After some further questioning by Mom, a grilling by Danny, and welcoming Dad home, I don't think I will forget his bewildered expression when he sat down and I grabbed him a cold beer. With the familial greetings finished, I returned to my room for the evening. This room was actually quite spacious. It was bigger than my apartment’s kitchen/living room arrangement, even though most of the space was used for the bed, a rge old oak dresser, and the rge computer desk which had enough room for three monitors.
Powering on my desktop for the first time in a year, I truly felt the familiar sense of home as the fan began to whirl. (I'm going to upgrade the crap out of you tomorrow). I thought patting my computer as I remembered how much money I spent over the st few years on it. I don't know if I'd call it wasted, if only I knew I’d get the ability to pull things out of my ass, er images?
Having been out of the loop about what’s been happening over the st week, I thought it would be for the best if I learned a bit more about what's happening. I started browsing news sites and forums to see some of the changes that the world had experienced. As I browsed I was starting to get a multitude of impressions, the foremost being most of these abilities were not what one would call 'super'. An article from the journalist in question whose thumb fingernail became a ruler competed with accurate measurements and pulled out like a tape measure up to a foot in length. A video of a young man who pces his arm on a table seems to flex something and then begins to roll his hand up to his shoulder where he releases it causing it to rapidly bounce back to normal like it was made of rubber. On the forum side, many people were memeing about these powers. A GIF of a middle-aged man putting his index finger and thumb together to make an ‘ok’ hand sign with the caption "super" underneath. When his fingers touched there seemed to be some sort of fluid produced which he used to blow bubbles. (If those bubbles had poison or paralytic properties people wouldn't be ughing so much) I thought. As my search continued I found an article about a guy ciming to be a padin in Texas, his speech was completely incoherent. (I think this one was just a local loon).
Returning to browsing forms, many people were starting to give their abilities names. Some were calling them Quirks simir to a certain manga. Others were just calling them Superpowers or powers while a minority were giving them their own unique names. There were so many cringy 14-year-olds.
As my browsing started to lead me to different parts of the internet, I found an interesting one. A woman who had the ability to open portals. What did she do with it? Porn. (I mean I can't really judge her for it but, for the love of God woman! You could be making bank revolutionizing trade around the globe!) "Haa~" I let out a sigh.
Watching said video, she pces her hand on a wall before giving it a 180-degree turn afterward there was a noise, and once she removed her hand from the wall a small bck hole appeared underneath her palm. Sticking her fingers into the hole she pulled it wider until it was a foot in diameter. She then proceeds to do the same thing with another wall this time pcing her palm and rotating in the opposite direction. As her hand pulled away this time the hole grew to match the first one and neither was a void, now having a view of the other's perspective. As for the rest of the video, it was exactly what you’d expect. (And saved).
Eventually, my search led me to foreign sites. Having to rely on transtions I found another interesting one, some guy in Korea who has necromancy or some power to manipute bones?
There was also a lot of talk here about that video Mrs. Smith showed me. Did it come from here? Using transtions for most of these I came across something I couldn’t believe. I tried multiple different transtion services, and all of them came back the same. The creature that Mrs. Smith showed me, which I would call a werewolf. Anubis? Would also be fitting given their bck fur. Gnolls? Might make sense. Dogmen would make more sense. But these guys were calling them, “Dogemen”. I couldn’t help but ugh.
Moving away from abilities to the dungeons that had appeared, another dungeon seemed to have opened in Okhoma. It was a local news report, the mother was out of the house while her pantry was being ransacked by Orcs (green-skinned). She had just arrived after her neighbors had noticed the commotion and quickly brought down the intruders. She was thanking her children not being home at the time, the neighbors, and everyone and everything in the interview. While I kept searching for more I kept stumbling across dead links. Articles being taken down, deleted or disappeared completely with no trace. I could guess that dungeons were a rare phenomenon but there seemed to be some censorship at py.
