Alfred had a good hour of sleep before the nightmares started. He dreamt of nothing. The void consumed him, over and over everything he knew faded and simply ceased to exist. He'd acted again and again, only to futility as his actions had no consequence.
Powerlessness
Emptiness
Purposelessness
Shaking, Alfred lurched upward. Not knowing what he should do next he simply stared at the ceiling.
Getting up, he trudged over to the desktop computer and pressed the power button. In almost as much time as it took for Alfred to press the button the computer had already booted up.
"Please input your username and password"
"Alright then, let's see…
User: ComedicPlague
Pass: PASSinginterest
Alrighty then, that should be good, enter!"
Overly eager Alfred raises his hand and drops it onto the "enter" key in a beautiful arc, missing. Facepalming Alfred simply taps the button and arrives at the desktop immediately.
A quick glance over the desktop shows you all that you need, a browser, an eShop, a gaming/entertainment app, and a forum option all present themselves in colourful fashion.
Going with the default approach Alfred takes with every single new site he joins he clicks on the forum app and scans the top posts.
"The art of pilfering
HOW DO I TURN OFF CAPS?
How to go unnoticed in a crowd.
Basics for newbies.
Etc."
"There we go, some help let's see what they're suggesting."
Clicking on "Basics for newbies" Alfred read the single line of text provided.
"Click on the i icon on the home screen."
Clicking off the forum site Alfred checks the main page once more, only to see an i icon at the corner of the screen.
"Upgrading abilities:
Go onto browser and click on the link that has your username on it.
Getting jobs:
Go onto browser and click on the link that says "missions.
Buying materials for your home or for the job:
Go to the Eshop.
Etc."
"Seems simple enough"
Clicking on the browser icon Alfred was met with a wheel. It had four sections, search, missions, ComedicPlague, and exit.
Clicking on ComedicPlague Alfred scans his current capabilities.
"Average muscle strength: 100kg
Average muscle accuracy: >millimeter
Average cellular density: 7.9%\100%
Computational speed: 1.1 petaFLOP
Computational effectiveness: 0.1%\100%
Purchase new categories: Here"
"This seems… wrong. How is my strength so high? What is a petaFLOP? Wait… there's a browser, let's check that out first."
Alfred scratched his chin as he searched up the definition of a petaFLOP.
"Turns out petaFLOP is a unit of computing speed equal to one thousand million million (10^15) floating-point operations per second… neat. One is also the average of the human brain so it checks out there…"
Scanning the stats page, Alfred quickly locates the upgrades tab and clicks on it. All that popped up were (+)'s next to his current stats.
"I have a grand total of 202 points to spend on upgrading my capabilities… Wouldn't making my brain more efficient let me make better choices? Let's start with that first then."
Alfred clicked on the (+) next to his computational effectiveness once, increasing the number from 0.1%/100% to 0.2%/100%.
Alfred sat back, waiting for whatever was supposed to happen to happen.
After around three minutes of waiting Alfred felt a searing pain come from the very bottom of his spinal column, up to his frontal lobe. It was over in a second, lasting just long enough to throw Alfred off his seat.
"I guess that's what happens when you double how effective your brain is huh? Alright, let's spend fifty of my hard earned points in boosting my brain, then we see where that takes me."
Spamming his mouse on the (+) Alfred successfully puts 50 of his 201 remaining points into the computational effectiveness category. This put him at 5.2%/100%.
"Oh, heck, I should lay down before this gets too bad."
Getting up, Alfred heaves his body onto the nearby bed and waits.
It started out weak, a dull pressure on the back of his neck. It simply spread, heating up as it went. After a minute it felt like Alfred's entire body had been submerged in acid.
"MOTHER OF A MOTHER OF A BROTHER, SO MUCH PAIN!!!"
Leaving as slowly as it had appeared the pain slowly dispersed with a nice, cooling sensation.
Laying in a pile of his own sweat and tears Alfred sat there, panting.
