'Screw it, if its still there in the morning, I'll have a look at it, but I am certain this is a trick.'
With that thought he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
***
- Inside Xale's subconscious. -
"So you want to ignore me?" a woman talked to Xale through his subconscious with an eyebrow raised.
"Don't want to kid myself..." Xale said like he was being hypnotised.
"Isn't your dream to become able to stand up for yourself? Why hesitate even if it might be an hallucination? You've got nothing to lose." the woman said.
"Its just me being me... I'm weak and so is my hope... Nothing good can come from believing you..." Xale said drowsily.
"Doesn't matter. As soon as you wake up and realise I'm still here, you'll accept. No doubt in my mind."
"..." Xale didn't respond. Neither confirming nor denying.
"Its as I thought." she smirked at the blank looking Xale.
***
Xale opened his eyes and felt incredibly groggy, like he couldn't remember something but knows there's something to remember.
Xale tried to sit up, expecting some resistance and pain due to getting beaten up yesterday however he was pleasantly surprised that there as no such thing.
'What the...' Xale thought while checking over his body, expecting to see a bunch of bruises and scrapes.
"I swear I was all beaten up yesterday..." he murmured. Clearly in disbelief that there was no sign of bruising, swelling or scrapes any where to be seen.
Just as he was about to get up and check with his mother that this was correct, that he was all beaten up. He spotted something, something that sparked off a few strings in his memory.
"Holy shit!" he yelled before quickly putting his hands over his mouth as he didn't want to wake the others.
"So it wasn't a hallucination..." he whispered to himself.
Of course, he as talking about the floating semi-transparent screen that was supposedly taunting him the night before.
[ User Xale Donovan you have been chosen to inherit the power of the Abyssal System due to meeting the correct parameters. ]
[ Do you wish to accept? Y/N. ]
'...' his mind was blank. Thinking about what to do about it.
'Can I just make it go away? Do I want to make it go away? What is this thing? What are the parameters? How do I match the parameters?.' A lot of unanswered questions like this were firing off in his mind until a final question appeared.
'Will it make me stronger?' the one thing Xale wished for apart from the return of his father and the well fare of his family.
[ Yes. ] The thing replied.
'Then it's settled.' he concluded and said "I accept." with determination.
[ User input confirmed. Initialising assimilation with the host. ]
Without further ado the screen exploded into a pitch-black cloud of smoke and started entering Xale through any pore they came across.
Xale surprised, put his arms up and backed off. But only until he realised the smoke felt invigoratingly pleasant. He continued to absorb the smoke for about 2 minutes until it had all dissipated.
'Woah... That was intense." this was the first thing he thought, it as truly a fascinating experience that he doubts anyone else or atleast, very few people have had the honour of feeling, it as a sublime feeling, like he was being born anew.
His attention had quickly changed target as he as sat staring at yet another floating semi-transparent screen.
[ Welcome User Xale Donovan, I am pleased that you chose to accept a once in a [ Error: Number does not exist in human language. ] lifetimes opportunity. Starting today, you shall start your journey in becoming greater than gods and demons. ]
'...' his mind went blank.
"Who? Me? Nah, I think you got the wrong guy. There's many SSS rank hunters in the world, it's an infeasibility that you would choose me over them. They could literally destroy a mountain and still have energy remaining to fight after doing so."
[ I think you are mistaken. It's quite the opposite, It's an infeasibility for THEM to be chosen. They are too tainted with energy from higher beings. ]
"Doesn't that mean I'm 'tainted' too?" Xale said with an eyebrow raised.
It was no secret that the human's power was granted by higher species like gods and demons. There even existed a few on this world, albeit weaker ones that resided in different dimensions. Xale believed he was no different, although his powers were incredibly pathetic compared to the average 18 year old who were atleast double his strength, he believed that he received power from a higher species.
[ No. You are untainted, this was a requirement, what you possess is your own ability, not some other being's power. This alone is incredibly special. This means you have the ability for infinite growth if given my system. ]
'...'
"..." this time both his mind and mouth were coming up empty.
Who could blame him. He who was deemed trash among the lowest class of civilians had the capability for infinite growth that even those ridiculously strong ones didn't have.
'Impossible.' he mind scoffed
"So what about the other requirements. What are they?" Xale asked.
[ The right mindset, ambition and also to be human. I can't give this to a power hungry lunatic, sadistic is fine, revenge-ridden is ok too if its not too cumbersome. I also cannot give it to a weak-willed person with no ambition, who has accepted themselves as trash and will only continue to be so. However you, you are not like them. The system can see all things. You are a tad sadistic, even if you don't know it, you are. You are strong-willed, someone who has considered suicide on many occasions but has never fell because of his family and rationality, you have reason to live, even if it's not your own. Finally, you are not afraid to climb, you have nothing to lose by aiming for higher places, is what you think and that is true. You are the only person in the universe that currently possesses the four requirements. My creator shall not hesitate to take this opportunity, as it is as rare for you as it is for 'it'. ]
"What is 'it'?" he asked.
[ The Abyss. It takes many forms. It's a place and an entity. A place where no God or Demon can escape and an entity which no other being can beat. All worship it, willingly or indirectly. Even if its an it, she likes to be called 'she' because that's the form she takes the most apart from endless nothingness. ]
"So my benefactor is a god above gods. How am I supposed to benefit someone like her?" his face was covered in disbelief.
