When Wolfe woke up a few hours later, he felt much better. All of the exhaustion had vanished as if it had never existed, and he was ready to see his progress.

He rolled out of bed, straightened the clothes that he fell asleep wearing and headed for the kitchen.

Wolfe slowly approached the stove and peered into the pot, praying that his efforts last night had paid off.

The dull blue crystal lay right where he left it, in the bottom of the soup pot, just waiting to be fished out and dried off so it could be tested. As far as Wolfe knew, a fully charged crystal and an empty one looked exactly the same, which is why the crystal testing pads were necessary.

Wolfe tried to calm his shaking hands as he moved the small storage device from the pot to the testing pad, then closed his eyes and pressed the power button.

“Please, whoever is listening, let this have worked,” he muttered before opening his eyes and looking at the reading.

[30 Units]

That was 300 credits, or if you looked at it another way, two entire months’ power bill. He could use this crystal right now to charge the storage bank in the basement of his building and not need to pay an energy bill this month or next.

That was a big thing to Wolfe. Power was expensive, especially for a courier who needed to recharge his bike every day.

So, Wolfe set the crystal aside and set another empty on the testing pad. Once he verified that it was indeed at zero, he washed the crystal and placed it in the pot. It was what he did last time, and he didn’t know if a dirty crystal made a difference, so he would continue to wash them. Innovation wasn’t even in his thought process. He had found a way that somewhat worked, and he wasn’t about to mess it up by trying new things until his immediate problems were solved.

This time he focused more on making a slow but steady flow from himself into the pot and watched as the blue light swirled around the crystal.

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If he was going to keep doing this, he needed to get something more dignified. Plus, that was his only pot, and he was hungry.

Carefully placing the freshly charged Crystal on the mat, Wolfe hit the power button again and waited patiently for the testing to come up.

[30 Units]

The same result as before, so that must be the extent of his abilities in one attempt.

If he could do that one more time, he would have his entire month’s rent and power bill before lunch, but the question was, how should he convert these units to credits to pay the landlord? The power bill could be paid in Units, but the rent could not. The cranky old property owner only took credits.

Wolfe wasn’t brave enough to cash them at a bank, in case they could be traced back to him, but he did have a few leads. Businesses that would take Units at a discount to power their factory and not ask how you got them.

Credits were digital and hard to steal, but Crystals were a physical object and subject to robbery. That made them a lucrative target, the equivalent of the legendary days before the war when credits were physical coins and larger denominations were on paper notes called cash.

The companies only gave you half price, though, and his rent was five hundred credits. He had enough to pay the bills already after trading off the power tools, but the bills never really ended. They just kept showing up no matter how often you paid them off.

But once he had enough, he could buy a unit of his own and use these Crystals to keep it powered without buying from the grid. Wolfe could imagine the easy life already. But first, he needed to work on his skills and increase the amount he could charge a Crystal daily.

When they were distributed, a full crystal was one hundred Units, but that was the most suspicious way to use a single crystal. Nobody ever had a full Crystal on them in the city. At least not more than an hour after payday.

Even if you hadn’t purchased anything with it, you would charge your devices and home energy storage first, just so that you didn’t have that many units on you when you went shopping, since the stores’ withdrawal machines showed the current balance to anyone who happened to be nearby.

After a bit more rest, Wolfe moved the second crystal back to the pot and prepared his mind to try again.

The stress seemed to be entirely mental, with a mild burning in his chest where the energy seemed to originate. Both of those issues were tolerable to Wolfe in the name of wealth and progress, so he began the recharging attempt again.

This time he tried to add energy as slowly as he could, watching the Crystal absorb it as he went instead of letting it light up the water.

At first, that seemed less stressful on his body, but the end result was the same. Mental exhaustion and a headache.

Instead of sleeping, Wolfe tried to mediate. The old folk insisted that it was the best way to clear your mind and that there were many other benefits that Wolfe had never experienced, but today was different. He wasn’t sleepy, just drained from spell casting.

If you could call this a spell, that is.

Wolfe focused on his breathing and the burning feeling in his chest, trying to calm it down. The meditation was quick to relieve the burning, and after a few minutes, Wolfe could feel the energy begin flowing into his body.

It was soothing, like a mint balm cooling his body, and Wolfe was feeling better than he ever had before. All of the fatigue and old aches from years as a delivery rider were fading as he meditated. Still, more importantly, that spot of energy in the middle of his chest began to feel like a pouch, holding energy that Wolfe was certain he could use later.