Chapter 3

Frank once again pressed a pulsing circle on the bottom of the floating screen stuck in his field of vision. The bastard thing wasn't even real, yet there it was judging him for his life choices. Ah whatever, he still had 100 points to use on "powers", it claimed. That sounded like a good handful to him! He felt the screen shift, this time it didn't try to flash freeze his arm as it became a list, complete with what seemed to be a set of controls like on any search you'd see on the web.

'Low Cost Powers: Popular Filter' was the start of the list.

'Enhanced Strength [20]

Enhanced Speed [20]

Consensual Limited Mind Reading [20]

Wipe Memory (single) [20]

Enhanced Intelligence [20]

Magnetic Charisma [20]'

Okay, those sounded nice, but since this weird trip wasn't ending anytime soon, Frank decided to explore. He clicked a filter dropdown at the top, then selected "popular" and "medium cost".

The list returned a different set of powers, seeming to list a cost of 40 points, instead of the 20 the others had.

'Telekinesis [40]

Ethereal Illusions [40]

Human Shapeshifting [40]

Enhanced Vitality [40]

Energy Diet [40]

Flying [40]

Forced Mind Reading [40]

Total Invisibility [40]

Enhanced Reflexes [40]'

Okay now these seemed more interesting, mind reading and flying? Hell, those are the kinds of things anybody would dream of having! And these are only the medium cost powers! Frank was curious about a couple of these though. He decided to tap Flying, which expanded the box with more information, and of course a button to mark it as a selection. 

'Flying (tier 2 power): Basic flight without wings. When activated, a personal force will allow flight in any direction through willpower alone, hovering when the user wishes to stay in place. Active for 180 seconds Earth time, upgradeable with use and knowledge.'

No bullshit, a superhero style flight power. But... it was only limited to 3 minutes of use at a time? So what? It's a cool party trick, but he could maybe use it to avoid traffic to go pick up milk or something. Sounded like a scam to Frank. What if he lost track of time and plummeted to his death when the 3 minutes were up? He tapped the ability name again and the information melted back into the list. He tapped on Energy Diet this time, since that sounded much more vague.

'Energy Diet (Tier 2 power): User has no need for eating, drinking, or sleep. User derives nourishment from the universe and the energy around them. The user can stockpile energy as spiritual energy and use it to power other abilities. No cooldown period, no direct upgrades.'

That sounded insane, life changing even! Not needing to eat or drink? But what happened if he did it anyway? Would there be some sort of weird effect on the ability? And not needing to sleep? That sounded nice in theory for upping productivity, but people needed sleep for more than rest. Frank read the stories online, not sleeping could make him insane! Though, on one hand he was currently going through a psychotic episode of some kind. But when the drugs wore off he'd be okay again, right? No, better to not select that. It sounded like messing with his basic biology, and that could have terrible consequences down the line. If that mattered at all, because this was all in his head to begin with, so he kept telling himself.

He tapped Energy Diet, it melted away again. He checked on a couple more, even tapping an arrow pointing to the right to scan through a couple more pages of powers. Ethereal Illusions weren't solid so that was underwhelming, Enhanced Vitality effectively made him unable to get sick but sounded boring, and on further pages he found things like Enhanced Libido, Near Future Foresight, Prophetic Dreams, and Shadow Form.

Some of those sounded cool, but he found downsides in them. For example, Shadow Form had the downside of injury if he were exposed to bright light while inside a shadow, and Near Future Foresight only let him see 5 seconds into the future which sounded both annoying and useless. If they were 20 cost powers he might consider some immediately, like Total Invisibility but he wanted to see what else was on offer for higher cost first. 

Tapping the filters once more, Frank narrowed the search to "Popular" and "High Cost". He wondered where the determination of "Popular" came from, though Frank decided he didn't really care since he was just tripping anyway. Before he read through the new results, he decided to get up from his chair and grab his vape pen. Of course, he didn't want it to go flying when he approached it so he made sure to keep his distance from it's place suspended in the air, bottom end waiting to hit the wall. He walked around it, got in front of its trajectory, and took slow steps forward, keeping his hands aligned to catch the pen if it still held its momentum. Sure enough, when he got within a foot of it, it sprung back to life and he barely caught it properly.

Fuck these drugs man, whatever he was spiked with, it was really messing with his perception. For all he knew, he was holding the pen the whole time and just imagined he threw it! He could have been standing here and imagined he was sitting, just reeling on his feet like a zombie while he nodded off. But the screen was still in his vision, and it had repopulated the list with new results.

Frank released yet another sigh, resolving to ride this trip out once more, and sat on his bed.

'High Cost Powers: Popular Filter

Complete Heal [60]

Total Mind Control [60]

Remote Kill [60]

Teleportation [60]

Universal Shapeshift [60]

Conditional Invulnerability [60]

Eternal Youth [60]

Awaken Blessings [60]

Telepathy [60]

Exorcist's Touch [60]

Dual Cultivator [60]

Elemental Manipulation [60]'

These powers sounded amazing! Shapeshifting? Invulnerability? Eternal Youth? He wished he had more points so he could pick up more skills! He smiled and dwelled on which powers he would take if this were real. Probably not invulnerability, he wouldn't really need it since he wasn't much of a fighter, and he'd probably get put into some sort of lab if he tried to use his power publicly. Telepathy could be cool, but would anyone be able to respond to him? Remote Kill allowed him to kill anyone in range of his ability if he knew enough information about them, then he had to let it cool down for 3 days. That sounded badass, but it could get really messy if he played God with that sort of thing. Besides, he didn't want to kill anybody that badly. He looked at Dual Cultivator, which allowed him to get stronger spiritual power by sleeping with women. It sounded nice, but it sounded like he would have to sleep with a lot of women and he wasn't enough of a smooth talker to string along a harem of women. Leave that power to some sort of cult leader or a serial cheater.

Awaken Blessings sounded cool, he could awaken a low cost power in someone else. If it were a 20 cost power, he would have liked to see what he could do with it, but as a 60 cost power he wasn't selfless enough to shave off the bulk of his points to give other people superpowers. Universal Shapeshift sounded like it would be a dream come true, but it would be tough to explain absences as the cooldown on animal shapeshifting could be really long at first. Complete Heal sounded nice too, he could immediately heal himself or others to full vitality and cure diseases. He could make serious money with that! But it would also bring notoriety, and serious trouble. Eternal Youth was what it sounded like, and to Frank it sounded fucking boring and tragic to watch everyone he knows get old and die. Besides, he could still get murdered and he didn't have enough points to pair it with invulnerability so he couldn't pull off a Dorian Gray or Dracula sort of thing. 

This whole thing was starting to feel like one big puzzle, and Frank was about ready to just tap any random combination of powers if it meant the screen would go away and he could sleep this off!