It was the most logical leap. Phobos had expected it. He had a clue before and it wouldn’t be strange. However, he still felt a shock at something he had expected. The sight in front of him was a sea. A sea of blood. If not for the shock he was experiencing he would be worried that the building design was a flood hazard. Although it looked like a sea of blood it was only visually so. In reality it was really shallow

Phobos usually used a method he had heard of to cope with stressful situations or fears. He called it the bored to death method. It may have a more scientific name, like exposure therapy, but Phobos was never one for deliberate learning. He likes gaining knowledge passively and naturally. And as long as it was effective or practical in life, he didn't care for scientific labeling.

The basic principle being that the more exposed to a thing you are afraid of. The less significant or scary it would seem as exposure increases. Of course, it would start mild with pictures of the feared objects. Then the object would be contained or far enough away to know it can’t hurt you. Then you would stay until you are bored with it. Thus, his name for the method. It would progressively become harder with proximity or even touch until you don’t have any fear or stress induced from said object.

Phobos had experienced the use of the method in a few areas in life. From minor inconveniences to phobias. So it was quite suitable for him. It usually took weeks or months, but his mind under his active improvement power made that process shorten exponentially. If someone were to be watching his face at that moment he would see visible changes in his psyche.

From a frozen face with no indication of the brain functioning. To mild panic induced by high stress. Followed by fear, but quickly diminishing to calmness. After the calmness, he stood there for about two minutes until extreme boredom was born.

From start to finish it didn’t take more than five minutes but his whole psyche had been overwritten. Acceptance of that image isn’t just recognizing something that is outside of one's control and not caring about it. It is reprogramming an accepted reality. A constantly reinforced conditioning for almost twenty years, in five minutes.

The breaking down and rebuilding of the psyche wouldn’t happen to most people in their whole life. Phobos had experienced it twice in a short interval. He was even wondering if he hadn’t seen the VIP lounge first. Would his mind have just broken down?

As he was using Systematic Desensitization, without even knowing its name. He stayed for five more minutes to be truly bored of the scene. He analyzed it closely and could only see leftover bones in the sea of blood. After two similar scenes, it was right to assume that something was feeding on the people. With the ten missing bodies in the lounge, it would be possible to guess what that something is. Anybody with subpar reasoning or having watched an end of the world movie would be able to piece it together.

Of course Phobos most of the time tries not to assume things without concrete evidence. He even leaves a doubt even if a fact is objectively proven by all standards. Because assumptions would only cloud your critical view. Making you incapable of accepting new information.

Having been bored to death Phobos finally left the window. He went to the still weakly sobbing female. He ducked in front of her and waved a hand in front of her eyes but nobody was home.

They couldn’t stay there. Phobos picked her up princess style. She gave a weak yelp as she was picked up, but no other indications so Phobos continued to carry her to the room he had occupied last night.

He left her on the sofa in the room as she continued her inner struggles. At this point, he would usually try to help somehow, but an immense hunger was calling at him from his stomach. When Phobos had used his ability to redistribute his muscle mass he used most of his saved energy. Namely, his fat storage. That amount of body fat would usually be able to last a week or two in a desperate situation. However, just that one use had drained him entirely.

So he went to the VIP lounge again. He didn’t find that much food there. There was a lot of liquor, but not much in terms of food. Most likely food would have been delivered if needed. He found a big jar of olives probably used for cocktails.

Phobos found a little treasure in a back room behind the bar with his second and more detailed exploration. There were about twenty club sandwiches that looked quite nice even after staying overnight. He could imagine that they were delivered for a group of people who wanted a quick bite. He took the jar and the packet of sandwiches back to the room.

Entering the room Phobos saw the lady still in shock. At this point, he had a feeling that he should do something, but he wasn’t a trained psychologist, he had no idea of what to do. So the only thing he could try to do is use his ability on her.

Phobos squatted in front of her and placed his hand on her head. He concentrated on improving her mood or psyche. He had no idea what to do, but as soon as he had the intent, his power started working. Phobos even found out another aspect of his ability.

He instantly analyzed and learned everything about the object he wanted to improve. It made sense, after all, it can be said to be magical, but has to have a basis. He had this aspect even when he used it on himself. He had ignored it and internalized it as an instinctive knowledge. However, when he thought about it, he could see a full analysis of his body and mind. At Least his muscle structure and psyche had no secrets to him.

