The next day, Alycia called her boss and quit her job. Mark sounded very sad that she had decided to quit. He even offered her a few more off days to rest and think about it. She rejected his offer as she did not want to leave him hanging. It would be much easier for him to hire another worker if he needed.
Alycia had magicked enough money into her account this morning to last her for a very long time if she spent it wisely. Even if her ability suddenly stopped working, there was no need to worry about financial problems. She did not dare to magic too much money at one go for fear of attracting any unwanted attention. After all, she was not sure if there were any negative consequences, or if someone was already tracking her.
She needed to test out her ability on other electronic devices and in different situations today starting with her computer. With the power plug pulled out, she was unable to use her ability on it. With the power plug plugged in, she was able to start it up like she did a few days ago. Then, she shut off her internet router. She was still able to manipulate the programs installed on it but she was not able to gain access to online services like banking and web browsers. This meant she had to have an internet connection if she wanted to magic money.
Next, it was time to test her ability on electronic door locks. Alycia went over to her next door neighbour's apartment. She knew he was at work and nobody was home. She knocked on the door just in case he decided to take an off day. She waited and waited but there was no answer. Placing her finger on the electronic door lock, Alycia heard a satisfying click and the door unlocked. She pushed the door open a tiny bit and saw the living room, then closed it hurriedly. So her ability works on door locks too, provided it was electronic.
Now, it was time to test it on CCTVs. Alycia went to the nearby mall and bought a cheap CCTV for home use. After setting it up with the system synced to her phone and the camera faced to her living room, she placed her finger on it and focused. The image of her living room on her phone flickered on and off multiple times. Oh, she hadn't thought of an image to manipulate on the CCTV, she thought. Maybe she would focus on making the chair in the CCTV display move. If she was able to do that, then she could manipulate CCTV images everywhere.
Focusing harder, the display screen flickered on and off even more and finally displayed a static screen. Disappointed, she removed her finger from the tiny camera. Alycia saw that the display screen went back to normal. Undeterred, she tried again but the same thing still happened. Alycia was convinced it could work, maybe she just needed more practice. The surge of energy felt in her did not feel blocked. It was different when she was touching non electronic objects, it felt like the energy was stuck and choked in her.
If she was able to manipulate CCTV images, it meant she had immense power. In addition, she could also remove or create any electronic records in any system. Alycia wondered what her ability was worth and what would people do about her if they found out. Would they hire her and pay her lots of money to work for them? Or would she be kept as a lab rat in some government laboratory? She shuddered at the second thought. Best to keep everything a secret. She also needed to form a back up plan if she was exposed one day.
Feeling slightly tired already, she took a nap on her couch.
After her nap, it was time to head to the neighbourhood LAN shop. She wanted to test out her ability on online games just for her own thrill. Logging in to an online game she stopped playing many years ago, she quickly got into a game. From there, she manipulated the game until her team was winning the enemy so hard. Alycia made sure to make it less obvious by just reducing cooldowns, mana costs and negative debuffs for their team slightly. This way, nobody could tell she was hacking the game. It would also be difficult to tell even if someone went to watch the replay of the game.
Through this, Alycia quickly realised she could also control the computer with just touching the keyboard and the mouse, as long as they were connected to the monitor and CPU. There was no need to lean forward to touch the screen. This works even better, she thought. It would be less obvious she was doing something abnormal. Alycia wondered if this would work on bluetooth keyboards and mouses. These devices were not connected to the main computer physically. It was something she would need to test out soon. She had to know what she could do and what she could not do.
The public teammates she had grouped with continued staying in the same team as her for the next few games. These people can always tell if a player is exceptionally good. They continued playing the afternoon away.
Alycia had so much fun winning so hard at a game she sucked so badly years ago that she did not see a man had sat down at the corner of the LAN shop watching her, waiting for her to walk out of the shop.