[Congratulations Erwin Owl, you have served your first minor Supernatural guest]
Rewards received: 30 trust points
Soul points accumulated: 3 soul points
Reputation :+5(among Brownies)
[Alert: first goal achieved]
Reward: You have added minor room control to your abilities. This ability allows you to mentally open and shut doors, adjust minor things like lighting and temperature, decor, and furniture inside a room. After upgrade, it unlocks more functions with each hotel floor level and level of guest soul magic.
I was seated in my study, combing through the numerous system notifications that followed after the brownies had left.
"I did it!" I screamed to myself like a nerd that had finally won a boss fight. It felt thrilling.
If anyone had told me I would have finished my first system task today and way before sunrise, I would have thought they were nuts.
The task I had planned for the best part of the day was trying to gather information and come up with a plan on how to get guests coming.
From my discussion with Octava the previous night, I had learned that this hotel had not been receiving guests for about six months now since Maya's tenure got terminated.
That was a long time for a business to go quiet. Then again, the hotel solely relied on a caretaker. Without one, there was no Midstreet.
Looking at my reward again, I began to feel finally a part of this place.
Now I could open the doors with style like all the others. Matter of fact, the description said "mentally," which meant I did not have to touch a thing.
Doors would literally open and close themselves for me, and I could turn a room into Antarctica or the Sahara just by thinking. How sick.
I could not hold my curiosity any longer, so turning toward the bedroom door, I channeled my concentration toward it.
"Open."
The door swung so fast that when its hinges pulled it to a stop, I thought it would snap off the frame and fall.
"Oh crap."
If that had happened with someone nearby, especially my smaller colleagues, it would have resulted in fatal injuries.
It seemed like a skill right out of the system box. Just saying "open" triggered the default action, which was "open fully and fast." I would have to customize it to my own meaning by being thoroughly specific.
"Close gently," I thought to myself.
This time the door swung shut smoothly. Way to go.
"Open smoothly and halfway." It did. "Close smoothly to only a crack."
The door swung almost completely shut but left a small gap that could only fit a finger.
The smile that was playing on my face was one similar to a kid who had just received a dream Christmas gift.
Someone might have thought this was a pretty lame ability. I mean, what could it possibly accomplish?
Well, try asking that from any horror movie victims. I am sure they would have an entire essay on the usefulness of it.
After being satisfied with my door-opening mastery, I turned my attention to temperature.
Suddenly, I felt grateful for having started with the door. Imagine if I had started with "increase or reduce temperature" and shot automatically, turning this room into hell or a freezer.
Either way, I would have perished by my own hands.
I hesitated, thinking of a way to test this.
The dungeons, as I soon realized, were never too cold or too warm. Its temperatures were always comfortable enough for someone to always have just a t-shirt on. My new AC ability would therefore not be of much use here.
Still, I had to test its limits.
"Increase the temperature to 35°."
A sudden haze hit me as the air inside the room changed. I would have collapsed to the floor had I been standing.
See, 35 was a typical temperature on a normal summer midday. Usually, you could endure it with a little hydration now and then.
The difference, however, was that the sun never really shot from 25 to 35 in a second. The day's temperatures adjusted gradually throughout the day, therefore giving the body enough time to adjust as well.
Me, on the other hand... well, I had not given that much thought.
I had almost decided to bring it down again just as fast, but I stopped. That would be too much stress on my body systems.
I reached for my jacket and pulled it off. I was already sweating and feeling like the lamb Johan had burnt earlier.
"Slowly adjust back to the room's temperature," I frowned this time as I eased my tie that now felt suffocating.
My mind had gone foggy, and I had to speak up to get it to focus.
Slowly, however, the room began to fall back to normal.
"I will be damned if I don't already have a weapon," I thought to myself.
I was already swallowing back my thoughts when I had initially thought this job was utterly powerless.
It still was compared to the kind of power creatures in the upper floors wielded, but seeing this was its minor version which could still be upgraded, I really was not that bad after all.
Plus, it was just my first ability. What would happen after I had unlocked and enhanced several, only heaven knew. I would be the ultimate law within the premises of The Neutral Zone.
I now turned my attention to the finer details. Now that my excitement had stabilized, I began to notice the downside.
I had only managed to accumulate three soul points, which was about one point per brownie.
As disappointing as it was, it made more sense since soul points could only match the soul magic of the customer I served.
Brownies, even though they had magic of their own, were still minor Supernaturals, and so they were charged only the bare minimum.
I quickly navigated to the currency conversion tab that had activated after acquiring soul points.
It took just one look to bring my flying spirit back to the dungeon.
The rate was one soul point equivalent to $30.
That meant with just three of them, I had a $90 budget to work with.
This was a complete disaster waiting to happen.
Ninety dollars could barely replenish the honey we had run out of, and that was the least of my problems.
I did not know just how much of the other ingredients and food supplies we had left.
It was only now that I was thinking about this that I could finally appreciate Maya's work.
Those six months the facility had been closed meant there had been no more soul points incoming.
Still, what she had stocked had somehow carried them this far.
Now it actually got me thinking. How much had she accumulated? Better yet, what was the highest floor she had unlocked?