~Cobb POV~

  Nothing quite like waking up not knowing where you are. I'm naked. Nothing changed there. What caught my eye is the room. Metal and steel and glass. I sat up from the bare minimum prison bed I was on and looked around the small room. This can't be right.

  I checked my notifications doubting they were even there, that I was in the game. They were and I was.

  I had leveled up 12 times. Gaining a total of 60 Stat Points which I poured into Intelligence for a change. Each level gave me 20 WIS and which in turn increased the amount of MP I gain each level. Which resulted in a whopping 671 MP. I didn't need any more Squad Points so I dumped everything into Intelligence, so I could do more damage.

  I used to think the camoflauge was insanely useful but I really haven't had the need to use it in a long time. Is it actually useless? Then the vastness of Twoen hit me and I realized that at some point in time this skill is going to save my ass. With this game I personally don't think there's a skill that's here for no reason. Taking into account that huge list of races and classes and each having a unique skill for each one might think there's going to be a useless skill or two. In my gut I felt that Twoen had it handled. Call it a gamer's intuition.

  A second later I noticed myself. My body was polished steel, same as the frame as the bed. So it worked on manufactured materials from the earth? That really doesn't qualify as camoflauge, at least not in this situation, i'm perfectly exposed. But then, JST had some skills that evolved too, I wouldn't be surpised if it changed later. I don't even have it past Beginner so I can't really say.

  I really need to start paying attention to this. It's like a seventh sense. For me, the meaning of a "sixth sense" changed a long time ago. I had touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight and magic. That's why when I get some other way of recieving sensory information, I fumble with it a bit. It's always there but i'm just never paying attention, unless it's a huge or intense feeling. Right now though i'm punching myself because I can feel hostile eyes and they're dangerous, less than the Demon Progenitor we fought. More than the Contos Spellcraft mage though.

  I snapped my eyes to the corner of the room, which i'm just now realizing has no doors, only a glass window into another empty room with a lone chair. My eyes locked on to the top corner of the room I was in, the source of the danger, no doubt some type of scrying orb. Instead I found nothing, no magic coming from the spot at all. I did feel the hostile eyes though, so my own searched endlessly, if they were watching me which I knew they were, they wouldn't see searching eyes, they would see a stock still metal figure. When that figure stood up and moved closer to inspect the corner, his camoflauge would fade away and they would see starry eyes, jet black save for white specks. His ethereal emerald skin would only add to the uncanny image.

  I tried using Inform but all that got me was a nice little window telling me it didn't work. Maybe if I looked at the prison differently it might work, I had been focused on the prison cell not the complex, assuming I am in prison. Maybe that was the problem actually. I am definitely captured and seperated from everyone else but that doesn't mean this is a prison, some type of facility maybe? I was asking a invalid question that was the problem.

  I tried again focusing on the complex as a whole. Hopeful that my logic was sound.

  Inform rebounded and failed but because of the nature of the skill I queried it's own failure and got this.

  I sighed, my next move was to attack the wall. Just in case I tried pulling on the metals around me, nothing. I tested my other magics, nothing. I thought maybe that the structure was protected against magic, not outright negating it. Unfortunately nothing is easy. Hunted Sense worked earlier, that means it isn't magic, I could chalk that up to being some type of passive buff to the body or senses. Inform worked though but that drained mana so what type of skill does it fall under? It didn't work because of magical wards that meant that it was for sure magic. Maybe it was an internal magic? It happens inside of me rather that outside, this would make sense since it failed when I queried anything about the complex but worked when I asked it about itself.

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  I moved on to check the rest of my skills since it didn't seem like I was going anywhere for the forseeable future.

  I changed gears. Thinking about the skills rather than escape for the moment.

  Hyperfocus is amazing, it allows us so much breathing room when in the heat of battle, I can think longer and react faster. The only problem with the skill is the drain on stamina. It actually balances well though. A mage has the potential to do so much more during those small moments in Hyperfocus and as such lacks the stamina to maintain the state for very long. A warrior who normally has a relatively small impact on a battle can maintain the state much longer because he has a larger stamina pool. For an assassin like Jones it's a mix as well, an average amount of stamina for an average amount of Hyperfocus time.

  I really want to know the effect this has on NPC's and whatnot. Once I find any friendly ones maybe I could try and see what it does. Of course I'm in a prison or something similiar so that might take a while. I shook my head and continued to check the rest.

  It's rising pretty slowly but that's within expectations, as a Class Skill it makes sense. Especially since I haven't been animating anything simple. I'd have to test the boundaries again some time in the future. Maybe I could create simple golems? I'd need to experiment with creating something out of magic that I could animate. With a start I realized I couldn't feel George, Jack and Gaius. Are they dead? My link was gone but it could be because of the magical wards blocking my connection to them. Do they need the link to survive have they gone inanimate? No, I remember my creations keep my magic inside of them, my mana pool isn't constantly draining when i'm around them so they don't need any of my mana. I remember watching the magic in George react with the sniper. But that begs the question, why do I need the link? Is it simply for knowing where they are, that really doesn't help right now.

  Classic skill and straightforward. Years of playing, and you find yourself able to be calm and relaxed during a heated battle despite your outward appearance. This skill along with my copious amounts of Wisdom and mana pool will allow me to wreak havoc with my magic constantly.

