I woke up the next morning to sunlight stabbing through my cheap curtains like a knife through butter. My eyes snapped open, and for a split second, I had no idea where I was. Then it all came flooding back—the void, Drmac, the techniques, everything.
I sat up slowly, running a hand through my hair. My head felt clear. Too clear. Like someone had taken a foggy window and scrubbed it until it sparkled. That was the Puppet Manipulation modification working, I realized. My brain was already processing information faster, sharper, more efficiently. I could remember everything from yesterday with perfect clarity, could replay every moment like a movie in my head.
The clock on my nightstand read 6:47 AM. School started at 8:30. Mark Grayson would be getting ready right about now, probably having breakfast with his mom, Nolan reading the newspaper in his ridiculous civilian clothes, pretending to be a normal dad.
I wasn't going to school today.
I swung my legs out of bed and stood up, testing my balance. The body I was in felt... wrong. Not bad, just unfamiliar. Thin arms, skinny legs, ribs I could count if I looked hard enough. The autopilot had done the bare minimum to keep this body alive. Three meals a day, basic hygiene, enough exercise to not atrophy completely. But it hadn't built muscle, hadn't pushed limits, hadn't done anything beyond existing.
That was going to change.
I walked to the bathroom and caught my reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink. Blond hair, messy and unkempt, hanging down to my eyebrows. Amber eyes that looked almost gold in the morning light. Pale skin, sharp cheekbones, dark circles under my eyes. I looked like I hadn't slept well in years, which, technically, I hadn't. The autopilot had been running this body like a background process on a computer—functional, but not optimized.
"Ren Akiyama," I said to my reflection, testing the name. It felt foreign, but no more foreign than anything else right now. "We've got work to do."
I splashed water on my face, brushed my teeth with a toothbrush that had seen better days, and threw on some clothes—jeans, a plain black hoodie, sneakers that were more duct tape than shoe at this point. I grabbed my backpack, stuffed it with a few notebooks to make it look full, and headed out the door.
The apartment was in a rundown part of town, the kind of place where landlords didn't fix anything because tenants couldn't afford to complain. The hallway smelled like cigarette smoke and old cooking oil. The stairs creaked with every step. Outside, the morning air was cool and damp, a typical spring day in whatever city this was—I'd have to figure out exactly where I was later. Somewhere in the Midwest, based on the architecture and the license plates I could see on parked cars.
I walked toward the school like I was supposed to, backpack slung over one shoulder, keeping my head down. I passed other kids my age, none of whom looked at me twice. Good. That was the point. Ren Akiyama was invisible. Unremarkable. Background noise.
I waited until I was two blocks from the school, then cut left down a side street, then another left, then a right. Within ten minutes, I was in a completely different part of town, heading toward the industrial district.
The bridge was perfect.
It was an old railway bridge, abandoned since the eighties from what I could tell, spanning a dry creek bed that only saw water during heavy rain. The area around it was a no-man's land of crumbling warehouses, overgrown lots, and chain-link fences that had been cut open years ago. No homeless encampments, no teenagers looking for a place to drink beer, nothing. Just rusted steel and silence.
I'd found it on the autopilot's mental map—the version of Ren that had been running this body had never been here, but he'd known about it. Every kid in town knew about the bridge. It was just one of those places nobody went.
I climbed down the embankment, careful not to slip on the loose gravel, and ducked under the bridge. The space underneath was maybe ten feet high at its tallest point, sloping down to four feet at the edges. Concrete pillars supported the structure above, their surfaces covered in faded graffiti that had been there so long the paint was cracking. The ground was packed dirt and scattered rocks, with a few empty bottles and cigarette butts from the last time someone had been dumb enough to hang out here.
I dropped my backpack against one of the pillars and pulled out what I'd collected on the way here.
Three receipts.
They were from a trash can outside a fast-food place near the bridge. Somebody had bought a burger, a milkshake, and a kids' meal toy—a cheap plastic doll that probably cost fifty cents to make. The receipts were crumpled and stained with what I hoped was soda, but they were intact. Legible. Perfect.
