.....FOURTY
Somewhere unknown
...
The 7th was sitting on a golden throne "he couldn't make good use of the power still just as destiny had proclaimed...but the power can't just go to waste...it was a good idea to create a back up...now all I need is just some finishing touches and the body of a pet...create a new world with a new back story...no a mixed world with a new back story and a new plot...and give the power to whom ever I deem worthy of it...and then I'll put all the power into that ring and then into that book...and all the gifts...and all the treasures...and the hidden realm...but the new host would have to find out what he can do with it...I won't reveal anything to the host...I'll make the ring part of the host's soul...then I'll also..."
and so the 7th continued forming a new plan and prepared to put it into action soon...
On the earth of a brand new-verse
"Try not to die by tripping over yourself, Graham!" A boy shouted down the hallway, laughing uncontrollably right after.
Graham dismissed the petty mockery as he carried on walking down the school corridor. The harassment had become a daily occurrence for him, but it still bothered him just as much as it did every other day. Thus, he wasn't able to hold back his desire to retaliate.
Graham slowed down his stride and stopped. He pushed his glasses back up onto the ridge of his nose as they had slipped down from his face. Just from looking at the glasses, it was clear that he needed a new pair - One could tell that they were heavily worn. The glasses looked crooked as he wore them, and even the temples had tape covering them.
He then turned around and immediately raised his middle finger, responding to the slander, "I bet you don't even know how many fingers I'm holding up!"
Upon hearing the taunt, the boy clenched his fist and started running towards Graham.
"You level 1 piece of crap! When are you going to learn that you don't belong in this world?"
The boy placed both of his hands together, and a green ball of light started to form between them. When he was only a few meters away from Graham, the boy threw his hands forward and a green beam shot out from the palm of his hands.
Graham had nowhere to go, and the ray of light was too fast for him to dodge. Hence, he knew that all he could do was grit his teeth and bear the pain. As the light hit him, his body was lifted into the air and sent flying backward on to the far end corridor wall.
"What's going on?" A student among the crowd said. "Are they fighting on the last day of school?"
A crowd had immediately formed outside, interested in what the commotion was all about. One of the female students ran over to the wall's damaged part to check on the assaulted student's safety.
As the dust started to settle down, Graham's slightly long red hair that was tied in a ponytail slowly came into view. When the smoke eventually cleared up, the female student finally saw who it was. She instantly backed away and continued on with her business as if nothing happened.
The moment that the female student had returned to her friends, he could see that they were laughing at her.
"I can't believe you tried to help him."
"I didn't see who it was." The girl retorted, her cheeks flushed.
After that, Graham stood up and lifted his glasses that were thrown on the floor. To his dismay, one of the hinges had fallen off once again. Instead of wearing the worn-out pair, he let it hang on his hand.
"Damn it. Not again..."
It was the last day of school for Graham, so he hoped that someone wouldn't try anything with him. He was sick and tired of their doings, but he wasn't the type to ignore those either. He had seen people who had chosen to keep their heads down and tolerate the harassment. However, their treatment was far worse than what he received.
He didn't bother to stay at school like the rest of the students, he picked up his broken glasses and proceeded to leave school. As he walked past, he saw the students having conversations among themselves in their circles. Some were laughing while some had tears, thinking it was the last time they would ever see each other again. However, Graham wasn't a part of any of that and he didn't want to be. Cliques would not welcome him anyway. He was the weird one.
When he finally arrived home, he immediately went to work. Living in a single bedroom apartment with just enough space to fit a single bed and desk was enough for him. A TV was mounted on the wall, but Quinn would merely use it as a background noise source and didn't watch anything.
The apartment was provided to him by the government since he had no living relatives and was only sixteen years of age. On top of his bed was a single suitcase that contained all of his belongings that were neatly packed.
He walked towards a cabinet, immediately pulling a drawer open which accommodated a single book. It was a large and thick hard-bound book, weighing about half a kilo. The front cover of the book was in a color that mimicked a lighter shade of blood. And a purple ring in the center, the lonesome fronts of an upper and lower jaw bone could be seen, both colored in the swampy shade of brown. The upper jaw sort of had four separated fangs. Meanwhile, the lower one had two sharp teeth on the two far ends on the overhead and five evenly spaced underneath.
"Let's try again today," Graham said as he lifted the book and placed it on top of the desk.
He then quickly went to his bag to pull out a little test tube that was half-filled with a colorless liquid.