[ She would like to see and live through another person. ]
"And? There has to be more than that." Xale frowned.
[ Maybe. I have not been informed if so. We have been talking for long enough would you like to view the system interface? Think or say 'status' for your stats and 'menu' for additional features. ]
"Well I have many unanswered questions. But I would like to see my future." Xale sighed as he felt the system was at its limit to what it could tell him.
'status'
As soon as he thought that a screen appeared with all his information.
'Ha, I must have great reception.'
[ User: Xale Donovan ]
Class: --
Level: 01 0/100 exp
Health: 10/10 Mana: 100/100
Strength: 12
Stamina : 10
Agility: 8
Intelligence: 10
Perception: 7
[ Skills ]
Passives:
- Abyssal Guide Rank (Unranked), level MAX
- ??? Rank (???), level ???
Active:
- Colourful Iris Rank (E-), level 01 27/100 exp
'Incredible, it has more information than the bracelets the academy hands out. They only have three stats and the current rank of the student.' he thought in amazement.
'Menu'
[ Menu ]
- Quests [ 1 new quest ]
- Store (locked)
- Codex [ All the information you ever learn will be automatically stored here in a convenient way to make it easier for the user to recall information. ]
- Portals (locked)
Even though Xale was curious about the quest tab he was even more curious about the codex.
'So it records everything? That's just too unfair.' Xale thought suspiciously as he called 'Codex'.
[ Codex ]
- People [ Everything you know about anyone of significance you've met ]
- Bestiary [ Everything you know about beasts ]
- Infopedia [ Everything you've learned or general knowledge ]
"Incredible..." He couldn't help but mutter as he was skimming through all of the info stored in the codex. It as even all split up into sub-categories.
It had literally anything he had any knowledge of, his academic studies, the names and information of anyone he knew, all the information he had on beasts that he had gained over the years etc, literally everything.
'Wouldn't academy exams be a walk in the park with this? This is better than photographic memory, haha.' he really couldn't believe it, an actual infopedia that records anything he learns.
'Alright enough of that. Quests.' he called.
[ Quests ]
1 new quest:
- Daily Quest:
Get your ass into shape! Objectives:
- Push-ups 0/100
- Sit-ups 0/100
- Minutes of plank 0/30
- Kilometres ran 0/10km
Rewards - 2 attribute points
Time left: 16 hours, 34 minutes and 28 seconds
[ Not doing the daily quest will result in a penalty based on your level. ]
'Fuck! I new I wasn't getting a free ride!' he threw his arms in there in exasperation.
He calmed down straight away and thought about it logically 'I suppose its to be expected. I couldn't even outrun a rank D who wasn't even given a boost in agility. But there's one thing I don't get... how does exercising help.' he wondered.
Although people can increase their strength, its not through exercise and there's only 2 ways. There are crystals that grant an increase in stats if the crystal was from a beast on the same level or higher, this was the simplest way, however it had a big downside. The crystals gained are only affective for one hour after leaving a beasts body, so they couldn't be bought or stored.
The other method was through training an ability line. When you are granted an ability at age 16, its more like an affinity with a certain element. If you were given a rank A ability that meant you had a rank A affinity with the element related to your ability. There were of course some exceptions to this like Xale, whose ability doesn't seem to be related to an element. People like him usually find out what their affinity is after progressing the line to the next level.
Each ability can be trained, the more you train the more control you have over it. But each ability has a cap for each level, when you reach this cap you need to break through. Once you break through you get a few things, the ability increases in strength and possibly rank. You also get a substantial increase in stat points based on what rank your ability is. The last thing you gain is a new ability in the affinity that you possess.
The second method is how the academy measures talent. Its how fast someone's breakthrough pace is and where there limit is. Each person has a limit and talent, they both correlate to each other, if your talent is high then most likely you limit is also going to be high. This is all tested at the academy when each batch of new students enter and luckily is entirely private to the faculty and student.
None of this required exercise. For some people this didn't even require any physical activity. It would be incredibly strange to see someone exercise in this day and age since training would refine the body and keep you healthy, why would you need to exercise?
[ Because your power isn't borrowed. The reason other ability users all have healthy bodies is due to the higher species not wanting their representatives to look worse than their peers' representatives so they added a feature where the body naturally refines itself the more you train. Its quite silly. Technically the Abyss is your benefactor and although she does care about looks, she prefers that you exercise for it unlike others because she feels like its more natural. ]
'I see.' he said seeming to be in deep thought.
"While you're here, can you tell me what my limit and talent is?"
[ No limit, and your talent is the system which is your passive [ Abyssal Guide ] so its Unranked. If you are wondering how the 'academy' is going to react for your talent, don't worry. The system will allow you to choose what will appear. I will be leaving now, I will appear from time to time so you will have another chance to ask questions. Good Luck User Xale Donovan. ]
"Thanks." he smiled.
'No limit and the system is my talent eh? Awesome.' he said with a huge grin on his face which hadn't surfaced since his before his dad died.
'Although I wish to know what the [ Portals ] and [ Store ] functions are, that will have to wait because it seems I have some exercise to do.' he laughed, he was originally mad at having to do exercise but the news of 'Not limit' and the 'System is his talent' really put him in the most positive mood ever.
Who could blame him after all, everyone had a limit. Atleast before him. Plus he has a chance to get back at his bullies that were most likely going to go with him to the academy.