Chapter 62. The Analysis Upgrade (Patreon)

A nurse rolled a massive metal tray into the room. The smell of food instantly spread through the ward: boiled eggs, a juicy cutlet, a bowl of fresh greens, and a large glass of orange juice. The entire calorie-loaded feast was placed on the bedside table. This kind of breakfast-in-bed service made him feel more like a lord than a Corps cadet.

I was methodically destroying my second egg when Selina returned to the room.

“Early access to S-Power isn’t possible,” she said sharply the moment she stepped through the doorway, adjusting the arm of her glasses. “Any unscheduled discharge’ll raise unnecessary questions from the cadets, and nobody wants to answer them. Wait for the official training schedule, Tom. There’re only a couple of hours left.”

I nodded silently and kept chewing. The answer was expected. Considering how tightly the Corps administration monitored cadets during ability unlock periods, nobody was going to violate protocol.

“I’ll come back exactly when the unlock begins. We’ll test your upgraded abilities,” Selina said as she spun on her heel. The sound of her shoes gradually faded into the depths of the corridor.

I finished lunch at an unhurried pace, called the nurse to clear away the empty dishes, and settled more comfortably against the pillows while staring at the ceiling. There was absolutely nothing to do within the hospital walls. No television, no newspapers. Asking the staff to bring something from the library felt unnecessarily arrogant.

To keep my mind occupied, I summoned the interface before my eyes and began studying the updated status screen.

[Control Panel: TRAINER]

Level: 4

S-Power: 283 / 283 [Control Level: High]

Special Command: 6/6

Tactical Mode: 3/3

Enemy Analysis: cost 1 S-Power

Available Familiar Slots: 1

[Subject Status: MONSTER]

Level: 1

Race: Human (Homo Sapiens)

Attributes:

Strength: 10 [Peak Human Capability]

Endurance: 10 [Peak Human Capability]

Agility: 10 [Peak Human Capability]

Current Effects: Dehydration (recovery in 15 minutes), Ocular Hematomas (stabilization in 23 hours)

Some of the values had noticeably increased, while the physical parameters had returned to their original maximum. Completely expected. The abnormal muscle mass caused by the stimulant was gone.

Bored out of my mind, I started entertaining myself by forming a blue energy sphere in my palm and lazily firing it at nearby objects: the nightstand, the sink, the back of a chair. Naturally, none of the inanimate objects in the room qualified as potential familiars. Still, during this childish experiment I managed to measure the projectile’s properties. The sphere traveled at a fairly low speed and had impressive range. If necessary, it could be used to illuminate a deep well or a ventilation shaft.

Selina entered the room precisely on schedule, exactly when Sam’s lecture was supposed to begin in front of the dojo. She silently sat down in the empty chair and stared at her smartphone screen, radiating impatience with her entire posture.

“Where the hell’s he?” she muttered irritably after a couple of minutes. “He’s already a hundred and twenty seconds late.”

“It’s Sam,” I said, slightly pushing myself up on my elbows to adjust the pillow. “First he’ll slowly greet every cadet personally and politely ask how they’re doing. Then he’ll launch into another Bruce Lee story. In other words, we’ve still got at least five minutes.”

“Complete irresponsibility,” Selina said dryly, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Don’t forget, his lectures on controlling pure S-Power’re considered optional,” I pointed out, catching myself with the strange urge to defend the master’s methods. “Besides, nobody attends his hand-to-hand combat classes anymore. Before I ended up in the hospital, only Ted and I trained there regularly. Without my supervision, Ted lost motivation pretty fast and dropped the training entirely.”

“And made the most rational decision of his life,” Selina replied with a disdainful lift of her chin. “Throwing punches at alien soldiers is the height of absurdity. No grapple or block’d work against the physiology of the Loz’an. Their biomechanics’re completely different.”

“Martial arts’re about discipline first and foremost.”

“That’s the only reason headquarters hasn’t removed him from the curriculum yet,” she scoffed, turning toward the window.

