It was the dead of the night when Matt came back to. His head was throbbing, and heart barely beating. The last thing he remembered was standing in the pool after his fight with the wolf, a flood of emotions he hadn’t expected hitting him like a monsoon on a parched land. A relief at first, then… a drowning.

  He had thought he had it under control. That he had been dealing with it well enough. But… apparently he wasn’t.

  Getting up seemed to be no less of a challenge than fighting the alpha wolf. His entire body was sore and weak, and every movement was accompanied with protests. At some point he had passed out on the pool coping with both legs still in the water, which didn’t really help with the soreness.

  A quick check of his rapidly blinking, depleted health bar showed that only 5% remained. Passing out with the glove’s ability still on was probably something he should avoid doing moving forward. Even a breeze could kill him in his current state.

  He chuckled inwardly at the absurdity of the situation, surviving a grueling fight against a tough opponent only for a frosty night’s breeze or a sunstroke to do him in. The cruelty of life truly had no bounds.

  Nothing a quick [Repair] can’t fix, he thought as he tried moving his hand closer to his body, but it seemed to have plans of its own as it remained unmoving. A quick glance at his stamina bar immediately showed why.

  7%... he thought, staring at it for a few breaths. His muscles were failing. Or had they failed a while ago?

  He could’ve been at 7% for hours, and the lack of blood circulation due to how slow his heart was beating only exacerbated the problem.

  It was now official. The problem with his stamina has now turned from problematic to detrimental. He’d have to fix it, and soon.

  His other arm was still missing from the elbow down, and a quick glance at his clock showed it had only been a few hours since his fight with the alpha. He grunted with effort as he tried to inch his arm closer. A healer with full mana that couldn’t heal himself because he was too tired to move his own body was not on his bingo card for dumbest ways to die, and it only got dumber the more he thought about it.

  Matt winced with every movement, as shockwaves travelled through his battered and beaten body, his frayed nerves setting it on fire with every inch his one good arm crossed. He worried he might be damaging himself with what he was doing–he was a hair’s breath away from the underworld after all–but thankfully his health was holding steady at 5%, and, mathematically, the 1% current health cost of the glove’s ability should never drop his health to 0, even without factoring in his natural regeneration, so that was nice at least.

  A few seconds of rest and a few deep breaths later, and Matt tried again. It was an arduously slow process, but it was working. He wanted to open his notifications, but he also doubted he had the ability to process any kind of information in his current state, so he decided to put a pin in it. It did make him wonder, though, why his stamina hadn’t been recovering lately. It used to recover fully whenever he had a few hours of rest or sleep, yet now, without [Revitalize], it just didn’t.

  It was never an issue before, and had only started when he was out of the dungeon. The only change since then was the glove and its ability, so that had to be it. Right…?

  The feeling of his rumbling stomach reminded him that his ears were still blocked, since he was unable to hear. He dispelled the mana marbles blocking his ear canals, and sound came flooding in, forcing Matt to wince once more. Everything was just… extremely loud, even his faint heartbeat.

  His stomach rumbled again, sounding like a thunderstorm to his ears this time. He tried remembering the last time he had had any food, or anything to drink other than the wine, but he couldn’t, which didn’t bode well for him. If you couldn’t remember the last time you ate, then it has been longer than it had any right to be.

  During his gaming sessions, he’d sometimes forget to eat for a day, maybe two, but it never went longer than that. Now though…

  Matt enjoyed food. It was one of the joys of life. Nothing hit the spot better than a cheeseburger or a slice of pepperoni pizza. He wondered if he could find the ingredients to make a pizza in the resort’s kitchen, or maybe they’d even have a few frozen ones on hand. He wasn’t gonna be picky though, he’d make do with whatever. It was one of the perks of having lived alone, learning how to cook and how to make do with what little you had access to. Rummaging through the kitchen just became a priority once he was back on his feet and with all five senses intact.

  But first, his sight and [Sense Mana] had to be fixed, and his glove’s boosting ability had been on for far too long. It felt like he was racking a bill his body couldn’t cash, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. In his current weakened state, the shock of losing the stats would finish the job.

  Probably.

  He actually didn’t know and wasn’t too keen on finding out. It was safer to do it once he was lying on a bed with full resource bars. If his body was going to crash from overexertion, then at least he could be somewhere comfortable and relatively safe when it happened, hence the bed.

  Almost there, he thought as he continued inching his arm ever so closer. Keeping his mind occupied helped him deal with the pain and discomfort he was experiencing, thankfully [Revitalize] should fix that right up.

  Just… as soon… as I… could get… my arm in place. Argh, he grunted in pain as he made the final push, but his arm was close enough now. His health was holding steady at 5%, his natural regeneration keeping up with the drain, so he opted to go for [Revitalize] instead to at least regain some control over his muscles.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He willed the skill on and felt as his thighs warmed up as the skill’s energy started making its way through his body. He felt every single muscle slowly come back from the brink as [Revitalize] breathed life into it. A name truly befitting the feeling he was now experiencing. Like ten masseuses working every part of a sore, stiff, and knotted form.

