Upgrade System
Lake had no idea how to react to Vince's outburst. First he intimidated Lake with his energy and now he was laughing like a madman.
Vince continued speaking soon after, "Alright kid I appreciate the honesty, however I'd like to recommend not peeping on a craftsman at work. Most craftsman aren't as lenient as me."
"Yes, sir!" It was hard for Lake to forget the strength Vince had just displayed.
"If you understand then that's fine, here's your pay for the day." Vince handed Lake some money before turning around, entering the back room.
Meanwhile Lake stood there dumbfounded without the slightest clue of what just occurred until he decided to just walk out.
Leaving the Misty Armory Lake continued walking down the street. Thinking about his earnings from the day made him excited. Just from this one day of work he had already earned more than half the cost of one Body Strengthening Elixir, so around 25$.
'Soon!' Remembering the strength of Vince who was an Iron Esper, he clenched his fist, 'One day I'll reach or even exceed his level, then I won't have to fear anyone!'
He reached his house around 7 pm and entered his room after eating dinner with his mother. Lake started thinking about how he should go about his training with the elixir.
While thinking this a mechanical voice had suddenly broken his train of thought.
[Host integration at 100%. Integration complete, initiating system tutorial.]
'Hm?' Lake's eyes widened in surprise, he looked around in search of the voice but found nothing.
[Greetings User, I am the Upgrade System. I am not around you, but inside your mind. I have no intentions to harm, my main designation is to assist the User in his cultivation.]
"Uh, I see." Lake suddenly felt something strange stirring in his body. "?!"
[Rest assured User, I am just running a scan on your body to provide the most optimum training for you.]
Although the voice had said it had no harmful intentions, there was no way Lake could relax with a strange voice suddenly appearing in his head, especially when it was scanning his body. But he had no way to resist, and soon enough the scan was over.
[Scan complete. I have compiled the Users stats into an easier to read state, please check and confirm.]
After the voice finished speaking strange pieces of information appeared inside of Lake's head. It was a bunch of numbers, it must've been the stats the voice spoke about.
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Lake Halma - Ability Unclear
[Physical Fitness]
Strength - 72
Defense - 70
Dexterity - 68
[Mental Prowess]
Intelligence - 85
Wisdom - 78
Willpower - 100
[Energy Capacity] - 100
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"I can see my physical fitness and mental prowess here, but what are those other stats."
[The stats that User sees reflects your current abilities, the Upgrade System determined this to be the most accurate way to represent your strengths.]
Lake was overwhelmed by what he saw, but quickly calmed down. Strength, defense, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom and willpower. He had no idea that the stats could be broken up like this. He would be even more amazed, except that... why did this look like something from a video game?
In the first place, where had this "system" come from? What exactly was it? Had it been inside him this whole time?
Thinking this Lake felt a chill go down his back. Luckily this system doesn't seem to harbor any ill intent, otherwise he wouldn't even know how he died.
Lake was about to ask the system when he noticed something odd with the display.
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Lake Halma - Ability Unclear
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"Unclear? System what does ability unclear mean?" he asked.
[As the User has not yet awoken his ability, the system cannot determine what it is, therefore it is displayed as unclear and is unusable.]
Realizing something from the systems words, his eyes widened. "Are you saying... that I have an ability?"
[That is correct, as every human holds an ability. It is just that the conditions for awakening are much stricter for some humans than others. The User has not yet met the conditions to unlock his ability therefore it will remain unclear until then.]
Lake's breath became heavy and his eyes shone. 'So I've always had an ability. If I can just unlock it, then I'm sure I can stand above this world with my strength alone!'
"System, what are the conditions to unlock my ability?", Lake asked in anticipation. Although he was still suspicious of the system he could not resist the temptation of awakening his ability!
[The present conditions for unlocking User's ability are for User to become a Stage 5 Copper Esper within 3 years.]
Hearing that he had to reach the 5th stage Lake sighed, "Although the conditions are really simple, it's also extremely difficult to accomplish."
But instead of feeling dejected the will to advance burned ever fiercer within him. Even if the conditions were more difficult, as long as there was a chance, he'd succeed no matter the cost!
[Due to certain conditions being met, the task has been registered as a mission, please review the mission details.]
Mission?
"What do you mean by mission?"
The systems reply came soon after, [Missions are tasks assigned by the system for the User to complete. They are either there to issue rewards to help the User or they are to guide the User in his training, in a way.]
I see, but how do I access the missions? As if it had heard him the image changed and the contents of it were a string of words.
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Missions:
[Achieve Stage 5 Copper Esper]
Time Limit - 3 years
Reward - Awaken User's Ability
Difficulty Level - 5
[Complete System tutorial]
Time Limit - None
Reward - Welcome Package
Difficulty Level - 1
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After reading the details of the missions a prompt arose from the system.
[Would you like to accept the missions?]
Lake glanced at the prompt and without hesitation accepted it. 'Are you kidding? This could be my only chance to unlock my ability, even if the mission were harder I'd never give up this opportunity.'
[Mission accepted. Mission: Achieve Stage 5 Copper Esper within 3 years. Failure to complete will result in lost rewards. Please take note that rewards for certain missions will not appear again.]
"I see, so if I hadn't accepted the mission or failed the mission then I'd never even gotten the chance to awaken my ability." Luckily he didn't reject the mission, otherwise he wouldn't be able to live with the regret.
He also accepted the other mission as he was going to complete the tutorial in the first place.