“Hehe, we are in luck for sure. We got just enough people to fill in the club's requirements for the business group.” Robin said as the group had Milo call a car since they had missed the bus home to deal with club matters.
“Still, a few of these are a bit strange. Especially that Micro world that looks just like a cave.” Shoji said.
As said, the powers of each person were simple and confusing at best while some felt like there was nothing they could actually do to enhance them. The club had 7 applications on the first day. This counted Rudy of course.
Going one by one, Rudy, who the group felt was a good product manager since he would be able to move them around well after his feathers were properly developed.
A pair of twins named Oliver Evens and Tristen Evens. Oliver had the power, ‘Data Form’, which let him use half of all his body's energy to produce a sentient digital form into any electronic machine as if he became a living AI. Tristen on the other hand has a similar ability he calls ‘Digital spawner’. He uses Life force and it seems to give life to programs but it is a far cry from his brother's usefulness. In fact, if not for leaving him really weakened, Oliver would definitely have a heroic course level power but in the espionage field.
Oliver and Tristen said they were good at shopping and selling things. So Marketing Generalist and Sales Rep were giving to one of them each, respectively.
Customer Support rep was given to a young boy named Kevin Harper. He had an ability but he could barely activate it. It was a Field Zone ability which could alter the laws of nature within a limited area around it. As explained, the energy needed left him exhausted but he could only activate it for 1 minute and it could add some simple game mechanics like a status window that calculated and quantified status. However, his current capacity only showed his hp, aka Life force, name and age.
This isn’t really good since it doesn’t help identifying anyone and also it seems he doesn’t have direct control of the options added to the field.
Ironically, he idolizes an actual hero with a similar power with game mechanics. He is able to form a game field which he calls Admin game server. He can add the rules he wants and is an actual hero, which goes to show how strong he is. This stems from the exact fact that he can mess with game mechanics and so his body is constantly surrounded by his game zone allowing him to actively enhance his own status.
After that was the mentioned inner world owner, Zack Rain. He possesses a small cave sized space inside his body that he can store and remove items. He says that his life force is mixed with this place and when in it, his life force takes a different energy type but it converts back to life force when returning to his body. It has a clear cycle between the two.
He was put in charge of business development. This happened because he heard about the produce the group would soon sell and had tons of ideas that could help them.
For human resource professionals, the only girl in the group was named Lilian James. Her ability is called ‘Chained Ball’. She can literally spawn a ball and chain from each hand only. It takes a pretty large amount of stamina to make it long though so she actually wraps the chain around her arm and the ball is left out so that she can defend herself without running out of stamina. There is honestly nothing more to it but she always had a feeling that her ability could take another step.
The final one is the accountant position. It was assigned to a boy named Harold War. He is as you would expect a ‘Harold’ to look like. Slick hair, glasses and an outwardly nerd appearance, he was honestly extremely intelligent and even more ‘mentally’ developed then Milo giving the two a sort of rivalry.
He calls his ability ‘Book Telekinesis’. It is a psychic ability that lets him literally control books as well as communicate with the book's information. This lets him quickly find what specific book he needs.
The reason he wanted to join is actually because of his siblings. His young sister has a similar ability except it wasn’t telekinesis. She calls her ability Magic book. Using psychic energy, she can actually project the content of the book. If she does that to a fantasy story or novel, it will actually show her the story with a narrative voice in between while the actions happen almost like a play.
As an older brother, he felt, honestly, stifled that his sister has such an ability that could make her money by working for authors and making the stories come to life for them.
Robin felt a kinship with him and agreed to try and see if they couldn’t figure it out. He didn’t promise anything, he said the same to all of them, but he would work to try as best he could.
“Honestly, this is a lot of abilities to work with.” Lola said.
“That may be true but we had them tell us all they could about it. From a certain point I can make some ideas. For instance, Zack likely didn’t work his ability properly. He said that he can pull in anything into that space and has some control of the shape. He tried to add some animals but their life force drained rapidly and died soon after. It returns to him but quickly leaks out because there seems to be some kind of opening in the dungeon that only keeps his natural energy and he can’t process foreign life force.” Robin said.
“What do you think the problem is?” Milo asked.
“I think he needs to set up a food chain first.” Robin said.
“Food chain? Like an ecosystem?” Lola asked.
