Scales of Power

The silence stretched, filled only by the crackle of the fire and the distant chirp of night insects. Sunny stared into the flames, the awful rabbit meat settling heavily in his stomach, a testament to his grim success. 

He had asked. Now, would the sarcastic text box deliver?

After a moment that felt longer than it was, Sys's familiar blue window shimmered back into existence. The slight flicker from before was gone, replaced by her usual crisp, slightly impatient text scroll.

[Hmph. Took you long enough to ask the important questions instead of just blubbering or trying to blow yourself up.] The snark was back. Sunny almost felt relieved. Almost. [Fine. Crash course on Reality 2.0, buckle up.]

[You, Sunny, have been unceremoniously dumped into a world called Selesia. Think standard fantasy backdrop, but with the danger dial cranked up to eleven and the safety nets cut loose. Magic? Oh yeah, it's real. It permeates everything, from the towering trees that seem to hum with latent energy to the critters trying to eat you. Humans can use it, sure, but so can plenty of other things.]

He absorbed this. Selesia. Magic. Obvious, given the goblins and the… well, him. But hearing it confirmed felt different.

[As for races, picture the usual suspects. Humans are common, adaptable, often squabbling. Elves? Check – typically long-lived, pointy-eared, probably look down on messy newcomers like you. Dwarves, orcs, beastkin, various monstrous species… oh, and dragons. Actual, proper, 'hoard gold and incinerate villages' dragons. Don't poke those unless you have a death wish the size of a mountain.]

Dragons. He tried to picture one, something vast and ancient blotting out the starry sky above. A cold dread trickled down his spine. Compared to that, level six goblins seemed almost quaint.

[Now, the crucial bit you need to hammer into that surprisingly durable skull of yours: Systems like mine? Unique. One-off deal courtesy of your benefactor. Nobody else here gets a handy HUD telling them their HP or that they leveled up. People get strong through training, innate talent, absorbing mana from the environment or defeated foes, finding powerful artifacts, or making pacts with entities best left unnamed. It's messy, chaotic, and decidedly unfair.]

So, no one else had a System. That felt… isolating. But also, maybe, an advantage? A secret edge in a world where information was power?

[Which brings us to the really important part,] the text seemed to sharpen, demanding his full attention. [Power levels. Rankings. The pecking order that determines whether you're the boot or the bug beneath it. Get this wrong, and you're dead before you can whine about it.]

A new display overlaid the map, stark white text against the blue background, listing the hierarchy Sys had mentioned.

SELESIAN POWER RANKINGS:

1. Iron

2. Bronze

3. Silver 

4. Gold

5. Platinum

6. Mithril

7. Adamantite

8. Heroic

9. Titan

10. Transcended

11. Demi-god

12. Lesser-god

13. True God (Like your Goddess, pre-divine power dying.)

14. Primordial (Don't even think about it)

Sunny stared at the list, his eyes tracing the tiers. Fourteen levels. The adventurers who'd threatened him were maybe Silver. He, Level 1 Sunny, was no doubt iron rank.

[Those adventurers? Probably low Silver-rank. Capable enough to handle goblin nests, minor dungeon crawls, maybe escort quests through dangerous territory. Stronger than you by an order of magnitude, Awakening or no Awakening. You challenged them, you'd have been paste before you could blink.]

[This world, Sunny, is dangerous. If you want to survive, let alone find a place that doesn't involve hiding in ditches, you need strength. Real strength. Enough to climb that ladder.]

Sys paused, letting the weight of her words sink in.

[More than that,] she added, the tone shifting subtly, becoming almost serious. [You need to change your whole damn mentality. Stop thinking like prey. Stop thinking like some kicked puppy waiting for the next blow. You survived the goblins because you stopped running and fought back with everything you had, even the rage. You need more of that. Controlled, maybe, but present. Out here, hesitation is death. Pity is a weakness you can't afford. You hunt, or you are hunted. Simple as that.]

Hunt or be hunted. The words echoed the grim pragmatism he forced upon himself while skinning the rabbits. He looked at his hands, still faintly stained despite washing them in the stream. 

He had ripped a head off. He had crushed a skull. He had impaled another. Part of him recoiled from the memory, from the cold efficiency he discovered within himself. But another part… the Awakened part?… acknowledged the truth in Sys's words.

That savagery, that refusal to yield, was why he was alive right now, listening to this lecture instead of being digested.

He took a deep breath, the cool night air filling his lungs, clearing his head slightly. The scale of the world, the sheer power levels involved, the constant threat… it was overwhelming. Terrifying.

But he wasn't dead yet. He had many advantages to help him, the real part was up to him, can he stand up and do what needs to be done.

"Hmn," he grunted softly, the sound barely audible over the fire. He looked towards the dark, silent woods beyond the firelight, picturing the flickering icons on map. Potential prey. Resources. Experience points. He wasn't sure how leveling worked yet, but killing goblins got him points. Killing things seemed the only viable path forward.

"Figured as much."

His voice was rough, but steady. The trembling uncertainty from before was still there, buried deep, but overlaid now with a layer of cold resolve. He wasn't the same kid who arrived here shivering and helpless.

Awakening didn't just boosted his stats; it had cracked something open inside him, exposing a core of desperation hardened into something new. Something dangerous.

"Alright," he declared, pushing himself away from the comforting warmth of the tree root, feeling the satisfying fullness in his belly and the thrum of latent power in his limbs. "Tomorrow, I hunt."

Not for scraps this time. For strength. For survival. To climb that impossible ladder, one bloody step at a time.

[You sure? I know what I said but its better not to rush it.]

"It's fine, to be honest, ever since that goblin fight, the feeling of power, it did something to me. I have been avoiding it all this time but I can't keep lying to myself." He looked at his hands, "I loved it and want more of it."

[oh.]