The first thing Maik did upon regaining control of himself was to cycle chi though his shoulder, his joints and everywhere else where it had hurt. Before the pulse he had done this to help him recover from injuries but the aid had been, more of less negligible. Now, he had 9 times as much chi to pump into his body and could use 9 times more chi than before and difference was wreaking havoc through out his body.
The feeling was like nothing he had ever experienced before. An exhilarating mix of adrenaline and electric current of life and vitality that surged through him, almost with a will of its own. The energy had such significant impact upon him that his muscles spasmed, threatening to do even more damage to him then it was fixing.
Before the pulse it had taken all his will to leverage even the smallest amounts of his chi towards producing even the most suspect of results, a trickle that had to be wrong out of the hose end. Now it was a powerful spray which made the hose thrash about wildly, causing unexpected and unwanted effects.
The others were trying to help, holding his limbs and head so that Maik didn't bash them into the hard concrete floor and injure himself even more. Thanks to their aid Maik was able to focus solely upon effectively working his Chi and leveraging it less towards being rampant waves of energy that threatened to rip his apart and more towards knitting him back together.
Fortunately Maik was no stranger to pain and, after the initial waves of spasming and cramping muscles passed, he managed to start directing his chi more carefully. Despite this, the rampant waves had lasted for almost 2 minutes and Maik was in an even worse state for it.
Breathing was controlled, heart rate moderated, thoughts stilled and emotions reigned in. After that he was able to practice slowly opening the valve to let water flow out of the hose, at levels he could manage. It took another 3 minutes and not a small portion of his chi reserves but he was feeling much better by the end.
Maik finally opened his eyes, much to the relief of his family and took a moment to gently move his body. He was, more or less, fully healed, or at least he felt fully healed. The others were peppering him with questions but he held up a finger to request a minute while he checked over his status.
Upon closer examination his pool of stamina was down to 287 from its total of 680, over half gone, and Maik watched as the pool dropped another point. Likewise his Chi pool had also been depleted during the time he had been cycling his chi to aid in healing his injuries, the total having dropped from 1,332 to 633.
So, 1,332 minus 633 = 699. If 10% of that was taken away as a tax to the governing matrix then I can safely say that I just actually just used a little over 600 chi on myself. Before the pulse the maximum I could have ever used upon myself was 14, maybe 15 chi after all the taxes. Jesus. That's like... 15 goes into 60 Four times, times 10 would make for 40. I just used 40 Times more chi in 5 minute then then I have ever been capable of before.
15 Minutes and a quick snack later Maik had used his expanded access to the systems functions to get more answers to why his condition was so off after a single exertion of his new strength and was now explaining his findings to his family.
"So according to what I'm seeing here, I don't have the Endurance to support the energy my current muscle mass is using. Not on top of all my other high stats, especially Chi. Then there's my Durability stat. Its not high enough to take the strain of my new Strength, apparently. That's part of how I hurt myself. Dexterity might also be a problem. I'm strong enough to move so much faster but lack to control to use it without knocking into things."
Ian found the whole thing hilarious. "Haa Ha Haha. Ohhh, man. Talk about a glass cannon."
Michael had more financially relevant concerns. "Do you think you can still run calls ?"
Maik considered a moment, flexing his left hand. The shoulder still ached a little but it was quite manageable. He nodded. "I'll just pick up a good supply of protein bars to munch on inbetween calls, but yeah. I can still run calls. In fact, so long as I don't push myself too hard and move carefully work should be even easier."
Neil was quick to put a stop to that line of thinking. "You say that now. But what happens the first time to hit your finger with a hammer ? Or you slip and smack you hand against a sharp edge ? Hell what happens to you need to gently pry apart some snap together plastic bullshit just the right way ?"
Maik adopted a flat lipped expression that he found was starting to hurt a little after a moment. "... I will be very mindful of myself and my surroundings."
Michael was quick to reaffirm those words. "Damn right you are. Keep your mind on your work and your person. Be mindful about breaking breaking things. There is plenty to time to add to the contribution system after work while your safely at home. Your already way ahead of everyone else as it is."
It was true. The second highest contribution score of their family was from Mitch and his contribution thus far was 1,074. After him came Derek at 583. Maverick wasn't far behind that and the other family members with Chi experience backgrounds hovering around the three to four four hundred mark. The family members that had no such background like Ian hadn't even contributed the first point until yesterday. By comparison Maik was is a league all of his own.
There was a pause as Maik considered these facts. He licked his lips and swallowed before letting the others know what becoming a remedial citizen meant. "Well... That's the other thing. I reached the 2ed tier rewards last night. I'm a remedial citizen now and I should tell you that remedial citizens are in a different tax bracket."
