Light. Sound. Sight. Feeling. Mike had taken it all for granted his entire life. As he opened his eyes and could see again he vowed never to do so again. When that darkness overtook him in the forest he lost all of his senses and had never felt so lost and alone. Opening his eyes again and being able to see felt like a gift.

Looking around himself he was not alone in those feelings. Just like him there was hundreds, no thousands of people, all standing around him looking like they had just been forcibly taken from their lives. The reactions of the people around him varied though. Some were in the process of having a complete mental breakdown, others clearly were with people they knew. Most people looked to be alone though and scanning their surroundings like something was about to jump out and attack them.

Looking down at his hands Mike noticed his phone was gone, looking around him he didn’t see anyone he knew either. He thought about making his way through the crowd to see if he could find his family somewhere here but before he could take a step he heard someone clear their throat behind him.

If I could have everyone’s attention please.

Mike couldn’t help but flinch when he heard the voice. He didn’t recognise it, how could he? But he felt himself wanting to run at the mere sound of it. It didn’t take long for him to find where the voice came from. Standing on a platform, just above the crowd, was three people, two men and a woman. All three looked perfectly human.

Even after calling for attention the man, who was standing at the forefront of the three people on stage, did not get the attention he had wanted. Most of the people who were gathered in the crowd ignored him, either too busy searching through the crowd, talking with people they knew or, and much more common, having a mental crisis.

If everyone would please be quiet and look to me then I will be able to answer many of your questions. I understand that this is stressful and that many of you are feeling lost and alone, but if you would all listen to me carefully I will be able to help you as much as possible.

This time when the man spoke, the pressure to do as he asked was amplified. Even if he wanted to, he didn’t think he would not be able to stand and listen to the man. He wasn’t the only one feeling that way either. The entire crowd had gone silent and turned to look at the man. Even those crying had stopped. The man now had everyone’s attention.

Thank you, everyone. My name is Fredrick Lurnsmer and I am the Second Commander of the Hunter’s Association here on Elisbara, our planet. Behind me on my right is Troukin Yasgard, headmaster of The Academy and on my left is Quinn Starm, elected leader of this city, Plorinth, which is the capital of out planet. I understand much of that does not make a lot of sense to you and I don’t expect you to remember it, especially given the circumstances, but understand that we are all here to help you as much as we can.

We were informed in advance of your arrival here, 1 million of your people have been brought to this planet after your own was harvested by the system, for which you have my condolences. We aim to make the transition here as smooth as possible but before we can get started there is a lot to cover. So please, listen carefully.

We will start with The System so you have an understanding of what it is and why you received the message you did. After we will discuss what has happened with the rest of your population and after everyone here will have a choice to make as to how they integrate themselves into this world.

So to start, The System. The System is an entity, created a very long time ago by beings long lost to us with the aim to help people not just live their lives but to help people grow in strength and power so that they could one day be Champions of their worlds and fight back against the Demonic Plague that is constantly trying to take over the universe.

At the age of 18, every sapient being will unlock access to the system, and with it, their innate skill. Every person has an innate skill and what that skill is varies from person to person. Some people have the same skill, some are truly unique. All of you, coming here to our world and being integrated by the system would have unlocked their skill as well as the system. In time we will explain how to access this, but for now what you should know is that every skill has the power to grow and help everyone in some way. This could be as an offensive fighter, a defender, a strategist, a support or even a crafter. The list is endless and it is very much up to the individual as to how they want to use their skill, if at all.

You would have now heard mention of Demons, or Demonic Forces, or as we refer to it, the Demonic Plague. There has been an eternal struggle against the Demon’s, they are trying to overtake a planet and devour it for their own growth, while Champions work on keeping the Demons at bay and try to secure our world against them.

Our world, Elisbara, was integrated into The System just over 300 years ago. Even after all that time we are still fighting against the Demons every day to try and take back our planet. We split our world into two different zones, the green zones, which are areas where we have fully secured the area and are protected against demons, and the red zones, which are areas we have yet to take back and are incredibly dangerous and full of Demons.

After 300 years, roughly 90% of our planet is a red zone. Our entire population is spread out across 10 major cities and completely surrounded by red zones. Even that would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of our Champions.

The reason I tell you this, is because even with The System deciding that we had a chance of fighting back the Demons on our planet, over the past 300 years we have lost more than 85% of our original population. The System, having decided that your planet had no hope to survive, saved all of you. Yes, it cost you your planet, but it gave you your lives. Please, take a moment to process.

If Mike was being honest with himself, he didn’t know how to process even a tenth of what the man, Fredrick, had said to him. But there was one thing that he couldn’t get out of his mind. If The System hadn’t forcibly moved them to other planets they would have all been killed.

There was no hope of going back home, but he could live with that, his home was his family. Even though they weren’t with him right now, they were at least alive and had a chance to continue to live their lives. The alternative, The System didn’t move them, the Demons came, they all died.

He didn’t have to believe what Fredrick said, about the Demons or The System or any of it. But it was hard not to. He had been moved to a different planet, that was obvious. In the sky was not one but two suns. Add that to the fact that behind the platform was a building that looked futuristic, foreign and not like anything that could be one Earth, he had no choice to believe that what was said was true. Unless something proved otherwise, he got the feeling he should trust what the man was saying, he couldn’t say the same for a lot of other people though.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The grumbling of the crowd had started out as just that, a soft grumbling. It didn’t take long though for someone to start yelling at Fredrick, which was joined quickly after by more people taking out their own anger and frustrations on him as well. Mike didn’t say or do anything though, he was too busy wrapping his head around the other things that he heard from Fredrick. Demons were real, they were a plague, they killed.

