Chris couldn’t sleep. It was currently four in the morning, and he was seated at the scarred wooden table in the living room. It served as their dining room, study space and worktable all in one, and he was currently using it to fold and sort his collection of shirts into two separate piles.

It wasn’t that he was nervous, or wired, or hopped up on caffeine. He couldn’t sleep because he already had.

After he had assured the girls that he was fine, and wasn’t going to have a breakdown anytime soon, they had both gone home to get some sleep. Chris decided to follow suit, as while the new shift had wiped the exhaustion of his body, it had done nothing for his mind. Before he fell asleep, he had allocated two more points to his mental health shift, just for the sensation of his brain being scoured clean. He finally collapsed into bed around two, and slept like the dead.

He woke two hours later, completely refreshed.

He only had himself to blame for this, he mused as he tossed a free shirt from some fundraiser into the smaller, but growing pile. There are some physiological processes that occur during sleep, but it’s mostly for maintaining the health of the brain. Since Chris had… outsourced that, he seemed to barely need any. It was, objectively, a good thing.

But on the other hand, he really enjoyed sleep.

There was no telling how his body clock was going to react to this. Now that he only needed two hours of sleep at a time, would he be able to stay awake for longer? Would he still run out of mental energy after sixteen hours and have an ever-shifting sleep schedule, working on an 18-hour day? When he maxed out the shift, would he need to sleep at all?

It seemed that he had already failed in his quest to stay human, and he hadn’t even noticed when it happened. Good thing he didn’t get panic attacks any more.

“Drama queen.” he muttered, as he finished sorting out his clothes. The pile of too-big shirts and free promotional t-shirts went into a laundry basket for practicing his sewing, and everything else went back into his dresser. “No way to go but forward, I suppose.”

In order to do that, he needed to figure out what next. Well, cleaning, for one. He dug the stain treatment spray bottle and a rag out of the laundry room and began scrubbing away at spots on the carpet as he thought.

He would finish deep-cleaning the house. That was a given. Another day or so and they might even get their security deposit back, not to mention the skill levels. Maybe he would clean the girl’s apartments, too. Back at the cabin, when he had started his crusade against dirt, it had just been an exercise to prove that he could. A way to show the world and himself that he was in control of his actions, that he could make himself do something unpleasant. However, after he knuckled down, he found himself enjoying the rush of accomplishment after scrubbing an area clean, and the opportunity to be literally surrounded by his successes in the form of a clean environment.

Now, he found the actual act relaxing, a form of active meditation as the environment transformed under his hands. Maybe he should open a maid service. Clean while you sleep, wake up to a tidy house.

Huh. That might not be a bad idea.

After, he would start in on sewing, but what would follow that? It was clear to Chris that the best way to gain skill levels was fighting, as evidenced by his skill list. He had fought with actual risk twice, and his combat skills made up roughly a third of all his skill levels. He definitely could advance peacefully, focusing on non-combat skills, but fast enough? What would the advancement of a soldier look like? He was just a college student.

That thought gave him pause, and he needed to ask.

“Sarah, that scenario was meant to test me psychologically, right? The fighting wasn’t all that hard.”

You have combat experience in the form of boxing, so others may have experienced the scenario differently. However, your assumption is correct. The scenario was not designed to test your combat prowess.

“What about the others?”

Similar, but not identical. You were all tested psychologically, yes.

“And someone got a 92? The only reason I made it at all was the mental health shift.”

Yes.

It seemed that she wasn’t going to volunteer any information, he would have to ask.

“I only got that shift because of my… history. Did any of the others get something similar?”

I will not give you information on the others purchases, Christopher, nor any specifics. If you wish to know, find them and ask.

“Fine. I’ll assume they didn’t, then. I’m the only person I can think of that would buy mental health over superpowers. Are they just that much stronger than me?”

Sarah was silent for a moment, seemingly evaluating what she could, should, say.

All my test subjects suffered a mental breakdown of some kind during the scenario, Christopher. You performed admirably.

“Oh.” He paused in his scrubbing for a moment. “How many failed?”

That, I am not permitted to say. You are only allowed to know of the highest performer.

He couldn’t help but feel for the other four. Up to this point, he had only thought of them as his competition, but if they had just gone through what he did…

There was a reason his mental health shift was now at 12 points.

Speaking of, he had 16 points banked and useless, each one a potential superpower, waiting in his status menu.

Before the girls had left, he asked Nova what shifts he should look at next. She shut him down. Hard.

“You can’t ask me to make these decisions. If, for whatever reason, it went wrong, you would only have me to blame.” She said.

