Chương 2754: 5.1
Power testing. It sounded so exciting and cool. I remembered being a kid and daydreaming about being able to fly, about having super strength like Alexandria and beating up bad guys. Power testing would always be a way to show off on how amazing I was. The idea that you could let loose, reach and find the limits of your powers. Images of Mouse Protector doing back-flips across a gauntlet of doom, of Legend blowing up test dummies from miles away and of Dragon making giant robots played through my mind.
In reality power testing was both repetitive and boring.
"Again." Armsmaster's voice droned in my ear. "This time use only your left hand."
I sighed and did as he said, trying to light the test dummy on fire using my blaster power. Once again there was little effect besides a fresh coat of ash being applied to it's surface. Armsmaster stood to the side with a tablet, something I was surprised he needed. I was under the impression that he had all the computer stuff in his helmet already. Around us stood scientists, assorted PRT staff and some of the other Wards.
"Burninate the countryside Vim!" Clockblocker cheered me on as I continued to pour the flames into my target.
"Please keep volume to a minimum." Armsmaster replied not turning to face him. Some of the staff stood ready with extinguishers but it seemed more like a formality than anything else at this point.
Besides Clockblocker was Vista and Aegis. I found it odd that they were here, didn't they have secret identities to protect? It was explained that they were an emergency response team. The idea being that Vista would shrink down any loose threats such as flying pieces of shrapnel, bending space so no one would be hurt and so forth. Clockblocker could create literally indestructible obstacles so he was also a no brainer.
Aegis was present as the leader of the Wards. If he was going to be an effective leader, he needed to know all of my capabilities. Of course, if anything went wrong he could also fly in and grab me with his big muscled hands. I glanced at him, he had his arms crossed and despite wearing a helmet, I could tell that he was alert.
My flames suddenly cut off and I pulled out another 'Mana' potion to refill myself.
"Clear!" I called out prompting a small team of interns to rush in with a vacuum cleaner to suck up all the ash. Apparently Armsmaster wanted to analyse the stuff to see if they had any special properties. I was glad for his foresight, I might be able to use them as potion ingredients.
"Let's continue." He stated. "We'll now move onto other targets."
I sighed again. After much testing it was determined that I could only keep up my 'Flame Throwers' up for so long. The problem came when Armsmaster tried to get me to use my powers in a multitude of ways.
Hold your breath while doing it Vim.
Try doing it with a fist instead.
Try to shape the flames.
Run while doing it.
Light the containment foam on fire.
I couldn't even set kindling on fire. However when I tried to set a plastic bottle on fire, it went flying. Apparently my power was less of a flamethrower and more of a force push…. That looked like fire.
It was at this point that a piece of meat was laid in front of me.
"Can't I test my powers on a Brute? Like Aegis?" I called out.
"Potentially damaging power testing on a member of the Wards is prohibited." He replied without looking up from his tablet.
"But he's a Brute!" I pointed out. "And I have healing potions!"
"Uhhh do I get a say in this?" Aegis piped up.
"No." Armsmaster and I said at the same time. "Youth guard protocols." He elaborated.
"Well what about an adult Brute? Assault and Battery are pretty tough right?"
"No." He replied again. "Without sufficient analysis we cannot endanger the lives of our members."
I grumbled at that. It all sounded like an excuse. It was then Vista spoke up.
"Yeah it sucks but it'll all be over soon. They just wanna make sure your power doesn't have some sort of secret kill effect on people. It's actually pretty par the course."
"Did all of you have to go through this?"
"Yup!" Clockblocker answered. "Now it's our turn to watch you suffer MWAHAHAHAHA! Then after that you have to go through PR!" He continued to laugh maniacally.
"Please be quiet while in the testing area Clockblocker." Armsmaster once again called. "Alright Vim, please try and cook the meat with your power, use both hands."
Huffing I pointed my palms at the raw steak and let loose. Bright flames billowed from my hands and after a moment my power cut itself off leaving behind a blackened mess that seemed to have been pushed back and displaced the food.
A scientist ran up with some sort of device and poked the meat.
"Still room temperature sir, also still raw." He called out before putting the entire thing into a ziplock bag.
It was at this point a bucket of water was presented to me.
"Come on." I told them. "We've tested wood, grass, metal and now meat. Do we really have to try water now?"
"Yes." Came the one word reply from Armsmaster. "Some powers can be very specific. Now just use one hand."
I sighed and obediently raised my arm and used my power…. Which promptly began boiling the water, making it bubble and steam. I just stood there shocked. Then we went through another dozen variations of tests with water including ice, juices and even tea. I liked tea but even I was getting tired of all this.
What was I? Just a glorified kettle?
