Chapter 4: Information Perception
{Third POV}
"Are you a mutant?" Hank asked after some thought.
"I shouldn't be. I don't think they would experiment on a young boy with a high IQ. It'd be more profitable to brainwash me into a researcher. My hypothesis is that I should've awakened to these powers after my near-death experience or something. But I can't rule out being a mutant until I have conclusive proof."
Hank nodded, "At least you have scientific thinking and good reasoning. So what would you like to do now?"
"My plan was to get into college as soon as possible and make full use of my brain to make a living. Oh! I also need identity documents I think." Savant answered.
"Okay, give me the location of the base you escaped from and wait outside at the lobby. I'll arrange some things for you."
After Savant got out, Hank looked at the phone. He grimaced and dialed a number with hesitation. When the call connected, his tone was cold, "It's Hank Pym, connect me to Carter."
"Hello, Hank. How are you?" A sweet old voice of Peggy Carter came from the other side.
"I have a location in Utah that might be a base for Hydra remnants. Send someone to check." Hank Pym didn't even wait for the reply after giving the location to Carter.
After a couple of hours when he was preparing to call someone to get Savant some lunch, his phone rang.
"Hello, Hank, we really found a research base at the location you gave but it was already abandoned. We can't be sure if it is really Hydra but it looks like they were conducting human experiments."
"Hm. Are there any records of the experiment subjects involved?" Hank asked coldly.
Peggy Carter was surprised that Hank was actually asking questions to her and was interested in this case. "No, we didn't find any data. It's not like they would care about the test subject's identities. Do you need any help, Hank?"
Hank hung up without saying anything. He called his assistant and Savant into the office.
Looking at Savant, he spoke, "I asked someone to check the base you told me about. It was already abandoned. And there was no identity information related to you. So you get to choose your own identity. What would you like your name to be?"
After some thought, Savant answered, "Savant Smith. I'd like that as my name."
Hank asked with interest, "Any particular reason for 'Smith'?"
"Just like my name, I will cast and forge my life and my path ahead so being a Smith is reasonable." Savant smiled.
Hank gave a small smile, "Yes. It makes sense. Good choice." He then instructed his assistant to make new identity documents for Savant.
"The identity documents should be done in a few days. Then you can enroll in high school." Hank instructed while having lunch with Savant.
"I don't think that is necessary. It's hard to explain now but give me high school textbooks and two days, I'll be able to ace any exams you throw at me."
"Heh. You are quite cocky for a personality that hasn't even existed for a week. Let's see about that."
Hank then settled Savant in a hotel nearby with all the books he needed.
'Being rich sure is nice. Such a nice suite and he just let me stay here with a phone call.' Although the hotel suite was luxurious, for Savant it didn't matter much except for admiring for a few moments.
'The important things are the free high-class food and the gym. I can eat healthy and work on my body a little.' As he thought he started to read a high school English book.
As he started reading, Savant found that his reading speed seemed to get faster with every next line. Due to his brain processing the words at inhuman speeds, his reading speed became limited only by the speed of his flipping the pages. Within a minute he had already completed the high school English course.
It was not just reading the words but simultaneously understanding the text as well. While on a roll he called up the room service and asked them to send up a dictionary and various novels and reference books mentioned in the textbook.
It was one of the benefits of living in a hotel suite which gave you a butler to cater to your needs at any time. Damn, the lives of the rich!
While waiting for the books he ordered, he continued with the other subjects including Mathematics and Sciences. It didn't even take half an hour for Savant to be proficient in all the subjects. For the first time, Savant found that one could get high on knowledge. And he hadn't had enough of it.
After having been done with all the books, when Savant closed the last book and got out of the hyper-focused state, he fainted as soon as he looked around.
*Ringgg*
The doorbell from the room service woke him up. Slowly opening his eyes, the world in Savant's eyes seemed to have changed. He could now see information about everything around him. The material of the tablecloth, the percentage of cotton and silk in it, the type of wood used to make the table, and all kinds of information he didn't know before were now in his eyes.
He understood right away. This was his ability. As his knowledge about the world increased through the high school books, the information he perceived about the world through his ability increased as well.
But with the increased flow of information, his mind's processing speed hadn't adjusted which led to information overload and his subsequent fainting. After the fainting, his mind seemed to have evolved a little to accommodate the new flow of information.
Savant walked to the door as he played with his ability and looked at the world in terms of geometry, all made of lines, shapes, grids, and planes. He was intuitively solving mathematical equations while perceiving this new world.
"Thank You. Please send up five tomahawk steaks as well." Savant sent away the bewildered butler while wheeling in a pile of books that were brought in a trolley.
Until he couldn't stand the drowsiness, Savant savored the steaks and the books to their fullest extent.
The next day, he woke up late. After having a very hearty breakfast and doing light cardio in the gym, he headed to the public library.
For the first subject, he wanted to delve into, Savant chose biology, specifically human biology. Understanding his own body as much as possible was important to Savant. He was in a world where all sorts of mutations, gene editing, enhancements, and more happened with the human body.
The number of human experiments, mutant experiments, and alien experiments in Marvel was so extensive that it was a miracle that any disease still even existed. But then again, everyone involved in those experiments only wanted to get strong powers so nobody should've thought in a normal direction.
It's like a dark comedy. There are scientists who can make time machines, go into the quantum realm, change human DNA, and yet normal people still lived in the same way as he remembers his past world. Or maybe the lives of those in Marvel are worse with all the villains, terrorists, aliens, and world-ending threats happening every other Monday.
While thinking these amusing thoughts, Savant was rapidly reading the university-level biology books at the speed of a book every couple of minutes. This was another new ability he developed, parallel thinking.
For now, he can make up to three parallel thought processors. One to read, another to process, understand and collate the read text, and the last one for idle thoughts. He expects the number of parallel thought processors to increase with his information perception ability increasing.
Savant called his ability Information Perception. He can perceive all kinds of information at every passing moment from all his senses and when he has the knowledge to understand this perceived information his ability continues to increase.
For example, when looking at his own hand, the only thing he could perceive earlier was just his hand and skin but now after he had read a couple of biology books, he can perceive information like the dryness of the skin cells, the rate of blood flow in the veins, the minute deformity in the bones, the exact percentage lack of calcium in them, and more.
While reveling in the increase in his abilities, Savant lost himself in the vast sea of knowledge. He continued to diligently study the books in the library until closing time and then used Hank Pym's name to get more books to study at the hotel.
He continued the routine for two whole days until he was called to Hank Pym's office the next day.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone