The Ghost System - Chapter 10

Rhys staggered backwards a bit as he suddenly became lightheaded. The events of the last day and a bit had been extremely taxing, emotionally and physically, to the point that he felt he would fall asleep at any moment. Now that he stopped to think about it, he had not eaten or drunk anything since he had left with Barrow through the black portal. He needed nourishment as soon as possible. Rhys scanned the surrounding area and was pleased to find an old abandoned tin shack that was being taken over by weeds a few meters away from him. Although district 20 was a well established city, for the most part it was extremely rundown with tough wild plants growing through every crack in the ground and dilapidated pre-invasion buildings decorating every corner.

Rhys slowly made his way over to the shack, holding onto the old crumbling walls that lined the streets to steady himself. As soon as he was within reach of the plants, he collapsed onto the ground next to the shack and focused on the desired grove of hardy weeds.

[Aura Detection used +2 Exp]

[Weed]

The thin green auras of the plants became clear as his vision shifted.

Rhys frowned at the latest message and was about to ask why he was only receiving two experience points after using his skill, but the raspy voice of the teacher preempted his question.

[‘You are at Level three now, you can’t expect to get the same Exp reward for looking at plants as you did in level one and two. Idiot…] It spat out annoyed.

Rhys’s eyebrow twitched in irritation at being called an idiot, but he pushed his frustration aside in order to get answers from the system.

“Will I still get 5 experience points when I use the skill on people?”

[‘Yes and no. From now on each new human with an aura type that you have not detected before will continue to award you five experience points. Since you have already detected the basic strengthening, healing and fire manipulation auras, people with these abilities will not give you a reward anymore.’]

Rhys felt his heart drop at this latest bit of information. Soon he would not be able to get EXP rewards for detecting auras types he had seen before. There were only a limited number of abilities to begin with so once he had seen them all he would no longer be rewarded for using Aura detection.

“Shoot.” He grunted. He had been planning to binge on using the Aura detection skill to reach level 5 so that he could unlock the skill ‘Aura manipulation’ as well as the system shop. Getting to level 5 was going to be pretty tough considering this new piece of information.

[‘Since you seem down, let me kick you some more,’] Rhys could practically hear the gleeful grin on the wicked teacher’s face.

[You might have noticed it but you will not be able to absorb much more energy after your HP is full. Since this is the early stage of your transition, the amount of aura you can contain has a capacity. I would estimate that you could consume a maximum of no more than two more plants after you’ve reached your total health points.]

“Crap.” There was a cap on his Energy Absorption as well as his Aura detection. He already knew that if he continuously used ‘Spiritual body’ his HP would decline really fast but with the additional restrictions on the two other skills, his life just got a whole lot more challenging. Level 3 and 4 were not going to be fun.

“What about aliens and monsters? What experience reward will they give me?” Rhys asked curiously while reaching out to the patch of weeds poking out from the cement. He knew from the official military website that military college students were taken on portal expeditions and were trained by fighting otherworldly monsters and even other races.

[‘That depends on the type of monster. The amount of EXP rewarded is directly proportional to the power of the aura, you see. Human auras are in the specific range of power that the system has deemed will reward 5 Exp. There are many other races that naturally hold weaker auras and many more that have greater auras than humans. Thus if you come across those beings, the system will adjust your reward according to the aura strength of the new being. Idiot.’] The teacher mode’s voice said this as if it was reading from the most boring textbook ever.

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

“What kind of teacher calls their student an idiot?” Rhys growled back at the voice in his head. He could feel his energy returning and his lightheadedness drifting away as the green auras of the weeds were pulled into him.

[‘An honest one.’] It scoffed back at Rhys.

[10/30 HP]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[18/30 HP]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[26/30 HP]

“And why exactly are you calling me an idiot? I was smart enough to see past your stupid little trick wasn’t I?” Rhys asked smugly, exuberantly proud of himself that he had managed to figure out that the teacher was trying to trick him into Killing Sampson with the promise of a skill he would not even be able to use.

