READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Onto Getting Stronger and The End of the World
The spar ended and I quickly retreated away to the locker room.
"Ow, ow, ow." I winced in a small voice as I placed a hand over the spot Adrianne had hit with her spear for the final blow.
"Ugh, that might leave a bruise," i groaned then sighed tiredly.
The spar was certainly eventful. By the time we were finished, I noticed Dorian, my father had already left, but I wasn't sure when.
After blushing endlessly cutely from my cringe worthy comment, Adrianne quickly took off to go cool her head. Despite I being the one with the most physical injuries, she would be the one to have a sleepless night.
But I liked that part of my sister, the cute and awkward complex she has for me her little brother.
"She's usually so strict looking and straight -faced that no one would realize she has a really really soft spot for me." I muttered as I began unfastining my protection.
Well, the truth was Adrianne was just an awkward little girl.
A monstrously barbaric awkward little 12 year old girl...
Once again, I realized why Adrianne held the title of genius in our household. She was a truly talented child, and looks like is on the right track for greatness in this world.
She was already this strong to be considered a slightly troublesome opponent by some of the gaurds and she was still just 12. Made me shudder thinking how much monstrous that cute big sister of mine would be when she's older.
"Yep, after today's spar, I can more confidently say she is ready for the Bloodline Rite of Passage that's coming up."
The Bloodline Rite of Passage, or Coming of age Ritual is periodic event or ritual hosted by the Main family for generations.
This is when all the heirs and heiress of each family branch comes together and mostly compete against each other during a series of events.
And the heir who manages to come out untop or catch the attention of the Main family of Family elders, will receive the privilege to use the Main family name and will be trained directly by the Main family for the future years to come.
In addition, the family the heir hails from will receive a rise in status amongst the other branches ranks, and a much higher standard of living and reputation.
It was to the point that they would become like some kind of main branch family.
...but of course this whole dumb ritual was just for the Main family to control any talents from the other Branches to prevent any chances of a future coup or uprising.
The context here 'use the name of the Main family' is quite literally, adoption.
Yes, they would 'adopt' the young talent into the Main family and raise them like their own.
The underlying purpose of the whole Coming of age Ritual was quite obvious when one truly thought of it. I instantly understood it the first moment I heard of it. These kinds of things were as well popular back on Earth too.
Well, none of that concerns me, anyway. I shrugged mentally.
The ritual is only for the heirs and first born child of each family. I was the second, and I've made an effort to highlight my sister's talent by reducing mine whenever i was around her.
I didn't want unnecessary drama during this lifetime, and would love to live it as peacefully and as carefreely as I could so what was the need of standing out?
I would rather hide my talent and potential, and sink into the background or shadows of others, rather than be the focus of unnecessary attention.
"I'm just glad I wasn't born first. That would only add to my current troubles." Adrianne had helped me dodged a bullet there.
Despite my wishes of a slow life during this turn, there was still the system quest I had to worry about.
A great Calamity, huh. The image of an apocalypse scene from that illusion flashed through my mind.
I had to survive that? Bullshit!
No one could survive such a catastrophe! Really, I could swear I saw no other living human during all that disaster.
The keyword here is 'human', the two I saw were just monsters.
But then again, it wasn't like I had any other choice. It was literally survive or die.
"Meta." After confirming there was no one else around in the locker room, I said quietly seemingly to myself.
[Yes], a familiar synthetic voice resounded inside my head.
Then I brought up the quest screen again and drew my gaze to the duration section.
"How strong exactly do I have to become to be able to survive that?" I asked thoughtfully, thinking back to the unfairly realistic illusion Meta had plunged my consciousness into three years ago.
[Negative. Not enough information to answer such a question.] The merciless Meta responded in its usual manner.
I suppressed the side of my face from twitching and took in a deep breath.
"You... Isn't that only because you refuse to tell me more about the upcoming disaster? That's your fault, isn't it?" I retorted, feeling exasperated.
Then a familiar string or words resounded in a seemingly sassy tone inside my head and I could only role my eyes.
[Your authorization sequence is too low for that information]
If I had a dollar for every time it had said that...
"You keep saying that, but how exactly do I raise my authorization?"
[Your authorization level can be raised by ranking up and becoming stronger.] This was also another response I had grown familiar with.
