《Breakpoint: A side character story》


 Hitting the Breakpoint

    <table><tbody><tr><td colspan=''2''>Personal Stats</td></tr><tr><td>Strength</td><td>1.8</td></tr><tr><td>Agility</td><td>1.4</td></tr><tr><td>Vitality</td><td>1.5</td></tr><tr><td>Defense</td><td>1.9</td></tr><tr><td>Mental Efficiency</td><td>3.0</td></tr><tr><td>Neural Card Max/In Use</td><td>5/30</td></tr><tr><td>Convertible Biomass</td><td>40 lbs</td></tr><tr><td>Breakpoint</td><td>0/100</td></tr></tbody></table>


    Dannel looked through his stats slowly, it was fairly good for a teenager about to graduate high school though his mental efficiency could be considered average for this day and age, though without tutors or expensive lessons on how to properly use your mind you would be hard pressed to get higher than just average especially as part of the middle class. His breakpoint was still at zero which would have been unusual a generation ago but this generation was bioengineered to be have no limit, or as high a limit as theoretically possible for a human.


    Breakpoints have nearly become extinct, which was a bit of a shame considering that most breakpoints had unexpected results. Research hasn¡¯t been able to explain why those that go past that point change in such strange ways, or vanish altogether but they have been able to pinpoint the cause, a natural limiter on our cells. Due to the engineering of BEH Corp they created a new cell called the Eden Cell, so it is all a matter of opinion if they are still human or not.


    Humanity has gone far past questioning if they were playing God as anyone with the primitive mindsets of yesteryear, and they realized if they can become gods themselves then why not fix god¡¯s mistakes or what the religious types liked to call, ¡°The predesigned flaws in humanity.¡± Scientists don¡¯t ever like to be flawed, if you talked to any of them they insist that their logic is never flawed and in fact truth beyond a doubt until they are proven wrong which they¡¯ll immediately say that it was purely a hypothesis. So they systematically destroyed each flaw we had until the Eden Cell was created, creating what some people considered a new race of genetically perfect humans.


    Any one of the generation would tell you, we are not perfect, far off in fact. The genetic mapping may have made a superior human being in every way, but it was based on an outdated model to keep them within similarities with humanity, it bridged on the Uncanny Valley and they refused to push it further than that. No sane person wants to create a monster, especially one that is genetically, and mentally superior to them, so they made sure that the Eden generation knew that they were daughters and sons of man. Plus if humanity has a main flaw that defines them, it would be pride, how could they create something that proves that humans aren¡¯t the best designed creatures.


    Once the nanites were added to the bloodstream at birth it only took seconds for them to bond to the Eden Cells which started creating a better body for a baby than any had seen before, this was the first baby to have a strength score of 0.5 even before it left the womb. The terrified screams of the woman a few days later, and the cries of pain from having such a strong baby within her womb made them rethink having mothers participate in childbirth ever again. With the disconnect from being born from a mother many organizations formed to argue against the further creation of the Eden kids, but considering one of the top companies had paid to have twenty kids made for their executive families the other corporations couldn¡¯t be at a disadvantage, and had to put their full backing behind the project moving it forward to produce babies decades beyond schedule. Creating a baby boom only heard about in the earlier years of humanity around the year 2000 or so. For every normal human, there was one Eden Child, and considering the competition between countries, nearly every child born inside of a superpower country was an Eden child other than accidents of passion, which were later converted to Eden children if the pregnancy was found fast enough. Considering that your phone could notify you at conception, all except the poorest families converted their children not wanting them to be at a disadvantage.


    With a sudden spike the values of children started to skyrocket, the average eighteen year old would have a base of 0.8 in strength, where after the average was set at a 1.4. At the peak age of twenty-five many of the newer generations even had 2.0 or higher strength. These numbers came from values conducted a hundred years ago, a 1.0 being the average human male at the peak of power genetically speaking at twenty-five years of age. A man with 2.0 strength would be twice as strong as the average male, it was a simple if not vague number that only the nanites within their bodies could keep up with the exact numbers.


