Answers

'Hey Spence~~.'

Dante's childish voice brought me back from my thinking.

'Is everything alright?'

'Dr. Harting is asking what the hell did you do… and what should they say to the people~'

'Something happened in Green Shelter?'

'Some minor injuries of people that fall because of the shockwave, a few panic attacks, and Blake thought we were under attack so he is mobilizing the troops as we talk… that's kind of funny thou the new recruits are so confused. Hayley is on her way to control the situation and explain everything to Blake but she was out of town when everything happened, also a building outside the outer wall collapsed and is blocking the path in the east gate.'

That was… a lot more chaotic than what I expected… was it really that bad? I turned around and noticed that a few of the buildings that were already in an awful state before finally went down because of the shockwave.

'Also your favorite mug was on the table and fell… there was nothing I could do…'

'F*ck. I brought that one from home!!'

I loved that mug…

'What I tell him…'

'The truth… I destroyed the vortex and it's gone.'

'Ok, good idea, take the blame, since we are leaving it doesn't matter if someone hates you…'

'Wait… why would someone hate me?'

'If someone makes you sh*t your pants you wouldn't be happy either…'

I couldn't help but agree with that statement, but it was really so bad that some people sh*t their pants?

'Yes but don't worry, one of them was that bald idiot from the council. The only real problem it's that some things fell (like your mug).'

… Well if it is that guy I don't care really, but I don't want people thinking that it was a bad call to destroy the vortex… I might change the version a little.

'Just let him tell that it was the side effect of taking the vortex down… if people don't like it tell him to mention that most of the explosion was redirected to the east and if it exploded on its own Green Shelter would have disappeared. It was a controlled demolition.'

'Ok, that should do~…'

…

Well, that was easy.

'Now the important talk… for Christmas, I'm getting a lot of canned fish for the trip so leave some space for a few boxes in your inventory.'

I'm not sure if I was being manipulated or not but I could deny his request after everything he has done for us...

____________________________________

The side effect of the vortex's destruction was stronger than I expected, but after the talk with Dante, I knew that the aftereffects were acceptable. The people got scared but no one got hurt badly.

The shockwave has done some damage, but we will have to wait a few days to know for the extent of it. The main concern was te structure damage, but we took down all the dangerous ones and reinforced others.

I took my time going back to Green Shelter, I didn't want to get there too soon to avoid the chaos. I just focused on my reward, the D-Rank energy type ticket.

After the upgrade, the prices of high ranked ability went up by a lot, but I didn't want to use random tickets. I couldn't buy a ticket for a specific type of ability and using a random ticket that would cost 5k to get something like Enhanced Taste D-Rank version wasn't a good plan.

Saving up for the future was a better idea, getting abilities with good synergy with my current ones or getting abilities for my party were better options than wasting points in a random D-Rank ability. When I get 25k EP I would consider getting a random C-Rank though.

As for the ticket itself, I had high expectations from it. I wasn't expecting a highly destructive ability, but seeing Hope, Hayley, Pyro or Blake in action I could understand the advantage that they had in battle. My abilities were a lot more versatile but the punching power behind it wasn't like them. Even if I get some earth-based ability, my attack power would rise enormously.

I had to use all my will power to not use it right away. Previously the most dangerous and painful one was when I got improved reflexes and my nerves were evolved.

How would an energy type ability change my body?

Hayley and Hope seemed fine, but both were unconscious when they got their powers. And it was impossible to know how it changed their bodies.

I will have my answer eventually, but It will have to wait till after the training anyway…

…

That day I had another unexpected surprise.

After thinking a lot Joel managed to create two prototypes, unlike what I really wanted none of them seemed like they would really enhance his survival chances but were clever uses for the existing weapons and my abilities.

The first was a simple weapon, but it has the effect of Accelerate in the barrel. The acceleration would help the bullet to pierce through the defense of some beasts, we have yet to test it, but I'm already thinking of applying it on Sophie's MRGR, the improved acceleration coupled with her infusion would make deadly bullets.

The second one, at first sight, was too simple for my taste…

I was a little disappointed, but a throwing knife that could come back to its owner wasn't that impressive. Stronger beasts wouldn't be bothered by it and using it to kill low-rank beasts wouldn't be effective either as it would take too much time to kill them one by one in a large fight.

Joel had a proud smile as if he was waiting for that reaction but what he did next surprised me.

He threw the knife to one of the dummies… and failed… he sucks at throwing knives…

The dagger came back the next second to his hand the same as before.

I just looked at him raising a brow and the blush in his face could only be challenged by shy Rose…

"… That wasn't what I wanted to show… can you hit the dummy please?"

He gave me the knife together with it a bracer.

I adjusted the straps of the bracer and pointed to the dummy.

"Throw the knife and leave the hand in front of you."

It was weird but I followed his instructions.

The knife flew with a whistling sound and landed in the center of the dummy's chest.

I looked at it for a second before it happened.

