Renner eyeballed the screen in front of him, there were quite a few options for him to choose from. He couldn’t decide which ones to pick. Each category had six to seven different options, but he had to choose two options for his starting skills. He was scrolling through the contra skills first. Mostly because they are magic, and they will probably have the most utility for him. As he scrolled he saw the same ones he’d seen when he first opened the skills menu, [Resonance] was the most unique sounding of the first three. He quickly made a search through the system and it came up with a quick explanation of the skill.

[Resonance]

[This is a combat-type circuit that utilizes sonic attacks to generate resonant frequencies that can disrupt and destroy creatures or objects. At low proficiency, this skill can only disorient or confuse enemies. At higher proficiency levels, this skill can cause serious harm leading to almost instant death or destruction of the target.]

As he read the skill he kept trying to resist from instantly spending his point on it. He realized any magic skill was most likely going to sound amazing to him, so he had to restrain from getting the first one. He kept scrolling until he saw something else that caught his eye: [Surface Skater]. He quickly made another search for this skill.

[Surface Skater]

[This is a movement-type circuit that generates a layer of air between the user and any surface. Allows the user to easily accelerate to high speeds on most landscapes. Low skill proficiency allows for slightly improved movement across hard surfaces. High skill proficiency allows for highly enchanted movement across almost any surface including water, sand, and other fluid-like surfaces.]

He thought it was an extremely nice skill, but it would not help him much in his current situation. He needs to be able to kill a space monster made from energy that can mutate reality in whatever way it wants. [Surface Skater] might be a skill he will pick up later, he paused for a second, and he realized he had another question to ask the system: “Is there any way I can get more skill slots?”

[Yes, you will gain two more skill slots per rank which can be assigned to any of the three skill categories.]

He furrowed his brow in thought, if he wanted to, when he ranked up he could put those slots into the contra category if he wanted, or distribute them. It definitely left a lot of possibilities for what type of skills he would be using in the future.

Exiting the contra list he skipped the knowledge skills section, he would save that for another time. He needed something to help him get out of this situation as fast as possible.

After a while of scrolling and searching skills, he was thinking of choosing these two skills, [Resonance] and [Agility Enhancement]. He thought about swapping [Agility Enhancement] with [Strength Enhancement], but he liked the idea of running away from big monsters and not facing them head-on. He turned back to the system interface as it thrummed in front of him.

He stared intently at the screens, deep in thought. He knew this choice was irreversible, and if he messed up and had bad skills he would never be able to accomplish the training task. Renner paused for a moment but steadily raised his hand and selected [Resonance] and [Agility Enhancement].

[Are you sure about your skill selection? If these skills are deactivated they will require additional PEP to activate again.]

[Yes] [No]

Renner shook his head these seem like good skills, but I guess I’ll find out.

His hand hovered over the floating [Yes]—his heart skipped a beat—and he pushed his finger forward. No backing out now.

Less than a second later he felt his muscles tighten all over his body, and he fell over in pain. The only thing Renner could compare it to was having a muscle cramp everywhere. Shortly after he fell over he started to note strange a sound emanating from his body. There were screeching, clicking, and deep bass thrumming sounds being played out on what seemed like a pattern or specific intervals, but at the same time, they seemed like total chaos.

Looking down at his wrists, he saw another strange occurrence—light blue patterns, a color similar to the system screens, being ringed around his wrist forming a perfect strip. Different strange crossing lines and patterns were being drawn on his skin like some sort of system tattoo. Similar to the strange sounds, the lines and their twists and crosses seemed like some sort of pattern. However, from far away they looked like a kindergartener had used his wrist for an art project. It didn’t take up too much of his arm. it looked like he had put on a thin, glowing bracelet—except it was imprinted into his skin.

Renner was so focused on the pain, sounds, and tattooing that he hadn’t noticed the system showing another screen.

[Congratulations on your first skill activation! Agility Enhancement is an innate skill that doesn’t need user interaction to activate. However, Resonance will require user interaction for activation. A system assist can be assigned for ease of use for the initial stages. Allowing the circuit to be triggered by a verbal command or gesture. Which one would you like?]

He read over the screen quickly, Neat. This is pretty useful because I had no idea what to do next.

Renner responded to the prompt, “I guess I will go with the gesture option. Seems less noticeable.”

[To activate the skill, Resonance, you only have to connect your ring finger and thumb and resonant waves will be constantly emitted. To further enhance skill use it is recommended to use a Tuner, which will allow for the skill to be focused on a single target and greatly increase its effectiveness.]

