A little while later Jack got out of his depression after he decided he could only do his best and go with what he had.
After he relaxed, Jack thought about waiting for his energy to regenerate to experiment and test his limits with his abilities.
But first, before he starts his experiment he wanted to set the doll up in the hallway facing the front door in wait for David, hopefully, Sarah doesn't ruin his plan if she comes home first.
So he did just that after regaining an hour or so of energy he picked the doll up and hurried to the front door.
'Phew, that was close.' Jack thought.
Just after he set it down facing the door, he ran out of energy.
With his setup done, Jack put his hand to get her in front of him in prayer and made a quick prayer to whatever god cared to listen that Sarah wouldn't ruin his setup.
After his prayer, Jack made his way to the basement where he decided he would experiment from now on.
Using the basement's energy reduction would hopefully help him not kill himself.
...
However not even 3 hours into his wait, he heard the front door open and close.
Jack hurriedly made his way up the stairs and saw Sarah who had already walked halfway to the living room.
'Shit...'
He quickly noticed she had a teddy in hand.
'Welp, there goes my plan...' Jack thought as he followed her and watched her as she entered the living room and placed the bear back in Angelica's toy spot.
He didn't want to waste his energy to place it back because she wanted to fully recharge before he starts the experiment.
David would be home by that time.
Sarah who caused Jack to be immensely disappointed that his plan was ruined by her, didn't actually think much about it since she noticed the doll before she left but didn't take the time to pick it up then since she had to take Angelica to school.
Since she wanted to clean the house anyways, she started with the doll since it was right in her walking path.
Jack was upset as he watched her start dusting, mopping, and wiping down the house.
'Maybe, I should wait...' Jack thought.
'Whatever it's too late to cry over now.' He sighed and then left Sarah to her cleaning duties and returned to the basement.
When Jack returned to the basement he waited for his energy to regenerate as he thought about what he wanted to try.
Earlier when Jack couldn't level up he was disappointed but now as he thought about it, maybe that was for the best.
He could use most of his energy to experiment and then if in an emergency he could try his best to level up and since his energy completely refills on a level up it might just fix him up as well.
Even if it doesn't he could then use that energy to heal himself.
However, that is just in case of emergency if possible he doesn't want his soul to start collapsing again if he could help it.
First, he wanted to continue with what he knows he can definitely do.
He plans on getting used to using his will to manipulate his mist form before he moves on to something he hasn't tried before.
After a few more hours his energy had regenerated completely but he found it weird David hasn't come home yet.
He only knew Sarah had left to retrieve Angelica from her school bus stop, he was sure David didn't come back with them because he only heard two pairs of feet.
'Whatever, he's probably late because of overtime or something.' Jack wasn't that concerned David did sometimes come home a bit later.
'Let's get started.' Jack said to himself as he started his first experiment.
Jack focused his will on his hand and tried to imagine a ball of mist manifesting in his hand.
After a few minutes of nothing happening, Jack didn't give up.
He concentrated on the image in his mind even harder.
A few seconds after, he excitedly saw mist gather into a ball.
However, because of his excitement, he lost focus and the ball of mist instantly started to scatter and disappear.
'Whoops.' Jack knew he had lost focus but wasn't discouraged because he at least had succeeded.
'How much did that cost?' He wondered to himself as he brought his status up.
'Not much, even less than what I would normally spend to manifest my whole body for a couple of seconds...'
Next, although he didn't feel weak like how he felt before, he still felt a bit tired, so he didn't want to take chances and immediately tried to heal himself but thankfully it didn't do anything.
'Looks like I'm fine for now.' Jack thought as he decided to continue seeing that he was fine.
Jack focused on his hand and replicated what he didn't before.
This time it only took a minute before the ball of mist manifested and he made sure to keep focused and not lose it in excitement this time.
After a minute, he got used to the image and it steadily stayed while slowly draining his energy to less than a third.
He wouldn't have been able to possibly do this for so long without being in this basement which decreased his energy cost to only 50%.
Knowing that he can't hold it with his energy much longer without it being risky, he let the image fade.
He couldn't lose all his energy because he needed to try and keep some just in case this harmed him.
As he tried to heal himself again he noticed no energy drain and felt relieved that he is safe in his experimentation for now.
He planned to continue practicing this way once his energy regenerated.
He wanted to be able to form the mist instantaneously and in any way he wanted.
To do so he planned to just keep trying to form a ball and then move on to other more complex shapes.
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A/N: Hello everyone, I just want to let all who care know that unfortunately there will be no chapter tomorrow, it is Thanksgiving and I plan to take the holiday as a break and to be with my family.
I'm sorry for all those who wanted to read a chapter but please forgive me and understand.
I will continue posting the day after so don't worry.
Happy Thanksgiving to those that celebrate and I hope you all have a nice day with your family as well.
To those who don't, please also have a nice day and I'm sorry.