How much would you give to be able to do, to have, to hold, to feel real life magical power ? In his wildest fantasies, while dozing off to sleep after a late night of video games, Maik Alphonse Daley has asked himself just such a question, as many youths are want to do. Little does he know that he might find such an answer to that very question, IF hes strong enough.
When sudden, massive and simultaneous failure of most technology mixed with fantastic new abilities and options that cause as many problems as they fix drive the world mad, it becomes a chaotic bid for survival as people, things that used to be people and still more things that used to be mundane parts of everyday life discover that they can gain fantastical power by killing each other.
Maik has his sense of morality, honor, responsibility and loyalty all tested time and again just to survive in this new world order, not to mention coping with a personal modification choice he made when he was first presented with his very own Stat sheet.
Maik Alphonse Daley was just a high school student working though a Calculus equation in Applied mathematics class when it happened.
That morning was just like any other for this odd, late stage teenager. He woke early, 5AM early, so as to have the time for a packed morning routine. First Hydration, followed by grooming. Then came horse stance and deep breathing practice while practicing Qigong. This was followed by a hodgepodge combination of stretching and calisthenics.
It being leg day meant that he strapped on the weighted vest and ankle weights before doing 2 sets of reps of each of the leg muscle groups. Only after putting the weighted clothing away did the teen move on to focusing on his own personal and home made version of cultivation. Maik Could usually manage between 30 and 45 minutes of this before he had to stop.
A quick shower to freshen up was followed by the teen rousing their siblings, letting them know that the bath room was open and that they only had another 30 minutes before the bus would arrive.
Some clean clothes to look presentable and it was time for breakfast. being the eldest of 4 boys it was his job to wake them and get them going to get ready for school. So after making sure they all were actually brushing their teeth Maik made his way to the kitchen to see about breakfast. Unload the dishwasher, get out the bowls, spoons, mild and cereal.
His father was a small business owner and mother the secretary of the same business so you would think they were firmly in the middle income bracket but one look at the crumpled cereal box from 'Save A Lot' sitting on a table that was purchased from a yard sail before Maik's parents had gotten married gave a different impression.
The teenager didn't mind though. After all, there were certainly those who had to settle for far less. So what if his parents were more concerned with their business and personal hobbies rather than tending to the daily well being of their children. It was hard to provide for a family of 6 and they had Maik to help take care of the other 3. This had, more or less been the teen job his whole life and it was full time.
This youth had recently turned 18 though and as soon as they graduated they would finally be able to take some control of their life. So Maik was a little giddy with anticipation on the bus ride to school, though none of his friends rode the same bus as him.
Home room was where the teen met a couple of their friends and Maik greeted with with a smile, just like every other school day. There were only 7 people whom Maik would refer to as a friend and 2 of them shared home room with him, Elisha and James.
Elisha was a perky blond with big teeth but a brilliant smile, gentle yet knowing eyes and a good work ethic, she was going to do great in collage with her upbeat attitude and other aforementioned qualities.
James was just cool, like the classic cool guy and everyone should have at least one friend like him. A reserve for the foot ball team, James was definitely buff football jock material and looked every bit the part with his short dark brown hair, bright blue piercing eyes and strong jaw line. His only problem, some say, though never to his face, was that he was short, only 5' 4” but he never let it bother him and just worked at being his best self.
They chatted about this and that, cracking jokes about the latest funny shorts being shared with each other on the group chat. At some point James brought up a pool party he was planing on having in a couple weekends. "Its the last parts before graduation man. You should totally ditch day care duties and come."
Maik smiles and give a noncommittal answer. "I see what I can do." But Maik knew that they wouldn't be able to go. His parents didn't allow him to go anywhere they weren't in control. They parted ways all too soon and Maik was off to Applied mathematics, a class that He shared with 2 other friends, Jose and Skip.
Jose was true Spanish, like from Spain, with lightly wavy short black hair, big eyes and over all rugged features. He was quite self confident and self assured. Semi popular with the ladies due more to his looks rather than his smooth, sometimes stumbling speech while excited, Jose was a classic hormonal teen in his prime but still managed enough focus to make it to the advanced classes.