"Vista!" Aegis would shout heroically and authoritatively. "Get to the roof tops and cover the civilians! Clockblocker, create walls to protect them, Shadow Stalker, flank the villains from the sides!"
"What should I do sir?" I asked him, stoically ready for my assignment.
"Make some tea for us for when we win." He told me pointing at a pot of water.
"That should be the last test for your flame abilities now." Armsmaster nodded with a smile. Earlier we had tested more of my potion abilities, brewing and actual consumption. He noted that I made the glass bottles from out of nowhere, calling them projections. He tested their range by having Dragon pick one up with one of her smaller drones to see if it would disappear when away from me. That was more than an hour ago and the bottle showed no sign of fading away.
My Brute powers were also tested.
They weren't very impressive, at least to me. It bummed me out that I wasn't going to throw cars at anyone any time soon. My striking force was comparable to a young adult but I was tough enough to heal a small scratch after waiting a few minutes as the tests revealed.
I experienced crushing pistons, blades and large needles that assaulted my hands.
That sounded a lot more dangerous than it actually did. In reality it felt all so clinical. Clamps to squeeze a bit of skin until it bruised. Blades to give shallow cuts and needles that only penetrated to a preset limit. Even someone like Vista could've undergone this test without complaint.
Turns out I was pretty tough, uniformly across my body, according to what they found from injuring both my hands. A sort of Breaker effect that made every injury seemingly spread out so that no individual part would be incapacitated. Armsmaster explained that this was all theory but the Tinkertech basically said it was impossible to cut off my arm unless I was already dead.
That was nice I guess?
"Does that mean I can survive a guillotine?"
"I wouldn't try." He replied.
Then my Stranger power was tested in the form of a game of hide and seek. No one was entirely sure if this was Stranger based power or simply Thinker but it was acknowledged that it at least came with some sort of Thinker ability to notice when people were either looking for me or had found me.
After that my self healing power was tested. Not the potions, the literal glowing hands of light. Illumination was tested to see if I could use them as a torch and we found that they were extremely limited. Still, the fact that I could heal myself was nice.
"Alright, besides the Tinkering abilities we'll now move onto your Master power that you mentioned." Armsmaster noted. I didn't like it, but I needed them to know what I could do. "I understand you're feeling apprehensive Vim, but know that everyone here is trained, no one is going to get hurt."
I nodded at the two PRT volunteers that walked up to me.
"Start test one, get the agents to jump."
Focusing on the feeling when I told Lung to stop I then yelled out. "JUMP!" Nothing happened. "Uhh leap?" Still nothing. "HOP!" The two agents looked at each other and shrugged. I deflated at that.
"Don't worry about it Vim." Aegis told me. "Maybe you need to be in a fight for it to work."
"A power triggered by adrenaline or a state of mind, not unheard of but not something we have time for right now." Armsmaster acknowledged. "Second test, tell the agents come to you."
"Follow me!" I shouted. Still nothing. "This isn't working." I groaned.
"Have you ever used the Master power?" Vista asked.
"Yeah, only once though." I replied.
"Well what happened when you did it? Maybe we can copy the circumstances."
"I was uhh surrounded by a bunch of guns and Lung was two feet away from me about to burn me alive."
"Wait." Armsmaster paused. His mouth curled downwards into a frown. "You and I are going to have a proper briefing on what happened that night later… what command did you give them?"
"I uhh told them to stop… so they did."
Armsmaster slowly considered me and pushed a finger to his helmet.
"I need authorisation for a… you overheard?.....Yes Ma'am." Who was he talking to? "Of course, thank you…. Alright, you two, you're authorised to use containment foam on her." They nodded before running to the side of the testing area to put on what looked like flamethrowers. They of course contained foam.
"Aim and fire after ten seconds or as soon as you're able after the effect has worn off on my mark. Vim? Use your powers to stop them." I nodded eyeing down the two agents. "Mark!" The two agents pointed their weapons at me menacingly and I gathered up all the power in my chest and let loose.
"STOP!" They lowered the weapons and after ten seconds didn't raise them again.
"Test successful." Armsmaster noted. "Try to raise your weapons at her." They tried to no success but it didn't look like they struggled. More that they tried and gave up instantly. They were almost calm about it. After a minute they jerked their weapons up to me and fired. I was covered in foam again.
"Effects last roughly a minute, someone get the dissolving solution." I turned my head to the side as best I could and noted that Clockblocker and Vista were exchanging money. The bastards! Aegis however shuffled nervously.
Despite saying that the test was successful Armsmaster wore a grim expression. In fact everyone was now looking at me nervously. Not exactly fear but something that could be cultivated to become fear. After a few minutes of terrible smelling chemicals I was free of the foam.
"Alright, test two. Tell them to stop but this time punch one in the arm to see if the effect will break." Turning to the agents he gave the command. "Same conditions as before. Mark!"
