With a start, he lurched to his sit and noticed that his bunkmates are back. He glanced outside the window, and to his shock, it was already early morning.

Did I fell asleep? He thought to himself. He was looking at the closed drawer, and even though it is still closed, he already knew what he would see inside. Because he could still feel it. The connection was never severed even when he was sleeping. He knew that inside the lower drawer is where his boots are still floating, apparently all night long.

This was confirmed by the blue screen that immediately popped up in his head to tell him he missed a few messages.

Congratulations! Due to your diligence, you are able to increase your skill "Telekinesis" by 1

Requirements: MIND 1

Current skill: 3

Congratulations! Due to your diligence, you are able to increase your skill "Telekinesis" by 1

Requirements: MIND 1

Current skill: 4

Congratulations! Due to your diligence, you are able to increase your skill "Telekinesis" by 1

Requirements: MIND 1

Current skill: 5

He stared at the messages with shock and disbelief. He gained three whopping levels on a single skill, just like that?! With a thought, he opened the drawer, and the boots are still there, floating silently without any care in the world.

Why is it still floating when I am not thinking about it? Darion thought. It took him a second or so to realize that wasn't exactly true. At the back of his mind, he felt the connection and that small will to keep it there floating, despite not concentrating on it that much. He slowly stood and raised both his hands up. The boots came zipping into his hands without much effort.

This is getting too easy, he thought with a mixture of awe and apprehension.

An idea fueled by his sudden inspiration and probably a bad one was to raise everything that is not bolted to the floor and let it all float in the air. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you want to see it, Darion both heard and felt the heavy boots just outside the door, and automatically, he stood up in attention.

The door was opened wide, and Sgt Mahoney strutted in with a wide grin on his face. "Good morning, Civilians! Time for another good ol morning exercise!" He said in a loud voice, followed by a screeching whistle.

The loud bang of the door startled a lot of his sleeping bunkmates and one even fell off his bed in surprise. Others groaned miserably due to last night's revelry.

Sgt. Mahoney was momentarily taken aback by the fact that Darion was standing in Attention and fully wide awake, but he adjusted quickly and accordingly.

"As always, you will have 5 minutes to fix your bed, dressed in your type C training gear, and line up outside for inspection. Move!" he made a show of clicking his stopwatch and started harassing the slowest ones around.

Darion was semi-used to this treatment at this point. They've been woken up like this every other day for the last two weeks. So he turned and pulled on the boots that are conveniently next to him. Type C is just a white shirt, fatigue pants, and boots. Nothing fancy since all of them are expected to be sweaty and dirty at the end of the exercise shift.

Done with dressing, He is about to fix his bed when a brilliant idea came to him. Using his mind, he imagined what he wants his bed to look like, and then suddenly, the pillow floated in the air and vigorously shook itself of any hair or dead cells that are left in it before flopping back to place. The bedsheets and blankets rose up in the air and flapped several times to free themselves with any dirt and gunk before softly landing back to the bed. An invisible wave smoothens the wrinkles in the bed and cleaning it of any bigger debris before the bedsheets covered it again and pulled tight in every corner. The blankets were next and tightened again on each side until a nickel would bounce from the bed itself.

Akiko, who sleeps next to him, stared at his finely fixed bed with awe and jealousy. "Fixed mine too!" She blurted out.

Darion just smiled at her and left them at their chore. Akiko cursed and blurred around her bed since she is a speedster. She was able to improve upon it, but it was still crinkly on some spots, but she fixed it herself in record time and bypassed Darion out of the door. She may have finished first, but it was obvious that she was much stressed by the job compared to Darion.

While they all waited apprehensively at the cold morning fog outside and the sergeant inspected their beds, Darion quickly does a few stretching exercises to limber up from the cold, which earned him a few disgusted looks from the people who are still a bit hungover from last night.

"No wonder the bastard did not join us last night," One of the men said, not really caring if Darion hears him or not.

Once the inspection is complete, they were ordered to their morning hike. However, this one is a bit different since their normal course is a 4-mile hike at the base of a nearby mountain. But the new course is a 12-mile marathon around the mountain and back.

