It had been well over a week since the incident on Battlegrounds; ever since, Namir had been exceedingly angry at the event, feeling simultaneously weak and powerless toward his enemy. Not only was his enemy a mystery to him, only knowing that they belonged to the high ranked race. This had left him jumping at shadows and finding himself being far more suspicious of any new people he met; after a week of this Namir had become irate, not only at the situation but at himself. "I can't believe I'm so powerless to an enemy I don't even know about; I must increase my strength or not only will I be put in danger, but also anyone close to me as well."
This new motivation had pushed Namir to better himself, believing that the only way to fight an unknown enemy is through overwhelming strength. Remembering something that was buried deep in his memory, Namir's eyes began to shine in excitement. Quickly rushing to open his Holopad Namir rushed into the VR world, remembering that if you were part of a team who had managed to win the human-hunting competition you can gain one ticket for a upper rank middle class object from the Holostore, of any kind. This was mainly to give an advantage to members of races that were enemies with humans, they would never expect members of the human race to use this system to their advantage.
~~~~
Entering the Battlegrounds with excitement Namir glanced at the notification that had popped up in front of him, scoffing Namir closed the notification; it had been a notification informing him of his red name and penalties related to team-killing. Yet, while scanning through the message Namir had caught sight of something, allowing his brain to catch up to what he'd seen he scrambled to open the notification again. Plain as day it stated right at the end of the notification, 'Due to the offense happening within the human-hunting trial the server admins have decided to inflict a personal punishment. This punishment has been decided to be the reduction of your ticket from peak middle class to medium middle class as well as the permanent branding of a red name.'
Namir clenched his fists in righteous anger, this had clearly been a direct targeting from the high ranked race that was targeting humans. Yet he let out a long sigh and with it the anger that was boiling in his chest, "It doesn't matter whether or not the species targeting me limits my growth, I'll take every possible advantage to beat them!" Namir stated this with a voice brimming with confidence. Opening the store Namir began to scroll through the options of Neo-Nutrients that he could select; Namir continued scrolling before his eyes lit up, 'This is perfect for me!' Namir thought with a palpable air of excitement surrounding him.
Staring at the screen Namir subconsciously read the description aloud, "This Neo-Nutrient is rather popular among beginning mercenaries, it comes from a species known as Eliolites, this is a species that have bodies made completely of light; however, their most prominent trait and the one gained from the neo nutrient is their ability to slowly absorb light and use it to create a physical form. How this affects humans is completely different; however, it results in the user becoming a being capable of absorbing light and directly upgrading their SGF with it. Normally, ones SGF would only increase right after the absorption of a Neo-Nutrient, there are very rarely any ways to passively increase ones SGF.
Namir was nearly shaking with excitement, having a higher SGF was good in many ways, the main ones being an decrease in the time required to see noticeable improvements in basic stats such as strength or intelligence. It also increases the upper threshold of these stats based upon how high it goes. Reaching a certain threshold in SGF is actually what qualifies a race for reaching a higher ranking; this is the main reason why the human race is targeted by others, they have a very easily accessible system for ranking up, and it is something that can be achieved by their entire species and not just a select group.
Most races can only evolve after a long time and even then, only a very small part of their race can do so; take the High Race of Dragons for example, they had only managed to evolve and become dragons after thousands of years of evolution, and yet still the race they evolved from, Drakes, still existed and outnumbered them nearly a thousand to one. This problem is only further exacerbated by the truth that - except for a very small group of exceptions - races fertility begins to drop the higher the ranking of the species, and included in this exception is humans. The human population has only continued to increase over the past 2000 years, going from around ten billion to a monstrously large amount of 200 billion.
Humans have a base SGF - meaning when they have no Nutrient Abilities - of around 30, this is about middle of the pack among mid-ranked species. In the past, when humans had first arrived in space they had barely reached an average SGF of 15, this being considered fairly weak among mid-ranked species. This was another reason for other races fear and subsequent persecution of humans, they had the ability to not only absorb Neo-Nutrients, but to also adapt these changes into their genes. This means that with every new generation of humans there would be a vast increase in the SGF of their species as long as they continued to take Neo-Nutrients.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Namir shook himself from these thoughts as he quickly purchased the Neo-Nutrient; purchasing an item from the shop with a ticket leads to the direct depositing of the item within the inventory inherent within all Holopads, no need for shipping. Ignoring the stares of disapproval he was getting from other people within Battlegrounds as they looked above him at his red name, Namir was quick to log out of VR and open his Inventory, taking out the Neo-Nutrient and downing it right away. Unlike the last Nutrient he had taken, this one showed effects almost immediately; feeling both Nauseous and dizzy, Namir chose to lie down on his bed, the second his head hit the pillow he had fallen asleep.
