Stefan looks around his body, he seems fine. He takes a deep breath then slowly gets off the bed. As he was walking towards the door he suddenly realizes something, there is a weird smell of coffee, it's rather hard to ignore. The moment he opens the door he's instantly slammed with a super powerful stench of coffee, but that is not the main point here. He is more confused about the place he is in. He sees a white corridor, the room he was in was the 2nd one from the left side. There are 3 rooms on each row, all the doors are white and they have nothing written on them. The corridor has a dead end on one side, but the other side leads to a larger room.

"Someone, no, something lives here, it's certain. It can't be anything too powerful, coffee comes from humans after all." said Stefan in his mind, as he walked into the bigger room.

The more Stefan would walk the more he would feel the smell of coffee stronger.

"Ugh! I can't anymore, what's wrong with this place?!" screamed Stefan in confusion.

Upon reaching the bigger room, he sees a giant red carpet in a circle shape. The carpet is colored red and it has an orange circle in it's middle. Stefan looks to his left and he sees 2 spiral staircases which lead to what looks like an athenaeum. Between the 2 spiral staircases stands some sort of unknown machinery. Stefan suddenly hears a voice from upstairs.

"Finally, you woke up. It took you a while."

Stefan looks up and sees the same cat that threw away the hoodie which he is wearing right now. Upon a better glance at it, it's a cat with white fur. The bottom half part of its body is missing. The cat is levitating down the stairs, holding a coffee cup. He sips from it before speaking again.

"Yeah, shocked, are you? I'm not the type of guy to make puns, I don't care if I bore you." said the cat in a casual tone.

Stefan is still flabbergasted by this cat, which is now floating in front of him.

"I don't have a name, I actually haven't spoken to a person for 41 years y'know, but for you, just call me Cat. Should be simple to remember."

"A-alright…" said Stefan sheepishly.

"So, any questions?" asked Cat.

Stefan takes a deep breath and tries to gather his mind before speaking again.

"Alright… How did I end up here?"

"I found you in the void. The sword you plucked sent a huge energy wave. Enough for my station… or workshop, how I like to call it, to feel it. If I wouldn't have arrived on time you would have most likely died."

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold on, i just remembered, where's my- i mean, the sword?" asked Stefan worried.

"Oh! Yeah, the sword. I extracted the energy out of both you and the sword. You're both now empty. You can have it back, I

don't need it."

"What kind of energy was that? It felt like something out of the common, it was extremely weird."

"That's because that indeed wasn't ordinary energy. It was champion energy." said Cat as he went over to the a table, sitting on a chair and starting to work on something.

"Champion energy? Was I… not worthy enough for it? Or what happened? I'm so confused…"

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it. And just the simple fact that you could harness champion energy in your body is enough proof that you will be worthy in the future to use it."

"Oh, that's a relief, but where does champion energy really come from?"

"I have no idea how such a fat load of energy could hide in the void. But the only thing I know is that every living being produces an extremely insignificant amount of champion energy. What you found could be equivalent to… hmmm… I don't know, perhaps quadrillions of humans."

"It doesn't sound that much no matter what number you tell me…" said Stefan a bit disappointed.

"Look, I'm bad at estimating, alright? All you need to know is that you did me a huge favor by bringing it to me."

"Wait, where are we even? What is this?"

"This is my home, my workshop, my library, my everything. If you look out on the window you'll see that we're in a travelling void."

Stefan jumps a bit from worry.

"V-void?... Where are even going?-"

"Stop panicking, how do you think I've lived for so long? This is the safest place in the universe. You needn't worry even a bit." said the cat, as he stopped working on his thing to look at Stefan and drink from his cup.

"Can you… tell me more about this… champion energy? Or what was it called?" asked Stefan.

Cat goes back to working on his machine

"I don't know anything else. I'm not in a humanoid vessel, you'll find out more about it yourself rather than from me. You could go upstairs and read some books if you have nothing to do for now. It won't be long until I'll send you on a mission."

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

"Wait, why me?!"

"I don't want to hear a single complaint from your mouth. You have the hoodie, you have the sword, now it's your responsibility to do as I say."

"What a prick…" said Stefan in his mind.

"I heard that, I can read minds, y'know?" said Cat.

Stefan squeals slightly and goes upstairs. There are 2 bookshelves, 2 meters tall each, filled with books and coffee packets. On the wall of the room there can be seen a machine that looks like a tube that passes from the wall into the floor. Stefan sees a table with blueprints and so he goes to check it. The blueprints show the model of his hoodie, they're written in a foreign language, so he can't tell what it says there. Stefan looks through the books, but on a second glance they're all notebooks with notes from Cat's creations which he cannot decipher.

"Hey, hey, hey! Wrong one wrong one! That's the shelf with my notes! The other one is the one with actual books!" suddenly exclaimed Cat as he snatched the notebook out of Stefan's hand, glaring at him with a sharp sight.

"Sorry, I was just curious." said Stefan.

