Revelation

After helping his dad put everything away, and listening to some old movies with him, Kane went to bed.

But he couldn't sleep just yet. He'd been using the last couple of hours as a distraction, there was something that scared him, he didn't want to face it head-on.

It was that strange new energy running through his body, sharpening his senses and causing a light pull everywhere he went.

Although its been nothing but beneficial, the root of it stems from a painful nightmare that had almost killed him. He had a lot of reasons to be worried.

And naturally, any drastic changes to somebody's body they don't understand will scare the hell out of them.

But Kane was more confident than before, if he could survive fighting monsters without pain reduction and handle an hour of agonizing torture, he could also push through his anxiety.

He sat down in a meditative position and focused on the energy, letting his thoughts disappear and his consciousness float into his own body.

The energy seemed to slowly trickle through certain pathways inside him, it was so slow that it almost felt stagnant.

Kane honed in on a single pathway, following the energy as it moved.

It eventually stopped somewhere in his left side and slowly bounced back in the other direction.

Kane was apprehensive, but getting a little excited, as the energy seemed reminiscent of mana.

Only reminiscent, it didn't quite feel the same as mana.

Kane focused on his fingertips, feeling a slight tingling sensation.

He allowed the sensation to grow, putting all of his concentration into sharpening it.

Until eventually, it began lightly buzzing, a warm feeling spread throughout his body as the energy slowly forced its way over to the finger he'd been concentrating on.

He allowed the feeling to disperse, letting the energy flow back to where it was.

This time he focused on his ears, once again feeling the energy slowly make its way over.

As it began bunching up at his ears, Kane noted something incredible. His hearing had increased by a stupid amount.

To put it into perspective, at night, his dad only watched tv at extremely low volumes with subtitles on, as to not bother Kane.

But now, Kane could hear everything happening, clear as day.

He had also noticed something equally good, it was becoming easier to move the energy around the more he did it.

He was now forcing it to move from place to place, allowing his control to grow as he became used to the feeling.

The energy also began flowing more efficiently.

This time he tried something different, evenly dispersing the energy through his body and attempting to hold it in place.

He could feel his muscles solidify and his cells vibrate, but holding it in place took far too much concentration.

Kane was shaking just from a few seconds of it, he felt like he'd just completed a full-body workout.

Now he tried pulling energy from certain parts of his body. It took a moment to figure out, but he could indeed do it.

Kane noticed that bunching up energy into a single place caused it to slowly leak out of his body, but with that came another revelation, the energy could be pulled straight from the air and absorbed into him.

He let the energy spread across him and leak out, then he pulled in more energy from the air. The process seemed to get a little faster each time he did it.

"What the actual f*ck is happening to me," Kane shakily muttered to himself.

He already knew this was somehow a result of playing Ember, it was just too obvious, the real question is 'how.'

This went far beyond the realm of a placebo, but with his comparison to Ember, Kane had another idea.

'Maybe just like this weird energy, that little subspace doesn't only exist in Ember?'

Following this line of thought, Kane spread the energy throughout his body, letting it heighten his senses and interact with the space around him.

It was extremely obscure and impossible to completely describe, but he could feel a ripple coming from what felt like a thin layer covering reality.

As if there was some kind of invisible sheet resting just under everything, and Kane was currently interacting with it through his energy.

He imagined slipping through this second layer, focusing all of his energy on the task.

Kane's cells began vibrating once more, the tugging sensation on his body became more robust.

Kane started feeling lighter and lighter, but before anything could happen, all the energy had been sucked from his body and the sensation stopped.

"Oh man, that was weird!" Kane exclaimed excitedly.

He couldn't feel a single drop of power left in his body. Thankfully, with just a little bit of focus, his body began absorbing energy from his surroundings

Kane spent the next hour practicing, guiding the energy and letting it disperse from his body, before absorbing more into him, he did this over and over.

By the end of this, he could guide the energy much more specifically, and with greater speed. It seemed to both disperse and absorb much quicker than before.

As if the channels they had to go through had been carved out and made wider, allowing better flow.

He still couldn't do whatever it was he was trying to do with space though, but the fact it drained all of his power meant there was something that could be done with it.

Deciding he'd practice this more tomorrow, he let himself fall asleep.

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'Ring-Ring...'

"Yes? Greetings district commander! Medical records? Oh yes, I remember him. I see, his next appointment is in a week. Do you want me to administer it, or shall I trust his regular doctor? I understand."

'Click.'

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Kane woke up a little earlier than usual, despite going to bed fairly late.

