Its hard to be dead

Clark woke up slowly at first groaning softly to himself as his muscles ached mind reeling as he tried to get his memories working.  Then it hit him all at once the thoughts of a destroyed Shield Academy the bodies he had left behind in the lab.

There was nothing that he could have done in that instant but there was no suppressing the guilt and confusion that overwhelmed him.

Clark had no clue how long it had been once he zoned back in, but he was finally taking in his surroundings a cave of some sort with a few holes at the top that let some outside light in.

The floor was solid stone with the walls being much of the same except there were little protrusions of crystal along them.  Yet that didn't seem entirely natural glowing from the inside with a faint blue light.

Deciding that was something to look into later Clark turned his attention to the thing that had been helping him somehow since he woke up in the tunnel.

[Level Up! X2]

[Entered a high-level Ghost Zone!]

[Host detected to be asleep! Transformation forcefully released!]

Clark looked down seeing that alert finally noticing that his hands had regained the slight tan that he originally had on them.

Focusing on what his hands looked like, Clark tried to get them to change again a chill racing up his spine as an orange glow flickered into existence around him before spinning out in two rings.

The rings rapidly separated at his waist travelling up and down within seconds where they passed the colors of his clothes and body changed.

The once grey t-shirt he wore turning an obsidian black while his blue jeans took on a dark stormy grey appearance even the boots, he wore changed into an off shade of white his hair falling in his face as it turned white.

He had changed completely in moments a familiar strength flowing through his body as the orange aura field settled around him again slowly retreating into his body as the seconds passed by.

[Energy Control Lv.3]

The level of the skill he thought responsible for the aura being retractable appeared with a thought confirming that somehow it had climbed up by two levels with him.

Clark looked around the cave that he found himself in again using his now noticeably enhanced eyesight to check for hidden ways in or out but finding none.

Thinking hard about how he may have gotten into the cave there was really only one ability that would have been able to allow him in and it would also be his way out.

He hesitated for a moment remembering the alert about being in a high-level ghost zone at the last moment.

Clark opened his inventory pulling out what seemed to be a normal card the back of showing a skull with green liquid dripping from its mouth on it.

Flipping it over the front had art depicted on it showing what looked like a man with his arms spread out as energy rolled off of him towards a small building.

Not sure how to use the card Clark hesitated for a second before trying to push some of his energy into it the card instantly breaking down into a wave of orange energy that streaked all over the cave.

In seconds what had once been a three hundred square feet cave with a few crystals in it became a three thousand square feet cave.  The number of crystals in the whole place tripling while the original ones grew by twenty feet in length touching the ceiling of the cave.

With ample light coming from every crystal the whole cave was lit up and it was obvious that the energy had also smoothed out the whole cave levelling out the layout of the place.

[Hidden Function Unlocked!]

[Homesteading feature loading...]

[The host has reinforced a location for the first-time setting location as home]

[Creating specialized link to location]

Clark could feel it now like a general sense of the cave at all times.

Floating through the end of the cave Clark paused to look back seeing nothing from the outside except the side of a cliff face hovering midair looking over the jungle expanding into the distance.

Looking at the sky he could see something faintly shimmering around the whole thing and out in the distance over a few ridges he could see smoke.

Turning invisible with a thought Clark flew towards the smoke covering the miles in seconds floating above the wreckage of a plane as people shuttled around the area gathering luggage and divided food.

[High Level Ghost detected!]

Clark barely managed to whip his head in the direction of a primal scream before he was sent sailing across the sky slowly falling to the ground knocking over trees as he hit them.

A giant pale skinned corpse of a man monkey hybrid landed in front of him a pair of hairy legs on either side of his torso as it leaned down roaring in his face.

The eye's glowing a bloody red while the hands that ended in clawed tips as it dug one into the dirt under his body before hurling him and a chunk of the land to the left.

Skipping across the ground Clark shattered more trees with his body before he finally hit a stone sliding down the side of it a moment later.

His enhanced durability and ability to regenerate being the only thing really holding him together as his arm was barely connected to his torso by a few strands of skin green goo or blood dripping out.

One of his legs was even broken and twisted in multiple directions the ghost marching towards him as it pushed trees out of the way.

Clark grunted forcing himself to shut out the pain as he stood up on one leg unable to focus enough to fly away.  The orange glow returned around his body rushing towards the most heavily damaged parts of his body as his shoulder and arm reconnected.

A series of cracking and crunching noises also sounded out as his leg returned to normal the parts of his body that had been healed returning to their normal appearance.

The larger ghost was still approaching taking its time though as Clark forced himself up testing the strength of his recovered leg, he noticed it seemed to be coming apart at the edges.

Mist began to fill the area the more it unraveled until as it was about to hit him again it fell apart completely with a roar.

[Host has survived!]

Grunting at the notification Clark wobbled in place the orange rings reappearing as they surged from both directions to meet in the middle returning him to normal with the extra strength that he been upright leaving him.

"It's harder to be dead than I thought."

Clark had been allowed to attend the Shield Academy based off of his intelligence and cunning having built a series of functional plasma weapons in his backyard at ten.

It was fairly obvious to him that he had not survived the activation of the incomplete portal and it was only the notifications about the portal that told him where it would have led.

Hence connecting the living world with a plane or dimension for ghosts while inside of it would be the only reasonable way that he could have both survived and acquired his extra tricks.

"Are you alright?" Clark looked over at the direction the voice came from.

A man was approaching practically running as he came to check on him accompanied by a woman on the leaner side with brown hair.

"Jack! Wait Jack you don't know if that thing is nearby!"

"Doesn't matter right now!" The man was running as fast as he could closing the distance to Clark.

Clark leaned back against the stone able to feel blood dribbling down his cheek and neck a few cuts that hadn't healed yet and probably would take a while to do so.

"That thing is vicious." Clark passed out immediately after speaking slumping backwards against the stone.