Chapter 2: Superpower System
[The Legendary Mechanic] told the story of a professional power leveler from a parallel Earth. He had once lived for the game [Galaxy], only to transmigrate into its world before the open beta, carrying his character panel with him. Armed with foreknowledge, he rose step by step, seized one opportunity after another, and eventually climbed to the pinnacle.
Hodell sat on the edge of the bed, frowning so hard his brows almost knotted together.
In less than an hour, he had already discovered several devastating problems.
First, he really had transmigrated.
Not only that, he had transmigrated into the world of [Galaxy].
According to the original novel, [Galaxy] was a fully immersive holographic game with servers spread across the world. At its peak, it had once reached nearly sixty million concurrent players. Its setting was an enormous interstellar universe, with countless maps, civilizations, planets, and battlefields evolved automatically by next generation optical computers after receiving base parameters.
In other words, it was vast enough to make a person feel insignificant just by imagining it.
Second, there was one tiny issue.
He had never played it.
Not even once.
This was the part that made Hodell want to bang his head against the wall.
In every transmigration story, there was always some golden setup. Either the protagonist was a seasoned expert who entered the game world and crushed everything with experience, or he had been a mediocre player in his previous life, regretted it bitterly, then got a second chance to rewrite his fate. Even the trashy ones at least gave the protagonist some dramatic betrayal by a girlfriend before handing over the cheat package.
Those novels were smooth to read because their protagonists actually knew what they were doing.
But him?
He had transmigrated into a game world he had never even seen before.
That was not foresight. That was being thrown into deep water and told to evolve gills.
Third, this was a real world.
Every person here was alive. Every death was real.
As an NPC, if he died, that was it. No resurrection at a spawn point. No cheerful system prompt. No second attempt.
Fourth, he was not even on the same planet as the original protagonist.
So much for hugging the main character's thigh and living off the draft of destiny.
Fifth, and perhaps most unsettling of all, was his panel itself.
He did not remember any setting like this in the original novel. There had never been any mention of an NPC acquiring a player like interface because of some strange mutated trait. Which meant the line labeled [Unknown Gene] was not a harmless decoration.
It had already interfered with his fate once.
Who knew what it would do next?
As Hodell's thoughts raced, his hands did not stop moving.
He flipped through [Jerry's Foundational Theory of Superpowers] at an increasingly absurd speed.
He quickly realized that he did not actually need to struggle through the contents in the normal sense. He did not have to digest every concept one by one, nor fully understand each line before moving on. As long as his eyes swept across the page, the information was somehow copied straight into his mind like a perfectly indexed archive.
Page after page vanished beneath his fingers.
It was so outrageous that it reminded him of those scam advertisements from his old world, the kind that promised "quantum speed reading" and "photographic learning" if desperate parents just paid enough money.
Except this time, the scam actually worked.
[Learning progress for [Gene Expression Theory]... 15%... 30%... 50%...]
His eyes lit up.
It really was automatic.
…
Outside the room, a guard stood at attention beside a crystal ball, his expression stern as he watched the image reflected inside it.
"You are saying the experimental subject's learning efficiency has increased?"
The one beside him nodded. "That is the result of the preliminary observation."
Not far away, a thin, pale middle aged scholar listened with narrowed eyes. He looked sickly, but there was nothing weak about the intelligence in his gaze. After a moment, he waved a hand.
"Continue observation."
Nothing more.
No surprise. No excitement.
Just cold, clinical interest.
…
Back inside the room, the book in Hodell's hands blurred as he turned another page.
Then the panel flashed.
[[Gene Expression Theory] learning progress has reached 100%. You have mastered basic Superpower System knowledge. The Superpower System knowledge tree has been unlocked.]
[You have obtained a new main class: Esper Novice.]
[Energy +10, Intelligence +1, Endurance +1.]
[You have obtained 2 free attribute points and 1 potential point.]
[You have learned new skills: Basic Superpower Affinity, Simple Energy Perception, Simple Superpower Application.]
A wave of heat suddenly erupted from somewhere deep inside his body.
