The season was winter. White snowflakes were falling continuously from the sky, some of them landing on the face of a young man who was sixteen years old and neither particularly handsome nor ugly.
"Aaah," he said, letting out a loud sigh. "Another day of doing something I have no idea how it's done. I'm probably surviving purely on instinct."
He said this while looking at a piece of metal rod next to him. He was preparing for his first trial, or tribulation as people referred to it.
Tribulations are the tests one must face to obtain power and awaken their innate ability.
Innate abilities are inborn powers. The system helps you awaken them if you pass the tribulation. The people the system chooses are rare, based on constitution or whether their parents were chosen as well.
The system appeared five decades ago when the world was at war with itself. The system does not force the people it chooses into tribulations; it only gives a call. If you accept and answer it, you will be pulled into the tribulation.
Tess was standing in the middle of a clearing. Snow was falling onto his body, piling up on the jacket he was wearing. He bent down, picked up the metal rod, held it with both hands, and positioned himself in a fighting stance.
Tess pulled back the metal rod, raised it over his head, and swung it vertically until it hit the ground with a loud thud. Following it with a horizontal swing in the same motion, he stepped forward—three consecutive steps. He repeated this for half an hour.
Tess was breathing heavily, exhausted from half an hour of swinging the metal rod. He dropped the metal and slowly raised his head, looking at the sky. Clouds obscured the view of the moon. He moved his hand in a circular motion to relieve the pain in his shoulder.
"I may be courting death," he said, "or making the biggest decision of my life… my small, adorable little life." Tess slowly lowered his head to look at the place where he was standing.
"Adorable might be an understatement for someone who was an errand boy for wannabe gangs in that pitiful place they called the slums," he said, turning his head to the side to look at the place where he spent most of his life living.
Tess decided to accept the call after five months of pondering. Currently, he was poor, with no money other than a couple of beat-up copper coins he earned doing errands for those clown gangs.
Tess wanted to earn money and also solve his anger issues. He didn't get along with the people around him ,especially those his age or younger ,because he got ticked off by small things and ended up in fights. If it was impossible to fix it, maybe he could at least prevent getting his ass handed to him if he became awakened. Or maybe it would be the other way around, and he'd be the one kicking ass.
'That doesn't matter if I die, does it…' Tess thought. 'My decision may be foolish, but I want to gain strength. I have no desire to spend my whole life as a clown's errand boy, and there is no other way around it ,either become awakened or die trying. I've heard children of big clans and royals pass the first tribulation quite easily, but I'm not putting all my faith in public rumors. That's why I spent the last couple of weeks practicing how to fight… saying "fighting" might be a stretch. Maybe I should say learning how not to get killed in the first hit.'
"Tonight is the night for the call of the system, or as people refer to it, the Ascension System," he said out loud. "Tomorrow is my seventeenth birthday."
Tess started heading back, slowly walking toward the ruined houses left behind after a Tier Four gate opened in this place. Now, the area was inhabited by homeless people or those too poor to live in the city.
Tess looked at the scenes of people and buildings with a complicated expression ,this could be his last chance to witness them. He walked through the main street of the slums, jumping over puddles of mud and snow scattered everywhere.
He didn't hate the place or the people living in it too much. There were some people who were nice to him. Even those clown gangs didn't offend or beat him without reason.
After a couple of minutes of walking and jumping, he reached his abode. a small hut made of jagged pieces of metal and wood. Tess ducked and entered his little room.
Inside his hut, he saw a makeshift stove where he cooked his meals. Next to it was a mattress that surprisingly looked to be in good condition and flawless. A small smile crept onto his lips as he straightened up and puffed his chest proudly. It was his latest purchase, bought two weeks ago from some drunkard who sold it at a low price. He wanted a little comfort and good night's sleep before the call.
"Now let's do this," he said. "It's do or die." He lowered himself onto the mattress and locked the door of the little hut, which he could reach even while sitting.
After quickly eating his dinner. leftovers he had stored under his new expensive mattress he lay down.
"Living another day to see sunlight is better than the foolishness I'm doing," he muttered, "but this is the only way to change." He lay on the mattress, waiting for the call if he was fortunate enough to be chosen. His parents were awakened, so he had a high chance of awakening as well.
After several hours of waiting, he started to get sleepy.
"What's taking so long… come already. I'm going to die of a heart attack if I wait any longer," he said out loud, his face flushed with anger.
As if answering his call, he felt a pull not physical, but something mystical tugging at his consciousness, pulling it somewhere else.
That was the call.
"Finally," he said. "Now go easy on me. I'm someone trying to make his life better by risking his life…"
Tess focused on the pull and allowed himself to be taken. At that moment, a mystical bright light appeared around him and began swirling fiercely until it engulfed his entire being in blinding radiance.
Then poof.
The light dispersed. Inside the hut, no one was there. No Tess lying on the expensive mattress. Even his clothes had been transported with him.