Hi, I'm Jack
The group was sitting at the entrance of a cave gathered around a small campfire. Jack could make out at least 7 people. Since he had no idea what this world's common sense would suggest, he assumed that they were travellers that had taken shelter during the night. 4 of the people were sleeping and three seemed to be on guard duty.
"They are very careful," Jack said. He used a window portal to jump within 1 kilometer of their cave and looked at them more closely using his portal monitor. He could make out that they were 5 men and 2 women. One of the men seemed to be missing a leg and must have been gravely injured since he was being monitored closely by the ones that were awake. They did carry a variety of luggage that seemed to be too much for a casual travel trip among friends. They must be in a difficult situation, Jack thought to himself. He slowly got up and started walking in their direction.
"What are you going to do?" the assistant asked.
"Say hello. Didn't you say that you can translate in real time?" Jack asked, surprised.
"Yes, but don't you think they will find you incredibly suspicious if you just show up in the middle of the night looking all clean in your jogging outfit?" the assistant asked.
"That's a good point. What do you suggest?" Jack asked, sheepishly.
"Why don't you go home to sleep and return in the morning to greet them during the day as a fellow traveller," the assistant suggested.
"That's a great idea, actually," Jack said. He set up a portal and returned to his cave, which was a mess with all the stuff he had casually thrown in during his journey. But the dense Sym energy in his home felt good and energizing to him. He subconsciously started to circulate his energy even faster than usual as he was tidying up his cave. Compared to the nice bedroom he saw in the city, his cave did not look like much but it was safer since he had rocks all around him and a large boulder blocking the only entrance. But he still took a portal trip back to the city to grab the mattress from the bed as well as a large carpet to put underneath in order to keep it clean. He also started using the toilet in the house whenever he had to go, since it was far more convenient than the rocky mountains he called home. And with that, he fell asleep on his soft mattress and his stomach full of whatever that packaged food he scavenged was supposed to be.
The next morning, Jack was watching the group from the comfort of his bed. He found out that he could place a window portal in front of a normal portal, and it would show him the distant area in the other location. This way he could basically monitor the space behind his portals freely. The group was still partially asleep but it looked like they were about to get ready to leave since they were actively packing all their luggage.
When they made their way down from the elevated cave that they had spent the night in, Jack went through the portal and observed them from a distance. He then jumped about 3 kilometers ahead of them and placed himself right into their path. His plan was simple. He would just sit down and spread out a bunch of food on a blanket to appear as if he was resting from his long journey. He thought that this would be the least suspicious way of making contact with potentially weary travellers that had their guard up.
The group was traveling slowly since they had to carry the person who had lost his leg. "They seem to be loyal," he thought to himself and wondered how many would have just left an injured person behind if their life was on the line.
Jack was sitting on top of a small hill and was not directly visible to the group. They would only be seeing him once they were about 200 meters away from him and passed a large rock formation along the narrow path. As they turned around the corner and Jack was just stuffing his mouth full of a type of fruit candy that had become his all time favorite, he heard someone yelling. The group had spotted him and had taken cover.
He looked at them and winked as if he had only now noticed them but they stayed behind a rock with only two heads slightly popping out. He thought that eating by himself would be the least suspicious way to meet them but he didn't realize how suspicious a man in clean white jogging pants having a picnic in a high-level danger zone looked like to them. The group would have been less alarmed if they had encountered a wild predator in the desert.
Jack got up with a candy bar in his hand and gestured to hand it over to them with a smile on his face.
"Have you lost all of your social skills when you were paralyzed?" the assistant said.
"Come on, that's a weird situation! I don't know what the etiquette is here. Who expected that they would freak out like that. How will the translation work?" Jack asked.
"I do not know their language yet but if the dialect is still the same in this area then I will translate it already using the language settings from my latest data. Once they speak with you, I will update your translation into their current language and dialect in real time. If you can speak with them for at least 5 minutes then the translation will perfectly match their language," the assistant said.