“It’s really personal,” Juliette chimed in. “Like asking someone to pick out a tattoo for you, or a pet, but even more permanent. No sane person will pick out a superpower for you.”

So here he was. Spoiled for choice.

You got this far by working on your inefficiencies, tackling your limiting factors. He thought, scrubbing. Your mental health was one, that’s been addressed. Your need for sleep, which apparently is a crutch, has also been addressed. What other limiters do we have?

Well, there’s the new shift. It gives me more energy than I can use, so finding a way to use it, or store it, is a priority.

Alright, how to do that? You don’t need more firepower, everything you’ve faced so far could be easily handled by the baton and your speed. Storage will be necessary, but just keeping it isn’t enough. With the amount I’m absorbing, I’d end up with more than I could ever use to heal. I still don’t think that its enough to duplicate, yet. Damn.

Juliette said something about finding ways to improve other than just reward points. Maybe…

He sent a vague query into the system, and this is what it spat back.

Kinetic Skeletogenesis 0/100, 0%/0%

Seeds your skeletal structures with a crystalline lattice that stores kinetic energy. Energy stored is slowly cannibalized to expand the lattice, reinforcing the bones and increasing storage capacity. Does not affect the skeletal structures functions, such as blood generation, except for providing structural support. Lattice will eventually replace the structure of the bones entirely, with a colossal amount of energy investment. Reward points invested seeds the lattice farther into the bones, allowing for greater expansion. Impacts that reach the bones are slightly ablated, and absorbed into the lattice.

Wow, that is remarkably inhuman. He thought. The first steps on the road to becoming a golem.

“Sarah, what is this percentage bar?”

Shifts that provide the opportunity for additional improvement show how much of that improvement has been made. Reward points invested will increase the cap of that progress bar, energy invested will increase the progress.

“Would this shift show up on an MRI?”

The radio waves emitted by the machine would either be absorbed by the lattice or pass through it without interacting, so it would be invisible to an MRI. At higher levels, however, the amount of lattice replacing bone would appear as cracks in the bone, or perhaps bone density loss. At low levels, it should not be noticeable.

“I… think I can be okay with this.” He said, musing. “If you asked a philosopher what makes someone human, I doubt bones would make the list.”

There is a story, widely attributed to Diogenes, about how a king’s bones cannot be distinguished from those of a slave.

“I guess this would make mine distinguishable from those of a king.”

But still recognizably the bones of a man.

“Good enough for me.” He let out a deep sigh. “Any chance you can tell me what the next scenario is, so I can prepare?”

I can tell you that it will be more difficult.

“Not helpful.” He griped, and continued scrubbing. He was almost done with the carpet.

I don’t need more firepower, not really, but I could use a panic button. Something to break out if I’m hopelessly outmatched. Then I need to quit branching out. If I end up with 20 shifts at 10 points, someone with 2 at 100 would demolish me. Something that makes me more dangerous. Something… insane.

Eventually, he came up with this.

Doubletime 0/300

Doubles the rate at which your body experiences time, mental and physical, for 5 minutes. Causes severe withdrawal effects when the duration expires. Reward points invested decrease cooldown, from 150 hours to 30 minutes, and decrease withdrawal symptoms.

That’s ridiculous. He thought. Wait, can I just put one point in and stack a ton of these? The cooldown would be huge, but I could plow through a scenario before the duration ended. That can’t be right. Unless…

“Sarah? Is there a cap on the number of shifts you can get?”

Yes.

“And you weren’t going to tell me? How many?”

It depends on many factors. Each additional shift puts a strain on your biology, though additional points in one does not seem to. May I remind you that this process is experimental?

“You don’t even know, do you?”

I do not know. It seems to vary from human to human. When you hit your safe cap, I will let you know. One of my test subjects has already hit their cap.

“Shit. Can you give me a rough number?”

Anywhere from 5 to 12, not including intelligent design. If you wish to know for certain, you may purchase shifts with one point until you reach the cap, then refund them, though the invested points will be wasted.

“I’ll pass. Well, that plan is shot.”

I am currently working on a way to adapt your bodies to increase the cap. When I find it, you will be the second to know.

“Thanks.” He finally finished his scrubbing, and decided to let the stain remover sit, and invest his points.

No time to waste, he has class today.

He went back in his room and laid on his bed, to avoid freaking out his roommates. He made his point selections, 10 points in Kinetic Skeletogenesis, 3 in Doubletime, and 3 in his Speed shift, to give it a little more oomph.

He invested his points, and for what felt like the millionth time in a week, blacked out.