[Atomic Manipulation:
Ability Rank: I
Ability Proficiency: 0.5%
Ability Potential: NA
(Due to the nature and origin of this ability, the description will grow as the user raises the ability's proficiency. What the ability can do is dictated by the actions of the user.)
Ability Description: (An engineered ability created by the Aitherian's. This ability is one of a special kind, as it isn't simply focused on a specific aspect, but revolves around the manipulation of a concept; A significant concept at that. What the ability can do is almost entirely up to the user. The restrictions lay within the user's creativity.)]
This was… unexpected. He didn't exactly know how to react to this new development.
'I guess they somehow put this into me while I was knocked out…'
What confused him the most was how they were able to do something like this in the first place. And, also, why? Why would they purposefully give him such a powerful ability?
It wasn't really adding up no matter how much- Wait, what's up with the N/A on the ability's potential? Did that mean it couldn't go any further, or…? No, that couldn't be it. Nothing like that had ever been reported, at least not to the public. But, then again, this ability came as a result of the Aitherians, so maybe the same logic didn't apply?
'I should just focus on what's important.' Soren steeled his thoughts as he grabbed another one of the poles, quickly arriving before the door.
He decided that he shouldn't just sit around idly. He had no idea how long he had been on this ship, and he didn't particularly feel like staying any longer.
Moving the corpse of the Aitherian away from the door, Soren took a deep breath as he cracked the door open slightly, making sure the coast was clear, before slipping through the gap, making sure to close the door behind him as he just went with his instincts and carefully went right down the hallway.
The hallways throughout the planetary spacecraft were unnaturally cold, the Aitherian's inhabiting the vessel didn't seem particularly bothered by it, however. They actually seemed to thrive within such an environment, they're bodies able to withstand such harsh conditions.
One such Aitherian was making its way through a particular sector in the western hemisphere of the ship.
As it made its way into the residence of a high ranking officer, it didn't hesitate before dropping to one knee, not being so arrogant as to make direct eye contact, "You called for my services, sir?" A strikingly feminine voice emanated from the Aitherian, the high ranking officer barely sparing a glance towards the half-expected new arrival.
"You should have already received the report. Why are you here?" His voice was rough and husky as he spoke in a condescending tone.
"A-ah, yes, I'm aware of the report, but I wanted to make sure I got all of the details right…" The Aitherian spoke in a nervous tone as it peeked up from its lowered position gauging the officer's reaction.
"Sigh, you lowborns sure are something else..." He said, "Even you slum-born folk should be more than aware of how I've only recently returned. Using that fact, you should be able to deduce that I will be very busy for some time." His tone was dripping with disgust as he addressed the lowborn.
"Yes, my apologies, sir." The lowborn kept its head lowered, trying to hide the shame on its face.
"Ugh, just follow the report. That shouldn't be too hard for your kind, huh?" He said in a dismissive voice, effectively ending the 'conversation'.
"Of course, sir." The Aitherian didn't waste time in rising to stand on both feet, briskly exiting the building, pulling up the report from within it's mind, going over it for at least the 6th time that day, 'Hm, I do wonder how a sentinel was killed in such a low risk area. Must have bumped into a noble or something.' It dismissed its curious thoughts, continuing its brisk jog as it arrived before a small public teleporter, using it to teleport deeper within the western hemisphere, towards the restricted lab city.
Soren was trying his best not to shiver as he made his way down the labyrinthine hallways.
It seemed never ending. He had started to doubt if there even was one.
He had wanted to turn back, but felt that if he had already made so much 'progress', he might as well stick to it.
At least, that was the plan…
"Ah, to hell with this!" Soren couldn't take just walking down the dull, cold hallway. At first, he had been wary of the many doors along both walls of the hall, but now, he really couldn't bother to care for the risk, 'At least danger would be interesting…'.
Since the doors didn't have any particular distinction among them, he decided to just pick based off of vibe alone.
"Well this one is seeming like a no…", he says, having walked up to the door nearest to him on the left, and feeling a sharp tingly feeling on the back of his neck.
Soren instead walks to the door on the right, and after a few seconds of not really receiving any reaction, he opens it a crack, taking a quick scan inside for safe measure.
Now opening the door enough to step in, Soren takes notice of the arrangement of the room, "Must be a storage room or something.", he says, now having walked in, and closed the door behind himself.