  It wasn’t always pleasant though. His muscles were in an almost dead-like state, revitalizing them brought them back, and what followed was those muscles cramping and his body seizing up, which lasted for a few extremely long seconds before relief and relaxation took over.

  It still felt illogical to him how muscles that were on the verge of collapse mere seconds ago could recover in an instant as if nothing had ever happened. Even his brain struggled with the rapid change in sensations, as evident by the phantom pain he was feeling in some parts. Still, he was no longer a sitting duck, so at least there was that.

  Next, he swapped to [Repair], hoping to heal his other arm so he could keep both skills running at the same time. It didn’t fill him with warmth the same way [Revitalize] did, but it did make him feel ‘whole’, like an angel’s breath on a dying husk. It also made him feel energized. As if his body was running on fumes, doing the bare minimum to sustain life, only for everything to kick back up into top gear. His heart sped up, pumping blood faster and faster to his starved organs and muscles, and so did his other organs. Even his brain had kicked up a notch, as if a dense fog had been covering it, that was now lifted.

  Soon, his other arm had grown back, and he was able to activate [Revitalize] once more. The relief both skills provided was immense. It was a hard feeling to get used to, but not any less welcome.

  It took about a minute for his health and stamina to recover to 80%, which was slightly longer than usual. His mana pathways, like the rest of his body, were in a sorry state. All the crap he had done during his fight with the wolves had taken its toll, which he was now paying for.

  Matt got up and started stretching, moving around for a bit just to make sure everything was as it should be. Even if his stamina bar was now full, indicating his muscles were back to normal, a firsthand confirmation never hurt anyone. His sight was still absent, so he couldn’t visually inspect the aftermath on his body and surroundings, but at least nothing else seemed to be out of place.

  Feeling confident enough in the state his mind and body were in, he finally tackled the task he had been dreading the most: restoring his sight and fixing [Sense Mana].

  Thankfully, he had a workable idea in mind.

  He was still unaware of the cause. The working assumption for now was that either the alpha was responsible somehow, or it was something something mana. Yeah… it wasn’t his best deduction, but it was most likely one or the other. The problem was which and how.

  Avoiding a repeat situation would be for the best, but it was impossible without knowing exactly what had gone wrong. He had his theories, of course, but that’s all they were, theories, and entertaining them might just push him in the wrong direction. It was life and death, with him basically experimenting on his own body. Erring on the side of caution was probably for the best.

  It didn’t mean his hands were tied, if he could create some form of a fix, then it would effectively solve the problem now and in the future if it did arise once more, and knowing his luck, it just might. Fighting half a dozen huge ass wolves in an unknown environment while blind was definitely one thing he didn’t want to ever have to deal with again. Oh, and he was also deafened, because fuck him, right?

  It was a lot to take in, but he was alive and… almost well, so it couldn’t have been that bad.

  He also really wanted to check his notifications. He was sure there was a lot to unpack there. The reason he hadn’t yet was that he was anxious. He was never good at facing his problems head-on, and a notification telling him he had lost his skill or sight permanently was a terrifying thought. Not knowing brought its own weird sense of comfort. It gave him hope that it was fixable, and he wanted to hold on to that hope if just for a little longer.

  Was he being dumb?

  Probably.

  Could the notification be something like ‘skill disabled for 24 hours go sleep and all will be good’?

  That would be ideal, but life had been a little sucky lately, so he wasn’t holding his breath for that one.

  Yet the possibility still remained, that the notification would devastate him, which could lead to a more desperate approach, and he’d rather go at it with an open mind, holding on to the hope and belief it was fixable, with the only question being ‘how?’

  He took a few calming breaths before closing his eyes and diving in to check what was wrong with his body.

  Which was… nothing.

  Physically, his eyes appeared fine. There were no injuries nor anything out of the ordinary that he could spot, but he also wasn’t a doctor, so if it wasn’t glaringly obvious, he wouldn’t be able to tell.

  Next, he dove into his soul, and that’s when the first oddity showed itself.

  In essence, his soul resembled the outline of a human body. The mana core was always shining brightly in his chest with a beautiful light blue color that illuminated its surroundings, while thin blue lines spread from it, covering the rest of his soul, like an endless river of mana.

  Blue was the color of mana from what he could tell, so his mana pathways and core taking on that color wasn’t surprising to him. What surprised him, however, were his eyes. There was no blue there, they were both completely white.

  He exited his soul and refocused on his physical body once more, but this time while trying to envision the mana channels as well, combining both his body and soul into one.

  It wasn’t working though. He could imagine it in his head, but it wasn’t materializing in front of him.

  He dove back into his soul and attempted to do it the other way around, summoning an image of his physical body there.

  Again, nothing seemed to happen.

  It wasn’t necessary, but he wanted to see exactly what was going on.

  He tried focusing on the tunnels connecting both his body and soul together. Seeing nothing out of place, he started trying to pull mana from one end to the other.

  A burning sensation started coming from all over his back, accompanied by his health taking a hit.

  Okay… clearly wasn’t supposed to do that, he thought, immediately letting go of the mana.

  Deciding to go smaller instead, he tried summoning an image of his soul from the neck upwards.

  Luckily, this time it worked, although with more strain than he had anticipated. However, he finally had eyes on what was wrong with his own.