As I began to sort through the perks and items available for me to purchase I realized something odd. There was a certain weight to having an endless number of choice points. I, of course, selected every perk and item that was purchaseable but even having the very ability to opt not to do so, to have total freedom over what perks and items I took and which ones I left behind made me heavy and solid.
Until now I hadn’t really felt all that solid or sturdy but as I felt the perks flow into me and empower me I felt… well I felt truly like something beyond human. The perks available to anyone who took this jump were varied and many of which were impressively powerful.
As I took an attractiveness perk I felt my already modified, by essences, looks becoming sharpened and elevated further. When I snatched up a luck perk I felt my cosmic awareness of my luck detect an upward trend. I even felt my mind sharpen in new ways, such as my gaining the ability to select and erase specific memories if I wanted too!
I spent a few minutes silently selecting perks and items, grinning like a fool all the while. Some of these perks were applicable in a staggeringly wide range of settings, such as the slice of life perk entitled “Expertise” which I took no less than seven times. That particular perk was especially handy since each time I took it I was able to become a skilled professional in a new field. That was one of four perks available to me that I could take more than once.
One of the other perks I could take multiple times was a perk that was similar to “Expertise” but was for military occupation specialities, otherwise known as an M.O.S., and I took it several dozen times to give myself a wide range of choices here. This was the sort of freedom I could get behind!
I also grabbed the fantasy perk known as “Class skills” which allowed me to grab the equivalent to the first level abilities of every major fantasy class. I was odd since I was a level twenty bard and a level twenty cleric, but gaining the first level abilities of everyone from barbarians to wizards felt nice and made me feel… secure in my adaptability.
The final stackable perk was the superhero setting perk known as “Fists of Justice” which gave those who took it an innate expertise in a martial art of their choice. I grabbed it several times and purchased martial arts like Pencak Silat, Krav Maga, Karate, and various animal styles of Kung Fu.
Each time I purchased one of those three perks I felt my mind fill with knowledge and the part of my mind that had once been my unconsciousness immediately expand with the muscle memories needed to make maximally use of my new abilities.
The perks that were available to whoever opted to come here as a first jump were rather impressive given that this place only existed as a first jump. Now normally someone would have had to make choices and not be as free as I was, but my freedom afforded me the ability to ignore the levels of strategy they’d have to employ to get by.
As I began to scan the items I was decidedly less impressed, but they weren’t bad either. I continued my general trend towards greed and purchased everything, and as I did that I became more conscious than ever that maybe deep down I was a collector and not a power gamer, but either way I felt quite happy as I witnessed some of the items I purchased come into being in the very room I sat in!
The items that popped into being around me were things like a cellphone, a laptop, and even framed pictures depicting moments throughout my life! The laptop popped into being on a small glass table in front of the sofa on which Ben and I sat, and the cellphone popped into reality in my pocket.
I also felt an inventory, like the one granted to me by the “Essence of the Minecraftian”, pop into being in my mind’s eye. I watched various items appear within it, ones that weren’t warehouse attachments and were a bit too strange to appear on or around me.
“Oh… Nice choices!” Ben said, encouragingly. I chuckled as I finished making my choices and began to focus on my surroundings again.
“Looks like you’re done. How are you feeling?” Ben asked, looking at me curiously. I smirked at him and thought about his question for a second.
I was feeling… Honestly, better than I ever had before. I was feeling better than good, or even great. The grin on my face was genuine, and I felt excited.
“I’m feeling… honestly, I’m feeling incredible.” I told the man, earnestly. He softly chuckled and leaned back into the sofa.
“Oh yeah… I can tell that you’re loving all of this.” He said, smiling at me as he studied my face. Some of the perks I had gotten were beyond incredible, when coupled with the litany of abilities I had gotten via drinking essences.
One special combination that I was quite fond of was the idea of using the “Essence of the X-Gene” in combination with the training booster provided by “Hard work pays dividends” perk from the power gamer origin. By combining the two of them I’d be able to steadily boost the number of mutant powers I could use at any one time.
Some of the mutations I had chosen were especially good for this since I had taken the forcefield generating ability possessed by Doctor Cecilia Reyes as one of my five initial mutations. A forcefield generation ability, especially one that was innately mastered, was incredibly powerful in the right hands. And I liked to believe that my hands were indeed the right ones for a power that required creativity like this one did.