It flowed through his limbs like a current, spread through his bones, and rushed into his brain. The haze clouding his thoughts vanished instantly. His mind became sharper, cleaner, brighter. Concepts that had seemed dense and incomprehensible just moments ago now settled into place with natural clarity, as if they had always belonged there.
Theoretical jargon became logic.
Complex diagrams became understanding.
Knowledge became instinct.
Hodell nearly burst into tears on the spot.
If I had this in my old life, I would have torn the college entrance exam apart with my bare hands.
He took a deep breath and opened his personal panel.
[Name: Hodell
Race: Carbon Based Human
Template: NPC [Countdown to Version 1.0 Open Beta: 358 days 10 hours 50 minutes]
Total Level: 2
Experience: 0
Subclass: Slave Lv.1 [0/50]
Main Class: Esper Novice Lv.1 [0/200] [Path of Chaos] [0/1]
Health: 50/50
Stamina: 80/80
Attributes:
Strength 3
Agility 5
Endurance 5
Intelligence 4
Mystery 4
Charm 7
Luck 6
Free Attribute Points: 2
Energy: 10/10 [Lv.1]
[Strength +1, Agility +1, Endurance +1, Max Stamina +20]
Energy Rank: 5 to 6
Grade: F [Mortal]
[Congratulations. You have officially become a combat weakling.]
Talents: None
Skills:
Basic Superpower Affinity Lv.1 [0/1000] Increases comprehension of superpowers
Simple Energy Perception Lv.1 [0/400] Enhances perception of various energies
Simple Superpower Application Lv.1 [0/600] Improves the effectiveness of superpower usage
Potential Points: 1
Class Knowledge Tree:
Effect: Gene Expression Theory Lv.1 [19 items not yet learned]
Cycle: [20 items not yet learned]
Function: [20 items not yet learned]]
Hodell stared at the interface, breathing slightly faster.
So he had really become an Esper.
In [The Legendary Mechanic], the universe belonged to Supers.
There were five main Super systems in total.
The Mechanic system. A path that started with assembling parts and ended with either ruling battlefields or chopping off your own hands from overwork.
The Mage system. A road that looked elegant at the beginning and suspiciously like a burial procession by the end.
The Puglist system. Starting from physical cultivation and eventually sprinting straight toward immortality with unreasonable determination.
The Psychic system. Half theory, half nonsense sounding mysticism, and somehow terrifyingly effective in practice.
And finally, the Esper system. The path of the chosen. The lucky bastards. The kings of natural awakening.
These five systems formed the backbone of [Galaxy].
Normally, a player could enter one of them by obtaining the corresponding class knowledge and fulfilling the required conditions.
As for Espers, there were roughly two awakening methods.
The first was artificial awakening through genetic medicine, followed by formal study of the Superpower System's knowledge tree.
The second was natural self awakening.
Hodell clearly had not gone through the second.
Which meant whatever had happened to his body in that laboratory had most likely pushed him into the first.
He lowered his gaze and reviewed the rest of the attributes.
Endurance affected health and stamina, while also improving the natural rate at which both recovered.
Intelligence represented mental development, comprehension, memory, and willpower. It was the primary attribute for Mechanics and determined the upper limit of engineering ability to a frightening extent.
Mystery represented perception of the spiritual domain and greatly influenced the power of Magic and Psychic abilities.
Energy was the foundation of Supers. It was not just a mana bar or a fancy resource pool. It was the core of everything. In the novel's explanation, it was a special form of biological energy extracted from cells through unique training methods. Every serious combat path in [Galaxy] revolved around it in one way or another.
Free attribute points could be distributed among the seven main stats: Strength, Agility, Endurance, Intelligence, Mystery, Charm, and Luck.
As for Energy Rank, that was the most direct standard used to evaluate actual combat power.
In the interstellar era, superhuman power was neither mythical nor especially rare. Once a civilization advanced far enough, even the extraordinary would eventually be quantified, measured, categorized, and sold in neat charts.
Energy Ranks were divided into E, D, C, B, A, and beyond.