"STOP!" I shouted but the two still had their weapons pointed at me. They wouldn't pull the trigger would they? "Uhhh stop? Halt? No fire! Uhh BLOCK! Freeze!" Ahh crap, I needed a thesaurus. "You Shall NOT PA-- BleeEAhahah" Ew ew ew! Then I was sprayed down by containment foam. Some of it got in my mouth! Vista and Clockblocker continued to exchange money.
Seriously, they wouldn't let me hit Aegis but they let them gamble? What the hell people?
About twenty minutes later of continuous humiliation I was finally set free from any more containment foam shenanigans. My Master power simply refused to work after the first time and Armsmaster did everything he could do to get it working again.
Try to annunciate a different sylable.
Shout in these stances.
Try whispering.
Try to sing the command.
Try doing it while being angry.
The last one came real easy to me after the bullshit I went through. It still ended in failure and containment foam. They should rename it failure foam, that's what it felt like.
Eventually we came to the last test, something I was actually looking forwards to.
"Alright, finally Trump ability empowers the rest of your powers if you use them enough, including but not limited to…. Speech, hiding and alchemy."
I nodded.
"Since we cannot realistically measure your ability to talk or hide with any real accuracy, we'll instead measure how sharp your weapons are after you enhance them."
I grinned and was given more iron ingots and leather.
"Hang on." I told Armsmaster. "I still have some leather on me, I can just recycle them." He nodded as I produced four sets of leather helmets and bracers. "Hmm, think I could outfit the rest of the Wards with my armor?"
He shook his head. "As effective as it might be, it would unfortunately interfere with their image." I shrugged and pulled out some scissors and began cutting away at the spare leather armor, intent on creating leather strips.
It did not go so well.
"Uhh, can I get some help here? I think the scissors are too blunt or something."
Armsmaster approached with a nod.
"It is treated leather armor." He assured me. "If it couldn't protect you from cuts, it'd be redundant." Pulling out a small cutting tool from his belt I handed him the spare bracer to watch him work.
It did not go so well.
"Hmmm." He tilted his head, perplexed as he continued to try and fail to cut into the material. "New test, four zero A, Vim's Tinkertech bracelets."
"Uhh Bracers actually."
"Addendum, Bracers." He corrected himself before pulling out another cutting tool, this one was glowing.
"Is that a laser?" I asked him.
"Plasma technically." Then he tried to cut into the leather again… once again, only to fail. "Attempt two, fail." He then unlatched the halberd from his back and tried to cut through the leather. It still didn't work.
"Interesting." He hummed. "Your leather armor might render you invincible, an upgrade might not be necessary, we'll have to redo the brute test to include portions of your body covered by armor."
More testing?
I groaned.
About an hour later the testing was complete. I managed to make it through the extended Brute tests and craft about two dozen daggers. All of which were identical until I used a grindstone to enhance them. Once before my Smithing shard leveled up and once after it leveled up.
"The difference in improvements to sharpness is small but measurable that doesn't decrease mass." He told me. "Every other dagger that hasn't been touched by your power is identical otherwise." He then let out an eager grin. "If possible I might recruit your assistance in enhancing my own weaponry at a later date."
And that was that. I was finally FREE!
"Please tell me that power testing for you guys was just as bad?" I needed a companion to sulk with. No, Vim didn't sulk! She brooded! Yes, brood. Where was Shadow Stalker when you needed her?
"Kinda?" Vista answered uneasily. "I mean, my power has lots of applications but in the end, it's still one power."
"Sucks to be a grab bag during power testing I guess." Aegis replied. "But you have a lot of useful stuff."
"You call that a grab bag?" Clockblocker shouted. "She didn't grab a bag! She found a trolley, loaded the power car which she drove onto a truck! Filled the truck with more cars with MORE powers and drove off into the sunset! WHICH HAS MORE POWERS!"
"We get it Clock." Vista chuckled. "She has more powers than you."
I chuckled at that. What a silly imagination he had. Then I noticed that I hadn't retrieved my leather bracer that I had gave Armsmaster earlier. You'd think with all the iron he had given me that I would probably leave it behind, but I didn't want anyone to trip over it. So I grabbed it.
"Alright guys!" Clockblocker shouted. "Last one to the Cafeteria has to pay for lunch!" But we didn't need to pay here. He then ran off regardless of logic, Vista used her powers to cheat and Aegis simply laughed before breaking out into a light jog. Not wanting to be outdone I sprinted ahead.
Which failed.
I certainly didn't sprint, run or even jog. It was more of a slow walk as if I was weighed down.
"Uhh Armsmaster?" I asked the other Tinker pulling his attention from the tablet. "I think I found a limit to my Inventory."
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