Gradually, Quinn’s eyelids started to flutter open and his vision soon returned. Although, his head felt heavy and his body was slightly sore. As he lifted himself off of the ground, he touched his head to see if he had gotten any injuries.
‘Why does my head hurt so much?’ He thought, bewildered of what just happened to him.
After making sure that his skull hadn’t split open from falling over, Quinn then went to pick up his glasses that were thrown on the floor not to far from him. Regrettably, there was only one lens that was left intact, still, Quinn put the glasses on out of habit. All of a sudden, he felt a little disoriented and his vision was slightly blurry.
He took them back off and noticed that his vision only turned hazy when he put the glasses on. Quinn immediately rushed to his desk to grab a pencil. He proceeded to draw the letter “A” on the wall and stepped back. He continued to step back until his back had hit the wall that was on the other side of the room.
“What?! But how?!” Quinn screamed in his mind.
Somehow, Quinn’s vision was now perfect. He had lived his whole life with terrible eyesight, but strangely, he could now see clearly. Images then started to flash in his head regarding what had happened before he passed out. After reminiscing, he could only think of one thing that caused the miracle – The book.
When Quinn surveyed the room, he started to panic.
“The book! Where the hell’s the book?”
Quinn looked everywhere for the book, yet he couldn’t find anything. It couldn’t have gone missing in such a small room, so its disappearance was making Quinn go mad.
“Maybe it’s like my socks. They go missing all the time. Ahh, don’t be stupid. This is a book we’re talking about, not a sock.” He muttered, trying to reason the uncanny comparison.
Quinn attempted to think hard about what had occurred a few moments before he collapsed. He suddenly started to remember the book hovering in the air. Then, just before closing his eyes, he heard a few words.
“What was it? It sounded like some type of system message?”
As soon as Quinn said those words, a status screen had appeared right in front of his eyes.
<User: Quinn Talen>
<Race: Human>
<Level 1>
<0/100 exp>
<HP 10/10>
<Strength: 10>
<Agility: 10>
<Stamina: 10>
“Wow! It’s like those really old games that people used to play all the time.”
Quinn noticed that, on the status screen, there were more tabs that were placed on the top. Accordingly, even without doing anything and just by reading the tabs in his head, the screen automatically switched to the <Skills> tab.
<Skills>
<0 skill points available>
<Skill locked????>
<Skill locked????>
….
On the skills tab, Quinn wasn’t really able to see much. Everything seemed to be locked and slightly greyed out, so he quickly moved on to the next tab, <Shop>.
<Shop>
<Unlocks at level 10>
“Can I do anything?”
The last tab was the <Quest> tab. Finally, it seemed like a tab that wasn’t locked behind a requirement.
<Main Quest>
<Reach level 10>
<Daily Quest: Drink two litres of water>
<Reward: 5 exp >
After checking everything that the system had to offer, Quinn had to just think about closing the system and it did. When Quinn thought about opening it again, a screen would immediately pop up in front of him.
Quinn could only think of one thing – The book that his parents had left him was an ability book. These books could often be bought at very high prices from the military or a company. Some were even sold on the market place.
However, the sole issue was that Quinn had never heard of an ability book that promptly disappeared, granting the user a system such as the one he currently had. The ability books were designed to be learnt manually. It wasn’t something that one could pick up and instantly understand how to use.
A smile started to slowly appear on Quinn’s face. This was great news for him. He had always been a level 1 ability user because he could never afford to buy any ability books. To his fortune, he had something that he could use. He readily contemplated on what to do and ended up moving on to the next phase, which was testing the ability.
“Water bending, come on!” Quinn said as he raised his right palm forward, acting like he was going to shoot water out or cause it to flow from the kitchen sink.
“Ok next! Wind, Wind, out!” Quinn did the same again, but there was nothing happening.
After trying out many different things according to all the abilities that he had seen before, it turned out that he was unable to perform any of them.
“What the hell is this useless thing? Is it really just a system ability?”
Quinn thought about it for a while. If it truly was like a game, then perhaps, by completing the quests, he would eventually get stronger and unlock more skills. It was his mistake that he was treating it like an ordinary ability book when clearly, what he had obtained wasn’t something that conformed to the word ordinary.
Usually, ability books were based around one ability. It was important for a person to select their first ability book since a regular human body would only be able to perform one ability attribute. If one got transformability as their first ability, they would only be able to acquire other skills that were related to this attribute. For example, if someone obtained fire as their attribute, they could solely dedicate themselves into gathering skills that the attribute fire could utilize.
Quinn went to open his mini-fridge, grabbing the bottles of water that were inside. He soon began downing the water bottles one by one.
“Damn, how much are two litres? My belly feels like it’s going to burst.”
After finishing his fourth bottle of water, a new notification message had appeared.
<Daily Quest complete, 5 exp has been granted>
<5/100>
“Well, at least I know how the system works now,” Quinn said, satisfaction was evident in his tone.
Unanticipatedly, a loud knock was heard coming from the door. Quinn quickly went and opened it. As he opened the passageway, standing in front of him was a large, muscular, bald-headed man wearing a black military uniform. Also, there were several medals on his garment. His name was written on the area of the uniform right above his chest – ‘Seargent Griff’.
“Boy, it is time for you to vacate your room immediately. The vehicle has been waiting outside for 5 minutes already.”
With everything that had happened, Quinn had forgotten about what was going to happen to him today.
“It’s time for you to head to military school,” Griff announced.
Quinn just gulped, staring back at the officer, as tension enveloped the entirety of his body.
