(TPOR) Chapter 186: Hypersensitivity

Zed was slowly becoming self conscious.

There was a knock on the door before it opened and Shanine walked in. Behind her Oliver and Ash followed.

Oliver took one look at him and turned his eyes away as if they had been burned.

“What the hell, Zed?!” he exclaimed. “Are you trying to fry my brain.”

As for Ash, her reaction was different. She simply staggered and fell. She tilted forward like a felled tree, slow, almost intentional, then fell. She hit the ground hard.

Zed looked at everyone. “Are you guys telling me that no one thought to catch her?”

“You could’ve caught her,” Festus said.

Zed paused in thought.

“True,” he agreed. It wasn’t like he needed to stand still to keep his status running.

………..

It took Ash about three minutes to regain herself. When she did, she rolled on her side and stared up at the ceiling.

Zed had cancelled his notification now that Festus was done with whatever experiment he had been doing by inviting the others.

Ash let out a weak groan as she came awake. Blood was leaking from her nose but she didn’t look bothered by it.

“What the hell was that?” she asked, voice weak. “It was as if I was hit with some kind of mind spell.”

Oliver squatted down to look at her. She remained lying down on the ground.

“You don’t remember seeing anything?” he asked.

She shook her head slowly. “I just know that I’ve got a headache now.”

“Interesting” Festus mused.

Eitri’s response to it was a groan. “Have I mentioned how I hate it when mages start doing personal silent experiments?”

“Nope,” Zed answered, unenthusiastic. To Festus, he added: “So what did we figure out?”

“In quick and easy summary, Shanine is too weak to even possess an inkling of what you showed her, because her brain is too under developed as a mage to understand it.”

Zed winced.

“I mean no insult,” Festus added quickly. “As a mage, your ability grows, not just in body and magic, but in mind as well. What Zed’s mind can currently comprehend is significantly more than what yours can, Shanine. It is not a matter of insults, it is a matter of truth. Your mind, in this instance, was like that of a child. We were presented with a deadly weapon and we all reacted based on our minds’ abilities to recognize them. You, however, were like a child given a gun. You could not comprehend it simply because you could not. Because of that, your mind could not react to it.”

“But I could see it,” Shanine said.

Festus shook his head. “You could not.”

Shanine opened her mouth to respond, but closed it instead.

Festus gave her a warm smile when he noticed it. “I might be the strongest here, but I’m not a tyrant, child. As long as you are respectful, I have no problem with being opposed on conflicting opinions.”

Shanine gave it a moment of thought then looked at Zed. Zed knew a request for permission when he saw one and nodded.

“I know what I saw,” she told Festus. “If I see it again, I can draw it.”

Festus cocked a brow and Zed smiled.

Festus looked at him. “Would you do the honor?”

“Gladly.”

Everyone remained silent. Ash pushed herself to a sitting position and rested her back against the wall. Oliver sat beside her.

Zed stood in front of the bed, just against the wall. Shanine sat on the bed, watching him with ready eyes. She was determined to see what he would show her. Zed remembered his first attempt at drawing a rune. He could still remember how blatantly he had failed. It felt like forever ago.

“Are we sure she’ll be fine?” he asked. “She’s got a lot of concentration in her eyes.”

“She’ll be good.” Festus didn’t sound even a little bit bothered. “I will also admit to being a bit curious as to how this is going to play out.”

“Alright, then.”

Zed brought up his personal information with a simple thought. Oliver and Ash looked away the moment it came alive and Eitri frowned at the sight.

Shanine was unmoved. In fact, her eyes started trailing every fragment of what she could see.

Zed was curious to know how she saw it. Not so long ago she had described it as some kind of tribal tattoo with flames at the edges.

Melchizedek Nyborn

·       Specie: Human (Mana blessed).

·       Category: 3/3.

·       Rank: Beta (category 3).

·       Exp to Rukh: 1406/5000.

Skills

·       [Bloodwrath (Mana, blood)].

·       [Bloodlust (Aura)].

·       [Force (Rune)].

·       [Force shield (Rune)].

Titles

·       None.

Attributes

·       [Equilibrium] (Physical, mana).

·       [Regeneration] (Physical, mana).

·       [Hypersensitivity] (Physical, mana).

