Telekinesis was a strange spell. Unlike most others I’d messed with, it took continual effort to work. That meant I was continuously losing health—or blood, I reminded myself. Though the drain on blood was low, it was ever present. Using blood to power skills felt wrong in some way I couldn’t quite explain. It was something I hadn’t experienced with chi or mana. Still, that was what I had chosen to work with and test out in this life. I would deal with it so that I might better understand it.
The first thing I tried was to lift a stone. Using Telekinesis was like having an extra limb I didn’t know I had. At such a low level, it was an incredibly clumsy limb. I couldn’t quite grasp a rock with it. Instead, I was able to lift the rock—and a small amount of soil—using what I imagined to be the limb-equivalent of a spatula.
Keeping the rock on the flat surface proved harder to accomplish than simply lifting it off the ground. A slight angle was all it took for the rock to slide off. The phantom limb struggled with grip as much as it did with trying to grab. I tried to turn the spatula end into more of a spoon. That was impossible. A fold or two was, and that was enough to keep the rock where I wanted.
Throwing it was another matter entirely. With how slippery the skill was, I had to be very careful. And in being careful, the toss would be much slower than I would have wanted. Even with practice, the results were basically the same. At level 1, the skill was just unworkable. There was no way I was going to fly with it. I tried—briefly—and it was like trying to walk—hop?—on a single stilt made of ice.
The only path forward was to see if a few levels would make a difference. I put 300 experience into the skill, raising it to level 3. Immediately, I could feel a difference. Where before the skill had felt clumsy with no grip, it now felt a little better. Instead of the spatula with a couple folds in it, I was able to directly hold the stone like a robot might grab something—with pincers. The grip—while still poor—was markedly better. I could actually throw what the skill held with serious speed!
Flight with Telekinesis was still a problem, however. Though I had better grip, I only had one limb to work with. It was simply too unstable to work how I’d imagined. I doubted anything less than raising its tier once—and maybe twice—would be enough to fly with the skill. I sighed and mentally put the skill away. It was time to try out the skill with flight in the name.
I cast Flight and was met with the same unpleasant feeling as Telekinesis. It was—again—the blood used to power it. I didn’t think I would ever get used to the feeling. Like with Telekinesis, Flight was a constant drain. I shuddered. My attention returned to my surroundings as the skill took effect.
I lifted off the ground a few inches, then a foot, before finally topping out about a yard higher. My arms flailed as I tried—and failed—to keep myself upright. I tumbled slowly in the air for several minutes. Upon feeling sick, I gently lowered myself to the ground to rid myself of my lunch. Wiping my mouth, I grumbled. I had no control in the air. I floated and went nowhere.
When my stomach had settled enough—and the disgusting bite of bile had left my mouth—I tried running before activating the skill. That had better results. I kept moving in the direction and with the same speed as I’d started with—but three feet higher than I’d started. There was no way to slow down or change direction! At least, none that I could ascertain.
Like with Telekinesis, I leveled Flight twice to see what sort of difference that made. A lot, it turned out. Even staring from rest, I was now able to raise off the ground and float in a direction at about a stroll’s pace. I could even change direction—albeit slowly!
For the next hour, I contented myself with floating around Dad’s back yard picking up things with Telekinesis, then throwing them into the knotweed forest. Even at tier 2, my blood wasn’t infinite. When I began to bleed from my nose, I decided I was done for the day. It wouldn’t do to harm myself with what amounted to tomfoolery. Not when I had the tough nut that was creating a plague still to work on.
For the next month, I tried everything I could think of to make the skills work together in such a way so that I would kill the entire hive of ants. If I couldn’t do even that, how in the hell was I going to have that spread across the world? As much as I wanted to put off everything until I found an answer, I simply couldn’t. Without a plague, I still needed to do as much damage as I could. It was the only way forward.
While I continued to work on the problem—and practice flying—I began looking for another way. I searched for weeks before I stumbled on something. It would be daring. It would be dangerous. But most of all, it would create an ecological catastrophe. That meant many dead animals—and lots of experience for me. The main question was, how would I do it?
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First, was the ‘it’. I wanted to have a full oil tanker leak its contents. I’d considered other similar options, but they were all too far away or too difficult to pull off. Sneaking onto an oil tanker with skills and planting an explosive to rip a hole in the side? Now that was something I could do. That was the overall plan, but I needed to take care of the details, too. The most important thing was not getting caught. No matter how cavalier I was at times, this was an instance where I had to be perfect.