~~~~
Waking up Namir felt better than ever, as if he had just slept for an entire day; he felt well rested and could feel energy coursing through his muscles, as if he were to have just gotten home from the gym. Looking over his body, Namir was shocked to find he had seemingly put on a decent amount of muscle mass. Looking for what could have possibly led to this scenario Namir found the window to his room to be open, shining directly onto his bed; this had more than likely caused his body to naturally absorb light, without his minding being active it had naturally selected to increase his bodies fitness.
Namir's fitness had increased from an incredibly lean and unfit body to one with decent muscles, he went from weighing around 160 lbs, to now weighing around 200 lbs, these 40 ibs were almost entirely made of muscle. Taking a second to recollect himself, Namir accessed his Holopad and joined the VR world, however this time instead of joining any specific applications he went to his Holohome. This is an area in the virtual world in which you can access and accessorize to your specific preferences, as well as an area where you can invite people on your friends list to hang out, no matter where in the world they are.
Entering his Holohome, Namir wasted no time in opening his accessories tab and selecting equipment to test his fitness levels. The first thing he decided to test - having thought over his weapon choice and deciding to switch from the sniper to the longbow - was his strength, something integral in how well he would be capable of using his weapon. The way the Holopad tested one's strength was rather simple; the person must step into a machine wherein which it will calibrate to you, before it then shows you a numerical number of your strength. This process was even further added onto as your strength only needed to be calibrated once before you could just call upon your holopad to show your status afterwards, seeing as it had already been calibrated to you.
Applying the machine to himself Namir turned it on, starting it's process of calibration; The machine was a cylindrical chamber that was around 20 meters high and 10 meters long. Namir was surprised with the process, finding no uncomfortability within the process; the numbering on the machine just continued to rise along with the time spent in the machine. After waiting for around five minutes the number had reached 100% before the screen switched, showcasing a number that represents Namir's basic stats.
Name: Namir Prince
Strength: 11
Agility: 13
Intelligence: 16
Endurance: 9
Namir stared wide-eyed at his stats, completely shocked at the numbers displayed before him.
It was no wonder Namir was so surprised, the average human being was a medium-middle rank species in terms of stats; the average stats of species in this rank was around 5 points in strength - and Namir had managed to almost double that. Namir reigned in his excitement, thinking to himself, 'I should probably check my SGF to see if I've managed to reach the upper-middle rank, the average stats of someone who's upper-middle class is 10.' Managing to reach a higher tier in terms of species in this short of a time frame would be considered as a monstrous growth rate even among humans. It's possible that whatever family lineage this body originally comes from has really adaptive genes!' Namir thought with a degree of wonder and excitement at the prospect.
Humans had created their own ranking systems based around the adaptability of their genes; this is because the more adaptable the genes of a human, the more traits they can take on in a shorter period of time, as well as the more they would gain from the Neo-Nutrients they absorbed. They had set up a basic unit of measurement built upon the hierarchy of feudal societies, the ranking went in ascending order Peasant, Knight, Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess, Duke, and finally Royalty. There hadn't been anyone born with a Royal talent for the past three-hundred years, the most recent one was a woman who was given the title of 'The Third Hero'. Namir snapped himself from these thoughts, bringing up his Holowatch to check hs SGF.
Seeing as the SGF was a factor that was so important for all races, the species who made the Holowatches had implemented a feature in which you could have the watch digitally scan you and tell you your SGF. Namir decided that using this function wasn't too much of a risk as the high ranked species already seemed to view him as a high-priority threat. Pulling up the function on his watch Namir pressed the 'Check Current SGF' function and was promptly met with a loading screen. Waiting for around 30 seconds, Namir could finally see his current SGF and what he saw had confirmed his suspicions of this bodies original family without a shadow of a doubt. Clear as day, the Holopad displayed a number of (42).
The average human - who would be considered a medium-middle ranked species - would have an SGF of around 30, while anything above 40 would be considered high-middle ranked and anything above 45 would be considered peak-middle ranked. If Namir were to guess, he'd believe Luo Jian to have a factor of around 38 and the high-middle ranked enemy to be around 40. This showcased Namir's crazy jump in SGF, clearly skipping over both of their ranks; however, Namir kept in mind that Luo Jian had a chance to gain a high-ranked middle species Nutrient, meaning she was more than likely vastly superior to her past self. If Namir were to estimate, he'd assume she probably had a factor of somewhere around 43-44, being fairly close to the reaching the peak of middle ranked species.
With these thoughts Namir set a new goal for himself, "I wish to reach the peak of middle rank before the Mercenary schools begin to enroll students, that should give me around three months." and with these final thoughts, brimming with confidence Namir logged out of the VR world and went to sleep.