Braun grabbed his new phone, with the original Lucas’ accounts still logged in. Tapping at the icon of a messaging app, he searched for the number of his boss at the coffee shop and quickly whipped up a message.

In the message, he explained that he suddenly became severely sick and had to take a day or more off from work for sick leave. Clarifying the details even further, he read the message one last time before sending it to his boss.

Tossing the phone to the bedside desk, Braun groaned with a satisfied grin surfacing on his face. He reached out for a bag placed on the bedside desk, unzipping it to reveal a few years old laptop.

Turning it on, he sat on his bed and leaned on a wall as a green flame flickered at the tip of his finger before it streaked across the laptop, burning it with a green intensity. Braun, fairly adept at technology, checked the specs of his laptop after it was successfully influenced by the green flame of evolution.

Although the hardware remains according to the numbers shown here, the fluctuating graphs, low CPU, and RAM usage depict otherwise. Braun smiled, elated that his little experiment had succeeded.

He checked each of Lucas’ accounts, relieved to see that every account was practically logged in, and the passwords were saved in numerous places, from his password saver, to a text note buried underneath his folders, to a dedicated app where he stored things he needed to remember.

Braun closed the laptop, a wave of relaxation washing over him.

Now that things were finally done and he acquired a brand new identity, he could finally rest. After enduring such a stressful day where he had to roam around the city for hours, stalked a single person for a few more hours, and then killed that person without getting caught, he deserved a bit of rest to recuperate his tired mind and body.

Laying down on the bed, he released a wistful sigh and closed his eyes, departing into the world of dreams, his worries pushed to the day beyond the new dawn.

…

Early in the morning, Braun showered, and ate a healthy breakfast packed full of eggs, meat, and rice, before putting on a simple dark green puffer jacket, a black shirt, and dark gray pants. Covering his hair with a plain black cap and covering his mouth and nose with a face mask, he headed out of his apartment, descended down the elevator, and marched onward to the vast city.

He had a few things to buy today, ranging from groceries to fuel his drastic caloric expenditure, things he needed for his money-making endeavors, and most importantly, acquiring ‘weapons’.

Arriving at one of the city’s numerous walls, with multiple stories and various stores, Braun went in with a wallet packed to the brim with money he stole and gathered back in Civer City. Even if he spent extravagantly for a month straight, his savings would still come up to a sizeable sum, but eventually, his money would dry up, leaving him poor.

Braun knew he had a great need for money, so as early as right now, he had to expand his avenues for earning money, and he planned on exploiting his monstrous learning speed to learn various skills that would help him in this task.

Entering an electronics store, he looked around for a while before finally finding a decent tablet with a free pen for writing and drawing. Inquiring about the price, Braun coughed out a few hundred dollars and bought the tablet.

Digital art, more specifically, pornographic art, should be an easy avenue to grow in as long as I strategically advertise myself on various platforms. My art would speak for itself, so it would only be a matter of time before the number of my fans increased in that department.

Braun assessed as he entered another shop, this time, for musical instruments.

Checking the various instruments that were sold, Braun decided to only buy a guitar for now and contemplate other instruments for later. This was somewhat more impractical compared to art considering it’s harder to grow a social media influence by doing covers, and he had to instead focus on creating music and composing songs if he wanted to make a large amount of money and acquire a large number of fans.

Although not impossible, it would require a lot more dedication and time on his part, time which he could spend on other tasks that would give him more benefits in a shorter period of time. This doesn’t mean he would discard the prospect of developing a successful music career though, and planned on doing it as a side-project that played heavily on luck and opportunity.

After that, he entered other shops, buying equipment he would need to grow his presence online like a high-quality camera, microphone, and the like.

With his money dwindling aplenty, Braun decisively stopped, satisfied with his current haul. That only leaves one last thing—his weapons.

Entering a toy store with a suspicious amount of items at hand, he ignored the strange gaze the customers and staff gave him alike. Instead, he glanced around, looking for objects that could potentially become fatal weapons under his hands.

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Soon enough, he locked in on three different objects. A katana made out of high-quality wood, an airsoft gun, and a boomerang. While the katana might appear conspicuous to carry around in broad daylight, the airsoft gun and boomerang were not, and he only needed the katana for activities he planned on doing at night.

So, finding those three diverse enough for his plans, he bought them for a decent price and completed all of his purchases.

By the time he was done and had returned to his apartment, it was already noon and his stomach was grumbling. Placing all of his newly bought stuff in his bedroom, he headed into his kitchen with groceries in one hand and a katana in the other.

Dropping the bag of groceries on the kitchen floor, a green flame alighted the blade of the wooden sword. He unsheathed it, displaying the wooden blade that gleamed with a strangely metallic glow.

As of right now, I have two main ways to enhance an external object. I can augment it, giving rise to better qualities, or in game-like terms, ‘stats’ for a temporary period. Next up, I can evolve an object, changing its form and attributes permanently, just like my gun and lighters.

