The creator system

Sparks shot out of the motherboard and Calvin jumped back in panic. The sparks continued but then stopped after a while.

"Another failure," Calvin sighed.

He had been working on this device for close to ten years and he had yet to see any progress.

In front of him was a white box with a hole in the middle that was big enough for your hand to go through.

The box had been slightly extended to reveal its motherboard and that was what Calvin had been working on.

He could still remember that desolate evening when his father was about to pass on. He had called him over and handed him the key to their house's basement that he had been forbidden to enter.

"Down there is a device I have devoted my life to. It is yet to be completed but I want you to hold on to it dearly, it would let me rest in peace." His father had said.

Before Calvin could even ask for more details, he was gone.

The whole world mourned when he died. He was one of the most important figures in the world so that much was to be expected.

Being one of the greatest creators that was essential to the modern world, his importance on earth could not be over emphasized on.

He would truly be missed.

Calvin had not been able to spend much time with his father when he was still alive, but his death still shook him down to his roots.

When he was finally over his father's death, he decided to go to the basement as his father had directed with his dying words.

That was where he had found it.

The white box was the only thing in that room so it had to be the device his father had been talking about.

He looked around for manuals or blueprints so he could know what the device was, but he could see none.

Unable to find any useful thing caused Calvin's curiosity to peak to the max.

He wanted to know more.

That curiosity made Calvin venture into the world of science so that he could know more about the box.

He began to take his science subjects seriously and even went as far as getting a philosopher's degree in mechatronics and every other major that would help him figure out what that white box was.

His curiosity was not the only thing that pushed him. He still wanted to do this for his dad as well.

He had called the white box his life's work, so being able to complete his father's life work would make him feel a sense of fulfillment.

In his quest to achieve all of this, he lost his mother to a terminal illness as well.

This left him alone in the world and he inherited his father's multi-billion dollar company and became one of the richest men in the world.

In the end, all of the money went into his endeavor; discovering the secrets of the box.

An endeavor that he had been chasing for years but had yet to see any progress on. His father's business was failing because of the way he was using the money.

Every person kept advising him to leave this box but he was adamant about discovering what secrets it held.

It was a lot more than just satisfying his curiosity now. He was doing it for his late parents as well.

Calvin released another sigh before walking out of the lab.

He was done for the day.

He hung his lab coat on the rack before stepping out the door. The lab where he worked on the box was part of his house so he just walked up the stairs and went to his bedroom.

On the walls in his room hung multiple posters of different superheroes. It ranged from DC's superman to Goku from DBZ.

Even though Calvin spent most of his time in the lab, he did take a break every once in a while.

He knew that spending every bit of his time on that box would reduce his productivity, so he took breaks every once in a while which he used to read comics, mangas, and even watch movies.

Calvin had become a fan of all of these superheroes and had become used to spending his free time watching them on his big screen and reading their comics.

Any normal person would have used this free time to find a girlfriend or something.

But Calvin wasn't normal.

Calvin laid on his big and comfortable bed. He didn't even bother to take a bath. He indulged in his thoughts thinking about how he was going to tackle the white box tomorrow.

His gaze then landed on the superman poster on the wall.

'It must feel good to have superpowers. I would've had the power of impossible intelligence and maybe I would've solved this by now.'

That was Calvin's last thought before he drifted off into a deep sleep.

*****

The next morning, Calvin had already woken up and after having a bath, he rushed down to the lab.

He had a few ideas in his mind that he wanted to incorporate immediately before they left him.

There was a laptop connected to the white box and Calvin was going through the programming like he always did before he started working on the box itself.

Suddenly, he spotted something.

A code.

One he had never seen before.

That should've been impossible. The number of times he had checked the programming codes couldn't even be counted. There should be no way that he would see one he had never seen before.

After a few minutes of scrutinizing this new code, Calvin realized that this code had absolutely nothing to do here.

It shouldn't even be there.

Thinking that he might have typed it in by accident back then in the past when he was rewriting the codes, he deleted it.

When he did that, he decided to run the program.

The moment he clicked that button, the laptop shut down.

Calvin was a bit confused and he tried to restart the laptop. That was when he heard a beeping sound.

He turned and the beeping sound was coming from the white box.

Still in his moment of confusion, he didn't know what to do. The box then retracted and hid its exposed motherboard. It was then that the beeping stopped.

Calvin regained clarity and walked over to the box to check it out. In the years that he had been working with this thing, it had never done this before.

He checked it out and he couldn't see anything off. It had just closed its exposed motherboard.

That was it. That was all it did.

Just as he was about to get disappointed, a holographic interface was suddenly shown above the box.

Calvin's eyes widened when he saw what was written on the interface.

[The creator box is loading. Please wait.... 4%]

Calvin was ecstatic!

He was even more joyous when the box loaded to 100% in mere seconds. He had thought he would have to wait for a long time.

The information on the holographic interface changed.

[Please place a hand to be embedded]

"Place hand?"

"Oh, the hole in the middle."

Calvin put his hand through the hole. It was when he had put his hand did he now properly process what he had read.

"Embedded? Doesn't that mean—"

Before he could complete his sentence, he immediately felt something hold his hand tightly in the hole and he was then hit with pain that could not even be described.

He screamed at the top of his lungs and tried to drag his hand out of the hole but all to no avail.

After thirty seconds of screaming and struggling, the box finally let go of his hand.

He fell to the ground and held his hand with tears flowing down his eyes.

After the pain had come down a bit, he looked at his hand, and slightly below his wrist was a silver chip.

Before he could even process that, he suddenly saw an interface appear right before his eyes.

[Host user acquired]

[Welcome to the creator system]

"What the fuck is this?" Calvin asked with an underlying tone of panic.

[Processing query....]

[Answer: This is the creator system]

"I know that already. What I don't know is what you are," Calvin said.

[Processing query....]

[Answer: The creator system is the epitome of modern technology. I can create any ability that the host user can describe accurately enough for my program parameters to create.]

Calvin remained silent as he saw those words.

"Wait, am I reading this correctly?"

[Yes]

"So I can create any ability at all?"

[You can create and use these abilities]

"No freaking way.", Calvin stared at the interface with his mouth agape.

If what he was reading was true then this would change everything forever.