CHAPTER 4 - A HARSH REALITY

The place they arrived at helped reincarnated souls to best situate how to work with their first summoned figurine.

This was the first place Jess had appeared. When she arrived, she couldn't see Bradley at first until her sense of danger sense kicked in. She was able to home in on his location and found he was miles away falling out of the sky. She wasted no time flying to his aid at Mach 2. Now that they were back they could resume the training. Except for Bradley and Jess, things would be put to the extreme.

Bradley was a loss of words from what the man explained to him. Apparently, after leaving the transition room. A fatal error occurred with the system leaving Bradley with a corrupted status. This meant he would never be able to boost his stats whenever he leveled. His issue left him with a normal body.

Jess had also suffered some minor corruption. In her case it was more of a positive than negative. The ability misfortune could trigger with a 50% chance. It also added a clause with any form of harm coming to Bradley to trigger.

Since his status was corrupted. Bradley’s training session had to be altered to test his abilities. They started by checking Jess's abilities.

The gathered men had to discuss for a while what the best training combination could be. They eventually set up testing for the two. They were led to the first testing area in a simulation. One of the men instructed them on how they should work together as they entered.

“Due to Bradley's stats being corrupted. It is important you will have to keep him safe Jess. The unique ability of yours, with your defense and hp should be more than enough to take on just about everything.”

Jess muttered something under her breath. She was cursing herself for getting such a bad position. She turned to Bradley again with agitation.

“You really are useless. I just hope whatever you ended up agreeing with in your reincarnation was worth more than the drawbacks.”

“What do you mean by drawbacks?” Bradley asked.

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“Just think about it. Being reincarnated with everything you could want? Sounds too good to be true, yes? Well news flash buddy. It comes with a price. They don't tell you until you are done with your training. Afterwards their are going to be penalties applied.”

Bradley paused thinking about all the misfortune he had so far. He wondered what other penalties awaited him. He gulped thinking about it. He looked at Jess again wondering who she really was.

“How do you know all of this anyways?” Bradley asked.

Jess tried to speak but spoke gibberish again with another “system error” comment at the end.

At this point Bradley was giving up on asking her questions. He tried to ask the men training them. They wouldn't respond either. Bradley just decided to focus on completing the training with Jess.

The first session tested their ability to solve complicated puzzles and tasks.

Jess ended up doing most of the work since Bradley was lacking in strength. He helped where he could, but it made him feel useless. Either way he was determined to not be a burden.

The next test was more difficult. It had enemies they had to fight. Jess again had to do most of the work. Unfortunately, her attack power always ended up being nullified no matter how hard she hit. It made her frustrated. Only her misfortune ability ended up finishing the fight from weird and dumb mishaps.

She had managed to block most of the attacks heading for Bradley. He was Unfortunately hit by magic or psychic abilities. Even those triggered misfortune. He was hit multiple times before the simulation ended because he ended up getting killed. Jess was a bit panicked when she thought he actually died.

More tests were done for various things, but in the end. His ranking review was placed at the bottom with a novice hero ranking.

Both Bradley and Jess were disappointed by the whole outcome. The rewards were just as insulting. Bradley managed to level up but his corrupted status did nothing to change his stats.

One of the instructors walked Bradley through on how to work with his figurines. He would be able to gain more with the essence he acquired from fighting monsters. He could level up his figurines from getting rewards or drops.

The day ended up passing before they were done with testing. The instructors walked them both to a new area that would send them on their way into the world. Not before he was issued his penalties.

“The system was going to give you more harsher penalties, but since your status is corrupted the penalty has been loosened up to the following.”

Bradley and Jess both held their breaths as one of them read out his penalties from the system.

“Bradley will not be able to use any figurines he collects from drops or in the new world. He can only use what he has brought with him in his collection. Unlocking figurines will cost four times more essence to use.”

“Furthermore, he can be targeted by users with a permanent debuff assigned called “Greedy Prey”. When the debuff is active anyone can target Bradley. He can only be targeted through being seen. Only those with malicious intent will be affected.”

Bradley felt like that was too much where Jess was amused by it.

“All things considered, it could have been much worse. I'm wondering what your living arrangements are?” Jess said with interest in her voice.

The man finished speaking. He asked next if he was ready to be sent off. Bradley did ask what to expect where he was going. The man told him he couldn't answer that. Only leave him with the hint of remembering what you wish for.

With the hint Bradley had an idea what to expect next saying he was ready. Jess and him were teleported away to his new life.