Jason has chosen Assassin

 

Re-calibrating user potential skills

 

Initializing...

 

Jason's whole body froze while showering, his whole body stood up straight as he was stiff as a board. He couldn’t even move his eyeball as he felt irritated by the water passing over his eyeballs.

 

The heck is happening?

 

He was confused and nervous at the same time as this kind of thing never happened before. As if the blue window took control of his entire body. He couldn’t even open his mouth as if they were glued together. Then a vast amount of information flowed within the mind of Jason. His head was throbbing as he couldn’t deny the pain. He didn’t think having a job would be this painful.

 

A minute later, the unexpected torture ended. Jason fell on the bathroom floor as his head leaned over the tile wall. The warm water droplets kept raining down on him as he tried to calmed himself down. Then more blue windows appeared.

 

Congratulation. You have become an Assassin

 

Assassin Job Description: Killer within the shadows, excels in killing the enemy in a single blow. Strong stealth-type energy abilities and specialized in defeating the enemy without a head-on battle. Known to utilized poison

 

You have learned three new abilities

 

You have learned Basic Projectile Throwing

 

You have learned Blood Edge Strike

 

You have learned Shadow Hide. Since Shadow Hide had already been learned, the current Shadow Hide level will be increased

 

Shadow Hide has reached the maximum level

 

Upgrade into Shadow Sneak Lv.3

 

Everything happened too fast, the moment he read through all of these blue windows, he realized how he had hit the jackpot. But it didn’t end there as another blue window appeared.

 

Jason is the first to obtain a job

 

Jason obtained a new title, Job Pioneer

 

Jason still didn’t have a clue about the effect of titles as he pondered upon this new one.

 

Hmm, Job Pioneer sounds tacky, is it even useful?

 

To his wish, another new window popped up.

 

The prerequisite condition has been fulfilled. The title description menu is now available.

 

Job Pioneer   Title description: Gifted to the first person who obtained a job.   Title effects: Increase growth of job-related skill by 25%   Increase the chances of learning a job-related skill by 25%   Increase power output level for job-related offense skill by 25%   Increase defense for job-related defense skill by 25%

 

Jason didn’t know what to say seeing the description of the title. This one title alone gave him too many benefits. In a sense, it was way too overpowered. A quarter of additional benefits was a lot, more so considering he now had an offensive skill in hand. Out of curiosity, he opened up the description for the other titles.

 

The First Killer   Title description: The first to kill a monster from another dimension.   Title effects: Additional +5 points for each level up   Permanent +25% damage increase   Permanent +25% body resistance to any damage   Increase skill growth rate by 40%   Increase the chances of learning a new skill by 40%   One single chance of survival from imminent death(Disable)(24480)

 

Jason’s mouth was hanging open as he didn’t believe the things he was reading. The benefits he earned from these titles were ridiculous to the point that he thought of himself as cheating. He read through every title descriptions that he had and in the end, it left him in utter silence. There were no words for him to say other than he was damn lucky. Now he realized why he could fight those strong monsters even with the disparity of his low level. It wasn’t because he was a skillful fighter but it was more to these benefits of the titles helping him out. Then his eyes came back to the last effect for The First Killer.

 

One single chance of survival from imminent death? A life token? But why is it disabled?

 

Then something just struck him as he recalled how he survived that ridiculous height when being blown away by the Scarlet Rex. Thinking back, there was no way of surviving a fall from such height then being drifted away to the Atlantic Ocean. If what he thought about this effect was right then this must be the reason why he was still alive.

 

He stared at the wall in a daze while still buck naked under the shower. There were too many things to processed and knowing he survived was partly due to his luck, dented his confidence a bit regarding his fighting ability as well as his survival skills. This revelation was like a sledgehammer right at his head. He snapped out of it after a full thirty minutes, his skin was already wrinkling as he showered for far too long.

