'New Quest! Test of Courage: First Portal Raid

You have worked hard to form your core, you have changed your attributes, and you now have tied up lingering doubts keeping you from your path. You are ready for the next step.

In 1 Day: 2 Hours: 36 Minutes, a one time use personal portal will be activated for your use. You may gather 3 allies of Neophyte rank or higher to accompany you.

Unawakened humans may not journey to other worlds without risk of intense danger and permanent damage due to incompatible spiritual energy oversaturation. It is recommended that unawakened humans do not accompany you through the portal.

When you proceed through the portal, further orders will be given.'

Frank didn't like this one bit. It still felt so soon. It had been nearly a week since he had formed his core and enchanted Lauren's knife into its upgraded form, the Saving Grace. Frank had tried to enchant a few items since then, with no success. His first guess seemed to be right, he could add some charge to items that were already enchanted, but he didn't know how to enchant an item himself. That isn't to say it couldn't be done, he just didn't know where to begin.

Frank had spent the past week overdoing it on training. He was using his teleport every time he was moving to grind its progress every bit he could. He didn't seem to receive an awful lot from short jumps out of combat, concentrated jumps gave a slightly higher chunk of experience points, or "XP" for lack of a better word, but apparently the highest progress would come from using his ability in combat. He also made sure to stay invisible as often as possible to grind that skill as well. This increasingly began to annoy his family, even though they understood why he was doing it. Luckily, staying near his family while they were unaware of his presence gave bonus XP even if it was otherwise negligible progress. With his grinding he managed to get [Teleportation] to level 8, and [Total Invisibility] to level 6 with healthy progress halfway to 7. Progress came slow, but every step gave benefits of some sort. Range, cooldown reduction, and now that he had level 6 in [Total Invisibility] it gave him another benefit.

'Total Invisibility, Rank E Level 6

User becomes completely invisible upon activation. Effect lasts 8 minutes Earth time. User is unable to be detected on the human-visible light spectrum, nor much of the infrared or ultraviolet spectrum. However, user still gives off heat, breath, and still produces noise when moving or handling objects. Objects held close to the body or inside clothing may be made invisible so long as they are in possession by the user. Any contact with a living being that is not significantly smaller than the user will break the effect and end it early. Cooldown period of 1 minute from end of effect. Upgradeable through skill use and knowledge

Passive bonus: Agility increased by 2 when undetected'

Frank wasn't sure if this bonus applied only when he was invisible, or all the time. It was tough to gauge given how he felt lighter on his feet and quicker all around now that he had points in his Agility stat all the time. Given this new lightness, Frank searched up video tutorials on how to do maneuvers like backflips, cartwheels, handsprings and other acrobatic moves he never bothered trying to learn before. He wasn't terribly good at it, but he quickly got used to performing them out in the yard due to how flexible he had become.

His family found it strange, but enjoyed the spectacle regardless. Lauren recorded him flipping and cartwheeling around thinking it was hilarious. She sent the videos to her group chats with her friends, but many of her girl friends asked her if she would introduce them to her brother.

The classmates and friends noticed his crazy muscle growth and chiseled abs and couldn't help but get excited. Lauren responded by calling them perverted bitches, he was too old for them. Lauren still couldn't adjust to their view of her brother. To her, he was still the fat slob she had known her whole life, even if he had superpowers now.

Frank's father Harold, on the other hand, was beaming with pride. He had long ago resigned to the fate that Frank would never apply himself and make anything of his life. Now, his prayers had been answered! His son was not just fit and strong, he was also a self starter and went out of his way to work like crazy for his goals. It was a complete about face over his old habits! He was still worried how Frank would fare on the other side of the portal, especially with the news that the time for his first real mission was approaching. But, his son had already proven he could fight when he came home victorious from fighting with the werewolf monster last week. It took a lot of weight off of Harold's shoulders to know his son was able to care for himself in combat.

Frank was coming out of the shower after another round of practicing acrobatics and supplementing with crunches, pushups, and pullups on an old pullup bar his dad had got him years ago to try to get Frank to lose weight. He nearly bumped into Lauren who was walking to his room with a package.

"Whatcha got there, pipsqueak?"

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

She yelped because Frank was invisible

"I don't know, its yours. I was gonna give it to you. What did you get? The box is kinda big, but not too heavy. Is it mostly filled with foam or something?"

The siblings put the box down on Frank's bed as the duration of [Total Invisibility] finished up. Frank stood there in his boxers, trying to think back to what he bought.

"Put some clothes on, you creep! Imagine if one of my friends was over right now, they'd perv all over you because they're freaks! They like the videos I send them of you doing your circus routine in the yard way too much"

"What? Your friends... think I'm attractive?" Frank laughed in her face, "I'm flattered but I don't think they know what they're getting into. I'm too busy to even consider dating right now, even if they were the right age" Frank chuckled as he pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt. He would have jumped at the chance for some attention from admirers not too long ago. But with the portals looming over him and the System now directly calling Frank to action, he couldn't even consider going to a bar or going on a date until he was sure things weren't so dire as they seemed to be in his first apocalypse dream.