"Got it," Jack said to the assistant. He kept walking to the group and started addressing them. "Hi, I'm Jack. Are you guys traveling here as well?"
Jack noticed the body language of the group softening and weariness turning into confusion. He did not realize that he was addressing them with an old dialect that had not been in use for thousands of years and it did not match his appearance at all. The group did not know what to make of this strange person who looked normal but was everything but normal. Then one of them answered.
"You speak strange, where are you from?" a middle-aged man said.
"I am from a small village in the north called Kell. I could not stay there anymore so I was traveling to find a better city to live in. Are you guys also going to the big city in the west?" Jack said. The assistant had created a background story for him and briefed him on his travels. He would have an answer for any questions and he would have enough information that it would be at the very least plausible.
"We are indeed. Are you traveling all alone? The area is very dangerous. How have you survived until now?" the man asked suspiciously.
Jack remained friendly with a big smile on his face. He was genuinely happy to converse with people and he was looking forward to being among people again. "I might not look like it but I have learned how to hunt since I was a kid and I am quick on my feet. If I see danger, I simply run away. Are you guys hungry? I got some food and am happy to share," Jack said invitingly.
"Thank you for the offer but-" the man was just about to decline the gracious invitation when a woman stood up from behind a rock and stepped forward. "We would be happy to accept your offer, Jack. My name is Morena and this is my brother Ark." She gave a sharp look to Ark and walked towards Jack.
Jack instinctively extended his hand although he was not sure how people would greet each other in this world and in this region. She grabbed his hand with both of hers and said "Nice to meet you."
Morena was maybe in her late thirties and seemed like a confident and shrewd business woman. Jack could tell that she was good at negotiations and very clever just from her demeanor. Jack turned sideways and gestured to his little picnic area that still had plenty of food lying around. Morena followed his invitation and sat down to eat but she carefully observed the vicinity to see if there were any signs of an ambush or other people around.
"What are you doing here all alone? Honestly, this looks like a trap," Morena said, looking sharply at Jack, while she stuffed two candy bars into her mouth.
"As I said, I was traveling to the next big city. I want to find a place to make a living," Jack said, honestly, grabbing three candy bars and stuffing them into his mouth to lighten the mood.
"Are you really alone?" Morena asked.
"That I am," Jack said with a smile.
Morena spent a few moments looking into Jack's eyes to search for any hints of deceit or a hidden agenda but she found nothing. She then called over to her group to join them.
"That's it? Are you sure it's safe?" Jack asked with his eyebrows raised, still eating candy bars.
"I trust my intuition. And besides, you don't need to ambush our group to gain an advantage since we are not in fighting shape anyways," Morena said coldly.
"Well, that is true. Lucky for you that you met me since I got plenty of food," Jack said while grabbing more food from one of the bags he had found in the city he scavenged.
Once the group had sat down, they were able to converse more naturally and Jack was able to find out more about their situation while providing them many details from his elaborate background story. The translation performed by the assistant had also been perfected over the course of the conversation which allowed them to speak more naturally and he noticed how the group was less wary of him because he sounded just like them.
The group was actually two separate groups, namely a group of merchants which included Ark, Morena and their third sibling called Juz, as well as a group of refugees from the city called Jalk City, which is the city that Jack had been investigating. The refugees were a family consisting of the two parents and their children, a 14 year old boy and a 16 year old girl.
The two teenagers seemed scared and exhausted, and Jack pitied them. He took out a large blanket from his bag and some more candy so that the children could lie down and eat comfortably, which made the parents very happy.
Juz was the one who was missing a leg and, according to Morena, they had been on the run for 10 days. The merchants had been traveling from a larger city and were about to arrive at Jalk City when they saw that it was being attacked by creatures. The refugees were survivors who were on a family trip at the time and joined the merchants as they were running for their lives.
"Did you get attacked by a creature and that's how your brother lost his leg?" Jack asked.
