5 Chapter 5: Out at Night

6:15 PM.

It was currently, It was currently 6:15 PM and I just finished my workout. A total of two hours of non-stop workouts with me ending up drenched in my own sweat. As usual, I could barely move after the intense exercises I did. I wanted to get in shape as quickly as possible. I felt like my own heart wanted to jump out of my body, but I did it.

Right, now I was currently collapsed on my bed due to exhaustion. The door leading to my Workshop where my clones were trying to walk walls. A shiver of excitement ran down my spine as I thought about how I would be able to walk or run on walls or even water using chakra.

Speaking of chakra, I started circulating my chakra in my body in order to increase my body's recovery rate. I discovered this neat little trick after my first week of training using chakra. Circulating chakra through my chakra doesn't just increase my body's strength. In fact, it can pretty much increase almost anything in my body, but increasing my strength is probably the easiest thing to do.

And so, it took about 10 minutes, and I had fully recovered. Of course, it didn't get rid of the sores my body would feel afterwards, this trick only alleviated my fatigue.

*Sniff*

Holy Shit, do I smell bad!

I quickly removed my clothes and hopped into the shower. As soon as the hot water hit my body, I felt like melting out of sheer comfort. Even if I had an intense workout, I would always shower or bathe in hot water no matter the circumstances. Unless I took an ice bath for my swim meets. Even if my coach recommended me to take cold showers, I would never listen. No one takes my hot water privilege!

Almost a half hour later, I stepped out of the bathroom refreshed. That's when the Celestial Forge stirred.

"Again?"

This time, however, the energy reached out of a constellation called Domain: Database: Mundane. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough energy to grab one of the stars.

To be honest, I was kind of relieved, for some reason, the Celestial Forge has been kind of active today and I couldn't keep up with the powers I was getting. For one, I still needed to get used to my chakra and then BAM! I get two other powers! One pertained to the ability to make highly efficient computers and other devices and the other gave me to literally program reality! Let's not forget about the one that literally allowed me to slow down my time! Although, it was mostly for cooking which in itself was very vague according to the power.

Speaking of which, my stomach growled. Looking at the time, it was 6:50 PM. A little early, but I'm hungry. I put on some clothes and went downstairs. Sonia would be arriving home by 9:00 PM so I had to cook for myself a little. I went into the kitchen and looked for anything to eat. I went through the pantry and stumbled upon the greatest invention of mankind.

Noodles.

Instant noodles.

I could feel my mouth build up with saliva as I grabbed three packs of instant noodles. I then took out a large pot and put some water to boil. Once it was ready, I put in all three packets of seasoning, found in each pack of ramen, and put them in the boiling water, I also had another pot boiling where I put two eggs I had found in the refrigerator. Once the boiling water had completely dissolved the seasoning, I went ahead and placed all three ramen in the pot and watched it sink into the broth. In the meantime, I went back to the refrigerator, took out some vegetables and salad and started chopping them up.

To be honest, I hated eating salad. I can't help but cringe in nausea every time I ate salad alone. Unfortunately, I had to eat it. Fortunately, the noodles will help balance the taste out for me.

Soon the noodles were cooked and I took the pot and placed it on the table where I was going to eat straight from it. Why waste a bowl when I can eat straight from the pot? Plus it helped keep the noodles hot. I also took out the eggs and peeled them open before cutting them in half and placing them in the noodles. The liquid yolk could be seen soaking the top of the noodles adding more taste to it. Soon the salad was ready and I was ready to eat when I looked at the time on the microwave.

6:53 PM.

'Hold up. Something's wrong here.'

I looked at the time and back to my food before looking back at the time.

6:53 PM.

Frowning, I looked at the time on my phone and it was still 6:53 PM.

'The fuck?'

Only three minutes have passed? How the fuck is that possible!? The whole cooking process took almost twenty minutes!

It was then I remembered my power: Time to Cook.

"Holy shit! This is awesome!"

What was supposed to be a twenty-minute cooking process took only three minutes. And I didn't even notice it. It all felt so natural and smooth that I could feel the flow of time change. No. It was more like my progression of time changed which was why it felt so natural. There was also the fact, that there were no other people except for me in the house, making it harder to notice the power in effect.

But this was amazing.

As long as it was remotely related to cooking, I could do anything at superspeed which didn't even feel like superspeed. I could cook an entire banket in less than 10 minutes. A Thanksgiving turkey that would at least take three hours to cook could be cooked in less than thirty minutes as long as I was fully concentrated on it. The change in the time flow wouldn't even be noticeable.

