Chapter 8: A change of heart, A new kind of talent

Edwin slowly controlled his breathing, he easily controlled the energy, it slowly traveled around his body, dissolving into his muscles.

It was much easier than before he fell asleep. He couldn't help but compare the outcomes to being a new novice golfer who had never swung a golf club before, taking a nap, and then waking up as a pro golfer.

Edwin felt moving the energy was almost second nature. As if he had been doing it his whole life. Just like a race car driver in a formula one car, Edwin couldn't help but let himself go, he began to push himself to new limits.

The energy got faster and faster, from the original month to complete a full rotation, to a day, and now the energy was able to completely move around his body in just a couple minutes. It still wasn't enough for Edwin. He knew he could go much faster yet.

As he forced the energy through his body, he slowly began to picture it as a train, overtime it received upgrades from steam, to gas, from gas to diesel, eventually becoming a maglev train. The energies speed skyrocketed, rotating through his body in just a second.

An audible whooshing sound could be heard coming from Edwins body. Edwin almost felt like he could sense the energy from his surroundings collapsing in on him. Only for a second Edwin seemed to enter a magical state, on the cusp of absorbing energy from his surrounding to improve himself just like other awakened.

The state was broken swiftly though, the energy in his body was clearly a bullet at the end of its flight, it got smaller and smaller as it slowly dispersed into his body.

Edwin could tell he was stronger, but he was unable to tell how much so. He gently opened his eyes and took a deep breath and exhaled.

'I should exercise to get a good feel of my increased strength.'

Just as Edwin hopped off of the bed the door to his room was flung open. A young women stormed into his room. She said nothing as she lifted a device that looked similar to a gun to Edwins's head.

Edwin felt a cold chill shoot up his back, but before he could say anything or react the woman had pulled the trigger. Then nothing.

'...'

Edwin thought he was a goner for sure luckily it was just a scare instead. The woman looked at the device in front of her as it beeped. Her face contorted into a frown then confusion as she lifted the device to Edwin's head again.

"What the hell, It's really empty? I must let the commander know immediately."

She stormed out of the room as quickly as she had come in. Edwin was left in a state of confusion but put it aside, it didn't seem like it was his place to understand the situation, he was nothing but a guinea pig here.

He quickly hopped into his exercise, he was amazed at the feeling, his strength had improved significantly. Even though Edwin seemed to have limitless energy before, he could feel that each task was easier to perform than before.

Just as he was about to sit down after his short test to meditate in hopes to sense the energy in the area around him the door burst open.

The old man bore holes into Edwin, his burning gaze seemed like Edwin was being cast into a lake of fire.

Before he knew it the old man grabbed Edwin's shoulder, only for the scenery to change.

He stood in the center of a desert the sun bearing down on him, the wind and sand buffeted his body.

The old man gave Edwin a small tablet.

"Quickly learn the information on the tablet, you have 5 minutes, afterwards demonstrate your understanding. Your life depends on this, if you perform well, I'll save your life, mediocre, you'll live but it's not much better than being dead with what I'd have to do to you, poorly, and I'll spare you the life of dreaming but never being able to achieve, I'll finish you here."

Even though the surroundings were unbearably hot Edwin could feel his body cool down under the old man's chilling gaze.

Edwin quickly sat down and held the tablet against his head. He had a slight headache as new information quickly flowed into his mind. It only lasted for a couple seconds as all the Information was transferred.

He quickly began to digest the information. Luckily, he had done this before, with far more information, about a week ago when he first came to this world, he had to assimilate a whole life's worth of information from his host's body, so he was well practiced.

Edwin very quickly understood everything, and the current situation. It was the information all of the graduates received after their ability test. A method to exercise the body as well as information on how to meditate and find the energy in the

'He is testing my talent for absorbing energy the more I absorb the better, I'm sure. By slowly shaking until I can match the frequency of any of the objects around me, I can expel all of my energy quickly.'

Edwin tried to shake himself starting with the muscles around his spine, the only thing Edwin had done that was similar to this was shivering in the cold in his past life. The muscles in his body got warmer as they burned the energy in his body, as he got more and more comfortable with the technique, he began to shake a little faster.

The old man was slightly surprised when he felt the changes happening in Edwin.

'It's only been 19 seconds and this young lad has already understood what he needs to do to enter the optimum state for meditation. Maybe it's not quite comparable to those who've awakened abilities that increase their processing power, but it's terrifying compared to those with abilities not related to brain power, let alone the fact he has no ability.'

