Act 4- Training Ink and Malice

--- Joshua ---

Staring at the rock he’d spent the last three hours trying to move he let out an exhausted sigh, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out the single vial of Malice he’d brought with him.

He was still reluctant to take the vial, especially after his horrendous last dose, but at the same time this was the substance responsible for his powers. Powers whose growth they’d increase and that he might lose if he quits taking the vials. Vials that were being supplied by a mysterious group who he needed to at least minimally impress before the end of the coming weekend.

Steeling himself he undid the vial’s cap, before staring at the black and red substance within. “Cheers.”

The same mix of copper and strawberries flooded over his tongue, tasting just a bit better than they had the first time he’d consumed one of the vials.

(Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.) He admitted to himself with a shiver.

Shaking his head he moved towards the rock he’d been using before re-applying his tag to it and taking a couple steps back.

“Well here’s hoping this boost will be as fast acting as the last one.” He told himself, raising a hand towards the rock as he began to focus on his connection with his tag.

Or rather tried to focus on it as it was that moment the Malice hit his system, his heart rate spiking as he began to once more hear that sweet symphony playing in the back of his head, though this time he could tell it had a distinctly jazzy feel to it.

“Alright, let’s give this another try.” He decided, loosening himself up a bit with a few full body shakes.

Surprisingly -or perhaps unsurprisingly- he found it much easier to grab a hold of his connection to his tag than he usually did. Something he had no problem exploiting to try and further his attempts at manipulating the tagged rock.

And unlike his previous attempts where he had to try and blindly feel out what he was supposed to do, he felt this sort of instinctive prodding from the back of his mind, almost as if there was a part of him who knew exactly how his powers were supposed to work.

He felt his heart rate spike once more as something shifted within his connection to the tag until finally after hours of trying to do anything with the tagged rock, the tag jumped.

Laughing and cheering at the fact that he (finally) had a true breakthrough with his powers, he couldn’t help but wonder why he’d been so reluctant to take another vial of Malice when both this and the first had given him such spectacular results.

(Actually now that I think about it, I wonder how much this is affecting my other powers?) He considered, remembering how the malice merchant had mentioned something about a temporary power booster.

He wasn’t really sure if the man had meant his powers in general were temporary, or that he’d get a temporary power up whenever he took a vial of Malice, but…

(No better time to test this than now.) He thought with a mad grin as he began pushing as much of the dark substance as he could from his hands, quickly finding the amount to be significantly greater than what he was normally capable of.

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Continuing with his test he found that his push up limit had nearly doubled, and that he was a decent bit faster in his movements as well. (Not that that was all that hard.)

Feeling his grin stretch a bit he made his way towards one of the trees before slapping a tag on it and walking away at a decent pace, happily noting how his connection to it remained active despite being more than four (five, six, seven, eight) meters away from it.

“Oh this, this is definitely something I should’ve looked into sooner.” He laughed, enjoying the rush of being so powerful for once in his powerless life.

(With this I can definitely become a super star.)

Scene Consequences

-1 Malice Vial consumed, power up funneled into new power rather than the existing one.

-Unlocked (???) Tags sub-power: (To be chosen) at Lv. 1 (0/4)

--Sub-powers are powers derived from another one that grant new abilities to the main power as well as giving a portion of their experience to the main power in exchange for being limited by the main power in question.

--A/N: Just to note Josh can learn both powers but will have to start from 0 progress on the other one.

-For unlocking a new sub-power gained 1XP (???) Tags.

--*Skill Level Up*: (???) Tags Lv. 2 (0/6)

-Due to experiment synergy gained 2XP to (???) Production and (???) Tags.

-Currently: Lv. 2 (2/6) for both.

-(???) Production doubled for this turn.

-New information available about Malice Vials.

---

By the time he finished running his tests on his malice enhanced self, he found said enhancements rapidly fading leaving him in a drained state in which his stomach was hollow and his mouth dry as a dessert.

Accepting that he wouldn’t be playing with his powers in his current state, he instead made his way back home before eating enough for three people and chugging half a gallon of water. An amount of food and water he was sure his stomach shouldn’t have been able to naturally handle all at once.

“I guess that whole ‘nutrient drain’ the malice merchant was talking about is a little more efficient than I was expecting.” He sighed, not sure if he should be amused or horrified by the changes to his physiology.

“Nothing I can do about it now.” He told himself with another sigh, before making his way to his room and laying down for the night.

Though of course sleep wasn’t something he found easily with everything happening over the last few days. So instead he sat in the dark, city lights gently flitting through his window as he stared up at the ceiling, listening to the faint sounds of the bar below.

Idly he raised one of his hands into the air, before letting a few drops of the black substance his power seemed to revolve around drip into the palm of his hand, until he made an amusing observation about the substance. (It’s almost like ink.)

The idle late-night thought got a chuckle out of him, before running on the half-asleep thoughts he sat up and pulled some paper out of his backpack.

“Let’s see here…”

On an odd compulsion, instead of just using the (ink) dripping out from under his nails, he took the tip of his index finger and dipped it into the small well of (ink) made by the palm of his hand, before placing said finger to the page and drawing out a little stick figure.

He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he felt a deep sort of satisfaction when instead of fading like his (ink) usually did the little stick figure stuck to the page. The (ink) remaining far longer than any other instance of the substance he’d produced prior.

“You know what?” He smiled at the little drawing. “I think I’m going to hang you up on the wall.”

Scene Consequences

-Progress made towards [(???) Ink] Power. (1/10)