The room was filled with long metallic boxes that, even though they were huddled to the corners of the room, and were even stacked upon each other, still took up a majority of the space in the room.
Soren would've been curious to see what was in the boxes, if it wasn't for the fact that there didn't seem to be any way to open them.
Still, he decided to have a look around the cluttered room, not wanting to miss anything, if there was anything to miss in the first place.
To his dismay, there wasn't a damn thing else in the room. Well, to be fair, it wasn't like his search was very thorough.
Right as he approached the door to leave, a strong feeling of power washed over him. It was like there was something within the room that was packed full of strong mana.
If he had to guess, it was likely his heightened perception that allowed him to even be able to detect something of that level of power.
It was decently common knowledge on the internet that things that contained immense mana were damn near undetectable by anyone below rank C. However, the ability of clairvoyance, even at the minor rarity, gave the wielder a far better sense of mana than most other abilities.
That's why saviors with such an ability were coveted among the factions that relied on the looting of cleared dungeons to economically survive.
Soren didn't want to think about that type of stuff much, because it reminded him of his current circumstances, and it wasn't a very opportune time to be melancholic.
Letting his instincts guide him, Soren happened upon a seemingly inconspicuous panel along the lower section of the back wall. Simply pushing on it didn't amount to anything, so Soren opted to try to slide the panel.
Sliding it to the left, it grated against the solid parts of the wall, emitting a quite unsavory noise. Ignoring the sound, Soren grabbed hold of the object hidden in the hollow space behind the panel, bringing it out into the light.
It really should have been a lot heavier than it felt, based on the size of it alone. The bodysuit definitely had something to do with that.
A very medieval looking halberd, encased in some sort of glass-like material, appeared before his vision.
Soren didn't waste much time before using the system to identify the weapon, but he didn't exactly get the response he was expecting.
[System unable to identify. An anti-detection enchantment has been identified by the system…]
'What in the hell? Anti-detection enchantment…?' If he had to guess, the material encasing the weapon was most likely what contained the enchantment. Not that he had any clue such a thing existed, until now.
Well, what was he supposed to do now? It wasn't likely that he could break the casing, and even if he could, how could he guarantee that the weapon would come out intact?
"Hmm…" Now that was an interesting idea… What if he tried to use his ability to somehow phase the weapon through the solid material? It was worth a try, right?
What could possibly go wrong?
After taking a moment to ensure his mana was fully restored, Soren points his hand at the encased weapon, nearly touching it, but not quite.
He assumed that the closer he was to the thing he was trying to manipulate, the better the outcome.
With a deep breath, Soren closed his eyes, opening them as he let out a heavy breath.
With the instinctive knowledge of the flow of mana, Soren allowed a considerable amount of mana to flow through his arm, letting the energy blossom out of his palm toward the weapon.
Now, this was quite a bit different compared to the first time he had used his ability. Before, his goal was to crush an aitherian's head, but this was on an entirely different level.
So it shouldn't be a surprise that Soren miserably failed.
There was no obvious reaction at first. It was when he had tried to grab hold of the space that the weapon took within the encasement, when, all of a sudden, an immense backlash of energy erupted from the enchanted material. It was like some sort of immune reaction.
Although the energy had shot outward in different directions, a considerable portion of it was aimed at Soren. Caught in a surprised state, Soren didn't think to cut off his flow of mana, therefore causing the backlash energy to attack the 'hostile' energy.
Soren didn't know what to expect, but he definitely didn't expect the energy to push against his own, forcing it back into his body, along with itself, causing his arm to spasm uncontrollably as the energy forced itself into him.
Not having a single clue what to do, along with panicking immensely, Soren just did the first thing he could think of, drawing upon a majority of the mana left within his body to push against the foreign mana, his forearm flashing a deep crimson from the influx of even more mana, adding to the already dangerous amount built up through his arm.
This turned out to be a horrible idea.
Soren had drawn upon far too much of his mana, the foreign mana instantly being blown out through his palm, which was followed by almost the entirety of Soren's mana pool being bursted out through his fingers.
Mana wasn't the only thing that went flying.
With a horrifying sound comparable to that of a crisp snap of celery, four fingers were sent shooting off towards a wall.