“Yeah, the first step to growth is balance right. He has a dimensional type ability so like field zones and micro worlds, an inner world is called a ‘living’ inner world because it has an ecosystem. Maybe the inner world is tiny because it needs to go through stages of evolution to grow big enough to support complex life.” Robin explained.
“Wait, you said the same thing and suggested he make two ponds and cover the ground with fertilizer, is that for this?” Shoji asked.
“Of course, I’m going to get a few bucks and buy some grass and vegetable seeds and have him spread it around the ground. We can see the results after that is done. After all, the first stage of a stable ecosystem is naturally grass and bacteria.” he said.
“That is interesting, what about the others?” Shoji asked, looking at the notebook.
“It gets harder each one, for Oliver, I think we might need to see if some kind of inner energy training can’t stimulate and activate some form of natural energy in his body. There are lots of cases where abilities are half active because the proper energy source was never awakened.” Robin said and frowned, “His brother uses life force so much we can try to use life force oil to see if it stimulates his own life force. If not we might need to look for some kind of training method. This is useful for you as well.” He said to Lola.
“Honestly, Tristen’s power is the most interesting. He can use his life force to give life to digital life forms attached to the machine he is in contact with. Oliver said that doing this actually gives life to viruses and lets him destroy them in his data form.” Shoji said, “It kind of reminds me of digimon.” he said.
When he said that, everyone laughed, “Yeah but digimon are born because of a massive flow of data gathered and formed a world that bred life.” Milo said.
“That is true.” Shoji said laughing.
That said, they noticed that Robin had stopped and when they looked, he was frowning.
“Is something wrong?” Shoji asked.
“It is about what you said. Digital spawner uses life force to give life to data programs. Digimon are formed because a huge amount of data eventually formed sentient data based life forms. Until now, Tristen has used his ability on a common PC while disconnecting the internet connection and any cables that could connect it so that his brother could clean out viruses. What would happen though, if he used it on a super computer which channels a lot of information per second?” He asked.
“You want to purchase a supercomputer just to test this?” Milo asked, frowning.
“Not right now, we don’t have the money to build a supercomputer only if we get a lot of old computers and connect them together to make a super computer similar to the first ones made back in the late 20th century.” Robin said.
“You know that 21st century computers were far better alone then that massive collection of computers back then right?” Shoji asked.
“Yes and we are in the 23rd century, do you think we aren’t far better?” Robin asked. “That said, we don’t know how supercomputers are made so we have to research how to make it and the uses.”
Everyone sighed when he said that so Shoji pushed the conversation away from this complex and expensive topic. “That leaves, Kevin, Lilian and Harold.”
“Kevin’s field zone is honestly really interesting. I wanted to test if other people could add energy of different kinds. We have lots of energy users in our club. Lola and Tristen have life force, Mr Atlas has World power, Milo has gathered spiritual energy from feedback and Harold has psychic energy. If the field accepted all that, maybe it could actually activate.” Robin said.
The others nodded. The thought of having a game zone is extremely enticing. It means they could actively train and direct their development if it worked like that.
“What about Lilian? Her power seems pretty combat worthy.” Lola said.
“Oh yeah, I remember seeing her at the license test. She has a pretty good score for strength but it was under the requirements by just a short margin.” Milo said.
“Feels like her, Harold and Oliver are probably half awakened powers. They probably need to awaken the ability of some kind of bioenergy to enhance their power to their full potential.” Robin said.
“I guess. I’ll look up mental energy training then.” Shoji said. “I could benefit a lot from it since my Sense emotion is mental based.” He said.
“I’ll look up chi then.” Milo said.
“I’ll search for life force training.” Lola said.
“Then I will see some of the remaining energies. Oh I heard there is a rare mana energy that some people can use which is really strange compared to others. I will check that one out.” Robin said.
Right at that moment, they arrived at Robin’s house and dropped him off. He waved and headed inside and went to the pc.
In the world, there are lots of natural energies like chi, life force, bioenergies like stamina which milo uses and more. However, there are also unnatural energies formed from training. Mana is a rather cryptic one.
Robin searched it up and eventually discovered that it is the result of psychic energy merging with chi. The result is a very rich energy.
