I land on the other side, breathing heavily. I take a moment to become aware of my surroundings, then I sit behind several trees and bushes that outline the training area of my school and meditate for a few moments.
Information hits my mind like a flood.
"Congratulations on reaching level 4! Your attribute points have been allocated! You have received one new title! You have gained one new skill! You may chose a 'Way of Walking'! Warning, 'Ways of Walking' may only be chosen once and are unidentifiable by even the system!"
"You will wake up in from your meditation in 24 minutes and 29 seconds in order for your body to acclimate to it's increases in stats! Should there be any movement or hostility within 25 meters you will immediately be awoken! Be aware, if you are awoken, you will feel all the pain of your upgrade!"
"You may look over your stats and skills while you wait!"
-Name: Jeffrey Zeale -Level: 4 -Class: Dorgre Warrior -Race: Dorgre
-Title(s): 'The Silence'
-Str: 24 -Agi: 26 -Vit: 29 -Dex: 21 -Charisma: 10 -Luck: 10
Unallocated points: 0
Active Skill(s): Small Bladed Weapons (Beginner Level 32, 67%), Sneak (Beginner Level 53, 98%)
Innate Skill(s): Thermal Imaging (Max Level)
Passive Skill(s): Mana Body (Beginner Level 11, 19%) [(Mana's Received) Shadow (23%), Death (35%), Blood (27%), Mist (11%), Fear (3 %), Null (.09 %), Personally created through actions (.01%)] ((Mana is not just an element, a particle or something that belongs solely to you or anything, mana is everything, and eveything is mana))
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Besides the darkness that surrounds my subconcious and the words seared into my brain that seem to be coming from the backs of my eyelids, should I even be awake any longer is a small dark red hole in the middle of my vision.
'Will you follow me, boy? Will you follow my Way? The One and only Way?' A voice much more piercing and violent and loud than that of the beginning of the apocalypse, but eerily similar, comes into my mind without warning once I focused on the hole.
I shout coldly to myself, and to the voice and to everything, "There is only my Way, foolish being who thinks himself god! You will never control my fate! I'll die the way I want to, and I'll live the way I want to! There's nothing you or anyone can put in my way to stop me!"
Pain sears me as even my inner vision goes blank. A cackling laughter fills my mind and possibly my soul. Forcing me to be unable to think. The voice comes back, seemingly much more calmed even from the beginning of it all, a tinge of whimsy and laughter coats the voice.
'Good! Great! Wonderful! You are deserving of my power far more than others, fledgling. I will not give it to you however. Not until you've cast off the shackles that hold you to your planet, that hold you to your mortality. On that day I'll be back for you, good luck on your... Way....' Blistering laughter fills me all at once, then slowly fades into the background of my mind and then suddenly and immediately dissipates.
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I wake up with the familiar sounds of the informational genie giving me a congratulatory sentence for finding my way, which is ironically called 'My Way'.
"Congratulations! You've found your Way and are free to awaken! Your Way, 'My Way', gives a boost to charisma and luck in a one-off dump of 13 points! 10 to charisma, 3 to luck!"
My breathing completely normal as I wake, feeling newfound strength and muscle fatigue all over my body as I stand slowly, working out the kinks and familiarizing myself with my new stats, I move forward towards the school, slowly.
Turning my ability back on I see several human shapes in the distance, on the far side of the training ground, near the back entrance to the school.
Several bodies lay around them, dead for not long by the amount of heat coming off of them. I skitter slowly forward, my feet making little to no noise as I come upon them, hiding behind a nearby stack of training equipment normally inside at this time of night.
Listening closely I come upon a discussion between 4 men and 6 women.
"Where is that idiot?" A woman with a thick accent blurts out among the silence, a few groans heard from the others.
"He said he'd be here soon when I last envisioned him. I don't want to do it again should he be fighting something, which I suppose he would, though it would be quick with him around. The freak." He snicked to himself, the girl's glare piercing into his skull, like he was a second away from death, should he say another word.
I walk out from the shadows, making no noise with my feet and coldly bark out,"Freak, hmm? Since when have you given me such a cute pet-name, E?" My smile wide and merciless as can be.
The girl from earlier makes a happy shreiking sound and rushes to hug me. I put my hand on her head when she reaches me and smile, "So, I'm an idiot? You guys talk a ridiculous amount of trash behind my back. If I'd cared, you would be dead."
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E's face with no fear, looking at me all smiles, "Welcome to the party. You good?" He asks, true worry leaking from his poker face's eyes.
I nod, my smile receding, the girl still in my arms, making comforted sounds as I pat her head, "I'm fine, looks like we'll finally have a use for our powers besides little tricks and besides fighting otherwise useless abilities."
The other three men and 5 women went back to patrolling the area once I'd arrived, no words needed. Unless we were moving I'd rest, as the group's scout and second-in-command, I needed quite a bit of rest usually, if not for the wish I'd asked for.
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The school I go, or went to was as I've said a school for people with unusual or special abilities, whether they be mind, physique, or spiritual.
Children from all over the country were gathered by the government to see if there were possibilities in training some of their abilities into a kind of super soldier.
School may be the wrong word, as we were trained like soldiers from the age of five. Each of us was put into a team of 11, 6 women, and 5 men, for reasons I can't quite understand.
We are each trained in every facit of the military until the age of eight where we are divided into our perceived specialties and given roles within our group and classes to move us toward where they wanted our abilities to end up.
The perfect squad, or the ideal squad was what our military wanted, something along the lines of the world's top special forces, but literally unseen, because of our specialties and abilities.
They hammered all of this into us for 10 years.
At the age of fifteen, we were sent on our first mission, a snatch and grab of a high level russian terrorist, living in siberia.