The pregnant pause that Maik allowed to linger for effect was broken by his father with his no nonsense business tone. "Well ?"
Maik sounded a little sheepish as he went on to explain further. "Well, now I'm only being taxed 10%, both of my total chi reservoir and from how much I use. All that thrashing you all asked me about. Yeah, that was me trying to use my chi to help heal and over flooding him body with the energy. It uh, took me a minute to get it under control but after that I was able to pump huge amounts of energy into helping me recover and now I feel fine... Hungry, but fine."
Michael was pensively stroking his beard but Neil couldn't wait for the head of the manor to collect his thoughts as he started verbally working his way through what Maik had just revealed. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait. So..... What your saying. Is that now, not only do you have access to 90% of your total chi, but whenever you use any chi only 10% of it is siphoned off by the system as well ?" Maik started nodding and Neil struck the table with his palm. "God Damn Son."
Maik's older cousin was just slowly shaking his head at Maik with bewildered eyes. Michael took back control of the conversation by firmly but gently bringing his own palm down on the table just as some of the others started muttering among each other. "Clearly you will need to be very careful about controlling yourself. You seem to have managed your recovery just fine but everyone had to hold you down earlier when you started doing the electric chicken."
The head of the family panned his gaze over to Derek and Maverick. "What about the two of you ? Yesterday you both said that you were were making progress on the cultivation technique."
The two of them looked at each other but it was Maverick that spoke up for them. His easy smile and cheerful tone a stark contrast to his fathers stern gaze. "So yeah. We have the skills now, thought we really haven't been able to test it yet. You know, because of He man here. Huhh Hehh."
Michael didn't look amused and simply panned his gaze to Derek, who in turn waves his hand and nodded with a simple. "Yeah, I have it too." Sounding far less enthusiastic while under everyone scrutiny.
After that came the updates that Neil, his mate Becky, Mitch's mate Terra and even Ian had all gained a level in Fundamental Chi control. Neil, Becky and Terra also gained a level in Chi manipulation. Those gains seemed to help curb the envy that some of the family had looked at Maik with.
Perhaps there is some way I could help them advance faster.
An idea popped into Maik's head and he voiced it after everyone had finished going over their advancement with a curious tone. "The skills seem to advance based upon how much chi we actually manage to spend using the skills... Um. At least that's how the chi based skills work. My Engineering skill is at advance but I have no idea what the system uses to measure its advancement. Anyway, what if I can feed chi into someone else to help them power level their skills ? Or at least finish paying the contributions fee to gain greater access and become remedial citizens ?"
This had the others perking up with interest but Michael put his hand up. "Now hold up. While that may sound like a good Idea you were just doing the electric chicken not half an hour ago while trying to use your own chi on yourself. Now you want shove a bunch of that same power up inside someone else ? I appreciate the sentiment but how about you get a better handle on your control within yourself, and then we can look into you empowering others."
The enthusiasm died down after that and things shifted to the regular daily routine. It was still only Tuesday and there was work to be done.
Maik didn't have time to cultivate that morning. Not after the morning excitement and the following discussion. But it wasn't really a loss for Maik. Not now that he was in the 10% tax bracket He had access to more chi then he knew what to do with. By the time he was ready to head out to work he had passively recovered enough to have 1095 Chi in the tank. It took him less than a minute to pull up the contributions window and then expend 1,000 chi in order to add 900 in contributions.
3,013 of 3,000 towards Tier 3 rewards.
Maik knew that his amazing Chi pool was partially to thank for this. His eldest brother, Mitch, had the second highest Chi stat among the family. Unless Maik's father was higher but the family head was ever elusive and aloof about his past or his capabilities. Regardless Mitch's Chi stat was 111, with Derek having 77. Neil, Terra and Becky were about the same, with the three of them having roughly half the Chi stat Maik had.
Such thoughts were instantly dropped once Becky passed him the stack of tickets that made up his route for the day as a series of notification blinked in the corner of Maik's perception.
Becky's voice was concerned. "Maik ? Maik what's wrong ?" She starts waving a hand in front of Maik's face.
For his part, Maik was fine, he was just a little lost for words as he starred at the prompts.
New active quests available. Add Quest details to learn more.
Maik waved the office secretaries worries down. "I uh, think I discovered a new function. Give me a minute."
He started going through his tickets and as he did the information was filled in on his quest screen.
Active Quests : Personal
Type : Private / New
Duration : Until 1:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Thompson, Jeff's refrigerator
Stolen novel; please report.