"No sorries. I don't care, just never do it again! Ugh, kids these days!" said Cat furiously as he places the notebook back.

Stefan looks away for a bit, takes a deep breath then looks back at Cat before speaking.

"So, uhm, about… my… your… hoodie, or whatever this is-"

"The power storage? What about it?"

Stefan is shocked and confused upon hearing his words.

"What? What power storage? What-"

"The "hoodie". It's a power storage. You didn't know? I thought you would document yourself before attempting a fraud."

"I was just feeling cold, so i put it on. It didn't look dirty or anything…" said Stefan in a low tone, slightly ashamed.

Cat looks at him with a slightly more merciful expression then scoffs off.

"Okay, alright," Cat takes a deep breath then exhales. "Maybe, and just maybe, I overestimated you. A tiny bit too much. You're not as malicious as i thought you'd be"

Stefan smiles gently.

"Thank you, you're not that evil either. For a cat at least" said Stefan with a slight smile.

"Don't get too high in your head. We're not here for shits and giggles.

Cat reaches his paw through 2 books and suddenly pulls out the longsword. Stefan screams out in confusion, then Cat hands him the sword.

"Since I found a lot of champion energy in it, I decided to name it Champion's Sword. Try to put it behind your back, it should levitate right behind you. It's a special feature I made for the power storage."

Stefan does as said, and the sword stays close to his back.

"Oh, yeah, about the power storage, how does it work? I felt something special when I put it on. And also, I was able to fight and take powerful blows that I should have died from, but I barely got scratched."

"Who did you even fight? The power storage copies the energy and power of a soul. I repeat, it copies, not steals. And it copies about three fourths of a soul if you don't destroy the vessel… A.K.A. killing the person. You fought someone real powerful then I suppose. But from what I know there aren't any rogue fighters in the human realm… ahem, Earth. So who did you fight?"

"I think my mother created a clone of me… there was someone that looked just like me, but had a strong orange aura."

"Did you hit him? Or it hit you? Or both?"

"It smacked me with an iron gate." said Stefan ashamed.

Cat rubs his chin as he speaks.

"You were lucky you got out alive. But 2 things are still illogical, you don't get the power transferred this quick, and I don't know anything about orange colored powers, i only know one person who used to work for me, he has an orange aura, but he's dead and he had no children, so there's no way it could have any correlation."

"How does… the power transfer, more exactly?"

"When you hit any living being the "hoodie" will react and seek the soul of the body, it will find the soul almost instantly and copy the energy and power of it, a small amount. This happens as well when you're being hit, for example, the iron gate you've been smacked with. But it should be a slow process for the energy to be injected within the body of the user. Anyways, we shouldn't think too much about it, it's great that you got a power boost-"

"Wait, in what way do you mean power and energy? What stats specifically?"

"Well, for starters, you can train much faster. Your potential increases by far. The only stat that increases instantly is strength and reaction time. Agility and stuff like that must be trained to achieve their full potential."

Stefan looks at the sword as he listens to Cat.

"It's a lot to take in. So in short, I should be just fine if I stall a fight?"

"No, it takes way more than mere minutes for the power and energy to be injected in your body. Don't get cocky because you survived that fight. You might meet them again and they might not let you slide so easily this time." said Cat as he floated away downstairs.

"Wait, you said everyone creates insignificant amounts of champion energy, shouldn't I be able to create more since I have the hoodie?" asked Stefan full of curiosity.

"Hmm, now that you mention it, on paper you should. In practice, I have no idea."

Stefan looks down at his sword again, disappointed, then puts it on his back. The cat suddenly yells out

"FINISHED! GOD! Finally, oh Lord!"

"What happened?" Asked Stefan quickly.

"The teleportation device is finally recharged, I can finally send you on the mission now!" exclaimed Cat, relieved.

Stefan goes downstairs, in a rush.

"What mission? What do you want me to do?" asked Stefan.

"I need you to hunt down this person. It's a boy around your age, he should be 13 years old as we speak."

Cat hands Stefan a picture with a boy in a deep black aura.

"I can't recognize any physical features… how am I supposed to recognize him?"

"You can see his power, aura, element, whatever you wanna call it. It's not daily you see a pure black boy on the streets, y'know?"

Stefan puts the picture in his pocket.

"Do I get to know why would I kill him?"

"No, you don't. He's a crybaby, he might explain it to you himself."

Cat's words makes Stefan worry a little.

"Oh, come on, you'll be just fine, don't worry. Don't you have that big ass sword? Now, go on the carpet."

Stefan goes on the carpet from the middle of the room. Cat goes over to the machine in between the spiral staircases, plucks out a jar and places a new one which activates it.

"Oh yeah, and good luck." said Cat with a wink before pulling a lever and teleporting Stefan, without him getting to say a word. Stefan closes his eyes for a full minute them slowly opens them when he feels he's arrived. The location he was sent in feels uneasy to be in.

"This city doesn't look like anything I've seen before, has a war happened around here or something?" said Stefan, curious about what life is going to throw at him next.