“Yes, but not all the fruits are available at the same time and the … wait a minute, why am I telling you all this? You don’t need to know this. Just take the fruit and get out.”

“Hold on, what do I do with this fruit? Do I eat it? Can I store it? Are there any drawbacks? Give me some information.”

“Of course, you eat it. It’s a fruit. What? You think you are supposed to make a fruitcake out of it? Just take a bite. That will be enough, though the tradition in the Grand Sands is to eat the whole thing. You won’t die from eating it, but there will be a period of intense pain after consuming the fruit. The pain usually last between five to ten minutes, and then you will get the power. However, the fruit doesn’t grant mastery. You will need to practice in order to master the superpower that the fruit grants. Oh, one more thing. The fruit won’t work if you already have a superpower. It’s a limitation of that world. A divine rule that one person may only have one superpower.”

“A divine rule?” Victor asked in surprise. “There are gods in that world.”

“There are gods in this world, so why can’t there be gods in others? In some worlds, gods walk the earth and there are even a few where gods descend to earth to do battle at alarming regularity.”

“There sure are some strange worlds out there.” Victor thought. Out loud, he asked Reunion a question. “I’m a cultivator. Can I eat the fruit?”

“If you wish to, but I have no idea how the fruit will affect your cultivation. I have no idea what superpower the fruit grant, so I can’t tell if it will be a good idea or not.”

“This fruit can affect my cultivation! I thought you say cultivation isn’t a superpower.”

“It’s not but think of it logically. If the fruit grants you a fire-based superpower, and you are practicing a water-based cultivation technique, won’t the two affect each other?”

“Doesn’t sound that bad.” Victor argued. “Won’t I just end up having access to both water and fire powers in that case?”

“Or they will cancel each other out. Maybe you will end up with having a steam-based powers but even is such a situation, you will also need to change your cultivation technique as your water-based techniques will no longer be usable.”

Victor was not pleased with what Reunion was saying. “So, if I eat this fruit, I shall get an unknown, uncontrollable, superpower that may affect my Iron Bear Sambo?”

“Yes. So, don’t say I didn’t warn you if the fruit does more harm than good.”

Victor cursed. For first time in his life, he has access to a superpower, and the parasite was telling him it could be bad for him. He took the fruit in his hand, and the flash of light immediately engulfed him. Victor was back in the basement. Reunion really wanted him out of there.

Victor looked at the fruit and wondered if he should take the chance. After several minutes of indecision, he placed the fruit into his storage ring. Victor decided he had time. The fruit was an unknown. Victor was certain the fruit would work as advertised, Reunion wouldn’t give him a faulty product, but since he had no idea what superpower it would grant, there was no reason for him to take a chance. His cultivation was a certainty. He had a book telling him exactly what he had to do to improve his cultivation, and if there was a chance the fruit could adversely affect his cultivation, then it was better not to eat it. Victor was certain he could find a use for the fruit. If Iron Bear Sambo didn’t work out, he would eat the fruit then. There was no need for him to decide right now.

With his decision made, Victor left the ruined building and spent the rest of the day touring Velocity City. He wanted to familiarize himself to the city. Victor wasn’t really lying when he told Sergeant Filler he was just passing through. That was his original plan.

Since Reunion told him he could only get the rewards from the spell formation, Victor knew he would need to change his plan. He would have to stay in the city for a while. For a villain like Victor, that meant money, contacts, and a power base.

The easiest way to get all three was to join one of the villain groups operating in the city, but he knew his system would get in the way of that. Joining a group means he would need to be on call if the group needed him for something. This was bad for Victor as Reunion’s tasks had a time limit. From what Reunion had said, if Victor fail to complete the tasks he was given, he would die. Victor did not want to die. This means Victor would either need to be an independent or create a group of his own. That was a decision he could make only after getting a lay of the city.

So, for the rest of the day, Victor became a tourist. He took a bus that went passed Velocity Tower. He visited the Speedster Museum and took a walk around Champion Park. The last was a joy to a man who had been in prison for twenty years.

Located near the center of the city, Champions Park was a quiet and pure sanctuary in the middle of concrete jungle. There were many pathways around the park and careful placement of trees and wide areas of colorful flowers and grass block people from the traffic passing by. It was a busy park. Most of the benches around the park were occupied and Victor didn’t even mind seeing the statues of the various champions.