Renner shrugged at the last comment from the system, right now he barely had anything on him much less something to tune his skill. He would probably have to wait to go to whatever base he was assigned to.

He stared down at his hands unprepared for what to expect. As he prepared to pinch his fingers together a flashing warning window appeared.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

[WARNING! DO NOT FACE THE FLAT SIDE OF YOUR APPENDAGE TOWARD YOU WHILE THE SKILL IS ACTIVATED]

He quickly flipped his palms away from him before he pinched his fingers, as the gesture was completed he felt a switch of sorts activate, like some sort of muscle being pulled, but unsure how or where. Once that feeling passed, in the direction his palms were facing tiny pebbles and rocks started to fly away. At the same time, the air started to gain a wave-like distortion in a conal shape coming from his palms.

Other than that not much happened. I made those pebbles fly away with magic! This is so cool. A little anti-climatic, but like the system said: it will get more powerful with time.

Renner stood straighter now, he gained a renewed confidence he had not felt since he arrived on this planet. A little magic power goes a long way in making an alien training death trap feel more feasible; he repeated the gesture and the same feeling came over him, and the air lost its distortion. He started to walk forward as he asked a question to the system, "Hey do you know where I can find a lower leveled Charred in my area?"

[LOCAL ANALYSIS]

[Rank 5 CHARRED: 11 within a 10-mile radius]

[Rank 4 CHARRED: 3 within a 10-mile radius.]

”Show me a safe path to the closest rank 5 Charred”

The system quickly responded, a map appearing in front of him with a highlighted path, luckily it wasn’t too far away this time.

Renner looked at the map and sighed. He was about to walk to his possible death, and it didn’t sit right with him. For the first time, he truly looked past everything that was happening around him, he was far too distracted to even realize what his dad might be thinking.

He couldn’t do that to his father, he only hoped that whoever signed him up, and the whole human race, to be randomly thrown into an alien war zone would have the courtesy to tell the rest of the world. After his mother died he did not know if his father could take another blow. Renner didn’t think he would do anything drastic, but he might ruin himself if he thought his whole family was gone.

Renner clenched his jaw tight, for now, the only thing he could do was get out of this hellscape of a “training” world and talk to someone else. Maybe at the place he’s going someone will have answers about what happened on his world.

He steeled himself and started to trudge forward on the path created by the system. On the path, there was not anything different about the landscape. It was still a monotonous mess of gravel, pebbles, and large rocks jutting out of the ground. He looked up at the sky as he walked, it was tinged yellow and red. What caught his eye the most was a large gas planet, and its large ring, taking up most of the sky.

Gravel seemed to endlessly crunch under his feet as he kept on the path. The Charred was only 1.1 miles away from his position, but it felt like it was taking hours. Even if he didn’t want to admit it he was scared. He had to fight literal monsters with just himself and his hands.

Which made him realize he hadn’t tested the [Agility Enhancement] yet. He decided to pick up his pace some, transitioning from a light jog to a full sprint. Renner immediately started to notice the effects. As he ran it felt like the ground was gliding underneath him. Almost like he didn’t need to pay attention to where he stepped, like the ground just came to meet his feet at the right spots. In reality, he wasn’t going a lot faster than he could before, but he was certainly faster maybe even as fast as an Olympic sprinter.

The wind blew over his face as glided over the remaining distance between him and the Charred marked on the map. As he got closer to the destination, the rocky valley he was in transformed into an endless plain that stretched out to the horizon.

Renner crept closer and closer to the position marked on his map, and the terrain kept getting flatter and flatter. Aside from some minor hills, it was a flat plain of gravel and red dirt. He assumed that he should be seeing the monster anytime now. It had nowhere to hide from him—and right then he saw the creature.

To be honest, Renner wasn’t completely sure what he was expecting. Whatever it was, it was not this thing. It was the size of a large dog, but it looked nothing like it. It had 5 appendages, two coming from what he guessed was the top of the animal. It hovered on three leg-like appendages ending in what looked like suction cups, but the cups emitted some type of force or air to keep it afloat. It had one large eye on the right and left sides of its ‘head’. Its skin was mostly cracked and well…charred black. Wisps of blue-green energy seeped from the cracks in the charred surface. With the occasional patch of bright green that he assumed was its original skin.

Not long after he caught sight of the creature an urgent system window appeared, flashing like the previous warning messages.

