Chapter 2: Maybe It's A Dream

Ian opened his eyes drowsily as he looked at his digital clock. 'Six'o'clock and the alarm isn't going off.' He thought as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. 'It should have gone off a half an hour ago.' He thought as he looked around his room, thinking about what could have happened.

He looked to the far side of his room where his computer is sat and noticed a small construct that he vaguely recognized sitting on his desk. He stood up and walked over to it and quickly realized that it was actually the construct he had unpacked the night before.

He picked it up out of curiosity and it began to glow. The light became brighter over the course of a few seconds and quickly became too bright to look at. Ian looked away as he blocked his eyes.

"System initializing." A familiar female voice said. "Confirming construct version. Construct version 0.0.1." It continued. After the voice had spoken the light began to dim bit by bit.

'The fuck is happening right now?' Ian thought as he slowly gazed back to the now dimming construct.

"Confirming host. Ian Baker." The voice said as the light dissipated. After a few moments, an empty GUI appeared in Ian's vision. "Please choose a starting ability." The voice said as three options appeared on the screen.

The first is invisibility, the second is x-ray vision, and the third is spatial manipulation. "Choose...?" Ian asked hesitantly.

"Affirmative." The voice responded. "Also, please put me down." She added. Ian put the construct down.

'I'm guessing the source is this.' He said as he put her down. "Are these the only options?" Ian asked.

"That is... Correct. But only for now." She responded as her 'head' shifted to look at Ian.

'Oh, it moves. How disturbing. I'm just going to assume this is a dream.' He thought as he brought his focus to the screen in front of him. 'So, which one...' He thought. 'Invisibility is cool and all, but is only good if you are good at stealth or want to do perverted things...' Ian thought as he went and sat on his bed.

'X-ray vision is another ability that has limited practicality. I can look inside of rocks and try to find valuable gemstones, or I could look at a woman's nude body. At the very least, it requires less skill than invisibility.' Ian continued as he leaned back a bit, holding himself up by placing his hands behind him on the bed.

'Lastly, there is spatial manipulation. It could be teleportation, portal creation, or subspace creation and transportation. Maybe even all of them. Useful, but only to the extent of storage and travel. I suppose it may be possible to lock people in subspaces as well though.' He thought.

'Then again, there is another use for x-ray vision. I can see if people have weapons, tumors, or anything else. It can definitely be used for profit. The better question is, can it be used in conjunction with technology.' Ian thought as he turned to the construct which is now sitting on his desk.

"If you have a question, do ask." She said.

"What are the limitations to these abilities?" Ian asked.

"They start off as level one, however, continued use will make them more powerful. X-ray vision in the later levels can be used with pictures. Spatial manipulation can allow you to create pocket dimensions the size of the universe and invisibility will allow you to fully obfuscate. Of course, these are the later levels." She explained.

"I see. Then spatial manipulation is only useful if I have a creation ability and invisibility becomes more practical later on. The only one with immediate practicality is x-ray vision." Ian said.

"I believe that is false." The construct said.

"Why is that?" Ian asked.

"Spatial manipulation can be used for swift travel and storage. Invisibility can be used to sneak into labs and other secret facilities. You could easily steal research and claim it as your own, or even prototypes of new technologies that have yet to be released to the public." She explained.

"Sure, but I still leave behind fingerprints and other genetic data. Furthermore, what happens if people see me using spatial manipulation? The reason I think x-ray vision is the only ability with immediate practical use is because of those factors." Ian explained.

"I see your point. In which case, patience is key. At later levels of invisibility, you can prevent fingerprints from being laid about while invisible. You can also make it to where any pieces of genetic data, that is to say, bodily fluids, waste, and dead skin, will not have any discernable genetic data." She explained.

"And spatial manipulation?" Ian asked.

"Find a hidden location you can use to teleport, or just appear in a crowd. You can also create one-way spatial windows to allow you to see where you are portaling or teleporting to before you portal or teleport." She explained. Ian sighed.

"Alright, fine, what are the practical uses you can think of for x-ray?" Ian asked with an annoyed tone.

"There are various things. To begin with, you can easily search people's bodies to ensure they are unarmed or unharmed. At higher levels, you can also see through dimensional fabric. That is to say, you can see into other universes." She explained. Ian thought for a moment.

"Doesn't that mean that these abilities are most useful together?" Ian asked with a bland tone. The construct nodded with its makeshift head.

"You will have the opportunity to gain more abilities later on." She said.

'Thinking about it logically, if I want the most profit late game, then I should go with x-ray vision. At that point, if I get spatial manipulation I should be able to just go to another universe and visit it, Gather some gold, become richer... Get fantasy girls... The usual.' Ian thought. Ian sighed as he clicked x-ray vision.

"Thank you for selecting your first ability. Please spend your construct scraps now." She said as the GUI changed to show a schematic of her.

"Construct scraps?" Ian asked.

"Essentially, this 'system' as humans would call it is actually meant to upgrade the both of us. Every time you level things up, you get construct scraps and you can spend that on me. You can upgrade my materials, intelligence, wisdom, and general structure." She explained.

"I see, so it's basically a give and take, right?" Ian asked. She nodded. Ian observed the panel. In the bottom left is his construct scraps, of which he has five. On the middle to top left, there is a panel for upgrades.

There are the basic stats, strength, wisdom, intelligence, agility, dexterity, and charisma, then there is appearance, structure, and material. Currently, each item requires one scrap to upgrade.

He clicked the plus on appearance and the price went from one to two and her appearance became a bit shinier and new. He then clicked structure which changed her to be a bit more structurally sound and raised the price to two.

He clicked material and the plastic morphed into a slightly harder plastic and the yarn into a tougher string. He then put the last two points into appearance which hid the strings and made her body look a bit more humanoid and natural. Though she still looks like an amalgamation of items. The price raised to three.

"Thank you for spending those points, I feel healthier already." She said.

"Right, well, it's about time I wake up from this dream." Ian said as he laid down on his bed. She laughed a bit.

"This is no dream, Ian." She said as she climbed off the desk. The construct is about a foot tall, so it is not particularly difficult for it to get off of the desk. It walked over to Ian's bed and climbed onto it.

Once on the bed, she tapped Ian's arm. "No." Ian said. "Either this is a dream or I am becoming schizophrenic. I'd rather the former option." Ian said as he turned onto his side.

"It's neither, now get up and get your day started." She said as she struggled to pick up Ian's arm.

"Fine, prove to me that you are real." Ian said as he quickly turned over and looked at the construct.

"I think therefore I am." She responded.

"... That... Doesn't prove anything..." Ian said with mild confusion.

"Fine, fine. I can talk in front of someone else, but that could get messy quick." She said. Ian sighed.

"Alright, after school I'll see if a friend of mine will come over to 'speak' to you." Ian said as he sat up on the edge of the bed.