I noticed that he was still in pain and covered in sweat. Despite this, Spence came here worried for me. He knew that something was off because of our link… and seeing both Hayley and me in tears didn't help too much ease his worries.
"What's going on?"
I don't want him to be concerned about this situation, but also I don't want to lie to him… all I could do is being evasive for the time being I can't tell him yet.
"It's kind of between me and Hayley… please don't interfere…"
He was still reluctant to leave, he probably could get an idea about it if he could use Mind Reading but seeing his condition, I doubted he could concentrate. He still could narrow the possibilities with a simple analysis, but all of them would be possibilities.
He looked at me for a few seconds and watched Hayley nodding at my words. This was something that he has to stay out for now… of course I was planning to tell him eventually… but not now…
"Arghh."
He wanted to say something else, but suddenly he grabbed his head and fell on his knees.
""Spence!!""
Not bothering to continue our conversation, together with Hayley we went to help him go back to our room. He has fallen unconscious, getting to C-Rank was more difficult than what he thought…
We both looked at him for a while… Hayley noticed what she was doing and looked at me with dry tears on her red eyes.
"I'll… give you two some space… see you later."
I couldn't say anything more… I just let her leave.
I told her… not now…
will she think that if she waits some time, she will get a shot? Am I giving her false hopes?
I didn't know what to think… hundred of different scenarios started to play out on my head as I went to Spencer's side and caressed his hair.
_______________________________
(Present day, Spencer POV)
After talking with G, I went to the hospital. I already knew that Ines finally woke up, it was in between my calculations, but there were still other things related to my ability that I needed to check.
I knew that Ines was okay before Dr. Rehn thanks to the system.
[Mission complete: Help with Ines Recovery.
Reward: 250 EP]
After the system upgrades, one of the first thing that happened was an avalanche of missions… the system explained to me that after a while he decided to just give me the urgent and most important tasks leaving normal missions and main missions with larger time limits for this moment.
Ines recovery was one of them, and it ended being one of the easiest mission I have accomplished.
After I obtained the D-Rank ability Physics Defiance I used the Upgrade ticket.
Like the evolution ticket, it gave me options about how I wanted it to evolve.
The number of options was endless… some of them reduced the scope of my ability to create a more specific path while others were wider than the current one. There were some strong contenders like Gravity, Logic manipulation or physics law immunity, but in the end, I choose one that called my attention, and once I put my eyes on it there was no coming back.
Paradox Inducement.
An ability that allowed me to disrupt reality and disobey logic.
It was this ability the one that allowed me to heal Ines. It was difficult to control because some of the abilities had a certain amount of randomness on the results, but if I keep upgrading it and manage to control it, I should be able to do almost anything I want.
The new ability started by giving me a huge surprise. Just like it happened between enhanced endurance and stamina, Paradox Inducement absorbed Time Distortion and Time heal. With that ability improved, I also used the evolution ticket and obtained higher versions for Time Bubble and chronokinetic combat.
I entered the school and moved to the nursing station to ask about Dr. Rehn whereabouts.
"Hey, Isabella."
"Hey, Spence how was last night."
She gave me a knowing smile… I wonder how she knows.
"It was great… what about you? I heard that you had to take an extra night shift again."
"It wasn't that bad… things should go back to normal soon. Are you looking for Dr. Rehn?"
"Yeah, Dante told me that he is looking for me and that Ines woke up."
"Yes, I already saw her and she is in perfect condition, we changed her from the room as you told us just in case and left the place empty."
"I'll go there to see if everything is okay first, where did you move her?"
"Room 204."
"Thanks, see you around."
"Bye."
I moved first to the room where I originally started her treatment.
I changed my eyes and tried to feel the place to be sure that there were no remnants of my ability.
Until a couple of hours ago this place was special because it was under the strong effect of one of my abilities. In this room, the Time flowed backward for humans, it was a stronger variation of what used to be Time Heal…
I had to come twice a day for the whole week to maintain it that way, the process was complex, but I could understand and improve my control over Paradox Inducement.
There were no traces of my ability left… since this ability plays with reality to a certain extent, I was still a little scared of the side effects that a problem might provoke. Until now nothing had happened, but sometimes I could feel reality trying to reject my power when I use it.