Because of our unit's cohesion and training, the mission went off without a hitch, and the government green-lit our program and we were officially integrated into the military under a codename.
We were designated Unit 1, or 'Silence'.
After that we went on dozens of missions over the last 2 years, basically no rest.
Constant assassinations and kidnappings in foreign countries, even sometimes our own. Completely indiscernable from accients or plain disappearances in every way.
There were 6 other units, with their own designation, and number, also along for the ride, completing the same type of missions we were.
Everything was going fine until one of our units was completely decimated just two weeks ago. Then another 3 days later, and another 6 days after that, and one more on the same day. Until finally our units were put on immediate and indefinite leave until the government could find out who was hunting our squadrons.
The End happened before anything could be figured out, and now, maybe never will.
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My squad consists of 4 long range weapons experts, due to the need for the absense of sound and presence, they each used the bow and arrow.
3 close ranged weapons experts, a swordmaster, spearmaster, and dagger afficionado.
2 mid ranged weapons experts, with throwing knives, and one meteor hammer, and 2 unarmed combatants, each using their bodyparts as their weapons. One in Muay Thai, the other in BajiQuan.
Most of the children were orphans without even names, children who were thrown into the streets at a young age because of their unique abilities.The country gave them short and consice names if they had any at all.
The archer's names, all female, were Alice (Red head, Scout, 168 cm, power is long distance sight), Beatrice (Blonde, close range protection, 173 cm, power is kinesis in her bones, making them elastic or hard, longer or shorter, in an instant), Cynthia (Jet Black Hair, Scout, 165 cm, power is amplified hearing in the radius of 100 meters), and Diane (Brunette, Sniper, 177 cm, power is undefined, can move things with her mind in subtle ways, only helpful in archery, unlimited range, but weight is an extreme factor).
The close ranged weapon experts were me (Assassinations/Scout/Frontline), daggers, E (Archer defense, 178 cm), sword, and Francesca (Dirty Blonde, Frontline, 182 cm, power is the ability to see .5 seconds into the future from a first person point of view, only usable several times a day, massive drain on stamina).
Throwing Knives was Gertrude (Matte Black Hair, Scout/close range protection/Assassinations, 162 cm, power is perfect muscle reaction, to the point where her accuracy from 5 to 35 meters is within .1 mm of where she meant to aim), and Meteor hammer is Heath (Bald, Frontline, 159 cm, power of sound, the ability to cancel the sounds within 5 meters of himself).
Ian is a master of Bajiquan (Bald, Frontline, 164 cm, power is supernatural strength, not quantifiable, erratic, comes into control only through his martial arts, dangerous), and Kent is the Muay Thai Expert (Black Hair, Archer protection/Frontline, 170 cm, power is the ability to turn his skin into iron, can still be wounded by edged weapons and high power blunt weapons if uncareful).
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As I look down once more at Gertrude nuzzling into my chest I have a realization, none of them have changed races, all staying human. "What were your wishes?" I say to E as he walks over to the table nearby to grab his small sack, a water being removed.
He turns towards me, "Wishes?" The confusion evident on his face.
"Nevermind, did you get the system?" I ask, glossing over the fact I was the only one I know of who got wishes so far, either that or he didn't and the others hid the fact from him. A normal thing, because while we are as close as family, our upbringing jading us to eachother just enough to keep distance from our non-romantic relationships between eachother.
He looks puzzled for a moment, then nods, "Yeah, we got it. We all picked our usual classes. We get 2 points per level to put into attributes and a race change available at level 5. Our classes limit our race availability, but we figured to stick with what we know, our bodies, and not with some otherworldly entity."
I smile at our similar thinking as he runs off to join Heath, Ian, Kent, Fran, Diane, and Bea. Alice and Cynthia already in the trees around the school walls, Gertrude and I to join shortly.
I look down to Gertrude, who as usual is about to pass out in my arms, almost becoming deadweight. I lightly breathe out with a, "Love, are you okay?" She nods at my answer, still drowsy, a very sleepy person, as I used to be. Her powers quite draining, as they're constant and unstoppable.
She sleepily lets out a, "I'm fine~,.. My stats are 10 all the way,.. except for 13 in agility and Unlimited in Dexterity... I'm already level 3,.. haven't put my points in yet,.. too sleepy to think about it... What do you think?.." She looks up at me, eyes closed and smiles.
"2 str, 1 vit, 3 agi, cutie." I smile back and give her a quick kiss, as I pick her up into a princess carry in an extremely practiced way and jump up into the tree next to us, quicker than she expected, as her gasp released from shock.
She looks up to me, her eyes wide, "Who are you? What have you..." She looked into my eyes and saw scary eyes. The gentle look of which calmed her heavily beating heart. Realization coming to her eyes. The sleepiness once again overcoming her speach patterns. "No wait... it's you... Your race changed already?.. What did you change to?.."
I explained to her quickly about every single thing that happened to me. She and the Unit the only family I've ever known.
She nods after hearing it, slightly shocked, but more or less overcoming her shock to look delighted for me. A smug smile on her face. "Hah!.. That idiot leader of ours thought he was the best because he had the most total stats of all of us but you double each one of our stats and then some... My man's the best~..." She leans in to give me a kiss as I'm moving from tree to tree, her kiss almost making me slip off a tree branch.
A ringing noise comes to my head, "Scout the area around the school to the south for 5 minutes, after 5 minutes I'll contact you once more for the direction were moving in, I'm trusting you and her with our backs. I know I can believe in you. Good luck if you need us, do the usual. Affirmative?" I answer in morse code with my eyelids "Affirmative."
The ringing goes away along with his presence and I say to Gertrude, "To the south, love, we're watching the back this time." She answers with an, "Okay~..." as she gets down from my arms gingerly and moves south in stride with me in practiced motions moving from branch to branch.