The flatter the letter, the more terrifying the person.
At his current level, he was still stuck at the very bottom.
An F rank mortal.
In other words, he had just advanced from "pathetic ordinary person" to "slightly more dangerous pathetic ordinary person."
Hodell carefully sensed his body.
Other than the persistent discomfort of having fox ears on top of his head and a fluffy tail behind him, nothing felt dramatically different at first glance. But when he concentrated, he could vaguely detect a warm current circulating inside him, subtle yet undeniably real.
Power.
Weak power, but power nonetheless.
…
Outside, the observing guard watched through the crystal ball and wrote down his latest note with complete seriousness.
[The experimental subject's ears and tail twitch faintly while reading Superpower System literature. Preliminary assumption: this reading behavior produces pleasure.]
He had no idea that, under his nose, the subject had already completed a class change.
…
Unfortunately, the books in the room were broad in scope but limited in depth.
Hodell finished the last relevant volume, slid it back into place, and slowly exhaled.
Even so, he had gained a much clearer understanding of the planet he was currently trapped on.
This civilization had not yet mastered faster than light travel.
In the standards of the larger universe, that made it a surface civilization.
Primitive.
Young.
Still trapped beneath the ceiling of its own world.
Their line between early modern and modern history had been drawn by one overwhelming event.
[Star Sea Revelation.]
As civilization developed, powerful mages and scholars used anti gravity magic, composite energy shield systems, elemental propulsion arrays, and other astonishing technologies to unlock the first true capacity for interstellar exploration.
When their world was first seen from the void in detail, people noticed something strange.
Under starlight, the atmosphere reflected a glaze like brilliance.
And so, for the first time in recorded history, the planet received a unified name.
Liuli Star.
As their technology continued to advance, the Liuli Civilization became capable of genuine off world observation and preliminary space exploration. It was at that stage that higher civilizations monitoring primitive worlds discovered them and filed the relevant reports.
Soon after, the event known as [Star Sea Revelation] arrived.
And with it came the truth.
Humanity was not alone.
The universe was unimaginably vast, and life was scattered across it like sparks in a dark sea.
That revelation had shaken the entire civilization to its core.
Technological optimism exploded first, followed by the collapse and restructuring of religious belief, widespread cultural anxiety, philosophical panic, and a deep identity crisis. It was as though the entire species had suddenly realized it was still in kindergarten while the rest of the universe had already built cities among the stars.
The blow was merciless.
They were infants in the hierarchy of cosmic civilizations.
That understanding brought frustration, urgency, shame, ambition, fear, and desperate hunger all at once.
Their civilization entered what could only be described as a collective adolescence.
They wanted to grow stronger immediately.
They wanted recognition.
They wanted respect.
And because they lacked all three, they became sensitive, anxious, and unstable.
Hodell's gaze darkened slightly.
Objectively speaking, [Star Sea Revelation] had accelerated civilization's progress.
Before that, Liuli Star had long been divided into many nations by culture, language, geography, and uneven resource distribution. But under the pressure of the wider cosmos, that fragmentation began to collapse. For the first time in history, this enormous world, far larger than the Earth of his previous life, had moved toward true unification.
But unification did not mean kindness.
And in a world like this, magical beasts were part of the equation too.
They had accompanied human civilization since ancient times. Many possessed intelligence. Many possessed strength. Some were even capable of forming societies of their own. Yet in the long contest of natural selection, they had gradually lost ground to humans, whose adaptability and organization were ultimately more terrifying.
Even so, because the old nations had once feared each other enough to avoid overcommitting to extermination campaigns, and because some shreds of humanitarian thinking had survived, magical beasts had always retained living space on the planet.
Then civilization changed.
The importance of national identity began to weaken.
Racial identity grew stronger instead.
And from that shift, a new layer of cruelty emerged.
Hodell's hand unconsciously brushed the fluffy white tail behind him.
Hybrids born between humans and magical beasts occupied the worst possible position.
