The Ghost System

Rhys finally set foot on the 190th floor. Although this floor did not give him a complete sense of relief, it still felt much better than the clinical floors where the Eugenics offices were situated. There was just a slimy darkness to eugenics that he could never feel comfortable getting close to.

Rhys looked around the large room and was surprised to find that he was the only registree there. He had expected to find at least a couple of people registering for the program as well, but no, it was just him. The room was completely empty besides a middle-aged man who was seated behind a large metal desk. Rhys walked forward to the desk and stood right in front of the man, waiting for him to talk.

Stern eyes looked up at Rhys, slowly looking over the young man before finally speaking.

"What is your reason for visiting the military tower today?" The man croaked out.

"I've come to enrol into the college program," Rhys replied promptly, clenching his fists nervously as he said the words.

"Very well," the man touched something on his keyboard and caused the top of the desk to change colour. It transformed from silvery steel to a clear glass-like surface. "Place both of your hands flat on the desk." The man yawned out the words as he rubbed his eyes as if trying to stay awake.

Rhys did as the man said then watched as a blue light scanned his handprints. After one full scan, the scanner turned green and dinged positively as if to announce that the scan was a success, he had been identified. All of Rhys's personal information was displayed on the glass panel beside his hands.

•Name: Rhys Anson

•Age: 16

•Core ability: RESTRICTED INFORMATION

•Guardian: Roger Anson (Deceased)

•Occupation: Military College Student (first year)

"Restricted Information...?" Rhys murmured in confusion.

His biometric identification had never displayed this before. His core ability had always been listed as 'coreless'. And changing this identification information was not easy. For Rhys, the process of changing this information would take several weeks, and yet somebody had changed it in less than a day. The stern bearded face of the general who had rescued him from the black portal suddenly popped into Rhys's mind. That man had held an authoritative air about him, not to mention the all-black military uniform he had worn, that old man must have been someone with a lot of authority, perhaps enough to have Rhy's information changed at will.

"Any problems?" The bored man behind the desk asked.

"No, none."

It was done. Rhys had been registered. He let out a breath and tried to come to terms with how he felt about that.

"Continue through the first portal on the left." The man said as his personal information disappeared and the scanner dissolved back into the desk.

Rhys tugged on the duffle bag strap over his shoulders and jogged to the portal on the far left. After Rhys stepped through the portal he found himself in a completely different room. It was a much smaller room that could better be described as a cubicle. Just above his head, a little TV screen popped out which was running an instructional video on what to do next. The woman in the video was pretty with a bright smile that showed off her pristine teeth. With a soothing but cheerful voice, she instructed Rhys through the recording.

Rhys copied her actions exactly. He changed into a set of grey cargo pants, a grey t-shirt, grey socks and sneakers that were dispensed to him from a mini-portal. He placed his most valuable possession, his gold card, into a small mechanical safe that was dispensed to him through the same portal. He then pushed his safe and duffle bag through another portal, exactly as instructed by video tutorial.

"You can take any weapons you want with you to the next stage. Have a good day and even better semester. Goodbye." The video came to an end and the screen went blank, leaving Rhys a little concerned about what she had said. He had not bought any weapons from that store at the bottom of the tower... from what the lady in the tutorial said it sounded like he would end up regretting that decision. Before he could worry over that any further, another portal was activated right next to him. With a sigh he walked through it, wondering where he would end up this time.

Rhys jolted in surprise as he suddenly found himself in a new room surrounded by people. They all stared at him with wary eyes trying to suss out his potential, leaving Rhys to feel completely overwhelmed.

He awkwardly straightened himself up and looked around the room trying to figure out what to do. He quickly noticed that everyone was wearing the same grey uniform as him, and as he looked at their faces he could guess they were the around the same age as him, but unlike him, they all had weapons strapped to them. From full-length swords to bows and arrows, everyone was armed except him. Rhys had tried his best to stay away from fighting during school but since a Combat and self-defence classes were required classes, he had no choice but to learn. From his years of learning, he could tell that everyone in the room was on edge. None of them was leaning over or resting against the walls, instead, they were standing up straight, spreading their weight evenly and keeping their hands close to their weapons, ready to attack.

They were Rhys's peers, fellow first-year military trainees who had just registered. From one glance around the room, Rhys felt they knew something that he did not. He had never imagined himself going to the military college so he had never paid much attention when people had talked about it. It was pretty clear that everyone here was gearing up for a fight, a fight Rhys knew nothing about.

