The System Comes to Earth

Opening their eyes and finding themselves standing in a completely white space, the people of Earth that had been chosen by the system faced a mixture of confusion and panic.

"Where am I?"

Ignoring his question, in a cold, mechanical voice a speaker who Joshua could not see spoke to him:

"Congratulations Joshua Miller, you have been chosen to fight for your planet in the intergalactic war for survival."

"Who are you?"

Ignoring another of his questions the voice continued:

"To complete this task, you as well as the other chosen ones will be given the ability to harbor the soul of a beast or monster inside of you. In order to collect this soul, you each will be given a skill between the ranks of E and S and a physical buff scaled to this level."

While most 'chosen ones' showed confusion at this statement from the voice, Joshua was well aware of what was happening and so could not be happier completely forgetting about his previous questions.

"Fuck yes, I guess all of those novels about getting superpowers were more realistic than I thought; I see this as an absolute win!"

Joshua was the type of guy who read light novels and manga, and like so many others, was fascinated with the idea of getting these powers he always saw.

"The first inter-dimensional gates will open in 6 hours, and it will be necessary to defend against the invaders. But before this, you will receive your ability and be allowed 10 minutes to test it in preparation of combat."

With bated breath, Joshua let his imagination run wild with thoughts of the ability he would acquire and how he would use it become famous and get away from his uncle and aunt... but more importantly, get a hot girlfriend.

But in his ecstasy, he forgot a hard lesson he learned early in life...

Reality is always more depressing than your fantasies.

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You have acquired E rank skill, Adrenaline Rush!

Rank E: Adrenaline Rush

Allows the user a burst of adrenaline with later fatigue scaling with the length of use.

______________________________________________

For three minutes, there was absolute silence as Joshua contemplated how foolish he had previously been to have had such high hopes.

In anger, he asked, "The hell... how am I supposed to fight mythical beasts with such a shitty skill... answer me damn it!"

And for the first and only time, the voice answered Joshua:

"Against strong threats such as those you described, you would be little more than cannon fodder, but please do not be discouraged there are of course F rank monsters you would be capable of defeating... probably."

After being shit on by the system that congratulated him only minutes ago, Joshua got pissed as he began throwing profanities at the voice that for some reason, he felt was addressing him with contempt under its monotonous delivery.

"Fuck you, you goddamn piece of shit, the only time you answer me is to tell me I am useless what kind of encouragement is that bullshit!"

For the remainder of his time in the space, Joshua continued to rant and rave until he was blue in the face to the system that never again responded about the ethics of its actions as well as demanding compensation for emotional abuse.