Chapter 38

  The Crag and the Core

  Ken woke to wind whistling through the rocks and the taste of iron in his mouth.

  Two days of puking black sludge and feeling his bones melt and re-set.

  Reminds me of those bad oysters in Florida.

  He shivered.

  “I thought that was bad,” he muttered.

  He lay still, listening inside.

  The Seed was gone.

  In its place: a fist-sized storm, spinning slow, hungry, alive.

  It wasn’t waiting for food like his useless stomach, it was making its own.

  A thin, constant ribbon of clean momentum chi leaked out, cutting through every vein like a drug.

  He sat up.

  Muscles ached like he’d deadlifted a truck, but they moved hungrily.

  He rolled out of the den, eyed a blank granite wall, and grinned like an idiot.

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  “Mo-men-tum, FUCK YEAH!”

  Chi surged—smooth, no hiccups, no wasted motion. It coated his arm, pooled in his knuckles.

  He punched the mountain.

  CRUNCH.

  A fist-sized chunk of granite simply left the wall like it was tired of existing.

  New muscle was ripping through his swiss-cheese hoodie.

  “Not a scratch on it.”

  His crazed laugh echoed like a gunshot.

  “Double damage, zero recoil. One happy dude.”

  He checked the tank.

  One punch had burned maybe eight, nine percent.

  He could already feel the Core spinning it back, five minutes tops.

  Ken pumped a fist, “I’m a walking battery now.”

  His arm slowly came down.

  “Shit the robots won.”

  Ken cupped his hands to the sky. “Hey, Space Daddy! Little help? Status window? Stats? Anything?”

  Wind. Birds. Silence.

  “This tutorial sucks ass.”

  “Fine. I’ll get my own patch notes.”

  Food. Fight. Data.

  That is the plan.

  He flexed once—Core answered instantly, flooding his legs with steady, high-grade juice.

  Then he jumped.

  The slope should’ve been a twenty-minute stumble.

  He hit it at a sprint, stone blurring under his feet, wind ripping past his ears.

  Prey was waiting somewhere down there.

  Ken smiled with too many teeth.

  Time to see what a walking cheat code could do to something softer than stone.