15 The stars of an Adapter

Key Stroke and his group of four found their face matted to the ground as their face started to distort. Not only their face, but the rest of their body could also be seen experiencing the same thing, as the armor and clothes they wore showed signs of the same caving in and ripple-like effect.

But the suffering didn't stop there. The air around the four seemed to experience a distinct collective change compared to the outside, as the oxygen and energy trying to filter inside began to clog up from the contamination already in their bodies.

The oxygen and energy soon began turning into a liquid, and a solid as the filth within their bodies clung onto the pure thick oxygen and energy entering their lungs. The effect continued to spread as their bodies gained weight and heaviness to them.

This process, ended up causing a burning sensation throughout their bodies as the ability to breathe became difficult. All four could only remain on the floor in agony as the pain increased. Only after experiencing these things, was it now that Key Stroke and the others began to understand the difficulties.

Before coming, the old man had said that a titleless Adapter could gain five stars to bring a complete change in the body and significantly increasing the strength with each star. He had even told them that the first star could be gained just by breathing and moving.

It was a simple task and would considerably improve their skills in a short amount of time. But in the end, this simple task became the most difficult objective to achieve that they experienced so far. Despite all this, they were still Adapters and would naturally know by instinct how to overcome this difficulty.

Key Stroke was the first to start overcoming his predicament as he used every cell and force in his body to move the pureness away from his lungs. Instantly, he became able to breathe and no longer had to worry about suffocating.

With slow measured breaths, he took the pureness and gathered it in one location, his torso area. Soon, he let the pureness branch out to small sections of his body bit by bit, making sure it wasn't too much to handle all at once.

As the environment tempered Key Stroke's body, Black Bourne and Donn Kell also began adapting to the pureness invading their bodies. Their steps of action could be said to be the same as Key Stroke's. The last one to finally start adapting was Ford Sterling.

His pace and process were slower compared to the others, but it could still be considered fast. After some time, they all had risen into sitting positions while letting the change in their bodies occur.

Thinking of what the old man said about Adapter ranks as the process continued, Key Stroke began wondering just how long and hard would the other stars be. From what he was told besides the first star requiring to be able to breathe and move, the second star required the ability to utilize the pureness flowing through the body.

Whether it was strengthening the body with defense or power, or even moving the cell and blood flow to increase explosive speed or rapid thought process, all of this was needed to be mastered before one could experience another quality change in the body.

Then was the third star which required one to steal or to put better, absorb others ambition force. This star was considered the hardest and the most dangerous because consuming others ambition force also took along their wills.

Any mishap would leave the absorber brain-dead or insane with a split personality. In return, if one could gain the strength to crush others ambitions, the growth potential would open wider. This reason is also why the third star was considered the End Star. Without this ability, becoming a title Adapter would be impossible.

And last was the fourth star that the old man knew about as he didn't have any idea how to become a fifth-star titleless Adapter. With the fourth star, one would need to absorb many ambition forces to achieve an increase in ambition force.

Once the increase is high enough, one will be able to learn to use the ambition force from a distance while becoming a four-star Adapter at the same time. When Key Stroke had heard the old man finish the details on the fourth-star requirements, he knew the giant wolf spider was at least a four-star Adapter equivalent or higher.

As time passed, it took Key Stroke a whole day to achieve the first-star Adapter status. The others he could tell would take a day and a fourth for Black Bourne and Donn Kell while a day and a half were needed for Ford Sterling.

During the wait for the others, Key Stroke had noticed the environment around him as well as the changes in him. The power running through him felt stronger than before as his senses had also improved, with him hearing and seeing farther.

And through his senses, the sight of the landscape was hard to take in. Instead of green leaves for trees and green grass on the ground, all of these things where dark blue. What was weirder, the view seemed to have a blue coating to it as if he was wearing blue tinted glasses.

It was this scenery that brought to his attention that he was in a forest area and the grass was no longer bigger than him. In fact, it was back how it used to be in the past. Could it really be another part of the world?

The old man had made it clear that the Evolver Door only sent people to where the strong on the planet lived. This belief was farther inforced by the richness of the energy in the air that could let someone become a one-star Adapter just by being here.

But if that was all true, why was everything blue and regular? Was there a reason? Knowing his questions wouldn't be answered, he placed them to the side for later as he prepared himself for the challenges he needed to face soon.

As the others began to come out of their half sleep state, he began to wonder how Skyla Betts was doing. Since a day and a half had passed, the other five left in the soon to be village should have already learned to craft things.

He could only hope nothing unexpected happened before their return.