Becoming Apex: The System In My Mind

Chapter 5: Cultivation Mode

The Preliminary Ascension is in three days, I thought as I stared at the mass email on my phone sent by the school. We always dreaded the ascension trials, because we were usually the stones for others to climb on.

The Ascension includes a series of terrible and often bloody trials where each division from A to F are tested for retention. It is usually brutal because lower classes try to use the opportunity to ascend, while the higher divisions would do anything to stay in power.

Removing the wet towel hanging around my neck, I sat down on my bed and activated the system. Its robotic voice is now a source of strange comfort to me.

“What are the chances of me surviving the preliminaries in my present condition?” I asked as I got up to pull warm clothes over my body. Due to the level of ice in my veins, it has become necessary to stay as warm as I could at all times.

[In your present state, defeat is a guarantee]

I gave a wry scoff at the sordid truth. I guess it was best to stay away from the trials, I needed to focus on integrating the fragments inside me and healing the internal injuries caused by it that the system could not heal.

“Activate inner cultivation mode.”

It has been weeks since Lian’s death, and I have been cultivating any chance I got since then, but I have not once made the progress I did when Kael Draven slammed into my core and forced a bit of the impurities out.

I had thought of going to him for help more than once, but I could never do it. I had not yet forgotten the ominous feeling I felt in his presence, and I was done putting myself in people’s graces.

[Cultivation mode activated]

Sitting with my legs folded behind me, I try to focus as the system opens a door to infinity in front of me. As usual, I chose the middle of a high-ranked volcano and in the middle of the boiling and screeching lava, I focused on drawing out the poison inside of me.

Progress was slow. Sweat dotted my temples and the heat from the lava pierced my skin into my core, and both fire and ice fought for dominance inside. The heat won by a small margin and I was able to heave out small shards of crimson ice before what sounded like heavy raps knocked against my door.

Frowning with concentration, I ignored it and scrunched my brows together in an effort to concentrate.

The pounding only grew louder. Louder. Not knuckles this time, somebody was throwing their full body at the door, I was certain.

[Infinity door to cultivation, closed]

Was the only warning I got before I was yanked back to my body. My expression hardened further as I stalked to the door and yanked it open with no warning. Jin stumbled in.

It was an even more unwelcome sight than I imagined, I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose in irritation.

“What do you want?” I asked impatiently, and the fucker smiled, knowing exactly how to rile me up.

“You wound me. Can’t I visit a friend?” He grinned as he strolled inside casually, and turned to look at the sparse room before proceeding to ignore the chair and flopped right on my bed. I pinched my nose again.

“What do you want, Jin?” I asked again, staring him down, but unlike most people, he was never affected by the frost in my eyes, instead he grinned again.

“Didn’t you get the text?” He asked, sitting up to fish his phone from his pocket, I fetched mine and saw the group text by Ren Ito, the president of class F, I rolled my eyes.

“I am not interested.” My dismissal was clear, but Jin didn’t seem to get the memo as he kept staring at me, so I gestured impatiently to the door.

“You can leave now, thank you.” I tried to bend my frozen lips to  a thankful smile but it refused to move, so it ended as a very unfriendly grimace instead, and he chuckled.

“You just don’t want to leave this brooding atmosphere, do you?” He asked with a teasing smile, even as he shuddered from the temperature. But I just stared.

“Don’t worry,” he continued. “You won’t have to.”

The statement coupled with a sly smile, filled me with such foreboding that I opened my mouth voluntarily to ask what he fucking meant.

But before I could, voices filled the hallway, and a tentative knock sounded, and I watched with barely concealed horror as the door slowly opened as a small white head stuck in shyly. My world crashed.

~~~

I was left standing as the entire division crammed into my room and took up every available space. It was a nightmare, I thought as I stared at a place in the wall beside me, hoping that if I ignored them long enough, they would eventually disappear. They didn’t.

Infact, Ren Ito had taken the stage and was already discussing preliminaries, and Lara, the blunt bob girl was gesturing to the space beside her as she stared at me with an expectant look, which I ignored.

“...if we stick to this plan, we should be able to finally pass the preliminaries and enter into the trials!” Ren Ito ended, and the few people that pretended to listen clapped hesitantly, while the others chatted with each other in an undying crescendo, and stared at their phones.

He looked around with a weary expression before his gaze landed on me, and it vanished.

“Kairo, are you in?” He asked with an hopeful look on his face, but I had no problem with crushing hopes.

“No.”

He deflated this, and brought up a trembling finger to push his glasses up his nose, but I turned from his pathetic display of emotions. He was not a bad person, he was just weak. I had no room for weakness, and that included division F.

“We will figure something out, Ren.” Kira stood up to pat his shoulder with a smile, while she kept her brown eyes on me.

“We always do.” He smiled back.

~~~

They were going to get themselves killed at the preliminaries, I decided as I watched them train at the sports arena. I sat on the bleachers alone and watched what was a pathetic display at best, and a shit show at worst.

Lara seemed to be more focused on keeping her glasses on her nose than actually running. Pathetic, I thought, as she tripped at that moment but used all her reflexes to save her glasses and did nothing to stop her fall.

Kira was supposed to represent for the martial arts tournaments, but while she had great form and swings, it hardly carried any aura, so she just started an interpretive dance routine instead as she twirled elegantly and caused half the class to watch her with disgusting eagerness.

Jin was asleep on the pitch while Alec drew a picture on his face. And Ren had plopped his ass on a chair after shouting pointlessly for several minutes, his shoulders stooping in barely concealed despair.

One thing was clear, they were never going to survive without me. But if I helped, they might still die. Just faster, with me as the bomb.