The following night, Harry once again sat down in a cross-legged position to meditate. Tina had hinted that, to control Vita in his body, meditation could show the way. Which is why, to see whether this was true, he sat down to meditate again.
Unlike previous times, Harry was able to get access to what he wanted rather easily. As soon as he went deep into his meditative state, he started sensing two balls in his body. He could describe these balls as two sticky yet voluminous spheres. The smaller one of them was very rigid and was stickier than the bigger one. The bigger sphere was sticky but was easier to mold, but it was too big to do anything with.
These must be the Vita in my body, Harry thought, making an educated guess.
In this state, he could feel that he could interact with the spheres, so he tried getting some control over the spheres.
But as he tried interacting with them, he realised it was way difficult than he imagined. One could describe the condition he was in, but imagine the sphere as just two sticky flour dough.
The problem with the bigger one was that it was very big, and he could only move it if he was interacting with the whole sphere at once. But doing so cost him a lot of mental energy. While the problem with the small sphere was that it was very dense, even with all of his mental strength, he was not even able to extract, push, or pull any part of the sphere.
Harry opened his eyes after a failed attempt. His head had started aching because of the mental energy that it took for him to interact with the spheres. But he could feel that he could indeed interact with them. It would take a lot of effort to mold them according to his wishes, but he would be able to do it.
Exhausted after the failed attempt, Harry finally went to sleep. He had to do a lot of things tomorrow, and he would need all the rest that he could get…
***
The next morning, when Harry woke up, he was not in a hurry to go downstairs. His training had been adjourned, so he was free that morning. So he decided the only thing that he could do there, train by himself.
It has been some time since Harry had done any sort of physical training, as his implants covered most of the things. Luckily, his brain still have the memories when he was still a pure human, and had to train his ass off in the military.
As soon as he woke up, Harry had planned to start with meditation, then move on to push-ups, then sit-ups, and then finally stretching his body to its limit so that he could get the agility that his previous body had. But he soon ran into a problem when he was doing push-ups.
To see the extent to which his body could be pushed, he didn't set a limit on the push-ups he was supposed to do. He pushed his body to the utmost limit, and when exhaustion hit him, it hit him hard. After executing the 100th push-up, blood started pouring from his nose. Immediately, he lay down on his back, and was immediately was greeted with error messages on his HUD.
[DANGER!!!]
[Vita Heart power levels are too low.]
[Warning, further dip than this would be harmful to health]
What? He questioned, How is that possible? Show me the diagnostic scans.
The system got to work, and with a few seconds, another detailed report appeared before his eyes. His original theory about Vita being some sort of enhancing energy was right. Based on his current body muscle mass, there was no way that he would have done 100 push-ups in just one push. The Vita that was being constantly pumped into his body helped and made his arm, back, and chest muscles stronger, because of which he was able to do this with ease.
Also, as it turns out, the Vita Heart was constantly pumping, even though there was no Vita in it. Because of which complication arose. Not to mention, from the inputs, his system has also determined that the Vita is also absorbed by his organs like nutrients. So deficiency of Vita after a certain level could be harmful for the body itself.
Well fuck, Harry cursed. Lying on his back, He started brainstorming. If his guess was right, he had around 15 days before he needed to go on his atonement journey.
First things first.. Find a way to control Vita. If I were able to spend this much with just pushups, I wouldn't last long out there. I need to become like the hunters, who can pump Vita through their body on command, He thought.
As soon as he had recovered the Vita he had lost, he stood up and went down for breakfast. And as he was done, he came back and started meditating once again. He needed to control his Vita, fast…
The next three days for Harry went by in a blur. The only thing that he did in the past three days was eat, meditate, and then sleep. People of the tribe took notice of his efforts, but no one came to talk to him, which worked out in his favour.
The fruits of his labor started showing on the fourth day.
In the past few days, he had realised that in such a short time, he could only control one of his Vita sources. And he chose Vita Heart to be the first, as despite its size, it was still malleable then the other source. Not to mention, due to its malleability, it would be easier to control than the other one.
So in the past three days, with all of his mental energy, Harry started kneading the ball of energy in his Vita heart. This way, the ball became softer and softer with each passing day, giving him further control over his Vita from his Vita Heart.
His efforts also started showing effect on his secondary Vita source as well. As both of these sources were connected, the secondary ball also started getting soft. But Harry didn't start working on it yet, and focused all of his efforts on his Vita Heart.
Which was why, when he opened his eyes on the morning of the fourth day, he finally achieved what he wanted. He finally had control over his Vita Heart. Now, it would only pump Vita through his body on his command. Not to mention, he had also achieved some control of the Vita in his body.
Now finally.. I can move onto the second stage of my training regime, Harry thought that morning.
After proper resting, that morning Harry stole some white powder that repels snakes and smell-dampening powder from stocks of the tribe and made his way further away from the tribe, as he didn't want anyone to see what he was going to do next…
Harry had everything that he needed to achieve success in the Atonement Hunt. He has experience on how to use weapons, he had eyes that could spot beasts and animals from far away, and now he had Vita as well, who could help him further enhance his ability. But the problem that he could face during his ordeal, which could turn deadly, is exhaustion of his Vita. From his analysis, it takes him around 7 hours to achieve the optimal level of Vita in his body again, if he were to deplete everything. And that was a very big disadvantage.
He knew that his body absorbed Vita from the air, through some opening on his skin. But these openings were not working properly, as out of 1028 openings, only 158 of them were opened. So he figured that to improve his recovery time, he just had to open the rest of the openings. And as he had some control over his Vita, he figured, why not just do that….