Time Capsule [1]
Waking up, I expected to feel sick, as I thought I would be hungover from last night, but to my surprise, I only feel a very slight headache.
After spending quite some time trying to explain to the succubus that me and James weren't romantically involved, the rest of the night continued without any large incidents.
James and Sarah had danced for a while, with Sarah confidently moving her unbelievable body in tune to the music, and James, a bit drunk, awkwardly trying his best.
After Brad had left, we didn't meet him in the club anymore. Thinking he had succeeded in his hunt, we left without him, only to later see him patting a girl's back in an alleyway.
Not minding the struggles of our dear friend, we took the train back to the academy.
On academy grounds, we split up after agreeing to eat dinner together in the evening, as Saturday already had arrived a few hours ago.
Stretching my small body, I made my way to the bathroom to take a quick shower and decide how I would spend my day.
*Shhshhshh*
Standing in the shower, the hot water felt great on my skin. As I recovered my warmth, lost when I got exposed to the chilly air in my apartment, I decided to spend my day in a time capsule to train.
'I'm going to have to use my weekly allotted time before Monday. It would be a waste not to use it after all."
With my decision made, I continued to enjoy my shower for a while.
*****
The time capsules available to us were located on the third floor of the freshmen's training center. On the first floor, there were gyms and gravity rooms, and the second contained bookable personal training rooms, where you could practice techniques without anyone looking.
The time capsules were, as the name suggests, big tubes where you laid down. All of them were connected to a central computer, which monitored everyone's vitals. This was a countermeasure to be able to prevent anyone from accidentally overusing a capsule and accidentally frying their brain.
Of course, they didn't record the actual virtual world, as no one would dare to use them if they might risk exposing a hidden technique or a spell.
With my purple blades in my hands, they were apparently also getting recreated with me into the virtual world, I laid down in the tube.
As the tube closed, I felt my mind warp. Suddenly I was in a white room, with a screen and a control panel in front of me.
*Student Miren Porter registered!*
[Remaining weekly allotted time: 5:00]
[Please input your desired amount of time in the artificial dimensional pocket]
[0:00]
[WARNING! INTERVAL MUST NOT EXCEED 3 HOURS. THIS IS THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF TIME PERMITTED PER DAY]
[If the period is not chosen within 5 minutes, Miren will be forcefully ejected from the system]
'Looks like another precaution to keep students safe. Well no matter, I also have tomorrow. I'll just spend the remaining two hours after breakfast.'
With that, I used the control panel to choose the maximum amount of time, which would translate into 15 hours of practice.
The control panel and the screen disappeared, and a voice rang out.
*Student can voice out "control panel up" to make the controls emerge and "control panel down" to make it disappear*
"Control panel up."
Instantly the little machine was back this time having a more intricate set of settings.
The new set of settings included things like spawning dummies, changing the environment and the weather, animating one's registered weapons, and a lot more.
"Hmm, seems like I'll be able to fulfill any needs I might have in here."
Pleased with my quick inspection of the different functions in my personal world, I made the panel disappear and prepared myself for training.
"First I need to figure out what I can actually do..."
Having no idea how [Overclooking] or [Lightning Step] even worked, I had to start with a bit of experimenting.
Choosing to start with my Battle Art, I closed my eyes and imagined absorbing energy in the air. I could feel my pores opening, similar to breaking through a mana grade rank, and a slight surge of power started to emerge.
After spending a bit of time accumulating mana, I could feel my little body start to scream in rejection of the foreign energy. Even in here, I could feel the immense pressure my body was under trying to use my Art.
Stopping, I instead started to focus on the lightning energy inside of me.
An immense difference. My mana was currently a lot more powerful and fiercer than it would normally be. What before was something akin to a small, sparking seedling was now a purple river of lightning, engulfing my inner self with roars of thunder.
Intrigued by the changes, I tried to sense the difference in my body.
Moving around, it felt like time had slowed to a crawl, proving that I was a lot faster than before. My strength also appeared to be more potent but, as it was still rank I, I didn't think it would make much of a difference.
Although my body was still in opposition to my condition, I began to gather my lightning in my right fist.
