"It was just as I thought," Noah muttered, rubbing his chin in thought. The experience he'd had earlier that morning had already left him half-convinced he was brushing against the limits of human capability.
Now, the test confirmed it. He had reached a level no amount of ordinary training could achieve—reaction speed beyond the grasp of normal men.
To the world, he might already appear superhuman, but to him, he was not there yet. He still stood at the razor's edge of what could be called peak human.
The ability was still at level one—the initial stage. Yet he was certain he wouldn't need to reach level two before breaking past the threshold and stepping into the realm of the superhuman.
With that thought lingering, he summoned the system interface, its display unfolding before him as he tracked his progress so far.
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[Name: Noah Silver]
[Age: 17]
[Gender: Male]
[Height: 185 cm / 6'1"]
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[Abilities]
— Hypermotility — Lv.1
→ Status: Awakened | 10% XP to Lv.2
— Telekinesis — Lv.2
→ Status: Novice | 2% XP to Lv.3
— Genius Intellect — Lv.6
→ Status: Master | 79% XP to Lv.7
──────────────
[System Functions]
— Ability Synthesis&Fusion
— Ability Upgrade
— Auto-Train (1/1)
— Mission
──────────────
[System Data]
— Daily Ability Refresh: 16h 10m
— Ability Points: 0
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A quick glance at the interface was enough for Noah to note the changes. Telekinesis had finally leveled up. His newly awakened ability, hypermotility, had increased by ten percent, and Genius Intellect had inched up another notch.
Curiosity tugged at him—he wanted to test the limits of his telekinesis right away. But first, his eyes lingered on the Genius Intellect XP bar before shifting back to the freshly advanced telekinesis. His brows furrowed for a moment, then smoothed as his expression settled into quiet focus.
He suspected that certain abilities resonated with one another—that progress in one could subtly feed into another. But he couldn't be sure yet. 'Maybe when I gain more abilities in the future,' Noah mused, before discarding the thought for now.
Instead, he turned his attention to the improvement of his telekinesis. Clenching his fist, he felt the invisible pull surge around him, and in the next moment his feet lifted off the ground, his body weightless. A satisfied smile tugged at his lips; he had barely exerted any effort.
When the thrill ebbed, he slowly unclenched his fist, and his feet touched down softly against the floor. The level-up had pushed him beyond his previous limits—of that he was certain. Before, forcing his telekinesis to lift as much as fifty kilograms had required every ounce of concentration.
Now he could carry his own weight with ease. I'll need a more effective way to measure improvement, Noah thought, already cycling through ideas. The crude method would be to lift a measured weight.
But a better approach came to mind: force sensors. All he had to do was push against the sensor with everything he had.
Simple, precise, and efficient. He even had a prototype lying around, originally built in preparation for the eventual completion of the lizard serum. A few tweaks here and there, and it would serve perfectly.
Before getting to work, he reopened the system interface and swapped the auto-train slot. Hypermotility replaced Telekinesis, which only generated a meager single XP per hour. At least for now, it was smarter to keep level-one abilities in that slot until he could upgrade the auto-train function.
An hour slipped by in the blink of an eye. Near the spot where he had performed his reaction speed test, a new machine now stood. It measured three meters by three, a squat, heavy frame with a circular plate at its center—his target zone, the surface designed to absorb and measure raw force.
Noah positioned himself twenty meters away, posture straight, gaze sharp. He began without gestures, only focusing his will on the target. The digital display jumped from 0 to 20 kilograms almost instantly before plateauing at 27.
He logged the result with a slight nod. With gestures this time, the numbers spiked higher—40 kilograms. Another entry logged, another test.
He closed the distance by five meters. No gestures: 35 kilograms. With gestures: 60.
Another five meters closer, he managed 45 kilograms without gestures—and with gestures, a staggering 80. The nearer he drew, the more the gap between the two widened. Finally, at just five meters, he could exert a maximum force of 150 to 160 kilograms when he pushed himself to the limit.
The limits have increased by more than twice over, Noah noted, nodding in satisfaction. After clearing the equipment, he dropped into his seat, mind already churning with plans. This lab wouldn't cut it anymore. It was built for research, not as a proving ground for abilities.
