Elixirs: 1215. *Profile
Coins: 15 *Evolution Pod
*Interface
*Codex
I tried to touch them, but my hand was always behind them, like they were never there in the first place.
No matter how close it was to my face, and they were stuck to my eye, even when I closed my eyes, I still saw them.
So, tapping on 'writings' was not possible.
"There should be a way to interact with these writings. I shouldn't just be able to see them without a means to interact with them," I said to myself.
There are only two ways humans naturally communicate or interact with other people and their environment – speaking and hand work (either hand sign or writing).
"Elixir," I called out, hoping for a response.
But there was no response.
So I shifted my attention to the 'things' on the top-right side of my view to try the writing there, since they appeared different from 'Elixir' and 'Coin'.
The 'Profile' and 'Evolution Pod' had an asterisk behind them, while 'Interface' had the side view of a machine gear in a box behind it, and 'Codex' had a donut-circle in a small box behind it.
"Profile? What…" I said, wondering aloud, when suddenly a nearly-transparent green floating screen appeared in front of me.
It displayed some interesting thing written in black.
**Profile
Name: None
Nature: Evolve Human
Level: 1
Title: Ratty
Hit point: 100
Damage per hit: 2
Arcane Energy: 6
Arcane Skills (None)
Arcane Physiology (None)
Power Status
Trophy
It seems 'Profile' activated when I said it aloud.
'So they activate with voice commands, let me try Evolution Pod next…' I pondered in my mind, when another screen with similar features to the first screen appeared.
Evolution Pod
Level Up
[Level 2: 100 Elixir]
"So, it seems they even respond to thoughts. Let's try 'Interface'" I said to myself, expecting an Interface screen to appear since I called it out but it didn't.
Then I said 'Inferface' loosely in my mind but nothing still happened.
"Opening Interface?" I said with a bit of confusion.
'Why isn't Interface…' I didn't complete that thought when the Interface screen appear.
Interface
Language
View
? About
"I don't understand. I called it; both aloud and in my mind, so why didn't it open the first two times?" I asked myself.
"Close Interface," I said firmly, to test a hunch I just had, and the screen instantly disappeared.
'It seems I need to give the command with intent, and it doesn't matter if I say it aloud or in my mind,' I thought.
"Close Evolution Pod," I commanded, and it also disappeared.
It seemed that I was making some progress, so I focused on the Profile screen to understand it better.
Name was empty, so I guessed it didn't acknowledge my name. Why was that?
While Nature said 'Evolve human,' which meant this 'Game-like System' or 'Power System' acknowledged that and even had the Title as Ratty – the nickname Razor and some folks call me.
The Level, Damage per hit, and Hit point were some of the things the kid on the train explained to me.
I don't really get it all that well, but I think 'Damage per hit' is attack, 'Hitpoint' is health, and 'Level' shows how strong a character is, in a game; it's similar the Grades of Evolves, the only difference is game characters can level up, but Evolves can't do that.
'Fuck, does this mean I can become stronger... Like actually strength boost, speed boost and fuck knows what else?!' I thought aloud with a sudden realization of what this might mean.
I poured all my focus into navigating this strange 'System' and understanding it when someone suddenly walked in and called my name.
"Shit, I've been looking for you. What the hell have you been doing for more than 2 hours?" Daigo asked me as I sat on the toilet seat covered with a wooden board, which was kind of an awkward moment.
"Let's go down. I think I might have seen a job that will take us," Daigo said, giving me a weird look.
I slowly looked away and replied, "Gimme a sec."
Daigo left and closed the door behind him. I quickly closed all the screens and walked outside.
Daigo stood there, folding his arms, and said, "Let's go." He led the way, and while we were going down the stairs, I asked, "Did your cousin help out?"
"Nah, this one is just a normal hiring; no help," he answered vaguely.
Daigo took me outside to the left wing of the mall, where a very small crowd of Guards gathered beside a black minivan.
Some Guards were leaving the scene, cussing at whoever was recruiting Guards there.
"3,000 yen for a raid?!" One Mercenary-Guard shouted and turned to another Guard who walked beside him, saying, "Do you believe these people? First, they peg our asses, so we'll drop coins to keep themselves safe, calling it a 'protectionfeeforall' and now they are lowering the price!"
"I had to pay 6,700 yen for that fucking general contribution, which was half of what I earned for 5 days of raiding a Gate with some god-damned Tower," the other Guard bitterly complained too.
"Don't fucking waste your time going there; those bastards are looking for looking for bad market," one of them halted for some seconds and said to us as we walked past each other.
Daigo just nodded to the guy. We walked past them without stopping.
The Guard just clicked his tongue at us and continued his walk.
When we reached the small crowd beside the van, more Mercenary-Guards left the gathering as the recruiter continued to speak at the top of his lungs to the Evolves that remained.