“Anyway, back to the physical stats. I checked myself. My base parameters’re back to the original ten.”

“That was obvious from the beginning,” Selina replied arrogantly as she turned toward me. “Your body discarded the abnormal mass and returned to perfect balance. Strength, agility, endurance, everything’s at the absolute human maximum. If we remove the natural limiters and allow the tissues to continue hypertrophying uncontrollably, you’ll turn into a massive, dysfunctional mutant.”

“You’re missing the most important part, Selina,” I said, pausing as I watched the interest appear in her eyes. “If the parameters returned to baseline, then the cycle can be repeated. Use the chemical trigger again, gain another level, wait for the stat rollback, then repeat the process. We’ve discovered a functional method for repeated level amplification.”

“An interesting hypothesis,” she said thoughtfully, pressing her fingers to her lips. “But from a pharmaceutical standpoint, it’s impossible.”

“Explain.”

“Omega’s the most aggressive and concentrated stimulant on the planet. And as we confirmed experimentally, its peak potential provides a maximum increase of four stat points. Your system’ll require at least five for the next step. The current drug simply doesn’t have enough capacity to break through the next ceiling.”

“But I’ve got a genius [Engineer] on my team,” I said, giving her a meaningful look. “Upgrade the formula.”

“Tom, do you even hear yourself?!” Selina suddenly leaned forward. “You almost went into cardiac arrest right there on the table! You survived through pure luck and system resources!”

“That was a necessary testing phase,” I replied calmly. “Now we’ve got a complete map of the side effects. We can build every safeguard into the new formula beforehand and reduce the risks to a minimum. Besides, you’ll personally handle the synthesis of the modified compound. And I don’t have the slightest doubt that under your supervision, this drug’ll become a pharmaceutical miracle.”

“Cheap flattery, Tom,” Selina said, lifting her chin again, though the familiar spark of a researcher’s excitement had already ignited in her eyes. “In any case, discussing a new project’s pointless until we test the current results.”

[Attention! S-Power restriction lifted]

[All blocked functions and abilities restored]

A light tingling wave ran through my body as the reserve snapped back into place. I shifted my gaze toward Selina.

“Perfect time to test [Enemy Analysis],” I said with a meaningful nod in her direction. “Professor Langstrom, would you be so kind as to volunteer as my partner?”

“More like a lab rat,” Selina sighed, impatience slipping into her voice. “Hurry it up, Tom. I’m curious too.”

I focused my eyes on her and sent out a brief mental impulse. The system instantly consumed one unit of S-Power and projected a report directly over her silhouette.

Name: Selina Langstrom

Age: 29

Occupation: Professor, Inventor

S-Power: 563/563 [Control Level: Medium]

Special Skill: [Engineer]

[Engineer: A mentally oriented superpower that allows the user to instantly expand their understanding of the structure, modification potential, and vulnerabilities of any mechanism through visual contact.]

Race: Human (Homo Sapiens)

Attributes:

Strength: 5

Endurance: 5

Agility: 6

Current Effects: No Negative Status Effects

“Interesting...” I murmured while reading the lines.

“Come on, Tom, stop dragging it out,” Selina said, unsuccessfully trying to make out the invisible data. “What’s it say?”

I read the entire system window aloud to her. When I finished, the panel dissolved into the air, but Selina did not rush to conclusions. She leaned back in her chair and stared thoughtfully into space.

“As you can see, I can now identify other people’s superpowers during a scan,” I said, deciding to break the prolonged silence. “The descriptions’re broad, sure, but for an initial target assessment, it’s excellent.”

“Yeah, the Corps intelligence analysis division’d sacrifice half its annual budget for a radar like that,” she replied. Her voice sounded distant, stripped of its usual scientific excitement.

“On top of that, the interface now displays the control level of someone else’s reserve,” I continued, expanding on the thought. “Honestly, I expected your numbers to be lower. Your specialization doesn’t demand insane energy consumption, same as mine. But judging by the medium-control rating, you haven’t been wasting your time. Your reserve’s been trained pretty hard.”

