Awareness returned to Jacob all at once. Like someone had flipped a switch in his head. He felt strange. Kind of like he had to pee, but the opposite. Opening his eyes and looking around he spotted Lisa sitting on the ground. Eating a sandwich while putting spoons into what looked like a plastic thermos.

“Am I interrupting something here?”

Lisa nonchalantly fed another spoon into the thermos before replying.

“Feeding my quiver, what does it look like?”

“Ah. Yes. Feeding your quiver, obviously.” Jacob deadpanned back.

“While you were blacked out I looked through my available items and ended up buying this this Fabricator-quiver. Along with this beauty.” lifting up a bulky crossbow with a green plastic sheen to it. About as long as his forearm and with what seemed like buttons on the side. Lisa smiled smugly as she showed her purchase off. Only fifteen points for the crossbow and ten for the quiver.”

“What the hell? A crossbow? Guns are cheaper than that!”

Lisa looked almost hurt for a moment before visibly shaking it off. “Oh ye of little faith. This beautiful thing is no mere crossbow. What do you take me for? Some kind of plebian? No, only finest auto-loading, ammo-cycling, stealthy killing machine for me!”

“Still. A crossbow? Why not a gun?”

“Well, it worked for Daryl in the walking dead. Plus, crossbows are awesome.”

“If we run into shambling zombies, well. Good on you I guess.”

“Not like you're the one to talk anyway. Mister 'ooh, I want to use all my points for questionable powers to fart lightning' ”

“.... Point conceded.”

“Also, what's up with the tats?”

“Tats? What ta- Woah.”

Lifting his arms in front of him he could see a silvery spiderweb pattern cover his hands, moving up his arms. It covered both sides and when he touched them it moved with his skin, without any awkwardness or resistance. It moved just like the skin did, feeling no different to his touch.

“God. My mom would lose her shit if she thought I had tattoos.”

“They look kind of cool though. Simplistic, yet stylish ya know?”

“..Thanks?”

“You're welcome, you tattooed bad-boy you.”

Jacob let out a forced laugh at the poor joke. Then opened up his interface.

“Lets see what changes have actually been made.”

Going to his acquired tab he selected the new addition and a window with text appeared.

'Basic Novice implants (locks other implants) (Kinetic and Cohesion dual focus)

Implants:

Transdimensional matrix in brain to help instinctively comprehend the strange forces that you can now manipulate.

Emitters in hands and arms to help create and shape the energies.

Converter in the ribs that uses the body's stored energy to draw power from ascendant dimensions.'

Looking at the mini-Jacob at the side of the screen the same implants were indicated there. Clicking his highlighted implants, he saw the replica of him walk to a lake. Putting his hand into the water and grip the liquid, lifting up a solid sphere of water. Jacob felt a strangely familiar sensation, reminiscent of flexing a muscle he never knew he had, only not.

Feeling another mental muscle tense up the sphere lifted up from his hand. Floating in the air, it started moving around in circles. Moving faster and faster. Feeling the first mental muscle join the second one the sphere flattened out and started spinning. Now the water looked like a vortex or maybe a frisbee as it hung in the air. Feeling a mental push, he saw the disc shoot off and impact a crash-test-dummy, knocking it down and a meter backwards.

The image panned back to nudist Jacob who met his eyes.

“This has been a basic demonstration of you new Novice implants. The sensations you were feeling were your cohesion and kinetic nodes respectively activating. The Gibborim have graciously imprinted new instincts into your primitive mind. Hopefully this make your flailing, as you try to master forces beyond your comprehension, less pathetic. Try to learn and survive, long enough to achieve something impressive with it.”

Jacob didn't know exactly what to think, as more instinctive knowledge unfolded in his mind. Like learning how to walk, in minutes, while being a fish. It was an overwhelming sensation and when he tried to consciously analyze what it was he just got confused.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Ending endless thoughts of how. He instead focused on what. With a mental exertion he shaped his will. Feeling the forces fall into place he closed his left hand. Feeling it grip something hard and smooth.

Looking at his hand he could see nothing in it. It was a disorienting experience to clearly be able to feel something being there but otherwise being unable to register its prescence.

Putting more pressure on the object it resisted, until finally a sound, akin to shattering glass was heard and his hand closed around what felt like jagged shards. Digging into his hand, leaving small but bloody cuts behind. Letting out a grunt of pain and surprise he ceased the flow of energy. Soon after the shards digging into his flesh disappeared.

“What the fuck was that? Are you bleeding? What happened?” A surprised and worried Lisa shouted out in rapid succession.

“It's fine. Nothing to worry about. I was just being stupid trying out the implants”

Taking calming breaths Lisa lowered her voice.

“You jerk. You almost gave me a heart-attack.”

“Sorry, but could you maybe get me some bandaids or something?”

“Oh shit, right. Stay right there.”

Darting off she soon came back with a towel which she threw at him.

“Keep pressure on the wound okay, I'm sure I've got a first aid kit here somewhere. Let me just dig it out.”

