He made it to his room with no issue, his door key had the number 7 on it and it wasn’t difficult to find the corresponding door and head in. As with every other room it only had a bed and desk inside, there was some clothes in a rack off to the side as well. He quickly put down his tablet on his desk, got a change of clothes and went to shower.

By the time he made it back to his room after that he felt refreshed and ready to dive into the mystery that was the tablet. Sitting at his desk he tapped on the screen and it lit up. When it did it had only a few choices he could click on. The first was a schedule, the second a clock and the last, and the most important was an icon for a book.

He moved to his bed to get more comfortable and laid down, surprised at just how soft and lush the mattress felt. It took him only a moment before he got himself in a position that he would be able to easily read form the tablet as well as relax his muscles. Opening the book on his tablet he found the title of what he was to read. ‘The Society of Elisbara’.

The book was split into several sections which he could skip to if he needed to, there was quite a few to choose from and if it was expected that he not only read but understood everything in the book by weeks end he was going to have his work cut out for him. Structure of Elisbara, Introduction to the Demon Plague, Skill Categorisation, Materials and Crafting, Champions and The Zones. Those were the six different sections to the book, each looked interesting and he understood that each of these topics would cover an important part of life on Elisbara. Starting from the beginning he read about the Structure of Elisbara.

The planet we all live on, Elisbara, is a planet inhabited by the human race, the most common race of the sector. Pre Demon Plague the world was made up of 6 large continents of land surrounded by oceans that separated each of them. Of these 6 continents, it has been confirmed that 5 are now completely overrun by Demons, with only the continent we all currently live on, Zahrane, having any humans left.

Zahrane holds the only zones left that are currently inhabitable by humans, these 10 zones make up the 10 major cities, the capital of which is called Plorinth. Travel between the 10 cities was established over 150 years ago by the Champion known as Portal who, with a combination of his skill and specialised team of crafters was able to establish portal gates that connected each of the cities. Operating these gates however comes with a cost, Spirit is needed to activate the portals to allow for movement between each city, making traveling between the cities an expense that many choose not to do.

Each city is able to run independently of the other, however each is also connected and overseen by a Governor, all of which together make up what is known as The Ruling Council. The Ruling Council are tasked with upkeep of each zone as well as the economy of each of their zones and cities. This includes but is not limited to providing sufficient food, water, schooling and growth opportunities.

Alongside The Ruling Council is The Hunter’s Assositation (HA). The Hunter’s Association (HA), unlike the Governors, is headed by a single person with 10 Subcommander’s under them, one for each zone, who are tasked with the safety of each zone from Demons. The Hunter’s Association is made up of all those who fight against the Demons directly, many of whom are apart of smaller subsets of groups, known as Guilds, that are within the HA’s ranks.

Those within the HA are also tasked with expanding the green zones by fighting not only fighting back against the demons but also purging them from areas. The long term goal of the HA is to eventually take back the entire world from the demons, stopping their plague and returning Elisbara to its former glory.

Although anyone may join the HA, not all are equal. Each person in the HA has a Hunter’s Association Rank, or HAR. This determines not only their contributions to the HA but an individual’s accomplishments and power level. Individual guilds also have their own internal ranking systems however this does not impact ones HAR.

Elisbara also has a universal ranking system which is used across all facets of life within the zones. These rankings determine the rarity of an object, currency, power level and threat level. These rankings from lowest to highest are Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond.

When referring to objects, whether weapons, devices, crafted goods or Demon parts, the rankings show both how powerful and expensive they are. However, a Copper weapon for example, depending on the weapon, may be worth Bronze coins even though its rarity is at Bronze.

When referring to currency, 1 Bronze coin is worth 100 Copper, 1 silver is 100 Bronze and so forth.

Power rankings are determined by the ability to defeat a Demon of the same rank single handedly, or if as a group, the ability to defeat twice the number of Demons as people in the group. A person’s power level will always start at unranked until testing is done by the HA and a rank assigned.

Alternatively, for a non-combative individual, a power ranking is determined by alternative means, for crafters it is determined by the rank of item that they can craft up to.

For Threat level, a Demon is categorised in a ranking by the type of demon it is. See the section on Demon’s for more information.

There was much more that this section of the book went into, thankfully Mike found a way to take notes on each thing he read and they were saved down on the tablet. Already his mind was full of all the different things he had just learnt, and still there was so much more to go.

He spent the next few hours reading and managed to get through the first two sections of the book before his tablet had a notification pop up telling him it was dinner time. He had been able to summarise the two sections, created notes to review and test himself with.

As he made it into the common room, it was only about a quarter full, he got himself a good assortment of food before looking at the tables and finding Jack sitting alone reading his own tablet. He took the seat opposite him and when Jack looked up he gave Mike a welcoming smile and turned off his tablet, giving him his full attention.

“How is the reading going?” Before Mike replied he stabbed at a piece of meat and devoured it hungrily.

“Good, I think. I have read the first two sections, made some notes, now just need to review it every day and keep adding to them so I remember it all by the end of the week. How’s playing babysitter?”

Jack laughed at his babysitter comment which instantly made him like the guy more. “More interesting than I thought it would be. You know over half of your group is asleep right now? Passed out after going through one training session with Sonar. They are going to regret that in the morning.”

“You aren’t going to wake them for dinner?” Mike would have assumed that would be part of his job as babysitter.

“I put a note under everyone door, didn’t bother with you because you had the tablet. If they miss out, its on them. They aren’t kids, they need to manage themselves better. What Rank are you?” Mike stopped eating for a moment as he looked up at Jack. He had a cheeky grin on his face and Mike knew what this was. Jack was going to test him.

“Unranked. Will be until I manage to take down a Demon of Copper rank one on one or twice as many as the number of people in my group.”

“Name all ranks in ascending order.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond.”

“Tell me the distinction between The Ruling Council vs the HA.”

Mike took a moment to formulate his thoughts, continuing to eat as he did. When he was ready, he outlined in his mind the distinction between the two in his own words rather than anything he would have had memorised for the book.

“I would say you know the first section well enough. Tell me everything you remember about Demons.”

Mike had only just finished reading this part of the book, it was also a lot harder to wrap is head around than the first section, but he had done his best to digest it all and take notes.

“The Demon Plague started over 300 years ago, the people of Elisbara were not prepared, even with The System. The plague started out slowly but grew exponentially, much quicker than the average power of humans did. Because of that many died in the battle against the Demon’s. Like we have a power rank, they have a threat rank and their rank was higher than ours from the start.

The plague started out with the appearance of Dungeons, the most common way for Demon’s to infiltrate the world. Generally, Dungeons hold the weakest ranks of Demons, usually only Copper through Silver. Dungeons are also contained environments, unless they aren’t cleared often enough, then the amount of Spirit in a dungeon will increase to the point that it overflows into the world and with that overflow the Demons that were previously contained in the dungeon can get out. This is called a Dungeon a Break.”

He took a break from his explanation so that he could continue eating for a bit, Jack nodded his head along when he spoke and ate at the same time. When Mike had gotten through half of his food Jack prompted him to continue.

“If a dungeon isn’t cleared often enough the Demons inside can rise in power as well, although this is rare and they are called variants, or mutations. That means that a Copper Dungeon can birth a Bronze Demon, but usually this is rare, or it’s a sign that the Dungeon is about to break.

Even after clearing a Dungeon, it won’t disappear, rather it is reset back to its weakest setting. Even in the green zones there are Dungeons, but they are closely monitored and usually used as training grounds. The HA makes sure that they don’t break.

After Dungeons comes Portals. These are usually ranked Silver to Platinum in threat ranking. They are different to Dungeons, not just because they are of higher ranking though. From what I figured out a Portal has levels inside, of which there can be many or few, you have to clear the final level to rest the dungeon. They are also rarer than Dungeons but still common enough in the red zones. They also break just as dungeons do, releasing Demons into the world.

Finally, there are Gates, which are very rare. A Demon Gate will be ranked from Gold to Diamond and unlike the last two when you go through a Demon gate you are generally faced with an army of Demons you need to kill. A Gate doesn’t break though, instead it solidifies as an anchor between this world and their realm. The only way to close it is to destroy the gate from both sides.”

There was more information in the book but that was the general overview of it. There were some accounts of several times when Dungeons and Portals broke or when a Gate anchored itself and many, many people died closing it. He chose not to recount any of that. It made him realise when he read it that although Earth had been completely harvested and people spread out across many other planets. They at least got the chance to live and learn without trying to figure out how to fight of Demons from the very start.

Elisbara did not get the option, instead so many had died, people continued to die in the fight. These people didn’t even force them to fight when they showed up, instead they had taken them in, given them a choice and not thrown them out as fodder against a Demon army.

