“My left nut for an internet connection,” Arthur muttered as he continued to stare at the ceiling. He gently prodded his body mentally, reviewing how it felt, how it moved. He could not tell if anything majorly different. Maybe the world was a little warmer around him? He was himself a little colder? It didn’t seem to be the case but . . .
“Coulda, shoulda, woulda?” Arthur sat up and ran a hand through his hair. Then, remembering other stories, he made his way over to the mirror, grateful to note there was no change in appearance. No white hair or streak of white in it, no pupils that had become ice blue. How weird would that be? A Chinese with blue eyes? Or any pale colour for that matter. He rubbed at the skin on his face.
“Nice!”
Point one for Yin Body—it gave good skin. Probably because he was not too heaty, and that reduced pimples, blackheads, and oily skin. Could also be thanks to the point upgrade in Body that he had received, but he was going to give credit to the Yin Body for now.
His expanded energy pool was important too. In fact, his energy felt different in general, colder. The swirling energy contained in his center now felt more like a slushy than, say, contained lightning. Fascinating, but more importantly, having two more energy points could be useful in longer fights.
Beyond that . . . Arthur shook his head. He had no idea. But he had a quiet room and time to experiment, so he would. Hopefully, no major disadvantages; though he was certain there would be. He just didn’t know what they might be, since Yin and Yang bodies and bloodlines were not subjects he had studied.
Not as though he had planned on getting a Yin or Yang body.
Yeah, he could see how he had been tempting fate there.
An hour later, after a physical inspection, going through his martial forms, and channeling both his acquired techniques, he had a rough idea of what the Yin Body had done. Firstly, physically there were minor alterations. He was slightly slimmer, seemed to have lost even more hair in his extremities, and had that fairer and smoother skin he had noticed earlier. He was also stronger and faster, but that could have been due to the increase in his Body attribute. He definitely did not sweat or grow as warm as he should have after moving through the full series of martial forms.
When it came down to his techniques though, that was where he had noticed a significant difference. The Focused Strike technique had actually failed the first few times. He had to adjust to his new body, to the new pathways of power and how to input energy into the technique. It was hard to describe, even to himself, but rather than slotting in A and B, he had to slot into A only but then divert the extra flow in A to exit point C so that the output amount was the same.
Sort of. Except more metaphysical.
In the end, he had figured it out, learned how to blend the energy such that the energy empowered his attacks again. That additional point to Spirit probably helped, guiding his sense of how energy could and should flow through him.
Externally, the biggest change was the slightly crackling black and blue light that now appeared around the limb that was being empowered and the wash of cold emitted when he struck something. It wasn’t yet enough to freeze anything, but intuitively Arthur knew that might happen with more powerful techniques of the sort.
In the meantime, though, he was facing a problem with his other technique. Accelerated Healing was not really that Accelerated anymore. That kind of made sense, but now, triggering it seemed to speed up his healing only marginally. If anything, it made him concerned that his body was now healing at a slower rate than before.
Bad news if so, but not entirely something he could do much about. He could only hope that there were additional benefits to this Yin Body he did not understand. For now, he had done all the testing he could have.
For a brief moment, he considered leaving and taking a place in line at the armoury again, to ask for information about his Yin Body. Buying information from the novice library might help, but he realized moments later that it didn’t matter. He had too few credits to spend.
Maybe later, after he had picked some herbs and acquired more monster cores. Then, and only then, would he go buying things he could not afford.
Till then, he had a bunch of techniques he had meant to learn. Though . . .
“Is this new Yin Body going to need me to adjust every single time?” Cursing quietly to himself, Arthur had no answer. That extra point in Spirit had buffed both his refinement speed and his eventual comprehension of energy flows in his body. Of course, Mind upgrades would help him learn techniques faster, but it seemed adapting it to his new body would require both attributes.
Cursing idly again, Arthur pulled out the technique scrolls and spread them across his lap to consider. Now, which should he learn first? Considering the need for adaptation, he might not even have time to learn them all, not anymore.