Going back to the package, which Lauren was hastily dismantling with Saving Grace, he remembered what it was! Someone on the Fat Buck Ranch forum was offering to sell their full set of used "action camera" accessories to Awakened forum members who were planning to go gather intelligence on the other side of a portal. Many people responded in the thread, but Frank was surprised to find the guy responded quickly to his post. He saw Frank's powers and archetype, and immediately knew he had to cut Frank to the front of the line. The two men worked out the details and Frank paid the guy, then forgot all about it.

"Frank... is this for the recon bounty Lincoln is offering?" Lauren asked as she pulled out spare memory cards, chest and helmet mounts, a chest harness, a compact camera bag, spare batteries, and charging adapters. Whoever this guy was, he was damn serious about his hobby.

Frank wondered why he gave it all away for such a cheap price? Did he have a newer set? Or was he committed to helping with the war effort? All Frank could recall was that this guy was an unawakened human who found the forum sometime after the infamous Goblin Raid Stream was scrubbed from social media.

He turned back to Lauren and met her eyes to answer her question.

"Damn fuckin' straight it is! You think I'd do this for attention? I want that fat paycheck Lincoln is offering! Who's gonna get better footage than the guy who can stalk a goblin patrol unseen?" Frank's eyes practically sparkled with dollar signs.

Lincoln Colmare, the Awakened Prophet as some called him, now had enough money and influence with his followers that he could afford to put out massive 6 figure bounties for footage and verified information about invaders, as well as valuable information about how to defeat them. For someone like Lincoln, whose most useful ability allowed him to glean information from the future, he knew firsthand just how valuable information was.

So, sparing no expense he put up a bounty on information to feed humanity's collective knowledge of the threats they were facing. This was no issue for Lincoln anyway as he was living light and on the road these days. Nobody was quite sure why, and Lincoln seemed to dodge specific questions prying too deeply into his travels, despite welcoming every prayer and blessing his chat sent him whether it be in the normal flow of chat or in a text to speech donation. But for the amount of money he was offering? Many people who were just curious before, were now suddenly very interested in helping out.

There were now fewer and fewer skeptics as people pointed to forum posts showing sightings of strange creatures or sudden military and police interventions that were kept very mysterious and disappeared as quickly as they arrived.

"What the fuck! You weren't gonna tell me you were going to do this? I want in!" Lauren crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at Frank.

"Get real, kid. You can't come with me, it's too dangerous. Even my quest notification says it's a bad idea for normal people to go into a portal"

"That's not what I mean. I want half of your payout, in exchange for editing your footage"

Frank laughed out loud. She really was his sister, after all. She smelled an opportunity and had to seize it quickly.

"Oh yeah? Do you even know what sort of footage I'll be capturing? I'll be killing monsters, running away from things that might make me shit my pants, never mind yours, and capturing whatever sick lifestyles and rituals the goblins and orcs have as they live their lives. You saw how the fallen goblins treated the true goblins. What sort of culture do you think they have when things like that are allowed to happen?"

"Do you even know what kind of sick things I've seen on the internet? You can find it all with a little effort. And besides, what better way to prepare myself for the monsters coming our way than to see first hand how they live and what to look out for? Reality isn't age restricted, doesn't have a filter bar, or a sensitive content warning. I'm not going to be the scared little bitch I was before, I'm going to be ready!" Lauren's hands were now balled up into fists, tears forming in her eyes.

So this was what it was really about, huh? She wanted it to seem like it was all about the money, about getting her share. But Frank knew his sister too well. He'd been out training and getting money, but she'd been at home doing a lot of thinking and reading. She had been shaken to her core when confronted with the reality of the Realm War, locking up and shivering like she'd just been dipped in a cold river whenever she felt vulnerable.

She knew, just like Lincoln knew, just like Frank knew, that knowledge is power. That's why she had been gathering and sharing so much of it with her brother and with the Fat Buck Ranch community, the only community whose stated and shared goal was preparing for invaders and helping the newly minted frontline forces of their species. She was gathering knowledge of Frank's enemy, her enemy, humanity's enemy, so that she wouldn't ever feel weak like that again. He couldn't help but wonder if her new knife had somehow rubbed off on her, giving her some of that fighting spirit he felt from it when he first charged its enchantment.

"Fine" Frank relented, "You can edit my footage. I'll even credit you when I post it to the forum. But if it gets too difficult, too tough to watch... I'm giving the project to someone else and splitting your cut based on how much work you actually manage to put out"

Frank wiped his sister's tears, then pulled her into a hug.

"What would I do without you, little sis?"