"... Promise you won't be mad." Osho finally said, breaking the silence.
His voice was oddly meek. Not just due to his exhausted state, but he spoke like he was expecting a scolding after he finished his explanation.
Ellie let out a slight sigh of exasperation.
"Seeing you makes it hard for me to even consider it. But I do have the feeling that you're because you did something dumb." She said softly yet pointedly, and Osho averted his gaze, looking like a child who had been caught with his hand in the candy jar.
Rewinding some time, Osho was in his lab, observing the conduits in the surfaces of the ribbons.
While their complexity had already been emphasized greatly, Osho just couldn't get over how incredible they were, becoming enraptured by them the more he looked.
They were like an entirely new world.
However, he was committed to discovering how they worked, so admiration could come later.
Now, whenever Osho looked at the conduits, his ability, which usually just told him what he needed, went in a different direction for once.
Essentially, Osho couldn't immediately change how the circuits worked. He needed materials to do so. This text is hosted at novel·fire·net
It was sort of like welding in a way, but he couldn't simply grab a conduit and rewire it. He needed additional materials to do so.
But more than that, it depended a lot on Osho's imagination because there was no set direction he could follow.
If he thought about the conduits of the creature in the egg allowing it to ignite its blood to increase its power, his ability would direct him to the materials he needed to do so.
It was only when he gathered the necessary materials that he could start to fiddle with the conduits to make them do something, and it was at that point that Osho realized that manipulating the conduits of a beast was VERY expensive.
Going along with the example of allowing the beast inside the egg to burn its blood, Osho realized that doing so required a crap ton of materials, to the point where it was as, if not more costly than simply evolving a beast or fixing broken conduits.
And the insane part? When Osho finished his experiment, he had only changed a small section of conduits on one of the ribbons, meaning he had far, far more space to work with if he had the tools at his disposal.
Also, on the note of cracked ribbons, Osho noticed something interesting.
Not only could he also repair the microfractures on them this way, but he also discovered that changing the circuits while the ribbons were cracked was easier than when they were intact.
He speculated that this was the case due to it being easier to create new conduits tailored to a certain purpose than to change conduits with an already existing purpose.
A neat discovery and one of many to come.
Eventually, Osho couldn't resist the temptation and started to experiment with the egg more, thinking of more ways to change the conduits.
'Hm. Blood. Lifesteal would be a fitting. Maybe making its blood poisonous to its targets would make sense, too. Making it extremely hard to kill by making each drop of blood extremely regenerative would be cool, too...' Osho pretty much went on a 'reconstruction spree' as he worked on the conduits, completely forgetting, or perhaps ignoring, the fact that he couldn't jatch a new beast until he ranked up, and whether or not his compatibility with the egg was even good enough.
He was just doing it for the love of the game.
However, Osho made a severe error.
By default, using his ability to show him the ribbons surrounding each beast egg took no energy. What did take energy was pushing the ability further, like how he strained himself when he used it to show him how to fix the microfractures in the ribbons.
The strain was so bad that Osho could only fix the ribbons of one egg at a time in his current stage.
As such, it was truly interesting what he thought would happen when he used another aspect of his ability that was not only so all-encompassing but also potent.
As time passed, Osho's mana started to dwindle at a rapid rate, and his body became increasingly weak as his energy was drained at a dangerous rate.
Sadly, Osho didn't notice as he was hyper-focused on the task in front of him.
As such, when his body suddenly swayed and fell to the ground, Osho was shocked for a moment before he lost consciousness.
"Then, when I woke up, I found myself in my bed. Apparently, Gale and Bedrock sensed the moment I passed out and immediately came to my lab. It turns out that the security recognizes them as much as it does me, and they were able to enter and pull me out." Osho recounted a pretty summarized version of what had happened, leaving out quite a few details, like what he'd actually discovered about his ability, but still saying enough for Ellie to understand.
"I see... In other words, you bit off more than you could chew and paid for it." Ellie mumbled, and Osho shifted a bit in her lap.
"Well... yeah." He admitted, and Ellie sighed.
"I don't even know what to say at this point." She huffed, and Osho immediately felt guilty.
This wasn't like his fight with Peter where everything had been under his control. There were no carefully calculated risks or accurate predictions. He was in this state due to his own stupidity, simple as that.
As soon as he discovered this new aspect of his ability, his impulsivity got the better of him, and he threw himself into it without properly considering how he would cope.
Heck, it was so bad that he had ignored his second lecture for the day completely. He'd used the excuse of just attending the same lecture later in the day during one of the repeats, but not even that would be possible in his current condition.
He guessed that as things were, he'd probably need at least a few days of rest to fully recover.
"I'm sorry..." Osho said softly.
"There are no two ways about it... I messed up, and I ended up due to my own actions. And I worried you, Gale, and Bedrock." Hearing his heartfelt apology, Ellie's unreadable expression immediately softened, and she sighed.
"You're damn right it's your fault. You would have lost nothing if you had just waited and done whatever you wanted to do with your ability carefully. But no, you decided to be impulsive and dive headfirst into it without considering the consequences." She scolded him lightly.
"One moment, you're chillingly calculative and calm, like you're in control of everything around you, and in the next moment, you're smashing your head into a situation like you don't know what it means to plan. Your existence is paradoxical." Her tone was matter-of-fact.
"Still, I know that your brain craves dopamine, even if you don't want it to, and you get said dopamine from whatever it is you're doing. So the excitement is enough to stave off. I don't like it, but I understand why it happened." When she said that, Osho felt like his heart had been stabbed.
'Why is she so understanding...?' He couldn't help but wonder as he looked up at her beautiful face. Her brows were knit with worry, and her eyes held a distinct exasperation, but under that was a lot of love and warmth.
Without thinking, Osho wrapped his arms around Ellie's waist and buried his face in her stomach. Despite his frail state, his grip was weak.
Ellie blushed as she could feel his warm breath on her skin through her clothes.
"W-What's this?" She asked, sounding slightly flustered.
"Thank you... for everything..." Osho said, his voice full of gratitude, which made Ellie smile softly.
"Well, couples aren't just meant to cuddle and be romantic all the time. We need to help each other, too, and you've already helped me a bunch. Being there for you emotionally is the least I can do. Actually, it's the bare minimum, but a lot of people seem to think it needs to be earned... bah, whatever, you get what I mean." She chuckled.
"That said. I wouldn't mind cuddling a bit. If you're up for it, anyway." She offered.
"Yes, please," Osho said immediately, making Ellie chuckle.
"Hm. You're very affectionate all of a sudden. I ." Ellie hummed and shifted so that both of them were lying on the sofa.
They faced each other, their faces just inches away as they felt each other's breaths on their faces.
All of a sudden, the moment became far, far more intimate than just a few seconds ago.
Both of them seemed to be searching each other's faces for something, and eventually, Ellie sighed.
Then she leaned forward and kissed Osho.