Nate rolled out of bed and grabbed the first of the items meant to upgrade his core. He was lucky the McFaddens had given him the second box of ingredients. He honestly hadn’t been expecting them to honor the promise they had made past the first time, though obviously, he was glad that they had.

  This batch of items was different from the first which had contained a couple of herbs, before moving onto crystallized items. These were all clearly alchemical creations that were kept in tiny test tube containers with wax-covered cork tops. Each tube was labeled one through five, making sure there was no guesswork in the order of which to take them in.

  According to the status screen on his wrist computer, his backup core was currently at 46% charge. It had gone up a little more after his and Aura’s training the night before. He was interested in seeing how much this little gumdrop-looking thing would make it jump by.

  He popped it into his mouth and sucked on it while stripping and waiting for the water to turn hot. The research on capacitors had finished a few minutes before he woke up. It had the effect, among other things, of lowering energy costs on the lasers and railguns. Now he had ‘Subtitles’ being researched. It would take twelve hours, so by the time he went to sleep that night, it would have been finished for a while already.

  Stepping into the shower, he could already feel the gumdrop beginning to dissolve in his mouth and the energy flowing through his body. Unlike the energy he absorbed through meditation exercises, this was mostly outside of his control. He could have taken hold of it if he wanted to. However, the amount of regular qi the gumdrop contained wasn’t much. This wasn’t a different form of energy. It was more pure and went directly to his backup core, where it would be most effective.

  A nearly unbearable heat built up inside his chest as the energy continued to pour in. With a strangled gasp, he slapped at the computer strapped to his wrist, activating the screen.

  His information on the lefthand side of the screen updated in real time, though there was rarely a reason to look at it that long.

  Looking at the sudden jump in energy in his backup core he wanted to curse at the McFaddens. It was still increasing even while he watched the screen, standing there beneath the water, his shower all but forgotten.

  They were some really petty people, that was for sure. They may have publicly been shaming their son, but in the end, he was still their son. This gumdrop had far too much energy inside of it for something that should have been part of the second upgrade. More likely, they had given him a kit intended for the third core upgrade. However, they hadn’t known about his backup core, which was by design.

  No one outside of his parents and George knew about it. So, while this was still painful, it would be survivable. Not only that, but he would also get more energy out of them than another person would because of how his extra core worked. Then there was also the added bonus that these core-enhancing items would actually be useful after he upgraded his core this time.

  The McFaddens might have done this maliciously, but they had also done him a favor. That didn’t mean it wasn’t extremely painful though.

  His body locked up as every muscle he had cramped at once. Suddenly, there were two streams of energy, one entering his backup core, and one leaving it. The second scoured his body, cleansing it from the inside out before moving onto his core. A thin oily sludge was pushed out of his pores and onto the floor of the shower.

  The smell was terrible.

  Pressure began to form around his core, compressing it and molding it as it willed. Turning his attention inward, he could sense the last of the obvious defects in his core being smoothed out and vanishing. The core itself was now smaller, having been compressed, but it was shinier than before and much sturdier.

  By the time his backup core had begun to cool, he had been in the shower for over half an hour and curled up on the floor for much of it. In return for putting up with that pain, he had gone from a 46% charge to full and started on the next core grade with 05%, and gotten a core upgrade. It was no wonder that it had hurt so much, and there was little doubt in his mind that without the backup core, that much energy would have destroyed his actual core.

  The quality and realm of your core affected how dense your qi energy was. Every time you upgraded your core, your qi would be halved as it grew denser and more potent.

  The first time he had taken an herb with his Copper Grade core, he had experienced a jump of roughly 17% give or take a couple of points. That was using an herb meant for his actual core. The amount of energy he had gotten this time around was so much more than back then that it wasn’t even funny.

  He now possessed a Pyrite Grade core, which had increased a realm in quality. No longer was it a Low-Quality core, now he had a Basic Quality core. It wasn’t much, but it felt like a huge increase.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Eventually, he pulled himself off the floor with a groan and began cleaning himself. Everything hurt.

  Aura hopped out of his chest as soon as he was done with the shower. “Don’t do that while I’m sleeping around your cores!” She hissed, her fur and hair standing on end. “I saw all those changes first-hand. It was uncomfortable!”

  He winced and apologized. “Sorry about that. I didn’t exactly expect to upgrade my core today though.” He had also forgotten that she was currently inside his chest, not that he was going to tell her that. He wasn’t an idiot.

  She grumbled, but let the issue rest. The two idly chatted while he got dressed and went to find everyone else. His steps and body movements were stiff, something that the others immediately noticed.

