Abigail had not found someone to kill. What she had found was a plethora of unbelievably kind people, along with a series of delicious food stalls. It seemed like every cook here was a master of their craft, and she had a dozen new things for the chefs back home to replicate. She doubted they could, but she would make them try. Especially that last thing. It had been a cake of some kind, but it had soaked in just a ludicrous amount of honey. It was sweeter than a donut, but she finished it without struggle.

She was a little tempted to go back for the stall, but it was too late for that now. The sun had gone down, and she found a very comfortable roof to sit upon. She stared out over the town of people. It wasn’t a big town. In fact, there weren’t even 30,000 people in it. She couldn’t bring herself to kill any of the people here. However, one idea had come to mind. Killing herself would probably work.

Thus, the rooftop. She was just waiting for the streets to empty now. No reason to go jumping to her death in front of someone. Just think of the trauma. They didn’t know that none of this was real. They wouldn’t know that she wouldn’t or couldn’t really die during the trial. Death would normally mean failure in the trial, but this might actually be a way around that. It probably wouldn’t have worked if this wasn’t the final mission. Even now, she only gave it a 50/50 chance. She was fine with those odds. If the only way to pass the trial was to kill someone else, then she would rather fail. If she was sure about anything, it was that she didn’t whatever power killing someone would give.

She sat finishing the remainder of the street food she had purchased. No use dying without eating everything she had bought. She grabbed her plate, the shield she had received, and picked up one of the sandwiches on it. They were made with a combination of fruit jam and meat. The combination was good, and she smiled despite her situation. She couldn’t help but smile when eating something delicious.

A few hours passed before the last person left the streets. She stared down the building at her final destination. The stone floor did not look inviting despite the knowledge that she wouldn’t actually die. She slowly filled her lungs as much as she could. Each breath she took was harder than the last. This sucked. This whole trial was terrible. Now she understood why so many people didn’t like to talk about their first trial. She wasn’t going to talk about this part. Well, maybe to her father but no one else. He would probably tell mother though, so she might as well tell both of them.

She shook her head. Stalling wouldn’t change her decision. She closed her eyes tightly, and felt some water roll down her cheeks. Why was she crying? It wasn’t like she was sad or angry. The tears poured and she ignored them. She leaned her head forward until the roof slipped from under her. Then she fell. Air pushed her hair back as she plummeted. Her stomach felt like it wanted to crawl out of her mouth, and she began to regret her indulgence.

Why was it taking so long? The building had been tall, but this was getting ridiculous. Then she realized that the sickening feeling in her gut was gone. She panicked for a second before even thinking to open her eyes. When she did, she was greeted with a room of colorless white. An endless room by the looks of it. The room people went to when they passed. She had passed. That was great. It took a second, but then she vomited. A lot.

When it felt like she could spew no more, she walked far from the location. With all the weird food she ate, her vomit had not smelled or looked pleasant. And it had gone everywhere. Thankfully this room was seemingly endless, and she was able to get far enough away that the smell wouldn’t reach her. Only then did she check the notification.

Second Mission (Final): Kill A Person (Complete)

Bonus: Kill yourself rather than another human being. (Complete)

She paused for a split second, then pushed the message into the deep recesses of her memory. That would come later when she was with her parents. The next message wasn’t as concerning, and she moved on quickly.

Congratulations! You have passed the Trial of Evolution! You may now receive your reward.

Continue…

“Continue, just hurry and get to the good stuff.” She knew verbal acceptance would work just as well as mental, and it felt better that way. Plus, she was totally alone, and talking made her feel better.

For completing several bonus objectives, you will receive improvements to your rewards.

Rewards: Random F Grade Gift → Character Influenced F Grade Gift

Evaluation Continue…

That was the good stuff. She smiled a little despite the thoughts that clawed at her mind.

“Ok, show me what’s next.”

Evaluation Complete updating Status information.