[‘You are an idiot because you constantly complain about not having a combat ability when you haven’t even figured out how to fight properly with the ability you have.’]

Rhys had been all fired up to snap back at the teacher with a snarky comment but when he heard the teacher’s words he paused. ‘you haven’t even figured out how to fight properly with the ability you have’… Those words struck Rhys. Perhaps there was a way of using ‘spiritual body’ to fight that he had not thought of yet.

Before Rhys tried anything out, he quickly absorbed the remaining plants surrounding the building until his HP was full.

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[Energy Absorption used +5 Exp]

[…]

[30/30 HP]

He stretched his arms out happily, feeling fully energised and wide awake, as if he had just woken up from a nap.

Rhys looked down at what he had done and once again shivered at the aftermath of using the Energy Absorption skill. The once-thriving wild garden of weeds and vines were all dead and decaying. Leaving the side of the building to look like some poisonous gas had passed through and killed the plants to leave such an ugly sight behind.

As Rhys walked back the way he came from, he went over his fight with Sampson in his head. He was able to win by using his skill in quick succession with swift aimed blows. He was also able to use the alleyway to his advantage. More importantly he had the element of surprise. Since Sampson and his friends had thought Rhys was coreless, they had come at him thinking he was weak, which ultimately made it easier to best them. Looking back, Rhys thought he had used his skill pretty well.

‘What am I missing?’ He pondered on that thought as he walked through the small deserted neighbourhood.

[Spiritual body used +5 Exp]

Rhys channelled the skill into his left hand and reached out to the buildings on his side, letting his hand pass through them. He watched carefully as his hand passed through metal gates, brick walls and tin shacks hoping to find a clue as to what the teacher was hinting at.

‘Are you giving up any clues?’ Rhys asked the teacher in his head hopefully.

[…]

“Thought so.” Rhys sighed dejectedly.

As Rhys continued to walk down the street, he wondered what would happen if he ever got stuck inside a solid object. Like what would happen to him if he accidentally released his skill while passing through a cement block? He froze. A small smile spread across his lips as he realised the potential in his questions.

On the edge of the pavement was a patch of ugly weeds growing their way out of the cracks in the stones persistently. Rhys got down on his haunches and channeled the spiritual change into his hand.

[Spiritual body +5 Exp]

He moved his hand into the thick clump of weeds so that their stalks were going through his palm. He anxiously took a deep breath and hoped this experiment would not cause to much damage to his hand if he turned out to be wrong. He released his skill. As his hand shifted back into a solid, the weeds that had been through his hand instantly tore apart and fell to the road.

Rhys blinked at this latest development. His solid hand remained perfectly fine while the weeds were torn apart as soon as he released his skill. Rhys immediately wanted to test this out on other materials.

[Spiritual body used +5 Exp]

Without a second to lose, Rhys dipped his spiritual hand in the stone pavement, just a bit, so that only his fingertips passed through the stones. He took a deep breath and released his skill. He beamed with joy as the small area of stone surrounding his fingertips cracked and burst while leaving his digits unharmed. He smoothly slid his fingertips out of the stone to find that the imprints of his fingers had been perfectly preserved in the stone.

“No way.” He whispered excitedly.

[‘So you finally understand now, huh?’] Even the sarcastic voice of the system teacher could not ruin Rhys’s mood.

[‘All ghost skills are extremely versatile so there is no point in labelling one skill a combat skill and one skill a defence skill. Your skills are what you make of them, idiot’]

Rhys nodded his head thoughtfully at the teacher’s words. Apparently, this snarky sarcastic asshole of a teacher in his head was actually capable teaching him something, he noted that he better listen to it well in the future, at least when it was not trying to get him to kill people.

Without a second to lose, Rhys activated his skill again but this time stuck his entire arm in the ground. He then released his skill but with much less anxiety this time. He beamed as the ground around his arm shuddered and cracked while a substantial amount of the cement jolted upwards creating a kind of mound around his arm as if a mini-explosion had gone off underground. With ease, he slid his solid arm out of the ground and marvelled at the deep arm shaped hole that was left behind.

