*THUMP* *THUMP*
Axel’s heart pounded violently in his chest, so hard he thought it might actually burst out of his ribcage. The glowing screen still hovered right in front of him, its message burning bright.
The first thought he had was that he had finally lost his mind from all the times he had banged his head. He pressed his fingers against his tightly shut eyes, expecting the screen to vanish once he opened it, but it didn’t.
"Okay, I’ve gone crazy. Got hit in the head too many times. It’s about time it happened," he muttered.
The message said to find and absorb his body. Axel had no idea what that meant! But he tried to make sense of what he was looking at.
He was familiar with game interfaces. He had always been fascinated by old video games from the old world, so he figured there must be more information hidden within the display.
"It looks like a game system, right? So that would mean it has a... ’System Interface.’"
The second he said the words ’System Interface,’ the screen vanished, and another screen immediately appeared before his eyes.
> [User: Axel Vaelon]
[Age: 16]
[Race: Human]
[Level: 1]
[Soul Essence (SE): 0 / 50]
[Exp: 0 / 100] [Stats] [Ability] [Missions] [Store] [Evolution] [Stats]
[HP: 10 / 10]
[Strength: 10]
[Speed: 10]
[Agility: 10]
[Resistance: 10]
[Intelligence: 10]
[Infernal Core: Dormant]
"Whoa."
After scanning through his stat menu, Axel quickly switched to the next tab. Somehow, he was already good at it.
"Ability."
The display changed again.
> [Ability]
[None]
[Reach Level 2 to unlock your Infernal Ability.]
Axel’s eyes widened. He couldn’t believe what he was reading. An ability? An actual ability.
The system message said that once he reached Level 2, he’d unlock his first ability.
As much as he wanted to believe it, he shook his head. This couldn’t be real. He didn’t have an ability. He never did.
It was common knowledge that sometimes, the gene that carries the mutation skips an offspring.
Now, scientists of the old world also discovered that sometimes, said gene can remain dormant in the host’s body.
It takes about fifteen years to unlock. Once that time elapsed, there wasn’t any hope.
When Axel clocked sixteen, he had accepted the fact that he would live his life without an ability.
So it was hard for him to believe what he was seeing before him. He couldn’t just suddenly wake up one day with powers.
But the message was right there, clear as day. There was only one way to find out if it was true. He would have to level up and see for himself.
And what was the best way to level up in any game? By completing his mission.
Axel immediately remembered the mission he was given, but he had no idea how to go about it.
Kaze had killed him. That was a fact now. But how was he supposed to find his body? And worse still, the system had told him he had less than 24 hours to do it. Failure would result in permanent death.
Permanent. Death.
Axel didn’t want to believe it, but then again, he had died and come back somehow. In another body, maybe? A clone?
He frowned, recalling a faint image of the first holographic message he got before blacking out, something about a "backup protocol."
’I need to pull up old messages,’
he thought, his eyes scanning every inch of the screen in search of a previous messages tab. After a few seconds, he found it and opened it.
"Previous Messages."
> [Previous Messages]
[Messages within the last 24 hours:]
[Congratulations! You’ve successfully unlocked your Infernal System!]
[Warning! Warning!]
[System has detected severe internal injuries and organ failure.]
[Warning! System has detected an incoming attack!]
[Calculating chances of survival in current state...]
[Chances of survival: 0%]
[Commencing backup protocol...]
[Backup successful]
[Congratulations. You have successfully located your place of death.]
[Anomaly detected: Your body is missing.]
[New Mission: Find and absorb your body.]
[You have 24 hours to find and absorb your body.]
[Penalty for failure: Permanent death of host!]
[Delete Messages]
[Messages will automatically delete 24 hours after being sent.]
Axel read each system message carefully, one after the other. This was real, very real.
"An Infernal System? What the hell does that even mean?" Axel muttered. "How did I even get something like this? I’m guessing... dying unlocked it.""
His eyes lingered on the line about the backup protocol. "Does that mean every time I die, I’ll just come back? Nah... I don’t think so."
He was right. It wasn’t possible. He doubted he could come back from death a second time.
Dying once was what had triggered this strange system. Doing it again was a terrible idea.
Besides, the system had just threatened him with a permanent death. It wouldn’t make sense.
Axel decided to move on to the next tab, the store. But when he opened it, it was locked.
> [Store]
[Locked]
[User must reach Level 5 to unlock Store.] [Congratulations, you have successfully located your body.]
[Absorbing now...]
[...] [Absorption complete.]
[Mission completed!]
[Completion time: 1:02:31]
[Reward received: +10 Soul Essence]
[+50 EXP] <
***