"If we had fought a creature in close combat, we would be dead by now. We saw that the city was being attacked from far away and immediately turned around to run but one of the creatures must have had some strange ability since it was able to send a cascade of sharp blades raining on us from at least 1 kilometre away. We were barely able to avoid it but my brother got hit, unfortunately. But we were still lucky that it did not bother to chase after us," Morena said.
"Did the creature look like a human?" Jack asked.
Everyone stared at Jack. "Human?" Morena asked.
Jack was not sure if he had said too much so he tried to carefully change the subject, "Yes, I was just curious how these creatures looked like. Do you know why the city was attacked?" Jack asked.
".... I don't know. Jalk City was one of the best guarded cities around since it is so close to the high-density zone," Morena said.
Jack kept talking to the group about their plans and their difficulties. He did not want to reveal his abilities but he was also willing to help, if he could. Their biggest problem was their injured member since this was greatly delaying their travels so Jack looked for a solution to this problem. They had already packed everything and begun to walk on their long journey to the next city which gave Jack time to contemplate.
"What do you think?" Jack asked the assistant.
"You could leave them and continue on your journey. Alternatively, you could move them with you using your portals but it might not be wise to reveal your abilities to strangers," the assistant said.
"I am thinking that it would be a good idea to connect with a group of merchants. I would like to start a business as soon as I arrive in another city since it will be a better background story than my current one. If I am traveling to trade, it will be easy for people to accept. What can be done about the injured guy? Can I learn some healing abilities?" Jack asked.
"There are healing abilities but you would need to learn and practice them first," the assistant said.
"That's fine, I was thinking of learning something like that anyways since being a medic would be a perfect way of flying under the radar. I could create a company that does trade and provides medical services which should be the perfect cover while gathering information on spatial abilities. I am thinking of asking the merchants to help me set up a business since I do not have any ID and helping them first would give me more leverage. Also, I might need it myself in the future if I get injured. My healing is fast but who knows what will happen in the future if I encounter humanoid creatures again," Jack said, deep in thought.
"That does make sense. I will explain the healing ability to you," the assistant said.
According to the assistant, the healing abilities that it had recorded covered everything from disinfection to wound closure and even had features related to controlling the microbiome and virome of the body. Jack would need to learn the basic healing technique which allowed him to use Sym energy and to stimulate the body's natural healing processes. Wounds that have become chronic as can be seen in burn victims or those that have metabolic disorders stop healing and start to try and close inwards, leaving the flesh exposed. The technique involves the stimulation of the tissue to turn a chronic wound back into an acute wound. While the Sym energy is able to directly disinfect the surface, it triggers the body's own anti-microbial mechanisms to disinfect the internal tissues.
According to the assistant, Jack would be able to disinfect and close any wound using this technique. As he was walking next to the group in silence, Jack started to accumulate Sym energy in the respective part of the brain and followed the assistant's instructions. Since abilities are highly intuitive, his learning process included the sensing of the abilities' impact within his own body. Just like the creation of portals suddenly seems intuitively possible once the brain regions are in contact with Sym energy, the ability to heal should emerge in his body. Jack kept rubbing his hands as he was walking to identify if anything had changed. He imagined that he would feel a warmth coming from his palms, just like the magical healers in the fantasy novels he read as a kid. But he was wrong since all he felt was a sharp and painful stinging in and around his hands.
"Is this normal?" Jack asked the assistant.
"Healing abilities are triggering the body's own healing process but the ability itself is not healing. The trigger for the healing is an attack on the body's tissues which are partially destructive. Dead tissue is destroyed while living tissue is attacked just enough to stimulate its acute healing processes. It is therefore understandable that you would not feel warmth but a pain sensation. You must also consider that your Sym energy accumulation is significantly higher than any humans that I have in my database which means that the strength of your ability should be exaggerated," the assistant explained.
"Got it, that makes sense. I think I got a hang of the Sym energy in the brain. It seems much easier than when I first learned it. I think it's already quite stable," Jack said.
