Chapter 92 Hostile Intelligence

"I… I messed up, I failed." It was a bitter truth to admit. For so long I had known that I was a genius or at least as close as one could get to one. Things that were generally hard for others to do, or to learn came as easily as breathing to me. I might fail once or twice but that was the extent, the only errors after that were ones that were caused by my carelessness. Maybe I had forgotten a step or maybe I rushed through it. But this was different, I had tried my best, my life was on the line. The fear of death should have stimulated my potential, it should have allowed me to succeed at a much easier rate.

I failed however and that left a bitter pain even worse than the pain of my leg. It was like a slap in the face saying you aren't a genius, you aren't talented.

I looked up to Aoif, who could do it in less than a second almost unconsciously, how talented must she be that she could do what I could not do in the same amount of time that we had been in this realm.

"That's fine, I'm always here to heal you. So don't worry about failure." Naomi tried to cheer me up with a false smile on her face as she tried to put on a brave face to cheer me up. It would have worked if I was not so intimately familiar with her. Naomi was hiding the pain, so far she had only worked on minor injuries such as cuts, gashes, even some sicknesses but today was the first day that she had seen one of her allies so injured.

Of course she had seen the corpses of many enemies but just like the rest of us, the bodies of our enemies never bothered us.

Those thoughts brought me back to the first kill I had on this realm, when I plunged a sharp icicle into the stomach of some aggressive boar. The splash of blood that had appeared on my face and body had not bothered me, the dying screech as the boar suffocated in his own blood brought no emotion.

…

"Up, your leg is better, try again" The voice of Aoif echoed in my ear, breaking me from my thoughts.

I lifted my body being careful to not put too much weight onto my injured leg, however the pain that I was expecting was not there. Instead I felt nothing like my whole leg was numbed.

I tried running on it and I could dash around without any pain. I had been healed by Naomi before and this had never happened, usually the pain would linger but now it seemed as if Naomi had placed some sort of anesthesia effect on the wound.

"Did you do that?" I asked Naomi, trying to confirm my theory.

"Do what?" Naomi asked, an oblivious look on her face.

"The wound, I can't feel anything from it"

"You can't! That's wonderful" Naomi shouted, her joy being clear to see as she jumped and hugged my neck.

It also gave me some confirmation. Whatever Naomi had done was unconscious, it might have been a result of pushing her buff so hard in the last fight.

Just as I had grown stronger both physically and in the strength of my aether, Naomi must have grown stronger in healing.

Pushing Naomi off of me I ask her what level she is.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, I'm at tier 7/1, though I don't feel any stronger, did I feel stronger to you, I hope I did that would be awesome"

"No it was just your healing that came off as stronger, did you not notice how fast you were able to heal me or that I didn't feel any pain afterwards"

"Oh now that you point it out, yeah that is pretty obvious but I was looking for obvious signs… like"

"Like actual strength, more aether"

"Yeah that" her smile grew as the cheerful atmosphere grew.

It didn't last long though as it seemed Aoif had gotten bored.

I was only barely able to react.

*CLANG*

The dagger Aoif held was blocked by the saber I was holding at my side.

I could see a smile on Aoif's face.

"Good your learning, now try and reinforce yourself again"

"Again? I was almost crippled!" The incredulous look on my face must have been amusing for her as she smiled in this way that unnerved me. Like Aoif had figured me out.

"Both I and Darwin got it in one try, what does that make you?"

I knew that was deliberately provoking but I couldn't help but take the provocation.

I focused inward and this time I would get it.

Circulating my aether, I think of my legs muscle groups, of the bones in my body and how those would relate to my strength.

I didn't just look for that I also started to permeate aether into them

"Guh" a grunt of pain left my mouth as something in my leg burst, I wasn't going to let that stop me though. I pushed through the pain and tried another muscle group.

This time instead of permeating in a small amount of aether I take an even smaller part and smother it around the muscle.

A blue glow appeared on my leg as I felt the power in it rise.

"Good, now do your whole body, I was able to do that, you should too" Aoif seemed to know just the right words to hurt my ego l.

I was just about to celebrate when she had said that, stoking my competitive spirit even further.

Intellectually I knew that she was doing this to stoke my competitive spirit, to be told that someone was better than me, more talented than me was an insult I could not tolerate.

I was smart, I knew that, but even though I knew that I was not as smart as some of the famous geniuses I knew that I could stand right below them in terms of intelligence.

That was why I could not take this insult because to see someone better than me would tell me I'm not that special, that the ones smarter than me aren't just in the past but right here in front of me and I would never surpass them. Even if the insult wasn't a big one it threatened my intelligence.

That was why I tried, I pushed my aether throughout my whole body. Even when I started to bleed from my skin to my internal organs I did not stop. I needed to do this.

Even when my bones broke and I fell, I continued.

The world around me turned black as I tuned out every outside stimuli, my whole body layer bare to my senses.

Every piece of skin, every strand of hair, every cell was shown to me. My understanding extended even further than that, I understood how to reinforce my whole body.

The bonds of my cells, the small holes of my skin and muscles were filled with aether.