Atomic Mage by Garrett Carter (short books for teens txt) 📕

Making his way down to the riverbank Cade was glad for the entertainment offered by some relaxing fish watching as he called it.

It wasn't Sea World but it would provide some much-needed entertainment and a training opportunity.

He had spent all of the following day after creating his gator skin pants rebuilding his body to provide him with some much-needed upgrades.

His run-in with the caiman had driven the point home that a few advantages would do him a world of good, not to mention the poor earth beneath his feet.

Cade had reinforced his ligaments and strengthened his muscles, which to his relief turned out to be a fairly simple process.

The source for the organic material need for his increase in muscle mass had come from his little friend and meal companion.

Deciding on the amount of fast and slow-twitch muscles had been a sticking point though.

He didn't want to be a muscle-bound brute who took a whole year to swing a punch nor lightning fast with no power behind them.

The whole exercise gaining him a physic similar to a competitor in a strong man competition, strong enough with some fat to protect his muscles and provide support overall.

The changes had taken some getting used to, one side effect had stuck out to him.

After he had reheated some gator meat for lunch some juice had dripped off his chin.

He had unconsciously gone to wipe it off had almost knocked himself out in the process.

He laughed to himself remembering the incident, "tagged that off button pretty good".

His grin shifted to a grimaced, speaking of incidences he remembered a little project he had completed afterward.

Wanting some more light in his home he had created skylights in each of the rooms in his house.

Making the holes for the skylights had been simple, the two-foot by two for chimneys had been created in a few moments.

The glass that would prevent anything from entering his home through the skylights had been a breeze as well.

The incident in question had been when he had to make it to the top of the cliff his home was built into.

Cade chuckled to himself remembering his ill-advised stunt.

He had just finished creating his glass ceilings and was about to attempt to jump the 20 feet up to the top of the cliff.

He didn't expect to make it the full height just wanting to experiment with his newly created muscles.

Standing a ways away from the cliff he had got a running start and tried to hop up the side of the cliff.

As he had planted his leading foot saying, "he leaps tall buildings with a single bou..HOLY SHIIIT", his right femur had snapped under the pressure from his newly minted muscles.

Face palming at the memory he had to give himself a little credit, at least the healing spell worked, he hadn't noticed any divots on the beach as his leg had repaired itself.

After the embarrassing lack of foresight had landed him in the dirt, he had put his mind on how to reinforce his bones to prevent another fracture the next time he tried to used his enhanced muscles.

"Got the healing factor down how about some metal bones to go with it".

Locating some metal to work with hadn't been too bad, expanding his senses and ignoring anything that felt like the rocks he was so intimately familiar with from his home building adventure had been simple.

As he came again upon the truly mind-bogglingly huge deposit of metal that he had built his home's power source out of he hoped the dense but light metal would make a great coating for his bones.

It had been a scary experience, scanning the material and painstakingly finding the bonds and breaking the whole 50-pound mass into a dust storm of metal.

After releasing a shaky breath he was glad his fears of a fission explosion from breaking down so much material at once were unfounded.

The bonds of the material had required a massive amount of power to break down the 50-pound slab into microscopic pieces though.

He thanked his lucky stars the power produced from the fission reaction covered most of the energy requirements to make his little metal storm.

Cade was slightly sorry his little rock battery was consumed in the process though.

Following the path down from his cancer eradication day Cade coated his whole skeleton in the mystery metal.

An involuntary shiver ran through his whole body at the memory of all the little pinpricks as the metal slipped through his skin and muscles.

He had added a little insurance and placed a bit more of the mystery metal around the base of his skull and tied his energy and healing spell to it.

The hours following his little procedure had been nerve-wracking.

Cade had a hair-trigger on the metal ready to remove it, as he continually scanned himself waiting for it to appear in his bloodstream.

Satisfied with the results of his self-experimentation he had blown out a breath in relief.

Feeling the added weight after his procedure Cade had put himself through some exercises to test it out, a few stretches and wind sprints on the beach showed no serious loss of movement or dexterity.

He was still considerably faster and stronger than he had been before his modifications, the added benefit of a metal reinforced punch didn't hurt either.

Feeling good with the results he attempted his flying leap up the cliff once again, this time with no boisterous words.

Completing that with two feet to spare as he fumbled the landing, stumbling and almost eating dirt, he