"Test 200, Hydrochloric acid. Let's see how it goes?" He then started to slowly pour the liquid out of the test tube onto the book.
"So far, there is no reaction." He proceeded to continue to pour all of the test tube contents on the book, but there was no reaction at the end of his experiment.
Carefully, he examined the book while jotting down the results in his notebook. Seeing if there was any damage done, yet the book looked the same as always.
"Another failure. Why won't you open? Why did mum and dad even have this thing?"
Two hundred times - This was the number of different ways that Graham had tried to open the book. Not only did the book not open, but it seemed like it cannot be damaged either. He had even tried burning the book, cutting the book, melting the book, but nothing had worked against the book that seemed utterly durable.
Lying on his bed, he turned on the TV for its sole purpose, making background noises. He never really paid attention to what was on. With it, the sound of other voices made him feel less lonely.
Upon turning on, the TV displayed an ongoing NEWS show.
"The peace treaty with the Dalki race has lasted for five years now, but officials are saying that tension is rising once again. Now, we must prepare for another war…."
The mention of war had always been shown on the TV nonstop ever since a certain day thirty years ago; where the world became extremely dangerous when the human race also received a visit from the so-called Dalki. They had the physique of humans, except for their skins that were riddled with scales and the presence of tails that were similar to what the dragons had.
With no real clue of why they had suddenly appeared, they immediately demanded that the Human race hand over their resources and wanted to use them as slaves. Of course, the humans decided to fight back, but they quickly found out that their modern technology was useless against them. Bullets couldn't penetrate their skin, and as for tanks, well, Dalki had airships.
Every individual, disregarding the gender, was told to fight for their planet, and that included Graham's parents. The war went on for years, so he grew up not knowing what his parents looked like.
When the humans were on the brink of defeat, a select group of people came forward - These people had special abilities. They began sharing their knowledge of how they obtained such power in hopes of turning the tide in the war, and thankfully, it worked. Even so, the Dalki were still strong, and a seemingly endless stalemate led to the peace treaty signing five years ago.
Obviously enough, human greed got the better of humanity, and instead of sharing these powers with everybody else, the higher-ranked governmental officials decided to keep them for themselves. Only those with money could learn the more powerful abilities while everyone else was left with scraps.
It was something that needed to be done. Poverty had taken over the world, but people had powers and were using them uncontrollably, unlike before.
Graham was given nothing when his parents died. The government agreed to pay for his living expenses while he was still in school, but that was it. When his parents died, him being at the age of ten, an agent appeared at his doorstep and handed him two book. He was told that they were the only things that his parents possessed - Ones that they passed down when they died.
"Why is the world so unfair?" He uttered, lamenting about his situation.
Getting out of his bed, he started sauntering towards his desk. He picked up his glasses that were still slightly broken and decided that he needed to fix them. He noticed that one of the lenses was slightly out of place, and tried to punch it back into its frame.
"Come on! Just get in!" He shouted as he tried to forcefully fix the glasses. The frustration he had been bottling up was on his face as he struggled furiously with the lens.
Unfortunately, the lens suddenly crumbled into pieces, one of the shards of plastic even created a deep gash in his thumb.
He screamed and kicked at the table.
"Why does the world hate me?"
After a while, he calmed down and started to clean up the little pieces of glass, noticing that a piece had landed on top of his book. As Graham removed the piece of glass, a drop of blood from his thumb landed on top of the book.
The object plastered on the center of the book started to glow, and suddenly, the book began to float, hovering until it was on eye-level with Graham.
Graham darted back and away from it. The glow form the book made his room look emptier with the little bed at the corner and the solitary seat beside it.
"What the hell is happening?!"
The book started to emit a blinding radiance as it shook uncontrollably. A few seconds later, it finally opened up, pages after pages were being turned. Quinn couldn't take his eyes off of the shining book - It was as if he was in a deep trance. The words written on the pages of the book weren't in any language that he had seen before. Nevertheless, for some reason, he felt like he could understand it.
When the book reached its last page, it started to disappear, gradually turning into dust. At the same time, his body suddenly felt weak. Quinn's vision was starting to fade, and with that, his eyes pulled shut.
But just before he passed out, there was a single message that he heard.
[Congratulations you have been granted the Ge....]
Unable to maintain consciousness long enough to hear the final words, Graham duly passed out.Gradually, Graham's eyelids started to flutter open and his vision soon returned. His head felt heavy and his body was slightly sore. As he lifted himself off of the ground, he touched his head gently to see if he had injured himself.