He had been completely wrong about this skill. It was far more useful in combat than he had realised. For some reason, when he released his ‘spiritual body’ skill in solid matter, the matter that was there before his limb was forcefully pushed aside as if to make way for his limb. For the weeds, the reaction had been for their stalks to be torn apart, while the stone and cement had fractured and burst pushing out the extra stone. Rhys imagined that if he did the same to a person, the effects on the human body would be just as damaging.

“It’s like some kind of molecular or physical disruption…” He murmured as he traced the outline of his arm shaped hole in the ground.

[Intelligence +1]

Rhys payed attention as a notification suddenly popped up.

[Level 3]

[28/30 HP]

[87/300 EXP]

[Intelligence: 11]

[Strength: 8]

[Agility: 7]

[Stamina: 5]

[Spirituality: 6]

Rhys felt pretty chuffed that his intelligence stat had finally gone up.

[Skills]

[Spiritual Body Lvl 4:

Intangibility ~ Physical disruption]

[Aura detection Lvl 3]

[Energy/Aura absorption Lvl 2]

Rhys was delighted that his spiritual body skill had also gone up. It was especially satisfying to see the two ways he had used the skill listed underneath the actual skill. ‘Intangibility’ being the phase shift that allowed him to walk through physical stuff, and the ‘physical disruption’ being what happened when he released his skill while his body was still inside something physical.

Despite all his excitement, he was a bit disappointed when he saw that the Energy Absorption skill was still at level 2. He had already absorbed a ton of small plants and yet the skill had only levelled up once. The same went with Aura detection, he had used that skill so many times and yet the skill remained at level 3.

“Hey teacher, is there anything else I can do to raise the levels of my skills?” Rhys asked as he got up off the ground and continued walking to the bright central district lights.

[‘Oh?’] The deep raspy voice sounded somewhat amused. [‘What’s with the sudden respectful greeting? Did you realise how much you need me after I gave you that little hint?’] It chuckled wickedly in Rhys’s ear.

Rhys sucked in his irritation through gritted teeth. “Could you just answer the question please?”

With a snicker the voice stopped teasing Rhys. [‘You will find it nearly impossible to increase the levels of the energy absorption and Aura detection skills if you don’t come to terms with spiritual energy and aura. These two things are the basis of your new existence, so immerse yourself in them.’]

Rhys turned the corner and found himself a few streets away from the heart of district 20. The streets were lined with bright neon lights that all lead to the city’s epicentre, the district 12 tower. It was a huge monument of a thing that shot approximately 1000 meters in the air and was about 300m by 400m wide. The top half of the tower housed official governmental necessities such as travel documents, raiding permits and other essentials, but most importantly it was the recruitment point for the military college.

[Woah, that’s way more advanced than the other structures that I have seen here…] the teacher’s voice sounded off in Rhys’s head again.

Rhys was beginning to question whether the voice in his head was actually AI. Didn’t it sound just way too alive?

“How exactly would I immerse myself in Aura and spiritual energy?” Rhys asked as he walked towards the massive tower in the distance.

[‘Meditation obviously…’]

“Meditation?” Rhys squinted as he thought about some of his high school lectures on techniques to calm the mind before battle. “How does meditation help with aura exactly?”

[‘It baffles me that someone as uneducated as you ended up being the inheritor…’] Again a long pained sigh sounded in Rhys’s head before the teacher started answering.

[‘The meditation you will learn is all about focusing on spiritual energy and then getting in touch with your own aura, and through that experience, learning about aura and energy.’]

Rhys let that sit in his mind for a while as the entrance of the tower was fast approaching.

[‘Where are you going by the way?’]

“In exchange for not being punished by the military, I was told to register for this military college program. Basically, it’s a four-year-long program wherein they train you for either a job in the military or to become a professional hunter.” Rhys accidentally spoke out loud again, forgetting that he was not talking to a real person.