Rhys awkwardly looked around the room, hoping to find an empty spot on the four walls to stand against to try and escape the intense gazes of everyone around him. However, the intense gazes soon ceased as people began to look at him with the same disinterested or disappointed scowls that strangers always looked at him with. It did not take them very long to scan over Rhys's weak appearance: a non-muscular shortish guy without any weapons, and deemed him a weakling. As per usual.

From the edges of the large square room Rhys heard people whisper about him in the same disgusted way that all new people talked about him.

"What an idiot, he didn't even bring any gear with him."

"Well, at least that guy will be easy to take down."

"Ew, why would someone like that come to military college..."

"He's probably going for a career in support..."

['You are the runt of this litter as well, huh?'] Rhys only just managed to hold back the bitterness from his face as he quietly retreated to a corner of the room.

'It doesn't matter.' Rhys reassured himself. 'Its better when people underestimate you anyways.'

That was how he had managed to survive growing up in District 20 and it had worked out for him pretty well so far. Barrow and his men had underestimated Rhys and now they were long gone, eaten to death on some unknown planet by gross eel-worms. Sampson and his friends had thought similarly about Rhys and because of that, he had beaten them fair and square in a fight. As he walked to a corner of a room he told himself that being underestimated was a good thing.

['Of course the reasoning of the weak is to take advantage of others' lack of perception.'] The teacher scoffed.

['But that is a pathetic way to live. True glory is knowing that you are strong and having others know it too. You should not take pride in the fact that others mistake you for weak, because that in its self is an insult.']

Rhys paused for a moment, feeling oddly guilty and shameful after hearing the teacher's words. The teacher's words struck Rhys more than he let show, but on the other hand, he had survived for so long by letting other's think he was weak and useless that the practice had become deeply ingrained in him. He sincerely did not know how to show off or be confident because he could not remember ever having the chance to do so. However, when he thought about his fight with Sampson, Rhys could feel the unfamiliar sensation of pride welling up inside of him. He stood there silently at the edge of the room, contemplating whether or not he should chase that feeling.

Rhys refocused and slowly scanned the room. He did not have time for philosophical self-discovery, he needed to take advantage of the opportunity in front of him.

'Aura detection.'

A small smile made its way onto Rhys's face as the once grey bleak room was lit up with beautiful auras. A variety of different colours and textures that he had never seen before as well as more familiar auras. It was a sight that only he could see.

There were about fifty people in the room and at least twenty of them were shrouded in a soft yellow aura which Rhys had learned was the strengthening core ability. Sadly since he had seen this type of ability before, he was not awarded any EXP.

[Name: Unknown]

[Aura: Strengthening (weak)]

[Name: Unknown]

[Aura: Strengthening (weak)]

[...]

Rhys's eyes landed on a big burly guy who was holding onto some kind of reinforced sledgehammer. His aura was still yellow but it was a bit darker than the other strengthening auras.

[Aura: Strengthening (not as weak as the others but still weak)]

Rhys frowned as he remembered that the system's measuring of others' auras was really odd. It seemed to think that humans were weak period, and so everyone who Rhys saw was labelled as some variation of weak. Even Sampson who Rhys knew had amazing fire manipulation skills had been labelled weak.

'System, how exactly do you measure which auras are strong or weak?' Rhys asked annoyed. This time instead of the teacher's voice a simple notification popped into his view.

[The system measures the auras against the average auras of the creators of the system, the higher ghost beings.]

Rhys frowned knowing that he would never get an accurate measure that way. Since the system was so sure that it's creators, the higher beings were the strongest beings ever, it would always measure everyone else as weak.

'System can you change it so that you measure the auras against the average human auras instead of the higher beings?' Rhys knew that this way would be much more useful to him.

[Yes. The cost to the user will be 80 Exp. will the user continue with this transaction?]

[Yes or No?]

Rhys's expression darkened when he saw that the cost was 80 experience points. Since he was trying to reach level 5 as soon as possible, this EXP cost would be a huge blow to him. Nevertheless, he still wanted the change because in the long run, it would pay off. Rhys looked once at his Exp before he had to say goodbye to it.

[87/300 EXP]

'Yes', Rhy sighed.

[Transaction successful]

[7/300 EXP]

Rhys looked at the burly guy with the sledgehammer again an used his skill.

