The System Gave Everyone Superpowers

The HRC police and medics arrived a few minutes later.

They loaded Zachary onto a stretcher. His armor was full of bullet holes and he was unconscious, but the medics said his high Constitution stat would keep him alive. Leo climbed into the back of the ambulance with him, looking pale and exhausted.

Genevieve was giving an interview to a local news crew that had just arrived.

"It was a tough fight," Genevieve lied perfectly to the camera. "But at Aegis Defense, we don't back down. I saw an opening and neutralized the threat before anyone else could get hurt."

I stood in the background, near the police barricade, watching her.

Captain May’s voice crackled in my earpiece. "Excellent work, Frostbite. The footage is perfect. Aegis PR is already pushing it to the major networks. Shay, good job staying out of the shot."

"Yeah. Great job," I muttered.

I turned off my earpiece. I was tired of listening to them.

The joint patrol was officially over. I didn't wait for Genevieve to finish her interviews. I just turned around and walked away, heading toward my apartment.

When I got home, I turned on the TV in my living room.

Every news channel was playing the footage from District 1. The Aegis drones had captured the entire fight, but Aegis had quickly edited the video before giving it to the news.

The video showed Zachary getting shot and falling to his knees making Gadol look weak. Then, it cut to Genevieve standing up bravely and freezing all the Villains with one massive blast. It made Aegis look like saviors.

They completely cut out the part where Genevieve hid behind the planter box while Leo and Zachary took all the damage.

I muted the TV and sat on my couch.

My phone buzzed on the coffee table.

It was a news alert. A major breaking news notification from the HRC.

I picked up the phone and opened the alert. It was a video.

The video was shot on a shaky cell phone in a dark warehouse.

In the center of the video, a man was tied to a wooden chair. He was wearing an orange Hero suit with a sponsored logo on it.

He looked terrified and was bleeding from a cut on his forehead.

Standing behind him was a man in a ragged black coat. He was wearing a simple white mask with no face, just a black circle painted in the center.

The symbol of a Black Hole.

"Citizens of America," the masked man said, his voice distorted and deep. "Look at this man. He calls himself a Hero. He takes your tax money and corporate sponsorships. But when an elderly woman begged for his help, he flew away because she couldn't pay him."

The Hero in the chair started crying. "Please! I was just following my contract!"

"Your contract is a sin," the masked man said.

He raised his hand and a swirling ball of dark destructive energy formed in his palm. It was the same energy the scout had used against me in the electronics shop.

"The Hero industry is a disease," the masked man declared to the camera. "You worship false idols, money, PR, and the Church of God. We are Black Hole and we are the cure."

The masked man pressed the energy ball against the back of the Hero's head.

The video instantly cut to black.

I stared at the black screen on my phone, my stomach dropping.

They didn't show the death, but it was obvious. They had executed a Hero on camera.

The text below the video read: ALL HEROES ADVISED TO INCREASE SECURITY.

I put my phone down.

Aegis Defense was a corporate agency. Genevieve was heavily sponsored. I was her partner.

Black Hole were hunting people like Genevieve. Which meant they would be hunting me, too.

The efficient loophole wasn't going to protect me from fanatical terrorists. If a Black Hole hit squad attacked us, Genevieve would panic and I would be the one forced to fight.

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And against killers who didn't care about their own lives, my little invisible wind tricks wouldn't be enough. I needed to actually get stronger.

I stood up from the couch.

For the first time in my life, I actually wanted to go train.

I didn't sleep well that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the energy ball and black hole symbol.

The next morning, I got dressed, went down to the lobby of my apartment building, and took a corporate car straight to the Aegis Private Training Zone Facility.

Because I was an official Aegis Hero, I had free access to the Private Zones. I walked up to the front desk and flashed my license.

"I need a Private Zone," I told the attendant. "Maximum privacy settings. No cameras or recording drones."

The attendant typed on his keyboard. "Right away, Mr. Fawn. Room 4B is open. The auto-heal function is active. If your HP drops below ten percent, the Zone will automatically stabilize you."

"Thanks."

I walked down a long hallway and opened the door to Room 4B.