The first thing that Phobos saw in the lady’s mind was pure confusion. The second was how differently her mind processes information. That didn’t help, so he focused to improve her mind to cope with the shock. If left alone, he felt that it would take a day or two for her to somewhat take hold of herself. Phobos, however, didn’t have the time to baby her for that long.

When he had so little information about the situation outside and everything looked rather bleak. He had to rendezvous with his assistants. They should be in a restaurant he owns in town. So he sped up her recovery. As he was doing that he was a little distracted and started improving her psyche in a direction that he likes. He caught himself before major changes happened and quickly withdrew his hand.

Phobos had learned two things of his ability in the brief improvement of an outside object. The first being that he acquired all the needed information and improved based on it. The second being that his improvement was not an unbiased or the so-called universally objective improvement. His improvement was highly subjective.

That meant that if he thought that something is an improvement, even when the majority of people objected or it was against naturally more efficient design it would not influence his ability. Even if it was objectively better. Phobos, however, didn’t think it would be a big problem. When he improved an item he was taking in all the information about said item. So he would change his view on what an improvement on the given object was. That way, in most situations it would influence his improvement to the objectively better path.

However, he felt that there would be a problem when he attempted to improve things that didn’t have objectively better or worse. You could tell that a battery was improved if it had an increase in battery lifespan. That didn’t apply for a personality.

A perfect example would be the lady that was slowly waking up. Although he withdrew fast he “improved” her personality more to his liking. Although the change was in a minuscule proportion as it was hard to influence a change in an uncooperative subject. That didn’t change the fact that he changed it with no regard to her preference.

So Phobos summarized this as a drawback of his ability. The drawback being that even if he knew what a person viewed as an improvement in themselves, as long as this didn’t align with his view, his ability wouldn’t regard that. It wholly followed his view. It may change as he gains more control of his ability, but for now, it would be better to refrain from messing with the mind of people.

There was a positive to the subjective improvement. After all, if we view an item from the most objective way, it would be in the more aerodynamically correct and the most space-efficient variant of the said item with no regard to style. The only thing it would target would be performance and neglect comfort.

Of course, that would be an extreme situation that did not put ergonomics in the improvement category as most things function better if you don’t put humans in the equation.

Phobos also thought if you looked at it even less in the perspective of humans. There is no improvement or not, in the thermodynamic sense. As the first law of thermodynamic states, energy can be transformed from one form to another but can be neither created nor destroyed. So, in reality, there is no more efficient model. Only subjectively more efficient models.

Phobos didn’t want to think about his ability anymore. He hasn’t rested since the chaos started yesterday. He hasn’t eaten anything. More than that, as he used his ability quite often. His energy storage is very low. It may be different if he had accumulated some kind of supernatural energy in his body. However, for the moment he had only used his saved body fat as an energy source.

What was worse was that after he had improved his distribution of muscle mass. He fell below five percent body fat. Now that he used it once again on the lady, he was falling short. Although it didn’t drain him much as it didn’t have any major physical transformation. He was on his last straw.

That is why while waiting for the woman to come to sense. He started eating the sandwiches he had found. As he was eating he relaxed his mind to the maximum. And he found that his passive improvement was working non-stop. He didn’t analyze deeply. It was mostly bodily functions, mentality and skills. It was comparatively slow, almost as if a competent person was doing targeted training. The only difference being that it was instantly applied.

The bodily functions and mentality were constantly in use and gave feedback for improvement. That is why passive improvement was always targeting it. Skills, however, have to be in active use. Or mentally stimulated to be targeted by the passive improvement.

While he was relaxing Phobos was improving all of his bodily systems. His mind was becoming more calm and stoic. And if eating could be interpreted as skill. It was improving as well. His posture was changing and his movement was smoother. Although the change was minuscule in ten minutes it was visible.

By the time the woman was beginning to move, Phobos had finished half of the sandwiches. He stopped eating and left the other half for her. Phobos then took out a skewer he had found in the bar and started snacking on the olives. It was nothing much, but he felt he needed to replenish his energy storage as much as possible.

Of course, there was the option of alcohol as it was a high-calorie liquid. Phobos chose against it. Calories don’t merit impaired brain function. Naturally, he could burn off the alcoholic content in it. Even so, there were a lot of non-alcoholic drinks so after he ate what was available he would gather them.

