Talia sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, the golden vial resting in her open palms. The serum caught the late afternoon light filtering through the curtains, casting amber reflections across her fingers. Two million credits worth of possibility. Or poison. Or both.
She’d locked the door, more for the symbolism than actual privacy. This decision required absolute focus, the kind that came only in solitude.
The System notification still hovered at the edge of her vision, patient and insistent. Third power slot unlocked. All she had to do was inject the serum and let chance decide her future.
Except Talia Kim had never believed in leaving things to chance.
She closed her eyes, letting her breathing slow. The vial was warm against her skin, almost alive with potential. Every superhuman who’d ever taken the serum described the moment differently. Some said it felt like drowning. Others like being struck by lightning. A few claimed they heard music, or saw colors that didn’t exist. Most described it as dying.
But they all agreed on one thing: in that moment of transformation, something fundamental about them shaped what emerged.
The de Castillos had proven it was possible to influence the outcome. Generations of barrier abilities, each one slightly different but following the same theme. After the first of them had cracked the secret, the family had turned it into tradition in under a decade. The Delvanes with their flight and enhanced physiques. The Ferretti family in Italy, three generations of Terrakinesis. The Volkov line in Russia all successfully developed teleportation powers and now ran an interstellar transport empire.
Will shaped power. Desire shaped destiny.
She’d spent the last hour reviewing everything she could find. Most families kept their methods secret, treating them like trade formulas or state secrets. But the Nakamura twins had published a paper after their success. Six months of synchronized meditation before their injections, breathing as one mind until they both manifested Sympathy, giving them the ability to transfer anything to the other, from items and wounds and sensations, to even abstract things that should not be possible. The only documented case of deliberate power selection she could verify.
Talia opened her eyes and stared at the vial.
What did she desire?
The obvious answer was strength. The ability to stand beside Alexander and Annie and Augustus without being the weak link. To face whatever the System threw at them without needing protection. But that was fear talking, not perfection.
She thought about her existing powers. Cognitive Resonance let her instantly see connections, patterns and weaknesses with perfect clarity, so long as she herself already possessed the knowledge to understand. Mind Palace gave her a space to process that information, to step outside normal time and think. They were observer’s powers. Analyst’s tools.
Perfect for support. Terrible for combat.
As the others grew stronger, faster, more durable, the gap would only widen. Tier 2 ascension made superhumans resistant to conventional weapons. By Tier 3, they could shrug off military ordnance. Her rifle would become a prop. Her blade a mere decoration.
Unless she evolved. Other superhumans could wield traditional weapons, enhanced with their powers and Will.
She lifted the vial to eye level, watching the liquid shift. What she needed wasn’t raw power. It was synergy. Completion. Something that would transform her analytical abilities into direct action.
The thought had been growing since she’d unlocked the third slot. What if she could make her insights tangible? Not just see the weakness in an enemy’s stance, but reach out and make it real? Not just understand the optimal path for Annie’s attack, but somehow grant it to her?
Manifest. To make real. To bring into being.
The word resonated in her mind like a struck bell.
If she could manifest what she understood, project what she analyzed, then every observation became a weapon. Every insight a gift she could bestow. She could touch an enemy and make their flaws critical. Touch an ally and optimize their actions.
And perhaps, one day, when she’d grown strong enough, she could bring others into her Mind Palace. Make that space real enough for teammates to experience the way she already did. Imagine pulling the entire team into accelerated time, letting them plan and prepare while the world stood still.
The thought sent shivers down her spine.
She considered using her Mind Palace now, but immediately discarded the idea. The drain would be too much, disrupting the process before it truly began. What she needed was to find peace with her new path, without exhausting herself, and without repeatedly breaking the flow.
But wanting wasn’t enough. The Nakamura twins had taken six months. Whatever effort the de Castillos had invested in their first breakthrough must have been enormous. She had days at most.
Three days, she decided. Three days of meditation, visualization, and absolute focus. Every free moment spent reinforcing the concept, building it in her mind until it was more real than the floor beneath her. She would eat, sleep, and breathe the idea of manifestation until her Will recognized no other possibility.
It was a gamble. If she was wrong about how the serum worked, she might waste her only chance at a third power. Might manifest something useless or actively harmful. The Nakamura paper had mentioned that all others who had attempted their method had failed. Those who failed got random powers, or worse, powers that actively fought against their intentions. They broke their Dreams by breaking the fundamental nature of their own desires.
But Talia had built her entire life on calculated risks and perfect execution. This would be no different.
The message to Star Titan had been sent earlier through encrypted channels. The sketch from the director’s memories, the location of his brother, all of it delivered with as much detail as she could offer. By now he’d either dismissed it as a hoax or was already moving to investigate.
If it worked, if he found his brother imprisoned and transformed into a living nuclear reactor, his rage would turn entirely toward Santiago. One less Tier 3 hero hunting them. One more enemy for Gabriel to handle.
She pushed the thought aside. That die was cast. Now she had her own transformation to focus on.
She settled back into her meditation position. Three days to shape her Will. Three days to define her Dream.
Three days to ensure she would never be left behind.
Her breathing steadied. The world faded. In the darkness behind her eyelids, she began to build. Not her familiar Mind Palace, but something new. A bridge between thought and reality. A door between understanding and action.
Manifestation.
The word echoed through her consciousness, growing stronger with each repetition. By the time the sun set, she’d forgotten everything else existed.
Only the Dream remained.