"Hey bro, you good?"
"Huh?" Leo was drawn out of his thoughts by a guy nearby. Eyes refocusing as the skyline blurred back into coherent lines. The sound had reached him a second later than it should have, not because of the delay, but because he had been too deep.
"First time feeling like you might fall off?" The stranger asked again. The voice came up friendly, amused, and casual, with a hint of ...concern?
"Why would you think so?" Leo asked while regaining his composure. His mind still racing, his facial expression were neutral, but his internal processes were in overdrive.
"Well, I am not sure if your face's showing a confused or shocked expression right now. I would have said a confused expression, but considering your situation just now, it should have been a shocked expression. So, I went with that question." The guy shrugged
"Well, I felt someone or something hit me." Leo looked at the guy, then lied naturally.
"You did?" the guy asked, but didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he looked around while speaking:
"No one was near you the other time, and it doesn't look like someone threw something at you."
"Yeah.." Leo replied, a little dragged out.
"Or maybe it was someone using some... You know...mystical means behind the scenes." The guy leaned in, his voice dropping, his eyes narrowed as he made some weird gesticulations.
"Well, maybe," Leo replied while sizing up this guy who came out of nowhere.
"You wouldn't believe it, but it does happen, at least it has happened to me a couple of times..."
"Uhm, I am sorry, but do I know you?" Leo couldn't help but cut the guy mid-sentence. This guy was getting too chummy with him all of a sudden. Although he could read some kind of information off this guy, which he was not too sure of, but probably meant this guy had no ill intentions, but still.....
"Huh? Me? I don't think so?" the guy replied.
"You don't think so?"
"Yeah, I don't think so." The guy replied much more confidently this time.
"So, do you know me?" Leo couldn't help asking.
"Na, but I do see you chilling up here once in a while."
"Yeah.." Leo replied, not knowing if this guy was really not getting the cue or was playing dumb.
"Oh, I'm Jake by the way, you?" Jake said while stretching forth his hands.
Leo sized up this well-built, above-average looking brown haired guy again, hesitated for a while, then clasped the hands of this guy named Jake, while saying: "Leo."
"So, it's Leo, I do see you sitting here with pods in your ears staring into the sky, doing nothing, as if waiting for a spaceship to come whisk you away. Always wondered if a girl broke your heart."
"FYI, I am here because I just broke up with my now ex-girlfriend," Jake finished, a dramatic sigh escaping him.
"Oh," Leo really had a lot of thoughts going through his mind about this guy right now. But the most important thing was that he had perceived and corroborated Jake's statement with startling accuracy.
He perceived the elevated cortisol levels, the slightly erratic heart rate, the neural pathways, etc, which he now associated with grief and rejection firing in Jake's Bio-Rhythm?
It was a profound, almost uncomfortable level of insight into another human being, simply by observing some external cues.
"I tell you man, I just sort of remembered your image and thought it would be nice to do the same." Jake looked out at the skyline, a wistful expression on his face. "Just… staring into the void. It looked like it helps."
"Cool," Leo replied while moving to sit back on the edge. Really hoping that this guy who had his heart broken would really, really, Really get the cue and stop bothering him.
But alas, as the saying goes: Whatever can go wrong, will always go wrong.
Jake sat down beside him, right at the edge. "So, Leo. 'Cool,' huh? That's all you've got?"
Leo didn't answer right away. He took another sip from the can that had been lucky enough to not get affected, then looked up into the clouds.
Or maybe not the sky, but the different things he could perceive when looking at it. Like observing the way light refracted off the glass curve of the megatower across the skyline. How the shadows of passing aerial gilders distorted the chroma of the evening sky.
His thoughts hadn't quite calmed. The phrase Bio-Cognitive Synthesis still echoed quietly behind his mind like some kind of forgotten notification, half-dismissed but nevertheless still lingering at the edge of awareness.
It looked like he saw a pop-up, but yet it wasn't. There was no color, no sound cue, no window that blocked...or didn't block his sight. Just some kind of… knowledge, or perhaps intuition, formalized into understanding? He wasn't sure what it was.
"It's cool," Leo said again, a little firmer this time.
"Hmm," Jake hummed, stretching his arms behind his head. "You're not much of a talker, are you?"
"I talk when needed."
"I get that," Jake replied. "I used to be like that too. Then I dated someone who talked enough for two lifetimes."
Leo glanced at him, unimpressed.
Jake smirked.
Leo could perceive that the guy needed some kind of release, so he just ignored him for now.
A silence stretched between them. Comfortable for one, mildly annoying for the other.
Leo stared at his hand again, lifting it into the light. Every movement now came with a subtle ripple of awareness.
It had been like that since he cleared the dungeon, but the...message?..... he just perceived, added another layer of depth to it.
It was like a new layer had been peeled back from reality, not just reacting to stimuli but perceiving the context around it. Noticing the tension before movement, the micro-shifts in air pressure when things moved.
He opened his status on his comm unit, but nothing changed. It was still the same as when he had realised a passive the other time.
He was already coming to terms that this was definitely not the system granting him some mystical new ability. In fact, it felt like the system couldn't even perceive his changes, only when he perhaps invents or realises a skill, or so, that the system could then detect it.
It's like I awakened,
And this is not the awakening of power..... but also clarity,
Incredible!
