Now you're thinking with portals.

Wasn't it one of the more wondrous ways his newfound abilities expressed themselves? Forget the inventory window... what even was that? Somehow he could pluck through someone's body and pull out whatever he liked... well, whatever objects he liked. Even panties being worn were acceptable! Usually you needed 100 in pickpocketing to get that perk... but his gaming experience aside, he looked upon himself and focused on the theft ability, its power over space, its ability to correspond "there" to "here", and...

... opened his eyes to a new pop-up.

New Fighting Style: Spiraling Snake Style
Learn new fighting style?
This will replace all your martial skills.
You will lose Theft (lvl3). Its experience will transfer to this style.
Only one fighting skill can be learned.
You can only change styles twice.

YES NO

He swallowed hard. He inhaled until his lungs hurt... and hit YES with a sigh. His vision quivered, and the interface almost seemed to glitch out, followed immediately by reality. Red alarms started blaring, but John couldn't be bothered with so much as looking up as the gun drones all swiveled to "greet" him. He only blinked at the screen, steadying his breath as the changes overcame him. Wordlessly, Tricia engaged the emergency holographic screens that flanked her, tapping rapidly to try and deactivate whatever alarm his change had triggered before-

The noise was deafening as high-caliber machine guns tore fist-sized holes into John. Tricia cried out, squeezing her eyes shut even as her hands worked by muscle memory. She couldn't get close enough to that bulletstorm to try and heal him... and her eyes remain closed as she's unable to watch a man under her care die by her drones. She screamed the horror of shock and guilt that overcame her, and didn't even feel the tears as they burned down her faux cheeks. More warnings appeared, their glow lighting up her eyelids, and she knew she had to open her eyes if she was to have any chance at saving John.

She risked a glimpse at the new screens... and saw him, standing there as the steel **** rained... unmoving. Each bullet sliced through him... and bloodlessly slammed into the ground behind him, never changing its angle of descent, never imploding after being filled with some portion of his guts as they should've been. The bullets continued to sing their deafening chorus, creating a ring of splattered metals on the reinforced floor of Tricia's lab. Hot shrapnel licked at her shins, but she barely felt them as she tried to understand what she was seeing. The image of him vanished suddenly... and now he was nearly twelve feet away, by her chemistry lab. The guns swiveled again, and she frantically worked, confused and relieved and worried they'd spark an explosion if she couldn't get them to shut down. There were too many red alerts, too many security layers she had installed to address the worst enemies of her bloodline, and now they were all being activated. John looked around, noting all the fragile materials... and realized the drones, once flanking him, would now rain **** in a single, funneled path of wall after wall of iron. He crouched defensively... and the drones all vanished as he stared at the silver, swirling back of a disc that covered him like a shield. Another such disc appeared to float before the far wall by the only entrance to this place, and as the bullets whizzed towards him he watched as a waterfall of crushed bullets came down from the wall that other disc faced.

Tricia couldn't take this anymore. If she was killed in this moment of danger... to Hell with it. "Manual override: ALL SECURITY SYSTEMS, STOP!" The drones silenced their complaint, and Tricia, breathing in rapid, heavy breaths, continued her orders with trembling lips. "Security systems: register new resident, full clearance, Level 4. John Newman. Confirm registration." The drones twitched and tithered, and a few swerved around the disc to put dozens of tiny cameras on the crouching eighteen-year-old. A green light of acknowledgement shimmered as each took in his frozen, oddly calm expression. John was registered. "... Enemy report." No enemies detected. "Restore security protocols. Commence post-security operation clean-up." John continued to look around, a bit stunned at all that transpired... and only finally fell back with a scream when the shield suddenly vanished. Tricia calmly walked up to him, her feet sweeping through the debris, and watched as her guest backed away into a table behind him. "I can explain-"

"Th-They tried to kill me!"

"John, please-"

"You tried to... kill..." John's words trailed off as he finally looked at Tricia. Her eyes glistened in the pale light, and thick streams of tears glittered on her cheeks, contrasting against the pale illusion of skin and the true, hard black of her suit.

"John, please. There are so many parameters, so many things that went wrong... and among them was not realizing in advance that you could simply... change or acquire additional magical disciplines with a wave of your finger on such arbitrary conditions. You have no idea how much this would terrify others. But I'm a Gorbachev, as you know... and I will not... I must not..." Her voice and lip trembled, and she blinked more tears away. "... I will not hurt someone under my care." John, still leaning on his arm as he sits against the table leg, could only look up at her, stunned into silence by the raw emotion that cracked that neutral mask of hers. In their silence, only a few feet away, a tiny floor drone with a dustpan walked up to the small mountain of bullets, and a helicopter with a large broomhead attached to it made awkward motions to sweep some of the debris away. "Please... affirm that you understand, and can still trust me..."

Could John have ever trusted her? "... Yes ma'am."

Tricia nodded, and wiped her cheeks. "Good."

The next few minutes were a silence broken only by the occasional shifting of almost a dozen drones working to clean the mess of their master's "accident", dustpan by dustpan. John was content to leave Tricia to her tasks as she leaned back into her chair and toiled away at holograms in silence; such allowed him a moment to review his character sheet. The first striking difference was his mana: it had been totally expended, and only now had ticked up to two thanks to his passive regen. Habit told him to meditate before he got comfortable with the new "style" button on his sheet, but his curiosity was having none of that. He engaged the style sheet, watched as it attached to his regular panel, and read in stunned silence all the changes... and all the ideas... this new suite of abilities gave him. He almost missed the quest completion text altogether.

QUEST COMPLETE!
100XP
Spiraling Snake Style started at lvl3, but will now start at lvl4!