I have to experiment with it some more.

*Grooowwwlll*

But I must eat first.

[***]

It was now 11:00 PM. The closet door was closed and no clones could be seen around. I looked at my door and listened for any noise outside of my room while I lay in my bed

After coming from work at 9:00 PM, my sister finally went to bed at 10:30 PM. Today has been very tiring for her as all Mondays usually go.

I really need to find a way to make money for her.

The legal way at least.

Once the clock hit 11:15 PM, I slowly got off my bed and slowly made my way to the door. Opening as quietly as possible, I tiptoed to my sister's door and slowly opened it. Seeing my sister sleeping like a rock made me sigh in relief and I slowly closed the door back before returning to my room.

I grabbed my sports duffel bag and packed some bottles of water, a towel and spare clothes along with some notebooks and pencils to use. I also packed a flashlight just in case. I then cast the Shadow Clone Jutsu.

*Pop*

An identical clone of me appeared,

"Go to sleep."

The clone nodded and went to lie down on my bed. I then changed my clothes. Right now, I was wearing some joggers along with a black T-shirt and a hoodie. Once everything was ready, I went to my window and opened it.

The night was a little cold, but it wasn't enough to bother me. I could see the moon illuminating the night enough to not keep me in total darkness. Looking down, I could see the lawn in front of the house.

"Here we go."

I went through the window and quietly stepped onto the roof of my house before closing the window. I took a deep breath of the nightly air as I could feel my heart pumping in my body. This would be the first time in both of my lives I would sneak out at night.

Hehehe.

I always wondered if I would have the chance to do it. I always heard the other teenagers around me talking about staying out late at night attending parties and clubs or simply hanging out with friends. It seemed nice to me since I never had the chance since my mom was really strict.

Also, I never really had friends to be doing that kind of stuff with. Even my swimming friends had different kinds of lives compared to me. Well, no matter.

Shaking my head, I took another deep breath, I walked to the edge of the roof and looked down. To be honest, I was pretty high up. I could feel my heart beating faster due to the height.

'You can do this, Jay. It's not that high. You even have chakra so it's not a big deal.'

*SLAP*

I slapped my cheeks to calm myself and concentrated my chakra on my legs and feet.

3

2

1

Go!

I jumped off the roof and onto the lawn.

*Thump*

Huh? That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe it was because of the chakra, but I didn't feel any pain. Although, the abrupt force did take me by surprise and it took me a second for the feeling to go away. Looking around, I saw that there was no one and I began to jog.

It was exhilarating.

The silence of the night and the emptiness of the neighbourhood felt so surreal, it was amazing. The feeling of being alone in such a large space was exciting.

Am I secretly a night owl?

As I ran, the houses seem to pass by me in a blur. Before long, I found myself looking at a high metal fence. It was almost 30 feet high. Looking back, I realized I had jogged a few blocks from my home and was now in the city outside of the suburb.

I turned back to the fence and hooked my hands into one of the fence holes. I then hooked my foot into another before lifting my leg and hooking my other foot in a hole higher than the previous one and climbing up. When I first started exercising, this feat would have tired me out easily now. Now, after jogging a few blocks and climbing the fence, I was only left slightly panting.

Once I reached the end, I jumped down using my chakra just like when I jumped off the roof back home.

"Hup!"

*Thump*

Although, this time the noise at the point of impact was louder due to it not being grass anymore. Looking around, I saw that no one was there.

Of course, there would be no one. The location I am at was an abandoned train I had discovered on my daily runs. Every time I ran past it, I would check it out. There was also the fact that, due to its location and condition, people didn't often visit this place making it the perfect place to practice my powers. Of course, the perfect place would be my Workshop, but it wasn't large enough.

I started walking and, five minutes later, arrived in front of the hangar. The hangar itself was full of rust. The bricks previously red were now a discoloured pink and overgrown weeds and grass could be seen all over the place. The windows were so dusted I could barely see through them. I arrived in front of the hangar door and opened it. Lucky for me, the door was left unlocked when I first checked this place out sparing me from worrying about unlocking it.

The inside was another story. The moonlight could be seen piercing through the windows illuminating the place just a little. I turned to look around. Most of the place was covered in dust and leaves and weed along with plenty of graffiti and tags. Multiple railways could be seen most likely for trains when not being used. In fact, there was an abandoned train car at the end of the track. I also could see chains hanging from the ceiling along with a generator which was probably used for this hangar's electricity.