Everyone on Liuli Star knew the common belief: hybrids could inherit neither the human side's magical talent nor the beast side's racial gift in full. Many were born with deformities or incomplete traits. Most were viewed as inferior from birth.
In the old era, rulers could at least gain a little reputation by treating hybrids decently. Mercy had political value. Tolerance could be packaged and sold.
But now, in an age obsessed with racial distinction, hybrids became convenient targets.
They looked different.
They were weaker.
They stood out.
That was enough.
And when large groups of people felt powerless, afraid, or humiliated, they often developed an irresistible urge to pass that pain downward.
The kick the cat effect, Hodell thought grimly.
So that is why my subclass is [Slave].
Not just because I am an experimental subject.
Because in this society, that is the class I belong to.
That conclusion made his chest feel heavy.
The original protagonist had also begun as an experimental subject, but the protagonist's subclass had been [Civilian].
That single difference spoke volumes.
Then his eyes moved back to one particular line on the panel.
[Path of Chaos].
What is that?
A mutation?
A hidden trait?
An Esper route?
He had never seen anything like it in the novel.
It sat there quietly, like a secret buried inside his class, waiting for the right moment to reveal whether it was a blessing or a curse.
As Hodell was still turning the possibilities over in his mind, he realized that he could not just sit there staring blankly forever.
An amnesiac who refused to explore his environment would be far more suspicious than one who did.
So he stood and began to carefully observe the room.
Only now, after becoming an Esper, the surroundings no longer looked as ordinary as before.
The walls were not just walls.
The floor was not just floor.
The ceiling was not just ceiling.
Faint patterns of energy flowed through all of them, subtle and layered, hidden beneath the surface like veins beneath skin. The skill icon for [Simple Energy Perception] lit up faintly in his interface.
The entire room was built on a framework of magical energy.
No wonder it had felt wrong from the start.
…
The guard monitoring him frowned as he watched the crystal ball.
[After finishing the books, the experimental subject began actively observing the environment. This is consistent with behavior expected from someone suffering memory loss...]
He paused.
Then his frown deepened.
Because Hodell was not just glancing around out of nervousness.
He was looking too carefully.
Again and again, his gaze swept across the same points in the room. The angles, the pauses, the strange sense of focus.
The second guard looked over as well, uncertainty flashing across his face.
Could an ordinary person really observe their surroundings like that?
Had he noticed the ambient energy?
Was it curiosity?
Instinctive insecurity?
Or had the experiment already produced a real result?
…
[You have completed a basic environmental energy perception attempt. Completion: 23%. You gained 31 experience.]
[You have completed a basic environmental energy perception attempt. Completion: 25%. You gained 33 experience.]
Hodell's heart leaped.
So even this gave experience.
And from the completion rate and reward, it was obvious that the room was much more complicated than it seemed on the surface.
There were hidden structures here.
Wards, monitoring formations, suppression systems, or perhaps all three.
He kept observing while forcing his expression to remain calm.
At the same time, his thoughts continued moving.
[Star Sea Revelation] had been like a mirror held before Liuli Civilization.
It reflected brilliance.
It reflected fear.
It exposed ambition, inferiority, courage, cruelty, hope, and panic all at once.
It pushed the civilization forward.
It also tore away many illusions.
Humans were no longer just divided by borders.
Now they were divided by what they were.
And those who fell between categories, like hybrids, paid the price first.
As Hodell's thoughts turned sharper, his eyes suddenly lifted and landed precisely in the direction of the two guards beyond the crystal ball.
For a brief instant, both men felt their scalps go numb.
It was as if he were looking straight at them.
Then, just as quickly, his gaze moved away.
The room fell silent again.
Hodell lowered his eyes.
He understood now.
His low status was not some random bit of bad luck.
It was embedded into the world itself.
But understanding the rules of the cage was the first step toward escaping it.
And if this truly was the universe of [The Legendary Mechanic], then no matter how hopeless his start looked, there would still be room to grow stronger.
He only needed time.
Knowledge.
And a way not to die first.
Then, just as the thought crossed his mind, the bedroom door opened soundlessly.