On top of that these people had been fighting for over 300 years and the majority of their population was dead. Adding onto that that they only had 10% of their planet as a safe zone was horrifying to even think about.

The last thing he though about was abilities. If what he said was true, Mike would have some kind of skill he could use to not only protect himself but his family. 1 million people from Earth were here with him, so there was a chance, a very small one, but still a chance, that his family was here somewhere in the crowd.

If everyone would now listen back to me we will move on to something you will all want to know, where are the rest of your population. In a moment Headmaster Yasgard will talk you all through accessing The System and when you are able to connect to it you will see the information on your skill, as well as some other key details. You will also have an extra option available to you to be able to see where all of the occupants of your world ended up.

Before Headmaster Yasgard guides you through this though there is information I need all of you too know. Speaking to people on other planets is possible, however it is not only difficult to do but incredibly expensive. This is due to the power it takes to send a message across planets. If it were possible I would give each and every one of you the chance to talk to loved ones that have ended up on different planets. If I did though we would wipe out all of our resources and have nothing left to fight back against the Demons.

Moving between planets is again possible, but doing so is even more expensive in materials to the point that if we used everything he had we would not even be able to send a dozen of you to a different planet without leaving ourselves near defenceless.

Because of that I will be honest and upfront about the chances of speaking or seeing anyone on a different planet again. If you work hard you may earn enough to speak to them again, it will be difficult but not impossible. Traveling to them would take years as a Champion to get the resources needed to fund the travel.

I am not saying this to you as some money hungry evil lord that wants to work you to the bone so you can speak to your family and friends again. I am saying this so that you can understand the position you are in. This world is now your home, it is up to you to decide what you do with your life here. We can not risk the fate of our planet by using everything we have worked for to help a few of you. I hope you understand the position we are in.

What I do hope, is that being able to review the list of where your loved ones are and seeing that they are alive will bring some comfort to you in these difficult times. And so that you can get to do that as quickly as you can, Headmaster Yasgard, if you will.

Mike had listened closely to everything that Fredrick had said, but is mind zeroed in on one part that he refused to get out of his mind. It might take years, and he would have to become a Champion to do it, but there was a chance he would be able to see his family again.

Thank you Commander Lurnsmer. As you now all know, I am Headmaster Yasgard of the Academy of Champions which is housed in the building you see behind you. I will get into that a little later, for now I will guide all of you on how to access The System. When you manage to bring up what we refer to as your Overview you should see information on yourself, including name, age, a section on Spirit, which we will come to later, as well as your skill. Underneath all of that you should see a section on your planets people.

When you get to your Overview, if you focus on the section on the inhabitants of your old world you should be able to look through and search for the people you don’t have here with you.

Now, if everyone would please all close their eyes and take three calming breaths. In and out. In and out. In and out. Good very well done, now keep breathing like that and keep your eyes closed. Now while you do this, somewhere in your mind you should feel something foreign, something that wasn’t there before. What you need to do it focus on that and bring it out, open yourself to it and imagine bringing it to the forefront of your mind. Be patient, coax it out, doing it for your first time can be rather difficult but afterwards it gets easier.

Mike did as he was being guided to do. He stayed calm and focused his mind like he was supposed to and searched for that something foreign in his mind. He found it almost immediately, it didn’t feel painful or uncomfortable, it was as if it was meant to be there.

Doing as he was told, he mentally imagined grabbing hold of it and bringing it to the front of his head, right where his eyes were. It took some grappling and no small amount of concentration. When he did manage to get it to where he though it needed to be he almost cheered when he saw what he assumed to be the Overview in front of his eyes.

Name

Michael Winset

Age

18

Spirit

Gates Unlocked: 0

Control: 0%

Attunement: 0%

Density: 0%

Skill

Spirit Mastery

Level: 1

Max Level: XXX

Evolution: No

Earth Inhabitant Tracker

In front of him, his name and age being right at the top. Underneath it was a breakdown of things to do with Spirit which he didn’t understand any of, his skill, which also had something to do with Spirit and finally the tracker.

Not caring about anything but the tracker he focused on it like he had bene told and a whole new screen opened up. At first he was overwhelmed, what was in front of him was a list of planets he had never heard of, focusing on the one on top it opened up another screen that had a list of names on it that went on forever.

He had no interest in going through each one of these line by line, it would take years to do it like that. If The System gave them his option then there had to be a better way of doing this.

Wishing he could go back a step and start again he let out a gasp when he was right back to the beginning of his Overview. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it that The System was just following what he wanted and that it was based off of what he focused on.

Focusing back into the tracker he got back to the planet screen but rather than going into another planet he did something different. He focused on the names of his family as hard as he could, wishing that The System would show each of them and what planets they were on. It took all of a few seconds until another table popped up in front of him.

Name

Planet

Status

Joseph Charles Winset

Unstorph

Alive

Pauline Summer Winset

Unstorph

Alive

Daniel James Winset

Unstorph

Alive

Jessica Lily Winset

Unstorph

Alive

His entire family was there, his mom, dad, brother and sister. Not only were they alive, but they were all together. Letting out a breath, he felt tension he didn’t even realise he had leave his body. They were alive and they had each other. Now he just had to work hard and join them.