The System Gave Everyone Superpowers

The eyes drew closer, their claws scratching against the ledge outside. My pressure barrier was vibrating, taking hits from the storm and the beasts.

"I'll warp them into the sky," Mai said, stepping forward. "The fall will destroy them."

"No, I don't think you will," a voice said.

The voice had come from the corner of the cave.

With a flick of his wrist, Koda tossed his wooden drawing board and pencil onto the floor. They rolled into the dark.

"You..." Mai gasped. "You can talk?"

"Of course I can talk," Koda said. "A good artist always studies his subjects before he paints them. I wanted to see the full extent of your abilities before I showed you mine."

He stepped past Mai.

"And honestly?" Koda chuckled, tilting his head. "You're both a little predictable. Portal uses the same old gates, and Seasons... well, Seasons is just lazy."

"If you could talk this whole time—" Mai started, her face turning red with anger.

"Oh, shut up. The dogs are here," Koda interrupted, waving a hand.

My pressure barrier finally shattered. Three wolves lunged into the cave.

Koda raised his right hand, his index finger glowing with a ink-black light. With blinding speed, he flicked his finger through the air, tracing three sharp lines.

The black ink solidified into three solid iron spears.

With a wave of his hand, the spears shot forward like bullets.

The spears impaled all three wolves directly through their chests, pinning them firmly to the wall of the cave. The beasts thrashed, their legs clawing helplessly at the air.

Koda chuckled, his finger moving again. He quickly drew a flat square in the air above the pinned wolves.

"Down goes the hammer," Koda whispered.

The square materialized into a three-ton block of steel. It dropped instantly, crushing the thrashing wolves into a pancake. The impact shook the cave, and a second later, all three constructs dissolved into a massive shower of grey pixels.

[Construct Defeated. +200 XP]

[Construct Defeated. +200 XP]

[Construct Defeated. +200 XP]

Koda blew on his finger as if extinguishing a match.

He turned around to face us.

"There," Koda said, wiping his hands. "Clean, quiet, and efficient. Just how Seasons likes it."

He looked at Mai. "Which is why, starting right now, I'm the leader of this little team."

"The hell you are!" Mai roared, taking a step toward him. "You're Level 102. I'm Level 105. And you just lied to us for all this time! You're a manipulative freak!"

"Levels are just numbers, Portal," Koda said. "You saw how hard you had to fight those tigers earlier. I didn't even break a sweat. I’m the director of this show now."

Mai’s hands flared with light. "I will warp you out of this fucking cave, Koda."

"Try it," Koda whispered, his finger hovering in the air. "I'll paint a cage around you before you can blink."

I lay back down on my rock.

An angry teleporter and a creepy painter who could draw weapons out of thin air.

My comfortable evaluation was officially dead.

"Hey," I called out. "Idiots."

Both of them turned their heads toward me.

"If you two start fighting in here, you're going to collapse the roof," I said, pointing up at the cracked ceiling. "If you break my cave and make me go back out into the fucking cold, I will be very annoyed."

"He lied to us, Seasons!" Mai yelled. "He’s a snake! He’s been pretending to be mute just so he could spy on us!"

"I prefer the term 'silent partner,'" Koda said.

"I don't care if he's a snake, a partner, or a mute," I said. "I care about the million dollars. We have over sixty hours left. If Koda wants to be the leader, let him. He can do all the planning, make all the decisions, and take all the blame if we fail. That sounds like a great deal to me."

Koda let out a laugh. "See? Seasons gets it. He understands the art of delegation."

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Slowly, the light around her hands faded.

"Fine," Mai muttered,. "But if your 'leadership' gets us disqualified, Koda, I will personally warp you into a black hole."

"I’d love to see you try," Koda said.

He walked to the mouth of the cave, stepping right up to the edge of the drop-off.

"Oh, look," Koda said. "The warm-up is over. The System is sending the big toys now."

I walked over to the entrance and squinted into the blizzard.

Down in the valley, about a hundred yards away, the trees were snapping like twigs. Massive shadows were moving through the storm.

"Ice Golems," Mai whispered, stepping up behind us. "At Outpost Seven? Those are Level 110 constructs. They have high physical resistance and can freeze the air in your lungs."

"Level 110?" Koda’s eyes gleamed. "Perfect. I was starting to get bored of the dogs."

The ground was shaking.

Three Ice Golems were stomping up the slope toward our cave.

"One hit from those things will take forty percent of our health," Mai said. "Their armor is too thick for my normal spatial slices. We have to break the iron plates to get to the soft ice beneath."

"Then let's make an opening," Koda smiled. "Portal, open a gate right in front of the leader."

