It finally came after 6 months of waiting and getting my ass kicked; the system finally woke up once more.
Possibly in the most anti-climactic way too, it happened when Vance had us re-run the six-miles to see just how far we came. I wasn't the rabbit this time; there was no rabbit. Just a flat six-mile sprint that I finished last.
All this buildup and waiting for a damn six-mile run to trigger it, I'll never get how this system works.
The connection had sat at 4.7% for an entire week and refused to budge; I eventually stopped checking. Thinking that was it, that four-point-seven per cent was my limit, but at the very end it came on in waves.
It started as a warmth behind my eyes — the familiar sensation of the interface updating. I almost ignored it entirely. But the warmth transferred from heat to pressure to nothing.
My vision blurred at the edges, and I fell into copper once more.
---------------------------------------------------
Stars that are eyes, wheeling overhead in patterns spelling meanings I can't read. My hands are wrong, too old and too scarred with battles never fought. Armour fused to my chest, pulsing with a foreign heartbeat.
A silhouette at the edge of everything.
"Again?"
It was holding something. A blade? A star? A heart? It kept changing, and I was dropping it, always dropping it.
A woman made of ice, crying tears of purple. "Stop..." she begged, "Please..." she pleads.
Every nerve ending screaming copper, every thought coated in metal, my entire existence reduced to that taste, that right, bright taste.
Then every star blinked shut. Everything reduced to null, leaving only a dream of what once was.
A pressure surged one final time, but this time from within.
---------------------------------------------------
"Marcus? Hey — Marcus."
I could hear Tomás calling my name from the periphery of my consciousness. My vision swam, and I came to. I was face down in the gravel; a few of the other greenies chuckled under their breath, a few looked confused, and even fewer looked concerned.
The copper taste was gone, there for a fleeting moment after six months of nothing. Though I could still feel that armour on my chest, the phantom pain of scars that I never had, and an all-present feeling of hunger.
"You alright Marcus?" Another voice echoed. I looked up and found Jin and Park standing over me.
"Just a cramp,"
"Bullshit," Park cut in.
"It's a cramp."
I gave the group a wink and a crooked smile; they seemed to catch on and smiled back. They didn't push it from there. Though behind my eyes I could feel a headache coming on, waves of silent pain that pulsed in rhythm with each of my heartbeats.
Taking a moment to myself, I stood from the ground, brushing gravel and dirt off my uniform. Resisting the urge to check my interface, I carried on and walked off to breakfast.
The mess-hall was its usual busy self, people huddled around tables hoovering up any ounce of protein they could. A few people were even licking their trays to get even an extra gram of the good stuff. Our advanced constitutions were becoming black holes of calories and nutrients. It had gotten so bad that they stopped handing out skipping meals as punishment.
Though despite the chaotic rabble of the mess hall intertwining itself, I couldn't shake my mind from the System. It was doing something, and I couldn't quite tell what it was. I tried checking it a few times, but the interface refused to respond. The only answer I got was silent pressure. The rest of the day was patchy; whatever the system was doing, it was massively distracting.
It lasted until the evening, half-way through a cultivation session with Kael. I'd been minding my own business trying to feed the system Ether when the pulsing sensation finally stopped. Whatever had been restructuring had finished.
I quickly opened the interface, eager to see what I'd gained from six months of nothing.
[TRUE-NOOSPHERE]
[CONNECTION THRESHOLD ACHIEVED: 5.002%]
[LEVEL: 1]
[EXPERIENCE: 0 / 100]
[RANK: 0]
[RANK PROGRESSION: 1 / 100]
Level 1. Rank 0.
Everyone in the barracks was at Level 30 at minimum. Miller was closer to 35. Six months of cultivation and rotation drilling — a third of the way through Rank 1.
I was at zero. Thirty levels behind on day one, with the exhibition less than a month away.
[STAT POINTS AVAILABLE: 3]
[BODY]
Strength: 12
Agility: 14
Vitality: 16
[ETHER]
Capacity: 1
Sensitivity: 1
Control: — LOCKED —
[MIND]
Willpower: 20
Intelligence: 15
Perception: 17.
Three stat points to distribute, I stared at them for a long time. Finally getting free stat points with clear progression was liberating; being able to place them wherever I wanted.
