Yang James pulled himself from the TV screen, returning to the capsule house’s living room. Upon looking up, his eyes were naturally drawn towards the skylights. He saw the stars in the night sky from the skylight. “Why is it dark out?“ He asked turning to his left to see his other half sitting behind a pile of various goodies and items. “…What are you doing?”

  “Uhh… Was it time for you to come back already?” Yin James sat behind the computer screen with a pile of several items and food wrappers having been built up on the round table. Over his shoulders was the Bloodborn that floated in an amorphous state forming a crescent.

  “What did you do?” Yang asked trying to make sense of the assorted items (aren't those masks?) and why the stars were out.

  Yin crossed his arms starting in a neutral tone, “Well… after you left, I started reading and I learned more about the phone...” As Yin began expining his discoveries about the phone, Yang’s attention was grabbed by the floating blue object on the other side of the couch. Leaning over to see what was happening he saw a pair of floating blue arms on the other side.

  “Why are there two of them?”

  “That? After I got bored of reading, I got to work breeding another Beldum. But soon got tired of that too. They take so long to hatch... Instead, I opted to just take a picture of the one already here.”

  Yang James blinked before his eyes widened “And you took out that copy… Is everything alright?”

  “So far. It doesn’t seem to be a ‘the copies explode’ or ‘turn evil’ type scenario. They do seem to like talking to each other and pying chess.” Yin gave a current analysis of the situation as he had observed them as the pair continued pying chess.

  Yang put his hand to his head hearing the expnation. “And the reason why it's so dark out… don’t tell me.”

  “I slowed down the video instead of speeding it up.”

  “So instead of 1 hour it’s been- “

  “About four and a half?” Yin James said checking the time on the computer. “It's close enough to say 10 pm.”

  “…” Yang James paused he couldn’t say he didn’t expect this outcome, while none too pleased by the reality. He sighed before continuing, “So, what’s all of this?” Yang asked referring to the pile of items on the table.

  “After you left, I spent most of the first 2 hours reading the comic and figured out how to py the game without the controls. Nothing dropped while I was exploring the new dungeons I added. Then I got bored since there wasn’t much I could do in either of them. So, I went to challenge the Skeleton General. After I killed it, it dropped a skill crystal.”

  “… Shouldn’t you lead with that?” Yang asked before processing, “You killed it? How?”

  “Well, our blood ability is also in the game, and I discovered how to mentally control the avatar- “

  “You figured out how to control our blood freely in the game to kill the General.”

  “Yep. But once it was dead I couldn’t exactly absorb the crystal on my own. So, I started messing around. I watched more of Ghost Game – Mainly skipping to the end. But I did update the digivice, now it’s the Digivice-VV-” Yin said proudly holding up his left arm with the Digivice-VV- equipped.

  “And that does what exactly?”

  “I’m not too sure actually. I guess it makes it more effective as a digivice? Allowing for Warp Evolution? It seems to be a simple software update."

  “Right... I’m not going to question it anymore, let's just fuse back together."

  Yang fished his half of the Tiger Talisman out of the bag, while Yin had to sift through the pile of items on the table. Once they both held out their halves, bringing them together, a single unit of Primordial Energy was drawn from both members. The energy infused into the talisman as the tiger symbols glowed. They both felt a mysterious force pushing their bodies together as the glowing crack started to mend.

  “Ughh…” While it didn’t hurt, it was enough to make me a little nauseous. It was uncomfortable as my organs lurched around and my eyes popped, but it was not painful. For only a short moment, my organs felt like they were in different area codes as things were put back in pce. My brain felt like it was reconnecting both sides. Even though it was uncomfortable at worst, the talisman's power smoothly put everything back together.

  Once my brain was put back together, the two halves now reconnected. The disorientation that followed from different sets of memories from alternate times and pcing the two personalities back to where they belong was the worst of it. But this too was soothed by the talisman. After several minutes with help from the talisman’s effect, I ordered the process of events as Yang's Talisman exploration followed by Yin’s various eventful memories. There wasn’t even any loss in what I remembered keeping most if not everything memorized. Even so, “I don’t think I’m going to do that again…” (At least for a while. And I should look into Chakra tomorrow.)

  I also had a new problem to clean up. "It's time for bed, you two," I called out to the Beldum, who were busy pying chess behind the couch. "And you," I said to the amorphous blob of blood that floated before me. Receiving the command, the Bloodborn diffused before entering my body once again.

  With that done I started moving all the junk off the table searching for the Heavy ball that these two should belong to. Beneath it all there was the phone still on the same screen as it had been since the Skeleton General had dropped its skill crystal. As I moved a blue mask taken from Majora's Mask I found the gray-capped Pokeball with four blue nubs. In its shrunken state, it was approximately 1in (2.54 cm) in diameter. Pressing the button it would grow to 3in (7.62 cm). Duplicating the ball, I was able to return both Beldum.