    Edens found three ways to vastly increase their values in a short amount of time, and labeled those who focused on increasing their stats ¡®Gamers¡¯ as they acted like their bodies were rpg characters from a game. The ways that gamers improved stats was through direct electrical surge, which was dangerous for obvious reason, over consumption of food, and through stealing what people were calling the life force of another living creature. Stealing life force was made illegal almost the same day as it was found out, but the other two were never touched on by law, figuring the survival of the fittest would play itself out eventually.


    Dannel was one such gamer, he had a part time job as an electrician to be influenced by static charge in the air, as well as a few sparks from low grade cables but nothing too serious. His stomach overhung his belt, though it wasn¡¯t due to overeating or lack of exercise it was due to having part of the genetic code from his parents and it was where he held his weight. Though diet he could probably get rid of the fat, or through converting it into stats but he liked having a bit more weight on him considering it strength training. He was nearing stats of a twenty five year old in a lot of areas, which was considered actually pretty bad for gamers but he didn¡¯t want to try anything too dangerous.


    He wasn¡¯t the normal type of gamer that did it for the thrill, he just wanted a better job and a well rounded amount of stats would give him an advantage over a lot of other people. Only the higher class citizens actually had access to better nanites, so someone like him had to destroy the limiters for a small amount of time on his nanites so they acted on par with a high class citizen. The limiting factors of society were still around even though most people didn¡¯t have to work, those that worked were considered a higher class than the common idiots that didn¡¯t have any useful skill. It was the reason he had gotten the Neural System.


    The Neural system was first made for cooking shows, ¡®Follow along with the cook as they make an amazing homemade pizza.¡¯ It was later found out that repeated use induced muscle memory, making it more useful for other things. The problem is that higher skilled things required more slots, so pushing out a lot of money he had purchased the best one as you can only ever install one in your life since it was surgically installed directly into the brain.


    The three that he had placed where:


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Archery</td></tr><tr><td>The proper pull, stance, and breathing techniques of an archer. Through the years many people have mastered the art of archery, science has perfected that art. Lowers the mastery time for any other ranged weapons as they all use similar breathing methods.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    He was using the current setup as most gun neural mappings were restricted by the government, so the only thing you can get for a ranged weapon at the moment was archery, but the breathing techniques were invaluable to anyone dealing with guns. He had already mastered a few sword neural mappings, they were some of the best for hand to hand combat and didn¡¯t require a sword to actually use. Martial arts were guarded from the general public so he had taken a lot of mappings of free running, and boxing.


    He was a generalist, a jack of all trades, with neural mappings you could master three or four things in your lifetime. Being still in the early years of life he had studied into more of a general bit of info to make himself qualified for a lot of different things, once he got a job he would be able to master the skills of the job a lot easier no matter the circumstance.


    A slight nod, he popped a small pill into his mouth to make him more conductive as he gripped the bare wire, suddenly becoming unresponsive for a second before the breaker automatically switched off. His breath was heavy as he stared at the contraption before him, and flipped the breaker getting another dose of electricity. After the third time, this was all his body could take and he was gasping on the floor, sweat rolling off his body like bullets.


    ¡°Fuck¡­¡± laying there his stomach went up and down in deep breaths as he closed his eyes, his nose starting to bleed leaving trails of crimson running across his cheeks. His whole body was sore so he just laid there, spreading out his fingers up at the sun to block it out of his vision. ¡°This shit hurts, but its beneficial.¡±


    He was using a wire hooked up to an outlet behind the gym, very few people came through here regularly and anyone he did see were doing something illegal, or at least immoral enough that they wouldn¡¯t confess they saw his hobby. The school uniform for this high school didn¡¯t show any change, minus the slight static attached to him, his palms really gave him away with black scorch marks along them. A bell rang and his free period was over, the soft flickering of the leaves shadows made this place seem calm and serene.


    Grasping his hand as if to grab hold of the sun, he smiled at himself, these were the days he enjoyed the most, where the sun was cool on his skin and people left him alone. A warm feeling settled over his body as the nanites settled down in his body.