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Type : Private / Continued
Duration : Until 1:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Simmons, Marcy's Washer
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Type : Private / New
Duration : Until 1:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Spunkmire, David's Trash compactor
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Type : Private / Continued
Duration : Until 1:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Phillips, Gregory's refrigerator
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Type : Private / New
Duration : Until 1:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Sanders, Martha's Dryer
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Type : Private / New
Duration : From 1:00 PM too 6:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Martins, Fredrick's Dishwasher
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Type : Private / New
Duration : From 1:00 PM too 6:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Gordon, Lester's Garbage Disposal
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Type : Private / Continued
Duration : From 1:00 PM too 6:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Myers, Lorence's Dishwasher
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Type : Private / Continued
Duration : From 1:00 PM too 6:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Kallahan, Kim's Dryer
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Type : Private / New
Duration : From 1:00 PM too 6:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Hernandez, Jose's Microwave
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Type : Private / Continued
Duration : From 1:00 PM too 6:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Dr Huqu's Wall oven
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Type : Private / New
Duration : From 1:00 PM too 6:00 PM today
Objective : Repair Remeerez, Sam's Range
Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation
Rewards : Variable, dependent upon performance.
Each of the service calls he had in today now registered as active quests, though under the personal tab.
I should probably tell everyone about this development.... No, that would lead to an hour long debate and my schedules already packed with these 12 calls. I just don't have time right now.
Becky was still looking at him curiously and a couple of the other technicians had joined in watching him, so he addressed their questioning stares with as much decorum as he could manage without making it seem like he was blowing them off.
"I'll tell everyone when we get back this evening. I'll have more information to share by then anyway."
Becky jabbed an index finger at him, her voice stern. "We've already had enough complaints about your experimenting with that interface during work hours. You better no be planning on causing more trouble."
The other tech voiced agreement so Maik took a deep breath and gave a brief explanation. "Each of my jobs for today are showing up as active quests in my interface. I'm not playing with anything. I'll just run my calls and then come back. I wont even look at the rewards until I'm back home."
Neil's brows furrowed. "Rewards ?"
Before Maik could even put his hand up to hold off more questions, Becky broke in with an even sterner voice, her sharp gaze boring into the eyes of every man in the room until each capitulated to her will. "We can go over all that this evening. Right now were swamped with more work than we have techs to handle. Double check that you have all your parts before each of you depart, especially you Maik."
Maik might have been guilty of occasionally forgetting his parts.
They spoke no more of the quest system, nobody wanting to argue with the strong willed woman starring them down. Instead they grabbed the parts for their given return trips that day. Usually they would also start chatting about each others jobs and this morning was no exception.
Maverick was curious about one of his jobs. "Hay Neil, I've got this GE dishwasher I checked out yesterday where the main board was sending the right power to the user interface but the user interface was scrambled. Is it like the Whirlpool and I'm going to need to replace both the user interface and the main control board ?"
Maik was shaking his head but Neil was the one being asked so he answered. "Nah, not unless its the high end Monogram. Where was the electronic control located ?"
It turned out to be the high end Monogram model so Maverick make up and estimate for both the main control board and the user interface.
Maik had run into an interesting Refrigerator just yesterday but had forgotten about it in all the excitement that came with reaching the tier 1 and then tier 2 rewards. "Speaking of GE Monogram. I was checking out one of their big built in refrigerators yesterday. While it clearly had a sealed system failure, I detected a refrigerant leak in the evaporator. I also found that the unit had an extra sealed system component that I've never seen before.."
Neil covered his mouth and laughed. "Oh HoHoHo. You mean the fucking box thing up on the left above the freezer ?"
Maik nodded. "Yeah. Every other sealed system has been composed of 4 main parts. The compressor compresses the refrigerant from a gas to a liquid. The evaporator heat exchanger is the pair of tubes that carry the refrigerant too and from the evaporator. The evaporator is where that liquid refrigerant expands back into a gas, making the evaporator cold. And the condenser is where the hot gas refrigerant goes to cool off before being sucked back into the compressor. So what the fuck is this thing ?"
Maik was pointing at the computer monitor with he part displayed, but the whole time Neil was struggling to contain his laughter. Clearly he knew what the offending anomalous component was. "Hehh HehHehhh. Okay... Ehem. So you know how, sometimes, that refrigerant can make a gurgling or creaking sound while its changes phase from gas to liquid and vise versa ?"
Neil, being the most senior tech there had everyone's attention at this point and he looked around to make sure everyone was following.
"So, Hehh, sense the model is a duel evaporator model and has one evaporator of both the freezer and the fresh food section, but only one compressor, they were having noise issues. That big box is basically just a big sound dampener to keep the unit quiet."
Becky had years of experience at wrangling the technicians out of the office right when their conversations shifted from mutually helpful to random jokes and shit talking. This was usually about the time they started showing each other shorts off YouTube. "Hay. Its 9:24 and I have customers asking where their technicians are. Derek, Miss Robinson wants a call fist to meet in 15 minutes."