  Since they are both identical clones, they would be registered to the same ball. I can vaguely remember some scenes from the anime where issues with the ball become a big deal (like when it gets broken). And, unless a Pokemon was officially 'released' they were still registered to the ball. Meaning any other ball would be ineffective on them. I think this is why you can't catch another trainers Pokémon, but it does make me curious to know what sort of issues this could cause.

  With all the little monsters away, (Beldum returned to their Pokeballs. The Porygon remained in their computers. And Kuramon remained within the ptop) I was left alone to clean up the mess Yin made, wondering “How long has it been since I had eye bags?”

  Once everything was cleaned up and put away, I picked up the phone, now that I was back together, I could absorb the Skill Crystal.

  Looking at the screen, the avatar remained motionless since the crystal dropped standing before a pile of ash with a red crystal inside. Trying out the method Yin learned, I had the Blood-colored avatar pick up the crystal without using my hands. As the avatar touched the Skeleton General’s crystal, it transformed into energy drilling into the avatar’s arms.

  At the same time, I broke out in a sweat, my knees buckled, and my arms contracted towards my chest. A burning heat spread through my arms, and a foreign Primordial Energy flooded my body. My arms glowed with a burning red energy as I felt something being carved out over the next few minutes.

  "Shhheee... Oww..." I groaned as the process concluded. While this construct didn’t appear physically, I could feel it internally, a passageway carved inside me, connected by points through a thread of Primordial Energy. Once enough Primordial Energy was channeled through this pathway, the skill would activate. These points made it easily comparable to a consteltion. (I wonder if I’ll be able to see it if I wander my Soul Sea again?)

  Standing back up I checked my stats:

  Name: James Dewitt

  Age: 22 years

  Lifeform level: Mortal/Ordinary

  Strength: 6

  Speed: 5

  Constitution: 12

  Primordial Energy: 3 > 9

  Primordial Energy Art: Lost Immortal Sutra

  Primordial Energy Skills: *Penetrating Pierce R1 (New)

  Primordial Energy Pet: Bloodborn (Mortal),

  Looking at the mess of characters, the comic transted the skill as Penetrating Pierce with a power rank of 1. This rank depends on RNG from the drop chance but can be trained after being obtained. Reaching triumphant heights even with weak skills. (Though the upper limit is 10)

  Aside from the skill, absorbing the crystal also boosted my Primordial Energy to the current limit and came with a notification on the game screen: “Absorbed Skeleton General Crystal. Learned Legendary Primordial Energy Skill—Penetrating Pierce.”

  I am again referencing the comic, "I need to find some transtion tools." A Babel fish would probably be the catch-all solution, but I'm not up for having a parasite living in my ear, and I don't even know if it would work on text. (What if it just starts talking and doesn't shut up?)

  Instead of the Sci-Fi route, the magic route has an abundance of transtion items. Lucy's gsses from FairyTail were one such item. But they were a magic item that likely required Mana to operate. Maybe a game or game-like item might work? Otherwise, "I might have choice but the tech route."

  Either way that was something to think about ter.

  As for getting the value up from 9 to 10 before climbing the ranks, it might increase on its own after I practice the Lost Immortal Sutra for a while. Or it might increase after I absorb some more crystals.

  With the crystal absorbed, I still had one more task to take care of before bed.

  Sitting down inside my cultivation room, I continued forging my ribs. I was able to take more than one pill at a time now because of the increase in Ki given by the Primordial Energy. I could probably do three, but with the increase in the amount of needle-like Ki came an increase in the amount of needed control.

  With the doubled amount I could control I was still able to speed up my progress significantly. And with the refresh rate of additional Primordial Energy provided by the Lost Immortal Sutra's cycle, I could now keep this up almost indefinitely.

  By the time the clock on the Digivice-VV- hit midnight I had successfully forged 6 more ribs, finishing half of them.

  "Now I am left with a question, sad or tea?"

  Returning to the living room I added a dozen Heart-shaped Herbs in a bowl coating them in sad dressing and croutons and started having a nice sacrilegious sad. Once I finished, I downed a bottle of antidote potion. It tasted only slightly bitter somewhat herby and came with a pleasant citrusy aftertaste. The Heart-shaped Herbs however were quite chewy.

  It would be a couple of hours before my body finished processing them, but by then I would probably have long been passed out.

  I sat on my bed a small finger-sized vial of blue liquid in hand.

  Spoiler

  [colpse]It's hard to believe this was a perfected version of the Super Soldier Serum. Mainly because it looked like a vial filled with blue food coloring. Giving my Bloodborn a command to not fight against what was about to happen, I pced the needle into my arm.

  As the needle entered my skin the vial started to auto-eject the substance, quickly emptying the contents inside. For the next couple of seconds, I felt nothing.

  Then everything felt like burning white.

  END

  Spoilerkidmonkey94

  Sorry, this one's a bit te, had to do Taxes.

  [colpse]