Thursday, September 17th, 2015
The dog was calm for once when I woke up just before 11am. No running around the bed, no fiercely wagging tail, or whines. Instead she was just curled up watching me.
I projected an image of her outside and she was off the bed and running down the stairs before I could even reach for my clothes. That much hadn't changed at least. As I went to take her out I checked her stats.
"Pet Character Window"
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NameNilla aka Vanilla PooLevel1HP50/50MP20/20Physical Energy80/80Mental Energy80/80Psi30/30KI30/30HP Regen0.05/minMP Regen0.02/minPE Regen0.08/minME Regen0.08/minPsi Regen0.03/minKI Regen0.03/minTitleAgility5/5Hand-Eye3/3Intelligence3/3Luck8/8Mental Stamina8/8Physical Stamina8/8Strength3/3Vitality5/5Wisdom2/2Willpower10/10Charisma10/10Titles available:
Owner of Food Slave
She had gained a few points in almost every stats. The two that stood out though were her Intelligence tripling to 3, and her Wisdom doubling to 2. Both were still low compared to me but I wondered what her limits were.
After I took her out I texted Crystal a time and place. It was 2pm at the edge of the bush I'd trained in before. There was a small piece of city property that used to be made into a small skating rink each winter when I was a child. Now it's just a small fenced in lot alongside the bike path.
Basically the street went downhill to dead-end at small park, past that was the bike path that ran along a creek, then on the far side of the creek the rocky outcrops sloped up a good 30 feet. The rocks stepped up in 2 to 3 foot levels similar to the side of a pyramid so there wasn't any climbing challenge even for kids but it was a fun area for them to play in.
First thing though was preparing a pack again. I put in everything the same as last time except for a couple changes. This time the shade would be two old blankets with no sticks. And I brought a bit more food so I could share.
After packing I still had an hour and a half left before meeting up. I'd left that on purpose so I could start researching things I hadn't had much time to look at before.
I tried looking for overviews and scientific reports on the powers first. There was very little useful hits on the searches at first. Most of it was guesses or bits and pieces of information. It wasn't until I found a volunteer site a few pages down in the searches that I hit gold.
The site was just a few days old and had been born from a blog that started the same day I got my power. Since the blog and the following site were new they didn't show high up in search engines but they had an amazing amount of information.
The about section of the site stated that the two people running it had powers themselves. They had nicknames, Researcher and Psychicchick. They didn't explain what Researcher's power was, but Psychicchick's power was able to identify people's power using some type of clairvoyance. It didn't say if that was her actual power, or just a byproduct of her power.
The site had 3 main sections run by various volunteers. First was a daily news section that linked to various news media reports. Second was a slowly growing list of powers associated with most cities in North America, including mine. And third was a list of links to scientific research or speculation on the powers.
The first was something that could be browsed endlessly since there was hundreds of additions per day in a wiki style format. There was links to articles on superhero groups forming, a few wannabe supervillain ones, and a lot of publicity seekers who tried to get multiple news outlets to cover them each day.
The second section was of more interest to me though. It listed all 4 of our powers as being in the city. And listed several surrounding towns and cities with the powers of people there. A city an hour and a half west that was twice the size had 11 people with powers listed. The most worrying ones were 'Dominator' and 'Laser'. I wasn't likely to run into them but still those didn't sound good.
Listed for my city was 'RPG Growth', 'Projective Telepathy - Mammals', 'Thermal Projectile', and 'Psi Strength Enhancement'. The first two were obvious enough and the third seemed reasonably clear. The fourth one was obviously the power of the construction worker and seemed curious. It seemed to imply his strength wasn't physical but using psychic power to either enhance his strength. It was somewhat interesting, but since he was in hospital it wasn't urgent.
The most important part was that people could find out my power, and I could possibly look for people's powers I wanted to buy, or trade for. Similar to how I gained Crystal's power, except most people aren't anywhere near as trusting as she is.
The third section with all the speculation and research links looked interesting but, like the first section, it would take hours to sort through.
By the time I even lightly touched on various sections of the site though it was almost 2pm and time to go. I grabbed the pack, put the leash on the dog and made my way to the park.
Crystal was already waiting when I got there. The plan was for her to play with the dog and using her power teach it some tricks, help it train a bit, and generally let the two of them have fun. I planned to run some of the trails through the bush and swamps beyond the park.
I setup a resting shelter from the two blankets for them using the corner fence spot.
Temporary Makeshift Shade.
+1 to all Regens.
-6 Psi/min to Creator.
Yesterday I'd learned it only cost me when someone or something was using it. Today I wanted to test out how far away I could be before it failed. With that information I could plan different ways to use the skill.
After explaining the shelter to Crystal, who seemed to accept it like the sky was blue, I started across the bridge over the creek only to be stopped by a window.
A quest has been created.Jailbreak!You quest is to 'Prevent the Successful Jailbreak' between 3am and 5am Saturday, September 19th, 2015.Rewards:
500 EXP, +1 to all Basic StatsFailure:
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
Possible death or discovery.You cannot refuse this quest.