To be fair to myself, I highly doubted I would have been this creative had I only acquired any one boost to my creativity. My creativity had been boosted by a number of essences, and when I was selecting perks I had taken a power gamer perk that boosted my creativity specifically when it came to my powers and possessions and the back of my mind was bursting with ideas that would teach me how to best use my abilities.
As I mused on my creativity I decided to be spontaneous. I had never used any of my mutant abilities, despite their incredible potential, and now that I had a surprisingly impressive casual training booster I felt like finally using one of my mutations.
I rose my hand in the direction of the air over me and with the slightest bit of mental intent I generated a strangely pretty orange wall of energy directly over Ben and I. As I watched it I sensed my eyes shifting and taking on a more multicolored hue, and I began to stare at the wall I had created.
“So that’s what using a mutation feels like…” I uttered, since that was the first time I had used one of mine. The barrier that floated over Ben and I was one long wall, like a very large and weirdly shaped umbrella. I allowed it to remain overhead for a few moments before willing the thing away, and turning to look at Ben once more.
“Sorry about that, I just wanted to see what it looked like.” I explained to Ben with a weirdly child-like grin on my face. The sheer elation I felt was… It was something else.
Ben studied the deific figure before him silently. The transcendent being who sat next to him had a certain innocence to him that the other jumpers Ben had allowed to attempt to complete a chain hadn’t had.
Thanks to his relative lack of interest in “nerdy” topics and even in a lot of popular media growing up Andrew lacked many of the special traits that made most jumpers excel in one area or another. He wasn’t an aficionado when it came to the X-Men or an obsessive fan of D.C. or even things as popular as Game of Thrones. Andrew had been rather plain when it came to his tastes in media before he had a chance to be greedy and that affected his development as a jumper.
Andrew’s current pop culture knowledge in some ways had a firmer base than that of many more ordinary fans of various franchises because of his perfect memory and ability to instantly gain new knowledge thanks to the power of the “Essence of the Scholar”, but he lacked their passion.
He didn’t dislike things that some might have considered nerdy but he hadn’t felt especially into or against them either. To him they were distractions from what he needed to do to get by. And he was no fool, nor did he have the luxury of time to waste. Now that his circumstances had changed he found that his knowledge and his thoughts on these things were colored by his relative neutral towards them growing up.
The man’s thoughts on his powers were focused on giving himself as wide a range of abilities as he possibly could. He was the ultimate all-rounder and he quite liked that about himself. He had chosen his mutations, things like Dr. Reyes’s forcefields, Emma Frost’s diamond form, and Reeva Payge’s screech, based on making himself as able to survive a situation as possible.
He hadn’t chosen incredibly powerful things like the powers possessed by Nate Grey because he had alternative routes to those powers thanks to the Phoenix stirring within him and because he possessed his own telepathic and telekinetic abilities even without copying Nate’s. Plus in time Andrew would be able to grab those powers and use them at the same time as he used the initial five he had chosen.
Andrew’s mind was pragmatic and driven by a powerful desire to adapt to any situation. It was clear to Ben that Andrew wasn’t going to narrow himself down just yet. He sought to feel things out before he made a clear commitment to something, which was itself an example of his affinity with greed. In some ways the young human wanted everything.
Nevertheless, Andrew had a powerful presence even this early on in his journey as a jumper. Ben could sense Andrew’s inner resilience and his not insignificant innate willpower, traits that were born of him constantly dealing with adversity and usually overcoming it with some level of help.
The man’s transcendent nature also owed itself in small part to the bodymod that the jumper’s benefactor had gone ahead and filled out for him while Andrew filled out the perk and item list for the Generic First Jump.
The bodymod made modifications directly to his very nature, ones with such permanence that even in “Gauntlet” jumps he’d be able to retain them to some extent. Andrew didn’t know this though, at least not in detail, though he’d surely learn of it in the days to come.
Andrew had, unknowingly, helped Ben fill out the bodymod since he had drunken so many essences. The essences he drank were the same ones that made filling out his bodymod a casual task for Ben.
The omnipotent being chuckled as he mentally navigated a series of menus that were shockingly similar to the ones Andrew had navigated. He filled out various forms and bestowed his newest source of entertainment several new, and fun abilities and traits.
