system awakening rewards
The group then walked while on the path towards the rendezvous point. Sable didn't want any of the students running. He himself, truthfully, just wanted everything to be a chill day—especially after basically losing half of the students the day before. The students were walking, and just like last time, no beasts came after them.
This was because of Leo and his mute evolved ability. They walked slowly. No one said a thing.
"So Riven, you gonna look at your rewards from the system?" Harkel asked using the telepathic link skill.
"Oh yeah," Riven replied back like he forgot.
Riven then mentally claimed the reward.
[System: Quest complete. Here are your following rewards]
[10 levels have been acquired]
Everyone—well, I mean—we felt stronger. But Riven? He then slapped his head and noticed something: the 2× XP was gone, meaning they could have gotten 20 levels instead of just 10.
"Aww dude, how did you forget something so important?" Harkel questioned.
"Oh, sorry that I was tired after fighting for my life," Riven replied back.
He then saw everyone's level and stats, and the acquired attributes go up as well. Riven never used it in the battle—he was going to use it as a last-ditch effort, but thanks to Joey, that time never came. He then split up the 140 attribute points evenly throughout the group, with their stats skyrocketing.
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Riven Harlow – Level 36
• Strength: 53
• Speed: 53
• Durability: 66
• HP: 100/100
• Energy: 100/100
Jordan Harlow – Level 34
• Strength: 45
• Speed: 52
• Durability: 49
• HP: 100/100
• Energy: 100/100
Leo Ashvale – Level 32
• Strength: 58
• Speed: 46
• Durability: 52
• HP: 100/100
• Energy: 100/100
Harkel Voss – Level 32
• Strength: 51
• Speed: 54
• Durability: 47
• HP: 100/100
• Energy: 100/100
Tessa Ashvale – Level 31
• Strength: 44
• Speed: 55
• Durability: 45
• HP: 100/100
• Energy: 100/100
Wren Fallow – Level 32
• Strength: 48
• Speed: 59
• Durability: 48
• HP: 100/100
• Energy: 100/100
Joey Cross – Level 31
• Strength: 49
• Speed: 53
• Durability: 47
• HP: 100/100
• Energy: 100/100
⸻
The group stopped in their tracks after feeling a great increase in power.
"Hey Riven, maybe don't give us such a great increase all at once," Leo commented.
Everybody agreed with him, feeling a great change in their bodies.
"Are you guys all right?" Kira asked.
"Yeah, just feeling sick in the stomach," Wren replied.
"Oh, OK," was all Kira could say before the group started walking again.
"That was something," Tessa commented.
"Yeah, something I don't want to go through again," Jordan said.
Riven looked at everyone's stats, surprised at how much they had improved. He already knew he didn't have to worry about Joey anymore—especially after awakening and getting that Light affinity, which was powerful. So he knew Joey, plus his Light affinity—whatever it was—and his awakening form, Joey was probably the strongest out of the seven.
So he looked at the rest of the rewards:
[System: 60,000 system points granted]
Everyone soon choked on air after seeing the number. Riven knew he used up most of his system points in the battle with the wolves, but he got all of it—and more—back, without even having to sell the rest of his weapons.
"Are you sure you guys are good?" Kira asked, looking at the group.
They all responded by giving the girl a thumbs-up. Then she walked back to her group.
"60,000 is crazy," Harkel thought.
"We can get a lot of armor and weapons now, but if I'm looking at this right, there's a big jump in price from level five and down to level six and up," Wren said, looking at the shop tab.
Everyone could agree. Level 4 weapons cost them 2,000. Level 5 cost them 4,000. But level 6 cost 10,000, which is a big jump in prices—but also means that the level 6 gear is way more powerful than level five and below.
"So what else?" Harkel asked, trying to see more rewards from the big guy.
[System: You have acquired the reward known as the Awakening Reward. This is not like a system reward. A system reward evolves a tab, while a system awakening awakens the system to the first level.]
When they all read that, they remembered something: Gravity wasn't Riven's forced awakened ability—instead, it was the system itself, meaning it could awaken.
A grey envelope then appeared. Riven mentally clicked on it to open it.
