Jake’s day started like any other high schooler in suburban America.
Get out of bed, shower, brush teeth, comb hair, get dressed, make coffee, eat breakfast, hop in the car, drive to school. A normal Friday morning.
The school year was coming to a close and as seniors, most of his grade had already checked out. all mentally preparing themselves to be thrust into the competitive job market or higher education.
The teachers realized that most of their students were mentally done with high school and began preparing for the end-of-year exams and wrapping up the year's syllabus.
Jake wasn't particularly handsome or popular at school, he was just a typical 6 ft tall, brown-haired blue-eyed dude. Not being popular didn't mean he had no friends though, just that he had no close friends.
The day flew by and before Jake knew it the final bell was ringing.
Jake waded through his bustling schoolmates as they talked about weekend plans and shared jokes before pushing open a side door that led to the school's student parking lot.
After walking to his car jake fumbled around with the door in frustration. Eventually, with a cracking sound that was not entitirely unusual for a car of its age, he was able to force the door open and bend down into the drivers seat slamming the door behind himself.
He stuck the key into the ignition and gave it a turn.
"Ugg, it's gonna be one of those days," Thought Jake as he tried to start his car a second time.
Trying a few more times with no success Jake was just about to get out of his car and check for anything obviously out of place under the hood, before inevitably calling AAA for the third time this month, when he felt a small pinprick of pain from the back of his head.
A few moments later the pain began to spread, first slowly but then with more intensity for about a minute before fading almost entirely.
Blinking the lingering feeling of pain out of his eyes, Jake observed the peculiar sight of numerous students all clutching their heads outside his vehicle.
Before having any time to ponder any further, Jake's vision was suddenly covered by a grey semi-transparent box.
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HELLO, OTHERWORLDERS!
You may refer to me as SYS, I am an extraterrestrial A.I. that was given the task 1.85 billion years ago to introduce other races to their new normal when they reach the cusp of invoking New Age Protocol 6. Simply put when a race dominates their planet effortlessly for too long a new age is invoked to test if that race has the capability of defending their planet in the event they encountered and angered a hostile otherworldly entity.
Often the answer to that question is FALSE. Therefore in exchange for the potential power to protect your planet, we do you the service of angering your nearest hostile extraterrestrial enemy for you to test your newly acquired powers on! Aren’t we just the greatest? In seriousness, however, the deaths of both your race and the enemy race provide us enough energy to repeat this cycle endlessly on other planets.
As part of this protocol chemically induced explosions have been suppressed on your planet, this means that all primitive firearms and combustion-powered vehicles will cease to function.
Because initial estimates predict your race to be class POWERLESS, every HUMAN will be given the chance to receive an ability, HOWEVER, do not let this fool you, HUMANS are not the only ones who can acquire abilities, animals on your planet have a significant natural advantage in that they can develop their own heretical abilities, and the hostile entities from other galaxies you face will most certainly have abilities of their own!
In order to fairly distribute abilities while following the natural order the number of abilities you receive and which abilities you receive will be determined entirely by luck! It is possible to receive as many as 10 abilities and as little as 0, however, the chance to receive each subsequent additional ability is exponentially decreased.
Click below to begin ability randomization, it is estimated you have approximately 1 hour before the first enemy’s arrival.
RANDOMIZE
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Jake sat for a moment dumbfounded by the screen in front of his face.
His confusion didn’t last long however before the logical part of his brain kicked in and he began to consider the screen in front of him.
"Well, it could be some sort of elaborate prank…" Jake considered. However, all thought on the topic was soon dismissed when Jake considered the full ramifications of each possibility.
"If it's a prank I'll likely hit this button and nothing will happen, but if it's not then hitting this button will give me abilities that will increase my chances of survival significantly." After having this thought Jake decisively hit the “Randomize'' button at the bottom of the screen.
The second that Jake hit the button his entire arm lit up in a brilliant silver light.
Another screen also appeared before him.
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Number Of Abilities
1: Pass 1/2
2: Pass ½^2
3: Pass ½^3
4: Pass ½^4
5: Pass ½^5
6: Fail ½^6
Total abilities: 5
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Jake was pleased by his above-average result. Five abilities when each ability was much harder to get than the last should give him a significant advantage over whatever monsters he would face in the future, especially if those monsters were other humans.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
A few moments later the silver glowing light surrounding Jake’s right arm began to fade from view revealing five glowing symbols etched across the top.
Each symbol gave him a distinct feeling and glowed a different color.
The first glowed bright purple and gave off a feeling of unending raw arcane power. The second was in stark comparison to the first, it glowed a sickly green and gave off a greedy impression. The third was a dull gray and just felt… empty. The fourth shifted across a spectrum of colors like a dull rainbow, it felt to Jake almost... obedient? It was by far the weirdest feeling. The fifth and final symbol was a soothing but powerful green and felt as if it was the seed of something greater.
A moment later next to each symbol another glowing grey screen appeared with a description next to each symbol.
