While Rohan's excitement to go out into the city again stretched past the horizon, wanting to continue testing out his suit after the necessary tweaking from the last test, he realized he had to give himself a few ground rules. Luckily, a few of them were already forced on him by the nature of the situation, but there were others where he'd need to exercise his own self discipline.
For one, as much as he wanted to spend every day and every minute of said day out in the city, flying from building to building, he recognized that he still attended a prestigious and thus rigorous university, one he had to work in.
Of course, while he had found himself a new love, he couldn't abandon the dream he had worked for over years on. He also couldn't abandon his friends nor his literal love, as it would be far too selfish.
He had to make sure to still put time and focus on his classes and studies, and make sure that he was excelling in his grades. He had to make sure to spend quality time with his companions, continuing to spend all the time between classes with his group, and then visiting Erica in the evening.
Still, he was able to find some openings. He still spent his time after his last class working to improve on his suit, researching how to create components that would allow him to propel himself faster, and designing such components. He also began conducting experiments to test the reaches of his abilities, and understand them better.
For one, he wanted to know exactly how far he could push the fact that his body was able to act as the battery to his suit, wondering if that meant he could generate energy itself.
However, it seemed to be not the case, as days of experimentation proved fruitless as he tried to find ways to exercise his energy besides powering his creations. Of course, he wasn't even sure how he'd exactly go about it, as he awkwardly put his hand forwards and tried to concentrate on it as though expecting a blue lightning bolt to shoot out of it.
But in the end, none of that happened, and so he concluded that his energy generation didn't work in such a way, and he required a vessel to project his energy, such as his equipment. It wasn't too much of a letdown, as he preferred the suit and its additional capabilities, but it cost him having to make some incredibly odd poses to find out.
Next, he wanted to understand the phenomenon that caused his first test to fall apart, his vanishing suit. He checked his closet for all the suit components he had been making for the weeks leading up to his test, as he had used the closet to hide the pieces from his brother, however he realized that none of the components were inside the closet.
It seemed as though they had simply disappeared off the face of the earth, whenever that happened.
While he wanted to run legitimate field tests outside, he knew he had to reserve himself for the weekly trips to the city, which made it harder to tell what triggered his gear to vanish. However, he couldn't just wait till the next week just to know he'd inevitably come to an error that could consume the whole day, and so instead he looked to other solutions.
His best bet was somewhat of a simulator, however it still tested his real abilities. On one of his days after classes, he created a rather simple system compared to what he's already done, a multimeter connected to a wire which was connected to a gauntlet, with the idea being that him wearing the gauntlet would allow him both to feed energy to the multimeter and create the system in the first place, since he seemed to only be able to create items if they were somehow attached to him-- like clothing--, and then he could run a stress test on his energy.
It wasn't his first thought, as he once believed that the amount of energy he had to give wouldn't dictate the presence of previously created constructs, however he knew that he was able to wear his suit for far longer when doing hardly anything in his room when compared to how long he had the suit in the city, with the key difference being that he was legitimately operating the suit and using fuel to move with it.
In the end, both the creation and fueling was by him, and so with a bit of stretching, he could make the hypothesis that a lack of fuel could also damage the creations.
Rohan takes a deep breath in front of his desk, and closes his eyes. He imagines the system he had just finished designing, and concentrates on its workings to replicate it.
His eyes begin emitting a blue mist, and his chest starts glowing once again. Streaks from both from his chest and eyes, with streaks reaching his hands and forehead. The humming signals that the process had begun, and a combination of the blue mist and electricity begin coming off of his blue hands.
After a few moments of pure concentration, the hum silences, and the glow fades away. Rohan opens his eyes, which glows only for a few moments before dulling to normalcy. He looks down at his desk, and smiles in relief.
His left hand was already insulated in a gauntlet similar to his suit's, however he had created a band on his forearm, which had a wire connected to it. The wire connects to a small black box, which projects a holographic screen indicating the voltage, current, and resistance of the multimeter.
