They wanted to make sure that Rhys was okay, since healing elixirs weren't supposed to have healed him totally. There was still dried blood over his face, so they assumed that he was still injured, but he knew that he was not.
He felt no pain from his face whatsoever and felt quite rejuvenated on top of that.
Entering the school's infirmary, there were beds ordered in a neat fashion. By each bed were several systems like a heartbeat sensor, an IV drip if necessary and other things too. It was already littered with students of their age that had entered their first dungeon. It was clear that others had also received grave injury, but it was only the weaker students that were in this place.
Stronger students could better defend themselves and were usually richer so they could afford more potent, helpful healing elixirs.
"Oh goodness, what's happened to you?" A blonde woman said, laying Rhys onto a bed along wit his two other friends.
Lewis and Rhys had only sustained minor injuries that would heal by themselves, but Rhys was the person taking up all this doctor's attention.
"Wait, you are covered in blood, but you don't seem to be hurt at all. Are you in pain?" She asked, touching up his face to see that it looked untouched.
"I'm not anymore, no. I did take a healing elixir about half an hour ago anyway." He stated.
"Ah, that makes sense then. Well, you three are good to go, if you want to rest in here a little longer that is totally fine." She stated.
The woman left the three to themselves, swiftly moving on to the other students that were flooding in. There were grunts of pain and agony that could be heard throughout the building as injured students were being bandaged up and healed.
However, Rhys was met by totally unique system panels. They were of a different colour scheme to the system that he was used to, which was now black and red.
[STATS]
[Level: 1]
[User: Rhys Arkwrighte]
[Titles: Fledgling]
[Strength (STR): 3]
[Speed (SPD): 6]
[Durability (DUR): 4]
[Endurance (END): 5]
[Species: Vampire]
[HP: 10/10]
[XP: 0/100]
[MP: 10/10]
[Stat Upgrades: 0]
[Skills] [expand]
He felt taken aback by this new stats panel and continued to become even more bewildered as he read it.
'Vampire? What the hell is a fledgling title?' He wondered.
His friends felt concerned as they looked over to him. They knew they had been through a lot, but Rhys just stared off into his system panels blankly.
'System Rank.' Rhys called out with suspicion.
[SYSTEM: SS-RANK]
'WHAT?!' Rhys thought, looking at this appear.
He just chuckled with disbelief and sat back in his bed.
Systems were given ranks based on how high quality and powerful they were. Rhys was a measly F-Rank, along with his friend Lewis, and his other friends were all at D-Rank. However, S-Rank pretty much meant that you would be a prodigy from even the age of 3.
SS-Rank was practically unheard of, and there would be times where there wouldn't be a single SS-Rank system user alive on the whole planet.
The most recent SS-Rank system user was the Grelcis dictator's grandfather, Otto Johannesson. He had a frightening kill count, a mix of beasts and humans, and topped numerous global rankings within the system.
The message was too good to be true, and Rhys amounted it to another person that might've been added to this party to trick him. They could easily manifest false system panels through some odd skill to give him false hope.
"Emmerich, did you add anyone else to the party?" Rhys asked, hiding away the panels that had appeared ahead of him.
"No, it's just us three." Emmerich said, saddened once again by the death of his fallen comrades.
There was nothing he could say to convince himself that this was true. As he started to think, images of strong warriors achieving glory and respect on the battlefield entered his mind. Maybe, just maybe, that could all enter his hands now.
'No, there's no way. A system upgrade like this has literally never happened, it can't be true.' Rhys stated.
System upgrades of just a single rank were incredibly rare and didn't provide very substantial improvements to any system. An F-Rank to SS-Rank upgrade only happened within the fantasies of the weak.
The fact that the stats panel listed him as a vampire made things even more unbelievable. Vampires and werewolves were clearly beasts of legend, that were barely even talked about after the emergence of systems and dungeons.
People now had superpowers of their own and didn't need to read and talk about fantastical creatures that did.
Lifting out of his bed, his friends decided to do the same. They were simply waiting because Rhys was and didn't want to rush him since he was the person that had been gravely injured.
"Let's go guys, I don't feel that bad anymore." Rhys said, while readjusting the breastplate on his chest.
'Could my system really have upgraded like this? If it has, I can't take any of this for granted. What could go wrong, anyways? Either my life continues as it has, or I get to become one of the strongest people in the world.' Rhys stated, with his last thought making a keen grin appear on his face.
He didn't feel any immediate difference and decided to just carry on his day as usual, taken aback by the whole thing. His friends had died, and he couldn't get the images of their deaths out of their mind.
'At least they didn't go through much pain.' He thought, upon thinking of the images.
The amount of blood that was shot out of the cleaver's vertical mouth was utterly mortifying for Rhys as he recalled the event.
The military had managed to neutralise the cleavers that had been freed, and the dungeon portal soon closed just as it would over some time. There weren't many casualties and only a handful of deaths, with Rhys' friends Lukas and Raymondo being a part of that.
The situation had kept Rhys awake up into the late hours of the night, and even the early hours of the morning. He continued to just watch strong fighters on his phone, trying to take his mind off everything.
Fatigue soon set in, and he was fast asleep shortly after.
The following day, Rhys had been directed to one of the school's large training centres. It was a somewhat tall building, that looked to be about 4 stories high, but was much wider and longer. It had a modern exterior but wasn't covered in glass like the other towers behind him.
Instead, it was more complex, with a mixture of brick and other lighter-coloured materials with an alluring design.
He entered the building and was surrounded by numerous students at the entrance. It was a main sparring room, with wooden steps where people could stand around the central white canvas. There was a light that resembled a globe dangling over the group, and many students of his age were stood ahead of a teacher that faced them.
Looking around, he managed to find Emmerich and Lewis near the far right corner of this mass of students.
He stood at 6'3, wearing the same traditional camo uniforms that all the teachers did. He was burly and muscular, but not incredibly large and from his toned face, they could tell that he was lean. He had brown hair that was greying, and a thick beard that was well kempt.
He had his arms behind his back, as he awaited all the students.
"Greetings, students. I just want to congratulate you all on being admitted to the intensive training section of your education. There will no longer be any maths or English. Here, you will all be shaped into fine, deadly warriors." He declared.
"I am Master Sergeant Hale and for this country, and I have fought in numerous wars and gone on countless expeditions. After decades of service, I have learned a lot and will pass on my knowledge to you all. If you take heed of my advice, your hard work will bear fruit." He announced.
"You will be trained by several sergeants and master sergeants like me in these coming weeks. We will be doing this to vet you out to place you guys in classes with those of similar skill level to yourself."
He continued to simply introduce them to the new schedule that they were to begin being a part of. Once students were their age, 16 and 17, there could be several paths one could take. Either you could focus entirely on combat training as they were doing or continue on education into mathematics and the sciences.
Intelligent scientists were still valued in society, as they could analyse newly discovered creatures and advance military technology.
"For this first session, I would like to just see where you're all at. I have organised some spars so you end up fighting people near your level, and I would like to see where you're all at. Any form of knockout will be an immediate win for the person that did the knocking out, and each spar will last for a duration of around 4 minutes." He stated, walking back.