Darkness.
That's all Kazuki saw.
There was no pain.
No sound.
No color.
Just his body body floating in a cold, endless and absolute void that stretched to infinity.
"W-where... Am I?" He muttered, his voice echoing through the abyss.
The silence pressed in.
He looked down at himself, and after staring into the darkness — he arrived at an inevitable conclusion. "Is this..the after life?"
[System Activate.]
"W-what?" A translucent blue panel appeared before him.
[Synchronizing....]
[System successfully synchronized!]
[Transporting....]
"W—Wait, what's going on!?"
SWOOSH!
He felt his body being yanked forward by a rush of energy. His eyes spun, his head turn — thrown into a rippled vortex at blinding speeds.
Then his eyes opened.
GASP!
He sat up fast, his face covered in sweat like he just woke up from a terrible nightmare.
"W-what?" He searched around him — and found himself on the floor of a small bedroom. "Where am I?"
His eyes caught a calendar on the wall. Currently, it was the 27th of August, and each date before that was crossed with a red marker.
"Huh?"
Almost immediately — a sharp ringing ran through his head, and he clutched it tightly, screaming in pain.
Several memories flooded his mind, crashing hard on him with relentless force. Memories he didn't recall — memories he knew he never lived.
And by the time it stopped, he found himself on the floor again.
"Soul Awakening." He muttered under his breath.
He sprang to his feet immediately.
He glanced at the calendar, and somehow he remembered what today was. "It's the day of my Soul Awakening? Wait..."
The memories came back, the memories of his old life, and he remembered what this was. He recognized the term Soul Awakening from his favorite novel he re-read over and over again each time he felt depressed.
So there was no mistake.
Somehow, he got transmigrated into his favorite novel.
It's story was simple.
Many, many years ago, a supernatural tradegy plagued humanity, making what was usually considered as nothing but fantasy, all too real.
The Advent Of The Gates.
The Advent Of The Gates was a result of the conditions being met, creating a portal that linked the human world to the other side, and from these gates, they came along. Creatures never thought to exist, creatures that could have only existed in fantastical settings.
Soul-Beasts.
They were given this name because of their unique abilities, the ability to grow stronger by consuming human souls. But that wasn't the only thing the Advent Of The Gates brought along, after being exposed to the human world for a long time, the atmosphere of the gate seeped in.
And after being exposed to the other side's atmospheric energy, humanity awakened extraordinary gifts that enabled them to fight against these beasts. Those gifts were referred to as Soul-Core, and the extraordinary superhumans who used this gift to defend humanity against these beasts were referred to as Soul-Hunters.
Soul-Hunters were revered as saviours of humanity, the ones who averted the apocalypse. After a lot of these saviours emerged, their abilities were eventually seperated into five different functions.
Elemental Soul-Core - Soul-Hunters with the ability to utilize the various elements and Sub-elements of nature.
Zen Soul-Core - Soul-Hunters with abilities that boosts physical attributes or augmentations.
Alchemist Soul-Core - Soul-Hunters with the ability to manipulate the laws of nature and reason according to their will.
Support Soul-Core - Soul-Hunters with the ability to aid regeneration, or healing in general. While they don't fall under the combat class Soul-Hunters, their abilities also provides a buff in the strength of others.
Knight Soul-Core - Soul-Hunters whose abilities cannot be classified under the four functions, they are regarded as the strongest amongst the five and their abilities are said to be able to shake the world itself.
To prevent this calamity from ever happening again, they banded together, creating a large association with different branches and sections, gathering and training elite Soul-Hunters in other to prevent another Advent.
This association was known as the Soul-Hunter association, and in this association were different segments in different countries, which collectively, was referred to as the 14 Soul-Squads.
Each year they had their awakening ceremony, recruiting capable soldiers who will become strong enough to defend humanity.
And now, due to age limits, it was finally this character's turn, but there was one problem.
He had no idea who this character was. He re-read the story a hundred times over, but he had no memories of such a scene in his past live.
Then he remembered what happened moments ago. "System? Activate?"
A soft chime echoed, and a translucent blue screen appeared before him.
______________Status_________________
[Name: Kazuki Matasuragi]
[Age: 18]
[Occupation: Dropout]
[Level: 0]
[Experience: 0]
[Dexterity: F-]
[Stamina: E-]
[Agility: F+]
[Strength: E-]
[Durability: D]
[Intelligence: C]
[Soul-Energy: 0/0]
[Soul-Core: None]
[Rank: None]
_______________________________________
"Kazuki Matasuragi? Isn't that my name? And what the hell is with this horrible stats?"
Then it hit him.
"Fuck." He cursed under his breath.
He heard about it in his previous life, the stories that were popular back then. Extras.
Extra's were background characters.
He transmigrated as an extra — a character that was irrelevant to the story. But this time, it was different. And it all made sense now.
The reason the original owner of this body bad no name was simple. He was destined to die before the main story ever began, and because of that — he had no knowledge of this character or when he was supposed to die.
[Ding! Your first quest has arrived!]
[Activate your Soul-Core.]
[Rewards for completing mission: 50EXP]
"So I did transmigrate with a system?" It was thrilling to be honest, but something gnawed at the corner of his mind.
He still had the memories of his previous life, so he remembered the bastard that killed him, killed his mother and Victoria — Adrian — his mother's malicious ex boyfriend.
"Tsk, that bastard..." He clenched his fist, gritted his teeth. He knew there was nothing he could do now to avenge the death of his mother and the loving nurse that took care of them.
There were no ifs. No if I had another chance. He died and got transmigrated, that was the reality of it.
