The next few days were a fever dream. Leo called in sick, hiding in his tiny apartment, his mind racing. He experimented cautiously.
He did a single push-up. His muscles burned with the effort of one.
*[Physical Activity Recognized: Push-up - Basic Lv. 1]*
[Hundredfold Application Activated.]
*[Push-up - Basic Lv. 1 x 100 = Push-up - Master Lv. 10.]*
Suddenly, his body performed a flawless, rapid-fire set of one hundred push-ups, his form perfect, his breathing controlled. He wasn't just strong; his muscle memory and neurological control were that of a lifetime athlete.
He read a page of a dense technical manual on enclave infrastructure.
*[Skill Recognized: Information Assimilation - Basic Lv. 1]*
[Hundredfold Application Activated.]
*[Information Assimilation - Basic Lv. 1 x 100 = Information Assimilation - Master Lv. 10.]*
The page wasn't just memorized. He understood it. The underlying principles, the potential flaws in the design, the correlations to three other manuals he'd skimmed years ago—it all clicked into place in his mind with breathtaking clarity.
The talent was limitless, but it had rules. It worked on actions and skills. He couldn't multiply an object. One apple times a hundred was still one apple. But the action of biting the apple could be multiplied, allowing him to consume it in a fraction of a second. He couldn't create energy from nothing. The hundred push-ups left him as physically drained as if he'd done a hundred push-ups—just infinitely faster and with perfect form.
His greatest discovery was also his most terrifying. He practiced throwing a knife in his kitchen. His first throw was clumsy, clattering off the wall.
*[Skill Recognized: Knife Throwing - Novice Lv. 1]*
[Hundredfold Application Activated.]
*[Knife Throwing - Novice Lv. 1 x 100 = Knife Throwing - Master Lv. 10.]*
His next throw was a blur. The knife embedded itself dead-center in the painted target on his wall, the handle vibrating with a sharp thrum. The skill, the knowledge of trajectory, windage (even indoors), and muscle control flooded into him. He was, for that single action, a master.
But the cost was a sudden, profound exhaustion. Not just physical, but mental. It was as if his brain had just lived a hundred lifetimes of knife-throwing practice in an instant. He realized the true limitation: his own mind and body were the vessel. A hundredfold application of a complex skill was mentally taxing. What would happen if he tried to multiply something truly immense?
He was about to find out.
A siren wailed—the enclave's high-alert signal. A Manifestation had breached the perimeter. Not an Echo, but a physical entity. It was in his sector.
Peering through his reinforced window, he saw it. It was a thing of jagged, shifting darkness, with too many limbs that scraped against the pavement. It emitted a low-frequency hum that made his teeth ache and projected waves of despair. It was the "Grief-Eater," a type of Manifestation he'd only heard about in terrified whispers. Standard energy weapons were barely effective. It was absorbing the panic of the civilians, growing larger.
A Sweeper team was there, their pulses of blue energy only seeming to irritate the creature. One of them was caught by a whip-like tendril of shadow. His scream was cut short as his body went limp, not from injury, but as if all emotion, all life, had been siphoned out.
The creature turned, its faceless "head" orienting towards a group of cowering civilians trapped in a storefront. Leo saw a small child among them, frozen in terror.
He couldn't throw a knife at that. He was no fighter.
But he had to do something.
An idea, insane and desperate, formed. He remembered the technical manual. He remembered the schematics for the barrier generator's auxiliary power conduits that ran under the street. They were designed to emit a purifying frequency, a energy the Gloaming entities disliked.
He focused. Not on a physical action, but on a mental one. He focused all his will, all his intention, on a single, desperate command: Activate the auxiliary purge conduit. Now.
*[Skill Recognized: Technopathic Command - Fledgling Lv. 0.1]*
[Hundredfold Application Activated.]
*[Technopathic Command - Fledgling Lv. 0.1 x 100 = Technopathic Command - Adept Lv. 10.]*
The world vanished in a torrent of data. He wasn't Leo anymore; he was a current, a command. He felt his consciousness flood into the enclave's network, bypassing security, finding the specific conduit, and overriding its safeties. The mental strain was excruciating, like trying to hold a supernova inside his skull.
On the street, the manhole cover near the Grief-Eater glowed with a brilliant, searing white light. A pillar of pure, purifying energy erupted, catching the Manifestation full-on.
The creature didn't scream. It unraveled. The darkness composing it scattered like ash in a hurricane, the despairing hum turning into a silent, dissipating sigh.
The street fell silent, save for the crackle of the energy conduit and the ragged breaths of the survivors.
Leo collapsed to his knees in his apartment, a torrent of blood dripping from his nose. The headache was blinding. He had pushed his talent too far, too fast.
But he had done it.
As he lay on the cold floor, panting, a new, chilling realization dawned on him. He was no longer a zero. He was a variable. A power.
And in the shadows, things were beginning to notice. The Sweeper Captain, reviewing the inexplicable system override, marked the event for investigation. And deep in the Weeping Lands, something ancient and vast, something that fed on anomalies, shifted its attention towards the flickering light of Veridia City.
Leo's ordinary life was over. The hundredfold path of the extraordinary had begun.