Due to the war between humans and the Dalki, every individual was required to go to military school for the duration of two years. Although humans and the Dalki were currently embracing a peaceful period, nobody believed it would last forever. The Dalki were not to be trusted. Their taste and hunger for power and their desire to control creatures they considered to be beneath them, could hardly be kept at bay.
Every single day there would be news regarding one race antagonising the other, even on the verge of waging war. The citizens had this foreboding that an altercation could break out at any moment.
Quinn quickly went to the toilet before heading off with Sergeant Griff. His bladder felt like it was going to burst any second now because of the sheer amount of water that he had drunk.
Once he stepped out of his room, welcomed by the outside world, something strange happened. A new notification screen appeared in front of his eyes.
[Your body is being hit by direct sunlight]
[You are affected by the sunlight]
[All stats will be halved while you are exposed to the sunlight]
All of a sudden, Quinn's body felt extremely sluggish. He felt like he had just finished running a marathon and now needed to rest. His arms and legs felt heavier than usual, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Quinn proceeded to inspect his status while Sergeant Griff gave him a strange look for stopping as soon as they had set foot outside.
"Are you okay, boy?" the sergeant asked, getting ready to apprehend the boy in case he planned to make a run for it. Every year they would have some unwilling to come peacefully.
However, Quinn was not listening, nor did he have any plans to escape his responsibility. He was merely too busy looking at the screen before him, seeing that his stats had gone down. However, it wasn't just his stats, his HP had also been drastically reduced.
[HP 5/5]
[Strength 5/5]
[Stamina 5/5]
[Agility 5/5]
'What kind of drawback is this?!' Quinn wanted to shout out, but he was still aware that he was no longer alone.
"Quinn?" the sergeant called out again.
He was still staring at the screen as another notification appeared.
[You have received a new quest]
[Daily quest: Avoid direct sunlight for 8 hours]
[Reward: 5 Exp]
Quinn's mood was lifted as soon as he saw the new daily quest. Unlike the one that required him to drink water, this was something that he could do naturally just by sleeping. If the system worked the same way it did in games he had heard about, that would mean that once Quinn had earned 100 Exp, he would be able to level up and also increase his stats.
Hence, the more daily quests Quinn got, the better it was for him.
"What are you doing walking so slowly?! The school will eat you alive if you carry on like that!" Sergeant Griff shouted, waking him up from his stupor.
Quinn reached a large bus parked just outside of his apartment block. When he entered the bus, he noticed that it was already full of students who should be the same age as him. Some steps back, Griff stood watching him, his hands behind his back. Quinn had not even realised that the soldier had stopped. When he turned back to look at Griff, he could have sworn that Griff was a stone statue.
He turned back to the bus in front of him and discovered that he didn't recognise any of the students. That could only mean that they had all come from a different school. He felt a little relieved. With these new people, maybe the bullying would stop. Since nobody knew him, he had a chance to impress them, maybe even make some friends.
He opted to sit at the front of the bus since it was the only seat that was still available. The screen popped up in front of him immediately as he sat down.
[Stats have returned to normal]
It appeared that avoiding direct sunlight meant his stats would instantly return to normal. He was happy for it, since his body felt reinvigorated once again. As if a heavy weight had been lifted from his body
'Well, at least it looks like it's only direct sunlight.'
The students were all talking to each other in excitement, but that stopped as Sergeant Griff boarded the bus.
"Alright, it's time for us to head to the military academy," he announced, signalling the driver to begin their departure.
The bus jerked to life and started to move. The students were finally on their way. There was silence in the bus throughout the journey. Whenever a student started to speak, Griff would immediately glare in their direction, prompting the student to shut their mouth.
Griff didn't even have to say anything, since they all knew what he wanted, just by staring them dead in the eye.
About ten minutes into their journey, the pop-up screen came up again, and Quinn received another message.
[A substance in the air has been detected]
[You are feeling sleepy]
[Resistance +1]
Quinn found this message quite strange. So, he started to check out the interior of the bus. He noticed that half of the students were already asleep and the other half were drowsing off. He tried to fight it, but felt his body getting heavier. His eyelids were shutting down. At long last, even Quinn felt dizzy as sleep hovered around his consciousness.
[Your resistance to the substance has increased]
[Resistance +1]
Then, he heard the sound of loud footsteps coming towards him. He looked up to see Sergeant Griff hovering above him.
"Looks like a few of you were able to resist the sleeping gas. Guess we'll just have to bag you."
A black bag was thrown quickly over Quinn's head and his vision was completely covered. The gas started to slowly creep up on his consciousness, overpowering him. There was nothing he could do. His hand fell limply by the side and he dozed off, abandoning consciousness.
****
After a while, Quinn felt a splash of cold water chucked over his head. It served its purpose, immediately jolting him awake. The only thing that he could see upon opening his eyes, was a greenish smoke that dominated his surroundings.
He and several other students began to lift their heads to look around them. There were currently a total of five hundred students standing on a plain open field, in a strange place that none of them seemed to recognise. The puzzlement on their faces spoke volumes.
"This is where the lot of you will spend the next two years of your life," the voice of Sergeant Griff explained.
The green plain was not the only thing the students saw. There were three futuristic, huge buildings directly in front of them. The buildings were human images sculpted entirely out of glass. Each one stood at least sixty feet tall, but that was not the only thing that the field overlooked. They were standing on an elevated platform with a city in front of them, a hidden city. Everyone was already dressed up in a military uniform and there were technological marvels appealing to them all.
These devices were too advanced for their time. There were mechs moving crates and there were building machines, enormous things rising high into the sky with their crane. There was no one inside the machine, yet it laid down panel after panel of glass on a building that was still in construction.
There were flying ships, coming too close to the ground that Quinn was afraid that they would crash into the high rise buildings and send a shower of glass falling on the people in the city below. However, no such thing happened. They all followed a particular path. Then there were levitating trains which rose high into the air, running on rails that none of the students could see. Some of the technology they were witnessing had yet to be made public.
After the first war with the Dalki race, the humans had managed to make leaps in all sorts of technological fields. This was because they had managed to salvage a lot of equipment from the Dalki once the war was over. The military had decided to keep most of it for themselves. Some of the things they had found would just be too dangerous for the public to use. At least, that is what they claimed.
When Quinn finally managed to stop gawking at the new world he had been thrust into, he felt the weight on his hand and noticed that there was something placed around his wrist. It was a digital watch, yet there was nothing displayed on the screen yet.
"Placed on your wrist is your lifeline. It will identify you as a student at this military base. It will allow you to access certain areas, pay for food, and all sorts of other things. When not in use, the wristwatch will display a number - Your corresponding power level," Griff said.
It sounded to Quinn like he was speaking some strange foreign language, and from the confusion on the other students' faces, he was sure he was not the only one having difficulty understanding what the man was saying."
He had believed that his life might change after coming to military school, but it seemed like it was going to be the same game, only in another place.
"We will immediately begin testing your respective levels. Don't move until you are called forward, understand?!" Griff shouted with a smile on his face and everyone just nodded. The sergeant looked frightening with his smile. It was completely contradicting his hard face. "Good luck!"