I didn't sleep, since my level up had provided me with enough energy to stay awake and fresh for a week.

Instead, I worked hard on myself, doing one-finger pushups and handstands, trying magic tricks from books and movies, and generally training the best I could for the next quest.

About 6 hours laters, Emilia woke up to find me upside down, holding my balance on one finger, while weaving Shadows around me.

*Ding

You have learned the Shadows spell. Manipulate shadows according to your imagination, including but not limited to: shadow concealment, shadow binding and shadow senses.

*New Perk unlocked: Mind over Matter. +1 Willpower.

*Use your Willpower to influence reality. Your soul becomes slightly more fortified. SP pool size doubles: 2xWill.

*SP = 20

A great night indeed. Emilia did not seem impressed though.

"What are you doing?" she asked in a rather confused tone.

"Practicing Magic." I answered as my shadows gently grabbed me and turned me around, then held me afloat a palm over the floor. Not real flight, not yet. But levitating by holding yourself up by your own shadow was cool, right?

"I need coffee." She muttered with a shrug, and walked into the bathroom. My Logic Skills pointed out that bathrooms didn't serve coffee, but I wasn't a moron to speak out loud.

A few minutes later, we entered the motel's dinner and had some coffee. Very bad coffee, possibly expired. But coffee anyways.

"You didn't sleep at all." Emilia noticed with a glance inside my hood.

"I sleep when I need to. Once per week or less." I explained with a tiny shrug. I was still adjusting mentally with my new status, as a Gamer, and a vigilante killer in a comics universe.

Mostly by trying to avoid thinking about it too deeply. NPCs didn't really matter, right?

"You know my name, somehow. But I don't know yours." Emilia observed as she finished her coffee.

True. I should give her my name. A name, anyways. "Grey Wizard. Since I wear a grey suit and use spells..." I provided after a few seconds.

She looked at me with tired eyes. "Really?"

I smiled at her and nodded. "My friends call me Pef. But we're not friends yet, so Wizard will do."

"You really don't like me?" she asked, maybe a bit confused.

"You're pretty, I said that before. But I am not someone to test your CIA training on. And we have a big target to neutralize for now." I explained in a clam voice.

"Hmmm. That's also true. Sad, though. You seem a nice guy." she added as we rose from our seats.

I blinked, a bit surprised. Maybe she was genuine, and I was breaking a young woman's heart.

*Ding.

Agent Harcourt affection. +5. Total = 11/100.

Oh. An emotion meter. Good to have, in this case.

"Very cute. Tone, presence...textbook. But you have to practice more. No heart in it." I spoke with wise words, and pinched her cheek for a second.

"Nobody has ever refused me. Damn wizard..." Emilia growled to herself, while rubbing her cheek.

"Ten from a hundred, or so. Then again, you haven't trained with many demons or aliens yet. I guess it may work on most humans." I offered politely after we climbed in the car.

She just stared ahead and drove.

*Ding.

Agent Harcourt affection +5. Total = 16/100.

Uh, oh. Refusing her advances only made her more determined. I mean, she was digging a hole for herself, but sure.

"It's a pity, you know. You are actually pretty. Probably skilled with weapons and tactics. Computers too, from the NSA. Whatever training you got in DEO, for aliens and supers. But you failed the seduction courses?" I continued with a joking voice.

"Idiot..." Emilia growled as her cheeks got a bit red.

*Ding.

Agent Harcourt affection. +5. Total = 21/100.

Much better. "I bet your body is a bombshell. I can tell, even if you're wearing that thick coat. Plus, the physical training, hand-to-hand combat, whatever climbing or underwater courses. You must be in perfect physical shape. Am I right?" I asked curious.

"You have no idea, Wizard." she confirmed with a glacial voice.

"Then psychological training, persuasion, intimidation...all that. I could use some lessons myself, in those skills. I'm not really a people's person." I offered in exchange.

"Yeah, I might have noticed." Emilia said with a faint smile.

"Good. I can pay you, say 20000 dollars. And you teach me what you know." I spoke in a mild voice.

Her eyes glanced towards me, then back to the road. "You could join the Department of Extranormal Operations and get the training from specialists." she proposed instead.

"Hmmm. Or get locked in a cell to be studied like a test rat. Even odds on that. I bet you don't even have one Wizard in your cells. Nor a proper procedure to deal with one." I countered with a faint smile.

Emilia frowned for a second. "You're probably right on that, Wizard. All I know about Homo Magi is stuff from the net, and little else. Never seen a spell before." she admitted after a long minute.

I sighed inward. The Wizard story will hold for a while, since nobody actually knew what Magic could do. But eventually...I would become too strange, even for a Wizard.

"Magic is about shaping reality, both via Magic genes and your Willpower. Sadly, most of the ancient knowledge is lost now. What Gods are around will not teach, and demons ask a soul price. I can only train and experiment by myself, for now." I said much later, as we neared the Grove Farm.

"Exactly as I suspected, to be honest. Which is why you're still using guns and other mundane weapons. Right?" Emilia asked with a knowing smile.

"Yes and no. Magic drains you of energy. When guns can keep shooting, even if you're tired. Park here!" I demanded as the forest was coming to an end.

We sneaked through the last trees til we found a dilapidated fence. Holding my hand out, I cast Barrier on myself and Emilia.

"Weapons out, shoot everyone. Stay on my left." I demanded as I drew out my FN rifle and handed it over, alongside a pair of full mags.

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"How?" she asked as I drew out a pair of Uzi machine-pistols from my storage space.