But that wasn't Adrian's greatest sin. His greatest sin — separating him from his mother. Undoubtedly, she was in the afterlife, but he was in another world — his favorite novel to be precise.
And he had no way of seeing her ever again, even in death. He'd just go to this world's after life. That was Adrian's greatest sin.
However, he also gave him a second chance at life. In his previous world, he considered his life over at age 14 — the age his mother fell into a coma, the age where his suffering and torture began.
But now things were different.
He knew the novel like the back of his hand, he knew every bad thing that happened. He knew the secrets behind the gates.
Or so he thought.
The moment he came out of the bedroom and into the living room, he eyes met with two familiar faces, according to the previous owner's memory.
"Kazuki!" A girl rushed at him, wrapping her arms tightly around him in a warm embrace.
There were his friends who stood by him during difficult times since the death of his parents, Mira Ravenheart and Kirito Horigami.
'W-what?' His eyes wavered like a leaf the moment he saw Mira.
In his new memories, she was the girl that stood by him through thick and thin. Through every bad thing that happened to him, from his parents eaten by Soul-Beasts — to him dropping out of school.
She was with him through it all.
But that wasn't the memory he had of her in his previous life. She was cold. Vicious. Didn't hesitate to abandon the ones closest to her if it meant she survived.
The epitome of betrayal. That's what she was.
"You're late, damn it, you're the one who keeps talking nonstop about today and yet here you are." Kirito spoke with a grin on his face, not once in his life did he decide to ever pass up the opportunity of mocking him.
"S-sorry. I guess I slept too hard I woke up seeing things." He scratched the back of his head — not daring to take his eyes off the most deadliest backstabber in history.
"Oh shut up. Don't speak to Kazuki like that!" Mira said, wrapping her arms around his before drawing him closer to her chest.
It was overwhelming. Being transmigrated into his favorite novel with a system. Meeting his Novel's greatest backstabber.
But one thing was clear. Despite this unwritten events, he knew how it all played out, he knew everything. Now he had a system, what happened to him in his previous life — the pain, the suffering and the weakness to not do anything about it.
The beatings. The torture. The betrayals. It all ended in his old life.
"Tch, damn love birds, well whatever. Shall we get going?"
[9:00AM]
[Soul-Hunter's Association]
The Soul-Hunter's Association was a towering structure with its black glass walls gleaming under the sun. It stood at the heart of the city, taking the role of it's backbone, it was were Soul-Hunters were assigned tasks, where orders were given to raid, and where humanity's saviours were born.
At exactly twelve noon, a multitude of people, reaching almost a hundred in number, were gathered in a hall large enough to contain hundreds of people at once within the building including Kazuki and his friends — sort of.
At the front center of the room, a platform rose above the crowd, and atop that platform, was a large glowing sphere.
"Holy shit... I never expected this many people..." Kirito couldn't believe his eyes, on average the Soul-Hunters association had only a total of not more than 30 individuals awakening per year, but this year, it was different.
"Yeah... It doesn't come as a shock to me, we all lost something that day."
For most people, becoming Soul-Hunters meant being set for life, it was the highest paying job in the country.
With each dungeon raid, if they were successful in defeating the final boss, they obtained their essence core, it was the essence of the boss which was useful for developing weapons they could use in raiding.
In a dungeon, every single item dropped by slaying beasts was expensive depending on the dungeon's rank, making hunting one of the most profitable jobs.
While it was beneficial to Kazuki, it wasn't his main goal, his main goal far transcended wealth. This world was different from his previous world — far more dangerous.
There was only one goal for anyone who lived here.
Survival.
"Good day to you all." A voice echoed through the hall, drawing all eyes to the platform where the sphere rested. Behind it stood three men dressed in sleek black suits.
The one in the center stood out—older than the others, with white hair and a neatly trimmed beard, his presence was calm, yet commanding.
The candidates couldn't feel it yet, but they could tell. The aura emanating from the man in the center, it was powerful enough to choke them completely.
Calling him strong would be an understatement, he was a tidal force!
"Oh? They are quite a number of you, but now that we're all here we can begin. My name is Arthur Daemar and I'm the Head Commander of the 14 Soul-Squads and the two besides me are my associates. I'm sure many of you are aware that after today your life is about to change forever, but first I'll have to inform you on what is about to happen, the process of your Soul Awakening."
He began, clearing his throat as he effortlessly caught the attention of the crowd.
"Ever since the first Advent Of The Gates, humanity faced a threat so powerful that it could have annihilated our entire race, and we were reminded that we weren't alone in this cruel world, but with that calamity, came a gift. Soul-Core. I'm sure most of you are aware of the details so I'll skip it, we humans we all possess a Soul-Core as a result of the Advent, however with that core comes the energy to keep it alive. It's name, Soul-Energy."
Murmurs arose from among the crowd. They were puzzled.
"Soul-Energy?"
"That's right." Arthur's voice silenced the crowd once more, clearing the doubts in the air.
"After being contaminated by the Advent's atmospheric energy, This Soul-Energy is what keeps our core alive, although we can't sense it because it is dormant in our bodies, providing only enough power to sustain our core. But do you know that this energy can be drawn to the surface?"
"And how's that head commander Arthur?" One of men asked.
"That's where this sphere comes in. We call it the Soul Sphere, and it draws out an individual's latent Soul-Energy to the surface and activates his Soul-Core."
The head commander exchanged glances with his surbordinates, and after a nod of approval, he cleared his throat again.
"That's all the information I can share with you for now, this awakening ceremony is divided into three stages, we will now beginning the 1st selection. With that said, let the Soul Awakening begin."