Over the next week, Thomas experimented more with his new ability, and figured out a few more things. The main thing he learned was about how the tasks worked. As long as he decided he should do something, he'd receive a task for it, and once he completed it, he'd get a reward. The reward seemed to be based on how much he wanted it, and how much he had to push himself to get it. Since he didn't particularly want to exercise, his points for doing so weren't all that high, and the longer he exercised, the less he wanted to exercise, until even pushing himself didn't increase his points all that much. Still he got about twenty to thirty points out of it each day, depending on his mood, so he figured it was worth it.

He also figured out, after a particularly strenuous day, the points could be used to recover as well, though this did consume a massive chunk of them. The cost decreased as time passed, presumably following his natural recovery, and usually by the next morning he only needed to spend a point or two to get rid of all his minor aches and pains, before doing it all again. The cost was actually around that level at night as well, but… well, he tried it once and he'd spent the entire night staring at the ceiling. Apparently the recovery took care of everything, not just his aches and pains. Of course, it was nice that no matter how well he slept the previous night, once he used recovery, he was completely refreshed and ready for the day.

Currently, all his tasks were related to the gym, so he'd become quite the regular there, not that he was particularly happy about that. He'd tried making tasks related to video games, but the only thing that even kind of worked was trying to break records, like beating the boss under a certain amount of time or getting high scores, and the reward wasn't all that great even if he did. The problem was probably that he played video games for fun, and didn't particularly care about high scores or time. Since he didn't have a real desire for it, and he didn't really need to push himself to keep playing video games, the points didn't come.

Once he'd been at the gym a few days in a row, trying to figure out how to maximize his point gain, people started to approach him to give him advice. In particular, Amber was around pretty often, always trying to be helpful, though thankfully she seemed to have given up on trying to make conversation with him. The biggest piece of advice they kept trying to give him, which Thomas was increasingly getting annoyed at hearing, was that he should space his workouts out more. Apparently it wasn't good to do everything, everyday. Of course, they didn't know about his recovery ability, so Thomas understood and even somewhat appreciated their concern for his health, but he did wish they wouldn't bring it up every time he showed up.

However, as he gained more and more points, Thomas began to notice a small… issue. As he gained points, his stats kept increasing. Ten points would increase all his stats by one. Well, except for awareness, which would increase by two. Even if he didn't spend his points, he kept getting stronger, making it harder and harder to earn them, at least, not without making some sort of scene. Even worse, he couldn't quite figure out what to actually do with all this newfound power.

"Man, I almost want to become a supervillain, just to have a reason to punch someone." Thomas grumbled to himself.

[Become a Supervillain]

"I said almost!" Thomas scolded the task window, making the new task go away. He laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling as he pondered the problem. "What exactly is it that I actually want out of life? Maybe if I know that, I'll know what to do with all this." Thomas muttered, getting up and heading to his desk, pulling out his notebook.

Thomas considered his life and the things that had felt truly fulfilling to him. To be honest, there wasn't much. He enjoyed a challenge, but when the end result was simply the pride of having accomplished something, well, he didn't particularly value that, so he wasn't particularly interested. He'd entered a few competitions with cash prizes, which had been fun, even when he lost, but those sorts of competitions were few and far between, plus he wasn't particularly skilled enough in any one area to actually accomplish anything in such a competition. Though… well, that had probably changed at this point.

His talents were primarily in learning. Even when he didn't put much effort in, he just seemed to get things. As long as he showed up to class and did the homework, he was pretty much guaranteed an A. Hell, if it weren't for the fact homework was a part of his grade, he probably wouldn't even need to do that. However, while learning was useful, it didn't particularly make him happy, and any job that he considered just seemed… tedious. It was just a daily grind, and as long as he performed adequately, he was rewarded. It wasn't that he had an issue with the rewards, he actually enjoyed them, but rewards for rewards sake got boring fairly quickly. It was similar to the situation he found himself in now. Yes, he could continue doing tasks to gather more and more points, but if he had nothing to actually do with them, what was the point? Work day and night for a paycheck, but if you have nothing you really want to spend it on, why did you put in so much effort?

Thomas recognized things such as money and points as potential, the means by which he can obtain the things he wants. But… All he really wanted was to not be bored and most of the things that entertained him were relatively cheap. You could read most manga online for free, games weren't too terribly expensive, especially if you considered the amount of time you could spend enjoying them, TV just required a small subscription fee for a service… and that was about it. It was even worse with points. What use did he have for being stronger and smarter than everyone else? He could become famous, but that just seemed… annoying. Everyone becomes so involved in your life, and for what? Thomas couldn't see any tangible benefits in it. Despotic rule on the other hand… morally he was against it, but he could actually see the allure in that. Being able to make people do-

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Thomas suddenly paused, coming out of the rambling mess that was his thought process, as an idea suddenly occurred to him. Could he make tasks for other people? The main issue he was facing was the fact that if his points kept increasing, life would get too easy. Who could compete with someone with inhuman levels of ability? However, what if he spread his ability around a bit? Give others the same advantage, and see what they do with it? Wouldn't that be more interesting?

