2 Chapter 2

I awoke again, the pain was gone and my left side felt lighter with a cool sensation. I could not see out of my left eye but there was no pain. "Oh good, you awoke finally, you were asleep for several hours." Garrison was there, I looked around with my right eye, the grass surrounding me was covered in blood, bone, flesh and scorch marks. "Ahh!" I shouted at discovering my left arm missing just above the elbow, though there was no bleeding and the stump did not hurt. There was a cool, tingly and comforting sensation where the end of the stump. I pressed on my ribs on the left side of my body- it hurt slightly. The skin covering my face felt rippled and scarred.

"What happened?" I asked Garrison as I took a few deep breaths attempting to calm down.

"You activated one of my defense measures. Though you did receive quite a bit of divine power from your victory, so I took the liberty to increase the level of your core ability."

"And that is?"

"I chose Regeneration for you… even though it was an ability that has been selected 0% of the time as a core ability for the entire duration of The Games, and selected .0173% for a primary ability."

"Wait… what? Core ability?" I sat perplexed at the flood of new information coming to me. "Explain from the beginning please…"

"Well I was getting around to it then you went ahead and blew yourself up…" Garrison likes to use odd characters across its body to show facial expressions, the facial expression he was showing now was 'disappointment.' "As a champion, you are granted access towards a Core ability, and primary abilities, each unique and assist in your ability to perform in the games."

I laid back down onto the grass, and closed my eye… He continued "Since you were dying, and have no talent, no magical compatibility, no… well to be succinct, to save your life Regeneration was chosen as your Core ability, this can not be changed."

"So…" I added while covering my face with my right hand. "Thanks…" I had wanted to cry and curl into the fetal position, but the pain in my side prevented me from doing so, though it was subsiding.

Garrison continued "Yes, this time I took precautions… Though I calculated at least a seventeen percent chance to arrive safely and begin training for the games, things are looking up."

"Great…" I sat up looking around, there were hundreds of those blue balloons, each one as deadly as the last I imagined. I rubbed the left side of my face and head with my right hand, missing hair, missing eyebrow, my eyeball was inside my eye socket at least and I had an eyelid… "Wait…" I interrupted him "So what's Regeneration and what do you mean by abilities?"

"Yes… As a champion selected to participate on behalf of our Goddess Elys, you have the opportunity to obtain Divine Abilities from a large list. Each champion can benefit from them as they amplify their natural talents and skills." Without taking a breath… 'Does he breathe?' He continued… "Selecting an ability as a Core ability, boosts its basic abilities considerably as well as unlocking unique features with that ability... For example since no other Champion has ever selected Regeneration as a Core ability in the past, there was little to no data, but now we have this data, please look here…"

Garrison's face flashed with the following information:

Core Ability: Regeneration

Basic - Increases natural healing processes by a multiple of 2, requires additional sustenance and metabolic processes.

Primary - Will restore the body to a complete state, though may cause severe pain and discomfort while limbs are regrown, requires a considerable amount of additional sustenance and metabolic processes.

Core - Modifies Basic increasing base multiplier by 5. Modifies Primary replacing pain and discomfort with a cool burning sensation, Divine Energy will supplement required sustenance and metabolic processes. Will completely restore the body and will completely absorb foreign bodies while converting it to Divine Energy.

"So my current Regeneration rate is 10 times my basic?" I asked Garrison as to gain some semblance of sanity of the situation. "Actually, I went ahead and increased the rank to two, so you technically have an increased Regeneration rate of 20 times."

"So how did you do that?"

"By spending the Divine Points you earned from destroying the defensive measure."

"The blue balloons?"

"That can be an accurate description… But the area has temporarily been placed at level 0 and the sentries are set to passive, if you can understand that."

"I think I understand a bit…"

Garrison then explained costs to me, whereas acceptance of a Core ability was free and taking it to the next level cost only 10 Divine Points, though typically Divine Points are difficult to obtain, however, me 'defeating' a sentry at level 0 was more than enough for me to earn 10. Garrison was quick to include his surprise as well, since the majority of Champions have their first competition without much for abilities and Divine Points.

I sighed and did some maths in my head. If it took me a Month to say heal from a minor broken bone, it would now take me one and a half days… How long does it take to regrow a limb then? An eye? My hair back? I rubbed my head and rubbed my remaining eye. Everything will grow back, with time…

I took a deep breath… "Okay… I think I understand what's going on right now." I looked at the blue balloon sentries… "I have to get past those… and…" Garrison interjected, "make it safely to the estate."

"Where is the estate?"

"I will lead you there when you are ready."

"Okay..." I sighed...

"You are quick to adapt, quite happy with my selection this time."

"This time?"

"Yes, previous champions were unable to survive past reception, though this time I was able to spend some Divine Energy in order to lessen the impact and burden, and was able to get quite the deal picking you."