As soon as Ben was done filling out the menus Andrew’s eyes filled with bright light and he began to glow. The young man was growing further still in power, his perks and essences mixing with the bodymod his benefactor had filled out for him. These things were fusing and interacting within him, and their mixing was further empowering all of them.
Andrew’s body momentarily faded out of existence before almost immediately reappearing, bolstered by the mighty powers offered by the bodymod. His newly enhanced physique and form radiated power so much so that had he been in this state in front of mundane beings like humans from Earth they’d be able to sense and almost see an orange haze in the air around him.
“That feels… Weird.” He uttered, at a loss for words as his mind adjusted to his new reality. His mind was filling with whole new information, and he was still as he carefully studied his surroundings.
I closed my eyes and allowed my mind to take in the stimuli that existed for miles in every direction. My senses were actually almost overwhelming to take in, so I allowed myself to be still for a moment and give my mind time to adjust to this new level of sensory input.
“Everything is… it’s so intense.” I uttered, now that my deific physiology was the one being enhanced. This was intense on a level that differed from the intensity of my initial ascension. I turned my face in the direction of Ben but kept my eyes closed.
“What’s going on?” I asked, curiously. I heard the almost concerned figure chuckle at me before he began to explain what was happening to me.
“I was filling out your bodymod. You had the… misfortune of having imbibed essences first, which transformed you from a creature that was once a mundane human into a divinity. Which interacted… Well, I’ll be honest, it interacted a bit weirdly with your bodymod.” He told me cryptically.
“Your bodymod is a total overhaul to your physique, so much so that it becomes your new baseline. Once it was filled out it applied immediately. It completely strengthened you, and the resulting changes were… Are, a bit dramatic.” Ben told me with a sly smile on his face. I could hear his facial muscles changing position and I could effortlessly visualize his face from the sounds even his smallest muscles were making.
“Your bodymod registered you as a divinity, not as a human. Because of that the additions to your baseline physique that I selected were the sort that this would apply to a being on that level. A bodymod is a holistic improvement to and overhaul of a creature’s physique. So yours registering you as a divinity meant that the enhancements were… A lot.” Ben explained to me.
I could hear notes in his voice I previously hadn’t been able to before. My enhanced senses were better attuned to eldritch frequencies and physiologies now. Because of that, aspects to the sound of his voice that eluded me before were now fully audible to me.
His voice was now registering as fully inhuman to me. It wasn’t an eerie sort of inhuman, but rather something more than human, almost so weirdly artistic that it was just impossible for a human being to replicate even if they wanted to.
“Now you’re hearing my voice as it really is, not merely in a way that your human mind could have comprehended safely. You have left the realm of humanity altogether, down to a sub-quark level. Every part of you, from your blood to your soul, is either deific or better than deific.” Ben said, congratulating me without explicitly saying congratulations.
“You should open your eyes soon. That way you can see reality how it really is.” The eldritch entity told me, though this time his voice lacked the smugness it once had. I took a deep breath, in doing so tasting the very air on my tongue down to the level of individual quarks, and steeled myself for the weirdness to come.
My other senses were slowly improving, further and further. I knew that the intensity of the world around me would be plainly visible to my eyes, as readily visible to them as the vibrations for miles beneath my feet were palpable to my enhanced sense of touch and overall sensitivity. I slowly opened my eyes, and saw the fullness of my private paradise laid out on display before me.
“So this is what reality looks like…” I whispered, as I could see colors that had previously evaded detection, and saw everything from the smallest pores on Ben’s face to the slightest silvers of light that managed to emanate from the electrical lights which were positioned throughout the mansion Ben and I were in.
“Yes… Yes it is. Now I think it’s time that we go ahead and go see your real toys. And your pets. Or rather… Your first companions. Your dragons.” The man told me, his eyes alight with a joy they had previously lacked. He seemed to be… Almost less alone than he had previously been. As if he saw someone ascending a cliff, and he was already atop that cliff just waiting for them.
For a second I wondered if what he wanted wasn’t really entertainment, but more so someone on his level. An equal. A friend. If that was true then all of this could have been a long-winded way of allowing someone to undergo an extended apotheosis that ends with them on a level more or less equal to his…