Evolve can be done in various ways, ranging from the fusion of two different objects, or just by pure self-transcendence.

Now that I have augmented this wooden katana, it should display qualities even better than a high-quality katana. Braun squinted his eyes, a wry grin creeping on his face.

Although he knew his power was real and he had seen it work on numerous occasions already, testing it with a toy katana was more comical, causing him to realize just how absurd his power truly was.

Taking a deep breath, Braun grabbed a tomato from his groceries, tossing it up into the air.

As it fell in slow motion, Braun swung his blade upwards, cleaving up into the sky in a wide arc. The katana’s wooden edge precisely hit the center of the tomato, slicing through it as if it were air.

With slight disbelief in his eyes, Braun caught the two halves of the tomato with his free hand and inspected them with a chortle.

“This is so stupid,” he mumbled and deactivated his power. The katana’s wooden blade lost its green metallic luster, returning to normal.

Placing the katana at the kitchen table, he turned around and lit open a flame. He doused oil onto the pan and seared a nice steak covered in butter. He sprinkled a generous amount of spices onto the meat while he prepared a nice few bowls of fried rice in another pan.

An appetizing aroma swiftly encapsulated the kitchen with Braun skillfully preparing his meal. Multiple pans cooked multiple steaks, with eggs being generously mixed into his rice.

Fried rice, and steaks. Delish. Braun commented as he placed all of his cooked meals onto a literal tray. Rather than spend more time washing more plates, he’d rather clean his pans and one big tray instead.

He remarked in his mind, Efficiency is key, and it’s a virtue if one wishes to achieve success.

Arriving inside the living room, he placed the tray of fried rice and meat on the table near the middle and turned on the television. Before he ate, he returned to his bedroom and went out with the guitar at hand.

A video displaying a simple tutorial about learning the guitar played on the television as he bit into a large spoonful of rice and meat, savoring the nice texture and taste fusing in his mouth while his eyes were focused on the television.

“So it’s like this?” he mumbled with bits of rice around his mouth. He strummed on the guitar’s strings, playing a simple tune.

He continued to eat and practiced playing the guitar, multitasking between eating and practicing. Green light diffused out of his eyes as his brain rapidly evolved, causing the neurons in his mind to fire off at faster speeds, and neural links were formed at an accelerated pace to facilitate his learning.

On the last bite of his hefty lunch, Braun skillfully strummed the guitar, playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars.

He grinned as he finished playing the song, and a deep feeling of fulfillment arose within him.

For a while, he sat on the couch, grinning with eyes closed. He replayed the same song again, his fingers dancing around the strings to play the iconic melody.

The green flame within him flickered and glowed brighter, increasing in size and intensity.

“So this is the realm of geniuses…” Braun gazed down at his hands, dazed.

Now that he was here to witness it for himself, it brought him an inexplicable emotion that could only be described as a mix of joy, sadness, and excitement.

Joy, because he learned a skill so quickly.

Sadness, because this would have taken him days to learn back in his previous state before he acquired zenithral power.

Excitement, because this was only the beginning of his rapid advancements.

As his power grows and his talent develops, the time he will take to master skills will shorten before he eventually transcends the limits of humanity, composing music akin to divine harmonies, painting art as if extracting fragments of heavens and placing it onto a canvas, and wielding a blade with skill comparable to those of gods.

This was the realm he longed to attain for how many years in his life. This was the talent he wished to have with many nights he spent dreaming of something unattainable.

A fiery passion was kindled in his heart, a passion that outshined his previous self’s desires.

Right now, there was truly nothing that stopped him from reaching his dream. Gone were the limits set by his talent, his predetermined fate, and his mediocre destiny.

Gone were the shackles imposed by reality. Gone were the threads that bound him to fate. Gone was the road paved by destiny.

At birth, I was born average. Average looks, average talent, average wealth, average family, nearly average everything. Nothing about me was inherently outstanding, and the only thing I had going for myself was my apparent intellect that swiftly developed at a young age.

I was smart, that was the only thing that I had going for me. A smartness backed by driveling hours of effort since young, with many hours spent studying instead of playing.

Although I slowly became more appealing to look at, got higher and higher grades, and became a remarkable person, it was incomparable to the breeze others took to reach that level.

No matter the effort I take, I would eventually hit a limit and fall behind those geniuses.

I was nothing more than a smart kid, not a genius.

Braun strummed the strings of his guitar, arriving at the end of the song.

“But now? I’M FUCKING FREE BABY!”

He wasn’t mediocre anymore. He wasn’t average anymore. He wasn’t so painfully normal anymore.

He has the talent, and he was sure as hell going to pour in more effort than ever before.

Fuck being bland, fuck being unremarkable, fuck being commonplace.

He was finally free, and he would let nothing take away that freedom from his grasp.

A wicked grin crept on his face, a green flame flickering in his eyes as the intensity of its light grew increasingly brighter.