I sat still for a contemptive moment, there was a growing question: Why? Why were people getting powers? Why was it happening now? Off the top of my head, I could think of a dozen reasons. The pnet entering a ‘hot spot’ in space. Dimensions intersecting. Some corrective force from the world. Energy finally returning after a long absence. The volume of different stories I read over the years were starting to show their head. It could be some form of breakdown, given the doors leading to different pces. After all my apartment was on the second floor of the complex. The strange stairway that appeared in my closet had to do some sort of spatial warping.
I was also starting to wonder what rules had been broken. Things like Equivalent Exchange and Entropy. Even if they apply retroactively my ability takes these ws of the universe and spits on them. (I could only fear what others might have). For me, matter is easily created. That’s how I gave Mom great grandma’s picture back. All it takes is another picture and now you have double the original amount. (It was also how I rapidly got to 99 1UPs). I was also reminded of Danny’s grilling from earlier, “So, what’s the catch? You know, powers always come with a drawback or something”. As far as I knew there wasn’t one. Well, so long as there is a backup of the original image from before I interacted with it... It did make me curious, am I pulling these things out thereby creating them on the spot or am I reaching into something akin to a parallel dimension? That makes the most sense because of the whole wand deal...I entered that world, what else would you call it besides a parallel dimension?
Once I had finished researching what was happening in the world and contempting why the world was falling apart, I moved on to another issue, cultivation. With my ability, I didn’t have any issues with the ambiguous resources that cultivation required. While I can go as fast as possible that in itself would be problematic, I don’t want to rush into things. I can see that I ck the cultural background to fully understand things. And I was mostly basing it off what I could find in stories. But each one has their own system. I’m not a (Xianxia) protagonist, I don’t get to bullshit my way through things that might kill me.
As for the mythical techniques that I could pull out of said stories, aside from not being able to understand what was written in the texts. I don’t even think most of them were a known nguage. They were at most reminiscent of Chinese but after observing the characters even with an untrained eye you could tell there were differences.
“Herding cats it is then,” I said while I started digging through the item bag before pulling out a pill bottle. "That's not the right one..." After pulling out the bottles each one had a note on them reading "Ki gathering, Bone tempering, Body Refinement". So far I had only used Ki-gathering pills as they were the only method to restore Ki. Tonight, I look at Bone-Tempering.
Pcing the red-colored pill into my mouth and swallowing. At first nothing, sort of expecting this outcome I tried to move my Ki towards my stomach. Once the Ki and the pill came into contact there was a shift in the feeling I received from the Ki. A different thin sensation. As I released my intent over my Ki, much of it returned to my dantian. However, the portion affected by the pill did not retract. Instead, I felt a strange poking sensation in my ribs. Like small needles tapping away at the bone (Were they absorbing Ki, or is it infusing? Was there a difference?) Trying again this time taking far more time to gather a considerable amount of Ki before converting it.
As the Ki interacted with the pill I noticed that it dissolved in proportion to the amount of Ki changed. Slowly I tried to send the changed energy to the tip of my right index finger. Drawing the energy to the bone in question, I lost concentration releasing the energy. When the energy was gathered at my fingertip it felt like it was crushing my finger with a hammer. The released energy ran all over my body causing an unbearable pain as needles poked in every direction. With no choice, I could only clench my teeth and bear it. "IT HURTS!"
Over the next week, James spent many hours getting used to the Bone-Tempering process. The needle-like sensation on his bones was almost near constant. That was for about four days before he had his first success. Finally tempering his finger bone. After that success, due to consistent practice, Ki manipution became slightly easier and the tempering process was far more refined even if it took time. James could only spend about two hours each day attempting to temper his bones. The act of Bone-Tempering was a strangely taxing process. Not physically but mentally. Precise control of the needle-like Ki to slowly allow it to infuse into a bone. The process took multiple attempts and was quite exhausting. Physically James could restore himself in a multitude of ways, but mentally he would just be exhausted. By March James had finished tempering the tip of his right index finger, 2 ribs, and the back of his skull. The tempered ribs were a byproduct from his many failed attempts while his skull was done through great effort. This was done for two reasons, firstly, he wanted to keep his gray matter inside. Secondly, it hurt significantly less when focusing on rger bones.
END
Taking all recommendations for stupid and ridiculous powers in the comments.
How did James know it was working?
Spoiler He could feel it in his bones.
[colpse]