That problem for ability users is that if you don’t have the energy naturally, it is impossible to stimulate or move it. Everyone has chi, everyone has psychic energy, they basically translate to physical and mental energies in a more concentrated form. The problem is getting both active.
Robin looked around to find who actually succeeded and how.
“I see… chi users possess a few medical recipes that can help stimulate it, even in other ability users but have short term effects on them which enhance chi users and powerless people’s energy.”
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It took a lot of effort to finally produce mana and when it was formed, it became easier to make over time as the body started adapting and forming it naturally. From research into this, mana is only able to be stored by people with chi or psychic energy as it occupies the storage center of either powers.
Also for a chi user to stimulate their psychic energy to make the blend, they need special technology to enhance mental functions until mental energy, the rawest form of psychic energy, is produced and controllable. The side effect of this is actually nausea and dizziness for a number of days as the mental energies slowly return to their natural state.
“So both of them are hard to achieve and expensive. Seems we won’t be able to try this any time soon. Most of the money from pills and oils will go into club activities and heroics. After that is a lot of equipment we need to buy to have a basic work center for researching civilian level abilities. Only when there is enough funding will we be able to invest in disability studies and more.” He muttered.
When he finished reading all the methods they tried to make mana and succeeding, he realized that it wasn’t what he could touch so he stopped and took out a small jar. Just touching it with his finger, a bit came out and he started to rub it on his arms and soon called his brothers to help with the back.
The oil had an amazing spreading power and he eventually got most of his body before activating his hardening.
After he was finished he returned to normal and his skin already had a glossy shine.
“Alright, are you guys ready for training?” he asked.
Together with their sister, the four of them went to do strength training following Robin’s routine. Judith felt the difference of having weights strapped to her back, arms and legs.
When most of them were exhausted, he sent the brothers to the basement to strengthen their tensile strength while his sister started what she wanted to do.
That was, to beat her up. Of course it wasn’t all, the children all took martial arts class so they naturally had proper form and everything. Judith in particular was best at this since the rubber users were more focused on their stretching and that had a style of combat of its own.
The two were in the backyard and Judith hardened her body.
Her hardening, different from their father and Robin. Formed clusters like scales. Her hardening wasn’t that advanced though so she formed mostly just scale like imprints.
Robin lightly hardened his body but he didn’t use his rubber powers, instead he trained with his sister the hand to hand martial arts they had trained in. Of course, his punches packed a lot of strength even with normal power without the springs.
From the face, the arms, the chest and legs, the pair of siblings strike at each other hard. In fact, this was just as useful for Robin as it was her. Judith was a strength type power so naturally her physical power was high. If not for Robin’s Rubber body being immune to blunt force, he would be hurting right now. Still her attacks caused a lot of stress on his body because where he gets hit actually heats up and consumes more of the body oil and starts to damage the hardened rubber through friction of the hard rubber and her scaled fists and arms.
Even punching her was stressful for Robin as her scaled skin was getting rougher in texture making him take some scrapes.
When they finally stopped, both of them were extremely tired. Robin was even thinner as his water levels were low after the oil layer weakened. He had to drink several liters to regain moisture and reapply the oil.
For his sister, he helped apply some medical cream to not leave the bruises.
After training was done, he went to buy the seeds he had promised and finally relaxed for the day.
The following day was like any school day and headed to the club room afterwards.
Everyone was shocked when they arrived though. Rudy was smiling while his previously yellow feathers were white and longer, he had them in the form of wings so that he didn’t look like a chicken and his tail feathers drew the most attention. Two were bright red and a strange appendage had grown out from his right eyebrow.
“What is that?” Lola asked as she poked the strange growth. To their surprise he actually moved and slapped her finger away.
“I don’t know but it grew when I tested my feathers yesterday.” Rudy said happily and showed them the tail feather. It was much longer and dull red now.
“Did you consume fire?” Robin asked.
“Yeah, we had a bunch of dry wood so I used some liquid alcohol and set it on fire. I carefully controlled the feathers to the outside of the fire and they soon absorbed it. I actually got curious about what happens if they absorb too much. Amazingly they blow up and release all the energy in an explosion.” Rudy said excitedly. It was a big contrast to the shy boy from the day before.
“Did you test anything else?” Robin asked, taking out his notebook and writing down the new findings.
