Chapter 48: Paradox
"I survived!"
A lone figure, walking in deliberate steps, came out of a shimmering blue portal, enough for the shadow to loom behind. In the left hand, this figure held a long cord affixed to a silver handle dripping in blood.
The lone figure, finally out of the portal which closed behind, was a young boy. He was tall and lean, but his exuberance possessed a different aura.
"The weakest survived!"
He came to a halt immediately the portal finished disappearing, his gaze still fixed to the ground.
Then, as if to be sure, he jinxed his head upwards and reluctantly tilted it to his back to see that the portal was gone.
So, he smiled.
"I scrambled for survival. No, I had nothing that could help me to survive. I had nothing!"
He returned his gaze to the front, and flipped his cord around to wrap his body, locking it with a click to the handle.
His gaze revealed two amethyst pupils, enough to pierce through a person’s heart if it were a dagger. His shady-brown hair looked in order, as if nothing had happened to him.
Although his light-brown skin betrayed that assumption. Yokes of blood lay on his skin, abandoned to dry. It showed he had been in a fierce fight.
Pulling down the mask which covered his nose down to his lower jaw, he released a visible smile.
"My name is Melvin, and I was damned."
The sky tore open.
A flash of bright light spread across the atmosphere, bringing into view a flashback of events.
One moment, it was just another day of bustling activities. The restless traffic along the road, the smell of fried yam and chicken drifting from the street vendors, the roars of wheelbarrow bearers shouting for a space to pass through, and the humble scream of hawkers filled the air.
In a dimly lit one-room apartment, a young boy was sitting before a laptop screen, hands moving along the keyboards with precision and speed, tapping relentlessly.
"Life was not difficult because I had nothing to live for, or live with. I was cast aside. I was isolated. I was an outcast because I only remained ’the weakest’."
From the boy’s laptop screen, he looked up and saw that the bright day was suddenly becoming dark. Rushing to the curtain which draped down his windows, he slid them open and gasped.
Thick, black fluids were diffusing faster than anyone could imagine across the sky. At measured intervals, these fluids will release droplets onto the ground below.
Screams soon replaced the hustle of the day, cries overcame the joy of successful trades and chatters, wobbled legs drifted their feet along the asphalt road before ending up on the floor shouting for ’help’.
"From who exactly?"
Then, as if the gods were not to be blamed, the droplets of the black fluids which had completely covered the atmospheric region began to expand, mutate and transform into whirling gates of different colors.
Seeing this new change, the boy who seemed to be safe in his room ran out, and in attempt to climb down the stairs hastily, tumbled over. Rising to his feet, he ignored the searing pain that betrayed the enduring strength of his leg bones, and staggered forward consistently.
Holographic screens surfaced in front of men and women, even young children alike. A woman clinging to her baby by the side even let it fall to the ground, lifeless. It wasn’t her fault, her body was mutating.
Everybody was changing forms, although still maintaining their natural physiques and gender. Their muscles became more enhanced, their actions became deliberate, able to harm at least one fly, their jump was extraordinary.
Everything changed in their bodies. They were awakening.
"Things turned harder. Yes, it did!"
In the midst of the commotion, some of the awakens who crossed my path grunted at me and never passed by without kicking my ass.
"Go and die boy," they said. "This world is no longer for the weak!"
After getting kicked by one of them, I looked forward and saw that different mythical creatures had torn out from the spatial tears, attacking any disadvantageous being in the path.
"The awakened humans easily fend them off, killing those it was necessary to. But the unlucky ones, like me, all died."
One of the awakened humans caught the boy in the shoulder, and flung him easily out of the way. Thanks to this human, the boy was now facing a bear.
"Die boy. You don’t belong here anymore," the tiny voice of the female awakened human suggested.
The bear lunged at him, missing the first attack by a slight margin as the boy jumped to the side. Looking around him for any weapon, he found none. Before he could turn to face the bear again, it hit him to fly off far away.
As the boy landed hard on the ground, his eyes flickered open to see that the bear had already caught up to him. Right above him. Claws raised above him, landing with incised speed.
"Please, spare my life. I’m only 16 years old. I don’t want to die yet." The boy’s pitiful tone rang out to the bear in front of him.
But, they can’t hear, of course. It doesn’t even care. Its attack landed.
"And I thought I had died."
The boy flickered his eyes open, and finds out he was lying on a sick bed in the hospital. Looking beside him, he saw a fellow teenage girl also lying on an adjacent bed to his.
He scrambled up from the bed and made to leave, but a warm hand rested on his thigh, causing him to cease his movement.
"You are awake," the middle-aged voice spoke. "Finally, you made it to life after six months."
Melvin couldn’t speak. He only moped at the man, wearing a white coat with a stethoscope across his neck, flowing down through his chest.
"She only awakened, and couldn’t even wait for the association to be formed so she could hone her powers. Now, see what using it rashly has caused. Using her untamed power to save a pathetic life," the doctor mentioned, looking pitifully at the girl.
"So, even doctors call a patient’s life pathetic?"
Still, the doctor’s voice rang out again.
"The only way to save her is by getting a Heart-Repair Potion. The government is generous enough to accommodate the hospital expenses, but even before this life-saving potion is found, you need to deposit a monthly payment for the ’Life Potion’, which will be administered to prolong her life until you get the supposed potion."
"Save your girlfriend," the doctor added and left.
"She is not my girlfriend, but if she showed concern in a no-concern world. If she cared for me. If she could risk her life to save me, then I must do the same."
Months passed by and Melvin was finally able to get himself registered with one of the Collection Teams of the Guild Association in charge of clearing Spatial Tears and preventing outbreaks of monsters into their world.
That way, he was able to generate some income which he used to sustain the girl’s stay at the hospital. Until that day, when the Association acted inconsiderately.
"Though I was weak, they assigned me a team that was going to raid a high-level dungeon. Not as a collector, but as a hunter!"
"No help came to me there. Except for a little bit of combat skill I had grasped with my effort."
"But that still wasn’t enough. These monsters are deadly."
Then, the sky which tore open to reveal the flashback of events closed, the bright flash of light dimmed, leaving the lone figure in the bathing light of the moon.
"...but how did I even get here? This stronger!"
"From what I can remember, I was death at the blink of an eye when I consumed a green crystal which I collected from a monster that I managed to defeat."
A frail, weakened body staggered along the cobalt floor, venturing towards the exit of a portal.
Moments turned into minutes, then hours until this slowly dying body found himself in his one-room apartment.
Collapsing unto the chair before his desk on which his laptop was on, he moved his hands tentatively, pushing the laptop to the floor unknowingly.
Once it landed on the floor of his room, it hit an empty container lying carelessly and caused it to begin bouncing with the loudest noise one could imagine.
Surprisingly, this noise affected his mental faculty, causing pain to sear into his head as he clutched onto his skull, sprawling some minutes later onto the floor in pain.
"And, that very incident, became the beginning of my story."
"I couldn’t die because I awakened a system."
A screen hovered in front of the boy who was struggling to prevent his eyes from closing.
Then, a female voice began to voice out the contents on the screen.
[Congratulations. You have been chosen as the host]
[You have awakened the Ascension System]
[Level up alone!]
[Become the Grand Master!]
[Do you accept?]
"Yes! I was not ready to die, so I had accepted without knowing what it was all about."
"As far as I could still live, I needed it."