Akhier

Heyo, new month again! Patreon is chugging along, though my part time job is blargh. That and my rent increase just kicked in so that is a hundred less a month I have. Eh, life. I'll have to look into moving.

Jason would have had to worry about his bones as well if it wasn’t for his system granted skeletal system. Though he does make note that he should look into strengthening them, anyway. Especially since he plans to work on his strength during his coming journey.

However, that can wait for later. All the nearby scamps besides the first he had attacked are now either dead or in hiding. Along the path Jason had taken eight lay dead. There were a few that escaped and of course a bunch further away, but overall the attack was successful.

Jason heads back to the first scamp and picks it up. A quick scan of the body with his Energy reveals the lizard still had natural lines. With a nod, he sits down on top of the boulder and focuses within himself once again. While it still takes him a moment to enter the Energy flow each time, the act becomes easier.

Still, analyzing this can wait. Jason turns his attention from himself to the surrounding area. Though he barely has to look. While the small houseplant took some time to find, a bigger and much more active specimen is taking in a good bit more Energy to sustain the natural lines.

Jason pauses before entering the scamp and readies himself. The System isn’t going to give him much time, so every moment counts. Once ready, he bursts into the lizard’s body and takes in the sights. Here, unlike with the plant, much more of the setup is familiar. While there are structural differences because of things like the scamp having a tail more closely matches what Jason has seen in himself.

As he races through the natural lines, Jason can feel the change begin just behind him. Once again the hole into the flow becomes stabilized by the System and the much denser if subtly wrong Energy rebinds all the lines.

This time, though, Jason is ready for it. He watches from further in to absorb every detail of how the System takeover works. Especially at the nodes. From a ball of roots to a refined crystal, they fall one by one. More than that, the natural lines resist. Obviously not enough to make a difference, but Jason can see it. The System of course doesn’t even notice as more and more Energy gets pumped through until the entire scamp has been taken over. At that point Jason backs out and finishes the lizard painlessly.

Jason looks up at the sky and sighs as question after question pops up. Did the System always hold sway? Are there beings before him that have freed themselves? And many more. Most of them are likely beyond answering at this point. Some are just pointless. For now though Jason has a plan of action which is always better than waiting.

He stretches and stands up to take stock of any nearby scamps. The lizards are plentiful enough so there is no end of creatures to continue his tests on. With a light hop, Jason gets down off of the boulder and charges right into the next gathering of scamps. This group suffers a handful more deaths than the last.

Though it has more to do with scamps from where he was moving in, than any improvement on Jason’s part. Still, he isn’t going to complain and settles down to examine his next “volunteer”. This time he plans to examine another factor. How much does it take to trigger the change? Until now, he had just rushed into the natural lines without any thought.

As he approaches the scamp from within the Energy flow. Jason stops right outside of it. From there he isn’t able to actually see in, though he can tell there is a place to enter. So of course, like the polite boy he is, Jason knocks. Or at least the closet equivalent you can come. Not entering, but still brushing up against the portal before backing off.

Jason waits a minute, but not once does the System come around to assimilate the scamp. Not finding any reactions he places his awareness up against the opening. Still not entering but not retreating either, and yet still nothing happens. Next he pokes some of his Energy in. This time the Energy flow around him swirls oddly but soon enough it settles down.

Finally, after not getting a takeover event even after metaphorically putting his foot in the door, Jason peaks his awareness in and then ducks back out. That single moment however proves to be enough. The surrounding Energy once again swirls up but this time from within the swirls, strange counterflows emerge and rush towards the scamp.

Jason sits back and watches carefully as he sees for the first time what a takeover looks like from the outside. There is more involved than the single flow of System controlled Energy that enters and takes over. Three other flows surround and circle around the opening, holding it in place before the fourth flow pierce into the scamps body. After the change is complete, the Energy around Jason returns to normal as those strange flows of power assimilates back into the rest of Energy.

Still, now that Jason has seen them act they stand out. Not by much though, just enough that he can now spot them. And it is very much a Them. Besides the four that changed the scamp, Jason can see countless other System flows around him as every major stream of Energy seems to have a couple kicking about. Only the smallest trickles of Energy are free of the Systems interference.

Despite how limitless the System seems Jason smiles. If it was truly limitless, there would be no need for the natural flows. It could have instead supplemented the entire process. In fact, there wouldn’t be any difference between the natural lines and those the System creates. How could there be if the System could control all Energy. The System has limits and for something like this it isn’t going to be somewhere the developers had decided to cut corners. The control provided by the lines are just too important to skimp on.

Akhier

Thank you for reading! Next two chapters are free on my Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/dragonheartednovels ), five chapters beyond that for only a dollar, and many more for five dollars (two chapters release a week at this tier).