Chương 281: Chapter 277 - Jurassic Valley (XXXIV)

December 12, 2024 - The Tower, Second Tier, Second Stage" Leonie… you have to see this."" Skip the mystery, send me the visuals. What's happening?" She removed her sword from the dead octopus and leapt out of the water. She received the images, and her eyes narrowed—then slowly, she smiled." How's he doing it?"" We… we don't know."" Can you communicate with him? Is he conscious?"" He doesn't seem fully conscious, but he's awake. We've tried contacting him via waves, but there's no response."" I'm on my way."

She sprinted across the uneven cliffside." Tell me more. In what state did you find him?"" He was analysing the corpse of a 4th stage Salamander last we saw, but now… the corpse is still there and yet…"" There's another one standing… interesting. Is it attacking? Send me constant visual feedback." She received the feed—Pablo seated awkwardly on the ground beneath the creature, head swaying in a slow oscillating motion." Alright. Stay there. Don't engage, and don't get close to him. Wait for my arrival."

She disconnected the call and sent out a long-range transmission." Ray, get me a 4th stage Salamander. Meet me at this location."" Otto, get me a 3rd stage Jellyfish. Meet at this point." After sending both messages, she continued, focused on the visual stream—until the creature suddenly vanished, and Pablo collapsed." This…"" I'm seeing it. Don't do anything." Leonie rushed the rest of the way until she arrived at the site. There, she found the corpse of the creature—and Pablo, sleeping on the ground.

She stepped closer, checked his pulse and breathing. Stable.

She scanned the area, then approached the corpse. Her tendrils extended, probing the skull— No orb.

"Hey, Tahi, where is this creature's orb?"

"This one… it should still be there. We didn't take it after the kill." Leonie stepped back and looked at Pablo again. He had already hit the limit on Salamanders—same as everyone else in The Shadows. So… where was the orb? Was her guess right? Had Pablo somehow… used the orb to manifest the creature? I spit blood on the ground. Again. I open my eyes and stare at the metallic roof I've been watching for days now. Why is this so… hard? My mental capabilities are even better than back then.

I have the foundation, the logic, the feel—and yet… I can't. No matter how much I try to push the nodes together, they just fight back. What the hell am I missing?! I went through all the damn data again. I studied the armor's node distribution for reference. I even tried gaining insights into the Second Pillar and Body Path. And yet… nothing fucking works. I stand up. My stomach growls. It's been several days since I last ate. It's getting too damn annoying. I can't focus properly… I— CLAP!

I smack my hands together. These thoughts are dragging me down a hole. Come on. I've survived worse shit than this. I can't train the Body Path properly without food, but I can still aim for the real node state—to become a Lord of Sparks. Maybe even get the mech suit running afterwards. Or… I could try pushing for the Second Pillar State. But somehow, the first one feels more attainable. And the rewards are also better. I clench my fist. Three days. Three days of pure training—and I've failed to reach it."

Things are not looking good, Houston."" Oh, tell me about it," comes his sarcastic voice." Feeling a bit hungry… just the usual, I haven't eaten in 3-4 days kind of hungry."" Normal humans have survived longer than that."" I appreciate the motivation, Houston."" You know, if you do need to eat, you have—"" I knew you were gonna bring that up. Damn, I just knew it."" So what, you want some advice on how to cook Xok'al meat? You can always stir-fry it after heating up some conductive plates and—"" Fuck off."

I exhale. To be honest, it's not entirely off the table right now. Realistically speaking… I should eat the Xok'al to improve my chances of survival, but… A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. My stomach growls again. It's not the worst thing I've done, I guess…

"Fuck it." I open the door and walk into the corridor. As I do, I check the state of the door at the end. There are no longer vibrations coming from the other side. They gave up two days ago and haven't been back. The fact they haven't found another entrance is… slightly reassuring. I lower my gaze and stare at the corpse of the two-tailed Xok'al. Despite being dead for three days, deterioration is minimal. What hunger does to a person… I'd be puking at the thought of this shit— and yet.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. You made a promise, Alonso. You made a promise. I open them again. I swing the scimitar and sever the head completely, then the limbs and legs. I crouch and grab one of its legs. A bit too… humanoid looking. I bring out the short blade I picked up a while ago and use it to cut through the outer skin, extracting the muscle. I grab the thigh. It's still bleeding. Impressive biological condition for three-day-old tissue to look like this. Fresh meat, I guess? My god…

what the hell am I doing? But… I need to eat. Constant hunger is wrecking my focus. I need energy to recover. Energy to train. Energy to get the fuck out of this shithole. I bring the thigh meat to one of the chambers. Inside, there are highly conductive plates connected to a heating system—meant for crafting. It runs on batteries. I grab one I've been slowly charging over the last few days, connect it, and start it up with a pulse. I press the meat down between the heating plates. A sizzling sound fills the room.

The smell of burning meat reaches my nose. Doesn't smell bad, actually. I wait a bit longer. It's done in a couple of minutes. I lift the meat off the plate using the tip of the short blade. It drips a little, juices sizzling against the still-hot metal. The outer layer is charred and slightly crisp. The inside? Warm. Cooked through—more or less. I stare at it for a moment. I bring it closer and… bite into it.