Obeying her order, Jacob just sat there, clutching a towel while going over in his head what he'd just done. He'd clearly created something. Or maybe rather, solidified something. And the object could take some force before breaking. He wondered exactly how hard he could make it and what more he could do.

Lisa returned into the room with a red bag, breaking him out of his thoughts.

“Okay, you're lucky I had this at home. Now remove that towel and let me see what we're working with here.”

Wincing with pain he removed the towel to reveal his bloody hand. His stomach lurched at the sight and he had to force himself to hold it out steadily.

Lisa eyed the hand critically, before pulling out some cotton pads and disinfectant.

“Okay, it doesn't seem that bad. Pretty shallow cuts from what I can tell. Lets get this cleaned up and wrapped in some bandage.”

She applied the disinfectant to the cotton pad and started cleaning the cuts. It stung as she touched and Jacob jerked his hand away.

“Oh suck it up you baby. This is your own fault, so deal with it.”

Grabbing his wrist she resumed her task and then finished up by gently wrapping it in bandage.

“There we go. Does the big boy want a lolipop?”

“Oh shut it you. How long was I out? When I was modified I mean.”

“Maybe a bit over half an hour. Leaving us a bit over two hours until that stupidly named mission begins.”

“Do you think we should go on it?”

“I don't know. It could be dangerous. Though from what we've seen, not going on it isn't quite safe either..”

Lisa had a sad look in her eyes as she said so.

“You're right. But that snake did say that it would be a relatively safe introductory mission. We might not get such a chance again. We could use those points to improve our odds of surviving. Or just for supplies.” Scratching his chin he continued. “I suspect that the local supermarket won't be stocking its shelves much longer”

Lisa hesitated before nodding.

“Plus, we find out more about what the hell is going on and what to expect from now on. It might be dangerous but.. I think I'm going to do it at least. You?”

“Yeah. Together?”

“Together.”

What followed was almost two hours of practicing and experimentation. They found out that the quiver turned whatever matter was put into it into bolts for the crossbow. Everything solid they tried seemed to work. At a bolt every two minutes, Lisa's and then Jacob's kitchen-drawers were rapidly emptied. Along with a statuette they broke apart. A few teacups netted them two porcelain bolts of dubious usefulness.

For practice they hung up a piece of paper on the toilet door with circles drawn on it as a target. They soon however changed to shooting stacks of books, when the first bolt punched straight through the door and embedded itself into the bathroom wall.

Jacobs training was a little different. As his first attempt to demonstrate it to Lisa was solidifying air into a ball and then throwing it at her. If it reached her however she never felt it. It after all still only had the mass of air no matter how solid it was. Swapping to other material such as water was more effective.

With twenty minutes left until the obviously backronymed 'O.D.D U.N.C.L.E.' began they heard beeps from their wrists. Their arms snapped up in front of them unconsciously and the interface opened up. Showing a cute cartoon snake holding a basked of cookie,s that they somehow could sense smelled delicious.

“Hello ascenders of Stockholm! It is your favorite Gibborim Loki. With great sadness I can confirm that there are fewer of you now than when I last addressed you. Some of you have been busy busy indeed, working on their path to ascendancy!”

The snake winked and with an unnaturally large smile, continued.

“While many of you and even other Gibborim, would frown upon such behavior. Would encourage you to cooperate, to increase your chances and have a more stable enviroment to live in. I say Pffffffft” Chibi-Loki blew raspberries before cheerfully continuing.

“I however am of the opinion, that these are entrepreneurs with a real go-getter attitude! Who figured out that lesser beings are walking pointbags! All their unspent points, plus a fraction of their spent ones, just up for grabs for those willing to take them. And that's not even counting their possessions.”

Chuckling to itself the snake continued like it'd just heard a great joke.

“And oh man, you've given me plenty of entertainment already! Elvira, baby. I'm your greatest fan. Dropping that anvil on the guy? Man. That earned you like ten Loki-favor!”

Spending a long moment just writhing around in laughter, the snake wiped a tear away with his tail.

“Ooooh boy. I'm getting sidetracked here, your first mission is about to begin! I'm hoping for a great turnout here. I'm really looking forwards to showing off to that stuck up Ullr that my playthi- I mean subjects are much cooler than his. The shuttles are on their way now and should land shortly. You can find them either by following the indicator on your interface. Or by just heading to the giant pillars of light stabbing into the sky. Your choice really. Well. This has been fun. But I've got popcorn to make and you've got entertaining to do. So toodles! And if you liked this broadcast then remember to Like and Subscribe! You know what, I'll just do it for you.”

With that the Gibborim slithered off the screen, dragging two buttons in behind him by a rope. Against their will Jacob and Lisa's hands moved, to first click the left one that said 'Like' and then the second one which was 'Subscribe'

With a slack-jawed expression they both started to associate with Loki, they looked at each other.

“We're all going to die, aren't we?”

“Yeah....”

“Fuck.”

“Well we sh-”

Jacobs words were drowned out by a roar as through the window they saw a large craft slam down onto the street, just outside the building. As the roar of the engines died down it was replaced with another sound. The sound of a too cheerful voice to a electronic beat.

“Is that Caramelldansen?”