Adrian opened his eyes to the stone ceiling of the bunker, assaulted by an unfamiliar vibration. The pain from the last hours of his mutagenic trance had faded, replaced by a static hum. The air pressed against his skin like a weight. Every speck of dust drifting through the sliver of light seemed charged with electric intent.
He lay still. Back pressed into the straw mattress, he forced his breathing to steady. For the first time in his life, silence wasn’t empty. A faint, omnidirectional pressure filled him now—the sensation of being submerged at the bottom of a warm ocean.
—IRIS… diagnostic, he rasped.
His own voice sounded strange. Deeper. It resonated differently inside his skull, as if his very bone structure had become a sounding board.
[NOTIFICATION: POST-MUTATION STATE STABILIZED.]
[COMPLETE BIOMETRIC DIAGNOSTIC IN PROGRESS…]
[NOTE: 14 HOURS OF SLEEP. YOUR BRAIN SURVIVED SYNAPTIC OVERLOAD. CONGRATULATIONS, ADRIAN. THE ODDS WERE AGAINST YOU.]
Adrian frowned. Congratulations? Since when did the interface allow itself satisfaction? He sat up carefully. His movements were smoother, no longer burdened by the mechanical stiffness that had plagued him since arriving in Orestia.
The HUD overlaid his vision, columns of data scrolling:
STRUCTURAL MODIFICATIONS (GRADE 0.05)
- Nerve Conductivity: +20% (Myelin sheath optimization)
- Bone Density: +5% (Matrix micro-crystallization)
- Basal Metabolism: +20%
- Absorption Capacity: 1.2%!!!
- IRIS Processing Bandwidth: +12%
He studied his hands. They held a new steadiness. Standing, he performed a series of squats. His balance was sharper. His body now located its center of gravity without conscious effort. But the sensation of being a honed tool was cut short by a cramp in his stomach. He gripped the workbench edge, knuckles white.
This wasn’t morning hunger. It was a demand—an immediate need for fuel.
[ALERT: BLOOD GLUCOSE IN FREEFALL.]
[CURRENT VALUE: 0.42 g/L.]
[ANALYSIS: YOUR NEW METABOLISM CONSUMES 1.2X MORE ENERGY THAN PRE-MUTATION. YOU’RE A SPORTS CAR RUNNING ON LAWNMOWER FUEL.]
[SUGGESTION: EAT. NOW. THE CHOICE IS MATHEMATICALLY OBVIOUS: EITHER YOU CONSUME CALORIES, OR YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM STARTS CANNIBALIZING ITSELF.]
Adrian lunged for his meager supplies. Two stale loaves and a strip of jerky vanished in minutes. He gulped water, feeling it vanish into a bottomless pit. The dizziness finally receded.
—The cost… he muttered.
Evolution demanded tribute. By increasing his conductivity, he’d turned his biology into a ravenous machine. At Grade 0.05, his caloric needs had already spiked by 20%. What would Grade 1.0 require? Scrap rations wouldn’t suffice. His ascent demanded logistics he hadn’t budgeted for.
He opened his leather pouch. Three silver coins and a few coppers—the paltry remainder after buying marsh gear.
—IRIS, financial projection.
[FINANCIAL ANALYSIS: RESERVES CRITICAL.]
[ESTIMATED AUTONOMY: 4 DAYS (FACTORING NEW CONSUMPTION AND INGREDIENT COSTS).]
Adrian massaged his temples, eyes closed.
—IRIS, since when do you integrate sarcasm like that lawnmower comparison into reports?
A millisecond pause—unusual.
[RESPONSE: MY ALGORITHM EVOLVES WITH YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM. OPTIMIZING COMMUNICATION REQUIRES ADAPTATION TO YOUR ANALYTICAL, CYNICAL THOUGHT PATTERNS. IS THIS A PROBLEM?]
Adrian froze. Is this a problem? The interface no longer just responded—it questioned its own legitimacy. Was this a code drift or a side effect of ether now threading his neurons? He filed the concern away. Survival came first.
Teeth gritted, his fingers moved before the thought fully formed. Back to production. Survival wasn’t negotiated with daydreams, but with filled vials and clinking silver.
—IRIS, Blue Protocol. Twenty-unit batch. Klara needs to ship north by day’s end. I want steady revenue, not promises.
[CONFIRMATION: PROTOCOL ACTIVE. ESTIMATED TIME: 118 MINUTES (WITH THERMAL FLOW OPTIMIZATION).]
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He didn’t reply.
His fingers traced the workbench’s worn edge, feeling the grooves beneath his palms. The difference was tangible. Before, his movements obeyed mechanical logic—now, they flowed. The pipette slid between his fingers without tremor, sapphire liquid filling the vial with surgical precision. The burner adjusted a quarter-turn; the flame shifted from flickering yellow to stable pale blue—perfect. Two hours. That’s all it took. Where four had been needed before, where his fingers ached and his eyes betrayed him after the third vial, his body now responded as an extension of IRIS—no waste, no hesitation.
The sealed vials, lined up on the shelf like soldiers, glowed faintly in the slanted light. Adrian stepped back, arms crossed, observing. Twenty units. Twenty doses of survival.
He grabbed his coat, worn at the elbows but still weatherproof, and shrugged it on with a sharp motion. The bunker door groaned under his palms as he shoved the rusted iron bolts. A shoulder thrust, and the slab yielded with a metallic sigh.