[Aura: Strengthening (average) ]

Rhys committed the guy's shaven head to memory since the system had marked him as 'average'. He then began to look around the room again and get as many experience points as possible before a new portal showed up.

He got to see two light blue auras that the system categorised as 'very weak' water manipulation core abilities. As well as one water conjuring ability that the system marked as 'average' strength.

[Aura Detection used + 5 Exp]

[Aura Detection used + 5 Exp]

[Aura Detection used + 5 Exp]

After that Rhys saw a couple of 'weak' earth manipulation auras and a couple of 'very weak' fire auras.

[Aura Detection used + 5 Exp]

[Aura Detection used + 5 Exp]

[Aura Detection used + 5 Exp]

[Aura Detection used + 5 Exp]

[Aura Detection used + 5 Exp]

[26/30 HP]

Rhys's eyes were drawn to a girl at the far corner of the room. She was completely shrouded in a thick dark purple aura that looked icky and slimly as it swirled around her ominously. Her aura was so well formed and detailed that Rhys felt like if he touched it would have a texture.

[Aura Detection used + 5 Exp]

[Aura: Poison Generation (strong)]

Rhys stared at her in shock because she was the only person in the room who the system had labelled as strong. In Gramp's special collection Rhys had read some poison generation ability scripts and learned about the awesome skill in detail. That ability was very rare because not many people were compatible with poison cores. It had one of the highest kill rates of all cores and thus very few people even attempted to infuse with it. Immediately Rhys committed her short curly hair and bronzed skin to memory. He would definitely watch out for her.

Out of the leftover people, Rhys only managed to grab some more experience points from a 'very weak' telekinetic person, an 'average' person with the hypersensitivity ability: an ability that heightened all of the senses. Frankly, Rhys was kind of disappointed. Besides the girl with the poison generation ability, nobody had really outstanding abilities. Since Rhys had worked the gem and script store with Gramp's, they would occasionally sell scripts to many interesting people with insanely awesome abilities. A few of which Rhys had been hoping to see today, but alas that was not so. District 20 was the poorest district so it was no surprise that aspiring military college students could not afford the cores that gave them higher class abilities. Strengthening cores and aura manipulation cores were the easiest to get a hold of so it was no surprise that so many people had similar auras.

Rhys slumped back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. He was anxious to do something, but there was nothing he could do until they were let out of the room. So instead he kept his eyes on the girl with the poison generation ability, which quickly proved to be boring because she was also not doing anything. Just as he was about to start counting sheep, the portal in the centre of the room whirred alive again. Rhys immediately perked up wondering what kind of person would step through the portal.

A sudden intense agitation spread around the room as a tall well built teenage boy stepped out of the portal. With bright blonde hair and undoubtedly handsome features Rhys was curious as to why the atmosphere had gone so rigid. Rhys would expect that someone handsome and well built like that would get lots of positive attention, especially from the girls, however everyone became incredibly disturbed. Rhys frowned in confusion until the newcomer slightly turned revealing his back profile to Rhys.

The nape of his neck was shaved down exposing the infamous black tattoo of three thick lines at the back of his head that marked those who attended juvenile detention facilities. It was a terrifying badge of damnation permanently engraved on those wild enough to have been sent to a detention institution. He was one of those considered too dangerous for normal schools. And if in District 20 you were considered too dangerous for a population of students that were involved in gangs and casually brought weapons to school, then it really meant something.

Rhys watched as everyone in the room suddenly went on guard. They changed their stances and subconsciously reached for their weapons. They did not need to have aura detection abilities to tell that this guy was dangerous.

Rhys wasted no more time and activated his skill. Rhys was instantly enthralled in the new guy's incredible aura. His aura was a frenzy of vibrating blinding light that clashed and raged creating sparks and zapping noises which reminded Rhys of electrical current. Without a doubt, this Aura was the most impressive one Rhys had seen so far as it was far larger and more detailed than any of the other auras he had seen.

[Aura Detection used + 5 Exp]

[Aura: Electrokinesis (Very strong) ]

"Very strong..." Rys murmured the words in a daze. This guy was no joke. Rhys looked up at the guy again and saw that he was not holding any weapons. His hands were casually in his pockets and he brazenly looked around the room staring down anyone who dared to look at him. With an ability like his, there was absolutely no reason to bring a weapon with him.

