Noah waited until the house had settled into its morning routine before testing whether the memories of his childhood were accurate.
He did not begin by punching a wall.
That was the sort of thing an inexperienced person did when he suddenly possessed superhuman strength.
A wall could break.
So could a wrist.
A careless display could also attract attention, and attention was precisely what Noah intended to avoid.
Instead, he went to the garden.
The Mercer house stood on a quiet street bordered by tall trees and old houses.
The garden was small, with a wooden fence separating it from the neighbouring property.
His father maintained it with unreasonable dedication, and his mother had filled the corners with plants she insisted were impossible to kill.
Noah stopped beside an old stone planter.
He placed one hand beneath it.
The planter weighed perhaps eighty kilograms, soil and all.
He lifted it with one arm.
There was no visible strain.
His breathing did not change, his shoulder remained relaxed, and his hand did not tremble.
The stone rose from the ground as easily as an empty cardboard box.
Noah held it for three seconds before gently setting it back down.
No crack appeared in the stone.
The earth beneath it had not been crushed.
His strength was immense, but the more impressive thing was how completely he could control it.
He tried again, lifting it with two fingers.
Then with one.
Then he placed his palm against the side and pushed it a few millimetres across the grass without disturbing the plants around it.
Fine control.
Not merely raw strength.
He continued with simple tests.
A short sprint across the garden.
A jump from the ground to the low roof over the back entrance.
A fall from that roof, landing with barely a sound.
A brief examination of his skin, which showed no abrasion after he dragged a sharp edge across his forearm with carefully increased pressure.
The skin did not even redden.
He did not attempt heat vision, flight, or anything that might produce an obvious spectacle.
Those abilities could wait until he found somewhere remote enough to experiment without witnesses.
The test confirmed what his inherited memories had suggested.
The V had given the original Noah an extraordinary body.
He possessed the potential of a superhuman with overwhelming strength, flight, enhanced senses, and near-invulnerability, and he had spent years learning to keep it concealed.
Now that body belonged to someone who understood the value of preparation.
As Noah returned indoors, a faint chime sounded inside his mind.
He stopped halfway through the back door.
A translucent panel appeared before his eyes.
[HEAVEN REWARDS HARD WORK SYSTEM]
Host confirmed.
Initial Gift Pack: One.
Gift: Psychic Energy.
Primary cultivation method: Meditation.
Additional functions: Psychic energy may be applied to abilities, objects, environments, and living beings, provided sufficient energy and control are available.
Psychic energy may be shared with compatible recipients.
Recipient cultivation contributes to collective advancement according to the number of active users and their individual talent.
No intelligence enhancement available.
No automatic mastery available.
No task completion without effort.
The panel disappeared.
Noah stood perfectly still.
He waited for a voice to explain the rules.
Nothing happened.
He waited for a second notification.
Nothing.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Are you going to explain what psychic energy actually is?”
The kitchen refrigerator hummed.
Noah let out a slow breath.
“Right.
No assistant.”
The new system was almost offensively straightforward.
It did not claim to know the future, offer strategic advice, or promise to guide him toward a predetermined destiny.
It would presumably recognise hard work, but it would not do the work for him.
Noah preferred that arrangement.
An intelligence enhancement would have been useful, but it was not necessary.
He already possessed the memories of two lives, and he had never believed that intelligence alone made someone powerful.
A brilliant child with no means to protect himself was still vulnerable.
Knowledge could identify a danger, but it could not always stop a vampire from snapping one’s neck or a werewolf from tearing open one’s throat.
He had seen enough fictional stories to understand the distinction.
A genius must first survive long enough to grow.
He sat cross-legged on the grass and closed his eyes.
Meditation.
He had tried it before in his old life, although usually for three days before finding an excuse to stop.
This time, he had a reason that could not be dismissed as a vague promise of better concentration.
He slowed his breathing.
At first, nothing happened.
He felt the grass beneath him, the morning breeze on his face, and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
He heard cars in the distance, birds in the trees, and his mother’s footsteps inside the kitchen.
He ignored them.
Minutes passed.
Then he became aware of something he had no name for: a faint, almost imperceptible pressure behind his forehead, as if his mind occupied more space than his skull could contain.
He did not attempt to seize it.
He observed it.
The pressure shifted when his attention moved.
It gathered when he breathed slowly and scattered when his mind wandered.
He focused on maintaining the sensation.
A minute later, a tiny leaf near his knee trembled.
Noah opened his eyes.
The leaf lay perfectly still.
He stared at it.
Then he closed his eyes and tried again.
This time, he focused on the leaf itself rather than the pressure in his mind.
He imagined the distance between them as a line, not an empty space but something that could be crossed by intention.
The pressure tightened.
The leaf moved.
Only a few millimetres, and perhaps it could have been the wind.
Noah waited until the breeze stopped, then repeated the attempt.
The leaf shifted again.
His heart beat faster, but he forced himself to remain calm.
Psychic energy.
The system had not given him telekinesis as a fixed trick.
It had given him the basis of a power that could potentially affect almost anything, provided he accumulated enough energy and learned enough control.
Strength was one kind of power.
Psychic energy might become an entirely different kind.
Noah looked at the small leaf with the careful attention of a scientist examining the first result of an experiment.
Then he sat down again.
He had no interest in becoming powerful quickly.
He intended to become powerful reliably.
And if the system truly rewarded hard work, he would give it an extraordinary amount of work to reward.