- Open the System

Shortly after the voice's words, Gus's surroundings faded to black once again.

As he felt consciousness return to his body, he raised his hands to his head and took off the helmet. Releasing it gently, he left it to hang down from the ceiling in the same way that he found it.

With an alert sound, a system message appeared in front of his eyes.

*Mission Complete!*

*Rewards: 200 EXP*

*Additional Rewards: Thanks to your leadership skills in battle, you have earned additional rewards of 50 Leadership points.*

'Points?'

He turned around to look for the door, but found only a blank wall where the doorway had been just before. He looked around the room in confusion, quietly doubting his memory in the back of his mind. As he turned, he noticed an open door on the other side of the room, in the direct mirrored place that he remembered it being in.

'Did they spin the room or something while we were in there?' he thought. Assuming he would find the answer out later, either directly or from asking, he pushed the thought from his mind and left the room.

The doorway led into a large waiting room, like a reception. There were seemingly hundreds of seats in the room with only a couple of the seats filled with people. People that Gus had never met before in his life. Despite this, they looked familiar to him.

There was a big, bulky boy with dark hair and a well groomed beard. There was a dark haired girl with two metallic arms that made her shoulders look unnaturally wide. There was a boy who spoke loudly, with a distinct Irish accent. Upon noticing Gus, the bulky boy waved him over to them.

"So, which one are you?" the bulky boy asked him.

"Which one?" Gus asked in confusion.

"Yeah. From the..." he replied, pointing to the rooms. "Ah, nevermind. What's your name?"

"Gus."

"Oh, you're Gus! I'm Joel!"

"Can I just say, you have really thin eyebrows," the Irish boy said. "I'm Connor, in case you couldn't tell."

Gus nodded. "And you must be Teala?" he asked the girl.

"That's me!" she responded.

As they awaited further instructions, Gus and the others talked. He found out that Joel was from the North of England, and that Teala was from France, both of which were in the European Alliance of Nations. Soon enough, others appeared from the simulation.

Krista was a golden haired girl from one of the regions in the East of the EAN, and Anten was a brown haired boy who travelled to London from the Brazil in the Southern American Nations. Kyle had come from Canada in the UNNCA, and brought with him a messy head of orange hair, and Faye had travelled down from Scotland in the EAN.

As some time passed, the eight of them got to know each other. They told each other about how different their lives were depending on where they had lived. They talked about family, a conversation that Gus abruptly avoided from contributing to. As for the other two, who had done nothing during the simulated test, they chose to sit on their own and whisper to each other while looking at Gus and the others with an expression of disdain.

In the UNNCA, life was heavily structured around skyscraper offices and financial dominance. It was here that people who held wealth often lived and traded, and where people turned to when they needed funding for their personal entrepreneurial ventures. In the SAN, life was hectic. Buildings designed to maximise space were brightly adorned with multiple colours, celebrating the bright and vibrant culture that existed in centuries prior. Thanks to this, many top artists and architects found their beginnings here, and quickly rose to fame by taking their talents into the stars.

Despite the continental unifications that happened centuries ago, lifestyles in the EAN never fully collided. While things like culture, cuisine and architecture managed to cross borders and influence millions of people, the overall lifestyle choices never became unified throughout the continent. Unlike the UNNCA, where employment and duty are important to life regardless of where you were, core values in the EAN could vary drastically over a matter of miles. The entire conversation intrigued Gus, who had no world view outside of the EAN in his life.

Eventually, the next group of people came through the simulation rooms. Among the group was Claire, who went over to Gus with one of the people from her group.

"So, I guess we were right about it being an exam," she said to Gus.

"Yeah. Well, you were right. I can't take the credit for that." Gus introduced her to the others from his group, and she in turn introduced him to Emmy, a redhead girl from the East coast of the U.S.A in the UNNCA who was in Claire's group.

"But who would have thought they'd have us escorting a vehicle through a city?" Claire asked. "It seems like an odd choice of something for an entrance exams."

"Escorting?" Connor asked. "We were protecting a research facility."

"Different missions? Why would they do that in a test?" Gus asked.

"How long did you have before the thing started?" Claire asked after a moment of thought.

"Not long. Seconds, maybe up to about half a minute before that voice spoke to us," Joel responded.

"Screens that blocked us from seeing other people. Instant starts. Did you have a choice to make regarding how to carry out the mission?"

"We did." Teala answered. "And it caused a bit of a rift between us."

"I see." A small smile formed over Claire's face as she realised what was happening in the tests. "They want to test our ability to work as a team with strangers under extreme time constraints. It explains the walls, and the rapid starts."

"So, what now?" Emmy asked.

"I think we just have to wait, however long that will take," Kyle suggested.

As the hours passed, more and more groups of ten passed through the simulation rooms and into the large waiting area. As time went on, Gus's thoughts turned back to the system. Excusing himself, he left to find a private space with which to try and find something about it. Words appearing in front of his eyes? Gus didn't want anyone to know about that, not just yet.