"This is plenty to take in..."

"I... imagine so. Though Correspondence is a sphere of magic many are versed in, learning it carries an unusual rate of gruesome accidents."

"Yeah, I- wait, what?"

She waved her hand dismissively. "You've already shown incredible, seemingly spontaneous talent for it, so I wouldn't worry about accidentally bisecting yourself with your own teleportations." If tunnel didn't have explicit text promising that it wouldn't cut him in half, he might have decided to never end up using this newfound power. "More importantly, for my recording purposes... did you 'ding', finally?"

John shook his head, and looked through his quest log to find anything else he could do. There was the obvious one, of course: kissing Tricia would give him the last leg of experience he needed, as would all the other things on that unbelievable list. He looked her over, wondering how far her guilt for nearly killing him could take him. She wasn't even looking at him as he talked; once again a near-perfect diagram of his nude body was before her, and she tapped his virtual schlong to monitor whatever was her pressing concern. "Well, I have one quest that can get me there, but it involves you."

She finally turned from the floating screen to regard him, eyebrows raised. "Well, I feel inclined to help, given our recent episode. What does it require?"

[Full style explanation below the character sheet. - neo_kenka]

SPIRALING SNAKE STYLE
Level: 4
Primary Stats: Wisdom, Intelligence
Style Bonus per level: +5hp, +5mp, +5 inventory

(Tooltip: All sub-skill references to "level" refers to style level unless otherwise noted. All references to a "round" are six seconds. "Reserving" mana means it is spent and does not regen until the effect is cancelled. The following are sub-skills of Spiraling Snake Style.)

SERPENT'S STRIKE: A SWING HERE, AN INJURY THERE

Serpent's bite, 0mp: An unarmed style with straight or clustered fingertips in whipping, deep-tissue strikes. Deals [1 + (Wis/10) + (Int/15)] damage per level, rounded up.

Serpent's lunge, +15mp: Modifier for Serpent's bite. The strike is made in conjunction with tiny, momentary portals for a remote and precise attack. Max range 10 ft. per level. Serpent's bite will instead deal [5 + (Wis/5) + (Int/10)] damage per level, rounded up. Can be used with other attacks, albeit with no additional benefit or damage.

Serpent's fangs, +10mp: Modifier for Serpent's bite. Project the **** of the impact deeper into the target, striking internal organs and vitals directly. The damage bypasses armor and all exterior damage reduction. This damage becomes magical. Can be used in conjunction with [SUB-SKILL NOT ACQUIRED].

TELEPORT: ONCE HERE, NOW THERE

Jump, 25mp or 100mp: teleport a target, or yourself, up to 30 ft. per level. Unwilling targets can refuse if their level is higher than yours. Willing, aware targets reduce the cost to 25mp. Can only be used once per minute.

Blink, 5mp: teleport yourself up to 5 ft. per level. Can be used once every ten seconds, or earlier at the cost of double the mp of the last Blink.

Acquisition, 20mp: teleport an object out of someone else's possession. Success depends on their awareness of you, their level difference, and their attention to the item. Ability and teleport range are 5 ft./level, and can deposit the item in your inventory, an unattended place within range, or on someone else’s person if the latter is unaware of the attempt. Acquisition fails if it would cause harm. More general “search” parameters for what to steal have a greater chance of success, but with less predictable results.

PORTAL: FROM HERE TO THERE

Tunnel, variable mp reserve: opens two portals in two visible or familiar locations, joining them with this two-dimensional tunnel the two holes in reality create. These portals are locked into place by some reference in space: either the same spot over the rotating crust of the Earth, someone's particular body part, an object in realspace, and so on. These places are joined until a reference is too severely disrupted to maintain one or both portals, or until the user wills it. Objects caught in the closing portal are harmlessly shunted to the side they "exist" on the most. The distance between spaces, portal portability, and portal sizes determine their mana reserve cost: a general guideline is 10 + (10 per mile between) + (1 per inch wide). Each portal that can be considered "mobile" (referenced to moveable objects) adds 50mp to the cost, and fizzles if either portal is ever taken beyond the maximum range initially set. Though tunnel can use creatures as references, it cannot be opened inside of a creature. This spell's maximums are 1 mile max and 10 inches wide per level. Maximums are halved when using mobile portals. Tunnel cannot be used to travel between dimensions or realities.

Parse the false reality, 15mp: creates a portal into a near-perfect duplicate of the space beyond it, in which this "false reality" has washed-out duplicates of all inanimate objects and surfaces found therein. (Example: a portal put on the side of a house will open to a false reality based on the house.) It can be devoid of other creatures or populated with creatures from the Abyss based on the character level of the user. The portal's visibility depends on its shape, determined by the user (examples: a swirling pool of light would only be spotted by other "aware" entities, while a plain red door might be noticed by anyone). The false reality's size is determined by the user, up to 500 ft. per level, and will be appropriately populated for its size if desired. Time moves [skill lvl x 50]% slower inside the false reality so long as nothing is part of the way through the entrance. A false reality cannot be collapsed at will: the user must leave through the portal and collapse it on the "real" reality side. All real entities and objects still inside are shunted back to the real world upon doing so.

DISPLACEMENT: WHERE?!

Displacer field, 20mp reserve: makes you appear to be "just off" from where you really are in space, making it difficult for enemies to attack you. All attacks against you have a chance to miss you of 5% per level, to a maximum of 50%. Every 5% thereafter instead reduces the reserve cost by 2mp. Displacement is half as effective against small area-of-effect attacks and ineffective against large ones or ones that do not rely on actively targeting you.