At the current time, inside of what looked to be a rather futuristic classroom themed with blue and white colours was a young man no older than fifteen. He had smooth straight black hair and a pair of red eyes, along with wearing the official uniform for the school he was currently in.
As a male, his uniform consisted of a pair of black dress-pants and a white and blue blazer over the top of a white dress t-shirt that had both sleeves coloured blue along with the collars. His shoes were also a pair of black leather shoes.
Naoki Ryuga envied the talented.
For someone like him who was born with little to not talent when it came to manipulating Cryno, the very supernatural energy that allowed them to fight monsters, becoming popular and stronger in this world of survival was nothing more than a pipe dream.
He had long accepted this.
Don't get him wrong, it wasn't the popularity that he envied, it was the talent others had in becoming stronger that made him envy them. He has always worked hard to become stronger, harder than anyone else. Yet, what had he gotten out of it?
Jack shit, that's what.
For students who have first entered into a training school, in this case being Eden Academy, they would usually be graded as Mid to High D-Grade. These grades were essentially the system the world used to determine the overall capabilities of an Enlightened.
For the term Enlightened, it referred to all of those that had unlocked the ability to manipulate Cryno.
When it came to Ryuga though, his talent was no doubt at the bottom of the barrel. It was the second week of school and his grade was High E-Grade, so he was severely behind the other freshmen. True, at his level he was more than five times stronger than the strongest human body builder, but that was when comparing to normal humans.
While the difference between E-Grade and D-Grade may not sound like a lot, its differences weren't definitely visible when someone from each grade were to fight one another. The difference only got more obvious the higher the grade that both fighters had.
'Life can really suck...' Ryuga sighed as he slumped back in his chair. Despite having only been in this school for a week, pretty much all of his classmates were aware of how weak he was due to their few combat classes. 'Gods only smile down on the fortune after all...'
『Who cares about the gods, boy』
'Wh-What?' Ryuga almost jumped out of his seat at the sudden unfamiliar voice. Keeping himself in check, he glanced around, only to find nothing out of the ordinary. 'Was that just my imagination?'
『Talent is only the start. effort is what brings results』
'Okay, maybe not...' Ryuga wasn't entirely sure if he was going crazy or not, but whatever this voice was in his head said was something he could agree with. 'I have my doubts though, what have my efforts thus far brought me? What a joke...'
『Do you want to get stronger?』
After hearing this question, Ryuga's mind went blank for a second before a frown appeared on his face, his eyes shadowing a bit as well. The answer was obvious, getting stronger was all that he ever wanted. He could care less about popularity; strength was all that mattered to him.
Because in this world... he needed to survive.
'I do.'
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
After school had ended, the only thing to do was go about his regular routine.
Every day after school, along with during the weekends, Ryuga would go out into the forest surrounding a few areas around the city. He would always go to the parts to train, mainly because they were the areas where wild beasts were weak enough for him to train against.
Compared to the more dangerous areas and a majority, if not all, training facilities only had training simulations suited for people who were at the very least at D-Grade. It was unfortunate, but this was all he could do, he had no choice.
Right now, Ryuga had changed into a more casual form of attire consisting of black sleek jeans, black tall combat boots, along with a white t-shirt that stuck well to his muscular frame. To finish off, he had black gloves that were padded with metal spikes on the knuckles.
He found that he honestly had no talent for anything like swordsmanship, archery, or any other kind of weapon. Because of this, he resorted to learning how to fight using his fists through martial arts. Although rather looked down upon, he had to admit barehanded fighting had its advantages, he didn't need to worry about losing his weapon after all.
Unless someone cut off all his limbs of course...
『The Bounty System has been activated』
『User Detected: Naoki Ryuga』
"Huh...?" Ryuga stopped his training abruptly once that voice sounded in his head. "That voice again..."
Back when he was in class, this voice didn't speak to him again after having asked him that question about wanting to grow stronger. Because of that, he just dismissed it as him being delusional, but it seems like this thing was back...
