54. Adaptive Regeneration or Enhanced Regeneration

Adaptive Regeneration or Enhanced Regeneration

I flew out of the base, everyone inside moving in my eyes like they were trapped in slow motion.

I was getting used to using super-speed even during downtime. Contrary to what novels often described, it did not make conversation difficult.

The frequency of sound did not actually change, at least not as long as I stayed still. Every sound simply lasted longer from my perspective, and that only took a little adjustment.

The greater bodily control and precision brought by higher attributes meant I could speak slowly enough for normal-speed people to understand. I did not need to slow down to their perspective, and conversation did not feel strange or awkward for me.

Perhaps higher levels of speed would cause problems.

For now, everything was fine.

During the subjective minutes of flight, I considered my abilities.

The first choice was obvious.

How many times had I failed to accomplish something because I was not fast enough?

How many times had enemy numbers overwhelmed me, or multiple coordinated enemies forced me into a corner?

How many times had I made mistakes because there simply was not enough time?

One of my abilities already provided a solution to those problems.

Why not improve it?

Instant Action lv2:Instantly perform an action equivalent to five minutes of maximum effort, taking only two seconds.

Raising Instant Action to level two let me do twice as much as before for the same cost, while most enemies would have no chance to react.

Combined with the significant stamina increase from higher attributes, the ability would become useful more often.

For only two ability points, it was an absolute bargain.

For a moment, I considered improving it again. If raised high enough, it might change the entire course of battle.

But the same could be said of all my abilities.

More importantly, this was the first time I had eight ability points to spend and no immediate, life-threatening problem to worry about.

It was time to raise one of my level-three abilities to level four.

Improving Force Adjustment might increase the multiplier for all force effects.

That would basically make me stronger and tougher, by a considerable margin, while also significantly enhancing every force effect I could produce—and I could produce a lot of them.

It was a good general option, useful as a point of comparison against everything else.

Forced Acceleration would make me faster.

The increase would not be as dramatic as the way Force Adjustment would make me stronger and sturdier, but even a small difference in speed could be lethal.

It would increase my offense through faster attacks, improve my defense by letting me dodge more, obviously improve mobility, and also raise my thinking speed and regeneration speed.

The downside was that it worked less well against more powerful enemies. Faster attacks were less useful against things that could simply endure every blow, and dodging was not always effective against magic or special attacks.

Proximal Manipulation formed the foundation of most force effects I created. It let me fly, gave me leverage without a physical support, and amplified my strength.

Its direct defensive value was smaller, but when combined with other abilities, it was more useful than any one ability alone.

Progressive Regeneration was the reason I had survived every fight so far.

Against enemies of roughly comparable strength or number, completely avoiding damage was impossible.

Eventually, a mistake would happen, or a sacrifice would have to be made to achieve some goal.

A continuous healing ability that required no attention and no resources had mattered in every single battle so far. None of my other abilities could claim that.

Heroic tendencies or not, staying alive remained my first priority.

Adaptive Regeneration lv4:You recover rapidly from damage. Each time you recover, you permanently gain a slight cumulative resistance to that specific…