Chapter 54
Supernatural powers weren’t considered to be that strong at lower levels. This was why I completely ignored Heinrich and his Pyrokinesis ability.
When a new ability awakened, the initial burst could be quite powerful, but afterward, in a stabilized state, its power would not reach the same peak.
“Did you feel your grip strength improve at all?”
“Yes, my palms are tingling, so it seems like it.”
I definitely felt that my grip strength had actually increased. If not, my palms wouldn’t be hurting as if they were about to tear apart when the only thing I did was clench a stone.
“Alright then, now let’s try running from here to the other end of the swimming pool at full speed.”
“Okay.”
Since it was essentially an ability that enhanced the physical attributes, the assessment turned out to be no different from the physical training I’d been doing. I was already doing so much of it that I’d gotten used to it and didn’t really resent the idea of exercising.
I sprinted with all my might from one end of the swimming pool to the other. Honestly, this small bit of exercise wasn’t enough to tire me out at all.
The teacher seemed to check something, then yelled, “Now, sprint back here at full speed again! But this time, use your abilities! Run as if you are believing that you are extremely fast!”
This time, it was a test of speed.
She was measuring the time it took me to reach the other side without using abilities, and once again when I used my ability.
As I prepared to take off, I thought to myself, ‘I am Usain Bolt.’
I did another 50-meter sprint at full speed, and the teacher slowly nodded.
“I see. Interesting, Reinhart.”
Had something changed? I definitely felt my grip strength increase in the previous test, but the change wasn’t as noticeable when it came to running.
“Before using your ability, you clocked in at 8.3 seconds, but after using it, it’s exactly 8 seconds.”
“... Honestly, I can’t really tell.”
I knew that it would be difficult to notice the difference when it came to something like running, so I wasn’t sure if it truly was a significant improvement. That little bit of improvement could have simply been human error.
The teacher continued to put me through various tests. They were mainly strength, endurance, and agility tests.
As we proceeded, my mental state seemed to become more and more peculiar.
Self-Deception meant that the deception I gave myself would become a reality.
So, while running, if I truly believed and thought to myself, “I am Usain Bolt,” and my supernatural power was strong enough, I could technically achieve Usain Bolt’s speed, or perhaps even surpass it.
Essentially, in order to use my power, I had to keep thinking “I am XX” or “I am doing XX.”
It basically felt as if I was back in my elementary school days, when kids would make outrageous claims like “I’m a dinosaur!” just because they believed themselves to be so.
This power almost seemed to be bringing a child’s unreasonable tantrums and stubbornness into reality, and the more seriously I indulged in these tantrums, the more effectively my abilities manifested.
So, the bottom line was... this power felt less like Self-Deception and more like “Self-Brainwashing.” This made more sense, since I had basically brainwashed myself into thinking I was going to win “somehow” in my duel with Mayaton.
A power that manifested only when you managed to successfully brainwash yourself... Leaving the effectiveness of the ability aside, it seemed rather pathetic.
“....”
“What’s the matter, Reinhart?”
“Well, it’s just that... the fact that I have to seriously hypnotize myself into believing that punching this tree will break it is kind of... unbearable.”
It felt like I was saying, “Haha, my punches are strong enough to shatter trees, just watch!” when in reality, all I was doing was tricking myself. Why did I have to trick myself like that?! Why couldn’t my thoughts just become reality?!
It was ridiculous! Not just ridiculous—it was the actual required mindset!
Since I had discarded this power in the original story, I hadn’t considered what kind of mental damage someone would take from actually using this ability.
But now that I was actually using it, I realized that this power... was pretty embarrassing.
“What can you do? That’s the kind of power it is. Now, give it a try.”
Anyway...
‘My fist can totally obliterate this tree!’
Thud!
“Ugh!”
I had the wrong belief.
Instead of deceiving myself that I could shatter the tree, I should have first believed that my wrist wouldn’t break even if I hit it with full force.
***
Throughout the day, Ms. Rolendria tested my abilities. She didn’t just test the increase in my physical strength and athletic abilities, but evaluated other things as well.
For example, she tested to see if I could derive other powers from my own, such as whether I could use elemental supernatural powers, like Pyrokinesis, or other ones like Telepathy, if I made myself believe I could through Self-Deception.
Of course, none of them worked. Perhaps it would be possible in the future, but my current power level was too low to manifest anything beyond physical enhancement.
Besides, since I always carried the Flame of Fire with me, it was genuinely possible for me to use it to make real flames appear while making it look like I had achieved it through my supernatural power. Because of this, I didn’t really try my best during the Pyrokinesis tests.
When all the tests were over, Ms. Rolendria slowly nodded while jotting down various notes. I had been tested throughout the full duration of classes, to the extent that we even had to have lunch there.
“Your powers truly are remarkable, Reinhart.”
“I don’t think it’s all that great though...”
Certainly, the power I wielded was not as strong as I believed it would be. However, Ms. Rolendria shook her head.
“You may be right that the strength you currently display isn’t significantly noteworthy. But there’s something else more important.”
“Something else?”
“From what I’ve seen, your degree of enhancement is weak, but you are skilled at using and manifesting your supernatural power. So even though your ability to enhance some other aspect of yourself is minor right now, you have the ability to almost instantaneously use your supernatural power at will.”
It seemed that Ms. Rolendria’s focus was not so much on the ability itself, but on my control over the ability. Even though the enhancement was minimal, it was clear to her that I had consistently succeeded in using my supernatural powers.
“This indicates that you, Reinhart, are quite familiar with the idea of activating the ability itself, regardless of what the ability is.”
Indeed, that was not a common thing. Control over an ability was sometimes considered more significant than the power of the ability itself. I was already excelling in the act of using the supernatural power.
