Limitless, John Gold [best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

Last time, by my tree in Kurg, the resonance that was activated nearly killed me. And because of the brain damage I received, rebuilding my body took a month longer than it should have. The risk is always there, especially now that I’m in the Gray Lands. The neuroset will help me keep an eye on my brain’s condition in real time. It’ll also let the medbots know how to treat me if anything happens.

∞ ∞ ∞

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Once again, there’s gray ash underfoot and absolute silence all around. The damage from the aura hasn’t changed, which means the source is stable and immobile. Even though I have a physical body, I’m not hungry. And the fact that I don’t get any loot from my kills means that I’m going to have to get through the test with what I have now. As Uve Graal said, the world is ruled by new thinkers.

When I get back to the trial zone, I’m surprised to see four opponents at the same time. Apparently, each area has its “rest area” with mental damage. The rage ticks up much stronger than it did back in the beginning, and every time I return, I’m supposed to fight everyone I’ve gotten through to that point.

The fighting is easier even with the number of enemies I’m facing. I can kill Grunt and Ownie with a single intensified spell each, though the hirelings are much harder. If I stun one of them, he dies after three seconds and comes back after another three. I’m forced to use a telekinesis spell on one, similar to what the archmage did, while I fight the other to the death.

An hour goes by, then a second, a third, and a fourth, and I know everything there is to know about my assailants. They’ve been learning, too, however. They calculated that the most effective attacks against me are the marauder’s piercing jabs with a poisoned blade. But my defense is flawless, and I have my incredible mana restoration speed, sword, and shield.

The rage doesn’t go away; in fact, it pushes down on me ever harder. Luckily, humans are nothing if not adaptable. My brain gets used to the relentless flow of unprovoked anger, looking for a way to suppress it. And that’s how it happens that I start to be conscious of a kind of meter I can use to measure my feeling of rage. With each blow, each new kill, and each respawn, I get better at finding my calm center. Five hours go by, and suddenly I start to realize that the respawn time gets longer as I control my anger better.

“Bingo!”

The key is to control my emotions. My mind starts to turn the anger off, though the more I suppress it as an emotion, the stronger I sense that it’s being suppressed. During my twelfth hour of fighting, I snap and tear my opponent’s head off with my bare hands, nearly earning myself a dagger in the eye for my trouble. I run off into the “rest area” after quelling the feeling of rage once again. No, I’m not going to be a monster. I’m human, and I’m going to stay human, no matter what the trial. I can’t be that brutish.

The mental aura does 20 million damage, and I look up at the Gray Lands sky, mentally worn out. There aren’t the sixteen moons you can see in the outside world on a clear night. The canopy of bright stars is missing, as are the smell of the soil, the blanket of plants, and the air wafting in from the trees. While Fem and I traveled, we often stopped to spend the night out in the open fields. Our planet has just one natural satellite called Rainbow. Thanks to its unique atmosphere, it lives up to the name, too. When night is just starting to fall, and Rainbow is beginning to gleam, anyone who looks up can see the concentric circles of different colors. The circular rainbows only glow brightly at midnight and right before dawn. At the same time, it’s the planet’s smallest satellite, and I can’t help but dearly miss it and my nights under the stars with Femida.

I focus, merging my streams of consciousness into one. My father’s voice rings in my ears: you always need to have an advantage when you’re fighting a stronger opponent. Always. Always control the situation. That’s going to be my ticket out of Hell as soon as I figure out what that advantage is going to be.

Going back to where there isn’t any damage coming from the mental aura, I sit down to meditate and give my life aura full power and breadth. I have no idea how fertile the ash is going to be. But everything turns out okay: ten minutes later, hundreds of plants have grown higher than my head.

The aura of life burns 56000 mana a minute, though I can replenish a bit more than 85000 over that same period. LJ appears at the edge of my consciousness, and I drift slowly off to sleep. Rage is exhausting.

I’m woken up eighteen hours later by water trickling underneath my back. Water? The plants have grown so thick around me that I have to crawl under the roots of the enormous trees like some kind of snake. Mice! There are enormous field mice running around, which means there are also things that like to hunt field mice.

Where I was sitting yesterday, there’s a seventy-meter hill made entirely of vegetation. Birds tweet, snakes slither, and insects buzz from flower to flower. Who said nothing can live in the Gray Lands?

Just like the floating islands, the entire hill has a single root system, which means I can use it to give myself a lot more health. I’ll be able to use health instead of mana when it’s time to start hunting.

“Panacea! Maximum!”

I’ve never used borrowed health as a source of mana. It feels like my nerves were all ripped out at once, like strings