Chapter 2: Chapter 1: The Haul

The second I can see the parking attendant’s booth near the entrance to the parking lot of the weird warehouse I was just in I begin to slow down. I continue to maintain a brisk pace, as the building’s alarm is still audible in the background, but I quickly stop running to avert suspicion because people are still in the area, including, presumably, the two men who set off the alarm in the first place.

The essences in my possession are in my arms, and they are all making some noise as they clatter against each other. Normally the sound would annoy me, but right now the sound brings a smile to my face. The fact that I can hear it means that I extracted something of value from the place, and if the essences are even one one-hundredth as powerful as their descriptions claim they are… well, I can do a lot with even minor supernatural abilities, if I am just given the chance.

It takes me a few minutes of brisk speed walking before I find myself on my way to downtown and safely away from the warehouse. I can hear the distant sirens of police cars, which I assume must be going to investigate the chaos at the warehouse.

As I begin to edge closer and closer to downtown I elect to take a second to examine my haul. I keep walking but I grab my backpack and store some of the vials in it for a moment, while I take a beat to examine the other essences in my possession. The pieces of paper that serve as labels are crumpled up but thankfully still legible.

“Essence of Overwhelming Infinite Cosmic Might” is the first one I read. The piece of paper in my possession details the essence and at a glance, by itself, the thing is actually not useful.

It’s not weak, as it gives me the ability to have infinite “Points” when I do something called “Choose Your Own Adventures”, or CYOAs, but by itself the thing doesn’t bestow the power to “do” CYOAs in any sense that matters. I glance at another of my essences and chuckle, as it turns out that one of the other essences that I grabbed was the “Essence of All CYOAs”.

This secondary essence actually does allow me to do CYOAs, providing me with an updating, mental list of every Choose Your Own Adventure and by tapping into this list I can gain the things detailed in the CYOAs. These two essences have almost as much utility as “The Essence of the Evolving Essence Creator” surely does, since because of the details on the essence’s description I know there are thousands of these things to do.

The other two essences in my possession are the “Essence of The Legendary Quirks” and the “Essence of Creation”. I read their names and then read their descriptions only to begin to smile from ear to ear. Both essences provide me with superpowers, one in the form of two incredibly powerful “Quirks” named “One for All” and “All for One”, two immensely powerful superpowers, and the other in the form of the ability to create things using a small, but trainable, pool of supernatural energy.

When I reach the edge of downtown I elect to go ahead and down the drinks I have acquired. The first one I down is the weirdest one in my possession: “The Essence of the Evolving Essence Creator”, a powerful drink that allows me to create more essences.

Both this essence and the “Essence of All CYOA”" have timers affixed to them and start off with me unable to create hyper powerful essences or “go on” adventures that would transform me into a, for example, invincible god, right away. I need to train them and build up experience dealing with their idiosyncrasies before I can really go crazy with them, which makes a bit of sense. These essences are both incredibly powerful and could do a tremendous amount of stuff so it makes sense that their users need to train up to be able to fully use them.

As I drink the liquid I distinctly remember the sensation of the emotions I felt when I got into college, and other powerful, positive memories from a past that at times I can barely remember. I drink the beverage and I feel my perception of reality warp ever so slightly.

At the upper left corner of my vision I see a, currently static, timer appear that is locked in at at one hundred and twenty hours but hasn’t started yet. I know, intuitively, that a timer keyed to the same amount of time exists for my other larger essence, the “Essence of All CYOAs”. I also see a symbol of a book appear beneath it the timer for the “Essence of the Evolving Essence Creator” that I instinctually know is filled with the names and descriptions of essences.

This is another trainable essence, one that grows stronger with use, and it allows me to create and consume essences but at first it is limited to less absurdly powerful essences and no matter what when I create an essence I have to wait for the thing to recharge. According to its description as I create more and more essences I will be able to create stronger ones and I’ll have to wait less time before I can create more. It even provides me with a searchable list of every essence, which I intend to check out later.