...I didn't know how to retort to a window other than WTF!?!
First of all what's with all the 'You cannot refuse this quest' stuff, why not call it 'Demands' not 'Quests'? Second of all, how come these quests seem to know far more than I do and have specific times? For example the first quest ended at exactly 12:34pm. Now suddenly I knew the prisoner would try to escape exactly in a 2 hour window?
There was no reasonable way I could tip the police that. I mean even if I used a pay phone somewhere to call it in, when they asked 'how do you know?' what do I say? A little blue window told me? I couldn't imagine a lie they would believe. If I knew who he had talked to maybe I could use {Acting} to pretend to be one of them but I didn't know anything about that.
The only option seemed to be to prevent it myself. Which called for me to watch the police station or city jail if he'd been transferred. And then somehow stop him.
It didn't take more than a minute before I had a plan that worked and would let me release some of my frustration.
Instead of going running and trying to get {Running} to Master, I went searching for rocks to throw. It took a while to find a decent amount but after that I setup a distance away on the rocks overlooking the park and started grinding {Decrease Mental Presence} using Crystal, and {Throwing} using trees in a distance.
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By 7pm when it was starting to get dark I had grinded {Decrease Mental Presence} to Master, and {Throwing} to near the peak of Advanced.
My accuracy and distance with {Throwing} was near a non-pitcher professional baseball player level already thanks to my cheat skills. And Master level {Decrease Mental Presence} was 80% reduction in the range people could sense me. Meaning if they could sense me at 400 feet before, then now at most they could feel me at 80 feet. The help showed that Grandmaster offered 97.5%, meaning 10 feet was the max range.
I did wonder if that might help hide from people like Psychicchick. If her range wasn't infinite then it might help. If it was say planet sized, maybe 20000 miles, then Grandmaster would bring the range down to 500 miles. New York, Michigan and a few other states were inside that but most of the US where she likely lived wasn't.
All that was speculation. But if others had powers like hers I really wanted to avoid notice.
To pay back Crystal for all of Nilla's stat and skill training I offered the most valuable skill to her.
"Copy Decrease Mental Presence"
Would you like to copy the ability {Decrease Mental Presence}?
After saying yes I didn't pass out this time since I hadn't used up much Mental Stamina just leveling a couple skills. But it did cost me 30 Mental Stamina, 3 times the normal cost to learn it myself.
The universe was cruel and definitely unfair. Crystal didn't feel a thing either this time or when I gave her {Regeneration}. I didn't doubt the copy worked.
Thinking about it, 30 Mental Stamina is twice what learning a skill from a book is. Maybe I was mentally buffering her and suffered both her and my pain?
Yet more questions to try and figure out.
I headed home after Crystal was gone. Even if she seemed trustworthy I still didn't want her knowing where I lived.
I still had a few trivial things to do and wanted to add a few languages for lazy stat grinding. Even if I had a super power I still needed fresh laundry for work tomorrow.
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The rest of the night was fairly normal even though Nilla seemed a bit more active in playing by herself. While the laundry was running I napped a couple times, picked up German, Dutch and Arabic.
Heading to bed I made my plans for the next day. Work, shop for some food for my empty fridge, work, stop an evil super villain from escaping jail.
Okay, maybe he wasn't too evil or super, but anyone who burns down other people's houses is definitely a villain.
Before I slept I checked my Character Window one last time. It wasn't perhaps the most productive day, but I had new questions, a site with possible answers, and a chance to let off some steam tomorrow on the person who ultimately made the construction worker a loose cannon who harassed me.
"Character Window"
ClassExplorerLevel1EXP1510Next Level EXP2000HP220/220MP310/310Physical Energy270/270Mental Energy386/770Psi376/390KI230/230HP Regen3.52/minMP Regen0.31/minPE Regen0.27/minME Regen0.77/minPsi Regen0.39/minKI Regen0.23/minTitle: Polyglot IAgility18/18Hand-Eye15/16Intelligence36/39Luck8/8Mental Stamina13/77Physical Stamina27/27Strength23/23Vitality22/22Wisdom30/31Willpower22.5/22.75Titles available:
Slightly Masochistic, Not So Slightly Masochistic, Moderately Masochistic, Seriously Masochistic, Polyglot I
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Author's Note:
1) It's not a long chapter but there's a lot hidden in it for the future.
2) This being released an hour into Tuesday morning teaches me not to say it would be out a specific day. I'd tried for Monday but stupidly ran my health down a bit this weekend.
3) The new description for the novel is up. The choice of a new name though is still in the air. Feel free to point out any thoughts on the new description:
> Quote:The daily Litrpg journal of a fairly average 46 year old man in a world where hundreds of thousands of people suddenly have a super power.
>
>
> Follow him as he learns skills, runs away a lot, suffers crippling headaches, avoids reading his titles, and tries to avoid breaking his body that didn’t get enough calcium and vegetables.
4) Finally, I think I'll do more fake side stories with Nilla in other novels. I find them relaxing and they take very little time or planning. Since none are Canon you are free to skip them. I think the next one will be related to I Shall Seal the Heavens.