Skip. Ohhhh Skip you beautiful soul. Ginger as the day is long and a dark sense of humor just as prevalent, with his bright almost orange hair, creamy white skin and freckles for days. But unlike Jose skip was.... Cute Like the boy was holding out, praying for a beard because that's about the only way he was ever going to look rugged like Jose, forever the picture of boyish charm. The 3 didn't have much time to talk though as the teacher was of the no nonsense sort and as soon as the second bell rang they were diving into the lesson.
23 minutes after that second bell Maik was nose deep in a calculus equation when a sudden wave of nausea and disorientation struck the teen.
Not that he had ever personally partaken, aside from one experimental night with his cousin, but from what Maik had read he would have to describe the sensation as being stoned out of his mind and more than a little drunk at the same time.
His whole body tingled in a way that made him so intimately aware of myself that Maik could start counting my bones and blood vessels. The teen flew down into his lungs with every breath, swam with the flow of blood through the heart with every beat, gurgled in the stomach, still digesting some of breakfast, dove through the intestines with them doing more of the same, pumped with each kidney to filter the blood and on and on.
Maik even experienced organs that he didn't even know the names of churning away with their specific functions. Heck the teen could swear they could even feel their brain in that moment. Slumped over onto the desk and trying desperately to cope with the huge expansion of personal awareness, Maik just managed to notice the over head lights flicker and die.
Vaguely Maik heard the internal monologue of their analytical mind comment. "Well that can't be good." To which his creative mind promptly responded. "No shit Sherlock." The primal mind was just drooling on itself to the side "Uhhhhhhh."
Sending the usual quarries and commands to his nervous system to try and compensate for situations where motor functions were impeded didn't produce the expected results. The teen had smoked some herb and had a few drinks before, just never enough to make him.... Whatever this was. Instead Maik's vision flickered, went hazy, blacked out entirely and then slowly faded back into perfect clarity except now he had an honest to gods HUD's display.
His creative brain chimed in first. "W.T.F." Followed by the analytical "It would appear to be a stat sheet. One that clearly denotes our person." Maik's primal mind just growled at the offending thing blocking his view. "GURRRR !" Still, in the teens altered mental state thoughts were sluggish and unfocused, detached even, more so than usual at any rate.
Name : Maik Alphonse Daley
Species : Human - Race : Celtic / Germanic
Age :18
Gender : Male
Height : 190 centimeters
Weight : 78 Kilograms
Strength : 81
Flexibility : 89
Dexterity : 123
Endurance : 80
Durability : 76
Intelligence : 142
Smarts : 164
Wisdom : 126
Perception : 42 / 137
Charisma : 109
Chi : 171
aura : 165
Beyond that was an absurd list of skills which seemed to go on forever, typing, running, jumping, swimming, walking, breathing ? On and on it went and was just too much for the teen addled mind to take in at that moment. Besides, it looked as though Maik might have the ability to modify the stat sheet, or at least what was displayed.
According to the pop up that appeared when he focused on the blinking icon at the top of the stat sheet any way. One monumental effort, and a mental click later, allowed the teen to start experimenting with altering their stat sheet just so.
Internally, the various aspects of Maik's collective consciousness contemplated, Their Analytical mind going first. "Interesting." His Creative mind throwing its 2 cents in like a flash bangs. "Oooooo lets play with everything and see what we can really do." While the Primal mind just expressed a strong desire for Bigger endowment. Though, strangely the teens Body politic wasn't having much of an opinion as it just writhed from the overload to Maik's system.
Sense their Analytical mind usually took the lead when investigating the uncertain Maik started with his name and was surprised when they found that it could be changed. From there his Creative mind swiftly ran past the analytical mind and took over control of the inspection, as per usual.
"Why is it in metric ?"
Metaphorically shaking its head, their Analytical mind went to examine the attributes.