Select: Family Inherited F Grade Gift: Elemental Arrows

Character Influenced F Grade Gift

She did not have what it took to be an archer. As much as that thought would horrify her ancestors, her parents told her to do what she felt was right. Abigail wasn’t going to be an archer. Even if the family had methods in place to raise the gift to B rank, she didn’t want it.

“Character influenced gift, please. Show me what I got.”

Evaluation:

Name: Abigail Kaminari

Home World: Moon X23

Grade: F

Rank: N/A

Physical Grade: 1.30

  Strength: 0.8

  Dexterity: 1.4

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  Speed: 1.7

Mental Grade: 1.00

  Reflexes: 1.5

  Intuition: 0.9

  Fortitude: 0.6

Gift Grade: F

Gift (F): Voice of Charge

Recognitions: None

Those were some good physical numbers. Her strength was a little below average, but her speed would more than makeup for it. Her mental grade, on the other hand, made her feel like an idiot. Not that mental grade actually reflected intelligence. It related more to the literal abilities of the brain, not smarts. Though she was fairly certain that a 0.6 fortitude was far below average for those who passed the trial. Her intuition being barely acceptable wasn’t great either. At least her reflexes were good. She doubted anyone could compete with that. Plus, her speed was really amazing. Other than true freaks, no one ever got that close to a 2.0 in their first evaluation. One more thing to check. She focused on the gift excited to see what it did.

Gift (F): Voice of Charge (Upgradable)

: Your voice can alter the negative and positive charge of objects

: Functions as a crafting skill to imbue electricity into items

Cooldown: None

Upgrade Path: Craft an item of Epic Grade or higher

That was something. Yup, definitely something special. She had no idea what the skill did. It was written plainly, but she had only a small idea of how to do anything with it. She knew electricity had to do something with a positive and negative charge, but that was where her knowledge on that subject ended. A dual crafting and combat skill was good. Rare too, as far as she knew. Her family would accept a crafter too. Probably even send her to one of the outer ring academies. She could live with that, even her parents wanted her to go to the true center academies, but she didn’t belong there. She wasn’t as smart or capable as her parents liked to believe. She was quite happy with this result.

The final thing she had to inspect was the shield, which was still strapped to her back. She knew that items were a fairly common bonus people got but being common didn’t make them cheap. She held the white shield and focused on it. The normally black bolt design in the center flashed blue as she did.

Shield of Conduction (Bound) (Uncommon): A shield that moves based on the positive and negative charge within. It is attuned to your voice and will not shift for another.

A bound item! Now that was something her family would notice. Most people just got out with generic garbage that wouldn’t qualify as common. This was beyond an amazing item. She couldn’t wait to brag about it.

“Let me out!”

She shouted giddy with excitement. A door rippled into existence. It was just an empty archway, but one that she knew to expect. She stepped through without any hesitation. The world flashed into being around her, and she stood in the same dark room she had used to enter the trial. Her excitement dwindled as reality settled around her. Within the real world, another concern popped into her head. She reluctantly returned to her evaluation and saw her new rank.

Rank: 738

That was not a great result. There were barely over a thousand people on the moon, and she had not ranked well. She was glad she wasn’t on a proper world. Her rank would’ve been downright humiliating. It was a little humiliating even now. She didn’t want to run into the other members of her family on the world and decided sneaking out was the best course of action. Her shuttle wasn’t that far.

She ducked out of the room, only opening the door to let her slide through. Her eyes darted around. The mansion’s hallway was long but empty. This building. This entire moon was only used for the trial so that her family members could rank highly. It was well known that higher ranks usually meant better rewards. The mansion was so large that it actually had a docking station on each floor of the shuttles. Her room was blessedly near it, and she ran into the balcony where it was.

As she turned the corner she was met with a plethora of familiar faces. Faces that only somewhat looked like she did. Nobody looked good after the trials. Even the cleanest person had cuts and blood stains spread across their clothes. There were three of them. Cousins. Family. Not that she called them it very often. None of them belonged to the main family, but her family was close. Among the more distant families, her family stuck quite close to the central ones. It did not breed the best goodwill among cousins.