"I'm… not going to be doing that for a while."
Getting up, Alfred went over to the computer. Moving his mouse up to the computational speed he clicked on the (+). After a single click it went up to 1.2 petaFlop's.
"Increasing speed may be a good idea in the long run but it seems that it won't help that much when I'm shopping."
Clicking off the upgrades tab he went over to the Eshop. He saw three tabs: attributes, consumables, and other. Clicking on attributes nothing came up but a search bar and the text "type out your desired purchase".
"Thinking back on the last mission I didn't have any means of communication aside from telepathy with that "thing". Maybe I should snaffoo that ability for myself."
Typing in telepathy into the search bar he got an instant result.
"Telepathy:
Let's one communicate with other sentient entities via anomalous experience's and basic functions to allow understanding between each other."
"That's… pointlessly wordy."
Sighing, he clicked on the nearby purchase button. It popped up with a notification.
"Are you sure you want to spend 100 points on "telepathy"?"
"Yeppers!"
Clicking to confirm Alfred got an immediate reaction. While it didn't feel like much, it felt like Alfred's head was more open to the world, clear, lucid even.
"That leaves me with fifty points eh?"
Going back over to the ComedicPlague tab he saw the new ability there.
"Average muscle strength: 100kg
Average muscle accuracy: >millimeter
Average cellular density: 7.9%\100%
Computational speed: 1.1 petaFLOP
Computational effectiveness: 5.2%\100%
Telepathy
Purchase new categories: Here"
Smiling, Alfred looked on his page and decided it was a tad cluttered.
After an entire hour of messing around with the settings, he became familiar with his new setup. Going back over to the upgrades page he grinned as he looked at his newly constructed format.
"Physical:
-Average muscle strength: 100kg
-Average muscle accuracy: >millimeter
-Average cellular density: 7.9%\100%
Mental:
-Computational speed: 1.1 petaFLOP
-Computational effectiveness: 5.2%\100%
Psychic:
-Telepathy
Points: 50
Purchase new categories: Here"
'Now it's time to properly protect my body!"
As he says this he clicks on the Eshop, completely ignoring the physical tab he'd made himself.
Typing in force field, barrier, shield and anything else non-physical that's related to defense he finally comes across a good deal.
"Mental Block:
Uses computational effectiveness to generate a physical shield and passively protects one from any mental assaults.
Now 75% off!"
"Not the best choice, but the only one I can actually afford."
Clicking on the purchase button he once again got a notification.
"Do you wish to spend 25 points on "Mental Block"?"
Clicking on the confirmation button he decides what to do with his remaining 25 points.
"I need some way to attack if necessary, although running is better I can probably talk my way out of a situation that I'd need to run from."
"No! I need some way to keep safe. I'm only thinking in terms of people. If I appear in the middle of a landslide then I need an out."
Alfred once again resumes his search for the correct ability to take in his situation.
Limitless Teleportation - 100000
Limited teleportation - 1000
Random teleportation - 100
Short range phasing - 10
"What the heck is short range phasing?"
Clicking on the only affordable method of teleportation he was pleasantly surprised
"Short Range Phasing:
Allows one to move a maximum 5 meters instantly while becoming intangible."
"Do you wan-?"
"Yes!"
Interrupting the slowly parading notification Alfred had already made it back to his stat page.
Upgrading his computational speed with his remaining 15 points he checked his stats for the final time today.
"Physical:
-Average muscle strength: 100kg
-Average muscle accuracy: >millimeter
-Average cellular density: 7.9%\100%
Mental:
-Computational speed: 2.7 petaFLOP
-Computational effectiveness: 5.2%\100%
-Mental block 0.0001%/100%
Psychic:
-Telepathy
-Short range phasing: 5m/100m
Points: 0
Purchase new categories: Here"
Almost passing out from the pain of upgrading his capabilities so much in such a short period of time he managed to finish off his shopping spree and lay back down.
'Alright, let's see about my next job.'
"Let's get this going, STAT!"