The initial problem I faced was how to get to and from the port. As I didn’t live directly on the coast, I would have to travel about two hours to reach my destination. At first, I considered renting a car, but those all required online reservations. An online reservation would be easily traced to me—or at least my family. That was out.
The next thought I had was definitely risky, but it would be easier to pull off. The harbor where the ships were was large, but it was a distance I could easily cross with Flight. Well, if I upgraded it. Mom and I could go to something on the other side. From there, I could step out in disguise and float over to one of the ships. When my business there was done, I would then float back and finish hanging out with Mom.
The explosives proved a much bigger problem. Like with the rental idea, it would leave a trace—doubly so as all explosives were heavily regulated and tracked. No, if I wanted something to go off a few hours or a day later, I needed to look towards what skills might accomplish that task.
Classes restricted what I could find, but not completely. It suggested that I stick within the bounds of the class I had picked. However, as I had not locked everything down, I was able to work around my class using Search.
I found a plethora of options. Most of them weren’t quite right for my purposes—either being explode right away or some sort of multi-skill combination. With all of my struggles over getting a simple ant hill to die, I wanted a skill that did everything right away with no fuss. I eventually found what I was looking for.
With the method and a rough plan in mind, I needed to test the new skill to see how powerful it was. What good would it be to get on the tanker, plant the explosive, and escape… only for the bang to be like a small firecracker? With that in mind, I went deep into the knotweed forest. Though I couldn’t muffle the sound, I hoped that the report wouldn’t be too bad given the extra distance.
I cast Delayed Explosive in the midst of some knotweed stalks. The skill—like all others—came with rudimentary guidance that let me know what I could expect at a base level as well as how to operate the skill. At least, that was the case when I actually went to use it. Just having it and not using it told me bupkis.
I was able to set the delay for about a minute—which I did—as well as pick the yield. I chose the biggest allowed for level 1 and backed away to a safe distance. Or what I hoped was a safe distance. Just to be sure, I backed away some more and laid down to watch.
Time ticked by slowly. My heart raced. I put my fingers in my ears—just in case—and mentally prepared myself. Though I wasn’t perfect with my counting of time, the explosive took a little more than a minute before it finally went off. The extra delay made me think the skill had somehow failed. When it exploded, I jumped!
The sound was loud, but not too loud. It was definitely more than a simple firecracker. I couldn’t tell just how much stronger, exactly. However, it was powerful enough that the knotweed cluster I’d put it in was no longer there.
I laughed quietly as the clots of dirt and splinters rained down over the next several seconds. I had finally found something that worked the way I wanted it to! Not like Disease or Toxic! Those two had given me fits for too long. This new project might—at least—give me a taste of the experience I desperately needed.
The skill would need leveling to work as I intended, but it was hard to know just how much I’d need to put into it. As I contemplated leveling and giving it another test, I heard Dad call for me. I walked back through the knotweed forest and into the backyard where he was waiting for me. He did not look pleased.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Testing skills,” I explained.
“Right. And now the whole neighborhood knows! For Pete’s sake, kid, think before you do something like that. At best they neighbors now think I’m an idiot for playing around with firecrackers. At worst, I’m negligent because I let you play with them!”
“Sorry, Dad,” I said. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“Right. No more bongs, ok? You can test other stuff, but please think first.”
“Sorry, Dad. I’ll do other things like flying around.”
I laughed and activated Flight. It was fun to float around—and I wanted to show off a little to distract him from the stupid decision I’d made. I rose a few feet into the air and floated in a circle around him before gently landing on my feet in the same place I’d taken off from.
“That’s… something,” Dad said with an amused look on his face.
“Don’t worry, I’ve been testing in the bamboo where no one would be able to see.”
“Good. That’s the kind of thinking you need to keep doing.”
“I’ll do that.”
Dad turned to leave, but I stopped him.
“Oh, before you go, I want to go hang out with Mom sometime this week or next. Maybe go to the movies or something, you know?”
“Uh, sure, I guess,” he answered.
He was clearly uncomfortable with the subject of Mom—the divorce still happening, albeit not in the same way as it had in the past.
“Great. I’ll email her and figure out the details. Let you know when I know.”
Dad nodded and walked off.
When I was up in my room later that day, I researched the schedules of the ships coming and going from the nearby port. There was a steady cadence of tankers coming in multiple times per day, so there wasn’t a need for me to specifically target one day over another. Timing—however—was what I had to be aware of. The ships that were full tended to leave at night, so that’s when I would have to strike.
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