['Rhys, you need to be careful around that one, that ability will prove to be problematic for you...'] Rhys gently nodded his head in agreement with his teacher.

a large speaker dropped down from the ceiling and levitated in the middle of the room. There was silence and sweaty anticipation as everyone waited for a voice to come out of the speaker.

"Congratulations on registering for the military college program. The military has graciously created this program in order to better the youth of Earth in order to prepare you for what might be a difficult struggle in the future. By no cost of your own!" The voice blaring through the speaker was surprisingly jovial, like a father Christmas kind of character.

"Throughout the next four years, you will be trained and mentored. You will all reach your full potential, and if you decide to give back to the military, the military will help you go even further than you thought possible."

So far everything sounded great, but from the nervous faces around him, Rhys knew something bad was coming.

"The military has worked tirelessly to provide young people such as yourself with this opportunity, thus you will have to work hard and earn your right to leisure. We will now proceed with the first test."

Whispers and voices resounded around the room as large black numbers appeared on everyone's grey shirts. Rhys looked down at his T-shirt and realised that it must have had nanotechnology sewed into the fabric as he saw that he was suddenly labelled with a number three.

"As you can see you have all been given numbers one to four. People of the same number must now congregate in their respective corner of the room." The voice commanded.

Large black numbers appeared on the four corners of the wall, labelling each corner from one to four. Rhys found that he was already in the correct corner so he stayed put while the rest of the students quickly rushed to their corners. Rhys sighed a sigh of relief as the tattooed guy had the number 4 on his T-shirt and was making his was to the fourth corner and not the third corner.

As soon as all the kids were in their correct corner, glass-like panels dropped down from the ceiling and hit the floor with a bang, thus separating the four groups.

Everyone in Rhys's group immediately spaced out, trying to get some distance in between each other. The corner was large enough that all twelve of them had a few meters of space between them.

"Now that everything is in order, let us explain the rules. You should all be able to see a door in each room..." Rhys saw that the outline of a door was now visible on the wall.

"If everyone agrees to leave peacefully, you will all go through that door you will find yourself on the military college campus. You will be assigned a room and can enjoy the next few days as students will still be arriving..."

Rhys was waiting patiently for the catch.

"Or you can stay in the room and have a battle, a classic anything-goes brawl. The last person standing in your room will be awarded this gold card loaded with a hundred thousand zen." The jolly voice sounded especially jolly as it said this.

Rhys sighed knowing that no sane District 20 kid would be able to give up that amount of money for anything. There would be a vicious fight in each room, possibly even a few deaths.

"Remember as long as everyone standing in the room agrees, you may all leave. Well then, good luck."

Just like that the speaker shot up into the ceiling, leaving the group of first years in their corners to make their decisions.

['Ah finally the time has come, now show these pathetic Earthlings the powers of the inheritor'] Rhys grimaced at the overzealous cheering going on in his head. Other than the noise going on in his mind, everyone else was silent. Everyone was being cautious and waiting for someone else to make the first move. Nobody dared move or say anything out of fear that they would be attacked.

Even though Rhys knew he would be fine, the atmosphere was so thick that beads of sweat were collecting in his brow and all of the members of his group. It was so quiet that Rhys could hear his heart beating as well as his group members breathing heavily.

Ear splitting screams shot through the room which gave everyone a small heart attack. Rhys and the rest looked to their sides to the fourth corner where everyone was labelled with fours on their shirts, the room where the guy with the electrokinesis ability was. They watched in awe as blinding electrical currents were cracklings inside the room, they were so bright that Rhys could not see what was going on inside, he could only hear the desperate screams of those being electrocuted from within. Everyone watched in silence as bloodied hands desperately banged against the glass panes separating the rooms, fighting for their lives to escape. It was a gruesome sight for most but particularly jarring for those who knew their friends were inside that room, they could very well be watching along helplessly as their mates were fried.

"We dont have to be like that!" An energetic voice suddenly echoed through Rhys's room. Rhys turned his attention back to the people in his room and recognised the guy who had the 'average' strengthening aura, the one he had seen in the beginning with the sledgehammer.

"Let's all just agree to leave the room now peacefully. My older brother graduated a few years ago and he told me that it isn't possible to use the money on campus anyways. So this money is pretty much useless to us. Let's all just agree to leave now and get settled in already." He promoted his idea earnestly with a hopeful smile on his face.

Rhys thought that for someone who looked like an average muscle head, he was quite eloquent and surprisingly idealistic.