Actually, now that I think about it, I could probably use it for something. Maybe for my Workshop. Although the Celestial Forge gave me a workshop, it didn't come with electricity or water which limited me a lot. If I needed to use some machine that used electricity, I would need to buy an electric cable that I would need to plug into my house. And I didn't want to increase the electricity bill.

Hmph. This was perfect. I could probably use this place as a hideout or something for my experiments or superpower training. Although, my Necrotect instincts were screaming at me to fix this dump.

Placing my duffle bag on the sole bench of the place, I walked up to one of the doors and took out my Workshop key. Inserting the key in the keyhole, I was pleased to see the entrance hall to my workshop instead of whatever was normally behind the door.

"Alright. Let's do this."

I placed my fingers in a familiar hand sign and two clones appeared in front of me.

"Alright, you guys. Continue practicing Wall climbing using chakra."

They both nodded before Clone A turned to me,

"And you're going to practice with magic, right?"

I smirked,

"Yeah."

Clone B pouted at me.

It was weird seeing myself pout like that.

"Ah, man! I wanted to use magic!" he whined.

Before he could whine some more, Clone A grabbed his collar and pulled him,

"Just get to it! Besides, wall climbing is cool too."

I watched them go into the Workshop leaving me alone in the hangar.

Do I whine like that? It was honestly jarring how my clones would act so differently from me sometimes. Was it the fact that they knew their existence was limited which made them act out? But then again, I remember the first time I tried the Jutsu, my clone literally stabbed himself in the eye just to prank me. Is part of me a tiny bit suicidal or was that just the feelings of the previous Jay?

Shelving that thought in the back of my head, I cracked my fingers and got ready to practice using magic for the first time. I walked up to an open space and closed my eyes. The Celestial Forge decided that it was the perfect time to move. Unfortunately, it hadn't managed to catch anything from the Domain: Crafting: Magical Items Constellation.

When the Celestial Forge gave me a magical ability, he gave me the power to cast Runes. Runes in other words are alphabets. In our world, runes were used by the germanic people in the old times. It is also popular in our times as seen in games, books, movies, etc. However, runes are mostly attributed to the chief god of the Asgardians: Odin. It is said that he had hung himself on a branch of the world tree connecting the nine realms, Yggdrasil, for nine days and nine nights in order to learn and understand the runes.

Wait. Does Odin of this earth use rune magic? The only time I have seen Odin use rune magic was when he banished thor to Midgard or Earth.

The Runic magic I got was different. First of all, it was of a different language from the normal runes I know. Second, there were a lot more runes in my magic than the runes Odin had if what I knew was all of it. Finally, while each rune in the Asgardian runic alphabet meant a concept, my magic's runes felt more concrete. For example, one rune in the germanic runic alphabet could mean many things while one rune of my magic meant one thing.

I closed my eyes and felt my mana. The mana my body possessed was produced in my heart. While the heart itself pumped blood throughout my body, it seemed like my heart had an added function: to pump mana through my body through metaphysical veins meant just for mana. That means my body now had three vascular systems: The cardiovascular system, the chakra system and the mana system. Each system didn't clash with the other, but I suspect it was the work of the Celestial Forge.

I focused my heart.

I could feel some sort of heat similar to when I used chakra surge in my heart. I then guided the mana from my heart to my shoulder, then my right arm and finally into my index finger. I then opened my eyes and saw that my index finger was glowing slightly.

Huh? That could be useful when I had no light.

I failed to stifle the growing smirk on my face at the sight of the slight bit of magic. You would think I wouldn't be so surprised or excited since I already experience supernatural abilities when I got chakra, but that was wrong.

I raised my finger as if it was my pencil in the air in front of me and I thought about what I would try before nodding.

Let's try this one.

I focused on the rune I wanted to try out and wrote it out. It was like I was writing on a solid surface. If I were to describe it, it would be like writing on an Ipad, except there was no Ipad and it was only the empty air. A trail left my finger when I wrote the rune I wanted. Now, I'm gonna be honest. My handwriting was terrible. It was on par with some of the doctors who would write out prescriptions for their patients. I couldn't even count the number of times my teachers deducted points from my tests and exams due to bad handwriting since they didn't know what I had written.

However, the symbol I wrote was a perfect mirror of the one in my mind. Did perfect calligraphy come as a perk along with the magic or did it just affect my magic? If it did come with perfect calligraphy, thank the gods! I would finally be able to write in a readable way. I then fed my magic into the rune. The rune glowed as it greedily sucked my mana. When I stopped feeding after one-tenth of my mana reserve had been consumed, the rune glowed before transforming into a circle of turquoise light. Suddenly, a small waterfall started flowing out of the circle for about five seconds until the circle disappeared cutting off its flow.

