Energy where are you (revised)

(A/N: okay readers here is the revised version of this chapter hope you like it)

When he got home from the market, Helios rushes back to his room to try and learn the Cultivation Technique that Sun Wukong gave him.

Sitting in a lotus position on his bed, he opens the app and analyses the content of this Cosmic Energy Cultivation that Wukong offered.

"Cosmic energy is a very mysterious force scattered throughout the universe. Its presence can be felt even hundreds of lightyears away from the source. It cannot be seen by the eye, yet it can be felt— it cannot be observed, yet its presence can be perceived."

As Helios was reading this, his eyes were rolling as he was even more confused upon reading the introduction.

'That damned Monkey, so even the author of the book doesn't even exactly know what Cosmic Energy is, so howdda heck does he expect me to cultivate it?' He thought.

"Its exact power cannot be measured, as even attempting to do so can prove to be fatal. Yet one thing is for certain, its versatility and sheer power when one is able to harness it can rival that of many armies of huge nations.

"However, Cosmic Energy is very elusive, and it cannot be fully controlled, when one wishes to cultivate from such power, one must treat it with respect, as even harnessing a minutia can level mountains, such is its destructive power that I am writing this book to avoid the catastrophic accidents in the past, by the first cultivators of this Energy and to try to understand even a fraction of what it means to cultivate the force of the Cosmos."

Helios pauses for a moment and recalls back something from his previous life,

'From what I can reckon, the term Cosmic Energy was something used in spirituality and alternative medicine— a sort of paranormal phenomena.

'However, after reading this book, it seems that the author is very careful of his words as not to cross the border alluding to the supernatural stuff— very weird since this world has people with supernatural abilities as part of everyday life.'

Helios scrolls down the app and continues reading,

"This book will outline of what we currently know so far about the nature of cosmic energy

"For thousands of years, there have been many different theories proposing the existence of Cosmic Energy, but it was only around three thousand years ago where a breakthrough was discovered and the existence of such energy has been observed by special apparatus used by astronomers."

"The term Cosmic Energy is a temporary name for this phenomenon, as it refers to this peculiar force observed outside of the planets, scattered within the universe.

"This energy, though the sources are several lightyears away, can be felt and observed even in its tiniest amount that reaches us here."

"It was then that Cultivators started trying to find a way to harness it and did several attempts to know its very nature, but failed doing so.

"The next breakthrough came when the Cultivator, Chen Guo, first successfully harnessed its energy, and she did so for several years, trying to perfect her techniques and gaining more and more of the power from the Cosmos, trying to reach its maximum potential,

"However, as she would later find out, no human could ever fully use it to its maximum potential, as the strain of harnessing too much Cosmic Energy to body could prove fatal,

"The first recorded incident happened when the promising protégée of Chen Guo: Zhu Yan Xia tried to perfect the cultivation of Cosmic Energy and push the boundaries of what was possible to harvest, as he managed to get thrice the Cosmic Energy that Chen Guo harnessed, but as he tried to go even further, his body collapsed and an explosive energy released that devastated several yards around his body.

"Several students got killed, including Yan Xia himself, and when the other Cultivators, along with Chen Guo went to the site, they found that the entire area around them was levelled— everything was crushed, as if a very huge meteor landed on the area."

"It was there that the first theory was proposed that the cosmic energy was spherical in its nature, emanating in an area around the cultivator, and it hits like a meteor causing a huge impact. From then,

restrictions on practising the cultivation of Cosmic Energy has been enacted, and heavy regulation went thereafter, as it was considered a class B threat, and dangerous to master."

"As such, the current practise of Cultivating Cosmic Energy dictates that harnessing should be in only done tiny amounts, and instead, compress it to multiply its effect.

Even compressing a pea-sized amount of Cosmic Energy can destroy a house, so it was standardised to use this cultivation in moderation, as such not to cause too much harm on the user's body, as well as to the others around him."

Helios kept reading the app whole afternoon, only stopping to take some snacks and toilet breaks. He studied every detail outlined in the book, and practised the exercises mentioned in it.

He did so for several days, and when he reached chapter 37 of the manual, it was not time to project cosmic energy from his body.

Helios went up to the rooftop of their house, and stood at the spot near where they hang their clothes to dry, as the birds were merrily chirping on a pleasant sunny morning.

