Fighting the Power 101

Cody watched as the various groups of people waddled over and dejectedly looked at the disks the others were enjoying.

Cody could FEEL the doubt rolling off of them.

He just shook his head and went to have a beer with his Papaw. It wasn't his place to "change hearts and minds" on the absolutely delicious food they now had access to, it would come with time.

Ira cracked the tab on his can and spoke, "Bub, that was good eatin'....think it has any beer flavors?" Cody could see the wild look of hope in his eye that his 'beer breaks' would continue after he ran out.

Cody felt like it would be possible and received a weird feeling from the orb, 'Customization? With Mana?' Then the feeling went to a strong agreement.

"Well, Gramps, I talked to my friend and it said that you can customize it, but I am not sure by how much. All you have to do is push some Mana into it."

Ira nodded, "Just like with Potion activation, gotcha', be right back!"

Cody was confused, 'Had Ira used potions??? They should communicate more or it might come back to bite them

The orb sang out, [Cody Yang, it would appear that the System is recognizing you for another Title, but it is my duty to advise you to NOT accept it. If you postpone the acceptance, larger rewards are known to occur.]

Cody nodded, 'I trust you.'

The orb let off a mutual glee.

Cody sat and wondered about when he was going to fight again, he seemed to be quite strong..and he needed to level.

He facepalmed, his level needs to rise.

The orb let out an overwhelming agreement.

There was so much and so little to do at the same exact time.

Cody figured he might ask an important question, 'Is there a way for me to learn the movements that you make me do when the 'True Fist of the whatever' is activated? Or about my class and way, whatever they ACTUALLY DO? Or about the trait I was given?'

The orb unfurled its tension rings, [Yes, I have been waiting on you to question me about your Class and Way. You are rather unique, Cody Yang.

I have assisted lifeforms across the multiverse, and very, very, VERY rarely does ANY individual obtain a starting Class AND Way as strong as yours.

Cody Yang, are you aware of the concept of advanced and ultimate classes in fantasy? Well, the Ways are the ascension methods that extremely powerful individuals use. And, a small, barely out of college kid, has obtained the right to challenge The Primordial One. The Consciousness.

Cody Yang, I invite you to contemplate just how insignificant you might be to an Emperor of Dimensions.

And yet.

You may yet surpass many on your Way.]

Cody could help but ask, 'Why the dramatics? Let's just do it already.'

The orb sputtered out for a moment as Cody went unconscious.

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

He cracked his eye, 'Not again, noooooo, I can't be the guy that passes out, it is so uncool…'

He sat up and tried to play off the fact he just lost consciousness, again.

He felt the cold sweat stick to his back as people were gathered around him and he could hear arguing.

"Now, please step aside." a female high pitch voice could be heard ringing out from the front of the crowd.

Cody heard Ira, "No, you are not taking our property. This is ours, and we are going to help as many as we can."

The crowd was on edge.

Cody pushed his way through and noticed a line of large men surrounding the woman.

He tried to get through and was subsequently blocked by default.

He asked, "Please let me through, my Grandpa and Grandma are being robbed."

The man didn't react right away, but soon let him by.

Cody WAS exaggerating, but it was still the truth, or Ira's story that they were going with.

He walked up and saw the clear separation in groups in the form of a gap.

"Hey son, come here." Ira noticed him immediately and pulled him to the side.

"Gramps, what is going on here? I heard some shouting and weird arguments between the people here, there must be a few thousand."

The bowling alley was HUGE, but it wasn't ten thousand people huge, so they could clearly feel the packed tension and claustrophobia developing in the trapped people.

Ira sighed, "They are trying to repossess your gift to Betty. We don't think it is right."

Cody could understand. The government needed to control a stable food supply, this was a great way to do so.

His "bleeding heart liberal" attitude he developed in high school and college was being put to the test.

He thought about the way situations like this should be handled, he didn't want to HAND OVER his rights in a freaking apocalypse, let alone any other time period.

Cody asked his grandparents for a meeting, "May we have a moment to speak, peacefully?" He was trying to genuinely accomplish this, but it was a good probe to see if she was a tyrant.

"Sure, I have no issue with that." She said in a plain face.

Cody realized he was shit at reading people, but whatever.

They huddled, "Alright, I have a plan." Betty and Ira nodded, "We need to...wait. Can't we just lease it for a dollar? Then we give free food as a condition of the deal."

Betty knew he would be open to it, he was a naive college student and had terrible opinions at the best of times, but she thought he might be right.

"I think we should make the machine free to use, and the product should be free."

Ira was nearly raging for a moment, "Well, how the hell do we get the monster meat, you gonna' fight for 'the good of the people' Mr. Hero?" he was staring at Cody, "Not trying to be mean, but without any reward for killing the monsters, why would anyone?" He cooled slightly.

Cody nodded, his Papaw was always extremely wary of progress and liberal ideas...actually, it was most ideas, but it probably stemmed from being in Nam.

In this case, he raised a good question, "I think it would be the government to incentivize it. But money is sort of dead, and we don't have magical gold coins."

Cody had the faint feeling to ask his orb.

'Oh Mr. Wonderful and Glorious, how best might it be to proceed at this juncture?'

The orb bowed with elegance after the rant that took place a while ago.

"System contract? Can you make one? Oh?" Cody was speaking to himself and Betty nodded as she heard about what he went through.

Cody's mouth lit up in a grin.

"Papaw, Grandma, follow my lead." He spun around on his heels and strode forward.

"Mrs. Mayor, I would like to form a System contract with you. My grandfather had explained them to me from his tutorial. They seem like a perfect way to keep the government in check, by their words and actions. Do you agree?"

She narrowed her eyes, he seemed confident and cocky, pretty typical for an imbecile of the south.

"How might we go about this "contract"?" She was curious but was not above just taking the food supply for the good of the people.

"We need to establish a level of trust with the government, and I find myself to be rather...liberal on the political spectrum. Thus, I wish to provide aid to as many people as possible, because it is my simple duty as an American and my personal wish." He broke his stance and revealed his real self.