Chapter 5: The Inverse System

"Wh… where am I?" Rein awakened to a white void, empty and quiet. He noticed his left arm, which should've be severed, was attached back.

"Rein Alister…"

"Who's there?!" He looked around, seeing white space for as far as the eye can see. Nobody was around.

"Rein Alister… you who is devoid of a Spring, has now awakened to the Inverse System. How will you use it to realize your ambitions? How will you strengthen it to the pinnacles of power? Only time will tell." This mysterious, yet familiar voice echoed throughout the white nothingness.

"Enough with this cryptic bullshit. Who are you?" He said with clear irritation in his voice. "The hell's a System? I was using a Spring just now."

"Wrong. That was no Spring. Springs manifest power from the starting age of the user. If that was the case, your power would not have run dry at that critical moment. A level 10 Spring would have provided much more durability than that. You, Rein Alister, manifested to a level 1 System." Said the reverberating voice.

"Well then, I guess I should be glad that was only at level 1. It would have been scary if my level 10 power only lasted that long. But anyway, what the hell is this System? Super-Speed?" He said curiously, expecting an answer from the voice.

"..."

"Hello? Are you still there?"

"...ake u…"

"Huh? I didn't quite catch that." Rein said, confused.

"Wa… up" He felt a cold liquid fall on his face, which instantly made the white void disappear, and replaced it with the ceiling of a carriage.

"Wake the hell up Alister!" He looked up, seeing the tattooed boy who just dumped water on him seated adjacent to him. Rein tried to jolt up, to put his guard up against who he saw as his enemy, but he fell on the side of his missing arm. He realized that what he experienced right now was a dream.

"Ah shit, here we go again." Said Core rolling his eyes. "I told you I'm not your enemy right now. Can you lay off trying to kill me?"

"Fat chance. You motherfuckers attacked Lifah. It's because of you that my sister is dead." He said with anger in his eyes. Something didn't feel right. He felt like someone was missing. The woman who carried him out of the fight was gone, but more importantly, Emria was nowhere to be seen.

"Where the hell is Emria you bastard? You better not have hurt a single hair on her because if you did—"

"Calm down kid. Look there." Core pointed to the outside of the carriage.

"We're at the outskirts of Daster city in Econica. I sent D8 with Greeny to get us some food. They wouldn't let me in with all these tattoos, so I sent those 2 together. Those guards let them in as mother and daughter." Rein sat up against the wall of the carriage and sighed with relief. For some reason, he felt a sense of trust in the black-haired woman that saved him previously.

"As long as she's safe, that's all that matters. But what the hell's with you. You're the leader of a freakin mercenary group. Just go back to your HQ and eat like the 'king' you are."

"I'm not just gonna leave 2 injured kids to starve."

"What does it matter to you. You hypocrite piece of shit. Your Spring may not allow you to take any lives, but I call bullshit. The way I see it, you have the blood of countless people on your hands. You're the leader of a mercenary group, that's what you do. You may have only killed one person this time, but what's the difference to you if 2 kids die." Rein spoke, glaring at Core with discontentment.

"Do you want my help or no?" Remarked Core, hurt knowing Rein's words held truth to them.

"Why the hell would I 'want' your help"

"Look, I get you'd rather starve to death than take help from me, but think about the girl you're with. She'll starve along with you." Core declared.

"..."

"Sorry, but you're stuck with us for the time being. Anyways, on with more pressing matters. Your Spring, do you have any idea of what it is?"

Rein sighed heavily. He had no choice other than to accept the situation he was in. He had to co-operate to assure Emria's safety. He himself had no idea what his power was, which was strange, so he stayed silent and thought it through.

"You remember what happened, don't you? You were like a flash—"

"Yes, I remember. I don't need your commentary about it though," he shut him up angirly.

"Look, I may know what happened back there better than even you. I was watching and analyzing the fight the entire time. If you don't want the info I picked up from watching you, then it's your loss," Core spoke convincingly, making Rein grunt, then sit up, eyebrows furrowed.

"I remember... not much. It felt like I was remarkably defenseless, but I was really fast," he spoke with discontentment, scoffing at the thought of conversing with this man.

"Not just 'really fast', your speed was through the roof, almost like your sister's time-hopping. That must have been a level 10 Spring, considering your age." Said Core, putting his hands over his head and lying down on the wooden carriage ground.

Rein remembered the dream he just had. "I don't think that was a Spring." He declared.

"Huh? What else could it be? You're 10 years old, right? You still ought to be able to manifest one. You can't convince me that you're normally that fast." Chuckled Core with a humorous tone.

"Before you woke me up, I was having a dream. I was stuck in this white void, with this voice that told me that my outburst was not the doing of a Spring. He called it a 'S—'." Suddenly, both Core and Rein felt lightheaded, almost like a wave of fatigue had washed over both of them, making them feel 10 times heavier for a brief moment.

"The hell was that. What you just said made so little sense that I think I lost brain cells." Core chuckled once again.

"Anyways, what were you saying?"

Rein shook the light-headed feeling away from his head, feeling his heart beating faster as he spoke.

"The dream told me that I had a 'S—'" suddenly, Rein began coughing as he felt his lungs tighten, every time he would speak with the intention of divulging the events of his dream, he would be stopped by an unknown force.

"An S? So a Spring? Did your dream not tell you what it was?" Core remarked, confused.

"..." Rein thought about his situation, not being able to tell him what happened in the dream, almost as if it was meant to be kept a secret.

He had no clue as to that, but he understood that if he divulged even more, he could be put in even more danger. He decided to simply go along with whatever Core said, as to avoid the subject altogether.

"I asked him what it was, but then you woke me up. But from what it looked like, it was Super-Speed." Rein hypothesized, not knowing what it was himself, the word "System" being unfamiliar to him.

"Just super speed? I don't think that's all there was to it. When the Prince grazed your arm, it just flew off like it was made out of butter. It looks like this power grants you incredible speed but at the cost of a significant amount of defense." Presumed Core.

"That's odd, it's the exact opposite of Emria's Spring," Rein thought back.

"It is isn't it..." Core gasped lightly, then widened his eyes, Rein not knowing what he'd just realized.