Just as Clay was about to test his new strength, he heard his Mom calling for him down the hallway.
"Clay!" Mrs. Mapa called.
"Coming!" Clay responded back.
'I wonder what this is about' he thought as he walked passed his sister's room, briefly glancing at it before suddenly remembering something.
'Oh yeah, my sister has been acting pretty suspicious lately, gotta deal with that later after doing what mom called me for'
Soon, Clay saw his Mom sitting on the chair beside the dining table, seemingly pondering over something.
Clay had already stood beside her thinking why she hasn't noticed him yet.
*Ding!*
<|$^)%#$%'s Gift| activated, host is invulnerable for 7 seconds>
Slowly, the world around Clay turned gray as his eyes widened.
Clay looked outside, and sure enough, the people were also frozen like his mom.
He calculated that he only had 4 seconds left of invulnerability.
With a sigh, he pulled out a chair and sat on it right in front of his Mom. It was still the same chair that wasn't officially designated as his but everyone knew that he sat there.
With 1 second left on the clock, Clay contemplated how long he would be frozen for this time.
'Surely it won't be more than a minute, right? Otherw-'
'-ise, that would be too powerful even by my standards'
His invulnerability was already off before he even finished the train of thought.
"Ahh!" Mrs. Mapa shouted as she got startled by Clay appearing in front of her out of nowhere.
"Clay, when did you get here?"
"I got here a while ago but you were too busy thinking about things to notice"
'That was technically the truth' Clay thought.
"Oh, ok, anyway, the reason I called you is because Josh was told to go to the village hall, I'm pretty sure you know what that means"
'Of course, how could I forget about 'that'?' Clay grumbled mentally.
It was something that happened after the awakening of systems was processed.
After confirming that the awakening of the systems that happened after the coming-of-age ceremony was finished, which took 1 to 2 months to process, the next important event that would happen to their village is the recruitment.
People who had B and above for a system rating were 'chosen' to go to an elite school where they can learn and improve their powers, 'chosen' because it was more like they forced those people to go to the school, after all, what kind of kingdom would allow people with such power run amok.
And coincidentally, Josh's system was of B grade and while it is the bare minimum requirement Josh would get treated like an A grade due to the type of system he had, which was an offensive one that is more useful in wars and battles.
There are some rare cases however when people below the grade threshold were able to attend the school due to the uniqueness of their system alone.
Clay immediately got up from his seat and dashed out of the house, hoping that he could at least see Josh one last time before he was taken away.
But the moment he took his first step he tripped, the culprit was the broken floorboard that his right foot sunk into. It seems that Clay had put so much power into his foot that it broke the fragile wooden floorboard.
He fell face-first into the rough texture of the floor.
"Ugh" Clay got up, feeling weird as he didn't really feel any pain from falling to the floor. It probably looked very painful to the viewers but to Clay, it felt like someone just hugged his face.
"Clay are you okay?" His mom asked in concern.
Clay did a thumbs up in response as he got up.
This time, instead of running directly, Clay slowly accelerated as he got used to his upgraded stats.
He was already in the streets of the village moving at speeds of about 100 km per hour, he appeared as a blur to normal people, and every time he ran past people a strong wind would blow against them almost causing them to stumble.
'Wow, I'm really loving this breeze'
And before Clay knew it, he was already at the village hall, opening the doors with a heavy heart. Clay looked for Josh as soon as he entered, seeing that Josh was in the center of the room along with many other people, Clay approached him ready to say his goodbyes.
"Oh, look who it is, the person with the f class rating" random people Clay couldn't bother to talk to mocked.
Hearing 'f class', Josh turned around and saw Clay.
Clay smiled weakly.
"So, I guess this is it huh? We won't be able to see each other for a long time" Clay greeted Josh with a fist bump.
"Uh, I think you forgot that you could literally teleport anywhere" Josh greeted back.
Clay froze. Then his face slowly reddened.
"Anyway, it still doesn't change that you are going away for a long time" Clay had a voice crack somewhere in the middle.
Josh smiled at Clay, making fun of him in his mind probably.
"You wanna check if you can also come with? They can test your physical prowess to see if you're fit to go to the school as well, you're system is also very useful so I doubt that they won't accept you"
Clay's eyes brightened up upon hearing this.
"Really? You're not lying to me are you?" Clay questioned.
"Why would I lie, besides, it depends on your capabilities so don't bet on it"
"Alright, I'll give it a go"
Clay looked at the line that was forming in front of the same secretary that he had seen a month ago.
Seeing that Josh was also in the line, Clay took the spot behind him as Josh was the last person in the line.
____________________________________________________________________________________
The turtle then saw a person who practically made a fire out of nothing.
Then it saw another person taking steps in the air, the man was quite literally walking in the sky.
Thinking that this world seemed pretty ok, the turtle then decided to wander for a bit to see if it really suited its tastes before ultimately choosing whether to stay or to leave. Though for what reason, we would never know.