 

He came out of the bathroom half-naked wearing the sweatpants filled with holes. His whole body was still wet as he didn’t have anything to dry himself up. Droplets of water trailed behind him as he walked into the living room. Hakeem was holding on to a hammer as a sparkle of blue electricity surrounded the head of the hammer. He thought about showing it off to Jason but seeing him making a mess in his living room changed his mind.

 

“C’mon man,” said Hakeem as he rushed to his bedroom rummaging deep inside his closet as he found something. He went back to the living room and threw the pink towel at Jason.

 

“It's my ex and don’t worry, it’s already clean and hasn’t been used for a long time,” said Hakeem.

 

Jason dried himself up on the spot and Hakeem couldn’t help but noticed the deformed look on Jason’s shoulder.

 

“What’s wrong with your shoulder?” asked Hakeem.

 

Jason glanced at the shoulder while drying up his hair.

 

“Oh, something shot at me,” he said.

 

“Shot at you? That’s not a freaking bullet wound,” said Hakeem.

 

“It’s a crossbow bolt. It messed up my shoulder pretty bad, but I’ve already healed up, so it’s fine,” said Jason.

 

Hakeem's intention of bragging about his ability watered down as he took a seat while staring at Jason. Hakeem scanned Jason from top to bottom as he also knew about those holes and bloodstains on Jason’s clothes. He couldn’t imagine what this friend of his went through last night.

 

“Got any spare clothes?” Jason asked.

 

Hakeem went back to his bedroom and took out his old clothes.

 

“It’s pretty big,” said Hakeem as his clothes were all beyond extra large.

 

Jason didn’t mind as he just ripped it apart with his bare hands with ease, altering it to fit his body size. Hakeem turned speechless seeing him doing like it was easy, more so it was his clothes and this guy just tore it apart as if it was natural to do so. He kept his mouth shut and didn’t want to complain as it was merely clothing. Since Jason did heal up his ankle, it was the least he could do.

 

Jason took a seat as his whole body relaxed on the old dark brown couch. He felt comfortable as his head rested on the headrest.

 

“So?” Hakeem asked.

 

Jason glanced at Hakeem without removing his head from the headrest.

 

“What?”

 

“What happened after I went back? You look like shit after coming back,” said Hakeem.

 

“Oh, well…” out of consideration for his friend, Jason told the story of what had happened. From the encounter with those cow-like monsters to the fight against the Archer Kobold, as well as meeting the lone soldier Sgt. Ryan.

 

At the end of the story, Hakeem was grabbing his head with his jaw wide open. Listening to Jason’s story felt like it came from a movie, yet he knew it was all true since he experienced it first hand. He remembered how Jason fought against six of those kobolds by his own self, just thinking about it made him realized how incredible this man really was.

 

“You really think the army been wiped out?” asked Hakeem. It was a sensitive thing to say considering he was hoping for the army to put a stop to these menacing threats, but being hopeful was far from the reality of it.

 

“Probably,” said Jason. He himself wasn’t sure about it but no matter what at least he knew that sooner or later the military would realize the importance of training up their new Awaken recruit.

 

Hakeem couldn’t accept that simple answer. One of his legs kept on shaking as he was deep in thought.

 

“You think those monsters will come to Toronto?” asked Hakeem.

 

“Relax, the previous invasion stopped after reaching a certain border. The same thing might repeat again for the one at the park,” said Jason. At least his words calmed the anxious Hakeem.

 

“Then, what should we do? Should we tell anyone about this?” asked Hakeem.

 

“About what?” said Jason.

 

“About this game like thing, shouldn’t other people know about this and the military," something just clicked inside Hakeem's head, "we should tell the military,” Hakeem was getting ahead of himself as the social justice inside of him started to surface.

 

“The military already knows,” said Jason.

 

“What?”

 

“Remember what the soldier asks you about whether you’re an Awaken or not?”

 

Hakeem was a bit confused as he couldn’t really remember it clearly.

 

“Go on, I’m listening,” said Hakeem.