    ¡°H¡­.¡± A voice as soft as the wind came to his ear, and he frowned thinking that someone would disrupt this rest. ¡°Help¡­¡±


    Getting to his feet took a bit of effort and he looked about seeing no one, but before he could dismiss it as a trick of the wind a female¡¯s scream came from somewhere close. ¡°No.. no¡­ save me!¡±


    His hand grasped forward of its own accord and he brought his fingers down, clasping onto something that he couldn¡¯t see, it felt like cloth but he wasn¡¯t sure. It tugged at his grip hard, and he pulled it back the scenery around him shattering like that of a window as a very slim person fell back into him.


    ¡°No.. no no¡­ please don¡¯t hurt me. I¡¯m sorry for going into your territory lord.¡± The person bowed their head to the ground, long black hair draped to the ground before them, they seemed to be injured as blood as stained across their garments..


    That wasn¡¯t where Dannel was looking though, he was looking towards the two moons that hung above him, the cracked sandy earth below his feet, the endless amount of sand that was between him and the horizon. His mind immediately shut down before him as a shadow slowly appeared across the ground. ¡°What¡­ just happened?¡±


    Leaning down and gripping the person¡¯s clothes, he brought up the person to face him realizing he was wrong in the first assumption, this was no woman. Her scaled face made it clear to him that she wasn¡¯t even human even though her body resembled as such, as he stared at her he went to speak but found it impossible. A deep unseeded fear came across his body as a deep pressure fell upon his shoulders The shadow behind him made a loud roaring noise at his back that shook up the sands around him, hot air blowing across his skin feeling like sandpaper making small cuts along his body.


    It spoke, but the words were not words that he had ever heard prior, it reminded him of a pissed off French man, before turning guttural at the end an obvious warning to him. Turning to face the shadow, he was now face to face with a large lionhead that was on the top of a giant human¡¯s body. Its main seemed to compose of fire as it lapped at the lion¡¯s face tenderly, not even burning the soft fur along its face. The creature had taken a deep breath after its speech, opening its mouth wide I could see a flame manifesting in the back of its throat before the world shattered once more.


    He was now standing behind the gym once more, a blank look on his face, ¡°W-was that just a dream?¡±


    The sand around him, and the lingering feel of heat on his skin told him otherwise but he wasn¡¯t willing to believe that the events that just unfolded actually occurred. With his mind in a daze he immediately thought it would be best to head home. Everything felt in pain, and his mind spun, an alert was sounding and flashing letters upon his vision were not helping.


    The messages read:


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Breakpoint</td></tr><tr><td>Breakpoint Reached: Danger at 200%</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Breakpoint</td></tr><tr><td>Breakpoint Reached: Danger at 190%</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Breakpoint</td></tr><tr><td>Breakpoint Reached: Danger at 180%</td></tr></tbody></table>


    He had reached breakpoint, still being alive was a miracle that would only happen once every thousand years. As the numbers counted down to, his lunch and bile fell to the floor, his body trembling from the experience. ¡°No¡­ one is going to accept this as an excuse for leaving school so early.¡± Stumbling out from behind the gym, he didn¡¯t take notice that one of the ground where he was standing was a charred blackened color.


    The next day the school would find out that one of the electrical boxes inside the school had sent out a large force of power before being shut down by its protective layers, sending a spark of lightning exactly where Dannel was laying in the grass. This fact would never be discovered by him though as school will be the least of his worries in the coming days as the countdown stopped at 100% breakpoint.


    Author Notes: If anyone has any suggestions or comments on my writing style please feel free to comment as it will help this story grow as a whole. This is version 1, and I do hope to create three versions once everything is sorted out and we''re at least 10 chapters out.

 Chapter 2: Stuck here forever!

    Dannel woke in the morning with a deep headache, his mind was swirling and his muscles ached, gaming never produced such results and he was worried that he may have overdone it a bit yesterday. The flashing words of ''Breakpoint 100%'' reminded him of the events yesterday, and a shiver went through his body not knowing if any of that was real or not. His mind refused to accept that he went somewhere else, nor that he had nearly been killed by what looked to be a character from a video game.