For the next few moments I am distracted downing more and more of the beverages. When I am done drinking all five of my bizarre drinks I find myself smiling from ear to ear as I observe the minor changes to my perception of reality that even just drinking the things has caused. I can see a symbol representing the pool of creative power I possess, a component of the “Essence of Creation” in the bottom left corner of my mind’s eye and I can see another symbol, this time for Choose Your Own Adventures, in the upper right corner of my vision.

I can also feel the potency of my “Quirks” supercharging my body. I feel myself growing taller, and gaining muscle definition, even as I stride past the buildings that line the very edge of downtown Norfolk. “One For All”, a quirk that among other things boosts the power of other quirks, is actively supercharging the quirks that are coursing through me thanks to the quirk-stealing aspect of “All for One”, which is clearly some sort of sibling to it.

I close my eyes as I keep walking and I opt to truly test out “All for One”. This powerful quirk provides me with a repository of quirks to use, ones that I assume its true user somehow stole from others who possess quirks, and as I close my eyes I opt to test out a single one of those quirks: “Search”. I activate the quirk, causing me to picture a zoomed-out view of Norfolk.

This particular quirk relies on two things: me having a clear target, or targets, in mind, and me being within a certain distance of my target or targets. It is an incredibly handy quirk for doing something like bounty hunting, or looking for lost kids, and in this moment I want to use it to see where some of my friends happen to be.

As I focus on my friends I begin to see star shaped symbols appear on the map, causing me to smirk. Even a momentary mental glance at an individual star-like symbol allows me to learn whom the symbol represents, and I quickly see that most of my friends are at shelters throughout the town. I study the image and the stars for several moments, all while casually relying on a quirk named “Infrared” to make sense of my physical surroundings even without sight and to walk down the street without any problems.

I possess a startling ability to adapt to these powers, but I think it’s in part because of “One for All” helping to boost the quirks I possess. These abilities mix in incredibly synergistic ways, and I can already tell that I will be able to do many things with them.

I open my eyes, satisfied by my initial test of my quirks and can’t stop smiling. I was only testing the non-physical quirks, I know that when I actually unleash my physical quirks I’ll be able to do a lot more than I can do with quirks that don’t alter the world around me or directly change my body.

I am now in the more reputable part of downtown. At this point in the day most of the people here are almost done getting their businesses open, and a few businesses are actually already open! All around me I can see employees in businesses either idly waiting for customers or preparing for their day.

Before now I was always jealous of people like the people I am passing by. They had something I didn’t have: stability. That, however, was before I gained superpowers… Even just the quirks I possess would allow me to do a lot and I have more than just them.

“I wonder what I can do with this…” I mutter, as I think about the one other essence I imbibed which provides me with actual, direct superpowers: “The Essence of Creation”. Truthfully this might well be greater than the “Essence of the Legendary Quirks”, once I’ve had time to train it, as creation-based abilities are invariably incredibly powerful and that goes double for ones that allow you to create something from nothing.

I spot a bookstore in the distance and feel a scheme begin to form at the edge of my mind. I begin to walk towards the place, wondering if there is a “Free books” section like many bookstores happen to have. You’d think I’d be able to remember if this particular bookstore had one of those areas, but until now I’ve had more important things to focus on than remembering the minute details of each bookstore in town…

As I walk towards the bookstore I decide to experiment with a minor aspect of “Essence of Creation” by modifying something I own. I pull my backpack off of my back and I move the thing so I am actually looking at it before I place a light finger on one of the straps of the object. As I do this, my intent allows me to see a mental menu of possible changes I could cause my backpack to undergo as well as their “Cost” in creative energy.

These changes are downright magical, with some including causing the backpack to generate an internal stasis field that freezes things the moment I place them in the backpack and close it, or allowing the thing to have infinite space on the inside while not changing how much it weighs. Both of those particular changes are quite handy, but for my purposes one is decidedly more useful than the other. I select the change I want my backpack to undergo, and I feel my pool of energy both partially deplete and also increase overall, which causes me to chuckle.