'Why does my head hurt so much?' He thought, bewildered and unable to make any sense of what just happened to him.
After patting his head all over, Graham then went to pick up his glasses that had fallen on the floor not too far from him. Regrettably, only one lens that was left intact, still, Graham put the glasses on out of habit. He felt a little disoriented and his vision became slightly blurry.
He took them back off and noticed that his vision only turned hazy when he put the glasses on. Wow, he thought before he quickly rushed to his desk to grab a pencil. He proceeded to draw the letter "A" on the wall and stepped back. He continued to move back until his back had hit the wall that was on the other side of the room. The figure 'A' was still there, and he could see it clearly.
"What?! But how?!" Graham said slowly, mind-blown. He was still trying to make sense of what had happened to him.
Somehow, Graham's vision was now perfect. He had lived his whole life with terrible eyesight, but strangely, he could now see clearly. His mind started flashing images of the events that laid to his passing out on the ground. The more the memories flooded his mind, the more one thing stood out - the book.
When Graham surveyed the room, he felt panic building up in him. The book was missing…
"The book! Where the hell's the book?"
He looked everywhere for the book, yet he couldn't find it. It couldn't have gone missing in such a small room, so its disappearance was baffling.
"Where's the damn book?" he lamented. He imagined the book at one corner of the room hidden and out of sight, somehow living and silently enjoying his misery.
"Maybe it's like my socks. They go missing all the time. Ahh, don't be stupid. This is a book we're talking about, not a sock." He muttered, trying to reason the uncanny comparison.
Graham tried to think hard about what had occurred a few moments before he collapsed. He took his mind back, moment by moment, then he suddenly remembered the book hovering in the air. Then, just before closing his eyes, he heard a few words.
"What was it?" he thought. "A type of system message?"
As soon as Graham said those words, a status screen appeared right before his eyes.
[User: Graham McGrath]
[Race: Human]
[Level 1]
[0/100 exp]
[HP 10/10]
[Strength: 10]
[Agility: 10]
[Focus:-]
"Whoa," Graham said.
It was like the old games people used to play all the time when the earth was not in danger of being overrun by some alien creatures. Graham noticed that, on the status screen, there were more tabs that were placed on the top. Accordingly, even without doing anything and just by reading the tabs in his head, the screen automatically switched to the [Skills] tab.
[Skills]
[0 skill points available]
[Skill locked????]
[Skill locked????]
….
It was strange, but he played along, curiosity fuelling him. His life was normally characterised by boredom as he had no friends, and was the loneliest child in the school. On the skills tab, Graham wasn't really able to see much. Everything seemed to be locked and slightly greyed out, so he quickly moved on to the next tab,
[Shop]
[Unlocks at level 10]
"Can I do anything?" he wondered.
The last tab was the [Quest] tab. Finally, it seemed like a tab that wasn't locked behind a requirement.
[Main Quest]
[Reach level 10]
[Daily Quest: Drink two litres of water]
[Reward: 5 exp]
After checking everything that the system had to offer, Quinn had to just think about closing the system and it did. When he thought about opening it again, the screen immediately popped up in front of him.
There was another thought on Graham's mind that explained what was happening to him- the book that his parents had left him was an ability book. These books could often be bought at very high prices from the military or a company. Some were even sold on the market place. He had never seen any of such books, but only heard of them in whispers of fellow students that would have nothing to do with him.
However, Graham had never heard of an ability book that promptly disappeared, granting the user a system such as the one he currently had. The ability books were designed to be learnt manually. It wasn't something that one could pick up and instantly understand how to use, and it definitely did not appear as a screen overhead when one thought of it.
A smile started to slowly appear on Graham's face. This was great news for him. He had always been a level 1 ability user because he could never afford to buy any ability books. To his fortune, he had something that he could use. His mind raced, reeling out options for him. He had things he could practice, things he had never done before. The book would help him, he thought.
"Water bending, come on!" Graham said as he raised his right palm forward towards the kitchen sink, expecting water to gush from the tap at his command. Embarrassingly, nothing happened..
"Ok next! Wind, Wind, out!" Graham did the same again, but there was nothing happening.
After trying out many different things according to all the abilities that he had seen before, it turned out that he was unable to perform any of them. He made his way to his bed and sat dejectedly on it.
"What the hell is this useless thing? Is it really just a system ability?"
