"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. But stolen energy beats both." — Unknown.
Micah woke up on the floor of his quarters with his face glued to the tiles by a crust of dried blood.
He had no idea how long he’d been out. The room was dark. No light came through the small barred window, which meant it was still night. His body felt like it had been fed through an industrial crusher, then reversed and fed through again for good measure.
His right hand was the worst. The burn had crusted over into a thick, black scab that cracked and bled every time he moved his fingers. His ribs throbbed with every breath, a deep, grinding ache that reminded him of their existence with each inhale.
But he was alive. And more importantly, he was alone.
He pushed himself up onto his good elbow and looked around the room. His tactical pack was still slumped against the wall where he’d dropped it. The contents hadn’t moved.
The Astral Prism. The Stone-Ape’s power crystal. Both still inside.
’Okay. Get up. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve got work to do.’
He hauled himself to his feet, using the edge of his bunk for support. His legs trembled beneath him but held. He limped to the pack, crouched down with a wince, and unzipped it.
The Astral Prism came out first. He set it on the bed, and the crystal’s violet-and-white glow immediately lit up the small room, casting dancing shadows across the walls. The energy radiating off it was so dense that his skin tingled just being near it.
Then he pulled out the Stone-Ape’s power crystal. It was smaller, about the size of a golf ball, dark and heavy, with veins of red running through it. The energy inside was different from the Prism. Where the Prism felt ancient and wild, the power crystal felt compressed and volatile, like a grenade with the pin half-pulled.
He held the power crystal up to the Prism’s light and studied it.
’This thing kept a seventy-percent Flux construct running for decades. Maybe centuries. And it’s still got juice left. If I can absorb this, I might be able to jump several percentages in one go.’
His Beast Analysis Talent flickered to life, weak and inconsistent, but functional enough to scan the crystal’s internal structure.
[Scanning target: Stone-Ape Power Crystal.]
[Composition: Compressed Flux Energy, crystallized.]
[Energy density: EXTREME.]
[Estimated absorption time: 2-4 hours depending on host capacity.]
[WARNING: Raw absorption may cause meridian stress. Recommend controlled intake.]
’Controlled intake. Right. Because I definitely have the luxury of taking things slow.’
Then he remembered. The Advanced Flux Breathing Talent. The bonus reward the system had dropped on him in the tunnel after he killed the Drake. He’d been in too much pain to appreciate it at the time, but the knowledge was sitting right there in the back of his mind, waiting to be used.
He focused on it, and the talent activated.
His breathing shifted immediately. The rhythm changed from his normal pattern into something deeper, slower, more deliberate. Each inhale pulled ambient Flux from the air with a force he’d never been able to generate before. Each exhale circulated the energy through his meridians in a tightly controlled loop that maximized absorption while minimizing stress on the tissue.
The talent was designed exactly for this. Taking concentrated, volatile energy sources and processing them safely through the body without rupturing anything.
’Okay. Now we’re talking.’
He sat down on the bed, cross-legged, and placed the power crystal in his lap. He closed his eyes and settled into the breathing pattern the talent had established. Slow inhale through the nose, drawing Flux from the air and the crystal simultaneously. Slow exhale through the mouth, circulating the energy through his meridians in tight, controlled loops.
Then he pulled.
The energy hit him like a freight train.
The Advanced Flux Breathing Talent kicked into full gear the moment the crystal’s energy entered his system. Instead of flooding his meridians in an uncontrolled rush, the talent routed the power through a series of breathing cycles that compressed and processed each wave before passing it deeper into his body. The meridian stress that should have been agonizing was reduced to a dull, manageable burn.
But even with the talent managing the flow, the sheer volume of energy was overwhelming. A torrent of raw, dense, violent power surged into his chest, filling his meridians faster than they could comfortably handle. The sensation was indescribable. It was like being filled with liquid fire that somehow didn’t burn but instead made every muscle, every tendon, every cell in his body vibrate with power.
His back arched. His teeth clenched so hard that he felt a molar crack. Sweat erupted across his entire body, pouring out of his pores in streams that soaked through his clothes and dripped onto the bed.
But the sweat wasn’t clear. It was black. Thick, foul-smelling, tar-like sludge that oozed from his skin in quantities that should have been physically impossible.
His body was purging. Every impurity, every toxin, every microscopic defect in his cells was being forcibly expelled to make room for the incoming energy. The Advanced Flux Breathing Talent made the process smoother than it would have been, routing the impurities outward through his pores instead of letting them accumulate in his organs. But it was still agonizing. His muscles contracted and released in rapid spasms. His bones ached. His organs felt like they were being rearranged by invisible hands.
His Flux Unlock percentage began to climb.
He could feel it. Not as a number on a screen, but as a physical sensation. A pressure building inside his chest, growing denser and heavier with every passing minute. Each breathing cycle pulled more energy from the crystal, compressed it, and packed it into his cells with a precision that the talent controlled down to the molecular level.
Twenty-three percent. Twenty-four. Twenty-five.
The numbers kept climbing, and the pain kept escalating. His meridians were stretching to their absolute limit, each one burning with the friction of energy being forced through channels that were never designed to handle this volume. But the Advanced Flux Breathing Talent kept the stress manageable, smoothing out the rough edges and preventing the kind of catastrophic rupture that the system had warned him about.
Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.
At thirty percent, his body hit a wall. The absorption slowed. The energy from the crystal was still pouring in, but his cells were full. They couldn’t take any more. The excess energy began to pool in his meridians, building pressure that made his veins bulge beneath his skin.
But the Advanced Flux Breathing Talent wasn’t done. It shifted the breathing pattern, altering the rhythm and depth of each cycle to compress the pooled energy further. The talent was essentially squeezing his cells, forcing them to accept more density by restructuring the energy at a molecular level.
The pressure built. And built. And built.
Then something inside him gave way. Not a bone. Not a muscle. Something deeper. A barrier in his genetic structure that had been limiting how much Flux his body could hold.
It cracked open.
The relief was instant and overwhelming. The pooled energy rushed into the newly opened space, filling it completely. His cells expanded, denser and harder than before. His muscles tightened, the fibers rewinding themselves into thicker, stronger cables.
Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Thirty-four.
The crystal in his hands was dimming. Its energy was running out. The red veins that had run through the dark surface were fading, the color bleeding away as the power transferred into Micah’s body.
Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight.
The absorption slowed further. The crystal was almost dead now, its surface grey and dull. The last traces of energy trickled into his system, each one harder to pull than the last. The Advanced Flux Breathing Talent squeezed out every remaining drop, processing the final dregs through three additional cycles before the crystal went completely dark.
Thirty-nine.
Then forty.
The crystal went dead in his hands.