I sat down cross-legged on the dirt, holding the receipts in my hands like they were made of gold. My heart was pounding. This was the moment of truth. I'd made all those modifications in the void, built my techniques exactly the way I wanted them, but theory and practice were two very different things.
I closed my eyes and reached inside myself, looking for that ocean of Cursed Energy I'd felt yesterday. It was still there, cold and vast, stretching out beneath my consciousness like an underground sea. I could feel it waiting, patient, ready to be used.
I opened my eyes and focused on the first receipt—the one for the burger and milkshake.
Contractual Reclamation.
I pushed my Cursed Energy into the receipt, imagining what I wanted. The energy flowed out of me, through my hand, and into the crumpled paper. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the receipt began to glow.
It was faint at first, a soft orange light that seemed to come from the ink itself. Then it got brighter, hotter, until the paper started to curl at the edges. I kept pushing energy into it, feeling the technique work, feeling it reach out into the universe and say this person bought this thing, so this thing should exist.
The receipt burned.
Not like paper burning in a fire, but like it was dissolving, the ink bleeding out into the air, the fibers unraveling into threads of light. I almost dropped it—my fingers were tingling with the heat—but I held on, watching as the light coalesced in front of me, forming shapes, solidifying.
And then it was done.
A burger sat in my lap. A cheeseburger, wrapped in the same cheap foil wrapper every fast-food place used. Next to it, a paper cup with a plastic lid and a straw, condensation already forming on the outside.
I stared at it for a long moment, then picked up the burger and took a bite.
It was warm. It was real. It tasted like salt and processed cheese and everything I'd been missing without even knowing it.
I ate the whole thing in about thirty seconds, then downed the milkshake in three long pulls through the straw. Chocolate. My favorite, apparently, though I didn't remember having a favorite anything. When I was done, I sat there with the empty wrapper in my hands, feeling the food settle in my stomach.
"Okay," I said to myself, my voice echoing slightly under the bridge. "That works."
The energy cost had been... minimal. Barely a drop in that ocean I could feel inside me. I'd used a fraction of a fraction of my reserves to create a full meal. With seven slots dedicated to Contractual Reclamation, I'd made the cost uniform for everything, and apparently that uniform cost was laughably low. A burger cost the same as a house. A milkshake cost the same as a car.
I grinned. I couldn't help it.
Next test.
I stood up, brushing dirt off my jeans, and looked around for something to use. There was a rock near my feet, about the size of my fist, smooth from years of water flow before the creek dried up. I picked it up, hefting it in my hand. Good weight. Solid.
I walked out from under the bridge to where I had more space, the open air above me. About twenty feet away, I spotted an old bucket half-buried in the dirt, rusted and beaten, probably left behind by construction workers years ago. A perfect target.
I took a breath and reached for Sky Manipulation.
The technique was... strange. Not like Contractual Reclamation, which felt like reaching for a tool I already knew how to use. Sky Manipulation was more like becoming aware of something that had always been there. The air around me wasn't just air anymore. It was mine.
I could feel it pressing against my skin, flowing around my body, moving with the wind. But more than that, I could feel it respond. When I thought about pushing, the air pushed back. When I thought about pulling, it tugged. It was like discovering I had a new limb I'd never known about, one that extended into everything around me.
I threw the rock.
Not hard—I didn't want to send it into the next county. Just a casual toss, aimed in the general direction of the bucket. It arced through the air, a lazy parabola that was going to land about five feet short and three feet left.
Then I touched the sky.
I reached out with my will, with the Cursed Energy flowing through me, and I gripped the air around the rock. Not hard, not like grabbing something solid, but like putting my hand on a moving current and redirecting it. I felt the wind resistance shift, felt the pressure change, and I pushed.
The rock's trajectory bent.
It was subtle at first—just a slight curve, like a baseball with a little bit of spin. But I kept pushing, kept feeding energy into the technique, and the curve became sharper. The rock arced left, then right, then dipped down before rising again. I was doing it. I was actually bending the laws of physics with my mind.