“Yeah, after the feathers matured, I first connected them to my body. My entire body felt like it was burning painfully and I had blisters all over but when my tail feather finished sucking it up, it suddenly released a comfortable heat and all of my burned skin dried up and came off. After that i actually found that i was less affected by fire, i still get burned over time but it is less than before. Also, I felt a lot of pain when this thing came out of my head. That said, it actually helps out a lot. With it I can control the feathers much better and best of all I can do this.” He said and pointed the appendage to his feathers. It went from peach to red but the next moment they saw several feathers get longer and form full red feathers. “Isn’t that cool, I can control the energy I absorb and fill up my feathers. Oh right! They also become super resistant to the element they absorb. A mature red feather can’t be burned after reaching full size.” He said.
“Did you test ice?” Lola asked.
“Yeah but it is really slow. I left a bunch of feathers stuck into ice cubes or the snow that forms around the fridge but even after a full night they hadn’t reached full length.” He said.
“Cool. That confirms ice and fire.” Robin said and turned to Mr Atlas. He nodded and pulled out a complex machine and after connecting it to a plug, he took two connectors. “Alright, feather please.”
A single feather came over and he connected one side to the vessel and the other to the other side of the feather.
He added a very small current with about as much energy as what a spark between fingers would give.
There wasn’t much change to it so the current slowly got stronger until they smelled a burning and stopped before the feather burned.
“Seems this one doesn’t work.” Milo said.
“Hmm… then how's about this?” Mr Atlas said and pulled at a plasma orb.
It is basically those toys which transfer electricity and make people’s hairs stand up from the charge it transfers.
A new feather touched it and the energy shot towards it and this time they finally saw it. Purple coloration slowly climbed up the vein and soon the feather itself started turning purple in color with streaks of yellow while it grew longer until it stopped at the same length.
“So it really did get changed by all three.” Shoji said.
“So instead of chicken feathers, they are actually Tri elemental Phoenix feathers.” Robin said.
“Ehehe, this is so awesome! Maybe I can even change to the heroics.” he said happily.
The others actually looked very envious of him and Zack came up next and raised his hand. Energy gathered and projected the cave in front of him.
The barebone rock was now covered in dirt and fertilizer while two small ponds were formed on both sides.
“I did what you asked.” He said.
“Great! Here, these are grass seeds, plant them all around.” Robin said.
With a nod, the image vanishes and he takes the pack and opens it before tossing all of it into his open hand and then using some energy, he pulls them in and spreads them around. With a sigh, he called out the image.
“Woah! Look at it!” Rudy exclaimed as they looked at the grass blades quickly appearing like someone pressed fast forward. Soon they actually branched out and formed more grass.
They watched for several minutes and found that after a while, the growth evened out and it started to form cycles where the grass died and new grass appeared.
“Huh!” Zack muttered and he instantly sat down and clasped his hands together. Everyone saw as his body started to faintly glow and that glow slowly got stronger and gathered at his stomach. For several minutes this went on until he opened his eyes and a bright smile appeared.
He opened his hands and they saw, to their shock, the cave had drastically expanded. “It worked, the leak closed up but more than that, I finally learned what my power is. Instinctively I know, it is called Dungeon and the leak that existed before is because I lacked a dungeon core.” he said and pointed to the back of the enlarged room. “See that gemstone, half of my life force was compressed into that but with it, now the dungeon cave has a stable energy flow and is getting stronger. Of course it is weak and I need more life force to get stronger. Did you get more seeds?!” he asked.
“Yeah, here.” Robin said and showed the other packs.
He took them one by one and planted them in different parts of the large cave and they slowly grew nice and healthy.
That said, vegetables eventually wilted and that happened here. Everyone saw one of the largest carrots burst and gather into a tiny orb.
“Huh?” Zack was equally confused and felt around and saw that energy wasn’t absorbed so with some effort he pulled it out.
It was an orb the size of a quail egg but was formed of energy.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Hand it here.” Mr Atlas said and they put it under the analysis machine. “Woah, this is pure life force and it is contained by some kind of energy.” He said.
“I feel his aura from it.” Lola said. “Is it safe being outside of you?” She asked.
Zack took it back and looked at it. “This isn’t my life force. I would know if I missed an amount this big. I think this is a life force that the carrot produced and blew up as a result.” He said.
