[Synchronization Complete]
The red window shifted.
Expanded.
Reorganized itself with mechanical precision.
Nathan stared at it without moving.
For a long moment, he didn't breathe.
The system window floated in front of him, clear now.
Lines of text settled into place neatly.
'This is it.'
The moment he had been waiting for.
Nathan swallowed.
His eyes moved slowly, reading from the top down.
--------------------------------
Status Window
Name: Nathan Hale
Tier: Unawakened
STATS
Strength (STR): 4
Agility (AGI): 4
Precision (PRE): 4
Endurance (END): 4
Awareness (AWR): 5
Focus (FOC): 6
--------------------------------
Items: None
Abilities: Reversal (Active) (1/2)
Summons: (0/2)
--------------------------------
He went silent.
Because he didn't know what to say.
"I… I really don't know what I expected," he muttered.
His stats were way below average.
But one thing stood out more than the rest.
Reversal?
'How do I have an ability already?'
Also the fact that this ability was active made Nathan even more confused.
'I need to search this up.'
He learned forward on his chair, holding his mouse tightly.
Not only did he need to understand his stats properly but also the ability that appeared out of nowhere.
Although, he had a general idea from watching livestreams and videos he wanted to make sure he paid them special attention now that it involved himself.
He opened a new tab.
"What are stats and abilities?"
Search.
Results filled the page immediately.
He skimmed, ignoring anything that looked exaggerated or poorly written. Eventually, he clicked on a forum post that looked clean and well-organized with no flashy titles.
Nathan scrolled slowly.
Strength
The post started simple.
Strength represented raw force and impact. How hard you could hit, how much resistance you could overcome and how well you could grapple, push, or hold ground against opposing force.
Nathan glanced briefly back at his stat window, then returned to the forum.
Agility
Nathan scrolled.
Agility covered movement efficiency, balance and recovery speed.
How fast you could change direction, how quickly you could regain footing after being knocked back, how well your body responded when things went wrong.
In Nathan's mind agility mattered a lot.
Precision
Nathan leaned closer as he read.
Precision controlled your accuracy, control of weapon and weak-point targeting.
It affected how efficiently you used your weapon, how much energy you waste in each movement and how often you struck where it mattered the most.
Endurance
He scrolled again.
Endurance was stamina and durability. Resistance to bleeding. Shock. Fatigue.
It affected how long you could keep fighting before your body started betraying you. How well you handled repeated impacts. How fast you recovered from minor injuries.
Awareness
Nathan slowed as he read this part.
Awareness governed threat detection. Reading enemy intent. Environmental perception.
Awareness turned instinct into something reliable.
Focus
Nathan paid more attention has this was his highest stat.
Focus controlled mental performance under pressure, fear suppression, tactical adaptation and learning speed.
It determined how well you adjusted to combat situations and if you could stand your ground against a stronger opponent.
Nathan leaned back slowly.
Scrolling down he didn't see anything about abilities.
Confused, he opened another new tab.
"Abilities after awakening system."
Multiple forum posts came up, reading through them he saw that all that was being talked about is how to get your first ability after awakening.
Nathan scrolled through, one post catching his eye.
'Is it possible to get an ability uponawakening?' Nathan inwardly read the title.
In the comments, countless people joked and laughed at the poster.
That's when a serious reply came in his sights.
"The only way to acquire an ability is from an ability shard."
"But, it wouldn't be unprecedented to awaken your system with an ability, as what the system does is synchronize with your body, meaning that you already had the said ability."
"There are many examples of people awakening with weapon proficiency in famous hunter families."
After understanding this, Nathan closed the forum tab and sat quietly for a moment.
The system window still hovered in front of him, unchanged.
'But then why does this say it's an active ability...'
Thinking of a way to use this ability, he puts his hand forward.
"REVERSAL!"
Seeing that nothing happens Nathan exhaled slowly and turns back to his keyboard.
'I guess this is my reward for awakening so damn late.'
Not thinking too much about his stats and ability, he moved onwards to the next pressing matter on his mind.
Where would he actually start hunting.
He typed carefully.
"Grade 0 rift Unit Meridian 12."
Enter.
The search returned more results than he expected.
There were maps, government notices, old forum discussions.
