Just as Aryan have accepted the task, a set of standards for completion of task popped in his head.
Aryan walked inside the office while his eyes had something akin to a scanning feature which highlighted the dirty parts that needed cleaning.
He took 8 minutes to take whole view of pet store in, where he also saw some beast pets of customers in some cages. As Wonderful as it was, he had a more important task at hand which was to be done with this system task to start his journey on path of Arcane.
Aryan went through the things in the store and finally found some cleaning equipments. Getting some rags, he started to clean surface of things which had noticeable layer of the dust on it. It seemed that mother was very ill for some days already and couldn't come store.
'So, she couldn't even muster up the courage to ask her own son to take care of business that feed them all. This boy was really terrible.' Aryan thoughts were wandering around this topic while continue with cleaning.
2 hours later…
Aryan had finally almost ended up cleaning the stores, all that was left to do was to make last stroke of mope.
"GRRRR"
A vicious growl sounded from the area where pets were kept, it was rather similar to a knine.
Making last stroke, he heaved a sigh of finally being done with cleaning. But, system screen haven't shown the status of task as completed. It was still incomplete.
Aryan began to check the entire store to find where the cleaning is left to be done. His snooping around lead him to a part of area which in it's entirety was filled with filthy smell.
'What is this horrendous smell?' Aryan quickly covered his nose with his elbow as he can feel that if he let that smell directly assault his nose again than he would cause much more mess by vomiting his guts along with whatever he had eaten.
His somehow contained his reaction toward the smell as he walked forward to find where this is originated from. And he did find it, but looking at the result he wished he didn't find it.
It was the poop of some arcane beast pet which was exhibiting this smell. Aryan gathered something to remove the poop as that was supposedly only thing left before task can be deemed as finished.
"GGRRRRR" a growl came from very close to Aryan's ears. He might have gained information about this new world but his subconscious wasn't still ready to adapt to a world where arcane beast who were close to myths he used to hear actually existed.
That growl had caught him off guard and he was about fall by loosing his balance which will make that cleaned poop fall on him. Though luck was on his side that he quickly gained the footing again.
Looking up at the source of growl, he found that it was a hound which is 3 times bigger than normal and its horns were glowing red like some fire is burning on them.
[ Ding! Task is completed. ]
[ Does host want to withdraw the reward into inventory space? ]
[ Yes / No? ]
Aryan looked grieved and angered at that hound, like he is gonna hold a grudge for what hound had done to him.
'Yes' Screen made a glow as Aryan gave it this command.
Screen changed to a new page where there was nine boxes under the heading of inventory space. One box had a image of blue vial.
[ Ding! Awaken Arcane power to better merge with system and activate its true benefits. ]
Aryan dropped the cleaning equipment in one corner before going to wash his hand and everything. It was basically a small bath.
Aryan clicked on the box icon which held the image of blue serum. It caused the glowing blue serum to appear in his other hand.
[ Serum Intake Instructions:-
1. Click on the button on top of cork.
2. Remove cloth from forearm.
3. Stick the needle of serum in vein before injecting it.
4. Try to focus and mediate about the element that host feel most familiar to, this is because host can awaken one element to master it's abilities along the way while contracting beasts to raise their power. ]
Aryan was scared of needles but not to the point where people would have hold him to inject him.
Aryan looked at the serum in his hand which had the look combined of sci-fi plus fantasy elements. He clicked the button on cork as it lead to small transformation in tube containing serum.
Aryan removed sleeve from right forearm and injected the pointy end that came out of tube.
'Wait, how was it supposed to inject itself into arm, there is no pressing motion.'
Just as he thought of this, something have seem to trigger the serum as it went into his veins and covered his entirety of body in a split second.
[ Ding! Requiremets are being met… ]
[ •~• ]
Aryan closed his eyes as that serum made him experience like his whole body is frozen and is facing very chill winds. He felt a faint of presence of someone in his consciousness.
Aryan skimmed through all the options of elements that he had known from articles on scientific studies in his previous life.
He wanted to awaken something akin to grand universe forces that was still shrouded in mystery even in previous life except some theories and experiments.
'Should it be gravity, time, space or electromagnetic force?' Even if he considered the references in fantasy novels, these forces were always peak of power in each one of them.
He tired to conjure a mental representation of Space as a concept but it seemed incomplete. He kept trying but his efforts were not fruitful. If he could not even understand space than time and electromagnetic force was even far more mysterious, as of gravity, all his knowledge of gravity was based on the face that it was just curve in space time fabric.
His already made fail in space assured him that his gravity knowledge is too shallow to comprehend it as a awakened element. He still tried all but failed.
Just when he was giving up trusting his old knowledge, he felt that effect of awakening serum have seemed to exit the peak performance which meant he would have to hurry or otherwise this opportunity might be gone never to see again.
His mind was rummaging through all the knowledge but many elements failed, light, motion, anti- matter.
So, he eventually had to come back to basic elements. From those five elements, his most favourite always have been thunder/ lightning because it is what is purest form of energy that he know in those elements.
His understanding towards this element was rather splendid because he had read all academic papers and articles about it. His mind conjured a vague image of thunder phenomena happening.
A blue aura came from all sides in his mind which bagan to enter that image. Just then, image bagan to show small crack but it still stood there withstanding that aura.
His head bagan to experience a sharp pain, his knowledge of thunder start to gather in that view of thunder in small bits of views and cracks repaired with it. He has lost any sense of time in that state but strain on his mind was telling him that it was quite some time already.
[ Ding! Thunder concept of host have registered as element for Awakening. ]