Chapter 15) Progress

I just barely made it back to my room before the exhaustion pulled me into a deep sleep. I ended up sleeping for well over twelve hours before Tricia knocked on my door. I groggily got up and opened the door.

"What do you want, do you know what time it is?"

She only scowled and and graced me with a cold smile.

"Do YOU know what time it is? It's already 3pm! Breakfast and lunch time have already come and past! I came to see if you were awake and just neglecting us or if you were hurt or something. Clearly my worry was pointless cause you still have drool on your face. Jeez, when did you go to sleep?"

With her scolding I finally focused in on my clock, and like she said, It was already the afternoon. 'Damn, I hadn't realized how late I got back in last night.' With a heavy sigh and a promise that I'd come downstairs in a few minutes, I got myself into the shower,, washing off last nights grime. As I had a deep conversation with myself in the shower, I stumbled across a stray thought, that didn't have any prompt for appearing. 'If a path going left, right, left is going to have the same general path as right, left, right, then it's stupid to think right, right, left, is completely different from left, left, right, because at the end of the day, one set only needs a change of perspective, while the second set is a mirrored path of the previous one, right?'

That thought raged in my head for longer than I'm willing to admit, and even after drying off, I only put on some underwear and shorts before making my way downstairs. As I made it to the kitchen I caught sight of Tricia baby talking to Kuma, while he gnawed on her hand playfully. 'Well someone is being a spoiled brat.' As I walked over, I made her aware of my presence by clearing my throat, smirking devilishly. As she jumped up, she immediately became aware that I was walking around shirtless.

'Did a demigod drop down to Earth? Why are his abs so unbelievably defined? Is this a flex? God he looks like a master sculptor carved his body out of the purist marble on the planet. I'm living with this work of art? Oh god I'm living with art incarnate over here.'

I stood there wondering why she was drooling a bit while looking at me. I looked down and only saw what I always see in the mirror. I regularly workout, and don't have any specific diet I hold to, as my whole idea is to match my workout routine to my diet, not the other way around. After a few years of doing that, I guess I could admit my core is well defined for my age, and the rest of my body had a solid build. No flab anywhere, just pure, unadulterated, sheer development. I walked closer to her and waved my hand over her face.

"Hello? Anyone in there? If you take a picture it'd last longer than staring like this."

She seemed to return from wherever it was that she was at, and noticed how close I had gotten. With a squeak and a jump back, she blushed furiously before running away in a panic. 'My breath doesn't smell that bad right? I brushed my teeth and everything.' I called out to Nick to see where he was with no response. After grabbing some stuff to make some breakfast bagels, I immediately got to work. 'This is nice I suppose. I usually don't have anyone in the house besides mom and dad, so this is a pleasant change.'

While humming a little tune, I grabbed my phone and started playing some music to fill the silence. Time passed and soon the breakfast bagels were ready. I hadn't even turned around before Nick was reaching towards the plate for a bagel.

"How is it that you can appear instantaneously whenever food is ready?"

He gave me nasty look at that.

"Oh I'm the bad guy when I do this? Mister black hole over here? Oh please, I've seen vacuums inhale dirt less effectively than you do to food. Where does all the carbs and fat go? NO WHERE! Black hole confirmed, now give me my bagel!"

I could only stare daggers at his head as he snickered and skipped away, bagel in hand.

"Get Tricia while you're frolicking! She disappeared a few minutes ago and hasn't shown back up around here since!

He shouted back an 'ok' before continuing to happily frolic around. I could only leave my own bagel on the plate while I waited for her to arrive. I started to pull some energy out of the ring, and with a little wisp, I made it twirl around like a little flying snake between my fingers. I was having fun twirling it around when I heard footsteps behind me. With a flick it disappeared, and as I turned around I saw Tricia very pensively staring at me again. It seemed this time she had something to say however.

"Why haven't you eaten yet? I thought you would have been done by the time I got down here."

I shook my head helplessly.

"That's an easy one to answer. I don't start eating until everyone else has had their first bite of the food. I make sure to be the last one to eat so I know everyone had something."

Her eyes softened a bit as she went to grab her bagel. 'Why is he so caring of everyone, even at the cost of himself? Would he not eat altogether if no food was left for him?' These thoughts swirled in her head before she took her first bite. As I was about to grab my own bagel I watched her freeze.

"You good Trish?"

She shuddered until she whipped her head up dramatically.

"Why is it everything you make tastes a thousand times better than anything I've ever had?! It makes no sense!"

I started smiling, quite pleased with her over the top exclamations. 'Of course things will taste better if you have better resources at your disposal. I'm a decent chef already, but giving me top of the line ingredients makes it seem as though I'm challenging the Gods' palette.'

With one of, if not the, most narcissistic thoughts to ever cross my mind, I found Nick being suffocated by Luna.

"Nick, did you tease Luna with your bagel, or did she do this unprovoked?"

He looked up with a single tear rolling down his face.

"I was happily enjoying my bagel when she pounced on me out of nowhere. After she had my arms trapped, she ate the rest of my bagel right in front me. She had a look on her face that could only suggest that she plans on continuing this behavior! This is unfair! My bagel was innocent! I demand justice."

His yelling seemed to be music to Luna's ears though, as she lazily scratched her ear, laying down completely on poor Nick.