"Woah!"
The lightning streaks had gotten a lot more powerful after overclocking myself, and it felt like I could, most likely, easily start to create techniques or spells with external manipulation with this amount and strength of my mana.
I started to circulate my mana, congregating my lightning energy at different parts of my body.
From my right hand to my left. From my left hand to my left leg, continuing like a savage snake of purple energy crawling around my body. Finally, I tried to cover all of myself with lightning.
*CRSHHHT*
A huge pulse of energy got discharged from my body before I lost all my vigor and my body fell limply to the ground.
'Hmm? What's this? I can't move my body... Is this mana depletion? I did follow the tip the monkey gave us to not turn on endless mana, so shouldn't I have felt my mana running out?'
My mind revved up, and, as usual, multiple thoughts were being analyzed for me to quickly arrive at a conclusion.
'My Battle Art must have continued to absorb mana as a means to keep the mana reserves full and to keep my reinforced mana grade up. If so, what condition is my body actually in for me to just collapse?'
I forced my mouth to call for the control panel, and via voice commands I had it show my virtual vital signs.
'Fuck... My body is breaking down?! But I only used it for about 5 minutes? Isn't this bad?'
My Battle Art description did say that I would be receiving damage in return for power, but the vitals were showing that if I continued to use it, I would probably die, with all my organs incinerated.
'I wonder to what degree I can adapt my body to using this. I think that I would need at least an hour for me to reliable use it in dungeons or expeditions, even if I used it in short bursts.'
Using voice commands, I reset my virtual condition in order to experiment more.
Just like with mana, Mike had also told us not to turn off physical condition simulation. The reason being, it would be more efficient practice if we knew our real bodies limits, which I agreed with.
Now though, I knew I needed to alter one other setting. With the controls in front of me, I turned on the pain simulation and turned it to 100% of real life.
'I have to know how it truly feels if I'm going to use it in reality.'
Restarting the absorption process, I could now clearly feel the foreign mana start to rip my body apart. Only managing about a fifth of my earlier osmosis, I had to stop.
Gritting my teeth in an attempt to somehow endure the torture and to keep myself conscious, I found somehow stood my ground.
"FUCK! It hurts so bad, no wonder I would have died if continued to use it when it was five times this amount! This is crazy!"
*Fuuuu*
With a deep breath, I moved my body a bit. Just like earlier, even with the pain, time had slowed down and my lightning was stronger, although not nearly to the same extent.
'What mana grade rank is this even? I don't think my body could hold out for more than twenty minutes at most. And that's only if I'm able to bear the pain... Wait, shouldn't my status reflect my state in real-time?'
===Status===
Name: Miren Porter
Rank: II
Strength: I
Speed: VII
Stamina: III
Intelligence: III
Mana grade: II [Lower] -> Overclocked rank: III [Lower]
Charm:?
--> Inherent Disposition : [Boundless]
--> Battle Arts:[Overclock]
--> Elemental affinities[Lightning]
==========
'I'm currently at the same mana grade as James?! Isn't this completely broken? Thinking about how I can barely move, I guess it makes a bit of sense. But pain is only in the mind! All I need to do is to endure it, find out how long my body can hold out before I risk dying, and then train my ass off to be able to control it to the best of my abilities!'
And with that, I canceled my Art, letting the extra energy flow out of me.
'Wait, shouldn't I be able to use this a lot more dynamically? If I can control my art to the extent where I could choose the amounts of energy I assimilate, shouldn't I be able to use different mana grade ranks depending on the situation?'
Drawing from this, I started to think about how this would play out in reality.
'It would most likely be inefficient to try and determine how much mana corresponds to every single mana grade rank unless I look at the status while executing my overclocking, which would be impossible in a lot of situations. Maybe I can try to practice overclocking to a few, but specified, mana ranks instead? Just being able to choose to raise my rank II [Lower] to rank III [Lower] should be enough for even the most dangerous situations. In more normal conditions it might be enough to overclock my sub-rank [Lower] to [Higher], or maybe even just up to the [Middle] sub-rank.'
I had gained direction, knowing I now had a chance to gain power quickly as long as I persisted.