"…12 Guards will do. We just need 12 Evolves to conquer a small Gate, and the pay will be 3,000 yen; we can't go any higher," the recruiter said audibly, dressed in a plain brown T-shirt, grey jean trousers, and a face cap.
"Cut that shit, who gives a fuck if it's small? It is a goddamn Gate; 3,000 yen is shit coins.
What the fuck is with you?" one Guard shouted back.
"That's what we have. The Gate is a Level 1 - Grade E, and not a Fort. It is one of the weakest ones that has manifested in the last 4 months, so the danger isn't as deadly as you think it to be," the recruiter responded.
"Shove your grammar up your hole and fucking increase the pay," another Guard protested.
"I'm sorry, but 3,000 yen is all we can offer you," the recruiter said firmly but softly.
More Mercenary-Guards cussed at him, then left, but only a handful remained, which included Daigo and me.
"You guys will take the offer, I presume?" the recruiter said to those of us that remained, and only two out of nine of us nodded.
A particular guy spat on the ground as he looked at the recruiter with contempt, but he did not leave, which meant he was in but still didn't like it.
"Now, let's make this quick. I want us to enter the Gate immediately when we arrive there.
Now, the Aggressors we will face are White-face Zipper Spines and Arrow-nose Goblins, and there are less than 100 in number all together. That's all," the recruiter debriefed us, which was one of the shortest debriefs I had heard.
"Now, since questions are out of the question," he said and smirked at his own silly joke before continuing, "All we need to do is check your Evolve ID card, and we will move out."
He checked all of our cards, loaded us into the minivan, and turned on the van to drive us to our destination.
At the back of the minivan, I said 'Open Profile' in my mind and it appeared.
Profile
Name: None
Nature: Evolve Human
Level: 2
Title: Ratty
Hit point: 100
Damage per hit: 2
Arcane Energy: 6
Arcane Skills (None)
Arcane Physiology (None)
Power Status
Trophy
I have been checking out the System out for hours and there were some things I haven't tried out before Daigo came to look for me and one of those things is 'ArcaneSkills'.
I also realize that there isn't a fixed command to select and activate objects in the System, all I need to call out the name of the object with intent.
I could say 'Execute Profile' , 'Profile', 'Open Profile' or 'Display Profile', it doesn't matter; all will activate 'Profile' as long as I say it with intent.
'Open ArcaneSkills' I internally announced.
A message screen popped up instead.
Message Box
[No acquired skills]
[1 skills available in Codex]
'No skill, but one is available in the Codex' I thought to myself.
I closed the Message Box and opened up Codex.
**Codex
Buy Exchange
[Shape-shift Lv.1]: [10 Coins] [15 Coins]
Sell
[Acquired Arcane Skills and Weapons can be sold here]
Like the message box said, there is only one skill and I immediately chose to buy it.
Alas, there was another Message Box
Message Box
[Level is too low to buy any item]
So I close the Message Box and Codex.
I've navigated through some of the components of the system already, so I knew where to go regarding level.
"Open EvolutionPod" I mistakenly said aloud, which drew Daigo's attention.
"What?" He asked in slight confusion, but I responded by brushing it off as nothing.
'I should shut my fucking mouth. Just say the commands in my mind' I thought to myself.
I returned my focus to the Evolution Pod Hologram.
**Evolution Pod
Level Up [Level 2: 100 Elixir]
I didn't execute this before because the kid told me to be careful when change setting and using resources like coins and whatnot in a game because I could end up making a grave mistake if I act to hasty.
Thankfully, the last Message Box said I needed to level up to buy skills, so I immediately demanded 'Levelup'.
The contents under Evolution Pod immediately change to – 20:00; which began to count down. So, it is very likely a timer for the LevelUp.
I closed all the screen and rested my head for bit.
The fact that everything I previously deemed as an illusion, might actually not be and if it isn't what I think it to be then I got to somehow fix myself but in 20 minute I will undoubtingly sure if it is or not.
When we got down at our destination, a Gate with the height of 6'9 feet and 6 feet in breath greeted us. It wasn't heavily guarded like the bigger Gates were but soldiers and Enforcers stood guard with a couple of light-armoured vehicles mounted with soldiers carrying arcane-sniper rifles on them.
They formed a perimeter around the Gate but there was a bit lax, seeing that some of were doing other things like chatting.
The recruiter took us to the right wing of Gate, to an open tent where a man in suit sat in front a desk, talking with some girl pushing and pointing at a piles of papers.
"Sir, I have 9 Evolves here with me" The recruiter said, to the man in suit.
"Only 9 out of 12, I guess we can make do with that" The man said, looking at the recruiter with approval on what he delivered.
"Do any you know how to handle an assault rifle?" The man asked us.
7 out of us raised our hands and said yes. The man turned to the recruiter "Get 7 of them M12 arcane-assault rifle with 2 magazines of each person and call the Tower to send a reinforcement of at least 5 of our Guards ASAP".
