Surprise
(A.N1: Warning, lot of caps in this chapter.)
Erik did wake up to the image of his house ceiling. He felt confused, as he couldn't connect the dots of what had happened to him.
He slowly stood up and looked at his body to see if something was out of place. Once he looked at his chest, he saw a pile of ashes.
At that moment, he recalled what had happened before he lost consciousness.
"AAAH!" he immediately tried to remove the ashes from him. He was on the brink of having a panic attack. What exactly did happen to him? What about the creature?
The young man stood up and went to the bathroom to wash away the ashes. He had a hunch about what these could belong to but had no proof.
He went to the sink to clean himself.
"THESE ARE THE MONSTER'S REMAINS!" the young man shouted.
He washed away all traces of the creature on him, including the ash-like residue. Then he stared at his reflection in the mirror and the blackened area near his neck. There was no doubt: it was the creature's remains.
"But how?" the young man said. "What happened?" he asked himself out loud.
After washing, the young man went to the living room; the clock hung over the desk, showing 08:00 PM.
Erik whitened; he immediately picked up his phone to call his employer, Mister Fox, but something weird happened.
[DEVICE FOUND: SMARTPHONE. DO YOU WANT TO CONNECT TO IT?]
"WHAT THE FUCK!?" Erik shouted. He jumped back when he saw the screen before his eyes, but he tripped on the small table before the couch and fell.
"AUCH!"
The young man blinked, and for a moment, the screen he saw disappeared, but when he opened his eyes again, the window was still there.
[DEVICE FOUND: SMARTPHONE. DO YOU WANT TO CONNECT TO IT?]
Incredulity was plastered on Erik's face; what the hell was that? The young man contemplated but could not find any explanation for what he was seeing. Then, he did the logical thing one could do in that situation: trying to understand what was happening.
The young man thought for a bit about what to do and quickly realized that he wouldn't understand anything unless he did try something.
"Yes…" the young man hesitantly said.
[CONNECTION TO THE DEVICE: ERIK'S SMARTPHONE, COMPLETE.]
It was then that a sort of feeling spread in Erik's mind. It was like, the weird screen said. He really felt a connection to the device.
He picked up his phone and immediately looked at it. It was the same as always, but something was different simultaneously.
The young man then recalled that he had to make a call to Mister Fox, and as soon as he thought about it, the phone went to his contacts and chose Mister Fox's number.
Erik was left flabbergasted. He was controlling his phone with his damn mind! The phone kept ringing until, finally, someone from the other side replied to the call.
"Hello?" the voice of Mister Fox rang directly inside the young man's ears. He could still hear his surroundings clearly, but at the same time, he could hear the phone too. He didn't have the device in his ears; he simply heard the phone in his brain.
"Hello? Mister Fox?"
"Erik?! Where the hell are you?"
"I'm sorry I didn't show up today, Mister Fox, but-"
"You are sorry? I will give you a reason to be sorry when you bring your ugly ass here, you dumb kid!"
"Please, Mister Fox, it won't happen again. I-"
"Shut up, kid, and listen to me. Pull something like this again, and you will be fired. Do you understand me, kid? Tell me, what did you have to do that was so important that you couldn't even call to tell me you wouldn't come?"
The young man couldn't say what had happened to him, so he tried to find an excuse for the situation.
"I got beaten up and lost consciousness, sir..."
The old man didn't reply. He was stern with the young man, but he pitied Erik a lot despite this. He was maybe the only one doing so.
The truth was that Mister Fox had no intention of firing Erik; he knew his problems finding work and didn't want to make things harder for him. However, the older man had a shitty character; he could hardly contain his anger, and his mouth couldn't refrain from spouting bullshit when that happened.
"Well... Next time try to stay out of trouble..." he said, surprising the young man.
"I will, sir. Again, I'm sorry," Erik said.
The man sighed, "Come tomorrow at the usual time if you don't consider yourself jobless."
"I will come, sir, don't worry."
Mister Fox hung up, and then the line went dead. He stopped hearing the phone and could see the screen in his vision. It was like he could see and not see the screen simultaneously; it was weird.
"What the hell is happening?!" the young man said. He didn't know if he had to be happy for the weird power he had gained or scared. Then he thought back at the monster his father brought back, and he started making connections.
He remembered how the thing looked, precisely like a thaid from the stories his father read him before bedtime. The man was an avid reader; he bought books almost weekly and pushed Erik to read too.
A pity he never met his mother, but as far as he knew, she and his dad loved each other a lot, or so Lucius told him. When he was a kid, his father was Erik's everything. The young man loved him more than anything in this world and never wanted to disappoint him, but then he disappeared.
