28th May, 2170
Today was the last day of grade 10th after which Arcus would have to choose one among the four categories available while applying for further studies.
Category A:
For students who wish to pursue a career in Planetary Exploration and the Military.
Category B:
For students who wish to pursue a career in Science.
Category C:
For students who wish to pursue a career in Commerce and Business Administration.
Category D:
For students who wish to pursue a career in Arts or Humanities.
It was a dream for many students to one day explore new planets while fighting energy beasts and monsters. A well paid job came that came with huge risks and Arcus, like most of his fellow classmates dreamt of one day becoming a famous Reaver.
Arcus was among the few students who did not have an ability of their own but that wasn't an issue since all schools were required to provide students with an opportunity to own an ability before they choose to enter a category they wish to make a career out of. The abilities that schools could let students choose from were limited to Common ranked abilities. However, this was not the only way for students without an ability to gain one. One could get a rarer and stronger ability by either joining the Military and signing a long term contract with them or through getting into a top university that had the permission to give away abilities to their students.
Neither was Arcus interest in working for the military nor did he have scores that would get him into a university that gave away abilities.
Arcus was now seated in a classroom next to the school gymnasium along with a bunch of other students with no abilities waiting for his name to be called out so that he could finally receive an ability of his own. As he waited, he happened to listen in on a conversation between two students seated in front him talk.
"What if I get something weird and useless? I don't think I should choose Transformation anymore." a girl told her friend. "You finally realize? You would be better off choosing Support or maybe Sensory. Though Sensory requires us to pay a small fee, you should be able to cover it, right?"
Arcus had thought a lot before finally deciding on Transformation. At first he had thought of selecting Weapon Mastery but then decided against it because having to depend on a weapon completely, had started to worry him. Since the final ability was randomly generated and if he was to end up with bow mastery for an ability, his powers would be limited to his arrows. special arrows did not come cheap.
"I'm sure transformation is what will get me out of the hell hole I'm living in and even if I start off with something bad, I bet I can evolve into something stronger if I work a little hard" he thought to himself as he continued to listen to what the girls were saying.
"But you did hear about that girl who started of with a spider transformation ability and is now an S-Grade Reaver didn't you?" the girl told. "That only happens with less than a few million people you blockhead. She just got lucky and who knows, her ability might have been Mimicry and not Transformation. That would explain how she managed to reach..."
"Arcus Black, please head to the gymnasium to receive your ability" a woman shouted, opening the door to the classroom as she cut off the other girl mid sentence. Arcus got up and walked toward the door feeling swells of emotions inside him.
On his way he saw the boy who was called before him come out of the the gymnasium with a few papers in his hands as he grinned from ear to ear. Arcus managed to get a quick glance of the paper the student was holding and realized the reason why he looked so happy. It was the certificate given to people when they get their ability. It had a few things like the student's name, his new stats and the ability he had gained.
"Halberd mastery?! Maybe I should go with weapon mastery after all.. No! Remember what you're sticking with Arcus, we only get one ability." Arcus told himself while slapping his cheeks before he opened the door to the gymnasium.
There were four people in the room, two of them that he recognized, the woman who came to call him as a teacher at their school and the other being the vice principal who was seated alongside a middle aged man behind a large desk. There was another woman in a white lab coat who held a digital notepad in one hand while operating some sort of a huge machine that was placed a few feet away from the table.
"Arcus Black?" the middle aged man asked.
"Sir."
"I'm the government official who was tasked with distributing abilities to you students today and I hope you have come to a decision on what ability you want from the ones offered to you today?" the man asked with a gentle smile.
"Yes sir."
"Very well then, but before we let you pick an ability, we would like to record your stats beforehand so that we know the exact extent to which your ability will have improved your body. So if you don't mind could you head over to the machine over there and let Dr. Kate record your stats?"
"Yes sir."
"Thank you."
As Arcus approached the machine, he was asked to place his hands on a black orb. A few seconds after he had placed his hands over the orb, it glowed with a faint light after which his stats were displayed on a monitor.
[Name: Arcus Black]
[Ability: --]
[HP: 5/6]
[Condition: slight fatigue, starving]
[Strength: 4]
[Vitality: 3]
[Agility: 2]
[Intelligence: 5]
He knew that the average stats for a person were supposed to be at 5. He stood at a height of 5'7 looked like he hadn't eaten in days (somewhat true), appeared shabby and had messy black hair covering his forehead. His stats fit his small frame pretty well. He slightly rejoiced at the fact that at least his intelligence wasn't anything below average.
Nobody in the room looked surprised. Probably because all the other children who came to the room before him had similar stats as well due to them being either very poor or orphans because these days almost everyone in the world had an ability by the time they were finished with kindergarten.
"I'll now be listing out the abilities available to you." the official spoke once again.
"Transformation, Body Modification, Weapon Mastery, Support Magic and Sensory. Although the Sensory ability will require you to pay a sum of 500 Nummi, the other abilities will be of course free of cost. Despite all of them being Common abilities, they have potential to evolve into stronger and rarer abilities so please don't be disheartened if you were to receive a weak ability today."
(Author's note: Nummi was the new form of currency adopted by the Pangean Government after the unification of the world countries. 1Nm=$1)
"Now if you may, kindly pick an ability that appears the most suitable to you." the man said.
"Transformation please." Arcus said loudly.
"Sigh... are you sure boy? Not everyone is as lucky as that spider girl, you know. How about you think about it one more time?" the vice principal asked with a tired tone.
"Thank you sir but I'm sure of what I want to take."
"If that's what you want, then there's nothing more to say." the vice principal said in annoyance.
The official brought out a grey, polished stone with a ruin inscribed on it from a drawer inside the desk and gently put it on top of the desk in front of him.
"I hope you know what to do." the official said motioning Arcus to take the stone.
Arcus took the stone, sat down on the chair on the other side of the desk, placed the stone near his mouth and whispered "Metamorfoste". He then immediately put the stone in his mouth and closed his eyes.
A few seconds later Arcus felt his consciousness drift away, as it was transported to a foggy place. As he tried to move through the fog a cold breeze hit his face and the fog slowly receded, revealing its surroundings. He soon found himself in the middle of a marsh.
"A marsh?! Could it be a Hydra?!" He thought excitedly. "A living being?!" a loud, deep voice boomed across the marsh.
"The creature talked?! A creature with really high levels of intelligence." Arcus thought as he looked around the foggy marsh as he tried to locate the creature.
He tried calling out to the voice he had heard, a couple of times. But there was no reply.
After looking around for a few minutes Arcus felt his surroundings grow warmer as he spotted a cave in a distance. He decided to walk towards the cave as he suddenly remembered that hydras often dwelt within caves and as he couldn't find anything else nearby, he assumed that the hydra would be his transformation ability.
The hydra was a B-ranked monster. Although a hydra Transformation was unheard of, there were several Mimicry users who held the abilities of a hydra. The main difference between Transformation and Mimicry users was that a Transformation user had to completely transform into the beast to access it's powers whereas Mimicry users held the abilities of the beast but are not able to transform into one. Transformation users who had mastered their ability to the extreme could access their transformation's abilities without needing to transform.
As Arcus grew closer to the mouth of the cave, he found a giant sword with its tip stuck to the ground extending all the way up to the roof of the cave making it look like a pillar that was supporting the cave.
The cave was only as big as Arcus. So he didn't find anything weird about the sword as there were Reavers who used swords as big as them.
"What in the world is a longsword doing here? I'm pretty sure I took a stone with the Transformation ability."