·       [Bone density] (Physical)

Affiliations

·       Rune.

Aptitude

·       Strength: 56.

·       Agility: 43.

·       Speed: 41.

·       Mana: 84.

·       Will: 35(-4).

When did I get so much mana? Zed thought, confused.

The last time he’d checked, his mana was still in the seventies. And he hadn’t gotten any notifications telling him there had been an increase of this level. His will continued to remain his lowest aptitude but he wasn’t bothered by it.

His only hope was that it was sufficient for his rank in comparison to others. Still, his mana was encroaching on the nineties. Would he have some kind of video game effect? Maybe something would happen once he reached a hundred in each aptitude.

At this rate I’ll be more mana than anything else.

On the bed, Shanine turned to Festus. “I’ll need a pen and paper.”

Festus complied without argument.

If Shanine noticed the barely concealed smiles on Oliver and Ash’s face at her request, she didn’t show it as she took the book of runes and pen from Festus.

She placed the book on her lap, looked up at Zed then went to drawing. She placed pen to paper and paused.

For four whole seconds nothing happened. She didn’t move. Not a single line was drawn. A frown creased her lips, showed her stubbornness. Unwilling to quit, she looked up at Zed again and tried to draw again.

This time, when her hand failed to move, she scowled.

“This doesn’t make sense,” she muttered to herself.

When she tried again, she chose a different strategy. She placed the pen on paper and kept her eyes on Zed. Again, her hand didn’t move.

“What’s happening?” she asked, panicking. “Why can’t I draw it?”

“Because your brain is too young as a mage,” Festus replied. “You could no sooner recreate the microcosm that you are seeing than you could fly. A day may come when you might. But that day is not today.”

He took the book and pen from her and held it up to everyone else.

“Anybody want to give it a try?” he asked.

He was met with silence.

“Eitri?” he asked.

Eitri shook his head. “Not a fan of migraines and bloody noses. Besides, I don’t think we want to accidentally go activating the wrong kind of rune.”

“Personally, I don’t think any of them are harmless,” Festus pointed out.

“Something that complicated.” Eitri snorted. “You’ve got enough confidence in the kid to believe he wouldn’t activate something harmful here.”

Zed looked at everybody. Were they serious?

If none of them could really see what his notifications were saying, then there was no way anyone could help him figure it out. If he told Oliver what exactly he was showing them would he believe him?

“Which leaves us with my previous test,” Festus said suddenly.

It took Zed a moment to remember what it was.

They had been talking about how he had discovered the pain rune all on his own. Apparently, rune mages discovered runes by seeing them or experiencing them in some way or the other, either directly or as a witness to it.

That had led to a conversation of how he had experienced a level of pain high enough to drive someone insane and hadn’t gone insane himself.

He’d been saying something about a pain tolerance, Zed thought, unsure.

“Please tell me you’re not going to stab me,” he said. “I really don’t want to be stabbed, or maimed, or drawn and quartered, or hanged, or drowned, or strangled, or crushed or—”

Festus’ attention snapped to Ash and Oliver in annoyance. “What the hell did you guys do to him when he was hanging with your team?”

“How is this our fault?!” Ash shot back before she could control herself. “What could we possibly do to make him think of being drawn and quartered.”

Zed paused. On second thoughts, if he could regenerate lost limbs, there was a tiny part of him that was curious as to what being drawn and quartered would be like. A tiny part, not anything major.

The thought made him sigh.

It’s official. I need a therapist.

“Anyhow,” Festus continued after a while. “I need a source of comparison, Zed. And you are he only one with a regenerative ability.”

“So no maiming?” Zed asked hopeful.

Festus smiled. “No maiming, kiddo.”

Zed rubbed his hands together, then held his arms out to his side. “Then hit me with it.”

Everyone looked amongst themselves, the same question on their minds. In the end, Eitri was the one to voice their concern.

“Who exactly are we running the comparison with?” he asked, suspicious.

“Well…” Festus raised both hands. “I may be nice with him, but I am not necessarily considered to be nice.”

One hand pointed at Zed while the other pointed at Eitri.

Eitri groaned. “I’m beginning to rethink this being your student thing right now.”

Festus laughed. “Good luck with that.”

