A dark luxurious room of a high-end hotel in the southeastern corner of the European League. Phobos Gold was laying in the bed. The little light sprawling from the drapes indicated that it was already daytime. As he was leisurely sleeping the phone rang. Fumbling around, he found and picked it up.

“Hello….”

“Good morning, Mr Gold. This is your ordered wake-up call for 8 am.”

“Yeah, I’m up.”

“I’m happy to hear that sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

While stretching in bed Phobos told the receptionist to get a car ready for him. He started getting prepared for a business conference. He was going there as an angel investor for a company he finds to his liking.

Phobos had a massive inheritance that his parents left him. Phobos’s father was a somewhat lucky businessman from the rising of the Federal Europe. He was competent and trustworthy. That is why his company had continued to grow even after the turbulent times.

He inherited astounding looks from his parents. He had around average height, but almost perfect proportions. His facial features are incredibly correct. He has pure black hair and amber, almost golden eyes. With his looks, almost all women would desire to communicate with him, but he has a quite cold character.

So like any other billionaire, he requires a written consent before anything goes down. Of course, he doesn’t really know if other billionaires get written consents. It just didn’t make any logical sense in doing otherwise. After all the stories he has heard his father tell him were crazy.

Phobos got dressed for the conference with a casual suit. He was ready to invest around 50 million in a promising start-up and buy out a robotics company. After selling all shares and holding that were entrenched in the government, he held quite a bit of liquid assets. That’s why he was searching for new investments.

Usually, everything from the stay, clothes and transport would be taken care of by his assistants. But this is somewhat of a vacation so he opted to do it himself. Even if that is just saying to the hotel staff to arrange it.

The convention was more on the outskirts of town as the venue was quite big and it seemed that there was no suitable place downtown. As the car went further the buildings were getting shorter and after thirty minutes they arrived.

It was packed with cars, but thankfully Phobos didn’t have to search for a place he was just dropped off at the entrance. He would just call the driver back when he was ready.

Going inside the venue was an enormous open space and there were a lot of companies who had set up independent booths. On the map placed at the entrance you could see the section you are interested in and go straight there or if you wander around you would pass through most of the convention as the paths are neatly arranged for you to do so.

Phobos looked at the map and headed straight for the tech section. He was ready to buy out a small robotics company so that he could start an automatized business. His second goal was to invest in a promising start-up.

For the moment he was just walking around. The venue wasn’t so crowded. He had received an invitation, but he heard that the tickets started at five thousand euros. Of course for someone who would come to invest in a business that would be nothing. So it is just a token price to weed out idlers.

Going around a few times he found a promising robotics team that does general robotics and programming so they would be of help in designing automation machines for where he needs them.

Now he needs to see if they have a registered company and if they are willing to be bought out or if they don’t have one if they want to be hired. Mostly everybody who is here and has set up a booth is selling themselves or is looking for investors, but there are rare cases that are here just to show what they have achieved.

Just as he was heading to talk to them there was a blinding light from the lights on the ceiling as all of them exploded. There was panic everywhere he looked. Most people were holding their eyes. Thankfully Phobos’s eyes were closed just as the flash occurred. There were a few lucky ones like him trying to dodge a few broken pieces of glass that were falling from the ceiling lights.

Phobos was just calmly observing as he has been conditioned from little to respond calmly to any situation. He naturally had a cold disposition which he thinks he inherited from his mother as she was perceived as a psychopath by most people. However, this wasn’t the moment to be leisurely, so thinking calmly but quickly of what the best response would be in this mildly chaotic moment.

Phobos calmly started to walk to the VIP lounge and checked his phone. It appeared to be broken and there was a little wisp of smoke coming out of it. Coming to the entrance of the lounge there was no security. They seemed to have gone to help however they could, so he entered without fuss.

The VIP lounge was quite luxurious. It could be seen that they didn’t just name it VIP lounge and just left a bare room with just a few chairs. There were leather sofas all around and a bar stocked with a lot of liquor. He didn’t really drink so he couldn't really judge the quality, but it shouldn't be bad.

There were about twenty people including 6 staff members, who at the moment were being berated for the blackout and all the chaos. Of course, it was only a couple of either really short-tempered or with no basic manners people that would take out their frustration on the obviously innocent staff members.

“Do you know who the fuck I am?! I could get you fired in a....”

As he heard the first sentence Phobos could assert it was both so he didn’t even try to listen to the rest of the conversation. He isn’t above demanding what you deserve when you have paid a set amount of money. However, when it is obvious that the staff don’t have anything to do with said failure, taking out your frustration on them is just displaying your own stupidity.