Graham thought about it for a while. If it truly was like a game, then perhaps, by completing the quests, he would eventually get stronger and unlock more skills. He had heard the students in school gush over those memories, which were shared to them by their parents. Some of them still had these games, which were now antiques sitting in their homes. Maybe it was his mistake that he was treating it like an ordinary ability book when clearly, it was not. He was still unable to find it, and ability books did not disappear in thin air.
Usually, ability books were based around one ability. It was important for a person to select their first ability book since a regular human body would only be able to perform one ability attribute. If one got transformability as their first ability, they would only be able to acquire other skills that were related to this attribute. For instance, if someone obtained fire as their attribute, they could solely dedicate themselves into gathering skills that the attribute fire could utilise. But this book was different, he felt it. What ability book could completely heal his eye defect?
Graham went to open his mini-fridge, grabbing the bottles of water that were inside. He soon began downing the water bottles one by one.
"Damn, how much are two litres? My belly feels like it's going to burst."
After finishing his fourth bottle of water, the screen popped up in front of him, and a new notification message appeared.
[Daily Quest complete, 5 exp has been granted]
[5/100]
"Well, at least I know how the system works now," Graham said, satisfaction evident in his tone. Still mesmerized by the events of the day while drinking water
A loud knock from the door startled Graham. He jerked and almost threw the empty bottle of water he was holding on the ground. The knock came again. There was only one group that knocked like that, the real soldiers. Graham dashed towards the door and opened it. As he opened the passageway, standing in front of him was a large, muscular, bald-headed man wearing a black military uniform, signifying the earth attribute. There were several medals on his garment. His name was written on the area of the uniform right above his chest - 'Sergeant Griff'.
"Boy, it is time for you to vacate your room immediately. The vehicle has been waiting outside for five minutes already."
With everything that had happened, Graham had forgotten about his move today.
"It's time for you to head to military school," Griff announced.
Due to the war between humans and the Dalki, every individual was required to go to military school for the duration of two years. Although humans and the Dalki were currently embracing a peaceful period, nobody believed it would last forever. The Dalki were not to be trusted. Their taste and hunger for power and their desire to control creatures they considered to be beneath them could hardly be kept at bay.
Every single day there would be news regarding one race antagonising the other, even on the verge of waging war. The citizens had this foreboding that an altercation could break out at any moment.
Graham quickly went to the toilet before heading off with Sergeant Griff. His bladder felt like it was going to burst any second now because of the sheer amount of water that he had drunk.
Once he stepped out of his room, welcomed by the outside world, something strange happened. A new notification screen appeared in front of his eyes.
[Your body is being hit by direct sunlight]
[You are affected by the sunlight]
[All stats will be halved while you are exposed to the sunlight]
All of a sudden, Graham's body felt extremely sluggish. He felt like he had just finished running a marathon and now needed to rest. His arms and legs felt heavier than usual, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Graham proceeded to inspect his status while Sergeant Griff gave him a strange look for stopping as soon as they had set foot outside.
"Are you okay, boy?" the sergeant asked, getting ready to apprehend the boy in case he planned to make a run for it. Every year they would have some unwilling to come peacefully.
However, Graham was not listening, nor did he have any plans to escape his responsibility. He was merely too busy looking at the screen before him, seeing that his stats had gone down. However, it wasn't just his stats, his HP had also been drastically reduced.
[HP 5/5]
[Strength 5/5]
[Stamina 5/5]
[Agility 5/5]
[Focus -]
'What kind of drawback is this?!' Quinn wanted to shout out, but he was still aware that he was no longer alone.
"Graham?" the sergeant called out again.
He was still staring at the screen as another notification appeared.
[You have received a new quest]
[Daily quest: Avoid direct sunlight for 8 hours]
[Reward: 5 Exp]
Graham's mood was lifted as soon as he saw the new daily quest. Unlike the one that required him to drink water, this was something that he could do naturally just by sleeping. If the system worked the same way it did in games he had heard about, that would mean that once Graham had earned 100 Exp, he would be able to level up and also increase his stats.
Hence, the more daily quests Graham got, the better it was for him.
"What are you doing walking so slowly?! The school will eat you alive if you carry on like that!" Sergeant Griff shouted, waking him up from his stupor.
Graham reached a large bus parked just outside of his apartment block. When he entered the bus, he noticed that it was already full of students who should be the same age as him. Some steps back, Griff stood watching him, his hands behind his back. Graham had not even realised that the soldier had stopped. When he turned back to look at Griff, he could have sworn that Griff was a stone statue.
He turned back to the bus in front of him and discovered that he didn't recognise any of the students. That could only mean that they had all come from a different school. He felt a little relieved. With these new people, maybe the bullying would stop. Since nobody knew him, he had a chance to impress them, maybe even make some friends.