"..." Not bad. Actually… not bad at all. There's a faint metallic taste—like licking the edge of a copper coin—but it's subtle. More of a background note than an assault on the tongue. If I didn't know this was Xok'al thigh meat, I could almost convince myself it was some weird forest game. I chew slowly, half-expecting my body to protest. It doesn't. It wants more. So I give it more. Bite after bite, down to the bone.

I work through half the thigh, then pull another strip free and press it between the plates again. Whoever designed those crafting surfaces did not expect them to be repurposed for cooking Xok'al flesh, but here we are. Survival over etiquette. Always. I lean back as I chew. Muscles already feeling less hollow. Focus crawling its way back into place. Energy. That's all this is. A transfer of energy. It just so happens the source used to try to kill me. Fair trade.

I polish off the rest of the meat and toss the bone into a broken crate nearby. I wipe my hands against my pants—not the cleanest, but better than nothing. I stretch. Limbs still sore, but something's shifting. There's a spark again. The kind that comes when your body finally stops screaming for attention, and your mind is free to think. Good. I focus on the scimitar and make it rotate in the air around me, then motion it into my grip.

The balance of a scimitar is quite different from the swords I'm used to, but it'll have to do for now. I swing it several times, then imagine the nodes in the space around me like stars. I move the blade between them—swings, cuts, thrusts, feints—all layered with the so-much-pursued intention I've been trying to lay over my moves. But it still refuses to fall into my grasp. I always remember that movement Darius made when I asked him to be serious for once. A strike that was never there, and yet felt so real.

That level… that's the intention I'm after. Being able to cut with a sword that doesn't move. A feint that becomes real. If I can merge that into my swordsmanship… heh, things will get serious. I grin and keep practicing, shifting my stance, focusing on imaginary targets—sometimes a copy of myself, sometimes a Xok'al, or even Wang. I let myself feel the flow, focusing on the stars as they light around me, connecting to subnodes—planets, orbits—simulating the pathways in my mind. I keep going, and time slips.

Eventually, I feel the burn settle in. I lower my blade. I think I made some progress just now. Still not there. Haven't reached that moment of enlightenment yet. I wonder if Chiara reached the Second Pillar State. Yeah, she probably did by now—maybe even weeks ago. And Ayu? Maybe. She mentioned she was close before the stage began. I wonder how she's doing. Is she fighting the Xok'al? Is she safe with Chiara and Lukas? What was the power structure of the Azcoyatl again? Were they controlling those constructs?

I chuckle, picturing Ayu trying to control one. Nah. I shake my head. That's not my Ayu. More than that, the Azcoyatl focused solely on the Pillar Path… Hmm… what was Ayu doing then? Well, whatever it was—she's strong. She'll be fine. The one in a bit of a ditch right now… is me. Alright, that's enough of physical training. Let's get back to the masochist one. I sit down, cross-legged on the floor. I analyse the internal arrangement of the capacitor nodes in my body.

Over the last three days, I've been playing with them quite a bit, and the current efficiency is slightly better than the original Jaguar pattern. Still, the change is mostly quantitative—not yet the qualitative leap I'm aiming for. The hard part is the active-passive integration with the mental nodes. Achieving stability between a few capacitors and my First-State mental nodes wasn't difficult, but doing it for all of them? That's a different beast entirely. I slowly calm my mind and enter a meditative state.

A visual representation of my nodes appears against a black background. The capacitors currently active are highlighted. Those successfully linked to my mental nodes show up in blue; those that aren't—red. So the puzzle is simple: how do I turn them all blue? Right now, I'm sitting at 68%. And while that sounds like a lot, the net effect isn't impressive. The disconnected ones push back against the system. The imbalance keeps me from achieving that resonance state—where I can freely output waves from any node.

I still have to rely one-to-one on the Pillar. But… I'm getting there. I start simulating hundreds of patterns per second, virtually testing each variation before committing to any real change. After several minutes, I find a slight tweak—nodes R4 and Y8 can be adjusted without destabilising the others. I proceed, slowly opening the capacitor storage at R4. I align it with a nearby mental node, searching for the right frequency— Got it. One more down. But every success makes the next harder.

It's a multi-body problem. A delicate equilibrium has to be maintained across all nodes. The computational load is enormous. Luckily, I don't have to rely on pure math. I use a kind of internal 'cold and hot' system. Intuition meets calculation. The feel of the pattern helps guide the math—reducing what I guess only someone like Chiara could brute-force purely through logic. And so, I keep going. I open new nodes as capacitors. I shut others down, keeping them as backup rather than active.

Bit by bit, the pattern shifts. The process is long. Painful. But it's progress. Before I realise it, I've gone from 68% to 81%. And yet… I can't go further. My body is drenched in sweat. My head's pounding like it's being struck from the inside. A quick check confirms it—over 14 hours have passed since I started. I exhale, my breath turning to smoke from the inner heat radiating through my body. I catch the smell of burnt flesh. I stink too. Yeah… guess it's time for a break.

I head back to the water reserve, take a quick dip, drink some water, and then rest. And after I wake… all over again.