Chapter 2: Awakening
"Awaken?... Am I finally awakening my system?!!" said Belial excitedly. His potential was low and the chance for him to awaken naturally was slim. It not only happened to him but all humans with low potential had low chance to awaken.
80% of humans were born with low grade potential. The low-grade potential was people with potential like a mortal grade, the lowest grade listed in the system. Humans with mortal grade potential had a super low chance to awaken their system.
People with this potential rarely awaken and even if they awakened, they will be the weakest among the explorers. The only thing they can do was being another explorer's porter or servant or slave if they intended to survive as an explorer.
Belial sat on the sofa and waited until the meter bar was full. It took about ten minutes for the meter to fill and Belial patiently waited for that.
Ten minutes later, the system sent Belial a few notifications. Belial was too excited and did not read the notifications. He thought it was a normal procedure for the system to do that when someone awakened and he said yes to all.
After a few times of 'yes', there were no more notifications. Belial opened his stats and new stats were shown in the system.
[Stats]
Name: Belial van Azure
Age: 5
Blessing(s): Omni Player System
Title: None
Class: Player(Hidden) Lv. 1
HP: 10/10
MP: 10/10
[Attributes:]
Vitality: 1
Strength: 1
Agility: 1
Dexterity: 1
Endurance: 1
Intelligence: 1
Wisdom: 1
Perception: 1
Spirit: 1
Charisma: 1
Luck: 1
Skill(s): Upgrade(Special)
All explorers will be able to increase their lifespan as they level up. How many years will they get was based on their potential. The higher their potential, the longer they will live.
However, lifespan will only reflect their death due to old age. If they were in an accident, had a fatal illness and killed by monsters or people, their lifespan will not affect that. Even when they were surprise and shocked to death can cost their life.
However, in the age of magic and technology, resurrection was possible. With the right conditions, it was possible to bring back the dead to life.
Belial had mortal grade potential. With this grade, every time he leveled up, he will gain 10 stat points. People with higher grade of potential will gain more stat points when they were leveling up. His stats before was this, when he was appraised by an expert.
[Stats]
Name: Belial van Azure
Age: 5
Innate Talent(s): None
Title: None
Class: None
HP: 10/10
MP: 10/10
[Attributes:]
Vitality: 1
Strength: 1
Agility: 1
Dexterity: 1
Endurance: 1
Intelligence: 1
Wisdom: 1
Perception: 1
Spirit: 1
Charisma: 1
Luck: 1
Skill(s): None
This was the reason Belial's family kept his birth a secret from the public. No matter how high his level was, he cannot be on the same power as people of higher grade but same level.
The stats difference between explorers of different grade were like heaven and earth. They were too far apart especially when they were in higher level.
Including his vitality, his other stats were really bad especially his luck. Out of the eleven stats, luck was the only stat human incapable of leveling up with their stat points. With only 1 point of luck, Belial will have a super hard time getting a monster drop and landed a critical hit on them.
Upon seeing his stats again, Belial sighed. Even if he had awakened, he was still part of the loser group. However, an awakener was still an awakener. When he became an explorer, the explorer title was enough to give him some fame to his name.
Then, Belial looked at the skill he got from awakening. Everyone who awakened will automatically got a skill. The skill got was random. If they were lucky, they will get a good skill.
Belial looked at his skill and he smiled when he saw the grade of his skill. It was a special grade skill. Special grade skill was not that rare. Many awakeners got special grade skill and most of them were different with each other.
Just like the grade implied, the skill was special. Everyone with this skill will usually made a name in society… if they had a high potential.
Belial might not be able to made his name known in the universe but he was happy nonetheless with the special grade skill he got. At least, his 1 point of luck favored him this time.
"Upgrade, anything that I touch can grow stronger?? Hmm~ I wonder what kind of upgrade does the skill meant?" Belial was thinking what the skill meant. Did his skill considered to be something like items upgrade or is it skills upgrade to him?
Belial opened his skill list and out of blank skill slots he had, one was occupied by Upgrade and the other empty skill slots was glowing in blue. Upon seeing the blue glow, Belial was happy.
He read online that there was no such thing as the skill slot emitted some kind of color happened to anyone. Belial concluded that that meant he can make his skills growing stronger. Upon thinking of doing that made him excited.
Belial was done viewing everything when he accidentally touched his sculpted short sword. To his surprise, There is a slight aura of that were also glowing in blue in his vision. Belial was happy to see that. He can grow things he put in his hands on… was his conclusion until he saw that the glowing blue were filled with things he currently made.
However, all the things he made were obviously sculpted items. Upon closer look, the picture of items in that he made were like glowing a pale blue of a squiggly letters(runic symbol).
"Hmm? What is happening?" Belial wondered and then he tried to bring out the item. Unfortunately, it cannot be taken out. Belial tried to move the items to other place but it was not moving.
Belial had bad feeling about it. Belial put his wooden short sword into the place with a squiggly letters and the squiggling letters where a faded in the wooden short sword was located gained its color back. Belial tried to move the wooden short sword to place and just like before, it was not moving.
However, the system pulled out a new screen and upon reading what was written on the screen, Belial's face went white.
(Before Upgrade)
[Wooden Short Sword]
[Type: Sword
Rank: Trash
Durability: 5/5
ATK 1~2
Description: A sword made of wood. Can be used to train in the way of sword.]
(After Upgrade)
[Wooden Short Sword] +5
[Type: Sword
Rank: Tier 1- Mortal(Low)[10%]
Durability: 25/25
ATK 10~12
Description: A sword made of wood. Can be used to train in the way of sword.
Special: Training efficiency using the sword increased by 10%]
"No way! No way!! No way!!!" Belial went panic. Belial stored back his other items,black cloak, wooden round shield and wooden mask. He tried to move them out of the glowing spot but they were not moving.
"....." Belial with only his underwear on his body sat silently on his sofa while looking at the white floor. He was silent for almost ten minutes until he snapped back to reality.
Belial finally remembered that earlier, he got a notifications from the system and he suspected that that notifications were asking him about uograding what he wore at the time.
Belial felt like crying. He should have read it first before saying yes. Belial walked back to his room and took some clothes to wear and he suddenly got some ideas.
Belial took out the metal knofe that he stored there. He thought that if he should upgrade something, then he should upgrade this.
[Metal Knife]
[Type: Knife
Rank: Tier 1- Mortal(High)[70%]
Durability: 5/250
ATK 10~50
Description: A knife made of metal. Can be used to cut some things.]
However, to his surprise, the faded picture of the metal knife was still there and its durability is almost exhausted.
Belial blankly looked at the air. He closed his system and lying on his bed. A few minutes later, he fell asleep.
An hour later, Belial woke up and checked his storage and they were still there. He went to sleep because he thought that that was all a dream and when he woke up, it will not be as bad as his dream. However, it was not a dream.
Belial started accepting his fate. He loses his mood of doing anything that day and all he did was lying on his bed blankly staring on the ceiling of his room. He felt like his luck stat said it all about what had happened.
For the next few days, other than going to forest and using the toilet, Belial did not do anything else. Belial thought that he will finally be able to change his life but his carelessness cost him a lot. He regretted not reading the notifications properly.
However, what was done cannot be undone. No matter how much Belial regretted it, he cannot change it. Don't cry over spilt milk.
Belial stared at his storage and then he realized something.
"That's right! All of this equipment, no matter how weak they are, I can make them stronger. Equipment drop from monsters cannot grow stronger but my equipment can. I can still become stronger if I grow my equipment properly," Belial suddenly came to his realization.
With that sudden realization, Belial eyes were burning with passion..