Edwin was trying to match the frequency of the air around him. he knew that the energy would be expelled quickest through the air. Sadly, the constantly changing wind and it swept up interfered with his plan, so he had to settle for the sand he was sitting on since it was still.

As his body began to shake faster and faster, he could feel warmth leaving his body and moving into the sand. He was burning up due to moving in such a hot environment, the old man clearly pulled him to somewhere in the wilderness of Epsil.

Eventually Edwin felt he was completely drained. He then began the next step. To first sense the energy within the surroundings he must sense it internally.

Edwin took a deep breath and focused completely on the air filling his lungs, he could sense it. Ever so slightly he could tell there was a transfer of energy occurring within his lungs.

After he breathed the energy would enter his bloodstream and be transferred around his body, just like oxygen. When he exhaled, he slowly followed the waste energy his body failed to assimilate out into the air.

He could almost picture it in his head, he was sitting among stars, trillions of microscopic lights floated around him in the desert, flying into the distance with the wind.

He reached with his consciousness and imagined it was a hand as he grabbed one of the particles in the air and slowly brought it towards his body.

'This is so inefficient, who would imagine absorbing energy this way. We live in a world of technology, but they think we should imagine ourselves doing hard manual labor. it's just like picking fruit, nobody does that by hand anymore.'

The old man was baffled. The young man before him began absorbing energy in less that 45 seconds, he'd never seen anyone develop their energy absorption ability this fast.

Edwin began to change his point of view after grabbing a few more pieces of energy. Everything that had mass had gravity. He couldn't be sure if that pertained to energy, but he knew some types appeared to be particles, like photons in light.

All the energy around him appeared as particles which gave him a new idea, he slowly looked into his body and found the energy he'd absorbed, it was distributed through his body anywhere at any given moment.

He slowly tried to control the energy like he did in the room.

Edwin could tell this energy was different than the energy he tried to control earlier.

Slowly he collected all the different particles, sticking them together forming one very large particle, he slowly began to make the particle spin in the center of his body.

As the energy in the surroundings flew by some particles that got really close to his body were sucked in, slowly adding to the collection of particles in the center of his body.

Edwin smiled to himself.

'This is way more effective, surely, I'm not the first person to think of this. If I am, the so-called geniuses of this era should just throw themselves into a wall and die.'

As the mass in the center of his body got larger and large it absorbed all the energy that flew by in a 4-meter radius, He felt that he was having a hard time controlling the mass.

As it got larger and larger nearing the size of his fist, Edwin could feel himself bloating up. He began to worry, he tried to stop the mass, but it quickly grew out of control.

Edwin was freaking out internally despite his calm meditative expression he showed on his face. He was about to pop like a balloon. Edwin quickly tried to think of a way to limit the energy or get rid of it.

He tried shaking again but found it didn't expel the energy he absorbed. Panicking he began to control the energy that was being sucked into his body to rotate through it.

Edwin could feel the small particles quickly dissolve and dissipating as they nourished his muscles.

Soon a river flowed in his body, looking somewhat similar to another planet famous for its massive satellite rings in his past life.

Slowly all the energy in his body was being absorbed and the mass in the center began to shrink visibly. After a while the energy in his body was completely absorbed.

Edwin opened his eyes and looked down only to smell something horrible enter his nose a sticky black substance covered his body as he attempted to stop himself from vomiting.

Seeing Edwin's current situation, the old man could help but let out a boisterous laugh.

"Aw young man, you are a genius! This black stuff is the impurities your body expels after you've doubled your original strength for the first time."

"You are definitely worth the risk and effort to help young man. You've bought me over with your talent. It's definitely a new kind I've never seen before."

The old man couldn't help but imagine how terrifying Edwin would become in a short few years had he awakened an ability. Even if it was trash, with his ability to absorb energy in such massive amounts in a short time he'd be able to make it into gold.

"Quite lucky, if you hadn't displayed such ability, I'd have either killed you or made you infertile. The Human federation is quite worried about you polluting the gene pool and making more abilities people. I've had a change of heart though, so I just need you to work with me Edwin."

Before Edwin could even respond to the old man, he saw a blur move towards him as the old man grabbed his neck.

Edwin struggled but compared to the old man he wasn't even able to put up and resistance. He was like an ant in front of a tank.

'I thought he said he had a change of heart, what is he doing now then?!'

The old man squeezed Edwin neck harder so he couldn't breathe.

"Shh, shh, calm down young man, it's only horrible for a second."

Slowly Edwin's world turned black and the sound of the wind and feeling of the sand it blew hitting him faded away to nothing.