The resistance had been set to take 100 exsilons, which was the temporary unit he gave to whatever energy his suit produced, as he knew it wasn't exactly traditional electricity. This was the power he needed to boot up the suit, which he knew he could do already, and so it was his base.
Rohan takes a deep breath, and his eyes begin to glow blue once again, as does his chest. One streak runs to his left hand, and once more streaks come from his eyes to his forehead. However, now he wasn't focusing on creating anything, but instead powering what he had already created.
The gauntlet powers up, which was indicated by a hologram that projects from the band on his forearm. As more power feeds through the gauntlet, the numbers of the voltage and current begin to increase on the hologram of the multimeter, indicating that he was successfully feeding energy into it.
Rohan watches the hologram of the multimeter, as he continues outputting more energy through focusing harder on himself, concentrating greater.
As the numbers reach 100, the resistance's number suddenly jumps up to 150, as the system was given a modifiable resistor, which would increase given how much energy it was receiving. The resistor's main purpose was to simulate the suit actually requiring energy to run, while the multimeter simply logged the progress.
The number continues to rise, passing 150, causing the multimeter to jump to 250, jumping twice as much as before to stay on top.
Once more, the numbers climb up to 250, and the resistor number switches to a 500. Rohan sits by the contraption, continuing to test himself to his limits.
As Rohan's body begins to glow, and the gauntlet continues transferring energy to the multimeter, Rohan's forehead begins to noticeably sweat. He starts to breathe heavier, as if becoming tired. His eyes blink a few times, similar to how he'd be if he was becoming sleepy. Nevertheless, he perseveres, but does it realizing he's steadily moving towards his limits.
His energy output reaches 1200, and continues climbing, now far beyond the necessary outage of using the full power of the suit.
The streaks running to his arm start to become weakened, as they fade in and out, almost blinking. Rohan gulps, as his head begins to ache, and he feels his left hand tense. He pushes further, trying to give his all.
However, Rohan finally hits his limits, and his chest stops glowing. The streak going into the gauntlet fades away, and the humming stops. Immediately, holograms both on the gauntlet and multimeter stop projecting, and mere seconds later, the whole system starts turning blue.
Rohan pants heavily and tiredly as he watches his system harden, and then burst into blue mist, fading away and leaving nothing behind.
Rohan throws himself off his chair and onto his bed, wheezing with sweat running down his head. He felt as though he just ran four miles straight, and his head ached terribly.
He stares at his empty desk, and then continues resting on his bed, noting the experience.
It seemed he had a limited pool of energy to give, which both aided in fueling his components but also allowing his creations to exist, and once depleting that pool, the creations should vanish. He noticed he was able to hold out much longer than he did in the city however, as it also seemed the intensity of focus into devoting the energy played a part in it, since even the suit parts he threw in his closet vanished without being used.
In a way, it was relieving to know that he couldn't be caught through old gear if they seemed to disappear after he went under the necessary thresholds, however it was also stressful realizing now that he had to have consistent stamina if he wanted to do anything that took more than a minute.
As he lays in bed, his Connect projects a screen in front of him, displaying a recent notification. The notification was a message sent by Erica, which read: 'Can u come over rn?'
Rohan lets out a heavy breath, as he knows he is finished working today since he had no energy to continue more experiments, which was fine since he had made major progress. He managed to find solutions to all the problems and questions he had, and now all he needed to do was continue some tweaks, and next Saturday he could finally prove himself to the city.
Even if it was stopping one attack.
Rohan holds his hand out, and types on the holographic keyboard, sending the message: 'I'll be there in a couple minutes.'
He then lays back in bed again, giving himself a few moments to fantasize the coming Saturday, wondering what he would be able to do. He dreamed big, and hoped that he could take on an Exhuman, however he knew how dangerous that idea would be, but it would be necessary to give hope to an otherwise utterly hopeless situation.
He gets another message from Erica, which reads: 'K, we're still making cake tonight tho, se?'
Rohan takes one more deep breath, and throws himself off the bed, heading out of his bedroom. He opens the door, and closes it moments after, walking down the hallway and towards the elevator.