68. Awakening the “Word of Force”

Awakening the “Word of Force”

After my most recent fight, I had not gained the usual power-boosting energy right away.

It came only after a considerable delay, and there was far more of it than I had earned from most of my other battles, wildly disproportionate for a fight in which I had not even killed an enemy.

My suspicions about those differences were not only confirmed, but the changes in the arrangement of my ability panel made the importance of what had happened impossible to miss.

All those world-shaking events, all the traumatic scenes I had lived through, all the inhuman monsters and evil humans I had faced, and the way my powers displayed themselves had never changed.

Not once.

And now? Not one change, not two, but several different ones at the same time.

Name: Ye Lin
Profile: Human female, 17 years, 3 months, 13 days old

Ability Points: 8/65

Word of Force [33 points spent]
Force Adjustment lv3
Force Sense lv2
Force-Field Creation lv2
Forced Acceleration lv3
Constant Force lv2
Sustained Force lv2
Nearby Object Manipulation lv3

Other Abilities [24 points spent]
Time Leap lv1
Enhanced Regeneration lv4
Focused Invulnerability lv1
Instant Action lv2
Defensive Counter lv1
Super Suit lv1
Spatial Distortion lv1
Spatial Leap lv1

Attribute Points: 8/65

Strength 29, Agility 14, Intelligence 6, Perception 9, Spirit 14, Luck 2

First, and probably most importantly, my ability panel had gained a heading for “Word of Force.”

It was not merely a category, nor some new way of grouping things together to make them sound cooler, the way humans tend to do when left unsupervised with labels.

The instant I looked at it, the shape of the name echoed through my mind, like some strange form of synesthesia.

There was something there. Something real. Something that had not existed before my most recent battle.

Was it because I had multiple skills belonging to the same theme?

That could not be all there was to it. That alone did not explain anything. I had possessed powers in this theme for a while, and even during previous battles, I had already had these skills now listed beneath “Word of Force.”

Maybe… maybe it was because I had used them together in the same fight?

That did not feel right either. I had used multiple skills from the same theme in one battle before.

Perhaps I had crossed some kind of threshold and “unlocked” this change in some way.

I honestly did not know, and I could not think of any reliable way to find out. I did not like surprises.

Mostly because surprises usually meant ending up in some pit full of tentacles, or somewhere worse. Reality has such charming hobbies.

Second, the “Other Abilities” category was not as simple as it looked.

Something lay hidden behind it. Something incomplete. It felt somewhat similar to “Word of Force,” but also different.

Not every power in that list felt as though it belonged to the same group.

And among those that did, most were unstable, as if the pattern had not yet settled and might change at any moment.

Yes. That did not feel ominous at all.

Although my total number of ability points had not changed, the division into skill categories seemed to mean that not all points could simply be spent on the same kind of skill anymore.

That felt important.

I had the sense that where I invested those points, which category received them, would have a greater influence than before, for good or ill.

The first group of abilities felt as though it developed toward one particular, if broad, theme, with everything else treated as secondary.

The second group was… uncertain.

Putting points into that category felt as though it might bring some form of balance, or perhaps a complementary but divided dual theme. But that theme had not yet formed. It might even become something more complicated.

Could I not have something simple? Something like choosing from fixed character classes in a popular computer game?

All these sensations, vague options, and possibilities that could not truly be seen before the decision was made felt indistinct and strange.

I would bet Cheng Rui had never faced anything more complicated than choosing a suitable skill.

As for Chi Li, given how adaptable her power seemed to be, she had probably poured all her points into that one ability and then found, or invented, new uses and excuses afterward for why a given effect technically fell within the scope of fire magic, even if it had nothing to do with fire at first.

And yet… based on what I had discovered and what others had told me about magic, everyone had some influence over how magic manifested in them.

Maybe, unlike Cheng Rui, I did not believe life, and therefore magic, could be shoved into neat little labeled boxes.

But unlike Chi Li, I did not think magic was completely free-form either.

Reality was not, and should not be, supposed to work that way. There were rules, though those rules were loose enough to allow countless different choices.

Which brought me back to the choices in front of me.

As usual, attributes came first.

Attribute points were far simpler than ability points. Even so, aside from the most body-changing physical abilities, every attribute point had a greater impact on who I was and what kind of person I became.

Those body-altering abilities were not under consideration, if only because I liked my current humanoid body far too much to turn into a terrifying lemming, a mouthy octopus, or a cloud of radioactive energy.

First, I very deliberately did not put any points into Perception.

Super senses were cool.

Constantly seeing everyone in the city naked was less cool.

Especially if that included the monsters.

Seriously, how did Superman never abuse similar powers? In most versions of the story, he got them as a teenager!

I placed one point each into Spirit, Agility, and Strength, then did that again. The last two points both went into Strength, roughly maintaining the two-to-one ratio.

I did not wait for my body to adapt. I assigned the points quickly while it was still changing, making sure the effects of every point took hold at the same time.

The overall change seemed smaller than any previous increase, at least at first.

Other than crossing fully into the superhuman realm of beauty, reaching the point where even the best makeup artists would struggle to improve on my natural appearance, I did not look much different.

My height did not change. My build and muscle mass remained at the upper end of “normal” for my seven-foot frame. Every part of me was impressive, but taken individually, nothing seemed beyond human limits.

And yet, despite how supple my flesh appeared, past a certain point it became as hard and unyielding as steel.

Although my swaying gait looked like that of a gifted gymnast, my precision and balance were closer to a machine than a human.

If I forgot to pay attention, my body would hold itself in the ideal balanced posture, as motionless as a statue caught in the position its sculptor had carved.

Without using any active ability, I could dent steel plate with a punch, and working iron felt as easy as playing with putty.

In practice, even effort at the peak of human capability barely tired me, and I only needed to sleep once every other week.

Dodging bullets from one or two handguns required only moderate effort. Even automatic fire was just barely manageable without directly bending the rules of physics in my favor.

Name: Ye Lin
Profile: Human female, 17 years, 3 months, 13 days old

Word of Force [33 points spent]
Force Adjustment lv3, Force Sense lv2, Force-Field Creation lv2, Forced Acceleration lv3, Constant Force lv2, Sustained Force lv2, Nearby Object Manipulation lv3

Other Abilities [24 points spent]
Time Leap lv1, Enhanced Regeneration lv4, Focused Invulnerability lv1, Instant Action lv2, Defensive Counter lv1, Super Suit lv1, Spatial Distortion lv1, Spatial Leap lv1

Ability Points: 8/65

Attributes [0/65]
Strength 33, Agility 16, Intelligence 6, Perception 9, Spirit 16, Luck 2

Taking one last look at my attributes, I could not help wondering whether, if ordinary people saw me on the street a year from now, they would eventually categorize me as “other” because of some uncanny-valley effect, or whether these outward changes would gradually fade.

Maybe I would end up like one of Tolkien’s famous elves, wholly other and majestically inhuman, perhaps even more so.

I supposed time would tell.