With that the techs shuffled out of the office to start running calls. True to his word, Maik didn't even look at the quest screen as he worked his way through the calls. In fact it was a fairly normal Tuesday, except for having 4 more calls than usual. While he could do 12 or even 13 calls a day, the ideal was 8.
Maik's second call was Marcy's washer and her 2 Golden Retrievers, the later of which Maik was all to happy to kneel down and pet enthusiastically. It was too the point that the customer just had to comment.
"They'll let you do that all day."
This was code for 'Okay, you've pet my dogs enough.' So Maik excused himself from the lovable fluffies with an apologetic smile to the customer. "Its my favorite part of the job, petting all the customers 4 legged friends.."
She raised and eye brow inquisitively. "All of them. ?"
Maik give a half shrug. "As many as they will let me. I've pet horses, goats, donkeys, rabbits. Heck there was one time a kid tried to get me to pet his man eating insect."
Marcy was just about to leave Maik alone to fix the washer but she turned back towards him. "Man eating insect ?" A look of utter disbelief on her face.
Maik knew he had her attention and took pride in his ability to entertain the customer while he worked. He settled in and started carefully taking the machine apart while recounting the harrowing tail with well practiced ease.
"Well now I have to tell you the whole story. So I was at this customers house to check out her washer. it was a front loader and her dryer was stacked on top of the washer. This was necessary because their wash room was long and narrow, with multiple levels of shelving all along the walls to either side and laundry stacked up on the floor all the way to the bottom shelf."
He got the front panel off and took a moment to vacuum the water out the drain pump after crimping the hose off that drained from the tub to the drain pump. Only when the loud vacuum was done did he continue with the tail.
"Their was still a narrow path of clear floor leading down the middle of the room from the door to the washer though so I approached. I distinctly remember mentally commenting to myself on how life like the dinner plate sized spider on the bottom shelf had looked just before sitting down. Then just as I sat down..... It moved."
The customer let out a sound the embodied the word cringe. "OOOooHOOooHOOooowwwuh." Squeezing her hands together and shaking from side to side.
Maik nodded with a knowing smile before continuing recounting the events of that day.
"Yep, and it was just at the edge of arms reach from me too. Now it wasn't a large motion. It didn't even move its actual legs. You see spider have these little leg type things beside their mandibles that hold pay in place and clean their eyes and that's what it had moved. Like a little wave, as if to say hello."
Maik used his hands to imitate the gestures for the customer and then set the old part aside before he began installing the new drain pump.
"I jerked my head to the side and proceeded to have a starring contest with a creature that didn't possess eye lids. You see I wasn't sure it actually had moved and I was kinda really hoping that it hadn't. The whole time I was like, 'Move again motherfucker, I dare you, I double dog dare to fucking move again.'
If the customer had been sitting they would have been on the edge of their seat as Maik paused the story to hook the hoses back up to the new pump and removed the hose crimping tool.
"I won that staring contest, despite the spider not having eye lids and thus not being physically capable of blinking. I say this because the spider did it again. It waved that little mandible arm thing over its eyes. I, of course did the manly thing and proceeded to do a back flip out of the wash room followed by 2 totally intentional summer salts down the hallway before looking back to make sure I wasn't being followed." Seeing that I was not being pursued I called out to the customer. 'MAM ? I THINK YOU NEED AN EXTERMINATOR.'
Maik reached up and activated the washer to test that the new part worked and there were no leaks, continuing his story while the tub filled.
"The customers next words brought me confusion, at first but upon reflection they brought all the clarity I needed. She told me everything I needed to know with that next sentence."
Maik proceeded to do his best impression of a raging mother who was ever so sick and tired of the same shit day after day from their child. "JULES ! IS THAT THING OUT AGAIN ?"
The customer was taken aback, hands covering her mouth. "Again ?"
Maik went on to explain after having made sure that the tub was being drained by the new part effectively and that nothing was leaking. He started putting the front panel back on as he spoke.
"It was totally her fault, you see. Because Stacy has a Poodle, Greg had a bull dog, Steven has Golden Retriever and even Elvira only has a snake. But Jules. No. If your giving your kid that unique a name then you need to take care and give them an equally unique hobby, like mechanical engineering. otherwise they going to become interested in something like owning a giant, Goliath bird eating spider."
With the machine back together Maik started filling out the ticket but didn't let that interrupt his story.
"Said unique child went in, picked up the Goliath bird eating spider and brought it out so he could present it to me while asking if I would like to pet her. Apparently the eight legged horror was female. I totally admit to declining the invitation, much to the boys chagrin.... Your remainder comes to $158.61. Will that be check, cash or credit card ?"