He opted to sit at the front of the bus since it was the only seat that was still available. The screen popped up in front of him immediately as he sat down.
[Stats have returned to normal]
It appeared that avoiding direct sunlight meant his stats would instantly return to normal. He was happy for it, since his body felt reinvigorated once again. As if a heavy weight had been lifted from his body
'Well, at least it looks like it's only direct sunlight.'
The students were all talking to each other in excitement, but that stopped as Sergeant Griff boarded the bus.
"Alright, it's time for us to head to the military academy," he announced, signalling the driver to begin their departure.
The bus jerked to life and started to move. The students were finally on their way. There was silence in the bus throughout the journey. Whenever a student started to speak, Griff would immediately glare in their direction, prompting the student to shut their mouth.
Griff didn't even have to say anything, since they all knew what he wanted just by staring them dead in the eye.
About ten minutes into their journey, the pop up screen came up again, and Graham received another message.
[A substance in the air has been detected]
[You are feeling sleepy]
[Resistance +1]
Graham found this message quite strange. So, he started to check out the interior of the bus. He noticed that half of the students were already asleep and the other half were drowsing off. He tried to fight it, but felt his body getting heavier. His eyelids were shutting down. At long last, even Graham felt dizzy as sleep hovered around his consciousness.
[Your resistance to the substance has increased]
[Resistance +1]
Then, he heard the sound of loud footsteps coming towards him. He looked up to see Sergeant Griff hovering above him.
"Looks like a few of you were able to resist the sleeping gas. Guess we'll just have to bag you."
A black bag was thrown quickly over Graham's head and his vision was completely covered. The gas started to slowly creep up on his consciousness, overpowering him. There was nothing he could do. His hand fell limply by the side and he dozed off, abandoning consciousness.
****
After a while, Graham felt a splash of cold water chucked over his head. It served its purpose, immediately jolting him awake. The only thing that he could see upon opening his eyes, was a greenish smoke that dominated his surroundings.
He and several other students began to lift their heads to look around them. There were currently a total of five hundred students standing on a plain open field, in a strange place that none of them seemed to recognize. The puzzlement on their faces spoke volumes.
"This is where the lot of you will spend the next two years of your life," the voice of Sergeant Griff explained.
The green plain was not the only thing the students saw. There were three futuristic huge buildings directly in front of them. The buildings were human images sculpted entirely out of glass. Each one stood at least sixty feet tall, but that was not the only thing that the field overlooked. They were standing on an elevated platform with a city in front of them, a hidden city. Everyone was already dressed up in a military uniform and there were technological marvels appealing to them all.
These devices were too advanced for their time. There were mechs moving crates and there were building machines, enormous things rising high into the sky with their crane. There was no one inside the machine, yet it laid down panel after panel of glass on a building that was still in construction.
There were flying ships, coming too close to the ground that Graham was afraid that they would crash into the high rise buildings and send a shower of glass falling on the people in the city below. However, no such thing happened. They all followed a particular part. Then, there were levitating trains which rose high into the air running on rails that none of the students could see. Some of the technology they were witnessing had yet to be made public.
After the first war with the Dalki race, the humans had managed to make leaps in all sorts of technological fields. This was because they had managed to salvage a lot of equipment from the Dalki once the war was over. The military had decided to keep most of it for themselves. Some of the things they had found would just be too dangerous for the public to use. At least that is what they claimed.
When Graham finally managed to stop gawking at the new world he had been thrust into, he felt the weight on his hand and noticed that there was something placed around his wrist. It was a digital watch, yet there was nothing displayed on the screen yet. That was also when he noticed a black ring on his index finger but couldn't think much about it as he heard the voice of Sergeant Griff once more.
"Placed on your wrist is your lifeline. It will identify you as a student at this military base. It will allow you to access certain areas, pay for food, and all sorts of other things. When not in use, the wristwatch will display a number - Your corresponding power level," Griff said.
It sounded to Graham like he was speaking some strange foreign language, and from the confusion on the other students' faces, he was sure he was not the only one having difficulty understanding what the man was saying."
He had believed that his life might change after coming to military school, but it seemed like it was going to be the same game, only in another place.
"We will immediately begin testing your respective levels. Don't move, until you are being called forward, understand?!" Griff shouted with a smile on his face and everyone just nodded. The sergeant looked frightening with his smile. It was completely contradicting his hard face. "Good luck!"