Climbing the Ranks - Chapter 34 preview (Patreon)

“My left nut for an internet connection,” Arthur muttered, as he continued to stare up at the ceiling. He gently prodded his body mentally, reviewing how it felt, how it moved. He could not tell anything majorly different but that didn’t seem to matter. Maybe the world was a little warmer around him? He was a little colder? It didn’t seem to be the case but…

“Coulda, shoulda, woulda?” Arthur sat-up running a hand through his hair. Then, remembering additional stories, he made his way over to the mirror, grateful to note there was no change in appearance. No white hair or streak of white in it, no pupils that had become ice blue – and how weird would that be? A Chinese with blue eyes? – or any pale colour. If anything… A hand came up, rubbing at the skin on his face. “Nice!”

Point one for Yin Body – it gave good skin. Probably because he was not too heaty, ending up with pimples or blackheads or oily features. Could also be the point in Body that he had received, but he was going to give it to Yin Body for now.

His expanded Energy pool was important too. In fact, his energy in general felt different, colder. The swirling, contained energy in his center now felt more like a slushy in there than say, contained lightning. Interesting and fascinating, but having two more points to store within could be useful in longer fights.

Beyond that… Arthur shook his head. He had no idea. But he had a quiet room and time to experiment, so he would. Hopefully, no major disadvantages; though he was certain there would be. He just didn’t know what they might be, since Yin or Yang body’s or bloodlines had never been something he had studied.

Not as though he was going to get one, he had thought.

Yeah, he could see how he had been taunting fate there.

An hour later, after exhausting both a physical inspection, going through his martial forms and channeling both his techniques, he had a rough idea of what the Yin Body had done. Firstly, physically there were minor alterations. He was slightly slimmer, seemed to have lost even more hair in his extremities and had that fairer and smoother skin he had noticed earlier. He was also stronger and faster, but that could have been due to the increase in his Body attribute. He definitely did not sweat or grow as warm though, even after moving through the full series of martial forms.

When it came down to his techniques though, that was where he had noticed the difference. The Focused Strike technique had actually failed the first few times, because he had to adjust to his new body, to the new pathways of power and how he had input energy into the technique. It was hard to describe, even to himself, but rather than slotting in A and B, he had to slot into A only but then divert the extra flow in A to the exit point C so that the output amount was the same.

Sort of. Except more metaphysical.

In the end, he had figured it out, learnt how to blend it such that his attack came out his energy empowered his attacks again. That addition to Spirit probably had helped, guiding his own sense of how energy could and should flow through him.

On the outside, the biggest change was the slight crackling black and blue light that now appeared around the limb that was being empowered and the wash of cold that striking something received. It wasn’t – yet – enough to freeze anything, but intuitively, Arthur knew that might happen with more powerful techniques of the sort.

In the meantime though, his bigger problem was his other technique. Accelerated Healing was actually… not really that Accelerated anymore. That kind of made sense, but now, triggering it seemed to speed up his healing only marginally. If anything, it made him concerned that his body was now healing at a slower rate in general.

Bad news if so, but not entirely something he could do much about. He could only hope that there were additional benefits to this Yin Body he did not understand, because for now, he had done all the testing he could have.

For a brief moment, he considered leaving and taking a place in line, to ask about inofrmaiton about Yin Body’s. Buying them from the novice library might give him some information, but he realized moments later, that it didn’t matter. He had too few Credits to matter.

Maybe later, after he had picked some herbs and acquired more monster cores. Then, and only then, would he go buying things he could not afford.

Till then, he had a bunch of techniques he had meant to learn. Though…

“Is this new Yin Body going to need me to adjust every single time then?” Cursing quietly to himself, Arthur had no answer. Even the extra point in Spirit that had buffed both his Refinement Speed and his eventual comprehension of energy flows in his body. Of course, Mind upgrades would help him understand the techniques faster, but it seemed adapting it to his new body would require both.

Cursing idly again, Arthur pulled out the scrolls and spread them across his lap to consider. Now, which should he learn? Considering the necessity for adaptation, he might not even have time to learn it all, not anymore.