 

“The military already knew the existence of the game-like system. They dubbed us as the Awaken, so a few of these Awakens had already been recruited within the military and you know how it goes,” said Jason as he getting tired of explaining things.

 

“Then why aren’t they making it public?” Hakeem asked.

 

“You think the rational mind of a human would believe such a thing? Unless it happens right in front of your eyes, no one would believe it,” said Jason as he stretched out his head from side to side.

 

“Besides, if this news went public there might be a few crazy people wanting to obtain this. FYI, this sort of the same thing as obtaining a superpower and I bet that any person who has eight-grade syndrome might want to try it out,” said Jason.

 

Jason’s words made sense but Hakeem couldn’t deny the life-saving potential of having this ability. After he realized how guns didn’t work on these monsters, he knew the only way of killing it was through this superpower like abilities.

 

“So are you going back tonight?” Hakeem asked.

 

Jason glanced at Hakeem as he saw the glint behind his eyes. It seemed that this whole game like thing might have affected this friend of his. Then he remembered something.

 

“You mind if I use your computer? I’ve got to check my email,” said Jason.

 

“Sure,” said Hakeem.

 

Hakeem turned on the desktop as Jason took a seat. Hakeem didn’t leave as he stood beside Jason. After opening up his email, Jason saw that he had received a reply. Hakeem read through the email.

 

“Forge your own axe. A blacksmith class?” Hakeem turned to Jason with a confused look.

 

“Want to tag along? You might learn a smithing skill,” said Jason as he let out a grin.

 

“You can do that?” said Hakeem with his eyes on the verge of bulging out.

 

“It’s just like a game, you can learn skills from an expert. You might want to try out with your basketball skills, who knows you might get one relating with it,” said Jason.

 

Hakeem calmed himself down as he was getting a little too excited about this.

 

“But why smithing? Shouldn’t you learn martial arts or something,” asked Hakeem.

 

“It’s up to you. I just want to learn about it,” Jason said as he kept a secret about that phantasmal grade material he had stored inside his backpack.

 

Jason stood up and went to the door.

 

“You’re going now?” Hakeem asked.

 

“I’m hungry,” that simple two words made Hakeem’s stomach growled.

 

“I’m coming along,” said Hakeem.

 

--

 

Sitting beside the window of a simple diner, Jason ate the breakfast plate with gusto. Hakeem stared at the sight of this man, eating as if he had been starving for a whole week. The image he had about Jason was long gone as this new version of him was far different.

 

“Slow down man, the food ain’t going anywhere,” said Hakeem.

 

“If you have gone through New York like I did, then you'll realize how food is the best thing in the world,” said Jason as he continued chowing down those sunny side eggs with garlic toast at the side.

 

Hakeem had a hesitated look on his face as he was still wasn't sure about telling this to Jason. But in the end, he felt it was right of him to do so.

 

“I think I’m gonna pass the smithing class," he paused as he took a breather, "I’ve got to tell you this, I think I’m gonna tell this thing to the public. The people deserve to know man,” said Hakeem. All this time Hakeem was thinking deeply about the matter. In the end, he made a decision not caring whether people would believe him or not.

 

Jason continued on eating as he didn’t even glance at Hakeem.

 

“Suit yourself, I’m not stopping you. Just be sure to do it anonymously, you don’t want a bunch of black suit agents knocking down on your front door,” said Jason.

 

Hakeem fell into his own thought for a while before he ate his breakfast without talking. After a while, both of them finished their breakfast and Jason even had seconds. Both Jason and Hakeem came out of the diner as both looked at each other.

 

“Here, it’s a spare key,” said Hakeem.

 

Jason accepted it with a nod.

 

“I might be trying what you said, learning a few skills wouldn’t sound so bad,” said Hakeem as he had a plan in mind.

 

“See you later,” Jason said as both parted ways with their own way of trying to get stronger.

 

--

 

“Here I am,” said Jason as he came out of the pink minivan.

 

He glanced at the nameplate of the building.

 

“Osborn Metalwork sounds catchy.”

 

He entered the building.