1 The awakening after despair.

A long time ago, humans found themselves at the bottom of the food chain because of their inability to awaken their powers.

So, unfortunately, the other races, such as elves, demons, dwarfs, fairies... Took advantage of the situation and not only refusing to help humans awaken their natural abilities, they even waged wars against the humans who inevitably lost. After winning, they would rob all of their wealth and turn them into slaves; basically, they turned their lives into hell.

But one day, a hero was born; this man was named Erik laywok, and he dedicated his whole life to the pursuit of a way that will allow his kind to awaken their powers by observing other races awakening and living with them for a while.

This wasn't peaceful research as sometimes, because of his greed and hunger for knowledge, he would hire assassins to kill or capture some nonhuman species for him so that he can experiment on them! This resulting in the start of the first great war. Still, the humans, this time, defended themselves as they learned how to become more powerful. Luckily, after years of fighting, the humans finally won the war, placing themselves at the "top" of the food chain for some time...

Magic can grant individuals different abilities, such as igniting fire, teleportation, and much more. With these came a system; some were great, some were trash, but one thing was constant: everybody had a system; no matter who they were, the system will always help the user manipulate their powers more efficiently.

With a great system, you could probably be set for life as you will get a lot of money, fame, glory, everything you could ever dream of, while those who got a bad one such as a farmer, baker… Had no place in society, not even having the right to open a store while in peace. Still, at least they could live a comfortable life.

The most important thing about systems is that they will sometimes be activated according to the person's personality and desire. Let's say that someone is always excited and loves fire; he will get a fire system.

But this law resulted in a big problem as crazy people sometimes had blood magic and necromancy magic (evil magic) that frequently resulted in them waging wars because of their bloodthirst, selfishness, and greed.

Eventually, the 'good' humans won and banned evil magic, to the degree that if they found out that someone is using it, the church will exterminate the user and their whole family, with the only exception being the royal family as they would only 'kill' the member who uses that magic.

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My name is Almer Goregrip; I'm 14 years old. I was born in a royal family that is composed of 7 members; these were my father, Leo, the royal king that married 3 women; Anna, who is the main wife of the king; the second wife was Hannah; and lastly, my mother, Phoebe, that my dad picked as a concubine because of her looks that put all of his wives to shame, sadly because of her low status as a commoner she couldn't win my father's love.

Now for my step-siblings, I have one brother and three sisters; first, my older sister Martha is 17 years old, and her sister is Becca, who is 16 years old; they both are the daughters of my step-mother Anna, secondly is Marcel. He is 14 years old, and his sister Mia is 14 years old as well, and they both are the children of Hannah (we all have the same last name. And it's a tradition for the wife to change her last name to her husband's.)

Our family is wealthy as my father was the king of our kingdom, and his main source of income was taking money from commoners. My father loved to torture my mother, as even after years of many years of marriage, he still treated her like a slave with no rights.

As for me, he treated me like an animal; as for the rest of the family, they bullied and looked down on me since I was born from commoner blood. This situation got worse when they found out that I did not have a system. On the other hand, the king treated my siblings differently since they acquired a high-level system.

My siblings didn't care about us or how we felt as they thought we were just trash and didn't deserve to live. With that mindset, through years, they had grown arrogant, not caring about the lives of the people that had a lower status than themselves, especially when it came to power or wealth.

Even with that lousy treatment, I still didn't give up on my life as I swore to avenge myself no matter what happens. Still, life had darker days awaiting me as my mom, the only person who treated me with care, committed suicide because of the harsh treatment my father had given her; ever since my father has started targeting me to vent out his anger.

One day, he took it a step too far and wanted to sacrifice me to my older sister Martha, so that she becomes more powerful.

Earlier that day...

"Where are we going, dad?" I asked with a frown on my face.

"We're just going to a famous ghost exterminator so we can cure your inability to unlock your system, son." He replied with a smiley face.

But of course, I didn't believe that bullshit as I knew my father, he would rather die than waste money on me, so I responded with a fake happy face.

"Thanks, dad, I don't know what do I do if I didn't have you !" and he replied with a creepy smile.

After a 30 min walk, we reached an abandoned palace with a big rusty door. My father knocked three times. With each knock, there was a moment of pause as if it was a secret code. When my father finished knocking, the door opened with no delay.

So we walked in with my father holding my hands tight

"Hurry, the pope will be angry if we keep him waiting."

After walking for a little bit, we reached a room where I found Martha sitting in the center of a big demonic-like circle. I took a step back out of instinct, as I knew demonic rituals could get all of our family killed.

But, unfortunately, a bunch of men wearing long black robes that hid their face well shut down the door behind me, then my father ordered the men to secure me on the floor while laughing.

"Did you believe that I would waste my money on a piece of junk like you?"

Suddenly I saw the whole family sitting on some chairs, while jealousy appearing on the face of Hannah and her kids while happiness was that could be seen on Becca's and her mother's face, suddenly Becca said with a chuckle.

"He really thought that dad would try to save him."

Marcel replied while laughing.

"HAHAHA! What a stupid piece of trash thinking that father will waste money on a commoner's son!"

After hearing their mocks, I started struggling, tightening my hand, wishing that I could break their noses. Knowing that I will not stop fighting back, they fed me a pill that made me unable to move; later, they placed me in front of Martha, and soon after, they started chanting some weird words that I never heard before.

After 10min of chanting, the circle began to shine with an evil red color, and smoke began to appear from the drawing on the floor, covering my sister and me. After a while, a devil came out of the smoke.

"You have 10 seconds to tell me why you summoned me; hurry up as you don't want to see me annoyed." He said with a bored tone.

"O great demon we humbly ask you to grant our wish, that is to make this girl more powerful, and as a sacrifice, we will give you the soul of this boy, and don't worry great demon this boy has a special soul; that will surely satisfy you!" Said one of the men.

I looked at them stupefied as it finally dawned upon me why my father didn't kill me; all this time, the only purpose for my existence was to be a sacrifice for that crazy woman!

"Oh, let me see... That's an interesting human you got there, alright, I will grant you your wish." He announced in a cold voice.

He started pulling my soul out of my body with no warning, yet I did not want to die. I still had a lot of things to do in this life that I could not because of that dick of a father; I still want to have revenge for my mother; I still want to have revenge on the world that betrayed me treated me as a joke.

"I WANT TO LIVE!" I screamed my lungs out, resisting the strange power that tried to take my soul.

{DEMON POV}

('...' means someone or something talking in his head) 'What an interesting human, resisting my power like that isn't something a normal person can do, I can even sense a dormant power in him... Guess I will help him activate his system this time.'

{ALMER POV}

Suddenly I felt like life was returning to me while my sister started frowning in her unconscious state; simultaneously, the circle's light started to fade away, and then the demon said with a troubled face.

"Sadly, this ritual didn't succeed as the energy wasn't sufficient, and the girl's brain took an impact, so she won't be awake until one month with the right treatment."

Afterward, the demon appeared in front of me and put his finger on my forehead, then whispers to me.

"You owe me this one human." then I fell unconscious as I heard a notification.

[System activated.]

Somewhere unknown...

"Lord!, we detected a strange energy similar to our dead god." said a young-looking man with a divine ball in his hands with an excited voice.

"Oh really..... Guess it's near, the final war." Said an old man with a deep voice.