  “What’s wrong?” His mother promptly asked, rushing over to him. She wanted to ask if it was about his dream activities, but knew this wasn’t the appropriate time. There were too many people around.

  “The McFaddens thought they would be funny,” He grunted out while awkwardly making his way over to a chair.

  George reached across the table and grabbed hold of his hand. A surprised look and angry expression appearing on his face. “I would say that is more than them just attempting to be funny.” He growled. “If it had been anyone else.”

  “Yeah, I sort of figured as much,” He admitted. “At the same time, it worked out rather well for me in this case, I think.” The remaining four doses, combined with the energy he would get from the rainbow orbs, should be enough to get him to the next core grade.

  His mother snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Hello? Care to clue me in here? What did the McFadden’s do with the core enhancement items?”

  “They gave me the wrong grade. Instead of pieces intended for a second-grade core, they sent me ones for a third-grade. I went from a little under half full to having enough energy to upgrade my core.”

  “That must have been a potent third-grade ingredient,” She muttered angrily. “Are you sure you’re alright? No problems outside of the pain?”

  “I’m fine. It freaked out Aura, but…” He shrugged and looked around. “Where are the others?” Only Lindsay and Angie were in the room with them. Everyone else was missing.

  “Now that it is safe for the moment, they have dispersed throughout the city to round up what leadership they can find. It is time to begin organizing efforts to rebuild the city.” George told him as he ate a scone. “I will be heading back to the healing guild myself just as soon as I finish eating.”

  Now that the attacks had stopped, and the rebuilding efforts had yet to start, there was nothing for Nate and the others to do. As a result, they spent the entire day working on their meditation arts, tweaking their original models a little, and using basic ties on everything. The girls wanted to evolve their energy skills as soon as possible, and while they knew it would still be a bit, that was all the more reason to actively work at it.

  That night, Nate could finally follow along with what the blighted elves were saying. Along with that, he also needed to select a new research project. He had one in mind, but he wasn’t entirely sure if there would be any crossover. There seemed to be a certain amount of similarity between how electricity and qi functioned. At least inside the dungeon, so that left him with some hope.

  All that he could do was see if the research project even started. If it did, then it would probably have some effect, but how much would only be known when it was completed.

  The first step was getting everything up to a certain standard, and then he could move forward from there. He pulled up the research prompt and inserted the new project, ‘Modified Qi Voltage Standard 12-Volt’. It had a time of one hundred and twenty hours or five days. It was the longest project yet.

  He knew that the 12-Volt, 120, and 240-Volt architectures, at least when it came to electricity, had been the predominant ones for houses on his Old Earth. When it came to vehicles, 12-Volts had been the popular setup. However, both had their problems and limitations and were eventually converted over to a 48-Volt architecture. It was more efficient and required far less material to transfer the same amount of energy.

  If he had been alive for longer, he might have even seen the day when they took the next step.

  Probably not though, considering how long it had taken them to just get as far as they had.

  With that out of the way, he began working on the design of the new dungeon, while Aura created buildings for the community. It was something that she had asked if she could do, and he had agreed without any hesitation. They already knew that she could modify the traps he had created. Now they would see if she could actually create things as well.

  The answer to that, thankfully, was yes, though it did seem to only be limited to the community area. She couldn’t create anything in the dungeon, only modify it. Both agreed it was an odd limitation, but that it didn’t really matter either way.

  This new dungeon was severely scaled down in scope from his first two. Both of those had been massive with most of the rooms rarely ever seeing use. The idea of a labyrinth was nice on paper. However, apparently, he wasn’t very good at creating versions that would confound the senses of races he knew little about.

  He had less of a worry about that happening with the skeletons. One would assume something was creating the skeletons, so it was still there, only diminished somewhat.

  Regardless, he based the layout of the third dungeon on the last section of the first dungeon. He kept the portal room and exit in the same place but needed to move the core room. In the end, the dungeon ended up with sixteen rooms. There were a couple that he could remove in the future to streamline it if they saw little use. He would need to wait and see what sort of skeletons came through the portal before deciding anymore than this. Were they completely mindless ones who wandered around bumping into walls until something caught their attention, or did they have basic intelligence?

  Until he knew for sure, the extra rooms and paths would give him some valuable extra data.

  With the initial layout decided, he just needed to begin putting out the traps. Anything that did large area blunt damage was going into the dungeon. Big hammers, ceiling drops, and anything else he could think of.

  https://www.amazon.com/author/joshuakern

  

  https://joshuakernbooks.com/