Eli stumbled back into the dorm room with two boxes of leftovers full of scrambled eggs, waffles, toast, and several strips of crispy bacon. His head spun from... well, everything. He had been on a date while pretending to be someone he wasn't, but they were also essentially the same person. And yet, they weren't.
Hazel... she was great.
He loved her optimism, her sense of excitement for the small things around her. When the food came with an extra side helping of bacons, her smile had been dazzling as if she'd won the lottery. Her laugh was bright and sunny. She had a great sense of humor.
But she thought Eli was Herbert.
Roman glared up at him with a frown as he hurled himself out of his chair to stomp his way up to him. "Where the hell were you? It's nearly eleven! I woke up and you were gone! I thought you abandoned me!" Again. The silent word screamed unsaid as it was.
"I went out for a run and got some breakfast. Here." Eli plopped the boxes of food down on his desk since it was closer to the door before he turned to pin Roman with a glare of his own. "I couldn't sleep and I wanted to figure out what the area was like.”
"Oh. Sorry." Roman ran his hands across his face before he picked up the takeout boxes with a sheepish grin. "I didn't mean to snap at you..."
"It's okay, man." Eli nodded at the food while he shoved down his next rising tide of guilt. It was okay to omit telling him about Hazel, right? He just didn't want to be needled about her and the whole situation. That's all. "Have you been awake long?"
"No, I woke up about an hour ago." Roman pulled out the chair to Eli's, no Herbert's, desk as he started eating with the plastic silverware he'd packed in. "This place is insane, though. Their technology is so far advanced we might as well be playing sticks and stones back home..."
Roman paused to glance at Eli.
"What?" Eli asked while he sat down.
"You can get us back, right? Because I got nothing useful for killing her, so it'll have to be on you to figure it out."
"What did you get?"
"She had a domain power called Authoritative Domain that'd let me control the area around a person and even physically affect them. It's a nasty power, but my only other option is Self Mastery, which would give me almost complete control over myself. I'm leaning toward taking that one or dismantling it for a perk."
Eli nodded while he thought about how he'd try to get them back. He glanced at his status, then noticed that he still had a pending notification from when he killed Daniels.
Woeful Sunfire Ev. 3/Lv. 4 Auto-Ethereal Projection Ev. 3/Lv. 9 Stats: Mind of Carnage (Hunter's Massacre) You may now select from one of the following options: Siphon Power Experience Gain a Power Perk Obtain Power from the Conquered> He narrowed his eyes as he read Auto-Ethereal Projection and felt the vague impressions the system gave him about the power. It was essentially duplicating something and then sending it out wherever, but it also had a sort of teleportation power sewn into it that would allow the user to destroy a projection and appear in its place. Eli glanced at the rest of his status and paid particular attention to Spatial Dominion. Could he jury-rig a new power out of the two or even get a perk from Daniels's power and put it on Spatial Dominion? Eli selected the Gain a Power Perk prompt and smiled at the options. One of these would be perfect, especially after he finished maxing out Spatial Dominion to free up Augmentative Elemental Absorption. Natural Autonomy Ethereal Paradox Replicate Projection BACK> Natural Autonomy allowed the projections to operate on their own, but according to their own 'nature'. Ethereal Paradox was a bit strange, but it allowed the projections to be real then not which was how Daniels did his teleportation swap. Replicate was exactly what it said it was, it'd allow for copying in general. And Projection was also straightforward. Ethereal Paradox, Replicate, or Projection could be enough or even vital to figuring out how to push Spatial Dominion or Voidspace Mastery to the tipping point where he could access other dimensions in space. He felt like Ethereal Paradox would help him blur a lot of his current limits with either of his powers. While Replicate could maybe double the inner zone of Spatial Dominion to be like another dimension? But he felt like Projection could help him push from one dimension to the other. He couldn't decide; not yet. Eli turned away from the screens with a silent snarl while he swapped out Lumencloud Invigoration for Spatial Dominion. Constant unfailing strength dispersed from his leaden body while he sank into the comforting embrace of his mattress. It was pure luxury after being awake for over twenty-four hours. Words buzzed against his ears, but he ignored them as he closed his eyes. To better focus on the surrounding zone that seemed to sharpen in his awareness. Colors smeared across his mind's eye like it was a canvas as he seemed to drift through an ocean of molasses. Voidspace Mastery highlighted the whole room in his spatial field, but it felt the teensiest bit clearer. He tried to use Spatial Dominion and winced as his spatial field blurred except for the immediate space around him and the bed. Restoration and Voidspace Mastery vanished from the equipped power loadout of his status. Immediately, he felt a different sort of spatial field that drew towards him. It was like a zone of awareness with him at the exact center. He tried pushing it out further, but it wouldn't budge until he tugged on it. It squeezed around him as it flooded his mind with more acute details of everything around him. The gentle brush of the breeze, the two layers of blankets, the top sheet, and then the sheet and ancient mattress. Eli pulled it closer until it slipped under his skin with a tingling rush. His mind spun and his body shuddered as he felt himself fall into the void. His eyes snapped open as he lurched awake. He tried to teleport, then grunted as he felt Spatial Dominion's boundary crystallize and a tide of spatial power toss him and his bedding off the bed in a tangle on the floor. