The Oasis System

Chapter Four

Stepping outside, Jace looked up at one other strange thing he had grasped from his new memories; there were two suns in the sky.

What was weird though was that; even though the two suns were shining really brightly, it was strangely cold and damp.

Shrugging, he deftly avoided a shoe that flew across his field of view. He went through his memories...it was Mrs Vinta and her troublesome son again.

"Morning Jace, sorry about the shoe. Where are you off to?", Mrs Vinta asked as she glared at her son across the street.

Mrs Vinta was a single mother that lived across the street from them; her husband was just like his dad, he worked under the Chief as a Treasury Guard. Although they didn't have magical talents, they could work fairly mundane jobs like that and although the pay was just slightly above the minimum wage, sitting at three mana stones per week, it was something anyway.

But her husband had volunteered for an extra mana stone as a Royal Guard when the demonic beast came into the town. Her husband was among the casualties recorded that day, and the sad part was the Chief didn't pay the reward for volunteering to the man's widow, citing the fact that it was the dead man that signed the contract and not his wife.

Nobody could challenge the Chief so they all just accepted it and since then, Mrs Vinta has had to fend for herself and her son by working with the richer mortals as a cleaner or as a caretaker, earning a mana stone per month.

"Just going to the Testing Center", Jace replied as he smiled at the little boy that hid behind him; the old Jace, although he had his own troubled side, he was generally a cool headed person and almost everyone in the "slums" knew him.

"Oh. Not having magical talents doesn't mean anything okay?.", Mrs Vinta responded, a tinge of anxiety apparent in her voice. It was not like she was looking down on the kid, but it was hard for kids of mortals to have magical talents on their own. She just hoped the boy wouldn't let it get to him, she had always loved his cheerful attitude.

"Thank you, Mrs Vinta", Jace smiled as he waved at the little boy and went on his way. He was very confident he would at least have an affinity for one Elemental attribute. The system was a clear evidence of that because, every step he took, he was keeping an eye on the blue interface in his field of vision.

The system had upgraded and now, there was a stats bar blinking.

'Open Stats', he thought, as he heard a ding sound and a string of words appeared on the blue interface.

***STATS....

Name : Jace Barnes

Age : 18

Race : Human/?

State : Unawakened.

*Physical Characteristics...

Strength : 30

Agility :25

Durability : 15(Immune to poisons)[Bonus]

*Elemental Attributes...

?

?

?

Mana : 0

Perception : 0

**QUESTS...

*Go to a Testing Center and awaken your first element.

Reward : 10 stat points plus Inventory unlocked.

Penalty for failure : None.

*Lifetime Goal : Get stronger

Progress : 0%.***.

Seeing the words on the screen, Jace had a few questions.

His race had a forward slash, hinting to the fact that he was not fully human, but he didn't know what it was , and it was greyed out. His physical characteristics was fairly average, but his bonus durability stat; immune to poisons was really unexpected. He had no complaints though, it might come in handy soon enough.

His Elemental Attributes were all greyed out though, he guessed it was due to the fact that he hadn't gone to a Testing center to awaken them yet, although he was excited seeing as there were three spaces for Elemental Attributes; does that mean he could awaken more than one element?.

His mana and perception would be linked to his Elemental Attributes and then there was the quest. Awakening his first element would grant him 10 stat points and inventory would be unlocked. He played some role playing games when he was on earth so he understood the game-like interface of the system. The inventory would definitely come in handy and would save him a lot of time.

And finally,  the lifetime goal; get stronger. For now though, he was still on 0% progress, but he was already about to make an improvement.

Snapping out of his thoughts, he walked a little faster as he could already see the gate of the Testing Center.  He stepped to the side as he joined the little queue of people going into Daroq Testing Center. There were a few youths around his age going into the building too; they were all here to check if they had the talent.

After a few minutes of composed forward movement, he got into the building. He couldn't help but marvel at the building though, as even the old Jace had not entered the building before. Although it was just a branch of the main testing center, the building in front of Jace was huge and magnificent. There were two large pillars holding up the main building and it seemed like the building itself was floating.

"Get a move on, peasant", someone bumped into him from behind as he was staring at the building. Looking at the person that bumped into him, Jace felt instantly disgusted, it was the Chief's son. From his memories, the Chief's son was a nasty individual, he looked down on everyone and took whatever he wanted in town without remorse, throwing his father's name around whenever he felt threatened. Knowing this was not the time to do anything rash though, Jace softly apologized as he headed into the building; he would show him who the real peasant was.

The interior of the building was less attractive though, as it was just filled with people moving here and there and sounds of machines. Looking around, Jace saw a free receptionist as he hurriedly walked towards her, his heart was beating fast.

"I'm here to take the test please", Jace said, as the receptionist asked a few questions; his name, his age and the likes, as she tapped away on the computer-like object in front of her. Jace noticed it was more like the interface of the system and suddenly wondered; would the test reveal the presence of the system?.

"Ah yes, Mr Jace Barnes. Come with me please", the receptionist smiled at him.

Getting rid of any distracting thoughts, Jace nodded as he followed the lady, it was time.