I should have been pleased by this fact, yet I didn’t feel particularly happy about it.
“In other words, it’s as if you were born with an innate talent for Self-Deception.”
That sounded good and all, but basically, she was calling me a professional at brainwashing myself!
It seems that I had naturally become experienced at self-brainwashing from all the times I “tricked” myself into thinking that my novels were doing well and when I disregarded any hate comments that criticized all the non-plausible plot twists I’d written into my novels.
Although I had chosen this supernatural power only because it was so unrealistically overpowered, it turned out to be the power that fit me the most.
The level of the power itself wasn’t that high. However, triggering it was quite easy.
I’d lived a life where deceiving myself had become a habit, so I’d acquired the perfect mindset for this pathetic power named “Self-Deception.”
It was like a suit tailored just for me... but not one I was delighted to wear.
I convinced myself that if someone else had this same power, they wouldn’t have been able to use it as adeptly as me.
Of course, being in a fantasy world setting certainly played a part in my self-deception. Since I didn’t entertain doubts over the existence of supernatural powers, since I knew for a fact that this was a world where it did exist, I was able to believe wholeheartedly that my self-deception was possible.
After the tests ended, Ms. Rolendria told me that I would be allowed to attend regular classes again the following day. She had determined that my power currently did not extend beyond physical enhancement. Of course, given the enormous potential of my abilities, she intended to check on my state periodically.
After class, I holed up in the dormitory for the day. I wanted to skip the evening training and focus on my abilities instead.
At the current stage, Self-Deception primarily bolstered physical traits. However, since I had only conceptualized this power and then discarded it, I hadn’t described the specific problems someone would actually encounter while using it.
In other words, there was a lot I didn’t know about the ability. For example, one of the issues could be self-inflicted mental damage due to habitual self-brainwashing. Because the power worked by simply turning whims into reality, the act of seriously believing in even the most absurd situations would make me feel pathetic.
There was one other thing as well. If I believed my punches would become strong, they became strong. However, what if a situation arose in combat when I suddenly needed to throw a kick? If I had to kick, then I would also have to believe that my kicks got stronger as well.
Although I was skilled at triggering the ability itself, it was excessively cumbersome.
In fact, it might be more versatile to believe that my whole body was stronger.
In other words, I had to make my power apply more generally for it to be more suitable for fighting. Instead of thinking separately about punches and kicks, I needed to adopt a more comprehensive belief to improve my combat abilities as a whole.
It sounded like something a holy knight would say, that believing in yourself would make you stronger, but in reality, it wasn’t like that at all.
It was like having a religion where I was my own object of faith. A crazy religion where the worshiper and the worshiped are the same. A religion where I believed in myself.
It really felt like I was going to go insane.
***
In my current state, I was only able to enhance my physical abilities, but in the future, I would be able to perform actions that surpassed these limitations. At that point, individually applying these detailed aspects would be a waste of time.
Therefore, instead of specifying and enhancing each part one by one—like strengthening my fists, speeding up my legs, et cetera—it was better to enhance my abilities in a more comprehensive sense.
However, this required focus and prioritization.
If I used my supernatural power to enhance my whole body, it would be less efficient than just enhancing my fists. Instead of an overly-broad belief, it could be better to believe in something slightly more concrete, such as becoming accustomed to a body fit for melee combat.
If my abilities gained strength, then I might also be able to make myself believe that I was proficient in grand magic battles, or exceptional in close combat situations.
In the end, this power really suited me.
I was a web novel author, and ultimately, this wasn’t much different from creating a character sheet.
At that moment, I was jotting something down in my notebook.
Type A:
Settings: Overall increase in muscle strength, improvement in swordsmanship, enhanced cognitive ability, faster reaction speed.
I knew better than anyone that doing this was necessary. After establishing standards for Type A, Type B, and so on, I would not need to think about what specific parts of me were to be enhanced.
For example, if I thought to myself, “I’ve become Type A,” and if I remember this setup, my body would become stronger accordingly. Self-Deception was, literally, the ability to become the version of myself that I held in my mind. If I memorized the physical state that came with thinking ‘I am Type A’ and I brought out the thought “I’ve become Type A,” it would become so. It was an optimal way to use my ability with ease.
In other words, I was setting up presets for my supernatural power, and summoning the necessary settings whenever I needed them.
“....”
As I continued to write, though, I felt a sense of self-derision.
Ms. Rolendria was worried about my eighth-grader syndrome, and I was doing exactly that at the moment. It was no different from a middle-schooler giggling while writing down their imagined powers in a notebook during lunchtime.
Eventually, I might even end up with something like “Type Z: Can summon a black flame dragon with my right hand.”
I might actually end up doing that kind of crazy stuff!
I never even did this back when I was in middle school! But to think that, at my age, I was now writing a settings notebook, spelling out things like “Lol, sick, I have this power now”...
It made me want to die.
‘I should look on the bright side and think positively, but I just can’t.’
Although I was supposed to be more mature than anyone else here, here I was, the school’s biggest troublemaker, cooped up in the dormitory, immersed in creating my own character with “cool” settings.
My heck of a personality was one thing, but my ability was the icing on the cake.
‘What even is the meaning of life...’
While I was absorbed in character creation, the communication device in my room suddenly started blaring.
Buzz!
It was called a communication device, but it was basically no different from an intercom.
Someone was calling me.
‘Who could it be?’
The only person I could possibly think of was Ellen, but she wasn’t the type who would intentionally come looking for me, especially through a device.
I turned on the communication device. I heard a familiar voice, with an unfamiliar tone.
“Come to the main lobby.”
It was Charlotte.
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