When I woke this time it was to a pounding headache, I could barely focus on what was in front of me, but never the less there was one thing that kept on dancing in the forefront of my mind and my memories. Caroline was my mother, and they were taking her away. And even worse was the fact that number 1 through 6 were actually all my elder siblings, second chance at life or not, I would have preferred to not have any other siblings…. The experiences from my past life were… pretty fresh,
I felt a nudge on my right hand which forced me to look down a bit. Now normally the first reaction to seeing what I just did would be to run away, but I was eerily calm, I couldn't bring myself to be afraid of something I saw as a part of myself, like I was looking at a limb. It…or rather she was a lizard…only a very weird one if I do say so myself. She was about the size of a full grown housecat, she had two…. wait! I sat up suddenly, wincing at the sharp lance of pain that went through my head as I looked at what for all intents and purposes was a baby dinosaur.
[what the hell?]
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<< Passive Card Skills: None>>
<< Active Card Skills: None>>
The eyes that looked back at me were the same deep pools of blackness as mine, except there were patterns to it, tiny flecks of grey that spread at the edge to an even deeper black in the middle. This was my beast, and the information that just popped into my head, dancing through my eyes was both our stat page. She was a dinosaur, a raptor as the stat page had called her, but why was she called a compound raptor.
[COMPOUND RAPTORS: This ancient beast has all of the ferociousness and savagery of its crustaceous roots however on account of being a compound beast, it can take on the properties of anything it eats. With jaws capable of biting through even toughest of steel, the compound raptor becomes capable of retaining the properties of anything it devours within its very gene pool, developing the abilities to morph into a beast of any material, from rocks, metal to even the flames of the fire element. It is a beast that can morph to match augmentation cards, and be infused into the body of its master to grant him or her significant boosts in defense and speed. They grow as long as three and a half meters from snout to tail, and as tall as two meters from the ground to the top of their heads.
They have powerful legs that can carry them and their riders across vast distances, achieving a speed of 300km an hour. However, they tire easily and as such are not long distance runners but short term sprinters like lions. They have thin but very powerful forelimbs/hands that could shred through metal like its paper. Due to their nature, they can adapt and survive in any environment. This beast is suited for skills that depend on power and defense stats, they're usually born with low energy levels and lack in the intelligence department. They're fighters and not casters.]
I looked back at our stat page and saw the extremely high level of her intelligence and energy stats, whatever the case might be, it seems my beast is completely different from what the system says. I get the feeling I just saw the text book introduction of my beast, there's definitely a chance that a lot of things would be different from the reality. The tiny raptor moved up my legs to nestle herself on my lap, falling asleep almost immediately as I raised my head to take note of the new arrival in the room; Carol was very much absent.
"Number Seven! My name is commander Yusuf and I shall be your teacher and caretaker for the foreseeable future. Since you can't talk then that's to your advantage, all you have to do is listen. From now on, your waking time is six and your sleeping time starts at 9. I will work you to the bone, and train you so that you will not be so useless. Now! Are you ready for your first lesson?" the man asked, as his mouth released tiny amounts of spittle towards me. I nodded my head rapidly, using the motion to avoid the oral discharge as I sat straight up on my bed, the initials Seven etched on its edge by a bored Carol, who as the minute passes by I'm realizing isn't here at all.
"Good listen up. Now that you have access to your system, you must be able to see that you have abilities. Now abilities can be considered classes, it is the thing that your energy is patterned after. One of your ability is wind mastery or so I'm told, with enough training you would be able to control wind, but that's just it, control and in a completely unrefined manner.
However, this is where cards come in. if you have a passive card like static shock, the card would assimilate or rather it would change its properties to match your abilities. So static shock can be wind shock or vibration shock. Which means anybody who touches you will get hurt by either the wind element or vibration. Any living being with a terminal can only have 5 skill slots, which is to say you make it all passives or actives or mix it up. Cards can be upgraded or mutated if you're lucky or unlucky enough. Once you choose a card for any of your five slots then that's it, you're never getting a second chance, so it would be best to choose a card that matches your abilities.
There are grades of cards, from the lowest to the highest there's the black grade and each grade are further divided into 1 to 5 stars to show their rarity. After black is white, then red and then green and then the highest Blue cards. Higher grade cards are harder to obtain, so it's not always a good idea to get those as it would be really hard if not impossible to upgrade them. now card slots are limited to five, but if you gain a new terminal, increase your current terminal to a certain level, gain or buy a new ability, you can get an additional card slot.
You're lucky, you have two abilities, which are mostly decided from birth, so you have six slots instead of 5. The caliphate will make sure you put it to good use. Cards can be gained from dungeons or beast dimensions, and they can also be gotten when you kill a person or their terminal orb or terminal beast. Now as opposed to living beings, the terminals have more slots for cards than we do. We have abilities and they have traits, and each traits affords them 3 passive and active slots for their first trait, 2 for their second and then 1 for their third. And any other subsequent trait they get will add one slot to both passive and active card skills.
That's why the terminals are the prime weapons of warfare, there are war-machines that need the energy and skills of a terminal to work. None the less you don't need to worry about cards and skills at the moment, tomorrow you begin combat training and general knowledge learning, I will turn you into a soldier the likes of which the world has never seen. Get some rest Seven, you're going to need it for what's to come." And then he turned around and marched out of the small white bedroom, I was left watching, my ever silent voice asking a question no one could answer.
"Where is Carol?"