Since I had Meta now, I was able to understand various aspects about this mysterious and secretive system. It kept denying me access to certain information and aspects under the excuse of my authorization being insufficient.
The only way to change this was to get stronger and rank up. But therein lied another problem.
"Status."I chanted and the quest notification screen warped into a different screen with a string of different characters.
...
[Name: Victor Bright
Level: 3
Hp: ???
________
________
Strength:- ???
Speed:- ???
Agility:- ???
Constitution:- ???
Luck:- ???
Aura:- (null)
Charm:- ???
______
______
...
____
____
Too little information is known
____
___]
...
"It's all blank!"
Even my health bar is all qeustion marks, isn't that bad?!
"Oi, Meta, what's the meaning of this? Why are all of my stats, but my name, question marks?! How do you expect me to get stronger if I can't track my progress, huh? What kind of system are you?!"
[... There is too little corresponding information]
You hesitated right there, didn't you?!
It turned out, I did have a status after all. That feature was only locked to me before discovering the access code.
But the issue was that, all of my stats, excluding my name and Level was blank with question marks. Even the summary...
I'd already asked Meta multiple times before for an explanation, but it had always dodged the question for some reason.
Well, at least, it there was one good thing, it'll be this.
With a thought I expanded on a certain section of the of the screen.
...
[
Rare Skill: Inspect (lvl 1)
Skill description: Inspect level of life forms and items that are within your limits]
...
It was still only level one, but the Inspect skill would let me see the stats and attributes of others and objects around me, as if reading their own status screen. And it was a Rare skill too.
Skills were a system adopted in this world. A human is born with at least a single skill from birth, and can grow to acquire even more overtime. And the rank of skills may vary according to abilities and powers.
And just as mine says, [Inspect] is a [Rare Skill]. Meta had already explained to me the general workings of this world, so i already more or less had an indepth understanding of Aetohria.
I looked at my attributes once more, and feeling peeved, I dismissed the screen.
There were numerous questions I needed from Meta, but my authorization sequence was still too low. In order to raise it, I had to rank up and become stronger.
My guess is that the secrets and mysteries of this world and the system would only be open to me the stronger I became.
Whoever it is responsible for all this probably made it like this to facilitate my progression and urge me to complete the quest.
That means, whoever that is responsible wants me to grow stronger for a reason other than just to survive...
I didn't like it. The feeling like I was merely a pawn to facilitate some much grander plan. I had been used once already, it wasn't a pleasant feeling.
But a least then, I knew, and willing accepted it. But this is different.
This is meant to be the life where I live differently.
"Dammit this is all so frustrating!" I grtted my teeth and clenched my fist. Just then, I heard Meta's voice resound in a attempt of consolation.
[Your only option is to get stronger to answer all of your questions. And survive]
"..."
I also had to remember that Meta was also a creation of whoever it is that was pulling the strings. All of it's actions, messages or words were probably all programed to progress and preside over the development of the biggest scheme, with me on the board.
Over the years I had discovered that Meta didn't truly have access to all of my thoughts or emotions. If I truly wished to hide my thoughts away from it at the deepest corners of my mind, then they wouldn't know. That was why I was able to have such ideas like this without risking Meta finding out.
I had numerous questions, regardless of whatever the true reason or for my purpose of being, I had to get stronger, wether I liked it or not.
"Yeah. I guess so." Eventually I responded softly.
[...]
I took a deep breath and exhaled a tired sigh. Finished taking off all of my training gear, I proceeded to leave the locker room.
I summoned my Attributes screen once more and lingered my gaze on my level.
"Meta, I think I'm ready to master Aura."
***
[Author's note]
Hey, guys, Peas&Carrots, here. How do you like and enjoy this story, even though it's still just the beginning. We're only five chapters in, but I'm on my way to apply for a contract.
If I succeed, How To Survive A Calamity gets to see a hundred more chapters.
If I fail, then I'll probably just scrap all of my stock, and that would be painful.
This is where I need your help. Your powerstones, comments and reviews actually help to raise my chances of a successful application, to be perfectly honest. It shows the Content editor that it can be marketable if the stats are already incredible at only 5 chapters in less than five days of publishing. So please, I'm asking for y'all support on this one. Thank you