Visualizing from what was written in the book, a strong invisible force that pulls everything towards it, he visualizes a dark blank void where no light can escape nor travel, the he starts to feel the wind condensing throughout his body, as Cosmic Energy is negative energy, it attracts anything, and everything to it, so Helios must be exact on what he visualizes.

As the more and more cosmic energy he gathers, Helios starts to feel heavy, as he suddenly felt that his entire body had weights on them. It was still bearable, and nothing too drastic, as he was being careful to not overdo it, especially since this was his first time.

The book outlines that the user should get used to this sensation first, as it will make changes to the body in order to better facilitate the absorption and release of the energy of the cosmos.

Fifteen minutes has passed, as Helios felt more and more of the air surrounding him was now gathering throughout his body, at first it felt cool but as more air was being collected, it suddenly felt warmer, and now Helios was sweating profusely as the weight of his body was now starting to take a strain on him.

He clenches his teeth, and goes to absorb a tiny bit more, as now the weight of his body triples, and he starts to feel nauseated as he steps it up a bit more, and now his body weight is four times.

He stops increasing the force, and settles for four times his body weight, making it a bench mark to how much Cosmic Energy he could safely gather.

He stayed like this for about an hour, as his legs had now started shaking from the pressure, and his whole clothes was soaked in sweat, it was almost time to take a break, but before doing so, he decided to momentarily absorb more force, albeit in a controlled manner, as the weight of his body now equated to seven times his weight— it was there that he saw the string of the clothesline he was standing nearby, snapped and the clothes dropped abnormally fast on the floor, and Helios suddenly collapsed.

It was already night time when Helios woke up after fainting, as the cool breeze from the summer night blows through his face. He scratches his eyes and stands up, as he felt muscle pains all throughout his body, and furthermore, he felt a little bit of jet lag. He was feeling so hungry and immediately went downstairs and found out that all the lights were out, as it was already midnight.

So he went to the kitchen, drank a bottle of milk and tried to cook some eggs and fried rice to recoup the energy he spent practising all day.

After taking his meals, he decided to go on the couch and watch some Television. It was his first-time watching TV since coming to this world, and one thing he noticed was the lack of anime. To be specific, the type animated shows that Japan popularised back in his original world— specifically, animated shows geared towards teens and older audiences with deeper stories and mature themes and plot. All Helios could find were cartoons for kids and a lot of news and movies.

He found this peculiar, and thought that maybe his family in this world was just broke and couldn't afford better cable plan. Or so he thought, until he went back upstairs and tried using his computer. It was an entirely different Operating System, but kinda worked the same as W*ndows and M*c in his previous life.

After a little bit of getting used to, he tried surfing the web and couldn't find any anime or otaku related stuff, not even a niche of it.

Helios was an Otaku and a shut-in during his previous life. All he had was the geek culture of anime and manga, as well as the dozens of games he was playing in order to complete his day. But somehow, most of those things doesn't exist.

He searched for some light novels, but only found drama, love stories, crime, horror, and all those stuff, but he couldn't find the same fantasy stories he loved back in his home world.

It was also the same with movies, as if the concept of power fantasy stories was foreign to this world— no, it wasn't that it was foreign, it was because it was part of the ordinary in this world that's why a particular genre of it didn't separately exist! And instead, magical powers, abilities and such are all part of the normal genres of media here, that it didn't need a separate niche no longer, and it made Helios really sad, and tears poured down from his eyes.

It wasn't just a hobby nor an obsession. It was his life. That was all he had.

There was nothing he could do, so he simply browsed the web and watched random videos just to ease his boredom and the pain from being parted with his beloved passion.

_*_*_*_

The next day, Helios dedicated his time in re-learning everything about this world, along with the fragments of memories the old Helios left him, as well as traveling around town and observing people and all sorts of stuff.

It was there he truly realised that he was indeed in a different world, a different culture nowhere found on earth, as well as technology and civilization was made in conjunction with Abilities and powers. again.

More importantly, he had to learn who Helios Black was in this world, his identity, his family, the connections he had, his personality, and everything about him prior to when he took over the Old Helios' body.

It was a strange feeling living the identity of a different person. But he had no choice, as he now had to assume the new Helios Black, and start from scratch again, being careful not to be noticed by everyone who knew him, as he was worried whether his personality was so different from the old Helios Black.