“As of today, you all have graduated from your stroll in the kiddie run. Now you have the privilege to join me and others in the big boy’s path,” Sgt Mahoney said casually. “Follow the trails we set up just for you guys.

You can’t miss it. But if somehow you do, then good luck with the mountain lions. Alright civilians, MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!”

Darion groaned miserably with the rest of the empowered group, but he forced himself to move. Those military goons will not change their minds once they already made a decision, so it's kinda useless to complain. There is nothing to it, but to complete the painful task, the sooner, the better.

Darion was the first on the course, and when the sergeant ordered, "Go!" he started jogging away while the rest of his group continued to complain. With his "focus mind", he left the others in the dust soon enough.

He couldn't spare a moment thinking about the others since all of his energies are poured at improving himself with the brutal hike. Akiko and a few others came blurring in with their super speed. Darion knew that Akiko will go on a stop soon enough, rest for a while, and then continue on. She couldn’t keep her powers on for more than 5 minutes yet but everyone can see her improving. She might get distracted and even not follow the course, barring that, it is already a given to all of them that she will be the one who will finish the course path first.

The sergeant had already warned them that the new course is three times longer than they were used to, and Darion knew that it is not going to be a walk in the park for people like him.

Annoyed, he tried to control his breathing and to pace himself properly, as advised by the NCO's from the first few days. He knew, based on previous experience that he will get tired eventually even with his hyper stamina, and he wanted to conserve his energy as much as he can. It took him several alert messages from his brain to realize that his stamina had upgraded enough times that it is considerably harder for him to get tired but he still has a long way to go

Thinking about his stamina puzzled him a bit, especially how it works. But he's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead, he just shrugged and took full advantage of his situation. He changed tactics, and instead of pacing, he forced himself to keep moving faster.

By the end of the first hour, he marveled at the fact that he is barely having problems breathing because of his stamina upgrade. Darion knew that having a hyper stamina level 1 doubled his base energy. Hyper Stamina level 2 will double that even more, and he is actually at level 3 now. Darion wanted to know his base stamina at the moment and how fast is he going to lose it.

Suddenly, Darion is interested in finding out what is his limits are. So, almost unconsciously, he started to run faster and faster until he was sprinting against the wind. He can feel his bones move, and his muscles stretch out as his entire body pushed itself to move forward.

He can feel the very air resistance in his face as he moved faster. As he moved like an Olympic runner, Darion just knew he could even go faster than his current speed, which is already probably the top speed of Usain Bolt in a sprint. As he passed that speed, Darion was just sure that he can still go faster and faster... and fast-

Suddenly something snapped behind his head like a spring, and he was engulfed in this powerful energy that moves all around his veins, and the world - just blurred.

He panics, and he almost stumbles, but he righted himself as best he could. At first, he thought he was turning blind because everything he sees and hears is static. He shook his head to clear it, but nothing happened... at first.

He kept his focus, which then activated his focus mind, and that is when the world returned to him, but somehow wrong. He can feel himself moving, his hands are moving, and so are his feet, but his equilibrium is all out of whack as if something is wrong with his balance. I know I am moving, He thought almost desperately, trying to force himself to think. But why am I moving?

He realized that he was running... while the rest of the world had stopped moving... No, it turned out that the world is just moving very, VERY slow.

His movement is still technically normal, except if he is checking this right, then his breathing is totally out of sync with his surroundings.

A flare of electricity dance over his feet and arms and that gave him the necessary idea to answer his question. Just then, a new pop up covered his vision.

Congratulations! Due to your diligence, you are able to unlock the new power: Super Speed

Requirements: AGILITY 1

Current level: 1

His eyes widen, and he was about to say, "fuck me!" when he tripped, and he came flying in one direction, He clipped a massive tree and grunted as debris went in a different direction as the tree exploded in a massive amount of wood shrapnels.

He bounced once, twice, then he started somersaulting over and over again until it was all reduced to rolling over and over very violently. It would have continued a little bit longer except for the fact that he hit an even larger tree, and he left a massive dent into that as well.