I just smiled and walked forward. Time to be a Wizard.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of Butterflies rose to meet our assault, some of them diving directly at us trying to enter our orifices. We had the Energy Barrier, which could stop bullets and grenades, not just tiny insects.

Other Butterflies rode in their tiny spaceships, firing tiny guns at us.

Luckily, my next level up recharged my MP and could restore the energy barrier.

"Need more ammo!" Emilia shouted as she clicked empty.

I scanned our surroundings, finding half the Butterflies still floating around. Damn it!

I drew a pair of machete out, and handed on to Emilia. "No more ammo."

"I hate you!" she yelled and chopped down a floating tiny alien bug.

Time to train in melee now.

Hours later, Emilia was barely holding on, as her training could only take her for so long. But my Gamer body didn't get tired, so I could keep slashing and chopping, getting better and better with each tiny kill.

Eventually, the horde of tiny aliens was defeated, only a dozen spaceships flying high in the sky.

Level up!

A familiar rush of energy, and my MP was restored again and my body refreshed.

"It is over?" Emilia asked in a tired gasp.

"The butterfly swarm, I guess so. Now let's go see about a Cow." I muttered in slight sarcasm. And they said there is no Cow level.

I bet there was one.

We found an elevator leading deeper underground, as well as a flight of wooden stairs. Elevator was faster.

On the bottom of a giant cave, we found not only the giant Cow, floating over the ground, but also a large farming enterprise, milking the cow from a hundred tits for that amber liquid that fed the Butterflies.

"Holy Cow!" Emilia exclaimed at the sight.

"We could film those tits and make millions." I noted with a wry voice.

The agent glared at me for a second. "That must be illegal."

"I bet you a blowjob it is not. Alien Cows are not protected by law." I countered in a certain voice.

"Are you really?" she asked in outrage as I took out a camera and began filming everything.

"Documenting an alien invasion, on US soil? Bet your sweet tits I do." I muttered as I filmed the giant cow with a hundred tits. And eyes too, but those weren't important.

"Fuck! This is a nightmare. I was only supposed to gather evidence of their presence, not completely destroy an alien race." Emilia grumbled, mostly to herself.

"Just tell them, a Wizard did it. It is also true..." I offered politely.

"Moooooooo!" the Kaiju-sized alien cow commented wryly.

"God damn it! Even if we had bullets, I doubt guns can kill this thing. Make it angry, perhaps." Emilia grumbled out loud, ignoring a hundred alien devices around that could power a teleportation device at stellar distances.

Then again, she lacked the Engineer perk, and the Lore skills about this universe. Hunting terrorists was not quite like dealing with space aliens.

My Tech Use at 55 Skill was also useful, pointing out clever way to abuse any technology. It wasn't like my System had anything more useful than this anyways. Plus there would be plenty of tech to abuse in the future.

An hour later, I collected all the evidence into my storage, and set up my last grenade to amplify an energy cell explosion. And...Booom!

*Ding

Level up!

Quest complete. Without nourishment from the Cow, the remaining Butterflies will die soon. +1 Free Attribute.

You may pick a new Perk.

You must pick a Development Path:

- Fighter

- Leader

- Hunter

The System was being obtuse as ever, blocking me from finding out what these Paths did, beside their names.

Without much choice, I picked Fighter. Whatever it did, it would boost my body and physical attributes, plus there was a lot of fighting to do in the future. Can't go wrong with being a fighter.

*Fighter Path chosen. You gain +1 Attributes per level in Str, Agi, End, and Will, retroactively too.

You gain 2xEnd temporary Hit Points. These temporary Hit Points get refreshed with rest, and act as a buffer against physical attacks.

You receive a Limit Break. For 3 seconds you become absolutely invulnerable and move at lightspeed, even in vacuum. Can be activated manually when SP reach 0, MP reach 0 or automatically should HP reach 0. Refills SP, MP and HP to full. Usable once per day.

Uh. Again, something I never expected, but quite good anyway. Not only 40 attribute points, and the HP buffer, but also the amazingly broken Limit Break. Not only a second life, should my HP reach 0 and end my life, but also lightspeed movement for 3 seconds. That was almost 1 million kilometers, enough to fly to the Moon and back 3 times. Or circle the Earth like....25 times or so.

Now I was a real super, even comparable to the Flash or Superman. For 3 seconds at least. Once per day.

Before Emilia could speak, I spent my MP on multiple Shadows and vanished into lightspeed.

With the world frozen, I jogged lightly south, across the border into cartel territory, and began dispensing justice at hyperspeed. Collecting loot like guns, ammo and cash, and setting fires to drugs as well. The Shadows were quite handy, as they also moved at lightspeed.

In my wake, thousands of hardened criminals found themselves impaled from ass to mouth on wooden spikes, planted along the roads.

Sadly, 3 seconds were kinda short and I only finished 3 cartels today. But I will return soon. Everyday, in fact. Unless I was busy. So busy I couldn't even spare 3 seconds.

Using the last fractions of my limit I rushed to Star_City on the West Coast, and changed at hyperspeed into brand new clothes from the nicest store in town.

Still kept the grey suit underneath, just for good times sake.

But it was time to get serious. I had Tech use at 60 by now, and only needed one more level to fully decrypt the alien tech from the Butterflies. And after that, with teleportation tech in hand, the world was my oyster. The universe as well.

It was a big difference between 60 and 70 tech use, possibly the barrier between normal human tech, no matter how advanced and alien tech, no matter how simple. Not that the Butterfly tech was simple.

Regular criminals barely gave any exp anymore, and even after going Vlad the Impaler on thousands of cartel gangsters, I wasn't even close. I needed to fight supervillains and aliens.