    His room was small, modern day houses were very limited in space as holographic overlays could give you the feeling of more room in the area, his room at the moment looked like a wide open plain with various animals grazing on the grass. The sun in the sky perfectly mirrored the one outside of the house in placement, though the hologram wasn''t as intense, and had a digital display of 12:36 PM on it. Making his way past the cows, he went into the bathroom, splashing water on his face in heavy doses before going back in, "Room lower hologram, get rid of bed, and bring up my desk and computer." The hologram vanished, leaving behind metallic walls that shinned in multiple colors as one walked. The bed was folded into the wall, and a wooden desk with the words ''Razel Corp'' on the side slid out from the floor.


    Razel Corp was what his father worked for, his mother was just a regular commoner without an actual job, she spent most of her time over in Hawaii as all of it has been turned into a nature reserve, anyone living in the area moved to a man made island to the North. The islands had four hotels on them that stretched into the clouds, and those were the only three places one could live in Hawaii. Over the past three hundred years about fifty percent of the world has been turned into Nature Reserves, a lot of them filled with genetically altered plants that produce five times the amount of oxygen compared to their natural cousins. Anyone could tell that the superpowers of the world had more land that wasn''t considered under protection of the United Nations since they are the ones who wrote up the new maps to get rid of the effects of global warming.


    Going to his computer the blue holographic screen coming into view as it hummed to life, a welcoming message coming before him, "Pleasant day Dannel, you have three new voice messages today, all three from your mother." He sighed, tapping away the messages knowing that they were about him missing the last periods of school and pulled up his browser. He typed in the website for ''Infinity Online'' one of the dungeon diving games that he had heard about from his friends at school. In the beastiary of the game he found what he was looking for, the Lion Man, a giant with a lion''s mane and face, its main attributes were fire and wind specializing in a fire breath that can cover a large area. "I probably had a hallucination brought by reaching breakpoint."


    He frowned over the new information in front of him, and tapped his stats which made him gasp as he looked through them, the numbers may not have changed much but the little improvement that they did have would take months of training, and were well beyond what a normal person would have. The biggest change seemed to be his Mental Efficiency which would take years for another person to advance in, and somehow his Neural Card Max had increased beyond its limit.


    <table><tbody><tr><td colspan=''2''>Personal Stats</td></tr><tr><td>Strength</td><td>2.1</td></tr><tr><td>Agility</td><td>1.9</td></tr><tr><td>Vitality</td><td>1.9</td></tr><tr><td>Defense</td><td>2.4</td></tr><tr><td>Mental Efficiency</td><td>4.0</td></tr><tr><td>Neural Card Max/In Use</td><td>5/40</td></tr><tr><td>Convertible Biomass</td><td>40 lbs</td></tr><tr><td>Breakpoint</td><td>100/100</td></tr></tbody></table>


    These changes would normally be unheard of but anyone seeing his stats would probably excuse the mystery by saying that reaching breakpoint caused him to experience vast growths in stats. The computer started to dim in front of him as he thought over these things, and then a large explosion of electricity came out of the holographic projector making a blue ark between both of them. The red blinking numbers once again climbed higher as the electricity got sucked into his chest, and his hair started to rise up from the current passing through him. It felt like a bean bag shot from a shotgun hit him square in the chest and the world around him went completely dark.


    "Why is all the electricity in the world after me now?!" Dannel yelled out to the darkness, letting his eyes adjust though he felt like something was off. His room didn''t smell damp or moldy like the air around him did, and there was a slight breeze slowly blowing on his skin. His gag reflex suddenly sprung forth, causing him to dry heave, a smell that he couldn''t identify had hit his nose in full force. Feeling a presence he tensed up, hearing strange words mummered under someone''s breath before a large flash of white filled his eyesight.


    "Hey, are you from Earth?" A female asked as he blinked repetitively, his eyes still burning with the feirce invasion of the light. He nodded still not able to see anyone, but desperately hoped that it wasn''t a lizard like his past experience. "Good, it looks like one of your first transfers so I''ll help you out, if you don''t want to end up dying a foolish death repeat after me. Join party Ashley."


