, establish mind muscle connections, another week to fine tune the motions and include more specific movements, and another to bring your actual combat and skill based abilities near your maximal level. Simple stuff.'

'That sounded ridiculously simple, and way too quick.' Rydel can't help but doubt the amount of progress he would be able to make. As someone who has been on the journey of training and improving way before even hearing about the existence of Absolute Being, all of these changes simply sounded way too rapid to be possible. As far as Rydel knew, adaptation and change takes time to settle in, and the plan Valerie offer sounded like something out of a fairy tale.

'You would be surprised.' Valerie explained, fully expecting Rydel to question her approach, 'your body is modified in such a way so that you will adapt and learn much much quicker than before. There are drawbacks obviously, but not something that can't be managed and overloaded. The general program offer by the organization takes something about five to six weeks, but I am fairly certain you can get it done in nearly half the time.'

'Well, I certainly thank you for the vote of confidence.' Rydel sighed, hoping Valerie knew what she is doing.

'If it goes really badly, we can still fall back to the basic program, no biggie.' Valerie smiled as she padded Rydel's c.h.e.s.t as a sigh of encouragement, 'There are ration packs and nutrition fluids to keep you going for now, and once you can move about no problem, go get some food. When I can freely move about, the first place I went was the dining hall...'

And it was true. Valerie left not long after pointing Rydel to the box sat near his bed. In another few hours, Rydel has finally carefully sat himself up without any excessive movements, and shifted his body weight onto his foot. Things felt light, but not in good way, as the lack of resistance he is feeling simply made controlling his movements extremely difficult, and mentally demanding. But he did it nonetheless. All of the time he spent trying to control his artifact certain helped, and he was able to get to the box full of ration packs and nutrition fluids no problem.

And he absolutely devoured those like a hoover going through a dusty carpet, picking away every little thing within the box and stuffing it down the shoot.

Rydel felt just fine before anything was in his stomach, like that feeling after a long fast. But once the first pot of ration went through, it tore open a gaping hole within his stomach and Rydel just doesn't want to stop until it was filled, which is why he went straight to the dining hall after. As he devours plates after plates of food, he opened the email which contained a whole list of probably symptoms right after the physiological enhancement procedure, and one of the most common changes would be a drastic increase in rate of metabolism.

Makes total sense. If he is to be performing at a higher level, then he would require more fuel to sustain his efforts.

To Rydel's surprise, some of the fine motor skills returned rather quickly, and at least he can eat like a normal person with a knife and fork, though when he got a bit ambitious and got his hands on a pair of chopsticks, a grain of rice ended on another person's forehead.

Not everything is back, Rydel noted as he endured the glare from his victim.

Over the next few days, Valerie has spent a few hours a day to help with Rydel's recovery process, and he was making steady strides through a combination of diligent hard work and constant visualization when he was resting, and everything was on schedule as far as performance goes. The things he has been doing for years and years like walking and general movements are the first things to return, and then typing, writing and some finer upper body movements became manageable as long as he put his mind to it. He haven't touched a single vehicle just yet, knowing that his clumsy feet alone will probably crash any vehicle he get his hands on.

Then, Rydel moved on to general exercising and doing some light slow combat training. This is when the positive effects of the enhancements really begin to show, as he easily shattered his previous strength and power lift records despite the lack of coordination and timing. He was also less affected by taking hits from Valerie's normal strikes and attacks and even those from smaller weapons, and cuts and shear simply gives him an unpleasant feel on the skin. During those sessions, Valerie acted as Rydel's sparring partner, both helping him to find his bearings in the art of hand to hand combat as well as practicing against someone that's now quite a bit stronger.

Though the two have not talked about fighting Gold, it's something both of them thought about in their own time.

'If the thin layer of carbon fiber can prevent the cuts, how did Gold still managed to...' one when Rydel and Valerie laid in bed next to each other and he was holding her in his arms, Rydel couldn't help but asked the question bugging him for a little while.

'It's good, but not that good.' Valerie answered without much thought, a sign that she has been thinking about this issue over and over, 'Gold was enhanced through nanotech drones, and that's yet another step up in terms of power. In a way, that's the whole point of this organization. You will always have some way to improve and get better, and the moment you stop improving is the moment you get left behind.'

That sounded like a personal lesson Valerie has learned, and something she doesn't want to happen again. Rydel thought that to himself as he leaned in and smelled the aroma from her hair before giving her a kiss at the back of her neck. It was probably how she got the injury in the first place. The rush of power and constant linear improvements coming from the enhancements can very easily give some a false sense of belief about one's power levels.

'I will make sure you are constantly progressing.' Rydel promised.

'I know...' Valerie smiled as she c.a.r.e.s.sed Rydel's hands back and forth, 'you are doing well, and I feel like together, we can do it.'

The next day, Rydel had an idea.

It all stemmed from the fact that he almost realized the layer of thin liquid metal that covered his left hand has some sort of a protection effect on his left hand against physical damage, though he has never tested the true extent of its power.