The dummy disappeared from its place.

I felt the weight of the knife back in my hand, but unlike before the dummy was in front of me, still attached to the knife.

"This is just a prototype, I have yet to see if it works on living beings."

I was studying the knife already. The possibilities for it were big if he manages to make it work but I wasn't sure how far he was from it. Before I could think about those possibilities he kept talking.

"If I manage to do that the next step is to do the reverse process and make people blink to an objective that could be a safety measure for us or could work for the front line to engage faster, I could also make the objective the Humvee or someone for anyone to blink there if they are in danger."

I nodded. That was more like what I wanted from him, and completely unexpected.

"Keep working on it, if you need to test it with something alive, I can get some rats for you."

Even if it wasn't completed yet, it was enough to pass the test. He will keep working on more stuff and test the current prototypes despite the status of the test so there is really no reason to tell him.

I'm eager to see what else can he do in the remaining time.

After that, the training continued as usual and Joel failed the second test again, but still, I think that today he did a little better than previous days.

Maybe I went a little easier on him because of my good mood…

_____________________________________

That night was the moment of truth.

Rose and I were in some building away from Green Shelter. It was a safety measure in the case that I start screaming or something, I don't want anyone to be scared by it (I already did enough with the vortex explosion).

I took a deep breath and was ready to use the ticket.

'System, use the D-Rank ticket.'

This was the first time that I used a D-Rank ticket.

The roulette was a lot fancier than before.

It has silver details around and the symbols on it were a lot more realistic than the previous ones. Before it started spinning I noticed a lot of symbols around, different shapes of snowflakes, flames, lighting and other symbols embellished the roulette.

All of them moved and looked alive.

4 of the symbols picked my interest all of them on opposite sides of each other.

The probability of getting them was lower than the others as the area they covered in the roulette was less than the others, but what really brought my attention was that the one pointing down was greyed out.

I tried to remember when I saw that happening before, but the spinning of the roulette brought my attention back to the roulette.

It took a little longer for it to stop… or at least it felt that way, but against all odds, the roulette landed on one of the 4 smaller sections.

The arrow was pointing directly to what can only be described as a black hole.

Before it disappeared, I focused my gaze one last time on the other 3 sections to identify the symbols, especially the one greyed out.

For some reason, the system didn't ask me if I wanted to activate the power. As my brain was processing what I just saw, everything went black.

…

...

I came back but I wasn't sure how much time passed.

The symbols that I saw were still in my thoughts together with two notifications from the system.

[Congratulations to the user for obtaining Gravity Manipulation]

[Mission: Get three out of the four Fundamental Forces (1/3)

Type: Main

Reward: Fundamental Forces Control (B-Rank?)

Time Limit: Unlimited]

The new mission just came to confirm one of the things I noted before passing out.

Without my level of physics, I wouldn't be able to understand the meaning behind those 4 symbols.

The Black hole that I got was the symbol for the force of gravitation.

The second symbol was just a clump of spheres similar to a grape, I already saw this representation of a nucleus before, since we are talking about the fundamental forces, this was a representation of the strong force, and similar to that symbol was another clump of spheres but this one seemed to be releasing small particles, the weak force.

The last one was the one that surprised me.

A classic atom.

A nucleus with 3 electrons orbiting around…

This was the representation of Electromagnetism.

The fourth fundamental force and also the one that was greyed out.

I finally understood what it meant.

I opened my eyes and the sun had yet to come out, everything was dark. I subconsciously looked for Rose who was by my side.

Her eyes twitched before slowly opening, looking back at me in the dark. She knew that something happened and hugged me.

I closed my eyes and smelled her hair as I put my thoughts in order…

The greyed-out option.

This wasn't the first time my options were limited.

Another situation from the past appeared in my head. Something that I didn't think about it when it happened but seeing it now, I understood that it was odd.

Images of the past appeared in my mind making me understand.

…

[Int improved]

[Achievement unlocked]

[High IQ]

Good job solving that problem

Reach 25 points in intelligence

Reward: Accelerated Processing]

…

All the other times I got to 25 points I got to choose my perk but that didn't happen with intelligence.

It was as if the other two options were greyed-out. The system just gave me the only one I could choose.

I recalled when Dante told me the origin of his ability and the conversation with the system.

…

~"You are right it has a cost, but you are not the one paying it, I'm here in his regard…"~

~" You are not the only one that died or almost died today, to Spencer, the people around him are the most important… In the other two cases, they just needed their souls to be more stable."

~" I don't know the price you paid for preventing us from dying, but I know that you save us without noticing it that day."~

…

I locked Rose between my arms as I thanked the system in my head…

Everything started to made sense.

[Rank/Potential: B/A?]

Dante and Rose both have an unknown potential.

Electromagnetism greyed out.

Two "greyed-out" mental perks.

Two other cases…

I didn't need to think too hard to understand who were the ones that I almost lost that day…