The Oasis System

Chapter Five

Walking along the white, brightly lit hallways, Jace noted how sophisticated everything was, they even had elevators here.

Walking past a door, Jace noticed how cold it suddenly felt and out of curiosity, he peeked into the room.

The room was larger inside than it looked from the outside, probably the work of a powerful Awakened who had the Space element. Inside the room, there were a few odd looking equipments, some mannequins packed into a corner and there were some strange floating stones.

What caught his attention though, were the people he saw in the room.

A boy was facing the opposite wall, a mannequin in front of him and in his hands, there seemed to be a snake coiling around his arms forming a ball in his palm. Looking closer though, Jace was shocked as he realised it wasn't a snake, but a lightning arc. The boy suddenly grunted as he stretched out his right arm, the arm with the lightning arc and everything suddenly seemed to go quiet. The next second though, there was a deafening boom as the whole room lit up. Almost as soon as it happened though, everywhere was suddenly calm. Looking at the mannequin that was in front of the boy, Jace could only see a dark spot where it used to be.

'Was that the power of the Lightning Element?', Jace marvelled. The boy must be even stronger than the Chief, Jace was sure of it...where had he come from?.

A lone figure caught Jace's attention though, as he took note of the second person in the room. It was a female this time around, and what caught his attention most was the fact that she hadn't moved at all. Even the explosion earlier didn't startle her and she just kept sitting cross-leggedly with her back straight. Taking a deeper look though, Jace could see intricate patterns that seemed to glow with a pale blue light around the area the girl was sitting. Although Jace was far away, just staring at those patterns gave Jace a chill; it was almost like a cold hand was grabbing at his heart, trying to tear it out of his chest.

Swallowing, Jace knew that the girl was even stronger than the boy,  and they were both in the same room.

'Where did these freaks come from?', Jace thought. They were definitely not from here because they would have been very popular. The both of them combined would destroy the Chief and his generals.

Silently swallowing, Jace suddenly remembered what he was there to do as he panickedly looked around, where was the receptionist?. He was shocked though, as the receptionist was right behind him, also staring at the two figures in the room.

"Aren't they talented?", the receptionist smiled as she asked...it seemed more like she was speaking to herself than Jace.

"Who are they?", Jace asked as he also looked towards them; the boy was dragging another mannequin to the spot where the old one perished. For a split second, Jace felt pity for the new mannequin, it was going to get destroyed soon.

"That's young master Acheron and the Lady Sapphira. They are the best students of the Thereon Academy. The Academy is about to host it's annual recruitment exercise soon and they were sent here in advance. They've been training here day and night", the receptionist responded with a smile.

'Oh!', Jace thought as he finally understood. The Thereon Academy was an academy directly endorsed by the Berrian Emipre, the empire under which their town is under.

The Academy, and many others like it, was established to build and nurture talents that could be useful to the Empire someday. In fact, the chief of the town was once a member of the academy, although Jace was sure the chief was not exactly the model student when he was there.

He was not surprised anymore then, by the standards of the Thereon Academy, their best students would definitely be a shade above others.

"Anyway, let's get you tested. If you happen to have the talent, you could participate in the recruitment exercise and who knows, you might even make it through to the academy", the receptionist said with a smile, although she was not certain he would make it. Even if he had the talent and he could awaken an elemental attribute, the selection process of the academy was strict, he would definitely be eliminated.

Jace wasn't listening to her though, he was lost in thoughts as the system had notified him of something just now.

***Host has been exposed to the Lightning Element and the Ice Element. Host now has affinity for the two elements.

Elemental Stats...

Lightning : Lower Rank 1(Locked)

Ice : Middle Rank 1(Locked).***.

Jace was shocked; he developed affinity for the two elements just by watching them being used?, wasn't that a little too overpowered?. The elemental attributes were locked though and he guessed he had to take the test to unlock them.

"We're here", the receptionist's voice snapped Jace out of his thoughts as he looked up; they were in an almost empty room, the only thing in the room being shelves filled with books and a raised podium atop which sat a transparent floating orb.

The receptionist went forward as she climbed the podium and pressed something; a blue interface appeared with keyboards as she pressed some keys. A whirring noise suddenly filled the room as the Testing orb glowed brightly for a second before turning transparent again.

"Okay, please place your right palm on the orb", the receptionist said, her tone professional.

Nodding, Jace could swear his heart would jump out of his chest with how loudly it was thumping...he was nervous.

Walking up to the podium though, Jace hesitated for a moment; what if he didn't have the talent after all?, what if the system was all just in his head?, he was hit by a truck less than 24 hours ago so it was a possibility.

Shaking his head though, Jace prepared himself for whatever the outcome would be as he placed his shaky hand on the orb. Almost instantly, he heard a ding.

***Host is in contact with an Awakening Stone, what element would host like to awaken?...

Lightning...

Ice....

***

Seeing the notification, Jace was shocked once more, he could actually choose the element he wanted?, that was unexpected.

He knew he had little time though as the receptionist furrowed her brows, something was wrong, nothing was registering on the computer in front of her.

After thinking for another second, Jace chose to awaken the lightning element. Although the lightning had the lower rank, it was really powerful, and besides, he felt he would have many more chances to awaken even more elements later on.

Immediately he chose the element, the orb suddenly glowed once more, but this time, there were tiny arcs of electricity dancing inside it, making it glow even brighter.

Jace was wide-eyed; it was real...the system was real and he had awoken the Lightning Element!.