Adrian, Lauraleith, Ethan and Kazerin sat in Zeifar’s room with terrifyingly serious faces.
Adrian shook his head, “So you’re saying you can see the System too?”
Zeifar nodded, “I wasn’t sure when to ask…”
“Well—what did the System tell you? What Category are you?” he asked
“…what?”
The entire room’s eyes were on her, like predators finding prey. Threatening curiosity.
The System window popped up in front of her, of course, the others couldn’t see her personal System window.
[Category: Mythical-based ‘species’ assigned to people which specify their region and type of abilities.]
[Do you wish to see everyone in the current location’s Category?]
She could speak to the System in her mind by now, ‘Yes.’
Windows appeared in front of everyone,
[Initiating Lvl.1 Sub-Skill: ‘Summarization’]
Adrian’s window was quite surprising,
[Adrian Delevane
Category: Angel
Sub-Category: Archangel
(Generating more info may take more time.)]
She shook her head when he asked her again,
“Demon, demon.”
She was, in fact, not a demon. The System had not told her anything of the sort. She glanced at the others. Each made her brain feel a bit more like it was lagging.
“…you don’t sound so certain,” Adrian said, his eyes interrogating.
“It feels weird to suddenly talk about it, man, of course I don’t sound certain—I can’t even tell if I’m hallucinating!” Zeifar said, shaking her head. It was a lie, obviously.
“Alright, I suppose. It’s quite late, why don’t we talk tomorrow?” Adrian said, getting up.
The others nodded and got up, all yawning and half-asleep, walking off to their own rooms after mumbling goodnight to each other.
After they left, Zeifar was only occupied with one more thought. They had all said that the System was like a software of sorts to them, they could control their Skills and every now-and-then ask questions about their Skills. None of them could exactly converse with it, unlike her. She decided it was best to figure that out later.
Just before she slept, she had one more thing to do.
“System, what is my Category?”
The System window glowed in front of her,
[Loading information…]
[Loading Category…]
[Category: ***]
“What the hell, why can’t I see?”
[Information unclear. Cannot process as of now.]
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“A wha??”
****
As much as Zeifar had lost sleep the previous night in confusion, she could not bring herself to ask the System.
She sat in the hotel’s gym, lost in thought.
“Wassup, baby demon?” a familiar voice asked.
“Dan? When’d you get here?”
“Subbing for you,” Danielle sighed.
Danielle Nakamura, ‘Tokyo’s Demon’, a new pride of Royale with many names.
Ironically, she was Demon by Category too. Sub-Category: Demon-King.
‘Oh crap,’ was the first thing in Zeifar’s mind. Were all her teammates unreasonably overpowered?
“So apparently you’re a demon too, what Sub-Category?”
‘Oh shit.’
“Uhhh…” Zeifar was quiet for a moment.
Danielle raised an eyebrow, “Zeif? What’s making you silent?”
‘Think fast, think fast, FASTTTT-’
‘System, give me an idea, I beg—’
[Recommended Sub-Category: Warlord]
“Oh sorry, I spaced out, Warlord, it’s warlord,” she answered.
‘Thanks System.’
[Appreciated.]
Danielle’s eyes widened, “Wow, that’s a high ranked one.”
“Reminds me, I dunno’ how these rankings work. How do they work?”
“Well, the bottom Rank is ‘F’, which is usually just normal people who are slightly good at things. Then we have Ranks ‘E’ up to ‘C’, which are fairly good—most are still levelling up and ‘C’s are usually pretty strong,” she explained, “Ranks ‘B’ to ‘S’ are strong. Usually people levelled up to their full potential. Though, commonly the best are ‘B’ and ‘C’ Rankers, whereas ‘A’ and ‘S’ are not that common,” Danielle said, “And the two strongest special Ranks, ‘SS’ and ‘SSS’. Only a few in the entire world.”
“I see, so what Rank are you?”
“Oh me? I’m still levelling up,” she laughed, “But the maximum I can reach is S. Currently A.”
“…wow.”
‘System, what Rank am I at the moment?’
[Calculating stats…]
[Current Ranking: A]
‘Bruh, I thought I was really strong or something.’
