Chapter 2: Second chance
A young man can be seen lying flat on his back, his white hair spread on the charred floor. It was Maverick, fluttering, his eyes apart. Everything in sight was black, but not because it was dark. It was because the entire house looked as if it had been tossed into hell and back. Upon waking up, he clutched his throat and gagged. He felt as if something inside made it hard to breathe. After a couple of seconds, he released himself. It was just his imagination. The knife was no longer in his throat.
There was police tape scattered around the house. The cops have been through here, yet they didn't see him somehow. He gazed at a coffee table that now lay charred. He put a hand in front of one another. Moved the police tape out of his way, and then made his way to his coffee table. His skin was pale as a ghost, eyes wide with shock and tears of sorrow. In front of him was a ruined family photo frame. Maverick is the only thing spared from the flames of hell.
Maverick eyes began to sting as tears fell. But just before that, he felt a blocky object in his left pocket. His face relaxed a bit, and he reached inside. Luckily, it was his phone. Maverick attempted to turn it on, but it was dead.
Even though his phone was dead, he broke a smile. He stood up and made ready to bolt out of the house, right before he heard paper flipping.
He turned his head. There was a pristine book untouched from any fire, with the decor of an animal skull with hair that resembled crooked twigs. The black eye sockets looked like they were pulling all the light inside.
'Someone had to have left this book here.' Maverick thought.
Maverick took light steps towards it. It violently opened itself up, then lifted from the ground coming towards Maverick, with a yelp. His response was to cover his face. His eyebrows furrowed as the adrenaline wore off. But the book simply lodged itself in his hand.
'what is this? An artifact?'
Maverick opens the book. Even though it seems to be an instruction manual. The letters were stylishly drawn, and the drawings were beautiful yet minimalistic; nevertheless, they were concise and straight to the point. Several things are listed here in bullet points with the Heading of the alchemy set. It was various tools and equipment that he supposedly needed.
After flipping through a couple of pages, he got stuck. One page felt as if it was pasted flat on the others, and not only that. He could move any more pages after that.
Maverick thought 'Maybe it has something to do with the last page wrapped in chains with the text "Get the supplies to further proceed." '
When he left his house, he turned around and admired it with a sigh and thought 'I haven't forgotten about them'.
Then turned around to cross the road. across was a large woman with short curly hair. She was watering her flowers, mouth agape, as Maverick stood outside his house, waving his hand.
"Hello, Ms.Caldwell."
"The police said you were missing? Are you alright?"
Maverick grabbed the back of his head and looked at the ground.
"Yeah-, Um by the way, When did the cops say I went missing?"
She goes and says "About a month ago. Is anything wrong?"
Ms.Codwell took a step closer and reached for Maverick's shoulder.
Maverick raised his palm politely.
"I'm fine. Just a misunderstanding on their part."He took out his phone and showed it to her."I just need to borrow your charger."
Ms.Caldwell smiled."Of course!"
She led Maverick inside her house, which had a flowery smell, two cats, and plenty of beautiful plants. After gazing through the book, his phone was charged enough to be turned on. He immediately looked through his photos. A smile broke on his face. He had all his family photos. He got his skin from his mother and hair from his father from the looks of the photo. It was a happy and comfy home photo. After being grateful for his mysterious preservation, he looked on social media.
There was news saying something about some new ability. Many people were able to see beings called spirits. The ability holders couldn't do anything to them, but the underlining fact is that they could see spirits and maybe more to be discovered. It has massive hype, but when you look through the comments, it's several people saying how useless they are and that they are practically just crazy people who see things. No different from people with no powers system.
After browsing, he looks up online where he can find equipment for alchemy. Most of what he found were remade relics from the past.
Maverick leaves Ms.Caldwell's house not before saying goodbye to purchase all the equipment.
The day is finally ending although he finally got all the supplies after going from store to store and making plenty of trips. However, it mostly seemed like science equipment, and some things are weirdly shaped glass that he has no idea what it's for. Maverick sets everything up and lights several candles. Upon opening his manual, he notices its new pages with the heading Cabinet Pill, which claims to heal minor illnesses over time.
Skipping to the last page, the requirements say that he needs to reach 70% success on the cabinet pill. With that information, he started to do research. The items listed were apple, frosted rose petals, and butterfly wings. He brought out his phone and ordered supplies. He tried to buy Ms.Caldwell's flowers, but she insisted on giving them away free of charge. He had to freeze the flowers in her house due to him not having any power.
Now that he had supplies, he was ready to turn to another page. The book listed something called spirit infusions. It stated that he had to infuse the ingredients with his spirit power for it to work. Otherwise, it would be a waste of time. His brow furrowed after discovering this.
"So I have something inside me called a spirit and it's flowing all around me. Is it like the thing around Aiden and Jett?"
He flips another page. This page is a how-to guide to manipulating your spiritual energy. Fortunately, it isn't that hard. For the first time, he just has to start absorbing it into his body and therefore condensing it. I say to focus on his entire body and just imagine you are a container pulling energy inside. Maverick folded his legs in a meditating position and started the process.
After two minutes he began to see that he was surrounded by green energy that enveloped him like water. It took him four more minutes to get it all inside.
'It couldn't be any more different! It was like a green sea, that was inescapable.' Maverick sighed
He now started the next step in the process, creating the pills. He crushed the apple and butterfly wings with a mortar and pestle, then infused them with his spirit power simply by guiding the energy out of his palm. He used his alchemy tools to process everything else and then dried them. The first batch wasn't all that great. It looked nothing like the powder from the book, but it was gloomy and brown as a turd.
'Looks like this is gonna take a while.'
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone