Chapter 1 - Kyle

One day, demons appeared on the surface of Earth and started wreaking havoc wherever they passed. Humans tried to fight back but ended up suffering more defeats than victories. While firearms and nuclear weapons were somewhat effective, demons had a very strong healing ability coupled with supernatural strength.

Eventually, hermits living away from society have shown up and started driving demons back with abilities never seen before by common humans. The hermits decided to teach humans some of their abilities so that humans could fight back.

Two hundred years have passed by. Technology didn't advance much since most of the focus of humanity was on surviving. Together with the demons, monsters started to evolve from common animals and humans now had found a way to use monster materials to create equipment to fight against demons on the front lines. Then humanity started fighting on two frontlines, one against monsters and another against demons.

Humanity managed to drive demons back to what is called now as demon continent while the rest of the world is being slowly rebuilt from the ruins. Forming settlements and fortresses around the world on previous cities.

Kyle was an orphan boy that had been taken care of by the government. He was given a room at a dorm from the school and a small allowance to allow him to have basic necessities. There were many children like Kyle. Their parents would die in the war and the government would take care of their children.

The catch was these children were expected to become soldiers in the future. The government would teach basic abilities to these children and those that had potential would be given a position in the military while others with poor ability would just be thrown back to society when they came of age.

Kyle was fifteen years old now and didn't have much of a future. His progression with the ability given by the government was weak and he would be picked on by his colleagues from time to time. But Kyle had spine and would fight back whenever he was provoked. This caused him many troubles in his school, and he would often be sent to the infirmary.

"Here comes the creep again. Waiting to take another beating". A hazel haired boy said. He was waiting to beat Kyle again. He loved doing that since Kyle didn't have the ability to fight back.

"When will he learn to be obedient and just follow the strong". A taller boy said. This one looked like a leader. He had dark hair and was a bit muscular for his age. Around him there were around five boys that looked like they were following the taller one.

"You guys again, when will you learn that one day I'll beat all of you asses?" Kyle said. Kyle had red dark hair and white skin. His eyes were a bit different though, as they would often shine in gold color from his natural hazel color. He was tall for his age but was a little slender.

Kyle was simply returning to his dorm after class. But one day a small bully started to make his life difficult. Orpal was also an orphan, but he had a little talent and like to show off. So, he decided to gather the other orphans at school and make them his minions. But Kyle didn't bother with that, he would simply say no. But Orpal didn't like to take no for an answer and would everyday beat Kyle until Kyle couldn't move anymore. Then Kyle would wake up in the infirmary again almost every evening. 

At the beginning he tried to ask a teacher for help, but he was denied and was told that fighting between students was a common thing and would be solved by themselves. Kyle was disappointed when he heard this. What was the point of taking care of the orphan children when they would just ignore them. But Kyle decided that he would be strong enough one day to beat back everyone so that they wouldn't be able to hurt him anymore.

After leaving the infirmary, Kyle would head back to his dorm and start practicing the ability he was given by the government repeatedly. But the problem was that the ability Kyle wasn't progressing fast enough with this ability, and he couldn't point out why. 

"Here we go again. Let's make this quick this time, hold him for me and I'll beat some sense into him." Orpal said while ordering his lackeys.

Kyle tried to fight back, but he was beaten until he was unconscious all over again. But this time when he woke up in the infirmary, he found that the bracelet he had on him was a little different. It was a gold chain that had a round black stone pendant. But this time, the black stone was nowhere to be found.

Kyle was mad, this was the only thing he had left from his parents. Before his parents disappeared, they gifted him with this bracelet and went for war. Kyle still remembers the day he got his bracelet; he was only four years old at that time. From then on, his life turned upside down and he was transferred to the school dorm after learning that his parents were dead.

Kyle tried to go back to where he took the beating, but he didn't find anything. Disappointed, he decided to go back to his room. He kept thinking about how to improve his strength and stop taking a beating every time he left the classes.

Laying on his bed and looking at the ceiling, he noticed some strange letters forming in the air right in front of him. He was a little panicked and tried to swing the letters away with his hands, but his hands would just go through it. 

[Activation Complete]

[Cultivation System Enabled]

[Congratulations Kyle Goldblood on activating the system]

[You now have access to status screen, skills screen, cultivation screen, inventory screen, and notification log screen]

[Congratulations your system stone awarded you a Peak Divine Grade Cultivation Technique: Five Elements of Chaos Transformations]

Kyle was dumbfounded, he couldn't believe what was happening in front of his eyes. After he was done reading, he notifications he thought that he finally had gone crazy after taking so many beatings.

Then a new notification popped up in front of him.

[Your system stone has a video recorded on it. Would you like to play it?]

[Yes] [No]

Kyle thought, why not, let's play it. Then suddenly the video started playing in front of his eyes. He could see his parents in front of him inside the video.

"Kyle, we love you and you probably are thinking that we have died on the war. The truth is that we have left for something bigger. One day you will be able to join us, but now your battlefield is the war against the demons."

His father said on the video.

"We left you with the system. It's something from our family and when you're strong enough you'll be able to make a system for your children as well. We left you with a strong divine grade cultivation technique. It's stronger than normal cultivation techniques but it takes time to cultivate. That's when the system comes in. It'll try to speed up things a little."

"Humans still don't know the power of cultivation nor do the demons. We hope you keep this a secret. Humans are starting to scratch magic with their abilities, which will eventually turn into immortal cultivation. So, when you start to get stronger, just say it's from your ability."

"Remember we love. Goodbye!"

After watching the video, Kyle pinched himself to see if he was not dreaming. He still was trying to wrap his head around all of this.

He thought with his mind that he wanted to access the status screen. He only thought along the lines "I want to see the status screen" and it started to form in front of his eyes. It took less than a second to form and soon his status was displayed in front of him.

[Name: Kyle Goldblood]

[Age: 15 years]

[Strength: 2.0]

[Agility: 1.8]

[Vitality: 3.2]

[Stamina: 0.9]

[Qi: 0]

"Wow, this is amazing, I see my stats. It seems that my vitality is a bit stronger than normal. Must be from all the beatings I took." Kyle thought to himself.

"I wonder how this will translate to Power Index thought.

[System adaptation order received. New index on status page can be bound]

[Power Index: 1.975]

"Wow amazing, it's like the system responds to my thoughts. Amazing!" Kyle thought.

"It seems my power index has increased a little from my last assessment. But it's still not enough."

"Now let's check skills. The ability given by the government doesn't have skills, only body tempering. I wonder how skills will work."

[Skills]

[Inspect Lv. 1]

"Wait, I only have this inspect skill, how does this work. Since most things work by thought with this system, let's check."

He grabbed a book and thought "Inspect!" as if it was an order. Soon detailed information appeared in front of him.

[Inspect Result: Book Tree Thunders Are Too Scary. A children's book of a tale of a child that was afraid of thunder but ends up conquering this fear going on an adventure with some companions he meets along the way. Author: Peter Sangalia]

"I see. This is a good skill. Next Cultivation!"