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 LinProfile: Human female, 17 years, 3 months, 13 days old

Ability Points: 8/65

Word of Force [33 points spent]Force Adjustment lv3Force Sense lv2Force-Field Creation lv2Forced Acceleration lv3Constant Force lv2Sustained Force lv2Nearby Object Manipulation lv3

Other Abilities [24 points spent]Time Leap lv1Enhanced Regeneration lv4Focused Invulnerability lv1Instant Action lv2Defensive Counter lv1Super Suit lv1Spatial Distortion lv1Spatial 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…