17 Powering Up

The husks continued their howls and wails for a few more minutes, giving Kaz an eerie feeling, but then they stopped suddenly and the eyes surrounding his compound disappeared. Kaz sat back reflecting on his situation, his advances and his goals.

"I'm assuming the best way off this planet isn't to build a spaceship is it?" Kaz asked with a somewhat defeated voice.

[That is but one of many possible ways, and each has their own merit. Though if you mean it isn't the fastest, that is true. If you were to act alone, then you could leave this planet in a few years, that is if you found a way to last without starving. With your body the way it is now, you could last for about 1 and a half years without a food source. If you strengthened your nexus gland, you could escape a lot sooner, as well as lower your body's likelihood of starving with every breakthrough]

"I figured, although I won the battle I still feel very far from my goal, but this whole ordeal made me realize something. I don't think the intention of my mission to escape from this planet wasn't for me to just survive, but to grow. I'm holding onto the way I used to do things, knowledge isn't all powerful here, but neither is brute strength. I have to balance the two. I'm going to focus on my body, using knowledge and technology to help me advance it."

[Though you are becoming more open-minded, don't let it push you away from the achievements you have made from your current path. Though your strength was important in dealing with the enemies you faced, you wouldn't have survived without the lights, your turrets, your spear, etc. Your strength is tied to your knowledge, training your body will increase your strength but your strength would grow faster if you used your knowledge to your advantage.]

Kaz for the first time felt comforted by his system, though he felt it was cold, it was here to help, and being alone on this planet made him feel better knowing that something was supporting him. Kaz stood up and began his next step, to strengthen his mind, body and arsenal. He had 3 new goals. First, collect his nexus cores and see how much nexus drips they have pulled together for him, he knew those were the quickest to increase his power. Next, he wanted to create a new suit to provide more defense, and mount lighting onto it so that he could survive in the dark, and lastly he wanted to go back to that crystal structure.

He had a feeling that increasing his power would be faster through the nexus energy congregated there. Sure he could wait out the night but there is no telling whether the husks will come back or if there will be stronger ones. Kaz began by first collecting all of the nexus cores within his territory. Hey pocketed half of them to maintain lights and he was left with a little over 1000 cores.

'Each of these seem to contain about 20 wisps. This explains why they were not as strong of a light as when I condensed a wisp. 50 of them should allow me to condense another drop, so this batch should give me a total 20 more drops if I absorb it.'

Kaz began congregating the wisps, he would take 50 at a time and spread them around him as he sat in the middle. He thought maybe his control was strong enough to absorb them without direct contact. He closed his eyes and focused on the sense around him. He never truly used it before now in a way to control the flow of nexus energy but only to look with it. As he attempted to manipulate the energy he felt that his sense was clearer, not exactly looking through his eyes clearer, but he felt as if he was using another sense for the first time. He has his sense of smell, touch, sight hearing and more, but none of them quite match this feeling. He could feel a sensation within his nape almost like a haptic feedback in relation to the direction of the energy. He could extend his control out and connect to other strands and conduct them to him.

The manipulation of energy outside himself also extended other senses, such as touch and limb awareness. The same way you can close your eyes and know where your hand is in relation to you, what pose it is in, if it's touching anything else and more, he could feel a similar feeling from his senses. Slowly, he grabbed each strand coming off the crystals and focused on them, coercing them to come to him. At first it was a bit difficult to start, but after he began a siphon effect took place and the energy came rushing to him. He could feel a tension build within his body, but it wasn't painful, more of an itch.

After he finished directing the energy from the 50 cores, his gland began compressing the wisps, creating another drop.

[New Skill Acquired: {Nexus Domain lvl. 1}]

[Do to your advances in understanding of the flow of nexus energy, you unlocked this skill. The effects of this skill allow you to better sense energy within your range as well as assume better control of the energy within your range. This skill acts as an extension of your Nexus affinity skill, and the higher level this skill is, the closer you are to releasing the same control of energy as within your body. A new stat showing range has been added to your status menu.]

Kaz was left awestruck with the new skill. As soon as the notification popped up, he could feel it immediately, the level of detail he was able to sense was so much more vivid now, still nowhere near his eyes, but the point of this sense is it gave him a 3 dimensional view of the world, and the clearness of the energy floating in the air was astonishing.

Kaz decided to open his status screen to get a good look at his current stats as well as to see the new stat.

Name: Kaz

Race: Awakened Human

Nexus Gland: Luminal Bud

Nexus Drops: 3/100 (+2 stats per drop)

Skill Tokens: 1

Sense Range: 25 meters

(Stats are counts of 10)

Level: 15

Unallocated Stat Points: 15

Experience: 338,650/500,000

Physique level: 44

Health: 887/950 ({vitality + physique} x 10)

Vitality: 41

Stamina: 44 (physique level)

Intelligence: 56

Skills:

Photographic Memory lvl. MAX

Knowledge Absorption lvl. MAX

Prospecting lvl. MAX

Fabrication lvl. MAX

  - Material Science

  - Architecture

  - Electrical Engineering

  - Mechanical Engineering

  - Weapon Manufacturing

Alchemy lvl. 2

Temporal Shift lvl. MAX

Nexus Affinity lvl. 3

Nexus Domain lvl. 1

Intermediate Spear Mastery lvl. 4

  - Initiate Stance

Tower Defense lvl. 4

Basic Rifle Mastery lvl. 2

???? lvl. 1

Kaz was a little taken aback by his stats, By this point he was over 100 times stronger mentally and physically than back on Earth. Adding the next 19 drops from his crystals are going to almost double his current strength. Kaz knew nexus energy would make him stronger, but he wouldn't even be halfway full on nexus drops and he was still growing exponentially. He shuddered imagining how powerful that god he met before was. Kaz quickly finished converting the cores into nexus drops within his gland and marveled at the increase in the speed and clearness of his mind, as well as the bottomless energy and strength he felt within his muscles. He felt that if he fought against the Husk Mother again she wouldn't be a challenge.

'Now time to get ready to go back to that Nexus Structure.