"Yes, I can tell that your proficiency in learning new abilities has accelerated. It seems that you have a talent for sensory precision. I would still recommend not learning new abilities quickly since you will be limited by your focus and the depth which you can dedicate to each. Learning the portal and dimensional abilities should be the highest priority," the assistant explained.
"Yeah, yeah," Jack said as he looked around for a test subject for his healing ability. He was walking through a desert with a group of strangers so he did not want to display his portals or movement skills in catching a rodent.
"Hi guys, I gotta relieve myself for a moment. I'll be right back. Feel free to keep walking, I will catch up quickly anyways," Jack said while addressing the group.
"No, we will wait for you. We have been walking for a few hours anyway so it's good to take a rest. We have to conserve our strength since walking without much water can easily become a death trap for us," Morena said while sitting down on a nearby rock. She and her brother Ark had been pulling a makeshift sledge with the injured Juz lying on top of it. He did not look healthy and had not said a word since they met.
"You're really lucky that you met me," Jack said as he grabbed his water bag and some more snacks out of his pocket and handed it to the group.
"How do you have this much stuff? You really are a lifesaver. Thank you very much," Ark said with a grateful expression on his face. He accepted the food and water and first handed them over to the teenagers and his injured brother before he took anything himself.
"He seems to be a good man," Jack thought as he turned around and went behind a large mountain area. Once he had entered, he jumped through a portal that he had hidden on the way where he saw multiple rodents running around. With his window portal, he was able to monitor the rodents up close and could jump right in front of them to grab them in one fast motion. Once he had caught a rodent, he quickly returned through a portal and started to examine the animal.
The rodent looked like a mix between a mouse and a squirrel but its legs were longer and it almost looked like a tiny dog instead of a rodent. Upon close examination, he saw that the rodent had lost one of its four feet which was perfect practice for his ability.
"I don't think that the healing ability would work in this case since this is an old wound and it has already been healed and scarred," the assistant said.
"I can always cut a fresh wound if necessary," Jack said as he examined the terrified mouse's missing foot. "You don't have it easy either, huh."
Jack moved his hand on top of the scarred skin and tried to focus on his ability. At first, all he could feel was the sharp pain in his hands but, after a few minutes of focusing, he noticed that the pain was disappearing and was spreading outside of his own body and connecting to the mouse. He could feel the mouse as he would feel his own body with its sensations and even its blood flow. Fascinated, he kept pushing more energy into the mouse and observed how the mouse's hair around the wound was slowly disappearing. The wound started to open back up and the mouse was squeaking and crying in agony. Jack could see that the old scar tissue was almost dissolving into thin air and he could see the flesh opening up in front of his eyes. He pushed more energy into the wound and noticed how new tissue was growing rapidly. It looked like a timelapse video of a plant growing over many months since the mouse was starting to grow a new leg before his eyes. The leg was hairless which made the mouse look even more strange and otherworldly to Jack since it had naturally dark and purple skin.
"Is this a creature?" Jack asked the assistant.
"I do not think it is but it might be impacted by Sym energy," the assistant said.
"You said that Sym energy is toxic to humans, is this not the same for animals?" Jack asked.
"It is toxic to the organs but the limbs are usually able to endure mid-level doses for some time. Healing abilities are toxic in their nature since they use Sym energy but it is possible to infuse even high density energy as long as you are retracting it after the healing is complete. What is toxic to normal humans or animals is the long term exposure to Sym energy that lingers in the body. A temporary exposure can be tolerated," the assistant explained.
Jack looked at the mouse with an amazed expression. It had fully healed and regrown its own leg. Jack carefully retracted his Sym energy and inspected the mouse more carefully. It had become quiet and its body seemed relaxed. It even seemed like the mouse was just lying in his palm instead of trying to run away. Jack looked at the mouse and opened his palm. The mouse just sniffed his hand and sat down. The leg was still hairless but it seemed to be fully movable by the mouse although it did not seem to be able to fully support its weight yet.
"This is incredible," Jack said quietly.
"What is incredible?" Morena asked.