Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 20: Power Up

Time Remaining; 713 Days, 9 Hours, 56 Minutes…

"You going to do this or what, I'm starting to feel strange watching you at this point," Garret said.

Alex sighed but didn't move. He was standing at the bank of the river inside the forest next to the village of Vrung's Quarry. They were making their way back to the camp where they had left the rest of their squad when Alex said he wanted to stop at the river.

As long as they kept following the river for the day, the two of them would make it back and not have to worry about getting lost. But, that fact wasn't the reason Alex wanted to stop there. It certainly wasn't the reason that he currently stood on the bank of the water while completely naked.

Alex pulled up the system screen displaying his experience points and stats, looking over everything one more time before he truly committed to his decision. It took a little bit of math, but that was easy for him. Once he made up his mind, Alex mentally clicked on his agility, and quickly felt the rush of energy in his body coupled with the rapid fall of his experience point total. The feeling was intoxicating. The warmth and power that flowed into him, it was what Alex would assume any human made drug was trying, and failing, to replicate back on earth.

His agility stat pushed past 100% and broke into a base four. He poured more experience into it, not letting up.

The anticipation built inside his mind and body as he watched the progress. The experience points were dropping even faster now, as it cost more to increase the stat further. But that didn't deter Alex, and the rush of energy kept building. Once again the progress climbed up and pushed his agility into a base five.

He only saw the change on his screen for a moment, able to enjoy the sight a fraction of a second before his vision turned into a haze of black.

The soothing and powerful feeling of the energy enhancing his body fled, and it was chased by a clawing pain that climbed into Alex's skin and began attacking his very bones. Alex wasn't certain how, but he felt the tiny ruptures in his organs as the impurities in his body were squeezed and pushed together. His bones cracked as an invisible force squeezed down on them as well. Yet more of the black liquid seeped from his bones and mingled inside the other streams of ooze collecting in his body. All the while, Alex tried to scream, and found that he couldn't.

It was a torture that he never imagined. Garret had warned him. He had seen what anguish his friend went through when he underwent the earth tribulation, the refinement. It still hadn't prepared him properly. His physical body was being crushed, twisted and squeezed internally in impossible ways and collecting all this blackish material toward his upper body. It filled his lungs, making him unable to breath. He tried to scream. Again. Still nothing.

He felt his lungs collapse inward, pushing desperately on the liquid that filled them and eventually, he felt it shoot up his throat and Alex vomited a thick dark sludge all over the ground. This repeated, over and over again, Alex's body ejected the impurities it had collected.

Alex found himself on his hands and knees an unknown amount of time later. His mouth felt horrid. The liquid-stench felt like it still coated his insides and he gagged trying not to taste it. Breathing was also a torture, as the smell was ghastly.

"Damn, I think you beat the exorcism world record for vomit distance there." Garret was already beside him.

"That was way worse than you described." Alex gasped out between breaths.

"Eh, I ain't much of a words guy. I said it was bad, though you might have had it worse than me. You vomited out much more of this stuff than I did. " Garret patted his back in sympathy. Which only made Alex collapse under Garret's strength and further into the stained dirt.

"Please, stop helping me." Alex groaned and began crawling towards the water.

This was why he wanted to be at the river when he did this. Alex knew the refinement was a messy process. So taking off his clothes and being at the water's edge made sure he could dirty as little as possible and clean up right afterward.

He scrubbed his aching body in the river for a long time. The stuff was just far too sticky to come off easily and Alex had to scrape off some of it with his fingernails before finally getting himself acceptably clean.

"So, did you go for agility?" Garret tossed Alex his clothes and newly purchased leather armor. Meanwhile, Alex pulled up his notification.

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