Fortunately, he already had a solution in mind. Several storage warehouses lay unused, and with the right renovations, one of them could serve as a proper testing site. Fingers flying across the keyboard, Noah began placing orders for the materials he would need.
Another keystroke, and several construction bots were already en route, moving from one of the storage warehouses to the designated renovation site.
Few people truly understood how deep Noah had delved into the field of engineering. To most, he was a biologist first and foremost—and they weren't wrong. Biology was his strongest suit. But that didn't mean his technological pursuits were negligible.
He knew that, like biology, technology offered boundless potential. That was why he had always worked to keep the gap between the two disciplines as narrow as possible.
In his search for effective ways to counter the Viltrumite race, he had explored countless avenues. On the biological front, he had experimented with potential agents designed to exploit weaknesses in their physiology.
But every attempt had failed. Their biology was too rigid, too adaptable, capable of neutralizing threats over time.
With what he had managed to develop so far, his biological agent barely scratched the surface. At best, it could induce mild dizziness upon first contact; by the second exposure, its effectiveness dropped sharply. That avenue was closing fast.
On the technological front, Noah had cast his net wide—robotics, bionics, energy systems, advanced materials. He had made undeniable progress in all of them, yet when measured against the might of a Viltrumite, the results felt almost laughable.
Even at their weakest, a Viltrumite could exert forces between ten thousand and thirty thousand tons. Against such power, the robots he built might as well have been tin cans—fragile, disposable, insignificant.
His work in energy technology had led him down even more ambitious paths: weapons designed to produce weaponizable heat or even inflict damage at the atomic scale, a direct attempt to bypass their smart-atom durability. But ideas were far easier than execution. Ventures of that magnitude would take decades to mature, if they were possible at all.
Bionics offered a slightly different story—far more feasible, but still not within the tight timeframe he was operating under.
Yet even in failure, the work left behind a trail of breakthroughs decades ahead of the world. Anti-aging serums had emerged as an accidental byproduct of his Regen Serum experiments.
Basic artificial intelligence, adaptive synthetic blood capable of optimizing circulation on the fly, metabolic reprogramming shots that could convert fat to sugar and back again—all byproducts of sideline research.
His catalog of innovations read like a science fiction arsenal: a synthetic immune system preprogrammed to counter emerging diseases and viruses; photosynthetic skin grafts; cognitive and neural enhancement implants; smart eye lenses granting night, x-ray, zoom, infrared, and UV vision; pain-modulator chips; and the several iterations of energy weapons.
At this point, he had accumulated so much technology that he had lost count. Each invention was worth millions—some, billions. But to Noah, they were long-term tools, not immediate solutions.
Perhaps one day, after the Viltrumite threat was dealt with, he could settle down and use them to push humanity forward. For now, they remained dormant pieces on the board.
Most of his creations sat unused, gathering dust in storage, with one exception: the watch on his wrist. Compact and unassuming, it housed a versatile energy weapon with three adjustable settings—stun, harm, and kill.
On its highest output, it carried enough power to drop a superhuman. A simple accessory to the untrained eye, but one of the deadliest tools in his arsenal.
Meanwhile, several self-driving trucks rumbled toward the warehouse designated for renovation, ferrying supplies and construction bots. With logistics underway, Noah turned back to his work, drafting a catalog of tests and training regimens—exercises designed not just to measure his growth but to force his abilities to level up.
First came telekinesis. He could push the limits by stacking weights or testing raw force, but that approach was crude and linear. What he truly wanted was refinement—finesse, precision, control. Power without accuracy was like a blade too dull to cut cleanly.
Effective methods for honing that kind of sharpness would take time. He would need to experiment, design new exercises, perhaps even craft custom tools tailored to the discipline.
Hypermotility, on the other hand, was far more straightforward. There was no mystery in its path forward: push perception, push reaction, push until the body responded faster than thought itself.
Drill until movement became instinct, until the gap between intent and action vanished entirely. Reaction speed, combat reflexes, fluid motion—these were things that could only be forged by relentless repetition.
And relentless was something he could afford to be. His abilities demanded effort, but effort was the one currency he possessed in abundance—especially when survival hung in the balance.
No one would save him if he failed. Every hour he invested was another brick laid in the fortress separating him from cannon fodder.