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I stared at my two bestfriends, one clearly having more fun in this than the other. I had a rueful smile sitting on my face, as I squat down to meet Luna's line of sight. 'I wonder if this will work.' I had the energy from the ring seep into my body and carefully, I circulated it within my brain and eyes. After making sure nothing wrong was coming of my meddling with my own eyes, I imagined propelling my thoughts directly into Luna's mind.

'Luna it's me. If you hear my voice in your mind, I wish for you to release Nick from your grasp. Get up now if this is all understood.'

Shockingly, Luna's ears had perked up when I did this, and I watched her make eye contact with me. Understanding rolled through her, and she obediently got up. Nick rolled away and put up both his hands, as if getting ready for a brawl.

"So you've had your fun already huh? Or shall we settle this the old fashioned way vile beast?!"

Luna and I shared a look, and I could only shake my head. I gave her a whole bunch of pets, and then dragged Nick away from her before she decided she'd like a larger snack. Unbeknownst to me, a wisp of the rings energy was imbedded within Luna, and was slowly manifesting into something remarkable.

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'There are so many interesting applications for the energy stored in the ring. I originally thought whatever it devoured is whatever it could use, but last night showed that it can be manipulated into any form I wish, so long as there is an abundant amount of energy stored within it.' As I strolled along my homes halls, I thought of unique applications that could work, and reasonably how many things my own body could handle right now. Tricia, at this time, saw me pacing and decided to sneak up on me. She had almost made contact before sirens in my head blared, and I grabbed her wrist, and proceeded to pin her to a wall with my forearm against her throat.

"Oh no! I'm sorry Trish. My body moved on it's own. Luna has engraved a danger sense into me after how many times she tries to pounce on me."

Sadly, poor Tricia was too deep into her emotional struggle at having been pinned against the wall by a shirtless guy with an unbelievable body. The heat of my presence washing over her, making her drowsy and seemingly intoxicated, as she had rosy cheeks. I released my grip on her and made sure I hadn't hurt her before making my way back to my room.

'Jason is gonna be the death of me, whether it be on purpose, or indirectly. He is driving my body insane! Can I even survive this whole week?!' She slumped to the floor, head in her lap, trying to recover any semblance of being a decent human. Little did Tricia or Jason know, that Nick watched the whole thing from further down the hall. 'Well, well, well. If Jason can dig himself out of his self-deprecating mindset, he'd be the menace to all ladies underwear! Oh man, this will be good. Hehehe...' He slinked away to his room while Tricia was still occupied managing her hormones.

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'So far, I've learned application of the most basic elements when converted from the energy. Whatever control I currently have is rough at best because this is all new to me, but last night, I felt like I had finally gotten all the basics down before barely dragging my happy ass back home. Now what I want to do is focus on absolute control, through physical enhancement. It will be sort of like last night, but I'm going to see how long I can endure keeping a steady supply.'

With all that in mind, I really didn't know how I should go about it for a while, before an idea finally struck me. 'Last night, I decided the most manageable method for the energy was imagining it flowing like water. The biggest flow of "energy" in my body is my blood, so what if I channel the energy along my blood stream? In theory this should work. If it doesn't, I at least get to see if healing is possible after all haha.'

I closed my eyes and brought myself to an absolute calm. Steeling my resolve, I brought a trickle of energy out of the ring, and very carefully had it flow with my blood. I had to split my awareness every time I came across an alternate vein route, and even had to split it further for capillaries. The mental strain was slowly starting to get to me, as I had to micromanage every conceivable twist and turn, while firmly holding onto the energy so it wouldn't destroy me from the inside out. After what felt like hours, I made one full circuit with a single long strand of energy. 'Now comes the scary part.' I now proceeded to hold the string in place while pulling a second new string of energy through my body. It was much faster as I had done it all before. 'Still not good enough. I need more, much more.'

With sweat pouring down my face, and strain visibly present across my whole body, I continued to pull strands of energy, one at a time, until finally all of my veins were internally coated with a flexible weave of energy. 'Oh boy I hope I'm not about to kill myself with this.'

With one final thought, I pushed the weave out, to overlap with my veins. I felt every inch of my body burn like never before. I felt like I was being cooked alive, and it took everything I had to not scream at the top of my lungs. Seconds turned into minutes, and finally after forty five of the the most agonizing minutes of my life, my body didn't feel any pain. 'Finally, I have a step forward. Integration was a success.' With a weak smile, I re-inspected my body, only to see in my minds eye that all my internals were glowing. My heartbeat felt more powerful in my chest, and even my lungs felt like they were cleansing me with every breath I took in. I felt like I could win a whole triathlon and still not break a sweat. It was as if my whole body was reborn.

"With my internals having integrated with the new energy, I now have to worry about all my externals, (sigh). This is gonna suck on so many levels."

I checked the time, to realize only three hours had passed, and one of them I had spent internally screaming for the majority. I released my domain, only to realize it had an explosive increase in range. My already abnormally large range of sense had multiplied six fold. 'Seems my little test for myself proved to have achieved a way better result than I could have imagined. I'm looking forward to the rest of this week.'

As I imagined what I would be doing all week, I failed to notice the marking on my back had an explosive size increase, almost completely making the first connecting line between my shoulders. Nick nor Tricia had noticed any of the tattoos even with me walking around shirtless, as for some reason, they weren't visible to anyone but the bearer anymore.