[‘That sounds somewhat beneficial. You are still disgustingly weak, so perhaps the schooling of a military program will make a proper inheritor of you.]

Rhys sucked in his grief over being called ‘disgustingly weak’.

“You don’t have any reservations about me going there? What if they learnt about the ghost system, wouldn’t that be a problem for you?” Rhys asked curiously.

[The only way the human authorities would ever find out about the system is if you told them. And from everything I have seen since you infused with the ghost core, this race of creatures is unable to comprehend the level of technology that went into creating the core you inhaled. Even if they did believe you about the ghost system, they would have no way of extracting me from you. So go and get stronger at this college program, even if it is for four years.]

“Wow. You really aren’t worried at all.” Rhys was frankly disturbed by the System’s lack of concern. Was the system really that confident that it did not care about being discovered?

‘Well I care’ Rhys thought. The experiments and probing he would have to go through if the military discovered what was inside him was terrifying to think about.

Rhys walked through the glowing red doorway of the District 12 tower entrance. It was always a bit of a headache to go from the street straight into the tower because of the lights. Although it was dark outside, you would never know that from the brightly lit interior of the tower.

The floors were a pristine endless panel of glowing white while each store front was brightly decorated with ornaments and lights. The bottom floors of the tower functioned as a mall that housed shops and restaurants as well as a variety of other services.

The tower was pretty busy that night with groups of people browsing together or sitting and eating at tables. It was just the culture of the tower to look your best when entering, it had always been that way. Maybe since the tower was the best-looking thing in District 12 people going into the tower decided they wanted to look their best as well. Everyone was jazzed up in colourful leather and fancy combat boots since military-style clothing was popular ever since the invasions. Rhys on the other hand was still in his Hospital pyjamas, which had become a little dirty in his last fight.

Since he did not want hospital overalls to be the only clothes he took with him to college, he dashed to the nearest men’s store and grabbed some new combat boots, a few cargo pants, some shirts, socks, a cap and a jacket, and a duffle bag to stuff it all in. Although Rhys knew he would be given a uniform at the college, he thought there would be a few days he could wear his own clothes. Besides he would not feel great about going empty-handed to the registration department.

He left the store with his items shoved into his duffle bag by walking through the store entrance. The doorway scanner flashed green letting him know that his purchase had been successful as he walked out. As long as he had his gold card in his pocket, as soon as he went through the doorway, the scanners imbedded in the door would automatically charge the cost of his goods to his gold card. It made in-person shopping very convenient.

Rhys drooled as he passed by a weapons store. He never had an ability before So there was never a need for him to waste Gramp’s money on weapons. But that did not stop him from fantasising about the hi-tech swords or revolving arrows that were displayed in the shop fronts. Rhys reached into his pocket and felt his card still there and thought about the 500 000 zen that desperately wanted to be spent. Feeling tempted, Rhys got closer to the storefront and gazed down at the variety of gem-powered daggers that they had on offer. He immediately spotted the model that Barrow had always carried with him. The 1/8 C grade gem-infused short knife. It was literally a dagger infused with an eighth of a C grade gem. It was on the smaller side of the daggers on display and was priced at 12 000 zen.

It was really expensive even though only an eighth of a gem went into it, as were all gem powered weapons. Rhys’s eyes shifted to the side where this extraordinary full gem blade was on display in the window. It was a magnificent looking long sword that was made of gem from its blade to its hilt. Such a monstrous thing was probably worth more than 5 000 000 zen. Rhys doubted that it would ever be sold because in reality no one district 12 could afford such a thing. It was just permanently on display to give the people a taste of what kind of wealth the military had. The fact that they didn’t even bother to list the price under it was evidence enough of that fact.

Rhys watched as a line of teenagers and families formed in front of the display case. Everyone was queuing to take a picture with the sword.

Rhys sighed and walked away from the shop, he had no idea what kind of weapon suited him anyways so he would wait until college to see what worked well with him.