Looking around Phobos saw a huge window pane overlooking the convention. He went in front of it and observed the situation below. There was a mass of people panicking going left to right with no clear sight of where to really go. What he observed was out of the ordinary, there were few people that were going unconscious, with no visible reason. They were the minority, but as he was seeing it from above it was quite obvious that the number was growing.

As Phobos was looking at that, he could feel his own body weakening. There was a slight dizzying feeling. As he was feeling the change in his body, Phobos heard a dull thud behind him. When he turned around, he could see a few people lying on the ground. Apparently having fallen. As he was going to check if there were any visible symptoms, people started to fall one after the other.

At the end there was just one female standing. As Phobos looked at her, he could see clear panic in her eyes. When he got close enough, he could see all 19 people lying on top one another as they were in proximity as they started falling. Searching for any outward symptoms, that would help him as he was feeling that he would be the next to fall over, he could only see that few of them were experiencing micro seizures.

Feeling that he got enough information or more correctly that he couldn’t even stand anymore he started moving. Phobos remembered that there were few private rooms, mostly for negotiating buyouts and partnerships. However, he couldn’t care less about what they were used for. At this moment he was just moving instinctively. Isolating oneself from an unknown contaminant is a basic biological instinct.

Even if he was 95% sure that he had contracted said contaminant. He was still moving towards the private rooms. As he progressed, he was feeling weaker and weaker. He couldn’t pay much attention to anything around, but he saw the female that was awake following him. She was mostly moving on instinct as well. After all it is a lot more reassuring to follow an active individual of one group than the 19 “copses” on the ground.

When Phobos got to the private rooms he just chose one at random. When he was about to close the door, he saw the female right outside.

He could have let her in but he had a tendency of being a little paranoid or as he liked to call it prepared. So even if there was basically a zero percent chance that she would pose any danger to him, Phobos just stopped for a second and then pointed at the opposite room then closed and locked his room.

The woman outside was frozen for a few seconds. Mostly processing what had just happened and fighting the dizzying feeling swirling inside her body. As she seemed to have reacted, she entered the opposite room and locked her door.

Phobos on the other hand didn’t care what was happening outside. As soon as he entered, he found a big sofa and sank into it. When he sat on the sofa all his strength left him, he felt like he was sinking in the ocean and like falling into the lava at the same time. There were hot and cold waves going around his body, one after the other.

Phobos didn’t know how long he had been in that state. It may have been minutes, it may have been hours, but it felt like days and even months. The alternating temperatures felt like torture that was frying his mind.

When he was on the brink of collapsing, he started to feel something. It felt like a star shining brightly in a dark space, but unlike a star it didn’t have a definite shape. At the beginning, it was like a bright explosion right in front of his face, but as time passed its light started to become dimmer. The light wasn’t dying out fast but steadily.

Phobos was feeling a loss from the soul as he watched it become dimmer as the seconds passed. Feeling more and more depressed as the light grew weaker. He started to struggle to see more of it. Although he felt that he was in an empty space with no physical body. He started to try to get closer to the star. Struggling left and right, up and down, forward and backwards but to no avail.

He could do nothing but watch. Since he could do nothing but watch, he watched with all his might. He concentrated his whole spirit in seeing the star better. At the beginning his perspective in the space was omniscient as he viewed the whole space without blind spots. But as time passed his sight became narrower or rather more concentrated.

Although Phobos was seeing that the star was feebler by the minute he was seeing it clearer and clearer. At some point in time, he felt that the star stopped going, but his vision of it was still growing stronger.

Once again time was relative. He could neither feel minutes nor hours. There was only fascination and concentration.

As time was moving there was less dark space in his mind and more of the star. Before he knew it in his sight there was only the shapeless light. The star or now the all encompassing was only a representation. He felt it was a meaning and not at all what he had seen. That was just his brain trying to process an enormous amount of meaning into something Phobos could understand.

From concentrating on seeing the star better to understanding what it meant was a seamless transition.

This time not in a dark space, but in a web of meaning. Phobos felt that he would achieve something as soon as he could phase so much meaning in a single word. It felt like compressing the sea into a cup of water. The more he understood what it meant the less he felt he was closer.

But at some point not knowing when or even how he could feel a word in his mind. Representing all the meaning present in his mind, but yet felt short. Phobos, however, knew he couldn’t do better. And as soon as he had a concrete idea of the word ‘Improvement’ formed in his mind, he woke up.