When those thoughts entered his head again, he lost his appetite, thankful he was pretty much done with his dinner. He doubted that he would be able to meditate after this, especially after reading everything on Demons and coming to the realisations that he had about not only what the people of this planet had done for him on day one, but also about the reality that the people of Earth could have had it much, much worse.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jack gave him a look that told him he could feel that his mood had dropped dramatically. He was worried, he could see it etched on Jack’s face that the sudden decline from Mike was enough to make him ask the question.

“This is going to sound crazy, but I think we were lucky. I know that’s a shit thing to say, but honestly, comparing what you all went through, what you are still going through with the Demons, versus what we all got. Think about it, so many people died when the Demons came here, you had no training and just had The System shoved inside of you and were expected to fight back. We got taken from our planet and you have all given us choice, whether it be to live our lives in relative peace or to teach us to use The System, our skill and learn how to fight back in the safety of a school. Yeah, we are being pushed, sure we will be broken, but we are being taught to survive. All those years ago, your people never had that. That makes us lucky.”

He wasn’t able to hold back once he started, he needed to get out all the thoughts he had bottled up and thankfully for him it happened with someone who he hoped would understand even a little bit of what he said. If he had said that to someone from Earth, he didn’t think he would get a good reaction. When he was done he felt emotionally exhausted, yet better for saying it out loud.

“That’s a lot for anyone, coming to that conclusion, that having your planet destroyed, your people scattered, makes you lucky. I don’t want to push you, but I want to ask you a question that I hope will help you in the future. You don’t have to answer it now, but I hope you think about it over the next week. Why do you want to join The Academy and become a Champion?”

It was the same question that the Headmaster had asked him earlier. He was about to say exactly the same thing he had then, but he stopped before he could. Could he honestly say, now, after everything he had learnt, that it was just to earn enough to leave the planet and be with his family?

“Think about it. I will ask you the same question before the week is up. Have a good night Mike.”

Jack got up from their table and left him alone. He continued to stew on the question for a while longer. Could he, in good conscious, reap every benefit this planet could offer him to just throw it back in their face by leaving as soon as he could? What would that make him if he did? He knew if he spoke to his mom and dad about it he would be lectured on common decency and how you treat those that do right by you.

Scrunching his hands into fists, he took a big calming breath and tried to relieve some of the tension and anger that was building inside of him. Anger, not at what was done to him, but what was done to this world, its people. The entire thing just felt wrong to him. Standing up from the chair he took his dirty dishes to the tray and ran up to his room. He needed to change back into his work out clothes, he needed to release some energy. He planned to do some of his old martial arts training, what better way to sort out some of his feelings.

He made his way back out towards the training area, he hadn’t realised that the sun had already set and now a moon, larger than the one back on Earth, or perhaps just closer, was now hanging in the sky. There was just enough light around that he would have enough visibility to go the exercises that he wanted to do before turning in for the night. He had bought a spare set of clothes with him to change into this time, knowing he would need to shower, again, before going to bed.

Setting his stuff down, he got straight into stretches, this time they were slightly different form his normal ones. If he was going to start training to fight again, flexibility and range of motion were two important things that he would need to work on. It wasn’t that he didn’t have decent flexibility already, but running was a whole different ball game to martial arts.

It took him twice as long as usual before he felt comfortable to start going through some of the basic stances and motions that he could recall from his previous training. He did remember just enough though that he hoped his muscle memory would kick in and fill in the gaps. He started out slowly, conscious of each move he made, each shift in his weight and every change in direction he needed to make.

Thankfully it only took three times of repeating the same movements, mostly it was just a simple movements at first, the most basic ones he could remember before he got back into the hang of it. His old instructors had drilled these stances into him for several years and every time he mastered them, they would add in more or change them up to become more difficult until he was throwing kick combos and punching with precision. That was years ago though, he knew he couldn’t go straight back to where he left off, he needed to build himself back up.

He didn’t stop running through his old training until he started feeling a pain in his chest. He had fallen back into the routine easily enough but he was knocked from the clam of training by the pain. When he stopped and took a few breaths the pain went away so he started again. It only took a few minutes for the pain to come back, much worse than before.

This time it took a full minute of just standing still for the pain to go away. He rubbed his chest, trying to figure out if he had over did it. He had already run twice today if he counted his morning run before The System came. That added with the training he was doing now may have been too much to cram into one day.

He decided to call it a night, finishing up with a few stretches before he showered and went to bed. He had assumed that he would have trouble sleeping, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. He was smart enough to set an alarm through the tablet, but he couldn’t find anywhere to plug it in to charge. He would figure that out tomorrow. The moment he got comfortable on his bed he fell asleep.