Finding a small alcove on the opposite end of the room, he tucked himself in.

'Now how can I learn more about this system thing? What does this EXP thing do? And what are Leadership points?' he thought.

*Welcome to the system. Now that you have opened the system, all of the functions have now been granted to you.*

After that message, a menu appeared in front of his eyes.

*Stats*

*Skills*

*Points*

*Store*

*Milestones*

Next to both the store and milestones options flashed a sealed lock. Therefore, it seemed like Gus only had access to the stats, skills and points sections of the menu at the moment.

'This definitely seems like one of those old video games that my father and the others would mention,' Gus thought to himself. 'Guess I should see what these stats are.'

In front of his eyes the menu reacted. The 'Stats' option blinked in response to being selected before the entire menu changed.

*Level [1] {300 / 1000 EXP}*

*Strength [1]*

*Speed [1]*

*Stamina [1]*

*Leadership [1]*

*Combat [1]*

*Durability [1]*

*Ranged [1]*

*Proficiency [1]*

'Leadership? Combat? Ranged? Proficiency? The others are obvious, but what are these?'

*Would you like a Glossary installed into the system?*

'A glossary? Sure.'

*Processing...*

*Glossary has been added to the menu.*

*Would you like to view the Glossary?*

'Sure'

*Glossary*

*Combat - Combat skills and levels relate to the user's skill and ability to engage opponents in close ranged combat, either with or without handheld weapons.*

*Durability - Durability skills and levels relate to the user's ability to either avoid or negate forms of incoming damage, thanks to movement, healing, and toughness.*

*Leadership - Leadership skills and levels relate to the user's ability to lead others. Higher levels will improve the user's tactical ability, as well as the abilities of those under the user's command.*

*Level - The level of the user is the amount of times the user has completed their experience meter.*

*Milestones - Milestones are points of achievement of different things that relate to your growth and everchanging environment. Milestones offer rewards to the user upon completion.*

*Points - Points are the currency in use by the system. They can be used to buy items from the store, buy upgrades to stat levels and can be exchanged into legend specific points. Legend specific points can be used to buy skills for specific legends, as well as unique items pertaining to that specific legend. Stat specific points are points that can be used to upgrade the level of the individual stat, or on skills for a legend of that particular stat.

Points are granted for level ups, defeating enemies, and as mission rewards. Stat and legend points can be earned as rewards from mission rewards. Points can be converted into either legend points or stat points, at a ratio of 5:1.

Stat upgrades cost 100 points, or 50 stat points. Cost of skills vary, and get more expensive as the skill tree progresses.*

*Proficiency - Proficiency skills and levels affect how easily the user can pick up new weapons and wield them efficiently without training.*

*Ranged - Ranged skills and levels relate to the user's overall usage of ranged weapons.*

*Skills - Skills are unlockables that provide the user with either a boost to stats or special abilities.*

*Speed - Speed skills and levels relate to how fast the user is able to act. {Note: Increasing Speed too far above Stamina will result in suboptimal performance, leading to earlier onsets of fatigue.}*

*Stamina - Stamina skills and levels refer to how long the user is able to act before succumbing to fatigue.*

*Store - The store is a location in the system in which the user can use points to purchase items such as weapons, armour and miscellaneous items.*

*Strength - Strength skills and levels refer to the overall force and power able to be generated by the body of the user.*

'Okay, it all seems pretty easy to understand. I should take a look at the points, then I can check out if there's anything I can buy in the skills section.'

Obeying his thoughts, the systems menu morphed to show his points total. Compared to both the 'Stats' and 'Glossary' menus, the points menu was surprisingly bare.

*Points [0]*

*Leadership points [50]*

'Okay, I can upgrade my leadership skill to level two! Let's check the skills page first.'

*Hercules (Strength)*

*Hermes (Speed)*

*Atlas (Stamina)*

*Alexander the Great (Leadership)*

*Achilles (Combat)*

*Sun Wukong (Durability)*

*Hou Yi (Ranged)*

*Lugh (Proficiency)*

'I think I've heard of one or two of these from books some of the scientists had. I'm sure they mostly fulfil more than just the skills they have represented here. I wonder why the system decided to work it this way?'

Gus opened the 'Alexander' skills, since those were the ones related to the leadership stat. Accessible to him was a single skill.

*History's Greatest Commander: Cost [50] Alexander points or Leadership points.*

*Effect: As the greatest commander in human history, Alexander the Great's leadership skills were without peer. Grants the user [+1] Leadership.*

'I guess I should buy this. It's the same cost as an upgrade on the leadership stat, while also advancing myself in regards to the skills.'

*Would you like to buy [1] History's Greatest Commander.*

Yes.

*Confirmed. Purchase complete!*

Satisfied with his decision, Gus left the alcove he had positioned himself in and began to return to the people he was with, but was suddenly stopped by two people in his way.