Divine Celebrity 110 (Patreon)

Even though I had a big smile on my lips as I had left the hotel — after making sure I had put Lauren into bed — due to the double success I experienced, in the tournament and in bed, my mind was already on the next set of problems. 

Particularly, all the implications of the capabilities the German professor revealed. Some of those implications were strategic, showing that I wasn’t the only one that was able to use Intent to get supernatural abilities. I remembered the dismissive way my guide referred to them, waving them away as merely heroic traits. Luckily, that also implied that the System had many other capabilities. 

Some of them that might even be available once I completed the repairs — hopefully during the match Sunday. 

Other implications were more operational, like what their presence meant. I wanted to believe that they were not aware of my capabilities, but at this point, that was a fool’s dream. Even without my relatively impressive performance during the match, their presence meant that they were targeting me. 

Coach Bill’s and the other players’ suspicious disappearance just confirmed it. 

Luckily, that was not all negative. I had managed to get a full view of the German Professor’s trick to empower himself by using his student as an intermediary, and, if push came to shove, I could always convince any possible observer that I was using the team for a similar purpose. 

“More importantly, is it possible to empower them using the system,” I found myself asking. The trick Professor Argus had pulled to enhance the capabilities of his student temporarily was just the thing I needed to enhance our chances coming Sunday. 

Worthy of experimenting on, though I needed to find a way not to kill my players accidentally…

Then, I noticed something on the side of the road, on a long, empty stretch between the city and the college. 

“It’s your lucky day, little friend,” I muttered even as I pressed the brakes hard. The reason, a small tortoise, wounded with a cracked shell, my enhanced perception was the only reason for me not to mistake it for dead. 

I much preferred to beat up humans than to hurt an animal, but since the tortoise was too far gone to be helped by a veterinary even if I hurried up, I didn’t feel particularly guilty. 

That didn’t mean I was careless, of course. I had laid an array of ten stones in front of me, trying to channel Intent through the trait of Recovery to each one of them, flooding them hard until they cracked. Did it waste some intent, yes, but it was a drop compared to what I had received during the tournament? Even the after-effects were enough to support that. 

“Pray for me, little buddy,” I said with a teasing tone. After all, what my angelic guide was insisting was correct, I was supposed to get strong until I could become a god… 

I put my finger on its head, and channeled Recovery-Intent, far more carefully than I had been doing earlier. For a moment, I had thought it to be a failure even as I held the little beast, barely bigger than my hand, but then, one of its — his, I corrected myself, as I started to get a better sense of his body under the constant flow of Intent — little limbs twitched. 

“Not bad,” I thought as I stopped the flood of the Intent, and the connection ceased, the signs of life it was displaying started to fade once more. The smart thing was to just dump him to the side now that the experiment concluded successfully…

But too cruel, even for me. 

“It’s your lucky day, little buddy, not every animal is lucky to be get treated by a god,” I decided as I dug some paper from the trunk and spread them on the passenger seat, and put the turtle there. 

The rest of the distance, I drove much slower, a finger on his little head as I continuously flooded him with Intent to trigger his recovery — which worked even better than I had expected, his wounds disappearing at a speed visible to the naked eye. At one point, I even had to stop and fix his shell to prevent it from recovering crookedly. 

When I arrived at my dorm, the little beast was already scampering back and forth with a speed and attitude that was very uncharacteristic for a tortoise, but considering the was pulled from the gates of death, a little change was understandable. 

I placed him in the bushes that were at a distance from the dorm, far enough that no student would come and annoy him. 

Unfortunately, the moment I put him down, he started scampering around, searching for something desperately. Food, a realization hit me. He had shown a remarkable recovery, but even with the magic, that had to come from somewhere. 

“You’re lucky that I like animals more than I like people,” I muttered as I grabbed him and brought him to my room. 

Luckily, even with everything that was going on, the delivery of the meals didn’t stop. I put him into a large box, and dumped all the fruits and vegetables that came with today's meal, and the ones that remained from yesterday. 

Then, after one last intense wave of Recovery-Intent to make sure no internal bleeding or something similar remained — hopefully, as I was hardly a veterinarian — I moved to my computer. I had to finish drawing tactics for Sunday’s game and start practicing, but that was not the most urgent task he currently had. 

The most urgent task was to understand where his little spy had come from. 

Tapping into the student records didn’t take long. After all, I had the same access that the coach had, which included the current address of every player. Arthur turned out to be living in a dorm on the other side of the campus. 

Luckily, there was a library near, giving me an excuse to drive there — though I made sure to flood my temporary pet with another flood of recovery intent, to prevent any complication that might happen. 

If I had the time, I wouldn’t have taken my car and instead preferred to walk — the less attention it generated, the better. Unfortunately, I was facing a rather tight timeline, and I couldn’t spend hours going back and forth across the huge campus. 

Instead, I made sure to pack a couple hoodies and other changes of clothing into a small bag that looked like it was holding books. 

The library wasn’t crowded — studying had always been … optional … in Sunset College — but still, my approach had been documented by more than one student, taking my photos to share. I had no doubt that only very few were actually here to study, while most treated the place as a free alternative as a bar where they could hang out with their buddies. 

Especially at this late hour. 

“Hey, I still need to study as well,” I said to one of the cameras with a shrug, giving a confident smile. “Especially since I need to make sure they don’t use my grades as an excuse and kick me out,” I added, which earned appreciative laughter from the crowd. 

Pandering to them was not exactly fun, but after everything that happened today, I was certain at least one of those videos would go viral, and I didn’t want to look bad before the dean’s fate was determined one way or another. 

I didn’t want to give him anything he could actually use against me. 

Most students stayed away from me, my reputation suitably effective to keep them away, but some were still brave enough to walk toward me. 

I treated them as volunteers for another round of experimentation, blasting them with a small Wave of Intent, channeled through the Intimidation trait, copying the other trick of the German Professor. 

Their frozen faces suggested that they might have actually experienced a heart attack — luckily I had already experimented with Recovery as well. 

In the library, I took a few quick turns and slipped into a small room with no security camera. A minute later, I had left, completely different. 

Most people had misunderstandings about disguises, thinking that it required elaborate makeup and even more elaborate props, while, most of the time, just a simple change of clothing was enough as long as it was paired with a change of posture.

A little trick I had leveraged many times back on the streets, especially the short period I lived as a pickpocket — before growing up realizing that was a horrible career choice, high-risk and low-reward. Still, the skills I had picked then were still in place, enhanced further by my Traits… 

No one cared about another hooded nerd with a bad posture and trembling gait leaving the library.