After that I checked and finally met Ines, Blake was there too so I didn't stay long and promised to come again.
I told Dr. Rehn that there were no problems in the room, and he could use it anytime he wanted. After a short talk, I left again. From the Hospital related missions, there was just one person left to take care of, but she was Rose's job, and from what I heard she should be fine soon.
As I left, I opened the system again. Since the upgrade, I have been using it more than before.
[Status]
[Mission]
[Shop]
[Roulette]
[Achievements]
[Party]
[Faction]
[Item Box]
There were some upgrades on the old system functions and also the appearance of three new features.
Party and faction had two things in common, both get the bonus permanently from my Good leader Perk. And it was easier to use on them or support them with my Esper abilities.
My party was, of course, Rose, Hope, Hayley, and Gerhard. Besides getting the bonus, I could see their status just as I was able to see mine and receive half the points when they kill a beast. Their advantage was that they could get drops when they kill a creature (at a much lower rate tho and this has still to be proven) and they could also complete missions.
The Rewards from the missions were"Split". Esper Points as they are called now were for me as well as most of the system related rewards, but other stuff was for them. Hayley already was able to get 4 points in charisma by filling in as a temporary leader after Leon's death, and G obtained an active attack skill for heavy weapons for learning to use pole weapons.
Isabella, Dana, and Emma were included in my faction together with the party. I think it's disrespectful to count Alfred as Emma's pet, but I can't do anything about the way the system categorize them. For now, the Faction had a maximum of ten members, and they only receive the advantages that I mentioned earlier, but in the future new bonuses and ranks inside the faction would be unlocked as it levels up. Right now, we are just at the level of Squad.
The Status tab was revamped too.
[Name: Spencer Davies (Aes Sidhe)
Age: 20 yrs.
Rank/Potential: C/??
Esper Points (Changed from System Points): 940
Attributes:
Attribute Points: 0
Strength: 30(+6) (Perfect Body)
Endurance:25(+30) (Tough Skin)
Agility: 40(+8) (Efficient body)
Intelligence:32(+6) (Cold Mind) (Accelerated Processing)
Wisdom: 27(+5) (Insight) (Perfect Mind)
Charisma: 36(+7) (Good Leader)
Skills
Skill points: 4
Battle skills: Weapon Master(Advanced)Lv. 1, Krav Maga (Advanced) LV. 3, Firearms Lv. 2, Dodge Lv.3, Chakram Lv.1, Great Impact Lv. 1.
Resistance skills: Pain Resistance Lv.3, Damage Resistance Lv. 3, Soul Resistance Lv. 1, Poison Resistance Lv. 2, Acid Resistance Lv.0, Heat Resistance Lv.2, Cold Resistance Lv. 1.
Knowledge: Medicine (Advanced) Lv. 2, Physics (Advanced) Lv2, Math (Advanced) Lv.2, Weapon Knowledge Lv.2, Biology (Advanced) Lv. 1, Basic academics Lv. 5.
Utility Skills: Stealth Lv. 2, Survival (Advanced) Lv. 2, Swimming Lv. 2, Driving Lv.1, Mentor Lv. 2, Concentration Lv. 1.
Production Skills: Cooking Lv.1, Mechanics Lv.1.
Esper abilities:
Passive:
F-Rank: Enhanced Reflexes
E-Rank: Enhanced Endurance (Low Self-Sustaining)
Enhanced Senses [Hearing, Psychometry, Sight, Sixth sense, Smell, Taste, Touch] (Aura View)
D-Rank: Astral Link (Bound to Rose Hunter) (Astral Anchor); Link Affinity Lv. 3[(Share Thoughts) (Empathy) (There For you) (Share Sight)]
Active:
F-Rank: Courage Inducement, Lust Inducement, Adrenaline Burst, Mind Reading.
E-Rank: Fear Inducement, Detoxification.
C-Rank: Paradox Inducement (Space-Time distortion, Physics Infringement, ???), Rules are meant to be broken (Legend) Lv. 1, Chaotic Zone (Master) Lv. 2, Chaotic Combat Style (Master) Lv. 2 (Infuse, Chaotic movement)
Contract:
Dante: Mind Shield (Resonance: Killing Intent)]
…