Waking world

A nurse was diligently checking the status of the rifts as usual. They were required to do this maintenance every few hours to see if there were any changes. There are only a few reasons a rift would open; the first was that a walker was going in or out; the second was that there was the possibility of a spatial breach, which can cause a lot of damage and casualties.

In the past 7 months after the newly awakened walkers entered the spatial rifts, at least 500 students had returned to the academy. The fate of the rest was still unknown.

As the nurse was checking the next portal, a sudden energy pulse came out of it; this startled the nurse, and she immediately pressed the emergency button. Emergency warnings were sent to the walkers in the facility, alerting them of a spatial disturbance.

After a few minutes, a squad of three walkers had already formed a perimeter, encircling the portal in the middle. The portal released a continuous pulse of energy, each pulse increasing and getting stronger by the second; this indicates that the portal is about to open soon.

The atmosphere was tense and heavy. The probability of walkers returning was low because of the time difference. If 7 months passed on earth, it would be much longer on the outlands. Soon, a loud and deafening sound of something being torn was heard, and a crack in space formed in the rift portals.

The walkers were all focused on the rift, weapons hot and ready to go. After the tear formed, a figure appeared and went out of it; the figure belonged to no other than the prodigy walker herself: Stellar Reese.

All the walkers were shocked to see someone come out of the portal after 7 months. The walkers immediately called for medics and assisted the unconscious girl to the medical facilities. After a while, another figure appeared, this time a boy.

.

.

.

Ajax woke up and felt very nauseous. He looked around and saw he was in a white room with a beeping monitor next to him; he was home. Ajax breathed a sigh of relief; he was finally home, and the constant dangers were gone. After spending at least a year in that place, he missed his simple life.

After the nausea passed, memories of what transpired in the isolated space finally came back to him. He immediately checked his system to see if there were any changes.

[Name:Ajax Harbinger]

Bestowed name: Void Harbinger

Age: 16

Gender: Male

Heritage: Eternal Void

Awakened attributes: Void Walker, One with the Void, Primordial Darkness

Abilities: [Void Armor] [Void skin] [Void sense] [Void shield] [Void wave] [Void manipulation] 

Ajax's eyes widened after seeing three new skills on his system panel. He immediately checked their descriptions to see what they could do.

[Void shield]

Rank:0 

Proficiency: 0% 

Effects: Allows the user to harness the void and use it to form a shield (circular or dome).

[Void wave] 

Rank:0 

Proficiency: 0% 

Effects: Allows the user to launch void waves.

[Void manifestation] 

Rank: 0 

Proficiency: 0% 

Effects: Allows user to manipulate and use the void

'SO OP!!!' Ajax felt very happy because his combat powers increased by leaps and bounds. The skills given to him were simply absurd and overpowered. He had no doubt he could beat even Stella herself without any troubles; that's how good these skills were. Ajax checked his stats and heritage to see what improved.

[Heritage: Eternal Void]

Mastery

Previous Rank: 1

Rank: 4

Proficiency: 23/800

Effects: gives the user medium stats, a magic boost, and medium corrosion; grants the user the ability to ignore durability depending on mastery.

'Ignore durability?! What the heck is with this broken passive?! Is this one of the perks of a good heritage? The world is truly unfair." Ajax thought. He pressed the stat button next to check how much it boosted him.

[Name: Ajax Harbinger]

Status: healthy, recovering

Strength: 1344

Agility: 1314

Defence: 1494

Dexterity:1301

Astral Energy: 800

Overall Rank: Semi-Master

Ajax was once again stunned. His mind went blank for a moment; he thought he was hallucinating, so he pinched his cheeks. The pain was definitely real. 'Yep, this is real,' Ajax thought.

'HOLY SHIT! Hahaha, I'm Truly Peerless!' Ajax screamed inside his head while grinning like a psycho. He was very pleased by the massive improvements on his stats, not to mention his rank jumped from novice to semi-master! He was already halfway master, and such a rank is something massive guilds fight for.

"Thank you, Grand Litch, your sacrifice was not in vain." Ajax thanked the great lich that gave him all the experience he needed to jump in strength.

.

.

.

Ajax was confined for at least 2 more days before finally being discharged, and he was tasked by the government to write a report on his voyage to the outlands. Every walker was tasked to do this after returning because every piece of information was valuable to the future awakeners.

Ajax wrote about his experience; he also included the bizarre monsters roaming that place; however, he excluded some details like the grand litch and sentries. Some things are better left unsolved for now.

He returned to his dorm inside the academy and changed his clothes; he doesn't want to train with hospital clothes on. Ajax planned to train himself to adjust to his new strength, so the best place to go was the arena, where he could test his ability without problems.

The arena was a place for walkers to train; the place was fully furnished with machines, training bots, isolation rooms, and multiple stages where walkers could spar to hone their battle experience. Ajax planned to use an isolation room before challenging other walkers.

Ajax walked to the receptionist and asked for an isolation room. The receptionist gave him a keycard with numbers on it indicating his room. The room was big and spacious; it also had a reinforced wall and testing machines.

Ajax decided to first use his void shield; he extended his hands, and a black substance came out of thin air, forming a circular shield. The shield was pitch black and weightless. Ajax ordered the test machine to fire attacks at him, and immediately five fireballs formed and shot at him. Ajax braced himself for the knockback, but to his surprise, the shield didn't even budge when it got hit by the fireballs.

He was astonished at how overpowered the shield was. With this shield, his defense was absolute, but before he could rejoice any further, he saw how his astral energy got used after his shield took the fireballs.

"So my shield can take as much damage, but instead of breaking, it consumes my astral energy." Ajax thought. He disabled the skill and used his second newly obtained skill: [Void wave]. 

Ajax took out the abbyssal axe and used the skill on it. Soon, a black, purplish energy manifested itself in the edge of the axe. Ajax swiped his axe, and a void wave shot out of it. The void wave cut cleanly through the damage tester and even damaged the walls of the room.

"That op?! I knew it was overpowered, but not to the extent that it managed to cleanly severe the tester and even damage the wall of this metal bunker!" Ajax said. 

The test machine was cleanly cut, and the wall had a deep single stroke cut in it. Aside from the absurd firepower of the skill, it didn't even use that much astral energy, which scared Ajax. The potential of this ability was too high!

Ajax looked at his third newly obtained skill. If the last 2 skills were already that broken, what about this one? There was only one way to find out.

Ajax used "void manipulation," but nothing happened. "Wait, why is nothing happening? Am I using it wrong? or is there a requirement before I can use it?" Ajax was confused about why the skill didn't work.

He tried again, but like before, it didn't work. "What am I doing wrong? I can't even use it!" Ajax was getting frustrated, and after trying multiple times and failing, his temper finally snapped. "What the hell is this skill supposed to even do?! Wasting my time!?"

Ajax felt like he wanted to smash something, and suddenly a huge portion of his astral energy got drained, and before his eyes, a massive fist made of void energy appeared out of nowhere, smashing the testing machines and erasing 1/4 of the room from existence.

Ajax saw how the void fist smashed down, but instead of causing a strong impact, it completely erased whatever it touched. He slumped down, his astral energy drained and his mind in shambles; he didn't expect the ability to suddenly Activate! and not only that, it seemed that void manipulation needed him to command it for it to actually work!

At that moment Ajax thought of one thing 'What in the seven hells.. this ability is.. FUCKING OP!'.