I added more energy, focusing on the rock's speed. Sky Manipulation wasn't just about direction—it was about pressure, about force. I compressed the air behind the rock, creating a pocket of pressure that shoved it forward. The rock accelerated, going from a lazy toss to something with real force behind it.
It hit the bucket dead center.
The old plastic shattered on impact, pieces scattering across the dirt. I stood there for a moment, hand still raised, feeling the air settle back into its natural patterns around me.
"Holy shit," I breathed.
The energy cost for that had been higher than the Contractual Reclamation, but still manageable. Maybe five percent of what I'd used for the burger? Hard to tell—my reserves were so deep that everything felt like a drop in the bucket. But I could feel the strain, the mental effort of maintaining control over the air while also tracking the rock's position and speed. If I tried to do too much at once, I'd burn out fast.
That was okay. I'd build up endurance. I'd practice until it was as natural as breathing.
I walked back under the bridge and pulled out my third receipt—the one for the kids' meal toy.
It was a doll. A cheap, plastic doll with molded hair and painted-on clothes, the kind that came in a sealed bag with a sticker on the front. The receipt said it was from a fast-food promotion six months ago, some cartoon tie-in I didn't recognize.
I fed my Cursed Energy into the receipt, watching it burn the same way the first one had, watching the light coalesce and solidify. When it was done, I was holding a small plastic doll, about six inches tall, with bright pink hair and a plastic smile that was supposed to be cheerful but looked more like a scream.
Perfect.
I sat down with my back against one of the concrete pillars and held the doll in my hands. This was the big test. The one I'd been looking forward to since I'd designed my techniques.
Puppet Manipulation.
I pushed my Cursed Energy into the doll, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then I felt it—a connection, a string of energy linking my finger to the doll's tiny body. It was like the rock and the air, but different. More intimate. More direct.
I twitched my finger, and the doll's arm moved.
I grinned. I twitched again, and the doll sat up. I moved my hand, and the doll stood on my palm, wobbling slightly as I got used to the weight distribution. I could feel it, not as a separate object, but as an extension of myself. Like I was wearing the doll like a glove.
Now for the real test.
I closed my eyes and focused on the sensory link. The modification I'd made—twelve slots dedicated to making this work—kicked in like a switch being flipped.
And suddenly I was seeing through the doll's eyes.
The world was... strange. Colors were muted, shapes were fuzzy, and everything had a plastic sheen to it. The doll's eyes were painted on, after all—they weren't designed for actual vision. But the technique compensated, using Cursed Energy to bridge the gap, to interpret the light hitting the doll's face and translate it into something my brain could understand. It was like looking through a foggy window, but I could see.
I made the doll walk across my hand, feeling the plastic feet tapping against my skin. I could hear—or rather, the doll could hear—the distant sound of traffic, the wind rustling through the weeds, my own heartbeat amplified through the connection.
I opened my eyes and looked at the doll, still standing on my hand. I could see myself from two perspectives now: my own, looking down at the doll, and the doll's, looking up at my face. It was disorienting for a moment, my brain struggling to process two separate visual feeds at once. But the cognitive enhancement from the technique kicked in, and suddenly it clicked. Both images merged into a single, coherent understanding. I could see myself from the outside while simultaneously seeing the world from my own eyes.
I let out a laugh, high and a little unhinged.
This is insane.
I stood up and walked toward the bridge's entrance, the doll still on my hand, still connected to my senses. When I got to the edge of the embankment, I picked up a small rock—not the one I'd used before, a smaller one, more manageable—and placed it in the doll's plastic hands. Then I threw.
The doll's arm moved exactly how I wanted it to, flinging the rock upward in a high arc. I used Sky Manipulation on the rock as it flew, bending its trajectory, guiding it toward the top of the bridge. The rock sailed up, up, up, arcing over the rusted railing and landing on the concrete surface above with a soft clatter.
And then I used the doll.
I sent it running up the embankment, its tiny plastic legs pumping, its painted eyes fixed on the bridge above. I could feel the dirt under its feet, the wind against its plastic skin, the strain of climbing the slope. When it reached the top, I made it scramble up the concrete support pillar, tiny fingers finding holds in the cracks and crevices, until it was standing on the bridge itself.