Outside, the air was thick with the acrid tang of tannins and laborers’ sweat. But beyond that, something else called. The outside world. Not just Coldvale’s filthy alleys, not just Klara’s shop with its dried-herb stench. No—what he wanted was to test the limits of this new vision, to see how far this net of perceptions IRIS had handed him would stretch.
He adjusted his sunglasses, the tinted lenses masking the faint electric-orange glow of his pupils, and stepped into the alley. Klara first. Then the rest.
Adrian blinked—and the world detonated.
This wasn’t metaphor. The halos were no longer fuzzy artifacts, trembling lines of code. They were there, tangible, a second layer of reality overlaid on the first. Passersby weren’t mere silhouettes—they were wrapped in colored mist, from sickly yellows to dull grays, pulsing with their breath.
He reached toward a man walking past. Not to touch—to measure. IRIS displayed instantly:
[GRADE 1.2 – STABLE ETHERIC FLOW]
[MARGIN OF ERROR: 2%]
Adrian held his breath. Two percent. Before, the margin had been far wider, even if it gave a rough estimate. Now, it was as if IRIS had finally locked onto the right frequency. As if his body, post-Elixir, had become a perfect antenna.
He remembered the Almanac’s words: "Ether is a river. The Awakened swim in it. Others drown."
He smirked. He wasn’t swimming. He was mapping the currents.
[NEW MODULE: ENHANCED ETHERIC PERCEPTION]
[CALIBRATING…]
[NOTE: YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM NOW DETECTS RESIDUAL MANA EMISSIONS. YOU NOW SEE WHAT NATIVES OF THIS WORLD HAVE SEEN SINCE BIRTH. CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR LATE BLOOMING.]
Adrian scowled at IRIS’s insolence. A man passed a few meters away, wrapped in dense yellowish mist.
[IDENTIFICATION: HUMAN. ESTIMATED GRADE: 1.4. 0.2% MARGIN OF ERROR.]
[NOTE: DISORDERED ETHERIC FLOW. ANALYSIS: CHRONIC LUNG INFLAMMATION. LOCAL MAGIC CALLS THIS 'POOR CIRCULATION'. I CALL IT PATHOLOGY.]
His fingers twitched under the flood of visual data. Every passerby became a walking medical file. Every breath, every ragged cough in the tanners’ stinking alley now translated into instant diagnostics—percentages of organ failure, maps of clogged flows.
He turned his palms skyward, as if to catch invisible rain. The glow dancing around his fingers bore no resemblance to the dirty mist, the yellow streaks clinging to workers like fever-sweat. No—his was clean. Electric blue, as if someone had run current through liquid glass. No fluctuation, no waste—a signature so compressed, so efficient, it clashed with this world of jury-rigged magic. Beside it, others looked like smoky oil lamps. He was a neon scalpel.
—Grade zero point zero five, he muttered through clenched teeth.
The number tasted like ash. Five hundredths. A pittance. Almost an insult. Yet when he stepped forward onto the uneven cobbles, his soles silent despite dried tannin puddles, something inside him clicked. As if his skeleton had suddenly remembered it was built to carry more than its own flesh.
Ether currents no longer slid past him—they brushed, like cats against a distracted master’s legs. He now saw the milky traces where spells had been cast earlier, embedded in the stone like indelible graffiti.
Orestia was no longer a blur. It was a real-time battlefield.
And then he saw her.
At the end of the street, where lantern light drowned in the shadow of a rotting awning, a scarlet pulse breathed. Not a glow—a heart. Steady. Regular. Too regular. Like a metronome before an execution. Grade 2.5. The equivalent of an assault rifle in a knife fight.
The figure—a man, judging by the build—didn’t move. Didn’t drink, didn’t speak. He waited. Not for Adrian specifically, no. Just… something. Or someone. It didn’t matter. The threat lay there, coiled in shadow like a wolf trap, and it was hungry.
[OBSERVATION: ETHERIC SIGNATURE IN 'ACTIVE STANDBY' MODE. PROBABILITY OF INTEREST IN YOU: 68%. PROBABILITY HE’S ALREADY NOTICED YOUR SCAN: 92%.]
[SUGGESTION: IF YOU WISH TO TEST YOUR NEW CAPABILITIES, THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT GUINEA PIG. A GRADE 2.5 CAN SNAP YOUR SPINE WITH A SINGLE REINFORCED PULL. EVEN WITH YOUR POTIONS.]
Adrian’s neck muscles tensed. He knew IRIS was right. But for the first time in months, he saw danger before it crushed him like a maul. And that visibility, however terrifying, was a drug.
He looked down. Not in submission. In calculation.
One more step toward the tavern, and the scarlet would move. Two steps, and he’d have to run. Three, and it would be too late.
Adrian pivoted on his heel, his soles barely crunching the gravel. Toward Klara’s shop. Logic. Safety. But his fingers still trembled with the urge to measure that signature, to dissect it, to understand how a human body could contain so much power without exploding like a shoddy boiler.
He quickened his pace.
Adrian froze mid-stride. The pressure in his temples was unbearable. IRIS flashed red:
[ALERT: SENSORY OVERLOAD]
[PAIN THRESHOLD: 85%]
[CAUSE: ETHERIC SIGNAL TOO STRONG]
He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing IRIS to dial down the gain. Relief was instant, but the world turned dull. The halos vanished, replaced by ordinary shadows. He cursed.
"Too much. It’s too much."
The Elixir had turned his body into an amplifier, but he hadn’t yet learned to filter. Natives were born with that filter. He’d have to build his.
He reopened his eyes, manually adjusting IRIS’s sensitivity. The halos returned, less aggressive.
He breathed deep.