He made his way over to the portals that were clustered together in the centre of the first floor. He frowned because he could not find the portal to the 190th floor where the military offices were located. He stepped to the side to check the key on the wall and saw that there was no longer a direct portal to the military floors, if he wanted to go there he would first have to go through the clinic floors and then take the portals from there to go to the military floor.

Rhys frowned unhappily as he stepped in front of the clinic portal. The circular portal was light blue in colour and had the infamous red cross above it. Rhys sighed as he stepped through knowing that what he would see on the other side would trouble him.

[‘Hmm…’] The teacher’s voice suddenly resurfaced in his head. [‘Your vitals are spiking significantly, what is making you so anxious?’]

Rhys stepped into the blue energy of the portal and found his feet firmly planted on the floor of the clinics. He looked up and winced as the huge sign above the portal entrance that read ‘Eugenics’.

Rhys spotted the portals that lead to the higher floors on the other side of the department, which meant he would be forced to walk past all the clinics.

Rhys hastily picked up his pace and kept his head down, he did not want to be stopped for a checkup that he could not refuse.

He speedily walked past all the propaganda posters that displayed healthy beautiful people adorned in full military gear. They had bright smiles on their faces as they held onto heir gem powered weapons and soaked up the sunlight. Underneath each poster the same line could be read, ‘Humanity as it should be.’

A version of humanity with any physical, mental or emotional defects was the aim of the neo-eugenics movement.

Rhys learned in school that Eugenics had started a long time before the invasions, but had also come to a halt around the late 20th century. However, after humanity freed itself from the clutches of the invading extraterrestrial forces, the movement came back in full swing. The mentality to cultivate humanity to be the strongest and most powerful it could be made eugenics a credible movement once again. With the advancements in genetics, there was a rush to produce babies that were stronger and taller and faster and more intelligent to help humanity stand against the possible future invasions. That was all pretty good in theory, however, the Neo-eugenics movement took a startling turn as the idea of culling and population control became more popular.

People with Down syndrome, Aspergers, a predisposition for breast or colon cancer, anyone with a condition that could potentially be passed down to future generations were rounded up, and if they were not ‘put to rest for the greater good’ they had their ability to reproduce forcibly taken from them. Forced sterilisations became extremely common, to the point that each year, eugenics professors would visit schools and check students for any hereditary diseases. Since Rhys was coreless and looked smaller than his classmates, he was always picked out from the class by the eugenics team to have a checkup. Thankfully they never found anything. But he never could get over the fear he had of those clear syringes the eugenics team brought with them everywhere. Rhys was never sure if those syringes were for sterilisation or lethal injection or just there to put people to sleep, whatever they were they freaked him out. The fact that eugenics doctors could legally take anyone they wanted and force medical procedures upon them scared Rhys.

Rhys understood now why they stopped the portals from going straight to the military offices. It was no doubt a plot to weed out any undesirables from the populations. So many necessary services were conducted by the military, from identification to all sorts of workforce registrations, everyone would need to visit the military tower at least a few times in their life. If those people were forced to go through the eugenics department the eugenics doctors would be able to capture said people.

Just as Rhys was thinking this, a loud siren sounded through the floor, as one of the ceiling panels behind him turned red. Rhys glanced behind him to see that a girl who was about fourteen years old was being surrounded by eugenics doctors in blood red coats. Her eyes were opened wide with fear and her lips trembled as she was basically being tackled to the ground by four red-coats.

“W-what’ wrong?” The voice of an older man behind the girl trembled in fear. He was probably the girl’s father.

“The scanner’s detected a BRCA1 mutation, she has the breast cancer gene.” Rhys heard the cold words of the eugenics doctors and closed his eyes for a second. He shook his head mournfully and continued walking forward as a clear injection was brought to the girl’s neck.

[‘This species is crueller than I thought…’] The teacher murmured in Rhys’s head.

[‘I like it.’]

Rhys could only block out the cries of the distraught father and the sound of the siren as he stepped through the portal that would take him to the 190th floor.