"Sir, may I know why we need to arm them?" The recruiter asked in a very low tone, that we could barely hear while looking at us with caution.
At that moment, a Message box popped up and a jolt of a weird kind of 'good' electric feeling circled through my entire body.
Message Box
[Levelup!]
[Reward: 5 Status Points]
I ignored it for later and listened to the briefing, the guy in charge was about to lay down.
"The initial population of Aggressors was about 140, which was reported hours later as a glitch in the surveillance system.
After a more thorough rerun, the approximated population is somewhere between 300 - 620.
The confirmed majority of the population are goblins and zipper-spines. Based on the terrain inside the Gate, there might be other Arcane-beings are likely subterranean fauna. There's a low probability of being overly hostile" The man in suit said indifferently.
"So we will be facing a small army?" The recruiter asked, and the man behind the desk nodded.
"Ok, sir" The recruiter replied and left, understanding the reason behind his supervisor's previous order.
When he left, the man in the suit turned his head to the armed guard beside him and said "Take these men to Taiko".
The guard wasn't an Evolve, so I will assume he was employed as a private military contractor (security) by the Tower behind this operation.
At least, he doesn't look like a pussy for a human.
The security contractor nodded and we followed him to the other side of the Gate, where a group of 8 male Guards with an emblem of three white arrow head by the side of their shoulder pads, the same with the security guy.
Most of them sat on crates and chatted, while other hanged around where ever.
The security contractor walked up to a particular Guard that sat down, the Guard had a full beard, wearing a sun shade.
The security contractor stated who we were and instructed us to stay put until they were ready to conquer the Gate, then he left us there.
Taiko and his men completely ignored our presence and continued with whatever they were doing, and so did we.
I quickly pulled up Codex and tried to buy that Shape-shift skill but I got the same warning of my level being too low, this was the outcome I hoped for and definitely didn't bring me closer to the truth of whatever is happening to me.
So I went back to Evolution Pod.
Evolution Pod
Level Up
[Level 3: 200 Elixir]
After seeing that, I selected the 'LevelUp' again and it gave a countdown of 25 minutes.
The kid also said game characters get stronger whenever they levelled up, I felt a something good earlier when the Message Box pooped up.
I wanted to confirm if I became stronger, so I excused myself from the group by saying "I wanna take a piss".
I can't cut loose in front of everyone here, but there should be a lot of things I could use to test my strength out within the perimeter the Tower and army set up.
The perimeter they covered, seem to cover the entrance to a main street and some abandoned warehouses.
I walked to a corner of one of the old buildings, right beside the road.
Entering the corner, I looked around for anything I could possibly test my strength on, but found nothing at first until I noticed a long bent sign post few feet away from me, much closer to the road.
I walked up to it, then tried to pull it from the hard ground but it didn't budge.
Not even a sound was made for putting all my efforts.
'I am not stronger, could this all be in my head. No, I shouldn't judge too quickly; it's just one Level up' I shaked off the doubt and went back to the group.
Normally I would have been preparing myself mentally from this raid, but the presence of the System took most of my focus.
I called out Interface as I stood there; ignoring everything else that was going on around me.
Then I selected 'View', I have been here before but wasn't eager to mess with shit I have little clue of.
Yeah, some of 'em looked easy to understand but I can't truly understand the 'System' if I'm too much of a bitch.
I summoned it.
View
Highlight every object: Off
Highlight only arcane beings: Off
Highlight anything that contains mana: Off
Highlight nothing: On
Reflex Evolution Pod: Off [Evolution Pod will not be initiated manually, at the cost of 8% more of required Elixir for each Level up]
The Voice: Off [An Aid. Grants knowledge, guidance and warnings. It will cost 2% Elixir more for each Level up]
It wasn't a surprise what first caught my eyes now – The Reflex Evolution Pod, if I understand correctly, it means I would not have to summon the EvolutionPod every time I want to level up.
That would save me a lot of stress to always keep up and remember when to Level up but it came at a cost – 8% Elixir more for each level up, which is a lot.
Like the kid game, Elixir and Coin are currencies in the System. I currently have
Elixirs: 915
Coins: 15
The cost of each Level up seems to be the increasing; the first cost me 100Elixirs and the second one cost me 200Elixirs, the third one will probably cost me 300 Elixirs and 8% is added to all these numbers it might seem small now but over time it will definitely be a huge subtraction.
It all comes down to how much is my peace of mind worth, I would not like to lose Elixirs but I'm stressed as it is, don't need more shit on my plate, so I activated the ReflexEvolutionPod.
A Message Box popped up to confirm my action and I selected 'Yes'.
I wanted to figure out the rest of the options in View when the recruiter from before arrived with some geared-up Guards and two of the Guards carried a green trunk.
I cancelled out all the holograms and paid attention to the arrival of the recruiter like everybody else.