Inside, it looked like an empty warehouse made of gray blocks. There were no Constructs or fake sky. It was just a blank canvas created for training.

I stood in the center of the room and took a deep breath.

I opened my Status Screen.

Name: Shay Fawn

Level: 6

BP: 145/145

Skills: None

Spells: None

I stared at the empty spots for Skills and Spells.

When you use a Blessing normally, you have to manually control it. If I want to freeze someone, I have to mentally calculate the temperature drop, focus on the specific area, and push my BP into the air. It takes focus. If I get distracted or panicked in a fight, the attack will fail.

But if you practice a specific magical action enough times, the System will formalize it. It turns that action into a Skill or a Spell.

Once it becomes a Skill, you don't have to think about it anymore. You just activate it, and the System does the math for you. It is faster, more reliable, and usually costs less BP.

I needed a Skill. Something fast and lethal to deal with Black Hole terrorists.

I held out my right hand and focused on a spot in the air about ten feet away.

I rapidly increased the temperature in that one specific spot, trying to make it as hot as a furnace.

Cost: 15 BP.

The air shimmered and distorted with intense heat, but it didn't do much else. It was just a pocket of hot air.

I dropped the temperature back to normal. My head hurt slightly from the concentration.

I tried again.

Cost: 15 BP.

The air shimmered again. I tried to compress the heat, making it tighter and hotter. I wanted it to be hot enough to melt metal instantly.

I held the heat for ten seconds, then let it go. I was sweating.

I looked at my BP. 115/145.

I kept doing it. Over and over again. I stood in the empty room for two hours, creating pockets of intense heat, dropping them, and creating them again.

My BP drained down to 5. I sat on the floor, panting, and waited for it to slowly regenerate. Once it was back to 50, I stood up and started again.

It was boring and exhausting. It felt exactly like the stupid training exercises they made me do at Metropolitan Academy. I hated every second of it.

But every time I wanted to quit and go back to my soft bed, I thought about the masked man executing that Hero on camera.

I pushed through the headache and focused all my anger and frustration into the heat.

I held my hand out and compressed the temperature as tight as I possibly could. The air glowed with a faint orange light. The heat was so intense I could feel it burning my face from ten feet away.

Suddenly, a gold notification flashed in front of my eyes.

[System Recognition Achieved.]

[New Skill Unlocked: Burn (Level 1)]

I dropped my hand and the heat vanished. I let out a long breath and smiled.

I opened my Status Screen and tapped on the new Skill to read the description.

[Skill: Burn (Level 1)]

Type: Active/Passive Toggle

Description: Instantly superheats an area to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Does not require manual temperature calculation. Can melt standard metals and ignite flammable materials instantly.

Cost: 5 BP per activation.

It was perfect and exactly what I wanted. Instead of spending 15 BP and getting a headache trying to focus the heat, I could just toggle [Burn] for 5 BP, and the System would instantly create a 500-degree pocket of air wherever I looked.

I was exhausted but I wasn't done.

I had a lethal attack now, but I still had a problem. My Agility stat was only 6. If a Black Hole terrorist shot at me or threw a bomb, I was too slow to dodge it.

I needed mobility.

I walked over to the control panel on the wall of the Private Zone and typed in a command.

The gray blocks in the center of the room shifted and stacked on top of each other, creating a flat platform about fifty feet in the air. A set of stairs formed on the side.

I walked up the stairs until I reached the top of the platform. I looked down. Fifty feet was a long drop.

I took a deep breath. I needed a Spell.

I pulled the air around me, wrapping my entire body in a tight slipstream of wind. I tried to make the wind push upward, fighting gravity.

Cost: 20 BP.

I stepped off the edge of the platform.

For one second, I hovered. Then, the wind currents shifted. I lost my balance, the slipstream broke apart, and I fell.

I hit the floor hard.

Pain exploded in my legs. My HP dropped instantly.

HP: 20/220.

The System auto-heal function kicked in immediately. A soft green light washed over my body, knitting my broken bones back together and restoring my HP.

I lay on the floor, groaning. That hurt a lot.

But I didn't quit. I stood up, walked back to the stairs, and climbed to the top of the platform again.

I was going to learn how to fly, even if I had to break my legs a hundred times to do it.

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