After recovering some mobility, Dilos naturally didn't stay in bed all the time. Whenever he had nothing else to do, he tried out his new superpower to see if he could discover any other uses for it.
Psychic abilities could be called an all-purpose power, but based on what Dilos knew about superpowers in his previous life, not everyone could develop their psychic abilities to that extent.
Psychic abilities included mind control, telepathy, and illusions, as well as telekinesis, the power to move things from a distance. The example that stood out most in Dilos's mind was Jean Grey, the Phoenix of the X-Men movies. She was one of the rare people who had developed her psychic powers into an all-purpose ability.
Although part of the reason her powers were so strong was the boost from the Phoenix Force inside her, there was no denying that, even without it, she had terrifying potential of her own. The title of Omega-level Mutant was no joke, even if she had only that potential.
Think of the original story: because of the Phoenix Force's interference, Jean Grey was never able to use her full power. Whenever she did, she unleashed terrifying strength, but her mind was liable to spiral out of control and wreak havoc on everything around her. If the Phoenix Force hadn't interfered with her, she could undoubtedly have grown into an incredibly powerful Metahuman in a short time.
With such a powerful psychic as his example, Dilos was naturally eager to see how far his own abilities could develop. So every day, in addition to using Tiger-Leopard Thunder Sound to temper his body and speed his recovery, he trained his powers as well.
He believed his ability couldn't possibly be limited to something as simple as Emotion Radar. But after two weeks, his enthusiasm began to wane. His powers had made no progress at all, and he realized he'd been far too optimistic. All this time, besides sensing small animals about the size of spiders and controlling their behavior to some extent, he'd seen no sign of any other impressive ability, like telekinesis.
In the end, he gave up trying to develop other powers. He had more or less concluded that his psychic ability was limited to telepathy. But he wasn't too disappointed. If he couldn't develop other powers, he could at least strengthen the one he had through daily training!
He did just that. As a result, the small arthropods around Dilos's home suffered, especially the spiders.
Controlling spiders took a tremendous amount of mental energy, but Dilos refused to give up. After tempering his body each day, he would make the spiders scurry this way and that. Even when he felt mentally exhausted, as soon as he recovered, he would happily go back to pestering them.
After all, if training didn't make you tired, could you really call it training?
And it did have its benefits. Within a month, his mental strength had grown, controlling spiders had become easier, his memory had improved, his reflexes had quickened, and his appetite had increased...
If Dilos hadn't made a point of controlling how much he ate, he would have eaten his Uncle Gabe out of house and home by now.
"Looks like I'll have to figure out a way to make money," Dilos thought. In truth, he'd wanted to write novels for money ever since he'd arrived in this world. He'd noticed that this world's bestselling fiction market was nowhere near as developed as it had been in his previous life. In fact, it was downright poor. Just think: this world didn't even have the Harry Potter series, let alone anything comparable. And even when there was something similar, the writing wasn't very good.
So he'd come up with a plan: write the Harry Potter series and publish the books year by year to make a fortune! If the series had been so popular in his previous life, there was no reason it wouldn't be a hit in this world.
Harry Potter was his favorite novel, bar none. And his memory was quite good, so even though the series was very long, he could still recall most of its details. He'd just need to make a few appropriate changes to the characters' backgrounds and their relationships.
There was one problem, though. The month was up, and his body had fully recovered—better than ever, in fact. But the doctor Lex had called was due to come back for a follow-up examination.
What would the doctor think when he discovered that Dilos had completely recovered, without even the slightest aftereffect?
Dilos didn't know, but he knew the doctor would definitely tell Lex. To be honest, he didn't want anyone finding out about his ability—not yet, anyway. There were too many bastards in this world. The moment they noticed even the slightest thing unusual about you, they'd want to study you, to get their hands on your power... Mutants faced this sort of thing most often.
The people behind these inhumane experiments were usually powerful figures in the military and politics, along with the filthy rich. A good example was Lex's father, Lionel Luthor.
Over the past month, Lex had come to visit him often. Whenever he did, Dilos wrapped himself in bandages and pretended he hadn't recovered.
After getting to know Lex for a while, Dilos trusted him to some extent. But as for his father... The whole town probably hated and feared the man. Pete Ross's father had lost his entire farm and been out of work for a long time because Lionel had swindled him, nearly leaving him homeless.
And from the odd things Lex had let slip, Lionel Luthor was ruthless and domineering, cruel, treated people like they were nothing, and cared only about profit. He was a psychologically disturbed monster.
If even his own son described him that way, the man's character had to be rotten. Given the way Lex had been raised, Dilos could guarantee that even if he didn't become like the Lex Luthor from the movies and shows right away, it was only a matter of time.
But after thinking it over for a long time, he still couldn't come up with a good solution. Eventually, he thought of his ability. If he could use telepathy to control spiders... could he control people, too? No, even hypnosis would do. At least that would achieve his goal!
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