The rational play was obvious — physical stats, shore up the weakness, push Strength toward something that could compete with Miller's frame. His Strength was probably north of forty, while mine was a meagre twelve.
I almost dumped all three into Strength. My thumb hovered over the allocation.I pulled back. Breathed. Thought about it properly.
No way I can ever compete in strength even if I dumped everything into it. It doesn't matter how fast I level from now till then, I'll never catch up.
I thought for a few moments before I decided on keeping myself nice and flexible. My deviation allowed me to be entirely adaptable, so why not play into those strengths? I put one into Strength, Agility and Vitality.
[BODY]
Strength: 13
Agility: 15
Vitality: 17
I nodded as I looked at the results, a nice spread of stats for a level one. The six months of training before I even got access to levels meant that I'd be starting at a much stronger position. However, this advantage means nothing to a group of others who had access to training and level points from day one.
I shook my head and scrolled down, looking for the skill menu.
I scrolled back up. Scrolled back down. Pushed at the system mentally, trying to coax out any information.
Nothing happened.
I tried again. Focused harder. Imagined skill trees — Close Combat, Evasion, Marksmanship — categories I'd heard other recruits discuss as their levels climbed. The interface finally responded with something unexpected.
[NULL]
— Cross-grade firmware compatibility. No permanent firmware lock-in.
— Non-linear skill acquisition. Skill trees unrestricted by category or grade ceiling.
— [LOCKED]
— [LOCKED]
— [LOCKED]
— [LOCKED]
My deviation? What has this got to do with anything?
I looked over it for a moment, then swiped it away after realising it gave no new information.
Non-linear skill acquisition? Does this mean that I can't unlock skills through the system at all?
I sat with that for a while. Unable to get skills in a traditional sense or even level them up?
No Close Combat Level 15. No Evasion Level 10. No systematic enhancement of any technique through numerical progression. I would have to fight at the exhibition against opponents who had spent six months accumulating skill bonuses I would never have access to.
Something has to be missing, some hidden mechanism or— gahh. Fuck it, I've made it this far.
A notification appeared and interrupted my thoughts.
[QUEST: PROVING GROUND]
[Objective: Demonstrate capability under formal evaluation conditions.]
[Duration: Exhibition period]
[Reward: Cultivation Method]
New cultivation method, but nothing about skills?
I let out a silent sigh as I looked at the new quest; the promise of a new cultivation method was intriguing. Was it something that better suited me, or was it just that the Perfect Circuit just doesn't work for me? I didn't know the answer, so I tested out.
I gathered Ether towards my frontal lobe, felt it, let it hover for a moment before forcing it down.
Nothing; the ether was sucked up the same as always.
I shook my head as my thoughts drifted.
A woman crying purple tears, the same silhouette as before, and that drowning copper.
What did it all mean? Is the system trying to tell me something? No, that can't be right. I had a vision before I even had the system.
It's not random and it can't be medical. I ran my tongue across my teeth searching for it once more and tasted nothing, the previous sensation gone just as fast as it had appeared.
My musings were cut short as a sharp voice cut through.
"Tiernan."
"Yes, Sergeant?"
"You're fifteen tomorrow. Ration brackets adjust, training ceilings lift to tier two." He scrolled through something on the datapad without looking up. "Also, your next-of-kin designation hasn't been updated since intake. Needs confirming or amending before year-end processing. Flag it for me after the exhibition."
He turned and left the room, leaving me to my lonesome.
Next-of-kin designation hasn't been updated since intake?
Since the day I'd walked into Processing Centre Seven as a disowned F-Grade with nothing but a pin in my pocket. That was the last time anyone had touched my file, and the next-of-kin field still read whatever it had read on that day.
Which means it still reads as Tiernan. Hasn't Father filed for disownment yet? That should've come through months ago, leaving next-of-kin invalid, but nobody has filed it yet? Almost seven months after the testing. What the hell?
I shrugged as I rose to my feet and headed back to the barracks. I needed to work this new stuff through with the group and get my training on.
Three weeks until the exhibition, and I needed to work harder than I ever have before if I want to complete that quest.
A new cultivation method, huh? Interesting.