"I wonder if this is because of my mana?" Kane mumbled as he got out of bed.

He'd just decided to call it mana, seeing as it was mostly the same as in Ember.

As his feet touched the ground Kane nearly toppled over, all of his muscles were sore, even his bones felt like they were pulsing in mild pain.

It seemed that 'full-body workout' he'd experienced last night from forcing his mana to stay in place had actually made him sore. Kane was grateful he didn't have any plans today.

Or so he thought.

"Hey buddy!" His dad burst through the door.

"There's someone at the door, get your ass up," He beamed.

Kane put on a shirt and grabbed his cane.

For once, his cane wasn't to stop him from bumping into things, but to lean on while he walked.

He decided to try pulling mana into his legs, it seemed to work! They got lighter and began moving less painfully, though rather than just staying around his legs like they would've last night, the mana seemed to be getting sucked right into them.

'What on earth?' Kane thought to himself.

By the time his mana had been fully drained, his legs felt a lot better. They were still sore and a little hard to walk on, but he could thankfully put the cane away.

"Hi Kane!" Cassy's voice rang out from the couch.

Although he couldn't deny her popping in first thing in the morning felt nice, it just wasn't a good day.

"Hey Cass, what's the deal here? It's only like 7."

Cassy gave a little sigh, "I'm sorry about this, but my mom wants you to come bowling with us."

"And I think it's a great idea to go have fun like that before school starts." His dad cut in, winking and nudging at Kane.

"Why's your mom going bowling at 7?" Kane asked with a frown.

"I think she's only doing this to force us to spend time together, or she's sorry about last night, but the first one sounds more like her."

He sighed, "... Fine, I guess I had nothing to do today anyway," Kane wasn't particularly hungry or tired right now, so it didn't matter too much.

Quickly testing something, Kane let out as much mana as he possibly could at once. Nobody seemed to notice anything.

Kane was relieved, 'Good, I can still practice while I'm there.'

Taking a quick shower and changing into something that he assumed was more fashionable, Kane made his way downstairs and met with Joan.

"Ahh, Kane, so nice to see my future son-in-law come and join us."

Both he and Cassy's eyebrows twitched.

"Ah-ha, great to... be here," Kane said in the stiffest voice he could pull, Cassy tried her best not to laugh.

"C'mon 'husband,' we've got some pins to take out," She rolled her eyes.

He hopped in the car while Joan was starting it up.

Cassy leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Don't worry, I made sure she couldn't drink first."

"Thank you," Kane mouthed back.

'Why bowling? He was sure he'd enjoy it, but nevertheless, why bowling?' Kane deeply pondered, before eventually relenting.

Lots of annoying things were said by Joan during the ride, Kane found it difficult to hold a conversation while trying to control mana at the same time.

It was great practice.

From what he could tell, forcing mana to flow in decent amounts slowly widened his channels, allowing more of it to flow through a single passage at a time, and letting it flow more quickly.

This also allowed him to hold more in his body at a time. Additionally, his absorption rate increased because of the improved efficiency of mana flow.

He could expel mana and absorb mana at the same time, but he had to both split his attention and use separate channels, which caused the two processes to be painfully slow.

He could direct mana to certain parts, which seemed to boost their strength, he could also spread it out evenly which would increase the function of everything, but to a lesser extent.

Moving around too much of it at once or bunching it up made it slowly leak out, he could also let it passively float around, which caused absolutely no leakage or absorption, and only provided a minimal boost throughout his body.

Forcing the mana to hold still at any given part took immense effort, and seemed to stimulate the body, the result being akin to having done a good amount of exercise.

Mana could be pulled from areas and pushed to other areas, and bundling mana around an injured part of his body seemed to increase that area's healing, he'd need more proof than his sore legs feeling better after doing it though.

He didn't know what would happen if he tried bunching up mana in a single spot and releasing it all at once, he decided he'd sneak out tonight and try it in the field.

Last but not least, it seemed Kane could access subspace in some capacity.

He didn't know if the reason he could sense the subspace was because of some kind of natural affinity, or because he had experience with it in Ember, but he hoped it was the latter.

If that were the case, Kane would be able to potentially learn other elements as well.

This was the most exciting thing Kane had ever experienced, real-life superpowers! What if his strength grew to the point of treating the real world like he did Ember?

The main things drawing him to Ember were the existence of magic, the possibility he could see, the heightened senses he'd gotten, etc.

If he could have all that in the real world, he wouldn't be missing out on anything, even after getting rid of the game!

"We're here!" Joan announced while pulling into a mostly empty parking lot.