Exploring the Gateway

Usually, John would have been bored out of his mind by Psychology, as he had no particular interest in the field. Today was different, however, he had gained an ability which allowed him to manipulate people’s psychology, and he needed to learn how to use it properly. He needed to further understand two things. First, he needed to know how to use this ability without causing further damage to the mind he used it on. After all, John didn’t want to harm people unnecessarily, and he was worried about using it in the first place. Second, he needed to learn to use the ability more efficiently, by learning how to pull the right strings to cause things to happen. Both so he could have more options with its application, and to minimize the risk of damaging that person’s mind.

A few minutes later, the teacher walked in, she started the class by handing out the book they would be using that year. The book was aptly named Psychology 101. John had planned to listen to the teacher during the class until he realized that everything she was about to say was contained in the book that she had given out. Happy that he could now go through the material at his own pace, he decided to begin reading the book.

The book talked about a few things, mainly how modern Psychology formed, and what we know about how the human mind works. It mentioned some common conditions and disorders and explained some of the criteria needed to identify them. At first, John thought that his belief that the material would help him was wrong, but when thinking back to his experience inside Brad’s mind, it explained a lot. It made sense that it was all more like a dream than a concrete structure, and John figured that Brad’s mind was shaped that way by his experiences and the way his emotions operated. Those factors had made a world of their own, constructed by them. John guessed that every person would have a unique mindscape, forged by their personalities, experiences, and emotions. This was supported by the next part of the book, which explained how our experiences help shape our mind and how we think about the world, and that those are the main causes for most conditions and disorders as well.

By the time he had finished reading the book, John had used the information contained within it to understand what he had gone through. He had understood that the strange things he had seen in Brad’s mind were abstract representations of his mind and emotions. With that, he reasoned that it was necessary to interact with those emotions to affect them, just like he had done in Brad’s mind. That meant that in order to reduce them, all he needed to do was work against those emotions when connected to the person’s mind. In the end, he still wasn’t sure what the things in Brad’s mind represented exactly, or why they were even there. Maybe all the things he’d seen were only there the moment he had connected to Brad’s mind. Influenced by Brad’s actions and feelings at that time, or perhaps some or all of them were always present inside him. John didn’t know the answer, but it was unimportant, as he had learned those things did indeed hold meaning.

When he finally finished reading the Psychology book, he noticed about half the class had passed. The teacher was now talking about the same common disorders and conditions he had read about earlier. What John did not notice until then, however, was that a popup had now appeared before him.

New skill: Reduce Emotion. Skill combined with Reinforce Emotion to make new skill: Modify Emotion.

John realized that unlike most of his skills beforehand, which he had gotten through trial and error or just by doing something normally mundane, he had gotten this skill by understanding how to use his current ones in a different way. It seemed to John that both the level task system, and the system created to give him these skills, were both made to translate his understanding of his powers into skills for him to use. That meant he could learn skills by finding new ways to use other skills and by learning new abilities to add to his power set.

Thinking that, he decided to try to test the extent of his powers, specifically, he wondered what other skills Psychic Connection could unlock. So for the rest of the class, John focused on using it, only occasionally considering other thoughts that popped into his mind.

John had not been particularly successful in his attempt to learn more about the extent of his powers through Psychic Connection by the end of the class, but he did think of one topic he knew he had to consider seriously.

‘Was it really right to invade Brad’s mind like that?’ John thought to himself, ‘if it had been anyone else, would I have done it? I’m not sure what I did could be classified as immoral, but I fundamentally changed a person. Possibly forever. Sure, it might help people. Hopefully, a lot of people, but that remains to be seen. Can I truly consider myself moral, can I really say my actions help others if I go around using the power to bend minds so easily, without thought or remorse? I’m not sure, but I do know that whatever the answer is, I have to use this power sparingly. I have to make sure I’m justified in doing this every time. And I must keep myself in check when it comes to using this power. Thank whatever god gave me these powers that I now have a way to restore a person to their previous state, or at least I hope that’s how this works,’ he concluded in his mind. John still struggled with the thought of whether or not he should reverse what he had done to Brad, but that was a debate for another time.

After he had concluded that line of thought, he continued in his efforts with Psychic Connection until the bell rang. John, unsurprised by the arrival of the bell this time, stopped his Psychic Connection and headed out of the class. Walking quickly towards his last one before lunchtime, Applied Maths.

Just like in the second half of his Psychology lesson, John spent most of his time in math class using Psychic Connection, and just like in Psychology, until about halfway into the class, John had nothing to do.

That was until he noticed a mind that had not been there before, appearing just outside the classroom. For some reason, John couldn’t touch the mind no matter how hard he tried and only a moment later, the mind was gone as fast as it had appeared. At first, John panicked, unsure of why it had suddenly done so. That was until a few seconds later, when the mind appeared again, seemingly moving in the hallway. John could touch it now and once he did, he realized it was a student who was walking down the hallway. His panic subsided a second later, figuring there must be some sort of maximum range for Psychic Connection. John relaxed as that explained the sudden disappearance of the mind simply. Although it annoyed him that his powers continued adding questions and mysteries he did not have clear answers for.

Besides that incident, there was nothing else of interest that happened through the rest of Applied Maths. After the lesson had concluded, the students were released for lunchtime and John excitedly looked for Alice. He found her sitting down to eat at the cafeteria a few minutes later. He bought some food with the money his mother had given to him earlier that day and sat down next to Alice. Turning to speak to her, he was met by a quick hug.

“I wanted to say thank you for the drawing again, it really is beautiful. I did want to ask why you made it though.” She said, slowly breaking the hug.

“I just wanted to draw you, and I thought it would make a nice gift,” John responded, slightly disappointed the hug was so brief.

“Well, you were right, it’s a nice gift,” Alice said, smiling, and John had nothing to say in retort. After that, both of them stopped talking. They proceeded to silently eat for a few minutes. Neither of them exactly sure what to say, but they occasionally touched each other’s hands, or sent each other glances. That was until John spoke up.

“We should go on a date or something sometime, right?” He said, completely unsure of how this should be handled.

“Yeah, I guess... How about tomorrow?” Alice responded, with just about the same level of confidence.

“Sure! Should I still use your old number? We should probably have each other’s numbers, if not. Not sure if that’s weird of me to ask,” John asked and quickly excused, worried about whether it would really be strange.

“Don’t worry, it’s not. We probably should have them if we’re going to be together,” Alice said, both understanding John’s plight and agreeing with him.

They proceeded to awkwardly exchange numbers, both not knowing who should go first. That was almost immediately followed by them talking for a few minutes about some other things once the awkwardness had subsided, at which point lunchtime had ended. Once it had, they each had to go their separate ways, to their next classes.

John’s next class was history, with Miss Wentworth