“The others didn’t blow up.” Oliver commented.
“The excess life force of all the carrots gathered into that one. I can clearly see the flow when it happened.” Mr Atlas said.
“Hey! Can I try something!” Lola said.
“Sure.” Zack said and handed it over.
Lola summoned Lily and held up the orb of life force. “Lily, is this safe to swallow?” She asked.
Lily looked and her eyes shined, “Oh, this is a Life force egg. Normally they are found only in isolated dimensional realms with a strong internal flow. Where did you get it?” She asked.
Lola explained the dungeon power that Zack had and she nodded and smiled. “My, aren’t you lucky. Despite having his aura, it is only a result of coming from his dungeon ability. This is safe to swallow and absorb a pack of life force. Of course, for people who never messed with it, it could cause a lot of trouble.” she said and looked at Robin, “You in particular had best not eat this. You have life force deficiency but this isn’t something that can cure you. You're like an puncturned boat while this is a pile of wood. It can’t fit into the holes while the oil is like a patch cover which slows the flood and helps mend the hole.” She said.
“So is it possible to sell these?” Zack asked.
“No, not in this state. These can survive about an hour outside your dungeon. If you gather these in a corner of your dungeon in large enough quantities, however, they will assume a more stable form which can be used to sell. In fact, if you were to bring a single crystal formed of life force into my home realm, it would cause a bloody war.” She said.
“Woah.” Zack said.
While everyone was digesting the words though, Lily smiled and took the egg and swallowed it whole.
“Lily!” Lola shouted but saw, to their surprise, as her body glowed and started to expand. “Ah, that was a good meal. Nearly 12% of your total life force capacity in one meal. If your physical body wasn’t so weak to support a huge amount, I would want much more.” Lily said. “From now on, if you get those eggs, have one of us eat it for you, that way we can clear out the impurities like the boy's aura. We are skilled in manipulating life force. For those who don’t have skill at using life force or outright don’t use it. You should limit the number of eggs they eat to 1 a week. If they react even more strongly, once a month is more advisable. You can call me to give a verdict if you aren’t sure.” Lily said and looked at Lola. “Come on, send me back and feel the growth.” she said.
Lola sighed and did just that. The body burst and formed a white mist that drew back to Lola.
Her face turned beet red as the large increase of life force was double the amount she gave to form Lily. She felt a little dizzy from that amount of energy entering her body at once. “Wow, until now I have usually only had a growth of at most 1% each time.” She said and breathed deeply. “That is really strong.” She said.
Zack on the other hand had shining eyes. “Let’s see the effect on me.” He said and took out another one that had formed from other crops and swallowed it down.
He closed his hands and began to meditate like he did the first time. This time, however, his face turned beet red like he had eaten spice food and his breathing turned extremely labored until it passed. He almost collapsed by the end before finally breathing a sigh of relief.
“Woah… that is intense.” He said but still raised his hand and showed off. They were surprised when they saw that the first cavern had expanded a bit but most of all that a path had opened and was starting to form a second room.
“So it grows with life force.” Robin said and wrote down quickly before pointing his pen at Zack, “Make sure to learn control. First adapt to the change and then continue growing.” he said.
“Yes sir.” he said happily.
“Hey hey! Do you still have those life force eggs?” Oliver asked.
“Hold it!” Mr Atlas shouted. “It is all fine when the two people that use life force use it but you children don’t. We need to properly experiment with this to learn the safest method.” he said.
“What about cutting it into portions?” Kevin asked.
“Huh?” everyone looked at him and laughed.
“Is that even possible?” Shoji asked.
“Who knows, why not ask the demons?” Kevin asked.
When he said that, the others looked at one another and agreed that it was a rather good idea and called out Lily and Yez.
“Cut a Life force egg? Sure, the person who makes it can easily divide it up. While inside the dungeon he has control right?” Yez said.
“Really?” Zack said and tried to manipulate it and found that he actually could, to an extent, manipulate things in the dungeon.
He took out a very tiny droplet that was firm and rolled in his hand.
“Anyone want to try now?” he asked, looking at mr atlas.
The teacher in question sighed and nodded, “go ahead.” he said.
Laughing, Zack pulled out three more drops, Oliver, Tristen, Lilian and Harold each swallowed one and reacted to it.