"Hey man, you keep spacing out," Jake said suddenly.
Leo blinked. "It's just been a long day."
Jake raised a brow. "Let me guess… dungeon run?"
"Yeah," Leo gave the guy a sidelong glance. He had not gone to a dungeon today, but it didn't matter; he wasn't going to go out of his way to point it out.
Jake chuckled. "I know man, it really isn't easy," He said while pulling up his own stats for Leo to see.
[Status]
Name: Jake
Level: 7
Role: Vanguard (CQC Branch)
Strength: 19 | Agility: 14 | Endurance: 20
Leo couldn't help but give this average-looking guy another look.
You have to know that most people's physical attributes are usually 3-4 points higher than their level, but this guy named Jake had his lowest attribute 2 times his own level.
To be honest, that was pretty amazing. Normal people won't waste their time grinding attributes.
Even with all that was going on in his mind, he still couldn't help but lament inwardly. If not from what he was picking up from this guy's bio-waves, he would have thought this guy was showing off.
Leo looked back at him, expression unchanged. "Not bad."
Jake grinned. "It's not about being impressive. Just saying… you're not alone in this city. We all start somewhere."
Leo turned away, eyes settling again on the horizon.
"Yeah." He said, but didn't intend to reciprocate. It was this guy's decision to show his own stats, and he wasn't going to reciprocate.
Another beat of silence.
Jake took a sip of his drink. "You don't talk much, huh? So, what about you?"
"Huh?"
"I mean, what level are you at?"
Leo thought for a while and said, "Level 2."
"What!" Jake asked, clearly taken aback.
"Just levelled-up," Was Leo's reply.
"You are not joking with me, are you?" Jake stared at Leo incredulously.
Leo ignored the guy, thinking: You are just at level 7, why are you shouting?
But Jake's outburst was understandable.
Three years have gone by since the Descent, and you will hardly find anyone older than 19 with a level less than 10. And this is especially true for males.
This has already been proven to be true. You could find it in any trusted scientific research papers.
And that is level 10, not to mention level 2.
It's basically certain that men, as long as they have no physical disabilities, while also having no channels to get treatment, then it's basically impossible to see a Lv 2 after 2 years of Descent.
But here he was, sitting right beside a level 2 who doesn't look physically disabled.
Leo always wore long trousers, so even when he was using Pre-Descent prosthesis, and now that he had changed it, people not in the know wouldn't be able to tell.
Jake couldn't help but take a look at Leo again, with all sorts of guesses flashing through his mind.
What he saw was a kind of calm temperament that really didn't mind.
Taking a sip of his drink, he said, "A late start, huh?"
Leo shrugged.
Another round of silence went by.
"So, what about the 'what now,' huh?" Jake asked
"What do you mean?"
"You levelled up. Got a power-up, yeah? But you're not diving into stat calculators or dungeon simulators. You're just… watching the sky."
Leo, who was looking at the sky, perceiving all kinds of things he usually overlooked, raised his hands as if to grab the sky. "I guess I want to see"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Never mind," Leo replied.
"You are a weird one, aren't you?" Jake really couldn't help but say.
"I guess," Leo gave the guy a glance. Is that really what you can say to someone you just met?
Leo did know that his thought process was different from normal people.
He had always yearned to see outside of what he knew, even before the descent; that's why he fell in love with reading web-novels.
During the years when he couldn't enter dungeons, his years of watching and browsing the net about dungeons, it was the desire to see, to witness, that kept him from succumbing to depression.
And today, with what he has awakened, that desire to see burns more fiercely.
His thoughts were still cycling around that strange internal prompt. Bio-Cognitive Synthesis. It didn't come with any obvious UI or window, just an understanding. A mental echo with meaning embedded in the shape of it.
It was just there. A part of him.
Your brain becomes a central biological processor, interpreting all sensory data into actionable insights. Decisions are processed faster. Instincts align with thought. Delay reduces.
It aligned with his desire to see. Some people chase power, riches, etc. And all he wanted and still wants is to see what lies along the path.
"Hey," Jake nudged him with an elbow. "You ever think about getting in a squad?"
Leo blinked. "Why?"
"I mean, you look like someone who can handle himself. I know some guys, nothing big, just run some local low-level expeditions. You'd get some decent loot, maybe some connections. Even soloists need allies now and then."
Leo hesitated. "I'm not interested in groups."
Jake's face turned mock serious. "What, you scared of social interaction?"
"No. I just don't like unnecessary noise."
Jake laughed. "Fair enough."
Leo finally stood, stretching again. The motion felt like it triggered automatic recalibration across his body, subtle muscle tension shifts, spinal alignment, breath control, etc. All autonomic now.
His reflexes were fast, faster than even he expected. His awareness was wide, picking and calculating flight trajectories in a way that felt normal now. Like his brain had quietly installed a secondary processing thread.
His thoughts, senses, and body were all beginning to align into one integrated frame of action.
Jake stood beside him now, silent for once.
Leo stood still, eyes scanning the glass skyline as the sun slid past the tallest spire.
Something deep within had settled into place.
Not just power. Not even control.
Synchronization.
If before he might have been uncertain about his path, then now,
Now.....
He knew that he truly had the capital to 'see' along the road.