He wouldn't say that improvement is the perfect representation of the vast meaning collected in the starlight. Other people with the same starlight may have chosen words like evolution, progress or change. For him improvement was the word closest to him and the truth.

Although he had awakened a word inside him, Phobos had no idea what it represented. So as soon as he woke up, he started exploring the meaning in it. He forgot about everything else, even in what situation he was in before falling asleep.

It didn’t take long for him to understand that the star was some kind of supernatural power. Based on the perceived word, he knew the direction the power would take. He didn’t have any control of said power. It was like a baby having motor function instincts. He could just spasmodically release it from time to time.

That was improving every time he tried to use it. It seemed that the improvement part of his power taking effect. Fumbling for an hour he felt like he had general control and awareness of what his power was.

So far he can identify three aspects of his power. The first is a normal physical and mental improvement. It follows the natural progression of the physical world if not a little faster and more targeted. He stretched for about ten minutes and felt he was at least twice as flexible. Of course that was an illusion. At best it had improved a few percentile.

His motor functions and general balance had improved as well. In his mind any inefficiency in his movement was improved, although not instantaneous it was somewhat magical. He felt like he was excavating the full human potential.

The second aspect was supernatural. This was the most magical yet the simplest to understand. It gave a temporary magical improvement or boost to an aspect like speed or sight. It drained energy, be it physical or magical, while in use. When he boosted his speed he could move faster with no outer or inner physical change. The boost was purely magical with no regard to physical law.

The third aspect is a combination of both. He could induce a permanent physical change with his ability. The magical side was that it happened almost in an instant. The downside of this aspect is the high energy consumption. Whatever magical energy he had and part of his physical energy was drained in one use.

Phobos tried to improve his muscle mass distribution and as he did, he saw changes visible to the naked eye. His body became more uniform and more perfect. At the same time, every ounce of energy in his body was drained. He suspected that this third aspect had an even more magical use. That was to influence matter outside himself, however, he didn’t have any energy to experiment.

As he felt he was done experimenting his concentration weakened and just at the same time he heard a scream outside form where the lobby would be. The scream broke up his just relaxed mood and brought up his mind in full gear again.

Phobos unlocked and opened the door slowly. Checking the situation outside. He didn’t find anything except when he looked closely, he could see scratches on the opposite door. After finding them there, he looked at his own door and found scratches as well. They weren’t that deep or persistent. It was scratched only two or three times and then discarded.

Coming out of the room there was pure silence. It was eerie how quiet it was. Phobos walked to the lobby slowly listening for sounds. As he got closer he heard sobbing. He entered the lobby from the opened door and just next to it found the female that was following him yesterday.

She was collapsed against the wall next to the door sobbing. Her eyes seemed out of focus. She wasn’t crying out of pain or sadness. It seemed like a natural defensive reaction. She seemed in shock. Phobos was even wondering if she was conscious. Her body was clearly awake, but he didn’t feel her mind.

Phobos looked away from her and scanned the room. And understood why she was acting that way. He froze and felt current travel from his heels to the top of his head. The room was full with blood and viscera. He couldn’t identify a whole body. There wasn’t even any whole body part. There were just some leftover bones and clothing lying around. The blood, however, was everywhere.

The most intact part was the most striking. There were nine mostly intact heads lying in different parts of the room. They were gnawed upon a few times, but mostly left intact, at most the faces were gone.

Phobos just stood there in a stupor for a good five minutes. He thought he had quite a good grasp of his psyche. But it is completely different if you watch a horror movie knowing everything is fake and seeing a scene in real life that you would normally see in the worst gore movies.

As he stood there in a stupor for some time he started calming down. He could feel his ability working and improving his mind and psyche. His whole mind got calmer and steadier. After Phobos felt he was completely calm he looked at the still sobbing female, but left her on her own to calm down.

The most surprising thing in the whole situation for Phobos hadn’t experienced a fight or flight response in that situation. But he kind of knew that it would only appear if a situation is in the limits of your accepted reality. If it was outside those limits his mind would shut down for a moment until the brain could work out the situation so that it could be accepted. In some cases, the brain fails at its job and you get mental breakdowns.

Phobos scanned the room closer this time. He could see that it was like a pack of hungry predators got a hold of the bodies.

Bypassing all the bones, the blood was impossible to bypass, he went to the now broken window overlooking the convention. As he did, he was shocked ones more, but this time it was to the core. He literally felt his soul shake at the sight.