Then a rune appeared in front of both of his hands. Zed recognized the rune immediately it came alive and braced for impact, which was confusing because he wasn’t necessarily sure how to brace for impact against a pain rune.

For a moment, his body did a full stutter as it tried to find the correct way to brace for an unknown form of impact.

In the end, the pain simply came.

Zed did not feel it anywhere. It didn’t erupt in his knee or hit him like a gunshot wound. It didn’t compress his chest or crush his mind. What happened was significantly different.

His body couldn’t interpret it. He knew he was in pain but didn’t know how.

Zed’s knees threatened to give out from under him but he kept himself in place. The feeling was wrong. Unusual.

·       [Hypersensitivity] is in effect.

He read the notification but couldn’t really comprehend it. Instead, his mind focused on the pain. It sieved it picking it out in simple pieces.

Zed hurt in his knee where he’d been shot during his fight with the Olympians. Then he hurt in his chest where he’d been inflicted his first injury when he’d woken up. Then there was a pain in his leg, like a boulder had crushed it.

Zed remembered that one. He’d gotten it during the second awakening.

Then the pain was gone.

In its absence, Festus was rubbing his jaw in thought.

“That’s a very high pain tolerance you’ve got there, kiddo,” he said. “It’s almost as if you weren’t even feeling the pain.”

“Trust me, it was worse than I made it look,” Zed answered, realizing he had pinned his back to the wall to keep himself from falling.

Festus looked at where Eitri was. “You sure?”

Zed followed his gaze and found Eitri gasping for air. He was like a man who had almost drowned.

“I gave the both of you the same blast,” Festus explained. “The exact same level. That’s what a Rukh looks like after it. And then there’s you.”

Zed stared at Eitri but had his mind elsewhere. If his pain tolerance was so high, then what exactly was [Hypersensitivity] warning him about when it said he should be careful lest he hurt himself.

He’d always thought it implied that his sense of pain would be vastly increased as well. What if the attribute only boosted his sensitivity to mana?

Also, he’d figured out how the pain rune worked. Knowing it made him realize just how bad it was as a rune.

“What happens when you hit a person with that thing at your full capacity?” Zed asked Festus.

Festus shrugged. “I’ve never been hit with it at full capacity. And I’ve never hit someone with it at full capacity.”

That gave Zed something to think about.

“What did it feel like?” he asked Eitri.

Eitri was picking himself back up. “Felt like shit. I’m not sure I can even describe it. I thought I was going to pass out.”

“Zed didn’t look like it was that bad,” Oliver pointed out.

“Yea,” Shanine agreed. “In fact, he looked like he was trying to figure something out.”

“More like he was trying to figure out how to let loose a huge dump without making any sound,” Ash said.

Zed gave her a look of surprise.

“I wouldn’t have expected that from you, Ash,” he said with a note of disappointment. “You shouldn’t be talking about poop in Shanine’s presence. You know she always wanted to be a poop mage.”

“I never wanted to be a poop mage,” Shanine said. “That was all you.”

“There’s no need to feel bad about it. Not everyone gets to have their dream come true. What matters is that you accept the cards you are dealt and try to make the best out of it.”

Shanine groaned in exasperation. “I swear someone should shoot you.”

“A bunch of people already did,” Zed grinned, his mind going back to the experience from the pain rune.

He had figured something out at least. He wasn’t sure what category he would put the rune in. It still felt like a mind rune to him, but it didn’t feel like his mind had experienced all the pain. It felt as if his body was experiencing it all over again.

But more importantly, how the rune worked was quite horrid. If he wasn’t mistaken, it collected as much pain your body had ever experienced and made it experience them all in one go. Surely, there were limits to it based on how much power was put in. At least, he thought that was the case.

After all, he had experienced some of his previous pain but not all of them. He could only imagine how bad it would’ve been if he had been forced to experience all the gunshot wounds from the anti-mages in one go.

Not an experience I want to go through.

“Anyway,” Zed clasped his hands in front of him. “Anyone have any idea what the Olympians are up to? I figured we would’ve been on our way by now.”

Eitri snorted. “They’re probably trying to scheme something up. Just let them be for now.”

“Alright,” Zed allowed. “Then let’s try a different question. Who knows how much longer it’ll take before we get to our destination?”

“At our current pace,” Oliver said. “Four hours.”