He has snapped blades simply by stuffing his palm into it, and he didn't feel anything more than a gentle poke, so what if he turned this defensive mechanism into a weapon?

Valerie demonstrated the increased durability of her wrist and overall strength by easily punching through layers of a manufactured concrete matrix, and then through a rock. All that's left is some dust on her knuckles. Something that take natural martial art masters years to accomplish, done by someone who went through the enhancement procedure a few months back.

Rydel gave it a crack too, though this time he tried with his left hand. A few layers of concrete was broken away surprisingly easy without much sensation and feed back into his hands, though he can still feel the accute sensations when gently running fingers through his palm. Perhaps there is a sort of filtering mechanism embedded into the programming of the glove that prevents incredibly large forces from going through into the body while still allowing the rest of the pressure signals to go through.

Valerie lined up more blocks of concrete and stacked it vertically before clamping them together. Rydel took his stance, keeping his left hand and core coiled up before releasing all that stored power in a lightning fast strike!

The glove crushed through layers of concrete, compressing it and then ejecting it through the visible cracks created by this strike.

Rydel felt completely fine, and all of his fingers still work incredibly well individually, and nothing hurts in his body.

'Right, an augmentation for spiritual reasons.' Valerie had her eyebrows raised by what Rydel could do with a single swing.

'Yeah.....you know mind set changes performances and all that.....' Knowing that Valerie suspected something is up, Rydel still decided to keep up this lie, as this is not the time to reveal the truth about his glove to her. Maybe there will never be such a time to do so. Rydel isn't so sure.

But at least it seems like his glove is more than a decoration, but it could also be used as a formidable weapon. By combining his increased strength and protections from the physiological enhancements with the near invincibility of his wrist granted by the glove itself, one of his punches carries what felt like the power of a cannonball ramming into someone.

They didn't try anymore with the actual materials, but instead moved into the simulated combat room with force measurement blobs. They are a somewhat soft material that will deform according to the amount of force applied to it. From the onset it just looks like a viscous semi-transparent blob, though it will give incredibly accurate force and energy measurements of the strikes and kicks.

Similarly to before, Valerie set the blob up, and let Rydel take his best shot. Like before, Rydel stood in a split stance, coiled and released all the energy he could master through the feet, knees, hip, trunk and the shoulder. The glove went straight through the material, and ended up creating a cylinder in which Rydel's entire arm went in.

'Did I just...'

'Punch through the measurement device? Yes.' Valerie shrugged, and released the shape of the blob, allowing to flow around Rydel's arm and collapsed back down to the pool of blob.

'Well, at least now we know it's strong.' Rydel said with nervous optimism, 'right? Should be fine with any of the skill based tasks.'

'Should be fine...' Valerie said, as she gestured for Rydel to follow her out of the room, 'You are doing great, and I think it's time we look into the test of Skills now.'

'I am ready.' Rydel said as he jogged a few step to walk alongside Valerie, 'so where should we go?'

'Away from here.' Valerie explained, 'get packed up, we leave the planet in half an hour.'

After Rydel quickly packed away everything he could possibly need for a five day journey, he then met with Valerie near the main teaching building for the signing off and registration of the test of skill. Though he spent all that time on the first day going through the induction of the campus, he has rarely used the resource here apart from the classroom uses, and even then he simply just show up, learn and leave. Edward Silver enjoyed using the laboratories in particular, so that's where he spends most of his time, but ever since the enhancement procedure a few weeks ago, he seldomly met with the group of recruits he started the program with.

He has to be going up and he wants to. The rest are happy progressing at their own pace, and Rydel really believe there is nothing inherently wrong with that either.

In a way, he is incredibly appreciative of how pushy Valerie can be at times, as her own sense of urgency acts as a wake up call for Rydel to stop messing around, and get to the thing he came here in the first place for.

As Valerie did all the explanation and test application with the artificial intelligence that manages the entire campus, Rydel simply stood at the back and reflected upon his experience here. He has learnt a lot, and progressed a lot, but really he just got to see another side of Absolute Being.

Nothing else have really changed. All of the previous actions taken by the higher echelon's of the organization, including the kidnap of his mentor and friend Dolon are still vividly in his mind, and still something he thought about. Maybe there is something Cellica could do through legal means, maybe there isn't. But Rydel is here, and he is determined to get Dolon back.

As Valerie came back out with the transport tickets towards the region capital of the Grey Wolf's territory, Rydel went ahead and waited for an update from her, eager to move onto the next step of his journey.

'All sorted.' She said, 'the next transport leaves in an hour. In a day, we will be on the capital planet of the central system within the wild regions, the city planet of Wolfana.'

'Exciting.' Rydel said, he haven't been on a city planet in a very long time, as someone who grew up in one of the more normal and less populated settled planets, he simply cannot fathom the idea of a planet's surface being fully covered by metal and concrete while resources are pumped in and wastes pumped out constantly to ensure the basic survival of people on it.

When he was small, he wondered how people could sleep through the noise made by an entire living planet, but now equipped with all of the knowledge he has, he just wondered about the actual logistics of it all and how everything fits togethe, especially for one that's located in the wild regions.