[CHARRED Analysis]

[Rank 5 CHARRED]

[78.51% INCOMPATIBLE LANGUAGE ERROR#Approximate phonetic translation: Tuvsin Polgaz#]

[21.49% (Approximate translation: Red Mole Demon) and other]

[Traits (taken from #Tuvsin Polgaz#)]

[Hover-based mobility using air emissions and bursts. Two lance-like appendages protrude from the upper chest that inject paralyzing poison. No other reliable trait information.]

Ok. so first things first don’t rely on System translations for animals—seriously…“Red Mole Demon”. It sounds terrifying and kind of endearing at the same time. Still, how the hell am I going to kill this thing?

Renner finally got close enough for it to notice him standing there, maybe 5 meters away. It turned…No hovered around and looked at him sideways so one eye could get a good look. Apparently, it didn’t like what it could see because it snarled and roared—at least that’s what he thought what happened. It was a shrill sound that pierced his ears. It didn’t particularly hurt him but it was annoying, not really intimidating though. What was intimidating were the poison lances turning toward him like the head of a snake.

Shit.

Renner immediately threw up his hands and pinched his fingers together; immediately, the resonant waves started to emit from his palm. What surprised him was the response he got from the creature, its hover feet seemed to have trouble staying 'on' and the creature flailed a bit before it fell over.

Though only a second later it was already getting back up with the support of the poison lances. Renner quickly turned off [Resonance]. Well, now I’m really really out of things to do. Except running.

This was exactly what Renner did, however, the deceptively flat landscape had hidden a small crevasse that was carved into the plain. He immediately started to head toward it; the gap seemed small enough for him to make it across. Hopefully, the Charred couldn’t 'float' across because of its hover legs.

Renner sprinted closer and closer to the ledge, he bent his knees and leaped. He tried to turn and look behind him in the air. Fortunately, his agility boost let him easily clear the crevasse with plenty of distance in front of the [Red Demon Mole] and [Tuvsin Polgaz] hybrid. Unfortunately, once it made it to the crevasse it did a ‘jump’ of its own. Using small, powerful bursts of air to control its flight across the gap.

Renner kept his pace and kept sprinting away while frantically thinking of an idea of how to kill the monster. As the crevasse started to fade away an idea popped into his head. It was desperate, and he would probably fail but it was his only option.

He quickly pivoted around to face the crevasse again and launched himself forward trying to gain as much distance between him and the charred as possible. He pressed his feet harder into the ground going as fast as possible with his new agility enhancement. Once he finally reached the edge he leaped forward trying to reach the other side as fast as possible.

As Renner soared through the air to the other side he tried his best to twist around to face the charred speeding towards him and getting ready to jump. Renner looked over for a split second before his back slammed into the ground on the other side of the crevasse. As he lay there he pulled up his hands and waited for the creature to make the jump back across.

He only had to wait a few seconds before the Charred made its initial large burst of air to gain height across the ravine. As it went into the air it started to control itself once more with short bursts of air to keep it moving forward. Once Renner saw this he pinched his ring and thumb finger again and the resonant waves started to propagate from his hands—aimed directly at the abomination flying across the crevasse.

He saw the waves distorting the air and slowly making their way to the Charred before they eventually collided with its body. Almost immediately, the creature’s body went slack, all of the air bursts turned off and started to drop. Its initial momentum carried it until it slammed into the edge of the other side of the gap with a sickening crunch. Its body then tumbled down into the crevasse, slamming into the sides on the way down.

Right after it had slammed into the sharp edge of the opening a small system message appeared.

[Congratulations on your first CHARRED kill. Primordial energy has been automatically siphoned from the body. Primordial energy is now being diverted into system functions]

Renner fell back down on his back and breathed a sigh of release. Strangely enough, he started to laugh out loud. I did it! Fuck yeah… Now I just need to kill 4 more and then I’m out of here. Hooray.

Renner pushed himself back up onto his feet; After he fully stood up multiple system screens started to appear in front of him.

[Primordial Energy has been fully absorbed.]

[Dormant system function is now engaged]

[Spatial Storage is now fully active and online. Connected to Coalition space for user: EAR-12]

[Spatial Storage]

[Coalition Service Blade—Earth Style: Double-edged Sword]

[Coalition Service Uniform: Human]

Renner looked up at the new storage screen in amazement. He had no idea there were extra system features like this.

He moved his hand and decided to poke at the coalition service blade on the menu. As soon as he did, the space above his hand distorted. Then a long sword just popped into existence, dropping into his hand. It had a blue leather handle wrap and a very simple hand guard. Its metal looked like stainless steel, but it had a brilliant iridescent glint to it when it moved in the light.

As he gripped it in his hand a system menu appeared.

[Would you like to tune Resonance to this sword?]

[Yes] [No]