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[https://imgur.com/a/XRHTnqz][https://i.imgur.com/8O8encg.png]
Enchanting (Programmatic): - Upgrade Points:0
Allows the wielder to enchant objects
(Programmatic): One of the most powerful modifiers for the enchanting ability, if you can think and type it out you can do it. When enchanting an item a holographic window and keyboard will appear before the wielder, the wielder can then program the specific effects, triggers, or other modifiers he/she wants onto the item. The programming language required is generally the one that makes or would make the most sense to the wielder.
[https://i.imgur.com/lDsn2rJ.png]
Beast ability Capture (Loot, Passive): - Upgrade points:0 - Ability Slots:0/2
When defeated, enemies have a chance to drop a beast rune that contains one of their abilities, when slotted the wielder can use this ability. Runes can be removed once per day.
(loot, passive): Nothing is required to enable the effects of this ability, enemies will drop modified loot because of this ability.
[https://i.imgur.com/KUv2ZqQ.png]
High Improvised Magic (Source): - Upgrade Points:0 - Sources:0/2
Give the wielder access and control of a small pool of pure elemental power.
(Source): Rather than being assigned randomly, the user can select an object representing an element to attune a pool. This selection is permanent, however, the object can be traded out for an object that represents the same element but differs in power at any time.
[https://i.imgur.com/Ho4CgvV.png]
Material Moulding (Intent): - Upgrade Points:0
Alter the shape, texture, makeup, or density of any material
(Intent): Exert mental force towards an end goal to use this ability.
[https://i.imgur.com/X9BoO4d.png]
Organic explosives (Elementally Susceptible): - Upgrade Points:0
When activated plants a quick-growing flower that fruits a single magical explosive, about equivalent to a hand grenade per day, at random the flower can grow extra shoots that will each produce an extra explosive per day.
(Elementally Susceptible): The grenades produced by this flower are highly susceptible to ambient elements, as such the explosive will take on the properties of elements in the surrounding area.
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The appearance of more gray screens and the glowing runes on his arm was enough confirmation for Jake that this was more than likely very real.
Jake was relatively sure that the symbols on his arm each represented an ability so he made sure to carefully read through all of the descriptions next to each symbol to fully grasp what his powerset was.
His mind began racing as he frantically thought through his next several steps.
After about a minute of thought, Jake had a pretty solid plan in mind. "Car battery for High Improvised Magic, then I'll head towards the woods. The treehouse should give me shelter and a good place to see what happens in an hour. I just need to get away from all these people, when the panic starts it will get dangerous here."
Jake ran through his plan one more time before springing into action.
Jake popped the hood of his car before climbing out, the door opening much easier from the inside. Once outside Jake could hear the noise of confused students all arguing over what was going on.
The students were contemplating all sorts of ideas, everything from a government conspiracy to an alien invasion.
Jake scoffed mentally, the screen had told them everything already, why would they be so confused when the answer was right in front of them?
Shaking away the thought, Jake opened up the hood of his car and began quickly detaching the battery of the vehicle. Thankfully this was not the first time jake had removed the battery with how often his car broke down.
With a thunk Jake placed the battery on the, now lowered, hood of his car. Well, this is the moment of truth I guess. Jake thought.
The screen that popped previously had indicated that he could choose the element of the energy pool that “high improvised magic” supplied by using an object that represented that element. Jake hoped that “represented” could be taken in a literal context, meaning the battery should give him a pool of elemental electric energy.
Jake stood for a moment thinking through how the process of adding the source might work.
Out of curiosity Jake reached out his hand and touched the surface of the battery, and a moment later he closed his eyes. Jake ran his finger up and down the sides and top of the battery feeling every inch and cranny before finally reaching the negative terminal.
For a moment Jake just stood touching the negative terminal of the battery unmoving.
Then suddenly the battery began to glow a shiny yellow before disappearing entirely.
"Well, that was surprisingly easy." Thought Jake, all it had taken was him imagining using the battery as a source and it had been consumed.
That's one order of business out of the way, Jake concluded. Going around to the passenger side backseat of his car Jake opened the door and quickly rifled through some bags of assorted books and other paper products before pulling out a small, half crushed, box of energy bars.
"I knew these would come in handy!" Jake was very pleased that his impulsive buy at the grocery store the day before had paid off in such a big way. After all, energy bars are a great source of quick light calories when you need them.
Putting down the box on top of his car Jake reached into the passenger seat to retrieve his school bag.
Jake started dumping out all of the folders, notebooks, binders, and sheets of now useless schoolwork into the back of his car before stuffing the energy bars into the backpack.
Taking one last look at his car, Jake turned away and began to walk casually to the back of the parking lot.
Jake took a moment to check the time on his phone. It appeared that he was making pretty good time, it was only 15 minutes after the sentient AI had announced the end of the world as he knew it and said that enemies would be arriving in about an hour.
Hopefully, he could keep it up.