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. "Good. You're finally awake," Roman said while he turned to look down at him while he fiddled with a mechanized gauntlet that hummed with power. "Your phone has been going off." "Oh, okay..." Eli thrashed to free himself from the tangle of blankets before he crawled out of the blanket cocoon. He flexed his will through Spatial Dominion and winced as space surged again to throw him and the blankets upward. Body of Light flared as he pooled against the ceiling in a pool of soft light. Eli streamed to reform on the ground so he could catch the blankets. Spatial Dominion seemed to try to move everything in its vicinity instead of teleporting from point A to point B like he was used to. Voidspace Mastery and Lumencloud Invigoration re-equipped while he used the former to make his bed with a flicker of normal teleportation. Spatial Dominion felt slightly sharper than it had before as it grated against Voidspace Mastery's spatial field. Herbert's phone appeared in his hand and he winced at the several notifications from multiple people trying to get ahold of him. Eli's face blanched as he read the missed call logs from Herbert's mom and someone named Maeve who had called and texted after he hadn't answered Herbert's mom. He ignored it. There were more important things he had to do. Besides, he had a hard time fitting into his own family sometimes let alone a family that wasn’t even his. Multiple notifications from a group chat called 3Delve AU talking about meeting at the gym tomorrow at 6 AM before practice. Eli frowned while he read the chat history where these people talked about 'delving' different dungeons — system made and ones ran by people with domain powers — and literally killing the System spawned monsters as a sport. "These people are fucking barbaric." Eli read amazed at the boasts thrown back and forth about the various ways they maimed or killed these monsters. Or sys-spawn, he supposed he would have to try to fit in. "What's that?" "Have you read the group chat for 3Delve AU?" "Yeah while you were sleeping. I also looked up what the Tri-Delve even is and everything else about it. I figured out what classes my counterpart Romulus is taking too," Roman said while he continued to work on the gauntlet, that glowed with power. "Intro to Engineering, Enchanting and Powertech, and an English class and Calculus." "Oh." Those were all basically what Roman probably would’ve wanted to take, anyway. "What classes are you, or well, the other you in?" "Let me find out," Eli sighed while he navigated to the school app with a series of clicks. Five boxes with generic backgrounds glowed with the class names written across the top. "English, Calculus, Intro to Meteormancy, Intro to Hydromancy, and Power Crafting I." "Jesus Christ, that's intense," Roman chuckled while he shook his head. "Well, we have to fit in if we have any hope of getting back. Should probably get to studying then.” "Really?" Eli crossed his arms while he stared at his friend. "Have you gone insane? We need to try and find a way back home, not study and do homework." "Sure, if you don't want to flunk out in a world with an economy and workforce, literally made up of powers that seem to require the power, education, and different levels of licensing to use those powers professionally. Who knows how we'll be here?" "I guess." "We're so far behind, too. Most people seem to unlock their system from when they're ten to fifteen and we just got ours literally a month ago." "I got it, Roman." Eli teleported over to his desk where he started going over his classes in more detail. Within minutes of staring at class schedules that blocked out most of his upcoming three weeks until finals, multiple assignments due throughout including one in two days on Monday, and even discussion posts that read like people had been kidnapped and forced to type away in a forum. A headache pulsed at the base of his spine even with Lumencloud Invigoration and Body of Light working together to soothe it. Maybe he should work on the interesting classes first... Eli looked over the course history for Power Crafting I and grinned at the essay and assignment due Wednesday. While he normally hated writing essays, this one was fascinating and he would’ve done the research, regardless. He was supposed to write about the history of the System from its appearance in and the rise of power classifications deployed during the Great Power Wars that spanned two decades until 19XX5. And to design the ideal power set for an electrician, welder, and auotomotive mechanic starting off with a base evo-0 power called Charge. It was described as: 'a basic power that allows the user to charge up any kind of energy and release it.' A note pinned to the