Awakening - 2

Clarence put the corpse in his spatial bracelet without a moment of delay in order to not attract any beasts.

The blood and meat of a rank 1 beast would entice to almost all the rankless beasts, which are especially common in the outer area of the mountains.

He pulled out his dagger from the ground and held it in his left arm, the other one holding a dagger as well. Erasing the traces of the brief battle which ensued here, he tracked back the faint traces of the chase while simultaneously erasing them.

He arrived in front of the tree where the rank 1 snake was coiled around and thought,

'There is no way a rank 1 beast would just loiter around in the outer perimeters. The higher ranked beasts aren't allowed in the habitats of lower ranked ones.

The bluemist mountains have such strict rules and hierarchy among their beasts. There must be something here for the snake to risk it.'

Relying on his mana sensitivity, Clarence soon came in front of a flower well hidden from sight.

He identified the flower to be a 100 year old sacred flower.

Relying on the method of how to harvest taught to him by his mother, he held the stem of the flower, but what he didn't expect was that as soon as he touched the flower.

As if triggered by something, Clarence felt that a seal within him was broken. He soon felt a huge amount of unknown energy running through his body.

There was a deep *hum* sound which was released from the depths of his soul. The energy rushing out from the depths of his soul soon felt so unbearable that he unknowingly went to sleep.

[System of Order initiating 1… 2… 3… ]

*****

Clarence felt a light wind blowing on his face, waking up. He was first shocked to find out that it was already night.

The second was that he was still at the place where he went unconscious, with his body still unscathed.

No matter what, although he was unharmed by who knows what method, he can't rely on anything or anyone but himself to have a good percent of survival guarantee.

Just as he was about to get up and leave, he spotted the flower which he was about to pluck before he fell asleep, although Clarence felt that the flower should have at least something to do with his earlier situation, he still wasn't willing to give up a rare resource.

Just as he touched the stem of the flower, he felt vestiges of an energy which soon disappeared as if it never existed. The situation made him wary, because if his guesses were correct, someone clearly planned for this to happen.

But since he was already halfway, he went all the way and plucked the flower. Putting it in his spatial bracelet.

Clarence quickly got up and left the place in search of a place to spend the night. He soon arrived in front of an empty cave. Entering the cave, he first lit a fire with a tool and blocked the entrance with a boulder.

Leaning back against the wall of the cave, he thought,

"How did I fall unconscious in the first place? Was it that aura?"

[The huge amount of energy wasn't something that your body could handle, with the system not being initiated completely at that time. It took the best course of action and put you to sleep, temporarily cutting off the flow of the energy.]

Seeing a crystal blue transparent screen manifesting in front of his eyes, with an apathetic voice speaking the same thing in his mind as the white colored texts appearing on the screen, shocked Clarence to his very core.

Widening his eyes, Clarence changed to a defensive stance almost immediately from a resting posture, showing his excellent reflexes and countless hours of practice ingrained into his very body to have reacted so quickly.

[Host is advised to calm down, system is not your enemy. It repeats, the system is not your enemy. It is your greatest ally and helper in the battle against the true enemies.]

He heard the same apathetic voice in his head again, along with the changing words on the screen.

Not letting down his guard, Clarence looked in all the directions and tried to sense whatever little fluctuations he could find. Unfortunately, he couldn't sense any.

Before he could think of anything, he received a sudden influx of instructions on how to use the system.

Although he was a little skeptical about its purpose, Clarence still gave the command mentally,

"System Panel"

The words on the screen in front of him underwent a change

[ Initiating system panel ]

[ 1. Stats ]

[ 2. Shop/exchange list ]

[Increase your cultivation or upgrade authority rank to unlock more features of the system]

Mentally choosing for the stats option, the words changed once again

[ Name: Clarence Verity ]

[ Race: Demon]

[ Notable Positions: Heir of the Verity family - The Royal family of the demonic empire ]

[ Titles: None ]

[ Cultivation scripture: True demon sutra]

[ Cultivation rank: Rankless ]

[ Techniques practiced: feather step - leg technique, illusory arms - arm technique]

[ Spare energy value : 0 ]

[ Authority rank: 1 ]

Seeing his info appearing on the screen was quite surprising for Clarence, as he didn't remember telling the system anything.

[System is aware of everything going on in the outside world]

Picking out a talisman from his spatial bracelet, he conveyed his words mentally to the talisman before letting it fly away.

Before cultivating, one could never talk mentally, but some special talismans are an exception, as they could decipher what you are trying to say, so instead of saying Clarence was special, you could say the talisman was a special one.

Clarence suddenly executed his leg technique. After he was done, he mentally asked,

"System, can you find out the faults in the technique, explain why it is incorrect or unnecessary and give suggestions on how to make the technique better suited for me?"

[Every task other than the system features will cost energy of equivalent amount]

Remembering the condition from the instruction sent to his mind about the system, he asked,

"How much?"

The system can do anything if an equivalent price is paid for it.

The system expends a specific amount of energy to carry out tasks outside the features provided.

So the price to carry out the task is to provide the same amount of energy it will expend to carry out the said task. The said energy can be your own or in the form of energy crystals.

You can obtain an object of your choice in exchange for the object of an equivalent value. The quantity on both sides must remain the same for the exchange to occur. For example, you can't get an object of value 10 in exchange for two objects of value 5.

In short, 1. The system carries out tasks not included in features in exchange for equivalent energy.

2. Gives you an object in exchange for an object of equivalent value.

[2000 high tier mana crystal]

"Too high, just give suggestions on how to make the technique better suited to me. How much will it cost?"

[800 high tier mana crystal]

"Uh, Alright"

Clarence felt his heart bleed seeing such an exorbitant price, but still took out 800 mana crystals from his spatial bracelet, and to his amazement, the crystals disappeared like it never existed in the first place.

Shortly after, he felt an influx of information regarding the thing he asked for. After reviewing the information, he executed his technique with some of the suggestions he got from the system.

Shocked would be an understatement to describe how he was feeling right now, but it also made him wary about whoever was behind this.

It also made him question another thing, if they supposedly weren't capable of creating this system, why not take it for themselves but leave it for him? But then it also creates another question, can the system really be "given"?

If he were to really sit and think, it would easily create a long list of questions. So he stopped thinking about the system and organized a few things he discovered.

The system doesn't know what is going on in his brain or what he thinks about.

He felt immense relief wash over him when he discovered this fact. Of course, it couldn't be ruled out that the system was just pretending, but he would like not to think about that for now.

There were two proofs which cemented his conjecture of the system not being able to peek into his brain.

First, when he mentally sent a message to his talisman.

Second, when the system gave him suggestions on how to improve his leg technique.