The loss of creative energy does not have any effects on me that I can notice, and I can already feel the energy beginning to regenerate. It is not hard to feel triumphant as I begin to piece together the truly absurd possibilities that accompany this specific set of creation-based powers. It’ll take time to really master this, but even this ability: the power to grant magical properties to items, is worth the time it’ll take to train. And that singular ability is probably the least impressive aspect of this essence…

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I get close enough to the bookstore to spot the shelf of books outside of it, as well as what is clearly a “Free” sign positioned over the books and have to work not to smirk. If I use the “Essence of Creation” I can change things in less magical ways than granting them impossible properties, and that means that free stuff is a godsend if I want quick cash.

When I reach the store I scan the area for cameras. I don’t notice any, and so I begin to fill my backpack with books, though I don’t greedily stuff my backpack with every book I could get my hands on. I only take a quarter of the books, but as I do so I can’t stop myself from smiling joyously.

“This is amazing…” I mutter, as I grab what will surely amount to free cash in the days to come. At the moment this is easier than creating mounds of cash from nothing, especially since using such money, without any sort of paper trail explaining where it all came from, would be suspicious as hell. This approach may take longer, but it is altogether cleverer and allows me to train these new powers of mine.

“Creation is incredible…” I say, as I finish hauling the books into my backpack and begin to walk away from the place. If I had some way of controlling people I’d probably use them to expand my ability to get my hands on free stuff, which I can use to hone my creation-based powers.

I think about that as I begin to head towards a place that I know to be a safe sanctuary for the homeless: the public library. The local library is located in the heart of downtown and is a fair distance from where I am, but as I watch cars drive past me I physically gesture and touch the area where the “CYOA” list happens to be. As soon as I touch it an impressive list of “Adventures” for me to fill out appears in the form of a partially see-through menu that lists out hundreds of forms I could interact with.

There is no way for me to filter the results which is a bit annoying. All I can do is the see the “First page” of the documents before me, and so I use that to quickly rifle through the list until I find one that mildly interests me: “Demon Eyes”.

I select it and am asked if I’d like a simplified version of this CYOA. I inform the thing that I would and am pleasantly surprised when I see the backstory and any extra, textual "fluff", vanish allowing me to glance at the options I can take without distractions. When I check the total number of “Points” I possess, all I see is the infinity symbol which makes me chuckle. I select every “Demon Eye”, of which there are nine in each “Sin” and seven total “Sins” and all of the fully upgraded “Auras”, before I glance through the rest of the document.

I elect to ignore the remaining sections of the document as they all have things that I don’t care for. Whether it is the artifact section only having artifacts with drawbacks or the companion section which seems mostly suitable for high schoolers, there is nothing else of interest to me in the document. When I finish making my choices I finalize my selection and I immediately feel my eyes begin to shake violently in my skull. I hiss, the sound primeval and animalistic, as I feel power well up within my eyes.

It takes nearly a complete minute for my eyes to stop quaking in my skull but when they do I can feel that I have attuned to the potent powers I have just acquired. I can feel my “Demon Eyes” charged up within me, requiring little more than intent for me to go ahead and activate them.

I take a beat to study my mind’s eye and I can see that the timer for the “Essence of All CYOAs” has begun. It’ll take me a total of five days before I can do another CYOA, but given the breadth of powers I have just acquired from this initial “Adventure” I can tell that I’ll be able to have fun in the meantime even if I just grabbed this essence and the overwhelming cosmic might essence.

I don’t waste time before beginning to have fun with my new powers. The sheer variety of “Demon Eyes” that I possess allows me to immediately do a lot that I previously couldn’t. I glance at a car that is driving by and I focus on it while envisioning an eye appearing on the door leading to the driver’s seat. As I do I feel my field of view both split up and multiply, because of an eye that I can use: the “Thousand Eye-God Ocular” eye which gives me the ability to create invisible eyes and affix them to objects and people.