"Woah."

The whisper was barely audible as I stared at the puddle of water at my feet in amazement.

Magic. I just used magic.

Fucking magic!

I don't have to be a thirty-year-old virgin to become a wizard anymore or destroy my hands! Suck on that, Dr. Strange!

The rune I used was the Water rune. If I used this rune alone, it only allowed me to summon normal drinkable water. Its quantity depended on the quantity of mana I fed the rune. The amount of water I had summoned using one-eight of my mana reserve would be around 2L of water.

Rune magic itself used quite a large amount of mana or maybe it's just my mana reserves that are small. However, the magic's true potential lies in its versatility. By combining runes in many different ways, I can achieve many different things.

This time, let's try two runes.

I focused on the runes and wrote them in the air once more. This time, I fed around one-tenth of my remaining mana. The runes glowed and combined into one glowing turquoise circle.

However, this time, a waterball the size of a tennis ball shot out of the circle. I barely tracked it with my eyes when it impacted the side of the train car.

*BAM*

I cringed at the loud noise and walked up to the car to see the damage. There was a small indent into the metal along with some droplets of water sliding down the train car.

"Holy shit."

Train cars have usually pretty thick metal bodies. And the fact that my water ball made an indent on it showed how powerful it was.

The runes I used were the Blast rune and the Water rune. The combination allowed me to shoot a waterball which was kind of neat.

Afterwards, I tried using many runes as well as their combination although, I made sure not to destroy the hangar since I would be returning.

[***]

Sitting on the bench, I greedily drank my water. I was covered in sweat.

"Pwah! Hah… Hah… Hah."

It was currently 4:00 AM. I was so caught up in trying out my magic that I hadn't noticed the time pass.

I could be seen panting as I sat on the bench of the hangar. On my side was an open notebook with many pages already filled in with notes about my Runic magic. After my initial success in casting Waterball, I tried many runes and their combinations. For example, an Earth rune alone would allow me to produce soil. A combination of an Earth rune and a Shake rune allowed me to stimulate a very localized earthquake depending on the mana the runes consumed and my intent. A Wind rune allowed me to summon a small breeze, but a combination of Wind and Force allowed me to summon a strong wind in a certain direction. However, Wind and Cut allowed me to create a sharp wind blade that I could shoot out. I accidentally cut one of the chains in the ceiling with it. A simple Force rune allowed me to push things away.

I had fun pretending to be a Dragonborn with that one.

Heh.

I also tried out some of my runes on my clones since they are perfect test subjects. At the end of practice, I found out many things about Rune Magic.

First of all, it was so much more versatile than I thought. There was literally a rune for anything. So much that I couldn't finish trying out every rune I had. I could count more than a hundred runes all with different meanings. I really did hit the jackpot when the Celestial Forge gifted me this. It will help me tremendously if I ever got caught in trouble.

Second, Runic Magic is complicated as hell. After many experiments, I found out that there are three main components to Runic Magic: Mana, Intent and Compatibility. Runic magic depended a lot on mana consumption. The quantity of mana I fed to my runes is proportional to the intensity of the magic I want to cast. If I used one-tenth of my mana reserve to cast a waterball, a tennis-ball-size water ball would be shot out. However, if I used all of my mana, well… I don't know since I didn't dare try it out. But there is one thing I can say:

Disastrous.

The second component that affects Runic Magic is intent which was fairly obvious. Runes may be the program to the universe, but the intent of the caster is what manipulates that program. A combination of Fire and Blast would allow me to be a knockoff version of Bakugo or it could allow me to cast a Fireball. However, it could also backfire on me if my intent doesn't line up with the image in my mind or the sequence of runes used.

Finally, the final component that affects Rune Magic is compatibility. Compatibility between runes is a must otherwise it might backfire on me. For example, a combination of just a Wind and an Earth rune wouldn't do anything. In this case, I must add a link rune between the two runes such as Grind. This would create the action of creating sand using the grinding power of the wind on earth. Although, I would need to add other runes in the sequence in order to localize the effect. Although, there is already a Sand rune in my runic dictionary.

