"Terrance, I'm going to send in another object, a glass sphere. I want you to think about turning it into steel," Dr. Hart said through the speaker.

The table went through the same process as before, and then there was a glass ball sitting there. Terrance tried to think about the glass ball.

'What exactly do I remember about glass? It has an amorphous atomic structure, and it's usually formed from silica. Now what do I know about steel? I know steel is an alloy that is mainly just iron, with a tiny amount of carbon. Iron's atomic number is 26. Carbon's atomic number is 6. Should be only up to around two percent carbon,' Terrance thought. He could feel something tingling.

'What else? This glass is transparent. Steel is opaque. I can feel like I'm almost there,' Terrance thought.

That's when Terrance felt something leave him, and he opened his eyes. The glass ball now had a metallic sheen to most of it.

"Excellent work Terrance. Initial inspection seems to reveal that the sphere was more transformed this time. I will analyze it and all the readings from while you activated your power. One more test now. This last time I'm not telling you what material it is, but I want you to see if you can change it into wood," Dr. Hard said through the speaker in the room.

Soon enough, Terrance was looking at something that looked like gelatin. Terrance reached out to touch it and it jiggled.

'My best guess is it is some kind of gelatin, which I believed is derived from collagen. I don't know much more than that this time.'

Terrance closed his eyes and continued thinking.

'What do I know about wood? It's not really just one substance. It’s an organic material made from dead plant cells that have a lot of cellulose and other stuff. I know organic life requires nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen at least, but I don't know the ratios.'

Terrance felt the tingling again and tried to push it out this time, and he felt it leave slowly this time. He was feeling a bit more tired and opened his eyes and saw a disturbing conglomeration that looked like sawdust in Jell-O, along with other dark specks he couldn't identify.

"Okay, Terrance, I have some good data. Come out of the testing room for now. I need to let the machines crunch the data and analyze your creations."

Terrance complied and left the room, feeling a bit disappointed in himself. He had a superpower, but it didn't seem like it would come instantly. He suspected that the meager success he achieved was only due to his memories of basic chemical structures and physics. His power did not seem to just work like super strength or super speed would. The power activation was also more mentally taxing than he realized.

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He stood over by Tessa and she smiled at him reassuringly.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up. I'm getting sad vibes from you. You did great," Tessa whispered to him reassuringly.

Terrance just smiled back at her and nodded his head. Dr. Hart, or Elizabeth, as she had said to call her, was typing on a keyboard in front of a few different monitors. She seemed to be focusing intently. She switched to reading a few screens while scrolling through something quite fast. Terrance wondered what her power was, because even he couldn't make out the characters, much less read at the speed she seemed to be going, and he was knew he was a quick reader.

"Good news! I have preliminary findings," Dr. Hart announced.

"Your power seems to involve an advanced level of matter manipulation," Dr. Hart explained, her fingers dancing across the controls. "It's likely that your abilities extend far beyond simple transformations. We just need to help you understand and control them. The more simple chemical structures came much easier, while more complicated biological structures weren't correct."

"Wow," Terrance breathed, awestruck by the potential that lay within him.

"The best news is that it looks like your power is unlikely to go off accidentally. Could you feel when it was going to happen? The data shows a build up of a few different energy signatures," Dr. Hart said.

"Yes, I could feel it almost like a tingle." Terrance replied.

"That's encouraging. It's easier to train something you can feel. Now for the bad news." Dr. Hart said.

"What's the bad news?" Tessa asked.

"Well, Terrance's power seems to be able to handle those tasks if he could even attempt them, but Terrance got a power that is going to require a lot of study. I'm assuming you have a decent science background based on what info exists about you and how you performed. What did you think about when trying to use your power?"

"I thought about when I knew of the material's properties, like the elements involved in the substance for the steel, and tried to think of what elements and molecules were involved in wood,"

Terrance said.

"That makes sense. Well, you are likely going to have an easier time with things that are more simple from a molecular standpoint. You need to study the chemical structure of things to understand them. Do not make anything dangerous or radioactive. I will send a few messages through the relay to go back to Earth-255 to see if I can get some you some advice from anyone. I don't know anyone with your exact power, but I know some other people with knowledge-based powers. Unlike what you see in comic books, unless your body already does it, powers don't come with instincts. The stronger the power, the harder it is to control it or bring out its potential."

"Thanks for your help, Dr. Hart," Terrance said.

"I told you to call me Elizabeth. Besides, I think we might can be good friends, especially if you ever learn to make palladium and a few other things that I have trouble getting ahold of for building my tech," Elizabeth said while chuckling. "Anyway, you are going to study materials science and chemistry if you want to form a good basis for your knowledge. That's not my specialty, but you should be able to start with a textbook on the subject. The main thing for now is to feel when your power is activating and to prevent accidental activations."