Slowly a grin began to spread across Thomas's face as he grew more and more attached to the idea. Obviously he needed to perform a few tests, make sure he could actually do it, see if the others would interact with his ability differently than he did, but he couldn't help but get excited. The only question was where to start.

Thomas leaned back in his chair, considering the issue. "What I need is a play tester." He muttered thoughtfully, going over in his head the people he could ask to do this for him. He considered his roommate, for ease of access, but the guy was never around and he probably wouldn't believe him in the first place. Declan was an option, but they rarely saw each other besides class and occasionally in the cafeteria, so he'd probably have to wait until Monday if he wanted to start. The only other option he could think of, unfortunately, was Amber. She was usually at the gym, so she was easy to find. She was accepting to an almost fanatical degree, so even if she didn't believe him, she'd probably just go along with it. If it didn't work, she already didn't particularly get him, so he could probably just play it off as a weird joke and she'd ignore it. All in all, she seemed like the ideal option. The only problem was that they seemed to communicate on two entirely different wavelengths. If it purely focused on experimentation, it shouldn't be an issue, but he just knew she'd find a way to complicate everything.

*

"Hey Amber, I was wondering if you could help me with something." Thomas said as he walked up to her. Just as he'd expected, she was at the gym when he walked in. They'd apparently picked similar times to work out, as she was always arriving around the same time he did.

"Uh, sure, what is it?" Amber asked curiously.

Thomas immediately got a dumb look on his face as he actually had no idea how to explain what he was asking. Amber stared at him, raising an eyebrow while he thought. "Okay, first, what's your next workout?" He asked finally.

"I was about to do squats." Amber answered, looking at him weirdly.

"Okay, and how many squats do you usually do?" Thomas continued.

"I usually do three reps of twelve to fifteen with a hundred pounds of weight." Amber answered again, still looking confused.

Thomas nodded along. "Okay, we'll call that forty. Now, I'm going to try something, and I need you to let me know if anything happens, okay?" Amber furrowed her brows, but nodded. Thomas focused on her. *Give Amber the task [Perform 40 squats with 100 lbs. of weight.]* Thomas issued the task mentally. "Anything?"

"You're just standing there…" Amber answered, the furrow in her brow deepening. Thomas frowned, before reaching out his hand and placing it on her shoulder. Amber still looked like she had no idea what he was doing, when Thomas tried to issue the task again, and her eyes immediately widened.

"I'm guessing it worked this time, right?" He asked, watching Amber wave her hand vaguely at something in the upper right corner of her vision.

"What is that?!?" Amber asked in a panicked tone.

"Well, I've been calling it the task window. It's actually why I started working out. Essentially, every time you do something it tells you to do, it rewards you with this stuff I've been calling points, which can be used to make you stronger and smarter." Thomas explained, keeping things pretty basic. "Now, go do your workout."

Amber still looked confused, but complied. Thomas decided to start on a few of his tasks as well. He finished his run and was about to start on the bench press, which had replaced pushups, when Amber returned. "I finished." She said, sounding slightly out of breath.

"Alright, how many points did you get?" Thomas asked.

"How do I check that?" She asked.

"Oh, right, try thinking about pulling up the status page." Thomas responded, remembering he hadn't really explained anything yet.

Amber frowned. "Nothing is happening."

"Try saying it out loud?" Thomas suggested tentatively.

"Pull up the status page." Amber muttered softly under her breath, before shaking her head. "Still nothing."

Thomas frowned, wondering why she wouldn't be able to bring it up. "That's… wait." Thomas remembered how he had to create the status screen himself. Maybe, since all he'd given her was a task, she needed to be given the status screen as well? Thomas focused on Amber again. *Give Amber the status screen.*

Immediately Amber yelped as a screen appeared in her vision. "I-I see it now!" Amber exclaimed, looking over the screen. "It says I have two point zero six points."

Thomas frowned. "That's a little low… Well, we can always adjust it later. Try putting a point into a stat."

Amber frowned, staring intently into space, before shaking her head. "It isn't working."

Thomas frowned again. "Why… wait, Amber, can you feel the points you gained? Like sense them sitting there, waiting to be used?"

Amber gave him a weird look. "No? Should I?"

"There isn't really a should or shouldn't here." Thomas responded. "I think the problem is you aren't connected to the points in the same way I am, so you can only interact with them in prescribed ways. You completed the task, so you get points, but there's no set way to use them, so without a way to actually connect with the points, you can't."

Thomas considered this problem as he pulled up his own status page. With a thought, he created a plus sign next to each stat and created the rule that when the plus sign is 'pressed', one point is put into the related stat. He tried it on his, and it worked fine, so he sent the change to Amber. "Do you see the plus signs next to the stats?" He asked, and Amber nodded. "Focus on the one next to the stat you want to raise, and think about pressing it."

"It worked!" Amber exclaimed excitedly, hopping slightly in excitement and Thomas sighed in relief. "Uh, Thomas?" Amber asked after a bit. "How do I make this screen go away?"