The third thing I found out about my Runic Magic is that I can use it on objects. There are two ways I can use a rune on an object: Imprinting or enchanting. Imprinting is the technique of simply imprinting a rune on an object. This effect is not permanent as can be used instantly. For example, I used a Reinforce rune on my towel after rolling it up. This made my towel as hard as steel and when I tried to smack the wall, it let out a large noise. However, after ten seconds the rune disappeared since I didn't put much intent into it. The second technique is called Enchanting. This is the technique that allowed me to carve a rune on an object in order to achieve a permanent effect. Unfortunately, I couldn't try this technique out since I didn't have anything to carve with.

The last thing I found out about Runic magic is that it doesn't take effect immediately. I must first write the rune needed and feed mana to it. However, this led to a problem. One sequence of Runic magic can only cast one magic. If per se I wanted to cast multiple fireballs, I must repeatedly write the sequence of runes one by one. Or I can add a multiplying rune to the sequence, but this would take more mana. However, with enough practice, I could simply will the rune sequences into existence instead of writing them thereby cutting my casting time.

I also found out it took about twenty minutes for my mana to recover after I completely empty it.

*Sigh*

Woah. Sometimes I couldn't believe this was happening to me. I couldn't keep the smile off my face as I regained my breath from all the practice and experiments. Unfortunately, as with all things, it must come to an end. It was already 4:15 AM and my sister will soon wake up to go to work. I must be home before then.

I turned to the open door and shouted.

"You can dispel now!"

At that moment, popping noises could be heard and memories appeared in my mind. Although my head throbbed from the sudden influx of memories, it wasn't as bad as the first time I popped my clones. At this rate, I could slowly train myself until absorbing a large amount of information at the same wouldn't be painful anymore. I inspected the memories and was pleased to see that my clones were now able to stick themselves to the wall without falling. Although, walking was going to be another issue.

Suddenly, the Celestial Forge surged and snatched a star from the Domain: Quality: Design Constellation by using all my remaining energy.

When I received my power, I was kind of surprised by its effect. There were no visible changes in my body which I was glad by the way. Even if I liked gaining powers, I was not a masochist. However, what I gained was some sort of preternatural ability to counter or neutralize any ability or technology by inventing and creating technology after witnessing them in action and understanding them. This means I can counter magic or even mutant powers using technology. Even if I had no knowledge of science before, after watching something I want to neutralize or counter I would be able to do that magically. It was hard to explain since this power is like an instinct. A bonus of this power is that any technology I made is black-boxed which means no one can reverse-engineer my tech just like tinkertech in the Wormverse. Although, I don't know how this phenomenon would work. This power will help me tremendously against those with powers superior to mine. However, it would be useless if I didn't have any resources making me go back to square one of my most urgent problem.

Finding ways to gain resources.

'I'll think about it later. I must first go back home and go to school.'

Packing my stuff, I could see the rising sun peeking from the horizon before quickly making my way home.

Once I was back home, I looked at my roof and prepared myself. I infused my legs with chakra before crouching down.

I then jumped.

"Wo-woah!"

I couldn't help but let out some weird noise as I jumped higher than what was humanly possible. I passed the roof and flew a little higher before crashing onto it with a loud noise.

'Oh shit.'

I quickly crawled to my window and hid below the windowsill and stayed there. I stood there frozen for a few seconds and let out a breath of relief when I couldn't see my sister coming.

'Not to myself. Learn how to jump and do parkour.'

I slowly got up and tapped the window a few times. My clone who was pretending to sleep got up from the bed and walked up to the window before opening it. Seeing his sleepy expression, I couldn't help but ask,

"Did you actually sleep?"

My clone looked at me with a raised eyebrow,

"What was I supposed to do then?"

"Fair point. Let me in."

The clone stood aside and I entered my room.

The clone then decided to pop himself seeing his work was done.

Huh? He really was sleeping.

I hid my bag and quickly changed my clothes and went to bed. I checked the time and it was 4:45 AM. I still had two hours before going to school. I better take a nap or something.

My eyes slowly grew heavier and sleep overtook me.

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Perks gained:

-Counter Technology (A Certain Magical Index + A Certain Scientific Railgun) (400CP)

Some powers or technology have weaknesses and especially those Esper abilities have one and you made this into an art on your own. You have a preternatural ability to create and invent technology to counter and neutralize any powers or technology that you have encountered or have enough knowledge off and make them powerless and useless. So long the powers or technology that you want to neutralize is running the same system, using the same element or working in the same principles your counters will work with all of them without problems. The technologies that you built are impossible to reverse-engineer without your consent even using magic or forcefully analyzing it through technology even if they are trillions of years more advanced than yours.

Points banked: 0