Strength, Raw physical power. “81 ?” Some quick calculation later allowed Analytical to deduced that 78 times 2.2 was about the weight, in pounds, of the teens max overhead press at 180 Lbs so the 81 was essentially how many Kilograms he could lift over his head. Or so Maik assumed while in such an altered mental state.
Given that some of his other stats were significantly higher Maik got the impression that he might be a bit lacking in the muscle department.
Flexibility was obviously how limber and stretchy the teen was while Dexterity seemed to be the measure of my fine motor skills.
"I guess all that knife throwing practice paid off."
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Endurance, it seems was just the amount of metaphorical gas he had in the tank to perform physical activities and fight off pathogens.
Durability was interesting. An over all stat that quantified how well the teen could resist damage, factors like bone density skin hardness, tolerance to hot or cold and how well his blood could clot wounds to prevent bleeding.
Intelligence was the shear amount of Information that could be processed and stored while smarts was how well one could make connections between known information and extrapolate conclusions.
Wisdom, it seemed, quantified a combination of will power, survival instinct and emotional intelligence.
Maik ran into a hiccup with perception sense there were 2 values listed and it took some effort to focus on the second value long enough to realize that it represented the teens perception with their glasses on while the former was without glasses. "Ouch."
Charisma was more about communication than anything else as it seemed to govern how clear body language was, how smooth ones tone or voice and how charming the facial features, all aspects of being able to better communicate without words alone.
Chi, of course, was new, very new. This was a measure of much bio energy one had and could be used in seemingly limitless applications, from augmenting one of the other attributes to effecting the world around ones self.
Their Analytical mind postulates. "Phenomenal. The shear diversity of application is going to open whole worlds of possibility to us." While his Creative mind started playing music in their mind space. "Can we go back ? This is the moment. Tonight is the night. Well fight till its over. So we put our hands up, like the ceiling cant hold us, like the ceiling cant hold us." Primal was just emanating Hunger & lust for power.
Lastly there was Aura and it seemed to be the measure of ones spiritual footprint upon the physical world and aided in manipulating Chi as well as project it beyond ones physical person.
Creative mind was giddy and waiting for Analytical to finish before blurting out. "Everything's changeable, including our species and race. OMG. O.M.G. Oh My God, what do we want to be ? I want to be an elf princess." Analytical mind firmly bitch slapped Creative at that point. "Focus. There are likely down sides to changing our species. Still we should check to see if we can preview the results."
Primal bit down on Analytical's metaphorical leg and Creative dog piled on to try and override Analytical's will in what changes would be made to Make's stat sheet. It was more of a bar brawl than a fight given Make's altered state of mind.
Eventually, his collective conscious got around to previewing the different changes that could be made, starting with race. They were ALL there. Half-ling, Gnome, dwarf, human, elf, goblin, Orc, troll, giant, various animal like people that ranged from just a few animal like features such as animal ears, claws and tail to full on furries and more. Though many were grayed out and Maik couldn't quite make out any details.
Creative Complained. "Ohh you tease. Tempting me with the unknown." Primal quickly lost interest sense there was still more than enough options. "Move on." While Analytical mumbled from the bottom of the mental pile. "There could be conditions required to become those races which we simply do not meet."
Upon previewing the various options though, it was discovered that there just wasn't all that much difference between the different species aside from some variation in skin pigmentation and certain abilities. For example both orcs and goblins had the ability of photosynthesis, "Seems they are actually plant people." while trolls had a regeneration factor like that of lizards which allowed them to regrow limbs. Dwarfs gained a bonus to endurance and durability but a minus in flexibility.
Each race, other than human, had similar advantages and disadvantages though none actually had a higher life span as far as Maik could tell, otherwise the elf would have been a no brainer.
The teen was similarly not interested in having fur, it was bad enough when flees invaded his dogs fur and he could not fathom what it would be like to have that happen to him, nope. So Maik remained human, though this left them with a lot of alteration points. Maik liked their name, height was good, age was good, the teen was proud of their lineage and the stats were fair, except for perception.