The rock was lying a few feet away. I made the doll pick it up and hold it triumphantly over its head.
I laughed again, louder this time, the sound echoing under the bridge. I was controlling a doll from thirty feet away, using it as my eyes and ears, my hands and feet. And I could feel the range, the limits of my technique—it stretched out in my mind like a map, covering the city, the surrounding area, all the way to the horizon. Earth-sized range. Global coverage. I'd never need to physically go anywhere if I didn't want to.
I made the doll do a little dance on the bridge, its plastic limbs flailing in ridiculous patterns, and I laughed until my stomach hurt.
When I finally calmed down, I brought the doll back down to the bridge, making it climb down the pillar the same way it had climbed up. It dropped onto my waiting hand, and I felt the sensory connection fade as I released the technique, pulling my Cursed Energy back into myself.
I sat down again, leaning against the pillar, and looked at my reflection in a puddle of stagnant water near my feet.
Blond hair. Amber eyes. Skinny, unhealthy, like I hadn't eaten properly in years—which I hadn't, if the autopilot's nutrition plan was anything to go by. My cheeks were hollow, my collarbones stuck out, and my wrists looked like they'd snap if I twisted too hard.
I needed to fix that. Food wasn't going to be a problem anymore—I had Contractual Reclamation, and there were plenty of receipts in the world. I could eat like a king every day and never spend a cent. But eating alone wasn't going to build muscle. I needed to train, to push this body, to turn it into something that could actually handle the power I was putting into it.
That was a problem for another day, though.
The real problem was money.
I sat there, turning it over in my mind. I was an orphan with no family, no income, and a tiny apartment that was barely habitable. I could create anything I wanted, provided I had a receipt for it, but I couldn't create money—money didn't work that way. It wasn't a physical object that could be replicated; it was a concept, a representation of value. Contractual Reclamation worked on things, not ideas.
But I could create things that I could sell.
I thought about it for a long moment. Computers, phones, electronics—those were the obvious choices. High value, easy to find receipts for. I could walk into any electronics store, grab a receipt from the trash, and walk out with a top-of-the-line laptop in my hands. No theft, no crime, just... creative recycling.
But I couldn't just show up at a pawn shop with a brand new computer and no explanation for where it came from. People would ask questions. Questions I didn't want to answer.
I needed a way to sell things without drawing attention. Online, maybe. Create a seller account, list items, ship them out. No face-to-face contact, no awkward questions. But that required a computer and a phone to start with, which was a chicken-and-egg problem I could solve with my first receipt.
I stood up, pocketing the doll and the remaining receipt fragments. "First things first," I said to the empty space under the bridge. "Get a receipt for a good computer and a phone. Then figure out the rest."
I climbed back up the embankment and started walking toward the nicer part of town, where the big electronics stores were. I had a bounce in my step that hadn't been there this morning, a lightness in my chest that I hadn't felt since before I'd died. Or since before I'd become Ren. Or whatever.
I was going to make this work. I was going to get strong, get rich, get prepared. And when the Viltrumites came, when the world started to burn, I was going to be sitting pretty, watching it all from a safe distance.
Hero? No. I had no interest in putting on a cape and pretending to save the world. Heroes died. Heroes sacrificed. Heroes gave everything for people who wouldn't even remember their names by the next generation.
I was going to do something smarter. I was going to take care of myself, build my power, and let the chips fall where they may. If people died, they died. I wasn't their guardian. I wasn't their savior. I was just a kid with a second chance and the tools to make the most of it.
The sun was climbing higher, burning off the morning mist, and for the first time since waking up in that void, I felt like I knew exactly where I was going.
I pulled my hood up and disappeared into the morning crowd, just another face in the city, just another kid playing hooky from school.
But in my pocket, the plastic doll's painted eyes gleamed in the sunlight, and somewhere deep inside me, that ocean of Cursed Energy churned with anticipation.
I was just getting started.