Condition Evolution 2: A LitRPG / Gamelit Adventure by Sinclair, Kevin (black female authors txt) 📗

“Nope. I most certainly didn’t.”

“So, how did Roger end up in the infirmary?”

I grinned, not really wanting to blow my own trumpet. “He hit me, then took another swing. I landed one punch to his ribs. Situation over. Definitely not a fight.”

Ogun chuckled his deep booming chuckle at that. “He said you jumped him and kicked him on the floor. I swear, you all have selective memories. I am a bloody telepath without equal amongst you, I can tell when people are lying so easily. Yet, people still try to lie to me.”

“How do you tell if people are lying?”

“Ah! You're after my tricks?” he laughed. “Well, I don’t mind telling you. You will have noticed the display in your stasis room, where the person's mental projection, or avatar, sits. That’s where you will find all non-transcended avatars sitting, eyes closed.

If you watch the display you will see their thoughts, in the form of images. Any questions you ask the person, whether trying to lie or not, will ninety-five percent of the time show what really happened on that display.”

“Ha! Really? That is so stupidly easy. Why only ninety-five percent?”

“Some people have a genuine special ability to completely believe their own bull-shit. Remarkable, but real.” He laughed.

“It’s remarkable, but I reckon I’ve met more than a few of them myself.”

“So, now I have told you my secret, remember, until you can move in both the physical and mental realm in tandem, I will catch you out if you lie to me,” he said, wagging a finger.

“Thanks for letting me know,” I said, laughing at his threat.

He stood up and patted me on the back. “Well done on the ‘not fight’. Some people are asking for it. Thor,” he said, rolling his eyes and laughing, “what a dick.”

I really enjoyed the little conversations with Ogun. He seemed almost to be relaxing around me. I’d never heard him talk like that to anyone else.

I went straight back to the gym and dove straight into training with Ember. It was absolutely brutal. The mass of muscle I’d gained had a huge effect on my range of movement. I had kinda thought I’d be getting a break, coming off the weights. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

I almost felt unlucky to have the axe heal my overstretched muscles, ligaments, and over-rotated joints because it meant I had to keep going with the torture. On the plus side, I got to spend more time with Ember, and train in kickboxing again. Although, we mainly did calisthenics and gymnastics. Yeah, really unpleasant.

Two weeks passed us by training, eating, healing, and sleeping. When the announcement was made across the ship that we were leaving Fystr controlled space and we would reach our intended destination in a further two weeks. Ember started panicking. “Shit, Shaun. Two weeks till we land again, and we’ve done nothing at all in our Mindscapes!”

“I know, I know. But we were both in bad shape physically. We needed to do this,” I replied, and I meant it. I wanted a stronger mind, but I needed a stronger body first. No point being fucking Einstein when you’re getting your damn head chopped off by an angry Fystr.

“We did need to train, but we should’ve been balancing it out with clearing our cognition rooms, and training our new skills.” She replied.

“Look, it’s fine. We can do it now. I’m pretty happy with how much tougher I’ve become. So, yeah. Let’s hit the Mindscapes tomorrow.”

“Good. I’m glad you agree. What’s your stats now?”

“Hmm…” I closed my eyes and had a quick check, communicating telepathically with her.

Name: Shaun Sutherland

Age: 29 GY

Transcendence Level 71

Strength: 162/1000

Agility: 60/1000

Speed: 98/1000

Intelligence: 40/1000

Constitution: 120/1000

Wisdom: 2/2000

Mental Resilience 15/1000

Mental Clarity 2%

Potential: 99%

She waited until I opened my eyes before she responded vocally, “Fuck, Shaun. That’s so embarrassing. You literally haven’t moved at all on the mental stats! We’ve two weeks before we reach this alien planet. Come on. No gym today. Let's head to my room and work on un-stupiding you!” she said, grabbing my hand and leading me off out of the dining area.

“You can’t be much better,” I complained as we went.

“I might not have improved, but I started off a lot better, you dumbass. It’s a wonder you can string a sentence together.”

“Forty Intelligence, Ember. Don’t forget it.”

“Need I remind you of your Wisdom and Clarity already?”

“Well, we’re going to go do something about it, aren’t we? Whether I want to or not. It’s like my worst nightmare. Who’d have thought that becoming a superhero would involve actually tidying up my room!”

“Yeah. Well, tough luck. We’ve avoided it long enough. Time to man up.”

We got back to Ember's old room, which we used as an office of sorts, seeing as we used my room for frustratingly platonic sleeping quarters. I used to be happy with that, but damn it’s hard to cuddle up to someone you love and keep it just friendly.

We each took a seat. I was about to talk, but Ember closed her eyes to go straight into her Mindscape. It didn’t really leave me with too many options, so I delved into mine.

I appeared instantly in the Cognition Room. It was overwhelming, to say the least. I walked the few feet forward that I could, booted an old beanbag that I remembered from being about eleven years old. Then, with a sigh, I started piling things into neat stacks because there wasn’t anything else to do with it really. There were shelves but they were unapproachable at the moment. After about twenty minutes I achieved what felt like exactly fuck-all, because I didn’t even have anywhere to put all the junk. I mean, I would have liked that beanbag in my ship quarters, but as far as I could figure, like me, it was just a mental representation. I tried not to think too hard about what that meant.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I had some help… a revelation hit me. I could help Ember in