[Maximum Rank: S***(*****)]
‘What the hell is…’
“Dan, the highest Rank is triple S, right?” Zeifar asked.
Danielle nodded, “For now at least. Nobody has properly figured out anything about this. Why?”
“I dunno’, just asking.”
She laughed, “Don’t worry, the maximum a Warlord can reach is A.”
“Wow, thanks a lot,” Zeifar smiled icily.
‘THEN WHAT THE HELL HAS FOUR DIGITS???!’
****
Matches. So many matches.
In the two days of being lost in the weird, fever-dream System-world, Zeifar had almost forgotten she had a job.
[Initiating Lvl.30 Skill: ‘Eyes of Lightning’. Initiating Lvl.14 Sub-Skill of ‘Observatory Infinity’: ‘Nine Eyes’.]
‘Nine Eyes’ was still not that levelled up, but even in its minimum it was effective.
The issue with Zeifar and her Skills: She had no idea how to level up.
As far as she knew, there wasn’t a way—but she wasn’t sure how much she knew either.
But at least driving was easy for her. It was what she considered sports should be—fun.
“Right, right, left, hmm,” Adrian was not saying much. She supposed he expected her to be able to drive without his narrating, which actually worked out well for her.
[Nine Eyes: ‘Luxeour car at 480kmph lead towards finish line.’]
Zeifar sighed and changed her car’s mode, to a recent design she’d added, but not used yet.
“Well, the risks are always there,” she mumbled and stepped on the accelerator.
‘System, initiate Mirror Void.’
[Initiating Lvl.28 Conscious Skill: ‘Mirror Void’]
‘Mirror Speed.’
[Mirroring speed to ‘Nine Eyes’.]
‘Didn’t think I’d be this desperate,’ Zeifar thought to herself.
She rarely used this trick, it was usually unnecessary.
Mirror Void could mirror anything and everything—and Nine Eyes was just, to explain it, like little rearview mirrors in a car. Nine little mirrors. So if you “mirror” the speed to nine things, it’d multiply the existing speed by 9.
The effect would be logical, of course:
Impossible speed.
****
Xavier McRae, a promising racer—ranked top 3 worldwide. He was known to be the most terrifying on the racetrack. ‘King of Speed’ and an A-Ranker.
But the racer who was 3rd had been declared so last season. The new top 3 had not been decided yet, there was always place for a little problem.
So, what would happen if the ‘King of Speed’ met a little trickster?
His eyes could barely see what had passed him before he crossed the finish line, A blur of red so, so fast. He only realized what had happened when the large screen showed ‘8 points’ for him.
Though this was only the 1st lap, it was both teams’ final qualifier. Only two teams out of these four would go to finals—whoever had the most points.
Xavier knew his team would go to finals, it always did. But whenever it did, it went to finals because it won its set. Yet Royale, the rock-bottoms, had already gotten the first lap? It annoyed him.
“Xavier, now is not the time to get distracted. Get the next laps, there are 19 more,” his teammate scolded.
Right, the Saudi Cup had 20 laps. He had time.
****
10, 20, 30, 40, 50—5 laps, yet Xavier couldn’t cross the line before her.
“Just what on Earth is she?”
****
“…Kaz, do you see that?” Danielle asked in the waiting room.
Kazerin was silent, expressionlessly observing, definitely their captain.
“Hmm,” she answered.
“Is that a skill of hers?”
Kazerin shook her head, “What Sub-Category did she say she was?”
Danielle recalled, “Warlord.”
Kazerin’s eyes darted to hers, “What?”
“What?”
“Dan—that’s visibly at least an A-Rank skill!”
“So? Maybe she’s already at max.”
Kazerin shook her head,
“One of my skills lets me see a person’s skill status—she’s still in the early stages of hers.”
Danielle was quiet, Zeifar never lied from what she knew—she wouldn’t suddenly lie.
“Well, it’s possible to have one fancy skill and still be an average ranker,” she tried reasoning.
Kazerin’s eyes dimmed with doubt as she glanced back at the screen, “I hope so.”
****