At this time it seemed that the lady had woken up. She was still a little dazed but she was regaining clarity in her eyes. More so she didn’t look that stressed or scared. It would seem that Phobos’s improvement had worked quite well.

She looked around at first, then locked her eyes on Phobos who was absent-mindedly skewering olives one by one. She seemed to be remembering what had happened. At some point, there was a shiver in her body, but quickly she calmed down. She relaxed her face and straightened her posture. With a moderate voice said.

“Hello.”

Phobos focused on her. All this time he hadn’t had time to take a closer look at her. But now seeing her, she looked quite beautiful. His standards are a bit high. He has had an abundance of experiences with beautiful women. He didn’t rate people. It was more if it was appealing to him or not. Nevertheless, most people would score the woman he has encountered and found attractive with more than 90 points. If not more. The same was true for the woman in front of him.

She had pleasant chestnut-colored hair, blue eyes and beautiful plump lips. Her eyebrows were well taken care of but weren’t tinned out. Her whole face structure was pleasant to look at. As she was sitting Phobos couldn’t judge her figure. Still, he could tell that it was a nice body. It may not be that shapely, but it looked proportioned.

“You should eat something.”

Phobos took the bad that the sandwiches were in and passed it to her. Looking at the Diana that had a little twitch when he went closer. He smiled a little to disarm her. Although after the image in the VIP lobby a smile wouldn't be much help. Phobos wasn’t that good at communicating so when he passed the bag he just went back to his place.

He started skewering his olives again and it sparked the idea that he should get a weapon. After all, just a corridor away there was a newly established mass grave. At the same time, Phobos felt how at leisure his ability is as it felt the need to improve his skewering skills. Although he couldn't complain. It still felt a little weird.

“My name’s Diana. Thank you for taking me out there.”

“No problem.”

Phobos didn’t even look up to her, but having the exchange, Diana looked calmer. She reached into the bag to grab a sandwich to eat. She also found bottled water on the conference table in the room. After taking a few bites and wetting her plump limp with water she asked.

“What do you think happened? That scene was clearly abnormal.”

“Ugh… I don’t know.”

Phobos was having a little headache at the moment. Maybe he should have left her to wake up naturally after two days. It was enough to think through troubles once for himself. If he had to explain it to another person, he felt kind of dull.

He certainly never cared much about people outside himself. Thus he wouldn’t take care of her or her thoughts. He just helped by the way. There was the fact that he tested his ability on her. Besides, if she wasn’t an absolute burden Phobos didn’t mind her tagging along.

“You wait here for a moment. I'll go grab a weapon. Try to relax.”

As he said that he got up and went to the door. He didn't mind the panicked expression of Diana behind him. Going once again to the hell hole that was the VIP lounge. He had already thought of what would be the most appropriate weapon around. He went straight to the ice freezer. After he opened it, he took out the ice pick that was on top of the melting ice. While he was here he stuffed a bag full of calorie-dense drinks.

Although the ice pick is quite short for a weapon. Its penetrating force is one of the best. Phobos felt that if he improved his stabbing capability enough, the picks shortness wouldn’t be much of a detriment.

Phobos couldn’t have gone out of the room for more than 4 minutes, but as he came in he saw a panicking Diana in the corner. He was a little confused. She was fine when he left. He didn’t overthink it. Phobos is bad at guessing people's mind or rather he doesn’t care to guess.

“Well calm down for now.”

While saying that he placed his bag on the side. He went to a nearby sofa and relaxed. He looked at Diana that was calming down. He had a feeling that if he had to be so careful about her mood. He would get bored fast.

He didn’t mind someone experiencing emotions around him. Rather, people watching was one of his hobbies. Having to care for the person, yet, made him awkward.

When Phobos thought about it again however, he didn’t need to give that much thought about her. In the first place, he met her just yesterday. They have exchanged at most two sentences. It was not like he was a good person. Some people that know him may even categorize him as unfeeling. So he calmed down.

“By the way, did you happen to see a star while you were sleeping?”

Phobos asked while tinkering with the ice pick. He was wondering if he could improve it somehow. When it came to his ability, he tried asking Diana about it.

“A star?”

She had a cutely confused look at that moment. It seemed that she didn’t have a clue. But Phobos didn’t think it was right. Only the two of twenty people were conscious enough to get to a room. While he was musing about that there was a sound in the corridor outside.