She waved her hand, and a portal opened at the edge of the cliff.

Koda’s finger flew through the air, drawing a red-hot steel lance. The drawing solidified, glowing with heat.

"Fire in the hole," Koda chuckled.

He flicked his hand, and the molten lance shot through Mai’s portal, reappearing directly behind the lead golem’s head. It struck the back of the golem's neck. A cloud of white steam exploded into the air, but the golem merely stumbled. Its Constitution was too high. It roared, swinging a fist back and shattering the portal.

The other two golems were closing in. They were only twenty yards away now, their feet crushing the trees below.

"My portals are taking too much strain!" Mai yelled. "I can't open another one yet!"

Koda’s finger was moving again, but the wind was blowing snow into his eyes, slowing down his drawing speed.

I stepped up to the edge of the cave, sighing as I took my hands out of my pockets. "Hey, Portal. Painter. Stop trying to break the metal. Use science."

I focused on the second golem's legs.

Burn.

I targeted the outer iron plates on its knees.

Then, I immediately canceled the skill and let the wind of the storm slam into the metal.

The sudden temperature drop caused instant thermal shock.

The iron plates shattered into tiny pieces, exposing the ice underneath.

"There's your opening," I said, putting my hands back in my pockets.

Koda didn't waste a second. His finger flicked through the air as he drew a volley of sharp iron spikes. The spikes materialized and shot forward, burying themselves deep into the golem’s exposed ice joints.

The leg shattered, and the twenty-foot giant collapsed forward, tumbling down the cliff before dissolving into a massive cloud of pixels.

[Construct Defeated. +500 XP]

"Brilliant," Koda said.

I focused on the third golem, which was now only ten yards away, raising its fist to crush our cave.

I used Burn on its chest plates then let the wind hit it.

Mai reacted instantly, waving her hand and opening a small portal right inside the exposed chest cavity. She warped the golem’s core out of its body, dropping it onto the floor of our cave.

Without its core, the body went limp and collapsed, dissolving into pixels before it could hit the cave.

[Construct Defeated. +500 XP]

The lead golem, still wounded from Koda's first attack, was the only one left. Together, Mai and Koda finished it off, shattering its weakened neck with a spatial slice and a drawn warhammer.

[Construct Defeated. +500 XP]

The clearing went quiet again.

[Experience Points (XP) threshold reached.]

[Level Up!]

I dumped the points into Wisdom and opened my Status Screen.

Name: Shay Fawn

Level: 52

BP: 320/320

Koda walked over to the center of the cave, bending down to pick up the core.

"A simulated core," Koda said. "Completely worthless on the black market. But it registers on our evaluation scoreboard. Let’s see how our peers are doing."

He tapped his wrist communicator, and a small holographic screen popped up in the air.

[Outpost 7 Live Scoreboard]

[Rank 1: Team 3 - 1,600 Points]

[Rank 2: Team 5 - 1,100 Points]

[Rank 3: Team 1 - 950 Points]

"First place," I said. "And we did ninety percent of it by sitting in a warm cave. My favorite kind of victory."

Mai walked over to the fireplace, sitting down.

"Where did you learn to do that?" she asked. "The thermal shock trick."

"Nowhere," I said, closing my eyes. "I just thought about it. It’s just physics. Hot things expand. Cold things shrink. If you make the transition fast enough, the structural integrity collapses. It’s middle-school science."

"Most people with S-Tier element Blessings don't care about middle-school science," Mai countered, looking at me with a frown. "They try to summon real hurricanes or freeze entire oceans to show off. They don't do micro-calculations to save a few points of BP."

"Those people are idiots," I muttered. "If I tried to summon a real tornado, it would cost a thousand BP. My max pool is only three hundred and twenty. If I tried to show off like that, my brain would melt and I’d pass out. I like my brain where it is."

Mai shook her head. "You're absurd, Seasons. You have a god-tier Blessing, and you use it like a scientist."

"A scientist is the best kind, Portal," Koda chimed in. "They find the shortest path to the finish line. It saves a lot of useless drama."

He walked over to the mouth of the cave.

"The wind is starting to get annoying again," Koda said. "Let me fix the door."

He raised his hand and drew a stone wall with a small window directly over the cave entrance.

The drawing solidified, sealing the cave completely, blocking out the wind and the snow.

I smiled, lying back down on my rock and closing my eyes. "Perfect. You're a great leader, Koda. Truly inspiring."

"Anytime, Seasons," Koda chuckled. "Get some sleep. I'll wake you if we need to melt any more toys."

I closed my eyes and let myself drift off. We had hours left in this frozen forest, and I planned to sleep through as many of them as possible.

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