A few outdated articles written years ago, back when people still argued about how the world used to work.
Nathan clicked one of the official looking pages and scrolled.
Unit Meridian 12.
That was his home.
The page started with a short summary, the kind written for people who were looking for context.
Nathan skimmed through, already familiar with most of it.
After the rifts first appeared, monsters hadn't waited for humanity.
They had poured out everywhere.
Burning through cities, destroy infrastructure.
Countries and governments had responded the way they always had, defensively, arguing over borders and responsibility between each other.
It hadn't worked.
Nathan leaned back slightly as he read, eyes unfocused for a moment as images he'd seen in old footage surfaced in his mind.
Emergency broadcasts. Collapsing buildings. Crowds running without direction.
Eventually, the old systems broke under the pressure.
Borders stopped meaning much when monsters ignored these imaginary lines completely.
Making humanity unite not out of idealism but rather out of necessity.
A new structure had emerged slowly, painfully, built around survival rather than politics.
Technically nations still existed on maps but their sovereignty had become secondary to coordination.
The entire world had reorganized itself into Units.
Each Unit covered multiple cities, grouped not by culture or history, but rather by logistics and rift management.
Some Units were massive hubs, centered around high-grade rifts or unique environments that produced rare materials.
Others existed quietly and Meridian 12 was one of those.
Nathan scrolled further.
Unit Meridian 12 covered four old cities and a scattering of smaller districts. No high-grade rifts, no unique environmental anomalies and no famous guild headquarters.
It wasn't all bad.
Safe, compared to most places.
Boring, compared to the rest.
Nathan snorted softly.
"That figures," he muttered.
The lack of danger in a Unit meant fewer hunters. Which in return meant fewer guilds, less money flowing through the system making the more ambitious hunters transfer out as soon as they could.
Nathan scrolled down to the section labeled Rift Infrastructure.
Finally found what he was looking for.
Government-Controlled Grade 0 Rift: The Sunken Maintenance Tunnels
Nathan clicked the link.
The page loaded slowly, then displayed a series of still images taken from monitoring drones.
A concrete underground tunnel, water pooled along the ground, reflecting dim emergency lighting bolted to the walls.
The Sunken Maintenance Tunnels were exactly what the name suggested, old underground service corridors.
Nathan read the environment description carefully.
Low ceilings in some sections. Long, narrow corridors in others. Rusted metal walkways suspended over stagnant water. Pipes lining the walls, some intact, others collapsed and half submerged.
Limited visibility.
Sound carried strangely underground.
Soon his eyes landed on an image of the monsters who favored this space.
'Goblins.'
They were grade 0 monsters that were known to be small, aggressive and fast.
Nathan swallowed.
He scrolled down to the Access Requirements section.
Reading through he realized that the requirements were pretty simple.
Register at the Hunter Association, and enter in.
Nathan leaned back in his chair again.
The Hunter Association was not a guild. It wasn't glamorous nor powerful in the way some agencies and guilds were.
It was just another government office.
It existed to keep records.
Anyone who awakened their system had to register, without exceptions. The Association tracked awakened individuals, monitored rift access, and issued licenses.
Nathan had walked past the building dozens of times without thinking much of it. A plain looking building near the transit hub.
Now, it mattered.
He read the process.
Registration required identity verification and system confirmation. Once registered, the individual would receive a basic hunter registration card.
That card allowed two things.
First: licensing of a beginner weapon, free of charge.
Second: legal access to government-controlled Grade 0 rifts within the Unit.
Nathan stared at the screen.
This was it.
Not the heroic beginning he'd imagined as a kid. No dramatic ceremony. No sudden leap into danger.
Just paperwork.
He closed the page and stared at his desktop.
The path forward was clear now. Simple. Unavoidable.
Register, get a weapon and enter the rift.
Nathan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
He couldn't remember the last time he felt this excited.
The system window hovered silently, as if acknowledging his feelings.
Nathan reached up and dismissed it.
For tonight, at least, he was done.
Tomorrow, he would go to the Hunter Association.
Tomorrow, things would start moving for real.
And for the first time since he'd begun waiting years ago, Nathan didn't feel like he was standing still anymore.
He felt like he was finally at the starting line.