His ears were ringing as he coughed up blood. Looking down he spotted a large sliver of shrapnel wedged cleanly into his stomach. Though he didn't have time to worry about that his tank was still running so he was still in the fight. He ran a finger over the markings he had carved into the hull of the tank. In iron and steel through fire and fury armor for the front armor to the last. At least that's what he believed the Latin he had scratched there meant. His tank was for lack of a better word a hunk of old scrap metal with a bunch of prototype junk slagged onto it. The old Abrams tank had been one of the few things that couldn't be controlled when the bots took over, so they had quickly been retrofitted. His was one of the first to have a rail cannon. Meaning it was slow hefty and had the firepower to punch through one of those massive walkers that was currently tearing apart the city. Why the brass had spent so much on fucking genetic experiments instead of improving what works, he’d never understand why. The weird Skibidi toilet looking Cyborg monstrosities were admittedly powerful but they weren't super soldiers like they had been advertised. They had been promising them Spartans or space marines instead they were given horrifying abominations. With human heads slapped onto mostly robotic monstrous bodies. He watched as the counter ticked up and up, and up,, and up,,, so painfully slowly. The massive six legged Walker blew up another building as he had to wait. He wasn't sure where the rest of his battalion had gotten to but since he wasn't seeing any more shots at the blasted thing, he figured there weren't any of them left. Right as he pulled the trigger the capacitor overloaded, and he was essentially cooked alive in his metal casket, but the shot hit. At the very least he had completed his final mission.
Nylah bolted awake, the dream already slipping from memory like water through a sieve. As her right of awakening grew closer, she kept having these weird dreams. The annoying part was she couldn’t remember them afterwards other than a vague sense of it’s importance.
She had been granted special permission to go ahead and take the right early. Though it was only by a few weeks. The right of awakening happened once a year and every child in the village that turned 16 within that year was allowed to participate. While you could refuse no one was dumb enough to do so. Anyone could actively perform the right of awakening at any time and a lot of kids accidentally had done so long before the yearly ceremony. The ceremony just required anyone to kill something classified as a monster. The villagers captured and even raised horned rabbits for their meat and fur so there was no shortage of them for the ceremony each year. They would just put off slaughtering the beasts for their fur for a little while before the ceremony and let the kids get the kill.
Afterwards, they would be returned to their owner who could do with the meat and the fur as they wished. Upon killing their first monster they would gain access to the system. The system had originally been designed for the heroes of the world summoned by the gods. However, as the centuries passed on and heroes became less common, they inevitably had children. And their children had children and their children's children had children and basically, the bloodline thinned out enough that everyone nowadays had access to the system in some form. The more pure bloodlines had more powerful versions of it but occasionally it would just pop up randomly in some kid with a more powerful or unique version. Some people believed that this was the reason the heroes were no longer summoned or at least no longer summoned as often. Or at least as often as once in a generation one or two would appear. The theory was that the gods were actively granting boosts or improved versions of the systems to the residents of their own worlds. Though she didn't know how much of that was to be believed some of the priests said that way of thinking was blasphemy while some of the scholars said it was something called genetics or whatever.
She was just looking forward to getting the ability to use magic. Her mom had mage as her first awakening class but when she had gotten seamstress as her secondary. They had later fused into a string Mage. She had seen her mother in a fight a few times, she could use it to turn her foes into puppets or slice them up with razor thin threads. Only to turn around and magic into being a dozen outfits for the local town guard.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Her father was, well she wasn't quite sure what he was at this stage. He said he was branching out, but he had to have almost a dozen classes and while he didn't have particularly high variance in the classes it helped him do whatever work was available. Warrior, Bard, blacksmith, the list went on he could fix or work just about anything and that's what he did. He didn't really have a singular job, just helped out wherever and made a decent wage for it from what she could tell. She wasn't quite sure what she was going to get as her starting class, but she was hoping for a magic class. While warriors Archers and so on were useful in their own right she was small. Smaller than the rest of her year, despite being fifteen years old well sixteen in three weeks which is why she needed the exception to get it this year instead of having to wait till next year.
Till then she had to help her mother put up the decorations for tonight's ceremony. It wasn't gonna be a huge event but there would be decorations drinking a small feast with music and so on. She had always looked up to the older kids who were showing off their new abilities. Sparring training with some of the adults and just goofing around with people who had similar or the same abilities to help them get used to their new powers. And it was finally her turn she’d finally get to do it herself!
As the day drew to its end like it did every year. It did so with a sense of energy in the air as the families with kids that were participating this year started to gather in the town’s square. The kids around her age were eagerly laughing and making boisterous claims about what weird and exciting powers they would have. More than a few even claimed they would get one of the rarer higher classes, but Nylah knew better.
She had a, admittedly rather out of date but still she had a copy of the class and skill codecs. The book wasn't exactly rare, but books weren't exactly common either. It had been mixed in with a bag of junk goods a wandering merchant had on his wagon when she found it. He had even sold it to her mother for relatively cheap three silvers. Considering most books were anywhere between five to twenty silvers, that was a downright bargain. Even if she later discovered the codex was half a century old. Though it still had most of the same information in it. The books were only ever updated whenever the registry in the capital was updated as far as she knew. She had volume forty nine and they were on fifty two. She had managed to compare the books once, scribbling down what little she could on the back of the book’s cover. Best she could understand she was missing maybe eight classes and maybe forty two skills. Regardless it had painted a rather stark picture unless your family was famous for producing some rare class you were likely just to have the basic archer fighter warrior or Mage. Maybe one of its evolutions if you were extremely lucky but those were rare.
As the afternoon faded to twilight the ceremony finally began. Nylah, being the youngest had to go last so she watched as her friends got their classes, and yeah, they were the expected warriors Archer, etc. Though there was one rare which was surprising as she had only seen three in her entire life though it wasn't anything to advance. The woodsman class specialized in hunting and blade combat. While it could use a bow it had very few actual skills for bows. Instead, it was heavy into wilderness survival and axe based combat. Her friend Charles had been the oldest of the group and the one to actually get the woodsman class. Her friend Marianne had got a typical archer class, but she had almost every skill unlocked at level one. Which most people believed meant she was probably close to an evolution. It finally came time for Nylah’s turn, she picked up the knife and approached the last cage with the little monster in it.
She had fought a horned rabbit once before and had nearly unlocked her class when she was eight and a few of them had managed to escape. Though she hadn't managed to get the kill back then.
She still found the fact that they had to kill to gain power a little disturbing, but she wasn't a God nor did she claim to have any understanding of them beyond what the local preacher taught.
As she sank the dagger between the creature's ribs she was struck with a splitting headache. Most people just winced but it felt like something was drilling into the side of her skull. She grabbed her head and stumbled a few steps before tipping over.
When she came to a few seconds later to the shock of the crowd now formed around her She could only focus on the blue screen floating in front of her invisible to anyone other than herself.
“Huh what the heck is a Tanker.” she said unable to look away from the class section of her status screen.