“You look worse than I thought possible. Don’t tell me you failed.”

One of her cousins stepped forward, his voice pitched with the bratty attitude she had come to associate with him. He was a year younger than she was by a couple of months, but he didn’t like to act it. She didn’t ignore his words outright though. He wasn’t physically injured, but his clothes showed the fights he had been in. Part of his pants was charred black. For him to call her state bad, she wondered what she looked like. Her eyes drifted to the nearest shuttle.

It was a kind of spaceship though its appearance wasn’t that complicated. It was kind of like a car in how it worked, but it looked like the depictions of UFOs found in cartoons. The design wasn’t the most practical, but the wealthy families had taken to it for its ‘novelty.’ She preferred the more practical designs. Her shuttle was on the opposite end of the room and was a black brick with few openings to look through. A fairly standard limousine design. She wasn’t focused on the design though.

No, she stared at her reflection in the glass. Physically, she felt fine. The image she saw was of a much different woman. It looked like someone had dunked her head in red paint. Her face was caked with dried and wet blood and her hair stuck to her scalp. Then she remembered what she had done and doubled over to vomit. Nothing came out and she was left heaving for a few moments. There was no pain or wound, but the trial hadn’t cleaned her up. Her so-called family didn’t try to comfort her. Instead, the same cousin made a callous remark.

“Well, did you pass?”

“Oh, Jason, whatever would I do without your loving concern? Yes, I did in fact pass the trial. Now, if you will excuse me, my parents are waiting for me.”

She tried to push past him. Other family members would be doing the same as him. Pushing to find ranks and brag. She wanted none of it. Jason lifted an arm and blocked her from the shuttle.

“Not until you tell me your rank.”

He actually sneered at her. Did people actually do that? It had been a few years since they had last met, but sneering, really? She even said as much.

“Did you actually just sneer at me? I mean come on. And why do you care? It’s not like it will change what you got.”

His face was colored with pink of embarrassment rather than anger. He probably hadn’t meant to sneer. Nobody meant to do that anymore. He schooled his expression before responding.

“I ranked 8th, which means my family will be joining the central branch. If your family is going to cling to them, I would like to see that you at least deserve it.”

His expression didn’t change, but it took obvious effort on his part. She smirked when she realized that he was actively stopping himself from making a stupid expression. His rank bothered her though. That was a high rank. Better than some of the main families. He was right to feel proud, not that she would give him credit for it. She didn’t want to reveal her rank, so she deflected the matter.

“Well, I’m a crafter now. So, I think the family will be more than happy with that. Goodbye.”

She tried to push his arm out of the way to fail spectacularly. Wow, he was strong now. She knew that her strength was low, but his rank was really high. Like every male in her family, he was built like an athlete. However, he didn’t have the black or blonde hair that her family did. His was red like that of the central family. His family mimicked what they could of the central family. She pushed harder to no avail. When one of her other cousins snickered at it, she felt some embarrassment leak into her face.

Jason was a good bit taller than her, so she settled for ducking under the hand. Her speed was more than enough to rush past him. He knew better than to antagonize craftsmen. Although that would change once he found out her rank, and what kind of craftsman she was. As a half-crafter, she wouldn’t actually be as valuable as a full crafter. Her gifts would earn her the bare minimum amount of support to build her gift but not much else. Especially not the respect of someone who ranked eighth. How did he manage that anyway?

She pushed that issue along with everything else. The door to her shuttle opened, sliding upward to reveal a series of very comfortable cushions. She slid into the seats quickly, letting the door shut behind her. Her cousin’s whisper lingered until the door shut. The black glass blocked any stares, and the small space let her feel alone again. Only then did she relax as she fell over on her side. She just stayed like that for a moment, before starting the shuttle and heading home.