From the bottom of the mental pile Analytical tried to suggest that they improve perceptions when creative shouts over him. "Holy crap we can even change our gender. We can totally become an elf princess. EEEEE." Primal wasn't so enthusiastic about that idea. "Not surrendering penis."
Maik's collective conscious wound up toying with the idea of changing it, focusing on the option just to see what I would look like but sense they hadn't used any of the alteration points a total of 3 options were available, Male, Female and hermaphrodite. Maik just had to see, selecting the option for preview showed a version of their self that.... was kinda hot.
They fiddled with the setting. Creative added the vagina, small breasts and altered body hair. Primal retained the manhood and preserved what upper body strength they already had. Analytical focused on fixing Perception by removing the need they had for glasses.
The end result was.... passable as masculine, in the right light and with the right clothes. Small yet perky breasts with wide birthing hips but even wider shoulders. The really interesting thing was that these setting opened up a new race option for the teen. Not just any race option though. Apparently their were tiers to these things and all of the race or species options available to Maik before this had been something called Tier 3. This new option however was a Tier 5 and called Lilin.
Creative was impressed. "Ooooo. This might actually be even better then an elf princess, given the race evolution is grants us later." While primal grunted. "Acceptable." But Analytical had to interject. "Cute, but quite impractical. Its a nice fantasy but.." The other 2 promptly silenced Analytical.
Maik would need to hit the gym more often to put on just the right amount of muscle to finish the look but damn..... Movement out of the corner of the eye and outside the edge of their stat sheet drew them back to the present followed by the voice of a class mate who had started talking. “Hay... does anybody know what happened to the lights ?" Maik felt that he was quickly running out of time and still needed to know what the other prompts meant.
Focusing back on the stat sheet they found them self back at the home screen, the Creative mind having selected accept on the changes while their Analytical mind was distracted. Analytical gave Creative the side eye before shrugging and then recalled the poor perception stat had at least been addressed, so all in all it was an acceptable outcome.
Maik did not feel so good. His body was sluggish and it felt as though he had the flue coming on. "Have we made a terrible mistake ?" Maik's head was still foggy and he tried shaking it to clear it but to no avail. There were others stirring as well now, including the teacher. Someone to the teens right bemoaned “My phones not working.” followed soon after by someone behind him. “Mines not working either.”
Absently the teen reached for his own device, fumbling with the button, pressing it several times and then pressing and holding it. Nothing. Dead as a door nail. Maik's voice was horse for some reason as he expressed himself with a grunted whisper. “Shiiiit.”
More and more people were expressing similar exclamations around the room with some people looking like they were doing far worse then the teen was but just as many looking as though they were fairing better. Maik Pushed himself up from the seat only to suddenly feel a cramping pain in his pelvis as his testicles tried to retract up into his body and Maik sat right back down.
"What ?" "Ohhh right, our balls were internal in the preview." There was a slowly building pain like Maik's nuts were starting to be squeezed. "I am beginning to suspect that this transformation with neither be instantaneous nor painless." Still he remained seated despite the dizziness Maik was also feeling from his foggy brain. The teen managed not to fall out of his seat and onto the floor.
One deep breath later and he made another attempt at making a more focused connection between my mind and nervous system by trying to cycle Chi, just as the teen had been doing while practicing Qigong for years now.
That's when a purple bar, which was only about 10% full, flashed into existance at the bottom left corner of Maik's vision and he felt energy, NO Chi flowing through him, at least it felt like Chi. Stronger and greater then ever before in his life but definitely Chi. Power, pure and raw phenomenal power coursed through the teens body.... And it hurt. It hurt like when Maik's little brother had gotten a flash light taser for his birthday a couple years back then tested it on him. “HHURRRNnnnn”
Maik went right back down into his seat in a cold sweat and shaking as he focused on nothing but directing the energy flow through the proper pathways. It hurt. Everywhere the energy went hurt but Maik managed to direct its flow thought the basic path first.