This usage of the unusual and high-level demon eye is just a test but I wait and watch as the car drives out of view as far as my physical eyes go and yet my ocular eye continues to persistently cling to the vehicle. I actually physically cheer, as this serves as confirmation of the potential of this particularly weird and very high-level eye.

This ability could be a lot of fun, especially since I can still use “Demon Eyes” through the ocular eyes that I can place on people and things. Ocular eyes can even create more ocular eyes, which means that someone with this ability and the patience to master it can even do stuff as complex as place eyes all over the world so long as they cleverly use their existing eyes and mobile objects to maximum effect.

All I want to do with it, for now, is use it to grab more books and other free stuff. And I begin to do that immediately, as I use the existing ocular eye on the car driving out of downtown to plant eyes on various buildings that I can’t physically see. I enjoy doing this for a few moments, giving me eyes inside of various stores and office spaces, before I practice “closing” some of the eyes just to make sure that I can shut them as easily as I can open them.

This set of abilities doesn’t feel quite as natural as using the quirks I’ve used, or even editing something using my creation-based powers. That is a bit disappointing but it’s also not particularly surprising, as this power is a power I gained through the application of an essence instead of acquiring it outright. That said, I am still filled with a healthy amount of power thanks to the eyes and I intend to have fun with them.

I allow myself a moment to grow familiar with the various eyes I have placed in different parts of downtown before I activate one of the more curious powers I possess by blinking. When I blink I feel myself dematerialize, and even though my eyes are shut I know that I am in a strange void where nothing truly exists. I am alone in this immaterial space, but I don’t intend to be here long. I envision a shadowy corner of the building next to the public library and I open my eyes.  

When my eyes open I find myself in the exact spot I was just visualizing and I smirk as I look at the public library. The building is still closed, but with my new eyes that isn’t particularly important. I look into one of the clear windows revealing as much of the library as it lets people in the building see of the outside world.

I focus on a chair inside of the library that is pointed further into the place and I activate a power that I know will become one of my favorites in the days to come: “Thousand Eye-God Ocular”. I place a single eye on the chair and I use it as a vantage point to begin to be able to peer into the mostly empty, not-yet-open building with frightening ease.

I utilize my initial eye and point it at the furthest possible place that I can see in the building: a distant bookshelf. I place an eye on the bookshelf shortly before I shut the first eye that I used to begin my stealthy foray into the library. The reason I’m doing all of this in the first place is because with my powers I can easily transform books into other books but I don’t know what books to transform my current possessions into.

What I want to do is use the internet to find PDFs of costly books and transform the books I currently possess into more expensive ones I can resell. And I don’t own a computer, yet, so I can’t do something like this on my own. If I create my own computer it’ll take all of my creative energy, and I’ll have to wait half a day to be able to begin to edit books, and if I did that I couldn’t even attempt to do something like create money outright, if I felt like trying that. Until I have more creative energy this is the plan that lets me do the most stuff, the most efficiently.

My eyes continue their odd journey into the library, with me shutting eyes as readily as I open them, until I can see one of the public computers in the building, as well as into the rooms where the library’s staff are diligently working to prepare the place to open for the weekend. I stare at it for a moment, before I get ready to utilize some of the more modern demon eyes I possess.

“And so it begins…” I mutter, a wicked grin on my face as I contemplate the various ways I can have fun with this. At the moment my demon eyes are my most versatile abilities, even though they aren’t quite as trainable as some of my other powers.

I activate “Cyber-Corruption Eye”, a potent “Sloth” eye and I train various eyes on the computer to make sure no one notices what I am doing. Thankfully, even if someone does, I can do stuff about that. I’d just prefer not to have to interact so directly with people this early into my attempts to train my powers. Until I’ve grown more familiar with my weird abilities I definitely would rather avoid using my powers on other folks, unless they elect to make such a decision on my part a necessary one.

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