    "Join party Ashley." His vision was clearing and before him was something that he couldn''t quite describe if you asked him to. She must have been a medieval geek by her outfit, light chainmail, a buckler on her arm, and light pieces of metal covering her knees, and thighs making her look like she was built for speed rather than taking a hit. Her red hair was cut short to not get tangled in her helm, more hair would just make the helm unbearably hot, and there were two daggers held to her thighs, which looked like they could kick through a lightpole. The words to describe her suddenly came to his head, ''Butch'' she was definitely the picture of a Russian body builder.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    She looked at him with disappointment as soon as the word came to him, and she shook her head, "If you call me a Dike, or anything of the like I''ll bash your fucking head in too."


    It was as if she read his mind, he smiled halfheartedly, "There''s no way I''d say such a thing," He wasn''t going to mention thinking it though, he was pretty sure calling her a butch would get him killed.


    Reaching out her hand, she helped him get to his feet though she still looked displeased with him, "You hit your breakpoint I''m guessing, I haven''t seen very many lately." He nodded, watching the breakpoint come down from the two hundred mark. "Well good, that makes things easier. I''ve been around this world for over four years, and I''ve been waiting for someone to hit breakpoint around the same area as did that day. Like it or not, you''re stuck here and won''t be going back home."


    He didn''t want to point out that he had already gone home once before, but he didn''t know what her motives where, she might just break him over her leg and drain out his inners like a ghoul for all he knew. It was a foolish thought, but so was the thought of ending up in a new world or finding someone from his world on only his second jump in. This couldn''t be coincidental, there had to be some reason for their meeting.


    As he got up, he figured out what that smell was, there were hundreds of corpses around this area their bones bleached with time bits of skin and meat attached to them refusing to fall apart, being preserved by the slight humidity in the cave. As they went towards what he assumed was outside of the cave a series of blue boxes started appearing in front of him.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>System Enabled:</td></tr><tr><td>Congratulations [Dannel] for completing registration into the system. Further information will be provided as you gather more power in this world.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Eden Affinity:</td></tr><tr><td>10 Trillion  /  37.2 Trillion</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Party Registered</td></tr><tr><td>Party members: [Dannel] [Ashley]</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Party Energy Point Reserves:</td></tr><tr><td>150 EP</td></tr></tbody></table>


    Something was overtaking his nantite''s display systems, and forcing their own information into it, he assumed it had something to do with the system. Watching Ashley''s back, he noticed that there was a red bar above her head that looked suspiciously like a health bar, where in his vision he had a total of three bars one of which was almost empty and slowly going away. "Hey I noticed you have a red bar above your head, what do all these bars mean?"


    "The red bar is of course health, and the blue bar means mana. Everyone gets access to mana and it helps augment our attacks, like if I wanted to throw my daggers further, or harder I just add a bit of mana around it and sort of... push..." She seemed to be at a loss for words, "It''s hard to explain, like trying to explain color without using the the color''s name."


    Dannel nodded, "Then what''s the third bar for? Its almost completely out, and going down fast, I don''t want it to be a hunger meter and once it goes out I starve to death."


    "Third bar?" She looked at him confused as the last of the third bar ran out, and suddenly Dannel vanished from her sight.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>A Party Member Has Left Range</td></tr><tr><td>One of your party members is no longer in range to receive benefits from, or give benefits.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    "Impossible, he couldn''t have traveled four miles in a single instant!" She looked at the spot that Dannel stood, shocked.


    Dannel looked up at his ceiling thinking to himself as the breakpoint warning flashed that it was down to 190% again, his body feeling damp and dirty he thought to himself, ''Its my breakpoint, once it hits only a hundred percent I end up back here. Next time I go there I might want to be prepared, I have the advantage of knowing that I''ll eventually get sucked into that world yet again.'' This time did last longer though, and he didn''t have enough reference points to judge a conclusion to why that was. A blue screen popped up in front of him after his self reflection, which made sure he knew that his travels were no hallucination.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>A Party Member Has Left Range</td></tr><tr><td>One of your party members is no longer in range to receive benefits from, or give benefits.</td></tr></tbody></table>