assignment said that everyone will have to present for one of their professions and defend their choices and reasoning. Whoever does the best would win the Charge ability. He started writing notes about each with the stipulation that, depending on how the user changed their approach of using the power it could apply to each profession. For an electrician, drawing in and charging energy would help in developing a sense for electricity, protect from any ill effects, and hopefully evolve into something more electric based. Depending on new power options, in an ideal situation, they'd be able to get something to either boost their body's protection, help them control tech, or even metal for some additional capabilities. A welder would want to focus on heat in general, but would benefit greatly from new power options revolving the control of metal or fire. Otherwise, Charge would be too flimsy. Of course, if the user focused on precision and recycling heat they'd be able to cut and weld pieces of metal together the more they practiced. Eli left this section a bit more bare to focus more on the last. Charge was also tricky for an automotive mechanic, but he felt like it was a bit of a trick question. The obvious choice was to focus on the battery since Eli learned that nearly all batteries had a small enchantment to allow them to operate off of powers for a limited amount of time. There'd be a doubled synergy that would allow the... no. Eli frowned as he cut the whole paragraph and shoved it into a comment highlighted over the waiting 'Mechanic' header. His cursor blinked mockingly at him while he tried to think how Charge would help. It said any kind of energy, so there were quite a few options. He started typing again. Charge would initially be helpful for gathering energy to jumpstart the car's battery, to drain the battery or the fuel tank for the mechanic's own energy stores at first. As they get more accustomed to the power, they should take care to focus on transferring energy and their general energy sense. This would allow them to use any energy they gather into themselves or release into the car to help them sense and diagnose any problems they wouldn't be able to see normally. Finally, with a focus on the transference of energy, they'd be able to exchange the types of energy they could work with since they'd need electrical, thermal, kinetic, and possibly more. Using multiple energy types would also help them learn how to manipulate Charge so they could mend more issues with ease. With all of these uses, the mechanic would be primed for a more customized evolution that'd help them excel whether they evolved it or used it to branch off into more niche specializations or to later merge them into a more optimized power. Eli gnawed on his lip while he re-read over what he had. They kind of applied to each other. The welder would want the most specialized and narrow application, but really they built off of each other. Any one version of the Charge power would work for the others. He glanced at his status with new eyes while he wondered what uses he had for his different powers. So far, he'd been hopping from whatever option was the best at the time and would help him fill in the gaps he had, but he already had those gaps filled now. Body of Light had been a huge, but risky opportunity... So he pushed to always have light and to further boost his body with Dynamic Vitality and then Lumengust. Now Lumencloud Invigoration was one of his greatest assets and would only continue to improve after he merged it with Augmentative Elemental Absorption. In fact, he knew that Body of Light was the only reason he won against Jack, Daniels, Sandra, and Dave at all. Every one of them had powers at higher tiers than he did, but he won in the end, probably because of a few reasons. He felt like a huge part of it was that Body of Light allowed him to boost each one of his powers in a very real, physical way. Not to mention that he had a variety of powers that let him adapt to the situation and to recover from any injuries or mistakes he made. Rapid Recovery at the time had kept him fresh even as he injured them and wore them out. Voidspace Mastery let him turn the environment into a weapon while giving him unmatched mobility and range. Sure, individually, each power had been weak. But it was the use and purpose he gave each power that gave him the edge that allowed him to win. What other purposes did he want to fulfill now that he didn't have Dave and Sandra, his family, or his past life looming over him? Time slipped away from him while he read his status and pondered the different ways he could use each power. To adapt and grow. All he knew was that he didn't want to be as focused and narrow as the people in this dimension liked their builds to be. The System gave them the freedom and ability to not only become, but overcome. Why waste that to be another fantastic electrician, welder, mechanic, or for any other career? Elias Newton only wanted to be himself and once he figured out dimensional travel? He'd be able to do that and so much more. [Stats: Body: Light (Photon Shot) Mind: None Will: None ] [Equipped Power List: Slot One -- Voidspace Mastery Ev. 1/Lv. 8 Slot Two -- Lumencloud Invigoration Ev. 0/Lv. 5 (Maxed) Slot Three -- Spatial Dominion Ev. 0/Lv. 1 ] [Unequipped Powers: Restoration Ev. 2/Lv. 2 Imbue Ev. 0/Lv.5 (Maxed) Augmentative Elemental Absorption Ev. 0/Lv. 5 (Maxed) ]