Up the spine to the crown chakra, down through the nasal cavity, further into the esophagus, past to fill the lungs while Maik inhaled. From there the energy seeped down into the kidneys, down Maik's sides and into the pelvis where the energies swirled inside the root chakra for a moment before swirling toward the tail bone and back up the spin. Again this was just as he had practiced with his Qigong every morning for years now.
Absently the teen was aware that other people in the room were making various noises of pain while he focused of the Chi flow, giving it the instruction to heal, repair and saturate. The purple bar quickly dipped down, at first but ultimately started refilling after about 15 minutes.
For the next 20 minutes after that all there was was deep breathing and Chi flow. In and out. Up and down. The longer this process went on the more Chi radiated out from the path that Maik was directing the main flow until the whole the the teens being was saturated with the stuff.
At this point Maik had a better grip on the enhanced levels of Chi which he now seemed to have, though on inspection the Chi bar was now only at 21%. Maik was going to need to be careful as he could really hurt himself with the kind of power It seemed he would have once the bar was full.
Letting the world back in the teen saw some people laying down and being tended to by others wile other still were slumped over at their desks much like Maik had been. The teen forced himself up to straiten their spine and sit upright, never releasing focus on his Chi flow. The lights were also on, Bonus.
Maik caught Jose's eye and saw that he was tending to Skip and a couple of the girls from their class, all of whom had a cold sweat and looked as though they were in the early stages of fever. Frankly Maik wasn't actually doing much better but so long as he kept the Chi flowing through his channels at the current levels he seemed to be functional.
Slowly, carefully, Maik got up and made his way over to his friend before kneeling down. “I was kind of out of it for a bit there. Any news on what is going on.”
Jose just shook his head before wiping the sweat from his brow. “None of the cell phones work but I hear old analog land line phones still do. Some dean got the generator running and I heard that there is an old timey radio receiving broadcasts of emergency messages but things are at a stand still and I haven't heard anything about medical help coming for our friends.”
Jose's worried gaze shifts back to the people on the floor who were wrapped up in whatever could be gathered for them. One of the girls actually had a blanket while the others girls had over shirts and back packs laid on top of them. Skip only had back packs on him. Maik could smell food in the room and looking around he observed cafeteria trays, suddenly realizing that he was pretty hungry.
Jose chuckled. “Hehh. You'll have to wait for the next food run. They have cooks working in the cafeteria but its probably going to be a while before they get back around to our building for more food.”
Nodding, Maik decided to take a seat sense the increasing pain in his groin was making it irritating to stay on their feet. It was indeed a while before a dean would make his way back around to their class for another lunch run but before that happened several other people managed to rouse themselves up from their seats and most of the people who had passed out had woken up.
Maik was more than a little relived to see Skip awaken. "Were his eyes always such a vibrant green ?" "Pretty." "If you say so."
Maik was so happy and so eager for any distraction from his building fears and the mounting pain in their pelvis that he let Creative have some fun. Jokingly, Maik holds up 2 fingers and ask the ginger. “How many fingers James.”
Skip looks at Maik funny and scrunches up his face. “2 ? And my names not James Maik, its Skip.”
Maik looks at Jose in mock horror only to exclaim. “This ones even worse then the others, he cant count and hes messed up his name.”
Jose tries to look at his friend sternly as though he had done something wrong, he really does but winds up smiling and turning away while shaking his head. Skip, for his part, had been looking at the two of them uncertainly until then. He does look at Maik sternly after Jose's reaction. The teen gave the ginger a pat on the shoulder. “Welcome back buddy. Glad to see your okay.”
Skip smiled a strained smile and started moving to sit up. Analytical forgot to put a cap on Creative so the next thing Maik blurted out was. “So what changes did you make to your stat sheet ?”
A sudden and deathly quite swept over the room that caused what ever response Skip was about to give to die in his throat. For a moment Maik was worried that all eyes would be fixated on him but a quick glance around revealed that most people were glancing around at each other. “Awkward....” Analytical clamped a muzzle down on Creative before that aspect made thing even more awkward.
This was the beginning of how everything changed for one Maik Alphonse Daley.