"So what, the money still works after four years, won't it?" A large guy with an irritated frown on his face scornfully shut down the sledgehammer guy from the other side of the room. Rhys quickly looked at the frowning guy and saw the light yellow aura surrounding his body. It was without a doubt a weak strengthening aura.

"But we don't have to fight!" Sledgehammer urged on.

"There is no reason to this besides the military wanting us to give them a bit of a show. We'll have plenty of battles in the next four years so let's just wait until school actually starts. My name is Otis, let us stand together and not participate in this madness. I mean just look at room four, we don't want to end up like that do we?"

Everyone turned back to look at room four which was still crackling with electricity. However it seemed that the electricity travelling through the room was an afterthought as the guy with the tattoos was gone and the rest of the people were in the floor, bloodied and burnt horrifically.

Rhys spotted a girl on the other side of the room with a distraught look on her face, and he wondered whether she had seen one of her friends laying on the floor so lifelessly.

Rhys shook the sad thought away and refocused on sledgehammer/Otis again. Rhys mused that the muscle head was quite the speaker, maybe he would become an official speech giver for the military one day.

"You agree with me don't you?" Rhys blinked in surprise to see that Otis was addressing him directly. Rhys instantly realised that Otis called on him because he thought Rhys was weak and would definitely not want to fight.

Rhys felt the urge to sigh again but simply nodded his head and said, "Yeah, I'm with you." He tried to fake enthusiasm in his voice.

Honestly Rhys did not need the money nor did he want to expose his ability too early on. However, if he had to fight he had no doubt that this would be an easy win for him. His room was filled with six weak strengthening abilities, one average strengthening ability, one weak water elemental, one weak telekinetic person, and one average enhanced senses person. Although Rhys was not sure how his spiritual body would interact with the water element, he doubted it would be a struggle.

"Of course the weakest one does not want to fight!" The other guy yelled angrily. "If fighting is all we are gonna do for the next four years anyways, let's just get started now."

Rhys flinched angrily, suddenly feeling annoyed at being called weak. He had always been weak and used to be familiar with being called weak, but somehow after the teacher's lecture he found himself resenting being called weak.

"I-I don't want to fight either." The same girl who had looked so distraught earlier spoke up. She was the water manipulator. Since there was no water available in the room, of course she would not want to fight.

"Yeah, me too, let's just go." The telekinetic person and the person with enhanced senses nodded in agreement.

Rhys was surprised at how few people seemed interested in fighting. Was there some fancy portion of district 20 where kids would not kill each other for the chance to get 100 000 zen? Or perhaps the display of room 4 had put everyone off fighting.

"This is fucking ridiculous! It's a hundred thousand flipping zen, you idiots seriously want to give up that kind of money cause your afraid to fight?" The same guy snarled furiously while unsheathing the machete he had in a leather case. "This is why I hate weaklings!" He shouted while taking steps towards Otis.

Rhys had become increasingly annoyed with the irrationally angry guy. It seemed that everyone had pretty much reached a conclusion but he kept on interrupting and trying to fight even mocking them for wanting to move onto the next stage peacefully. He wasn't even strong, by the system's measurements he had a weak strengthening ability while Otis had an average strengthening ability, yet that guy had the nerve to call others weak as if he was not. It grated Rhys the wrong way, so much so that he clenched his fists and his eye twitched in irritation. Rhys was angry, even though much worse had been said to him in his life he found rage started to bubbled up from within. Before his rationality could kick in Rhys blurted out what he was thinking.

"Oh shut up, it's not like you can beat him anyways."

The angry guy stopped in the middle of swinging his machete at Otis's head and stared stupefied at Rhys. His face quickly morphed from a look of stupefaction to rage as he gripped his machete even tighter and turned to Rhys.

"What did you just say to me?" The angry guy's lip quivered as he stared down Rhys.

"I said..." Rhys hesitated for a moment knowing that if he said anything provocative he would definitely have to fight. Gramps had just died and he knew from his uncharacteristic words that maybe he had not properly grieved yet. That this anger was the aftermath of the shocking things he had gone through in the last day. Then again, the itch to lurch forward and choke the life out of this idiot, this idiot who represented so many other idiots who had bullied him before, was so staggeringly great that it was giving him a headache. Maybe what he needed was to vent some of that stray anger.

"I said... You're awfully loud for someone so weak."

Instantly the guy bulldozed towards Rhys with a murderous look in his eyes.