Chương 14: Systems and Points

Surprisingly, I didn't have a brain hemorrhage nor slip into a coma during the night. In fact, I woke up feeling much better. Not miraculously healed overnight, but my body no longer ached like I had been hit by a car, and my mind no longer chugged along as if I was drunk. Maybe I had that 0. 5 in constitution points to thank for that. My eyes widened and I sat up straight in bed as I recalled that new development. It was Saturday so I didn't even need to check the time.

Maybe I had slept until noon, maybe it was practically night again- who cared? Crisscrossing my legs, hands raised, I leaned forward slightly. There had to be some way to boot up the computer that now lived in my brain without needing it to be after a fight, but, as Gran told me constantly while growing up, I didn't come with an instruction manual. I pictured the screen- the green letters with the menu- willing it to materialize before my eyes. Didn't work. My finger poked the air as if pushing a button. Nope.

Swiped right and left; the complicated karate swipe some people do with their smart phones. Not a hint of green. I'll admit, I even pressed my thumb between my eyebrows because, you know, maybe the on/off button was there. Perhaps the hippies were right about that being the third eye. Well, it turned out they're wrong because that did bupkiss. I tried saying, "window", "screen", "stats", "hero screen". I tried everything before I remembered what it called itself. Finally, I just burst out with it.

"System!" Green letters filled my vision. It appeared to be the main menu with a small word in the middle that said Welcome! At a loss of what to do next, I mumbled, "Is there a tutorial for this thing?" After looking over the screen and confirming everything was the same as last night, I began to examine those mysterious hero points I had passed over. Hovering my attention over it yesterday had indicated a spend function.

Growing up poor with Gran and her modest pension, spending money on anything that wasn't for survival practically made me break out in hives. Five years ago, eleven year old me decided to take care of the shopping so I "borrowed" some money from Gran and went to the corner shop to get some proper groceries. You know, rich people food like name brand cereal, microwave pizzas, pizza bites, hot pockets- the pizza kind- and Lunchables- also the pizza kind. Obviously I had an obsession.

Before the accident, Tuesdays were always pizza nights with my parents, so I had probably built it up in my head. Well, it turned out I blew our budget for the month on a week's worth of food. At first, I was eating like a prince, probably put on a well-needed five pounds, but the next three weeks I became a pauper again. Gran didn't yell or tell me off. I apologized but she just shrugged and said, "We'll make it work." We ate nothing but rice and beans for almost a month, but Gran never complained.

I learned my lesson though that when you're truly poor, you don't spend lightly. I let my hand drift away from whatever I could buy with my hero points Lying on my bed with the screen floating above me, I hesitantly reached up and clicked 'achievements'. There was an audio version available so I clicked it and out came a voice eerily similar to Steven Hawkings. Achievements: Awakened: Super awoke at age five, younger than ninety-eight percent of others. A highly promising beginning.

Rewards: Access to the system, a starting class and associated stats and skill. Wasting of Ten Years: Super accomplished nothing but book reading, lazing on couches, and atrophying power into near oblivion. Chronomancing power used in subconscious auxiliary means while frozen with fear, embarrassment, and abnormally frequent vomiting, but was never combined with heroic or villainous action. Reward: Atrophy of Personal System No Hand Holding: Performed multiple acts of heroism without full system access.

Reward: Return of system access. A total of 400 hero points and 20 villain points earned. F rank hero status achieved. Longest time Chrono Shifted: 3. 4 seconds. Overall analysis: Still in initial novice level. Expectation of power and progress extremely low. Super lacks confidence, skill, and sophistication. Final thoughts: Not total failure. Well, now I knew what to put on my gravestone. My body rolled back, head thunking on my pillow, staring up at the ceiling.

The green letters still crowded my eyesight, but I stared past them. I'd been a super this whole time. All the way back from when the semi flooded my parent's car with its headlights and I could hear its horn blaring endlessly in my ears. No wonder it felt like it took the police and paramedics hours to find us. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

It was just five year old me, unconsciously pausing time, screaming and crying and waiting while my parents' blood painted the windows. The thought had occurred to me back when I'd saved Gran, but I just didn't have proof. It didn't make sense that I could stop time back then only to never be able to use them again for ten years. But now I understood. Believe me, if I'd known I had these powers this whole time, I would have been doing a lot more than sitting on couches reading books. It was hardly my fault.

The system could have sent me a latent power notification sometime during those ten years, just saying. The analysis section made me cringe inwardly, as was being assigned an F rank class. Despite my disdain for the abysmal grading categorizations of high school classes, I did not do F's. I'd be happy to become more sophisticated and upgrade any skills if this stupid system would just tell me how to do that. My eyes wandered around the green letters until they landed on some intriguing words.

Purchase skill level up. I steepled my fingers together and attempted my best Mr. Burns smirk. Excellent. With a press of a finger, a new bubble of text appeared. Only one available for upgrade Chrono Shift. User does not have the required intellect to purchase upgrade. Minimum of 5 intellect required to support D rank Chrono Shift. Ok fine, couldn't upgrade my skill until I upgraded my intellect to five. But if this system gave me another prerequisite for intellect, then I swear I was flipping the board over.

