Eiden adjusted his backpack as he walked down the crowded street. Vendors shouted over the hum of hovercars, and people bustled past in a blur of color. Beside him, Kairo laughed, tossing a small holographic drone into the air.
"You're still awful at catching this," Kairo said, snatching it mid-spin. "Seriously, Eiden, you need to—"
A flicker crossed Eiden's vision. The street felt… different. Sharp edges bent at impossible angles. Shadows stretched unnaturally. He blinked.
"—pay attention!" Kairo finished, nudging him. "Earth to Eiden. You good?"
Eiden forced a smile. "Yeah. Just… tired, I guess."
Then the air around Kairo shimmered. Symbols and numbers traced faintly in front of him, glowing blue and shifting like code on a screen. Kairo froze mid-step, squinting at them.
The hum in Eiden's mind grew louder. The system was scanning. It flowed over him in translucent grids and lines of light, mapping his vitals, reflexes, and potential. In his vision, the interface appeared: the words and numbers floated before him, scanning percentage slowly rising. Twelve percent… fifteen… twenty.
[System Status: ACTIVE]
[User: Eiden]
[Level: 1]
[Rank: Initiate]
[Class: Unknown]
[Abilities: Unknown]
[Unique Trait: Ability to use skills of any class(changes weekly)
[Scanning: SELF… 12%]
He could see everyone else's scanning overlays too. Kairo's display shimmered, tracking his balance and grip on the drone. Others around the street were highlighted by grids and percentages, floating numbers pulsing as their systems recorded every motion, heartbeat, and microexpression.
[System Status: ACTIVE]
[User: Kairo]
[Scanning: SELF… 15%]
[Detected: Basic Physical Parameters]
Eiden noticed subtle differences. Some people's scanning percentages jumped erratically, grids pulsing faster as if the system was struggling to evaluate them. A vendor adjusting crates had his vitals highlighted in red for a split second, though he seemed unharmed. A child walking nearby had his reflex calculation spike wildly as he darted around people. The system's observations were precise—but already noting anomalies in the crowd. He looked down at a small, rusted metal cube on a street vendor's cart. His hands twitched toward it.
[Action Detected: Object Manipulation]
[Ability Unlocked: Basic Telekinesis (Temporary)]
The cube lifted into the air. Kairo blinked at it, jaw tightening, muttering at his own interface tracking the floating object. Eiden's eyes flicked across the street, noticing the subtle differences in everyone else's overlays—the variations in scanning percentages, the speed of vitals updating, the pulsing grids highlighting micro-movements.
His own system continued scanning, numbers and percentages climbing steadily, assessing every twitch and reflex:
[Scanning: SELF… 47%]
[Vital Parameters: Normal]
[Reflexes: Above Average]
[Potential Abilities: Unknown]
Eiden felt the pulse of the system in the crowd, the way it flowed like a current under the street. The tutorial hadn't started yet. Observation, preparation, subtle testing—the system was alive, watching him, and watching everyone else.
Then, just for a moment, a faint shimmer of red flickered above someone in the crowd—a glitch in the scanning grid. A signal the system didn't recognize, a tiny anomaly—but it was enough to make him pause. The unknown had already begun, and the tutorial was only waiting for the perfect moment.
He didn't act further. He didn't need to. The system was already recording, already judging, already preparing the stage for what was coming next.