I looked at the unimpressive man who was pacing back and forth through the one-way glass and couldn’t help but smile. What are the chances that one of the hundred picked the teleporter bundle, stole a bunch of stuff then got caught? How could you ever catch a teleporter? You have sex with him, get him drunk, and turn him in for the reward on his head.

The man was one of the only criminals who looked scared from the position he was in. No, he looked petrified, people can’t stay that scared for that long, eventually, they’ll get used to it in a day or two. His room was right next to the prison's cafeteria. I’d like to guess that people from the cafeteria were constantly harassing him but that would only be a guess of why he was so scared.

My question was answered when I entered the room. “Y-you! Please don’t chop my dick off, I only stole money!” I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Somehow the story of what I did to the mind controller was already spreading but I think they got the wrong meaning from it. “I cut off his dick because he went after my women. I’m only here to steal your powers.”

He cried and complained and tried to wiggle free until warned him if he kept it up he’ll get similar treatment to the other 100 member we put in there. After getting the teleport power from him something seemed off… I asked.

“Why did you pick the teleportation power and upgrade it with touch teleportation when you could have gotten the bundle? I know the bundle had the ability to teleport other willing people and items from a distance plus the extra dimensional dwelling power.”

He looked at me with the most confused expression before saying. “There were bundles?” I blinked a few times before I threw my hands up. This motherfucker just cost me a better teleport power and alternate dimension mansion because he picked his damn power without checking for anything better.

I give him the go-ahead to be moved to a safer prison. His power was the only reason he was being held in that special cell with a power dampener around his neck. Being moved to a prison for normal people will at least give him a chance to live a somewhat normal life. So, why was I excited for teleportation when I could already teleport? Several reasons.

The first was for redundancy's sake. If I entered an area where magic wasn’t allowed (like a trap to a different dimension with no magic) then I could always teleport out with my power over the magic. The second reason is it would save me mana for more powerful spells. Gaining the flight and teleport powers meant I could still do those things but have the mana for other spells. The final reason is I could give the power away to one of my girlfriends who couldn’t learn magic in the future.

After trying to steal powers from metas and mutants I figured something out. Anyone who had gained mutant powers could no longer learn magic or chi. Most of the powers in the universe were tied around those three power systems. This was just speculation at this point but I believed a race that didn’t know how to use magic or chi would eventually lose their ability to and evolve to only gain random mutations.

Thanos, one of the most powerful of his race, was most likely a one-in-a-billion mutation. The mutations seemed weaker on average but had a higher ceiling for giving power to individuals. That would make Asgardians chi-based possibly? Maybe chi-based with magical powers given through divinity? I thought about it a little more.

Martians, Skrulls, and Chitauri are all obvious magic races. Kree, Parademons, Thanagarians, and Kronans were chi-based. That left some races out of that power structure like Kryptonians, Tamaraneans, and Asgardians. The three outliers seemed to be either mana or chi but somehow strengthened themselves with an outside source. Perhaps access to a force? Not speed force or strength force but some type of smaller force like solar force for Kryptonians.

That would leave Tamaraneans with lunar force and Asgardians were still hard to pin down. Maybe they gained power through fighting? I needed to touch one and look at their power source to know for sure. Even then I still might not understand it. I still thought it was belief-based, the more well-known and possibly even worshiped an Asgardian was the stronger they’d be. Kind of like the belief system with Orks in Warhammer. Painted red wagons go faster even if it doesn’t make sense.

The main question after that was why I cared. I didn't, it was just something that started to stick out to me more after I thought about it. That’s why I didn’t get the Skrull shapeshifting powers when I killed fake Nick Fury. The vast majority of races were so technologically advanced that their source of power didn’t really come into play on global scales, only small conflicts. It doesn’t matter if you’re one of the strongest races if the planet you’re living on gets blown up.

I let them know I was done and headed out via teleportation before heading to bed. I spent the next few weeks just leading the magic department and mansion shopping before I found one on the outskirts of New York that I liked. It was uncomfortably close to the X-mansion but at this point, I was too strong and well-known to think of Charles and all of the X-men as a threat.

I was mainly focused on getting my powers up to the second rank. I had been secretly practicing my plant control and finally reached rank two with it. Training power storage was much harder but I could tell I was close, I just needed another push or a few more weeks and it would reach there.

I spent a good chunk of my downtime getting my girls more powerful too. Steph had the chi in her system to hit rank three but it almost went bad because I waited too long to finish her circle and core. Sometimes you just forget and the person you’re supposed to be helping doesn’t say anything because they thought you knew and something tragic almost happens. I finished up Julia’s as well and she decided to sign on as Batman's permanent leader of his house guards.

It was just as I was finishing my fourth circle when another message I had been waiting for finally came through.