There was a huge creaking noise, and when he opened his eyes, the tree he hit broke into two, and the top half almost buried him with its bulk.

He finally stops. He was dizzy and disoriented, but he is not moving for the moment, and he thanks the very gods for that.

Congratulations! Due to your diligence, you are able to unlock the new power: Invulnerability.

Requirements: CONSTITUTION 1

Current level: 1

Darion blinked slowly because he couldn't believe what his eyes are telling him at first. 2 new superpowers?! And in a matter of moments from each other. He remembered his dad telling him that leveling the first power given to you is very hard, and getting a second power is very, very rare. A third power is virtually impossible. But he is getting powers left and right, and he didn't know what to do about it.

"What the hell..." he said to himself belatedly. Darion slowly sat up and felt himself up to check for any injuries. There was none. He jumped to his feet and did a bit of calisthenics and stretching, just to pinpoint any area of hurt. Again, he felt fine. In fact, he felt better than fine.

He felt great.

He looked back at the devastation he just created and swore again under his breath. "What the hell is happening to me?"

He opened up the system and checked at his newly acquired ability.

Invulnerability:

The power to be immune to all forms of physical damage. Since the power is in its early stages, you only receive resistance to most physical attacks.

Requirements: CONSTITUTION 1

Current effects:

10% resistance to physical attack.

Super Speed:

The ability to move beyond the human limit. Must need a tremendous amount of balance and coordination in order to use properly.

Current effect:

Once activated, the power user can move twice as fast as an abled bodied Olympic athlete. The length the user can maintain such speed depends on his CONSTITUTION level.

Requirements: CONSTITUTION 1, AGILITY 1

Current level: 1

Darion was lost in introspection for a whole five minutes, then he blinked and shook his head. He understood that he receive a new power, and he knew how he got it. How he will use it and how it will affect his future is something he decided will take too long to think about. Putting everything in perspective made him conclude that this is not the time to deal with this. Instead, he decided to finish his original goal, which is to finish the damn hike.

He climbed the ledge he had fallen from easily enough and without any other incident. Once he is back on the road, he continued to run.

For the next 10 minutes, he continued to run without saying or thinking about anything. But then, his mind returned to the newly acquired power he received, and he just couldn't help using it again. He activated his new SuperSpeed powers.

Now and then, in a quick short burst, he tried out his new speed ability just to get the hang of it.

It wasn't easy. For one thing, he can only do a straight dash. Any small turn is beyond him at the moment, so he chooses the place and time when he used the skill. Even so, after a dozen quick burst, he found himself getting comfortable with the new power.

As part of his experiment, and to help him learn how to turn in the future, Jack blurred from one side of the road to the other in a zigzag pattern. The first few tries were successful until the 4th or 5th one when he twisted his ankle. He didn't know if he turned while he was moving, or he was still turning when he initiated the next short burst, either way, Darion heard a cracking sound, and he felt this excruciating pain on his left foot. He fell to the ground and rolled around in pain.

"Motherfucker!" He screamed, tears in his eyes. His feet felt like it was burning.

Despite the cloud of pain, some semblance of thought penetrated his fog mind, and his hands reached for the emergency flair behind him. He twisted the cap, and instantly, thick red smoke came out and reached for the sky.

Next, he turned on the emergency signal and left it on his side. They trained weeks ago on what to do when you are lost or in an emergency in the woods. Darion didn't know if he was the first one to implement this knowledge, and he didn't want to know. All he knew is that he is done for the day.

He just stayed there for like hours, but the digital clock inside his brain told him that only ten minutes had passed.

Despite his pain, his hyper senses did not betray him, and he heard the Blackhawk helicopter coming from the east. It passed by his position until it circle around his position then hovered a few yards away from him.

The last thing he remembered before he passes out is the helicopter landing softly several yards away from him. Military servicemen came running out from the chopper and bringing a stretcher with them as they jog towards him.

Then everything started to fade as he lost consciousness.