'What...?'
Ryuga was taken back suddenly when a holographic screen appeared in front of his face. He wasn't surprised because it was a floating screen, more just the fact that it appeared. Holograms were a common thing these days.
.
『The Bounty System』
● Character
● Current Quest
● Abilities
● Bounties
.
"The bounty system?" Although confused, Ryuga hopped up onto a tall branch before sitting down as he paid attention to the screen in front of him. He tapped it a few times, noticing how it felt as if he was tapping against a pane of glass. "Might as well check this out..."
As surprising as it might be, systems weren't an unfamiliar term to him. If he wasn't mistaken, they were a common troupe when it came to novels in the past decades ago. Novels were rarely written nowadays, especially due to the fact that everyone wants to become stronger to fight against the monsters that had appeared decades ago.
To give a simple explanation, the monsters were called Ravagers.
They were monsters that had appeared during the same year that humans were exposed to Cryno, so many people had speculated that the Ravagers had some form of connection to the energy. In any case, the Ravagers were fierce mindless beasts who thrived on hunting humans.
.
『Character』
● Name: Naoki Ryuga
● Level: 1
● Power Grade: High E-Grade
● Status Points: 0
● Strength: 56
● Agility: 60
● Endurance: 54
● Magic: 54
.
The screen was very simple, and it reminded in of the status screen a number of video games would have, especially that of the RPG genre. Just like novels though, video games had long since began dying out, their popularity was very small these days.
'Pretty much an average of around fifty-five across all my stats, can't tell if that's supposed to be good or not...' Ryuga was willing to be the answer was no. He was only an E-Grade after all, it literally said near the top of the screen. 'Let's see the rest.'
.
『Current Quest』
● None
That was...disappointing.
.
『Abilities』
● Cryno Manipulation - [Rank: 3/10] [The ability to manipulate the energy of Cryno, allowing the user to not only enhance their own physical capabilities, but even form up a barrier to protect the individual from incoming damage]
.
Cryno Manipulation, something any and all Enlightened like himself were required to be capable of doing. This was one of the things he could proudly say he wasn't bad at, in fact, he was probably one of the best when it came to Cryno Manipulation out of the freshmen.
'Man, I thought I was good at manipulating my energy, but only rank three out of ten...' Ryuga sweatdropped a bit. This meant that all of his first-year classmates either had a rank of two or three in their Cryno Manipulation as well if he was one of the best. 'Now, bounties... what the hell is this?'
He had seen this at the bottom of the menu immediately, so it piqued his interest straight away.
.
『Bounties』
● Emerald Bone Dragoon - [Progress: 0/1] [Rewards: +50 All Stats] [Bounty Refresh: 1 Month]
● Star Wolf - [Progress: 0/5] [Rewards: +5 All Stats] [Bounty Refresh: 1 Day]
● Forest Black Crawlers - [Progress: 0/3] [Rewards: +10 All Stats] [Bounty Refresh: 3 Days]
.
Reading over what was available to him, Ryuga widened his eyes when he saw the bottom two. The first one was not going to happen any time soon, the Emerald Bone Dragoon was a monster that was recorded as a B-Grade monster, a Mid B-Grade monsters to be exact.
People wouldn't ever be expected to deal with that kind of monster until they at the very least graduate from training school.
'Star Wolves and Forest Black Crawlers, I can do that.' Ryuga held his chin in thought as he nodded. Star Wolves were common in this forest, and the crawlers not as much, but they could be found. 'Forest Black Crawlers are Early D-Grade monsters, but I can beat them if I play my cards right. Looks like I have a time limit though.'
If he were to assume right, then that refresh section at the end of each bounty probably meant that after the amount of time stated were to pass by, the bounty would most likely reset or be replaced with a completely different bounty altogether.
'The time isn't bad; I can definitely get both bounties done. Five wolves and three crawlers, I just hope the thing about stats is true...'