  Huh. I thought that fight with the demon horde would jump this skill to at least Intermediate Tier. I knew that logically a Class Skill would raise slower than a regular skills but maybe there are certain skills that just raise slower. This would make sense for Mixed Magical Arts since it's a more complex skill.

  Oh shit, all the percentage damage increases I keep? All the utility increases and construct effectiveness is kept. It looks like all elementals are friendlier with me by 45%. This might be worse actually, I had the potential to have a 50% friendliness modifier with all elementals if I reached Advanced 10 in Earth Magic before I got the rest to Advanced Tier. In addition my damage with Fire and Earth got lowered down to Advanced 1 level. I checked the new skill, hoping something good would come out of this.

  That, that is impressive. Beginner 2 and it's already increasing my damage of all the elemental magic by 5% with each level up? I regressed a little bit with Earth and Fire Magic but with this I should be up to par by the Intermediate Tier. I paused as I remembered the fight with the demon horde and the rest of the books. If I got this skill before the demon fight and it only leveled up once I don't know how I feel. Sure, I have huge potential but i'm a crippled version of my past self's damage. Unless of course I hit Advanced in Wind and Water when I was fucking with the steam which was towards the end of the fight and would mean this skill leveled up once after a relatively easy task. Wait, even then if it leveled up once while I was basically uncoscious, out of mana, maintaining a combination of the elements, and fighting a Demon Progenitor how slow would this be leveling? I rubbed my temples and looked around my cell.

  It was a pristine white. White tiles for the floor, white tiles for the wall, white tiles for the ceiling. It felt like I was in a hospital or part of some experiment. The only break to the white was the occasional steel support against the wall and my bed frame.

  I just noticed the absence of my stuff and rubbed my temples again, not even bothering to look around.

  If I had my stuff I could rummage through all my things and see if anything could get me out of here without having to reveal my trump card. What did I even have in there? A staff, robes, skillbooks, normal books, and a demon familiar stone. Yeah, I don't think any of that is getting me anywhere right now. The best option would be to wait. The good thing was that everything was in my bag and I binded that to my soul. I could have everything in there in my hands with a thought. None of that would do me any good now, that would only serve to show them I could summon all my shit to me. It might not work with these wards everywhere but i'm hoping to god Soul Magic or something existed and ignored all these restrictions.

  I sat down, lowering myself into a cross-legged meditation stance. I breathed in and out, instinctively reaching for magic to meditate with, the abrupt absence broke my trance for a second but then I was washed away once again. A passenger to the ocean.

  Time passed and I meditated more. Without the magic my mind ran wild, without distraction I was haunted.

  Thoughts that found me only when I was alone assaulted me. They spoke of the absence of magic in reality, they spoke of what-ifs and maybes, they brought to the forefront of my mind a child powerless, a naive child who reached for something that wasn't there, a naive child who may or may not have had the time to stop a tragedy if he didn't waste it reaching for magic.

  Me.

  Pain tried to fill the void in my heart. Soothing words tried to trick me. Reassurances swirled around in the void before dissapating altogether.

  "Magic has been a part of you since you could walk. Even then you reacted fast." The words were assuring but they were full of their own pain. "I couldn't do anything." His voice broke.

  "I didn't do anything." A smaller voice echoed in my head. It was emotionless, empty.

  I blinked the tears away and breathed in slowly. When I was finally calm I opened my eyes to see a human sitting in the opposite room. He was human, perfectly so. He wasn't part lizard, bear, cat, dragon, dwarf, elf, this guy was a human. He wore strange armor or maybe it was clothing. It had metal strips across the torso that connected some way or another to a small cape attached to his back which in turn had wires running into his pocket. He was holding a crystal that reminded me of my own skin, as well as the fact that I wasn't human at the moment. It hovered in his hands and his stare moved from the crystal to me. He seemed surprised but not incredulous. Perhaps it was an identification crystal? How much information did he glean?

  He took another crystal out, slightly larger. I stared at him, trying to look like an alien. He avoided eye contact but didn't seem particularly uncomfortable, just focused on his work, whatever it was. They crystal rotated slowly and rose in his palm at a higher altitude than the last one. It shined brightly and I felt eyes from the corner of my cell again. I scanned that particular corner and still found nothing. I made sure to turn my head slowly when I looked though, just to creep them the fuck out.

  The man was still looking at the crystal, he was doing something with it that I couldn't percieve because his facial expressions shifted slightly yet there was nothing but a small rotating crystal in his hand. Something knocked him out of his focus though and he looked backwards towards the door. He opened it and another man walked in, he wore much the same armor but had a sword attached to his belt. He spoke to the first man and glanced towards me.

  Again their attention was drawn to the door. They opened it and a man was standing there. His posture was off and his arms were very expressive pointing down the hall, flopping up and down. A scaled hand reached behind the head of third man and moved the head in an imitation of speech. The body of the third man dropped to reveal a grinning JST. In a flash both men reached for their pockets, the second man also reached for his sword.

  In a blur of movement and a moment later JST was stepping over their bodies.

  He paused at the glass of my cell and scratched his head. There was no sound but I could read his lips.

  "Uh."