One curious student raised their hand. "Who is this third donor?"
The teacher continued patiently. "Most of them prefer to remain anonymous, but usually they are people with relatively general abilities who donate attuned ability shards. These are used to increase compatibility between individual components, thereby guaranteeing a safe awakening."
"Anyway, you will learn more about ability theory at another time. For now we will talk about what white ability promotion shards are. Ability promotion shards are a type of resource that is used to upgrade your innate ability. The color denotes the rank/potency. White is the lowest tier of shards and most useful for Initial stage ability users: those who are in the first tier of developing their ability. Beyond white, the ranks are yellow, green, blue, purple, red, and orange."
"Usually it takes around 100 white ability shards to elevate an individual component to the next level. The second most common use of an ability shard is as a type of currency. Usually this occurs as an entry fee or a penalty to a game. Ability shards can only be transferred through a game, so it is uncommon for them to be used outside of that context."
"Ability shards exist only in two states: free and attuned. When you gain a free shard, it enters somewhere into your body and slowly transforms into an attuned shard. The time it takes to convert a free shard to an attuned shard depends on one's own effort and their talent. While the most common type of shards traded are free shards, attuned shards are also a highly valued resource, as their usage is one of the requirements to evolve your components past the Initial stage."
"By now, most of you will have received five white shards for your daily missions, so it should take around 40 days for you to have enough white shards to saturate each individual component. Of course, since most of you will be participating in more games than that, most students end up ranking up to the yellow level a little bit faster."
"For today, though, we are going to focus on familiarizing ourselves with using our ability without making use of the system function. Right now, everyone should focus their attention on the information provided by your donors and read through it. The rest of the time in class will be used to focus on experimenting with your abilities. You should notice a button on your desk that will not only set up a privacy screen but also provide you with an energy shield so you can practice safely."
In the next moment, the classroom filled with privacy screens that extended from the floor to the ceiling. Reluctantly, Victor fiddled with the controls, letting his privacy screen rise and the desk retreat into the floor. Given the possibility of becoming stuck in his ability space, Victor was a bit leery of practicing.
A projection of his teacher's face then appeared before him. "Victor, given the fact you have no references to follow, I will be here to oversee your training and give any advice in the case of an accident."
Victor nodded thankfully before a thoughtful expression appeared on his face. "If possible, could you please wake me up when class ends?"
Miss Mallor merely made a questioning expression before watching Victor lie down on the floor and close his eyes, quickly falling into a smooth slumber. For a moment she almost didn't believe her eyes as she pressed a few buttons on her console just to confirm his condition.
'Fast asleep so quickly?'
The teacher stared for a moment before she shrugged.
'If he doesn't want my help, then so be it.' She thought as she shifted her attention to other students in her class.
Once again, Victor's awareness appeared in his ability space, faced with a black hole orbited by debris made of metal and strange symbols. A white corona appeared around the black hole the same as before, and it spun faster, increasing its gravitational pull. Victor watched as the white corona spun faster until it reached its limit and kept spinning.
He remembered feeling a change in his ability when he got those ability shards, so he began to search for any differences. As he focused intently on the black hole, he found everything to be exactly the same. He then took a step back and meticulously observed the orbiting debris.
As Victor's frustration was mounting, he caught the flash of a white light at the edge of his vision. Far on the border of his ability space, a lone white spark slowly drifted towards the black hole.
Excitement began to fill Victor as he turned his attention to that spark. He was sure this spark hadn't been here last time. Very soon, a thought filled Victor's head as he conducted a thorough exploration of his ability space. Finally, he discovered four additional white sparks floating at various points along the edge of this dark space.
'So this is where the promotion shards went.'
He remembered Miss Mallor's explanation from earlier about where free shards are stored. As he looked around, he realized he didn't even know where he was. 'Is this really a space that exists within my body.'
Curiously, Victor focused his attention on the closest spark. As if it noticed him looking, the spark then sped towards the black hole at a faster pace.
'I can affect the promotion shards?'
Seeing this, Victor concentrated his attention on that spark, causing it to blaze toward the black hole at even quicker speeds. He didn't know how long it took, but eventually the ability shard streaked by the field of debris and approached the event horizon of the black hole. Victor watched on in anticipation as the spark crashed into the black hole and disappeared. The black hole then widened slightly, and the corona of light expanded and spun even faster than before. The gravitational pull of the black hole slightly increased.
Victor nodded in approval before turning his attention to the remaining four ability shards. He then paused for a moment, noticing their speed had slightly increased. Intrigued, Victor shifted his focus to a random spark, causing it to speed up. However, Victor noticed that the other stars appeared to decelerate at the same time.
After some quick experimentation, Victor discovered a couple of rules about his ability. The first one was that his ability seemed to affect promotion shards, pulling them into the black hole. The second discovery was that he could either focus his strength on pulling one shard or multiple shards. At this point he still didn't know if there was a limit to the number of shards he could pull at one time. He found the fewer shards he focused on at a time, the faster their speed. Even so, focusing on one shard instead of four doesn't seem to make it four times as fast. Focusing his attention seemed to yield diminishing returns.
Victor also tried pulling all four shards at once. For a moment all of their speeds were boosted, but then he almost instantly lost control, and they returned to their original speed. Controlling three was the same story, and even two shards were far more difficult than Victor could handle, making it less efficient than pulling one star at a time. Despite this, Victor sensed that he could improve the effectiveness by practicing his control more in the future.
At the end of his tests, Victor was a little unsure how to feel about his ability. On the one hand, he might be able to advance quicker than his peers, but what did that matter if his advancement didn't provide him any benefits? Still, Victor hadn't fully made his determination. That could wait until he figured out what the proper use of that field of debris was. He was certain it had to do with his first component.
Gazing at the black hole, Victor was left with one more test. He was pulled into this space by activating his ability, so what would happen if he tried deactivating it? Victor gradually focused on the second component of his ability, attempting to slow the spin of the white corona. After fumbling around while following his instincts, Victor finally managed to lessen the pull of the black hole. While slow and unpracticed, Victor eventually slowed the white corona until it stopped and disappeared completely. Almost immediately, Victor felt repelled, and he was rapidly ejected from the dark space.
Victor opened his eyes to find himself lying down surrounded by the privacy screen.
'So I woke up after all.' He then nodded in understanding before lying back down on the ground and activating his ability. Very smoothly, Victor was faced with a black hole, surrounded by debris made of metal shards and strange symbols. As the white corona rapidly appeared again, Victor decided to make use of the rest of the class time by absorbing as many promotion shards as he could.
Victor focused his attention on the closest spark and started pulling. After absorbing another shard and pulling a third one almost half of the distance, Victor was interrupted, and his awareness was pulled from his ability space.
Vibrations ran through the floor, waking Victor up as he returned to consciousness. He slowly sat up before hearing his teacher's voice. "Class is over. It's time to go."