Degen wanted more, the meager rewards didn't satisfy him. He ignored the man who was shouting how grateful he was, and he looked at his status screen. The entire "fight" took .4% of his mana. Given his regeneration, he might as well have been full. He dismissed the window, then he turned around and began running.

He jumped from one roof to another and eventually he stopped. He wasn't fast enough. Levitating himself took far too much mana, and wasn't particularly fast. He thought back to the assault and made a thin platform of mana. It was both invisible and solid. He dismissed that platform before creating another one at knee-height. He jumped on it, and it felt just like jumping on a rock, or from roof to roof. 

He ran off the roof he was standing on, and he created a platform every time he needed to take a step. He wasn't afraid of failure, he could always levitate himself to safety. He moved with ease, and he could even cross between places with massive gaps. He didn't have to switch from roof to roof, he could simply head in a straight line.

He moved for a while without finding a single quest. He wasn't deterred and kept looking, he knew that he'd find one eventually.

After a few minutes of searching, he found his next quest: an armed robbery.

Quest: Armed Robbery! There's an ongoing robbery and the perpetrators are heavily armed. Stop it

Reward: 8 Stat points

Bonus Rewards may appear based on the approach

Penalties may appear based on the approach

It was by far the largest number of stats he'd seen as a reward. It was also the most dangerous of the three quests he found. He wouldn't be completing it.

He wanted something big, but he wasn't stupid. If he chose to do this mission, there was a large chance of him dying or encountering some of the other vigilantes that safeguarded Gotham. He ran away as fast as possible and found himself in a deserted neighborhood.

"Do I need to do this?" Degen murmured to himself. He didn't need to rush his development, and he was fine as he was now. He didn't need to actively seek quests, he could just do the ones he encountered. If he were to get involved in a serious situation, he could cause casualties.

"No, no, I'm fine. I'll just do the small ones. I'll leave the bigger problems for the bigger fish." Degen decided after a little hesitation. What he was doing now was helping people, he wouldn't get involved in hostile situations, but he'd do what he could to get more stats by helping out with small incidents.

As he stood on the rooftop with the black mask on his face, he realized he was wearing the clothes he wore to school. He forgot to change out of his black buttoned-down shirt and black jeans. It wasn't a big problem, but someone who knew what he wore could easily tie him to his night-time activities.

He sighed before getting ready to run again. Just as he started moving, he heard a gunshot. It was loud; the shot was fired nearby. 

Quest: Homicide! A middle-aged man was just killed and the killer is on the run. Catch him!

Reward: 2 Stat points

Bonus Rewards may appear based on the approach and outcome

Penalties may appear based on the outcome

Stolen story; please report.

Degen immediately headed in the direction of the gunshot. He sprinted across his small platforms and found the body lying in an alley, sprawled on the ground. As the screen showed, it was a middle-aged man. The paunchy corpse had a hole in the middle of its forehead and wore a terrified expression. 

Degen looked around and saw no one. He immediately ran out of the alley and looked around. He saw a man in a black trenchcoat limping away slowly. There were a few drops of blood on the ground that led in his direction and Degen decided to run after the man.

Once he got near the man, he shouted, "You there! Stop!"

The man turned around and Degen could see his face. The man was old, he looked like he was in his late fifties or early sixties. He looked at Degen with a resigned expression and lifted his gun to his chin, pointing it upwards at his head. As he was about to pull the trigger, Degen grabbed the gun with a hand made of mana and wrenched it out of the older man's grasp.

He pulled the gun back to himself and stared at the man. He didn't point it at the man because the murderer had just tried to kill himself. Instead, he dropped it on the ground behind him.

"Why'd you kill him?" Degen asked. "Why'd you try to kill yourself?"

"Sonuvabitch- That son of a bitch raped my daughter. He got off free. She killed herself," the old man started passionately, but by the end, his voice was a barely audible whisper. "I gave him much better than he shoulda got. Shoulda been sent to prison. The people there woulda made his life hell, if you know anything about prison, you know that pedophiles and rapists are at the bottom of the food chain. Fucker was both."

Degen didn't have anything to say, but he tried anyway, "Was it what your daughter would've wanted?"

"No. She wanted him to suffer. She wanted him to die slowly. I couldn't do that for her. It's my only regret. She wasn't even 16, and she wanted that fucker to die. That's how my daughter felt! Now, what are you gonna do meta?"

Degen was silent as he turned around and picked up the gun with his bare hands. He faced the older man once more and launched a fist of mana towards the leg he was limping on. He heard an audible crack and the old man cry out in pain. He launched a second fist, which hit the man's other leg but with less force than the first. There was no crack, only a grunt of pain from the man who collapsed to the ground.

Degen walked back to the alley with the corpse and searched the body with his bare hands. He found a wallet in the chubby man's back pocket, a watch on his wrist, and a phone in his front pocket. He took the first 2 and levitated to the roof. On the roof, he heard sirens wailing and walked towards the place where he left the old man. 

He looked down as the old man talked to the officers and watched them handcuff him. One of the officers went towards the alley with the body and he saw one of them look upwards. The man's eyes met his, and he shouted at the other officers. Degen turned away before anything more could happen, and then he ran home.

----------------------------------------

When Degen got home he put the gold watch on top of his drawer and sat in his baby blue bed. He held the gun in his hand and looked at it closely. It was a revolver of some sort, the grip was made of leather and the gun was partly rusted. It was old, and Degen assumed it hadn't seen much use until recently. He hid the weapon in his bottom drawer under a folded pair of jeans.

He rested on his bed, and he found himself looking up at his bedroom ceiling. There was tightness in his chest, and his heart was pounding. He didn't know why he felt that way. He couldn't understand! The old man's story roused unfamiliar emotions within him, and they shouldn't have. He didn't know the man, he didn't know the daughter. He didn't know anything about what they went through! 

Trying his best to move on from the incident, Degen summoned the notifications he had previously ignored.

Success!

+2 Stat points

Bonus: Investigate the Homicide

Ability: Motive recieved 

Motive : Spend mana to investigate the motive behind a criminal's actions.

Bonus: Save the Killer

+5 to Control

+2 Stat points 

Bonus: They Turn and You're Gone

+3 to Deception

Penalty: Fingerprints

You left your fingerprints on the crime scene. There is a chance of them being discovered.

Degen looked at the screen with dull eyes and took off the black face-mask he was still wearing. He chose to put that in the bottom drawer as well. He was planning on taking a break.