After studying the things about this world and about himself, he went back to training his Cultivation Ability, and he did so again on the rooftop, doing it everyday for several days, but this time he never went over the prescribed limit of harvesting the power. He did this over and over for about a month.

After exactly one month of training, Helios had now started to notice changes in his body. He had now a few muscles developed all throughout, his stamina as well as his concentration was now better. All in all, his body feels so much lighter, then he was able to jump twice his own height, a feat he thought he would never achieve throughout his whole life back then.

His speed was now faster, and he was able to lift heavier things then before, and most of all, his control over the flow of Cosmic Energy was now better.

Helios then tries to manipulate the cosmic energy inside his body to come out, from his palm he can feel the cosmic energy emerge but he noticed that it didn't separate from his skin.

He then condensed the cosmic energy into a shape of a cube— although he can't see it, he can still feel the form inside his palm.

Then he moves the cube from his left palm and travels inside his body then emerges into his right palm.

He presses his right palm slowly into his bed to experiment if the cosmic energy can affect the things physically, as his right palm slowly pressed into his bed he noticed that there was no cube mark that appeared when he was pressing his palm onto it.

Helios then tries to compress the cube shape cosmic energy, it takes a few minutes until it cannot be compressed anymore, he then moves the compress cosmic energy into his forefinger and slowly press his forefinger into his bed which causes a cube mark to appear.

He came to conclusion that unless he compresses the cosmic energy it won't be able to affect other things easily, as cosmic energy is almost always attached to the skin.

Helios then tried to covered his hand using it since the amount of cosmic energy he could safely harvest was still small so it can only coat two of his fingers.

He then tries to bite the fingers that was coated with the cosmic energy but to his surprise, his bite couldn't go through. He tried biting it with more force, but no luck—his teeth wasn't penetrating it, it felt like he was biting something rubbery with a very hard object underneath, so it didn't hurt his teeth, nor could his bite go any further. It felt elastic, but didn't move much more than a few millimeters, so he could still felt it from his fingers, but the bulk of the force wasn't going through. It was a strange feeling.

After that, Helios tried poking the wall in his room with the fingers that was coated with cosmic energy.

"Finger Blade!" he shouted like a Chuunibyou.

His fingers went through easily, poking a whole an inch deep, also ruining his wallpaper.

Helios was surprised since it didn't feel painful, he'd expect at least some sort of recoil from the wall's hardness or something, but it felt more like poking gelatine instead.

And then again, he felt this weird sensation, that he could feel the texture, and the object touching his fingers, but any more force was absorbed by the energy coating as it felt like a rubbery compound all throughout his coated digits.

He was now able to confirm that a body part can't be harmed as long as it is coated with cosmic energy.

After a few moments Helios went to the kitchen to grab some lunch, he looked at the time in the clock and it was already past 1pm.

He was able to find some food dining table which was covered with a dome shape plastic screen.

The food was prepared by his little sister and he remembers that it was his turn to prepared the food for today.

While he was cooking Helios tried to see if he would be affected by the heat if he coated his finger with the cosmic energy.

He slowly pushes his finger near the fire of the stove and to his surprise he didn't get burned. It only felt slightly warm, but the fire wasn't going through the compressed Cosmic energy coating. But furthermore, what's weird was what happened to the flame. Normally, when something fire resistant touches the fire, the flames would just go around it, but in the Energy coating's case, the fire looks like it's cut off from the point of contact in his finger!

Helios found it strange, so he pulled his finger out, turned up the fire of the stove for taller flames, then he slowly puts his finger back until it touches the flame, and just like that, in the area where the flame touches the coated energy armour, it gets cut off! All the other surrounding flames that didn't touch it were still blazing three inches high. Helios couldn't find any explanation from the book about it, so he assumed it was just another one of the many unknown mysteries about the Cosmic Energy's nature.

After confirming it he then continues cooking his lunch and ate it.

From the information of the previous Helios their parents were visiting their grandparents home town so it was just him and his sister in the house and they left them enough money for their daily needs.

He needed to act like the previous Helios to avoid his sister finding out it wasn't him anymore, as such people with abilities to transform and look like others existed, albeit rare, and he doesn't want to get mistaken for that.

Luckily, he and his sister doesn't interact that much, so he could keep his identity safe for now. Furthermore, since Helios didn't have any siblings in his previous life, he didn't think he could properly act like a big brother to her, so it would be better to stay this way.