You Are Now Not Bad

He appeared in the same space as before, outer space. Once again, he could see his 'character' in the center of the screen. This time he looked a little more buff than before.

He actually had a decent amount of muscle for someone who just started working out. It must have been the level-ups.

The panel to the right of Alex looked like this:

[Current abilities]

[Skill Creation]

[Always Prepared]

[Psionic Multitasking: allows the user to concentrate on two different psionic skills simultaneously, each for a distinct purpose]

[Quad Targeting: Ability to create four instances of a skill and choose up to four targets]

[Full Power: The ability to pour all your psionic energy into one skill, maximizing its potential]

A panel to the left said:

[Not Bad Level-Up Rewards]

Alex clicked 'next'.

[Your stats are now Not Bad]

Alex clicked 'next'.

[Choose a psionics modifier]

[Psionics modifier: Spend mental stamina to gain one of these advantages]

[Strengthen Offensive Psionics, Faster Psionics, Elevated Psionics]

"More damage on an attack, activate two skills at the same time, harder to resist mental effects," Alex said.

"I'll go with activating two skills at the same time. If I'm surprised by an attack, I don't want to have to choose between activating forcefield to block or telekinetic body to dodge. I want to try to dodge and have the forcefield to block in case I fail."

Alex clicked 'next'.

[Choose a subclass]

[Choose a school]

[Thought, Clairvoyance, Energy Manipulation, Psychometabolism, Astral Projection, Psychoportation, Psychic Constructs, Resonance, and Versatility]

All of them focused on specializing in key skills and abilities except for one. They all gave bonuses to skills that fell under their school, except School of Versatility.

The School of Versatility offered no such bonuses. It simply allowed the student to choose as many new skills per level up as normal plus two. The school itself said 'jack of all trades, master of none', but Alex didn't see it that way.

The other schools were about being good at one type of psionics. Versatility was about being good at psionics itself. That's what Alex wanted.

More skills were always better than less. Why limit yourself when you can be good at everything?

Alex chose School of Versatility, then he clicked 'next'.

[Choose five new class skills]

That was more like it. The grid of symbols showed up again, with new symbols added to the top of the grid. They were of the 'Not Bad' power level. The others were 'Meh' and 'Noob' level skills, but they could be powered up to the 'Not Bad' level.

The remaining noob skills were: [Pyrokinesis, Cryokinesis, and Astral Projection]

The meh skills were: [Psychometry, and Emotion Control]

He had switched out emotion control for electrokinesis. He practiced all the other skills but that was his current favorite combo of available skills. All that would change very soon, though.

The Not Bad skills were: [Psychic Shielding, Psionic Flight, Clairvoyance, and Psychometabolism]

[Psychic Shielding: The ability to shield your mind from psychic attacks]

[Psionic Flight: The ability to fly through psychic power]

[Clairvoyance: The ability to see things outside the normal range of human perception]

[Psychometabolism: Psychic control over and manipulation of one's own body]

Alex took all four of the 'Not Bad' skills and also Psychometry. He eventually wanted access to every available power, but that would come in time.

[Psychometry: Read object or location history through touch]

Alex hit 'next'.

[Do you want to swap out any of your skills?]

Nope.

Alex hit 'finish'.

[Are you satisfied with your choices?]

[Yes] [No]

Alex clicked 'yes'.

Alex arrived back on the platform in Ludos' mansion like he never left. As they were wrapping up for the day, an alarm went off. It sounded incredibly slow and distorted due to the time dilation effect of the hypersmolic time chamber they were in.

"That's an alert from the gods," Ludos said. "It basically means all hands on deck. We gotta go."

Alex, Morcai, and Ludos hurried back through the mansion and out of the submarine-like front door. People were running back and forth and hurrying to nowhere in particular, like chickens with their heads cut off.

Alex, Morcai, and Ludos walked over to where they saw Hermes standing with some of the other gods.

"The feast at Asgard is going to have to wait. Too many things are happening down on earth that we need to take care of first. Various major cities on Earth are being hit at the same time by alien forces, and weird portals are opening all over the planet," Hermes said.

"What's weird about them?" Alex said.

"Well, they're portals opening all over the planet. What's not weird about that?" Hermes said.

"Ok. What should we deal with first, the cities under attack or the portals?" Alex said.

"I don't know! Civilian lives are the most important priority at face value, but we don't know how dangerous the portals are. Maybe they're a bigger threat!" Hermes said.

"I can answer that," Morcai said, pushing out their chest, trying to seem more confident than they were. "The cities are a distraction. Not that they aren't important, but they're trying to get you to focus on them so they can complete their goals with the portals."

"How do you know that?" Hermes said.

"Because I wrote the report that plan was based on," Morcai said with a grave expression on its face.

"Ok. That's a little disturbing, but I'll let it slide since you're on our side now," Hermes said. "What's the deal with the portals?"

"The 'deal' is they plan to gather resources from other dimensions and universes to strengthen their army and accomplish their goals. If they succeed, they will become unstoppable," Morcai replied.

"We have to stop them, but we can't let the cities go unprotected. What if we split up our strike teams even further and sent pairs out to the cities and portals?" Alex said.

"That could work," Hermes said. "See, I knew I'd like this kid."

"You treated me like a loser weirdo the first time we met," Alex said.

"I was just teasing you," Hermes said, laughing nervously.

"You told me to go away and talk to Ludos," Alex said.

"Ok, ok. I'm kind of an asshole sometimes. I'm sorry. I'll try to do better," Hermes said.

"Thanks," Alex said. "Which portal should we hit first, Morcai?"

"Only one of them should be stable enough to travel through right now. They can only open one at a time. Once one becomes stable, then they can move onto the next," Morcai said.

"Ok, then we hit the open one. What do we do when we get in there? Find the resources and play defense, or take it for ourselves?" Alex said.

"Take them with you. The Convergence has far more forces than we do. We can't play defense in every portal. We have no other choice if we want to win this war," Morcai said.

"What are we looking for?" Alex said.

"You're looking for a dimensional core. It should be a glass-like sphere with colors or a symbol inside it."

"Ok. Now who's going to be my partner on the mission?" Alex said.

"Sophia. It seems like you have some issues to work out. Besides, I already sent all the other pairs off to defend the cities under attack while you were jabbering on about cores," Hermes said.

"You what?" Alex said.

Sophia came walking up. "If you're ok with working together again, I am. What do you say?" She put out her hand.

Alex shook her hand. "I say alright."

In the back of his mind, he could feel that something wasn't right. There's no way Sophia forgave him that easily. He would have to watch his back around her because, as a purple platypus once told him, "You gotta start watching your back or someone's gonna stab it."