The Oasis System

Chapter Two

Opening his eyes, Jace could see the concerned look on the face of the girl that woke him...Sephora, his "Sister".

Sephora had beady eyes; like she cried at every little thing. She had a small birthmark on her face below her right eye, a tiny dot.

Those eyes were staring intently at him now.

"What happened?", her voice now was nothing compared to how it was earlier when she was yelling at him to wake up...she was scared.

Deciding that it was probably best to hide the fact that he was not the Jace they knew, Jace cracked a little smile; no one would like to hear that their brother died in his sleep and another soul from somewhere far away somehow took over his body right?.

"I'm sorry Seph, my head just ached a little, but I'm okay now", he said as he was shocked at how smoothly the name came off his lips; it was almost natural.

"Ached a little?, you were thrashing around like you were enchanted or something", Sephora replied, her voice a little softer now as she examined her brother; there seemed to be something a little off about him this morning, but she just didn't know what it was.

Jace was about to reassure her when the door opened and a woman burst inside the room in a hurry.

Jace froze for a second as he stared at the woman...He shouldn't feel this way, he was not the real Jace and she was not even his mother, but somehow he couldn't stop the tears from filling his eyes as he stared at the concerned look on the woman's face...he missed his mother.

"You, are you okay?", Esmeralda, his "Mother" asked as she crouched and took his hands, staring into his eyes.

Feeling the warmth of a mother for the first time in a while, Jace couldn't hold it in anymore as he burst into tears, the years of sadness bottled in finally coming to bite him.

Taken aback, Esmeralda looked at Sephora, who only shrugged.

Smiling, Esmeralda pulled the crying youth into her arms as she soothed him.

Her instinct was telling her there was something strange about her son though; like he was a different person.

"Everything will be fine", Esmeralda muttered as she patted down Jace's hair.

A few minutes later, Jace finally managed to get a hold of himself as he sniffled and pulled out of the embrace, feeling really embarrassed at the sight of his mother's soaked shoulder.

Looking into her son's eyes one more time, Esmeralda made sure he was really okay before pulling her hands away.

"You should clean up and come eat breakfast, then we'll go to the Alchemist and get some relief potions for you".

Smiling, Jace nodded as he watched his mother drag Sephora with her; he was glad she didn't ask why he was crying...he could not explain it.

Finally alone, Jace stood up as he noticed the height difference between his old body and this one was minimal.

Why had he transmigrated though?, and why was it into a world entirely different from the one he knew?.

Sifting through his new memories, he went through the things that were unique to him.

Apart from the obvious huge difference of there being Awakends in this world, their entire system was different.

For example, their currency was something called Mana Stones, and apparently it contained Mana, or spiritual energy. Mana Stones were also really useful to Awakeneds as they can absorb the spiritual energy in it to "recharge" especially in the heat of battle.

Which is also something really important in this new world...battle.

Awakeneds were very proud people, and most of them see any slight provocation as a declaration of war on them and they fought easily. They see people with no magical talents as useless, even though they were the majority. The people that had no magical talents were also sometimes called "Mortals" due to their short lifespans.

The average mortal lived to 60, which Jace noted was close to Earth's own; while the average Awakened lived to 200, depending on the rank the Awakened could cultivate to.

Among the Mortals though, there was also a distinction between them, depending on their social standing; and their social standing is determined by their wealth.

Awakeneds were rich, as they used their magical talents to their advantage; fighting off Demonic beasts: animals that had mutated due to the presence of magical energy, for Mana Stones. Mortals on the other hands, could only get rich by mining Mana stones, extracting valuable materials from dead Demonic beasts or if they were born into a family that had Awakeneds.

Some mortals were even richer than some lower ranked Awakeneds, and they even hire them as bodyguards.

Demonic beasts also had different ranks depending on their level of exposure to the magical energy; the highest ever recorded in the town was a Middle Rank 4 Fanged Boar: It took the Chief and some of his Generals 2 days to kill the beast.

Mulling over the new things in this world, Jace was excited; he wanted to do something, be someone in this savage world.

He didn't know if he had magical talents, but he was 18 already and he had the right to go test for magical talents in the Daroq Testing Center in town.

Going into the bathroom, he made up his mind to go to the center and go check if he had the talent...that would be the first step to being someone in this world; besides, that was what the old Jace had in mind before he died.

Looking at his reflection in the mirror in the bathroom, he noticed the vastly different features between his old face and this one.

His old face couldn't be considered particularly handsome, especially after the accident as he had grown pale and lean, his cheek bones very pronounced. He also had dark brown eyes.

But the new face he was seeing now was better; deep blue eyes that has a certain glint in them, slightly bushy eyebrows and a well rounded jawline.

He was shamelessly admiring his new face when his vision suddenly blurred and a blue, semi transparent screen appeared in front of him. As if that was not alarming enough, a neutral, almost robotic sounding voice spoke in his mind; *Oasis System bonding*.