[System: The system has awoken. Here are the following things that you have acquired or have access to:]
[System: Skill tree has been unlocked. You can now purchase new moves that relate to your evolution by using attribute points.]
"Damn it," Riven thought. "I shouldn't have used the attribute points so quickly," he said to himself.
"Don't beat yourself up, man. We all would've done the same thing in your position," Harkel said, cheering up his friend.
This worked, and Riven looked up high and told himself:
"I won't be so rash again."
[System: Shop tab upgrade. You now have access to more potions, and some of your potions have evolved to help out more in the future.]
Everyone looked through the potions in the shop tab. They saw more potions that weren't there before.
"2× System Points," Joey said.
"2× Awakening Potions," Leo said.
"2× Speed and Strength," Wren said.
They looked through the new potions but stopped, as they still had a few more rewards.
[System: Lock-On Skill has been upgraded. You can now see your enemies' and allies' HP bar and stamina bar without inviting them into the party.]
Compared to the other rewards, this one seemed more lackluster—but it could still be helpful in the future.
[System: Portal tab has been unlocked. This tab allows the user to create a portal to any location they desire, but the user must know the world they are traveling to, must have been there before, and must be able to craft the portal itself.]
They were shocked by this new tab. Only three portals were shown: Earth, Sigil Gate, and Aurex. This also told them Sigil Gate was, in fact, not on Earth.
"This can be very good," Joey said to everybody with the telepathic link skill. "We could sell way more weapons on Earth than we can in Sigil Gate City," he continued.
"Joey's right. We can make way more units. But first, we gotta learn how to craft it through, and it seems like the materials aren't easy to get," Jordan commented.
Everyone put that in the back of their minds, knowing they were going to come back to it after this outing. Then they saw their last reward:
[System: New copy skill unlocked – 'Mutation Copy.' You are able to copy them and, taking certain beasts or people, take their form for your own. You can select which party members you want to have the mutation. Something to note: when a party member gets the mutation, that mutation cannot be removed from the party member. It is stuck with them. You can turn it off and on, but depending on how the mutation reacts, it can be forcibly turned on by you. The party member users could also acquire more than one mutation. By the way, how they will mix with one another is unknown by the system.]
"Wait… doesn't this mean—?" Riven thought as he went through the system. There, in his skill tab by his Copy evolution, was the Copy Mutation. When he clicked on it mentally, he saw clips of Ashley, Xander, and Milo. All were shown, but instead of individual names being shown up top, instead they all said "Werewolf."
"So this does mean we can turn into werewolves just like them," Riven thought.
"But the real question is, should we?" Wren asked.
"No. Not right now, at least," Riven replied back.
"What? Why?" Harkel asked in a heartbroken tone.
"One: who knows what will happen if I clicked it right now? Maybe we'll turn into werewolves just like them—and the students and teachers here wouldn't waste any time trying to attack us, especially after what happened literally yesterday. And two: when I first encountered Ashley, she told me that after a certain point, she couldn't turn off the werewolf transformation. Meaning, most likely, if we do use it and we use it too much, we'll be stuck in that transformed state. Do you want to risk that?" Riven asked Harkel, who shook his head no.
"But no one can deny that if we do, we'll most likely grow even stronger," Tessa said, putting in her two cents. And everyone agreed with her statement. Ashley and the other two werewolves were all human at some point—humans who couldn't evolve. But in their werewolf state, they were able to combat and even easily defeat evolvers who are above the first awakening.
Which also made them think even more.
"How did the Broken Veil even make them like that? And are they still doing that? And can they make people stronger than that?" Riven questioned.
But all his questions soon stopped as Mr. Sable then signaled everyone to go into the bushes. When Riven looked, he could see bull-like beasts walking around. There were four in number.
"Now, everyone," Sable started to whisper, "let the hunt begin."
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Meanwhile…
With the last remaining person of Team C, Kelvin was running. Ever since Kael walked through that portal, he never stopped running—not even when his body told him to. He then ran into a group of one teacher and six students.
"Ox?" Kelvin asked.
"Kelvin!" Ox shouted.
"Where have you been? And where is your team?" Ox questioned.
Kelvin then stayed silent for a little, remembering Kael's words. Then he looked Ox in the eyes.
"My team was wiped out in a fierce battle."