Closing the skill window, I clicked on Purchase Stat Upgrades. The list dropped down and presented me with my stat scores. Stats Strength: 0 Agility: 0 Constitution: 0. 5 Charisma: 0 Intelligence: 3 Focus: 2 Worried that I might spend my hero budget on the super equivalent of substandard frozen pizza. I skimmed through the cost and weighed my options.

Strength upgrade cost 100 HP or VP Agility upgrade cost 100 HP or VP Constitution upgrade cost 50 HP or VP Charisma upgrade cost 100 HP or VP Intelligence upgrade cost 400 HP or VP Focus upgrade cost 300 HP or VP It was tempting to pick some of everything. I could get one in strength, agility, constitution, and charisma. That wouldn't help me make my power stronger though and my ability to slow time was everything. It would cost all of my Hero Points to upgrade my intelligence.

But even if it just made it last a second longer it would be worth it. I would also need to get it to five eventually if I ever wanted my power to be upgraded to D rank. My finger hesitated over the screen floating in front of me. Are you sure you would like to spend four hundred Hero Points upgrading your intelligence? Yes/No I pressed yes and a cool tingle started at the back of my neck and rushed down my spine. Kind of freaky, but oddly refreshing. Your power has grown. Ok, power was good. I liked power.

It was time to figure out some rules though. Better to do it here in the quiet calm of my bedroom when I was calm and rational rather than in the throes of battle. Number One: Do not hurt the innocent. Obviously, I'd thought this was pretty well ingrained in my brain since birth, but then the Rick Astley boy came along to make me question my hold on this. Until I saw clear evidence of wrongdoing, I could not use my power. I had to be sure that the person I was fighting really was the bad guy.

Number Two: The punishment must match the crime. If Brandon Meat Tower wanted to inflict mental torture on those around him then he deserved a humiliating prank or two. That didn't mean it was ok to roast him with electricity like Mr. No Means Yes in the alley. In fact, maybe I should have stuck him with the taser somewhere else last night. Then the punishment would have really fit the crime. Number Three: Everything had to stay secret.

Especially if I was going to use this for smaller acts, less crime-fighting and more Revenge of the Nerds, I'd have to be even more vigilant about how I used it. I was going to fight crime with a mask, at night, in random areas of town, so far less likely for people to be able to identify me. But at school, everyone knew me, and under the hyper clarity of fluorescent lights, it was easy to see something strange. Alright, there was a plan, there were rules, now I should probably get to practicing.

None of this would work if I couldn't use my power at the drop of a hat. I sat up again, rolling my legs over the edge of the bed. Nothing was moving in my room except dust mites swimming in the sunlight rays coming through the windows. The Quiet Man blared from the living room as Gran watched, but I wanted a visual cue that time had stopped. I reached over to the drawer next to my bed that held a single lamp, a lot of gum wrappers, and crumpled papers.

Beneath the miniature landfill, there lay two tarnished pennies. I pinched one between my fingers, shoved everything off the drawer, set the penny on its side and flicked it. As it began spinning around and around, I closed my eyes, concentrating on the idea of stopping time. The metallic ringing of the penny sang through the air and my eyebrows twisted together, trying to feel that pain between them that signalled the start of my power.

I was just starting to feel a kind of ache when the sound of the penny wobbling and then crashing broke my focus. Sighing, I picked up the penny again. Maybe I was thinking too hard. It wasn't like this in my fights, I wasn't trying to zen myself into a chronomancing state then, I was desperately hoping to make it happen. With Voice Break, I couldn't stop staring at the gun; with Twitchy, my eyes were on his knife; with Mountain Man, I watched as his leg came to kick me in the face.

Maybe I had to keep my eyes on the prize. I flicked the penny, watching it spin, imagining it stopping- how it would stand completely straight on the drawer, John Wayne's voice booming even deeper from the living room. My forehead grew tense, my jaw was clenched, but the penny spun until it slipped and fell flat. A small gasp of exasperation escaped my mouth, my fingers picked up the coin and threw it against the wall as hard as I could. It bounced back and I glared at it as if I could kill it with my stare.

My forehead ached, the air felt weighted, I kept my eyes on the penny and suddenly it was hanging in midair. Maureen O'Hara's voice was down an octave, caught on an endless 'i' sound. I stood up on shaking legs, plucked the penny out of the air, and time snapped back into place. I walked out into the living room.

"What's wrong?" Gran asked from the couch, scratching Jiji as he slept on her lap.

"You look like you saw a ghost, and if you did- tell it to haunt us more so we can make some money off it." I looked around the room.

"Just wanting to check that everything's okay out here." Gran looked around, eyebrows raised.

"I get to stare at John Wayne for the next hour, so of course everything's okay! What makes you think it wouldn't?" I held up my hands.

"Nothing, nothing at all. I'm still sore from last night, and my brain is still off. That's probably what it is." This was it. Strong emotion, specifically anger, frustration. That brought it out far better than the calm Buddhist meditation crap. Do not be one with the penny. Hate the penny. Throw it against a wall. Well, I could certainly use that at school.