Initially, Erik didn't think much about it since he was often outside due to his job in the military. However, as the months passed, he knew Lucius abandoned him. Dying was simply out of the picture for a man of his caliber.
As the young man thought about what happened, a fact became clear. First, whatever that thing did to him gave him some sort of power whose nature wasn't explicit yet. However, what the monster exactly did wasn't clear.
[ANSWER: I, THE BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER, IMPLANTED MYSELF INSIDE THE HOST ERIK ROMANO'S BRAIN, MAKING A CONNECTION TO THE BRAIN CRYSTAL.]
"What the…?!" Erik tripped again when the screen appeared before him. He already knew that some screens appeared in his vision, but that wasn't what surprised him now. No, it was that this thing could read his damn mind!
"I'M FUCKED, BLOODY HELL, I'M REALLY FUCKED!" However, Erik was an incredibly logical person. Years of abuse changed him profoundly, forcing the young man to constantly think about the best thing to do to avoid bullying.
"It implanted itself inside my… brain?" A disgusting but also dreadful thought spread in Erik's mind. If whatever this thing said was true, he couldn't separate from it in any way.
[YES. THE HOST IS CORRECT.]
"For fuck sake. Stop reading my mind!" Erik said.
[Danger: the Host is becoming angry. Release of calming substance into the brain in 3...2...1]
As the substance flooded his veins, Erik started calming down; the feeling of being controlled by this Biological supercomputer, or whatever it was, was horrifying. Though, as he calmed down, he started thinking logically again.
"What the hell are you?" he asked the computer.
[ANSWER: THE BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER IS A TECHNOLOGY CREATED TO ENHANCE INDIVIDUALS. IT REQUIRES A SOURCE OF ENERGY TO WORK. HENCE, THE BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER HAD TO CONNECT TO THE BRAIN CRYSTAL. THOUGH, THE AMOUNT OF MANA THE HOST BRAIN CRYSTAL PROVIDES IS BARELY ENOUGH TO ALLOW SOME ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS. THE HOST IS ADVISED TO STRENGTHEN THE BRAIN CRYSTAL AS SOON AS POSSIBLE TO UNLOCK ALL THE FUNCTIONS.]
"Strengthening the brain crystal? What the hell are you talking about?" Erik was surprised. He knew that all his problems were due to his weak brain crystal, but this thing… this computer was implying it was possible to… strengthen it?
If that were true, Erik would be able to change his life. The young man wasn't keen on believing in miracles, as something good had never happened to him, yet he couldn't stop hoping that all of this was true.
[THE HOST IS ADVISED TO GIVE A LOOK AT THE {POWERS} WINDOW IN THE BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM]
The reply came quite quickly to the young man, "And how am I supposed to do so, you stupid machine?"
[INCORRECT. THE BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER IS NOT A MACHINE; IT'S A POWERFUL BIOLOGICAL AI]
"Whatever!"
[TO GO TO THE POWER WINDOW OF THE BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER, THE HOST MUST WILL IT TO DO SO. YOU CAN ALSO SAY "POWERS" TO MAKE THE PROCESS MORE NATURAL.]
Erik wondered if all that was happening was only a hallucination. After all, he was being attacked by what looked like a thaid. Maybe the creature injected a potent venom into him that made him hallucinate so that the creature could eat his brain or consume him whole.
Who knew? Though, the young man also hoped that maybe, all of this was real and he had earned something good for once. Something that could potentially help him get a better life.
"Powers," the young man said while willing to see the screen the supercomputer was referring to. Immediately, as when he communicated with the interface, something appeared before him. He could not touch it but could see it—a window.
A list of what the Biological supercomputer said were superpowers he had unlocked flashed before his eyes.
-----------------------------
[Powers]
{Biological Super Computer Powers}
-Brain Crystal Manipulation
- (LOCKED)
- (LOCKED)
- (LOCKED)
- Brain Crystal Power Strengthening
(Allows the gaining of the energy attribute points)
-DNA Manipulation
- (LOCKED)
- (LOCKED)
- (LOCKED)
- (LOCKED)
-DNA Strengthening
(Allows the gaining of the Strength, Intelligence, and Dexterity attribute points)
- Analysis
(Gives the host information about his surroundings, plants, creatures, and ores)
-Brain Information Injector
(It allows the injection of information directly to the brain-Based on touch)
-Device Manipulation
(Allows the Host to manipulate electronic and mana-driven devices- Based on touch)
{Host's Powers}
-Rapid Growth [Plants] (FSIGMA1E-Ranked)
(Allows the Host to make Plants Grow Faster)
-----------------------------
"HOLY MOLY!"
He said while staring at the strange window appearing in front of him.
(A.N2: Be aware the system will only use CAPLOCKS)