“Necessary optimization,” Selina said with an irritated wave of her hand, brushing off the compliment. “My scientific rank doesn’t exempt me from military obligations. Every six months I’m required to confirm my qualifications and pass combat standards. So I end up wasting valuable hours at the training grounds instead of the laboratory.”

I studied her profile carefully. Her reactions did not match her usual behavior.

“Selina, what’s the problem?” I asked directly. “You’re a scientist to the core. I’m used to giving you a handful of raw data and immediately getting either a working theory or a flood of follow-up questions. But right now you’re just ignoring the facts.”

“I’ll process the S-Power information later,” she said while looking somewhere past me. “Tom, don’t take this the wrong way. Your data’s extremely important. But right now I’m stuck on the Age field.”

“What about it?”

“I never told you my exact age.”

“Hardly a state secret,” I said with a shrug. “I’m a [Trainer]. Maybe the system just performed an instant scan of your cellular condition, calculated biological wear, and converted it into a number.”

“Elegant hypothesis, but wrong,” she said slowly shaking her head. “How’d your scan identify my full name and official profession? There’re only two possibilities here, Tom. Either the interface pulls information from your own memories, which’d make the entire usefulness of [Analysis] practically worthless since you wouldn’t be able to identify strangers. Or we’re dealing with a form of telepathy that reads the surface layer of someone else’s consciousness.”

I listened to her reasoning in silence, feeling warmth slowly rise inside me. This was exactly the version of Selina I valued as a partner: focused, analytical, and relentlessly searching for patterns.

“We need immediate verification of the hypothesis,” Selina declared as she decisively rose from her chair. “Tom, you haven’t started flirting with the medical staff, have you?”

“No,” I replied, ignoring the subtle jab at my social isolation.

“So you’ve got no idea what the duty nurse’s name is or how old she is?”

“Correct.”

“Stay here.”

Selina turned sharply and strode out of the room. Once again I caught myself noticing how perfectly balanced her movement was on those high heels, an obvious result of above-average agility.

Less than a minute later, the door opened again. Selina returned with the same young woman who had brought me lunch earlier. The nurse looked slightly confused. I did not waste time on unnecessary conversation and activated the impulse immediately.

Name: Margaret James

Age: 25

Occupation: Nurse

S-Power: 0

Race: Human (Homo Sapiens)

Attributes:

Strength: 5

Endurance: 4

Agility: 5

“Margaret James, twenty-five years old,” I said while watching the girl’s eyes slowly widen in shock. “No superpowers and no S-Power reserve.”

“The data’s accurate?” Selina asked, fixing her subordinate with a sharp stare.

“Yes, sir... I mean, yes, ma’am,” the nurse stammered while nervously shifting her gaze between me and the professor. “How... What’s going on here?”

“Thank you for your cooperation. You’re dismissed,” Selina said as she calmly but firmly guided the girl out the door and locked it behind her.

When she turned back toward me, her face was practically glowing with the excitement of a researcher who had just captured a major scientific breakthrough.

“That rules out the memory hypothesis, Tom. Your system pulls information directly from the target’s brain. But that immediately raises another set of questions. Will your Analysis reveal a subject’s real name if they’ve got amnesia and forgotten it themselves? Can it extract data from a corpse while the cortical cells’re still alive? What’re the limits of this telepathic sampling?”

“I’ve got a counterproposal,” I interrupted, cutting through her avalanche of ideas.

“I’m listening carefully,” Selina said as she pulled her chair closer, ready to capture every detail.

“As we can see, every new level increases the detail of [Enemy Analysis]. At first it was just dry numbers. Now it includes names, professions, and abilities. What d’you think we’ll gain if we raise the [Trainer] level one more step?”

Selina fell silent, biting her lower lip in anticipation. A rapid struggle between logic and caution flickered across her face. I could practically see the Omega stimulant upgrade project moving inside her mind from the folder labeled Insane Suicidal Risk into the category marked High-Priority Objective With Strong Return Potential.