Chapter 5 The System

Mako noticed that there was something behind the mirror. It looked like some sort of a lever, but that didn't make any sense since Mako lived in this house alone ever since his grandmother died.

Amy Grey was his grandmother, and she was the one who took care of Mako during his childhood unfortunately, she passed away when Mako was the age of 14, and ever since Mako has been living in the same house alone.

Mako had never seen anything wrong with the house other than the fact that it was a bit secluded from the other residential areas, and was closer to the forest near the outskirts of the city.

Mako was surprised to see a lever behind the now broken mirror. His hand was in a lot of pain due to the glass cutting it all over and he was covered in blood, but he didn't care about it right now as he was too excited to see what was the purpose of the Lever.

<CRANK!>

After flipping the lever, the mechanism behind it started to make mechanical noises akin to gears turning.

Suddenly the wardrobe behind Mako which had all his clothes started to move toward the left-hand side of the sink, revealing a narrow passage that had stairs leading down somewhere into the darkness.

"What the hell is this!?" Mako couldn't help but question what he was seeing.

"Maybe I am dreaming." Mako thought as he decided to pinch himself hard, but to his surprise, he didn't suddenly wake up.

"HOLY S***! This is real!" He exclaimed.

Mako soon realized the situation he was in, a passage leading from his house to who knows where or who. It could be a passage built by the old owners of this home, but he remembered that his grandmother told him that the house was constructed by her father during the war.

Mako had a sense of foreboding and caution, but also a sense of excitement and curiosity. After staring down the dark passage for what looked like ten minutes, his curiosity got the better of him and he decided to make his way down the stair of the dark passage.

Going down the stairs, Mako could constantly hear water dripping, rats squeaking from within the wooden walls, and the sound of his footsteps echoing back to him, but he didn't get scared as he was committed and determined to find out where the passage lead.

Eventually, the stairs finished leading down and led Mako into a small room the size of a garden shed. There was a singular light bulb that had just enough light to barely light up the room.

Multiple shelves had an assortment of different things such as some old rocks and other things that were covered in dust. In the middle of the room was a small chest the size of Mako's palm sitting on top of a pedestal.

Mako thought that it was some sort of treasure, and decided to open it without any caution.

The chest had no lock but it still won't open. Mako was only using one hand as his other one was still injured. When the chest did not budge, He decided to use both of his hands carefully to open it.

As soon as his bloody hand touched the chest, it instantly lit up. It was so bright that Mako had to close his eyes to protect them from going blind when a strange voice came out of the box.

[Blood Sample Found]

[Matching Blood Sample From Database]

[Match Found]

[Initializing System]

This was the last thing that Mako heard before he felt a cool yet burning feeling involving him, and that something was trying to enter his body forcefully as he could feel the movement of his every muscle and artery. Not having the strength to fight back; whatever was trying to get in, made its way inside Mako's body, and he passed out the next moment it did.

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After some time Mako came to his senses again and noticed that he was still in the same old dusty secret room he found at the bottom of the secret passage.

"uhh....! How many times am I gonna get knocked out today?" Mako complained in a drowsy manner as he slowly got up while holding his head.

This was the third time today that he was knocked out, first by Bill, second when he collapsed on his bed as soon as got home from exhaustion due to walking home while injured and taking a healing pill, and finally now when he had opened the chest.

"THE CHEST! Yes, I opened the chest! where is it?" Mako now remembered what had transpired moments before he was knocked out.

He got up and searched the whole room, but there was no sign of the chest anywhere. This made Mako confused, "How can a physical object vanish in thin air, I am sure it can't walk up those stairs."

Mako was convinced that the chest had to be here somewhere, and decided to keep looking when suddenly he started to hear faint beeping sounds. This room was starting to become more and more creepy, as there was any sign of a machine or a piece of technology in the room other than the light bulb, but that can't make a beeping sound.

Not sure where the beeping was coming from, Mako decided to ignore it and keep on looking for the chest. After about fifteen minutes, Mako was convinced that the chest was not in the room.

"We'll I guess I found another thing related to my socks, both vanish; one in the dryer while the other in a small creepy secret room in your great grandpa's old house." Mako made fun of the situation as he gave up, and decided to head back towards the bathroom from where he came.

As Mako turned around to move toward the stairs, he noticed a faint blue light in the corner of his eye that was blinking.

"So you were doing all that beeping," Mako said as he reached out towards the wall to touch the light, but all he came in contact with was the stone brick wall.

"Huh?"

Mako kept touching where the light was showing, but he always just touched the wall, and as he moved his head the light moved as well.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" Mako shouted as touched all parts of his face to see if there was anything wrong with him but that wasn't the case either.

"Is this thing inside my brain? But how is that even possible?!" Mako started exclaiming as he started to panic, worrying that it was a bomb or something and that he was going to die. After constantly moving back and forth, and trying everything that he could for about ten minutes, he decided to calm down and focus on the blinking light to see if there was anything on it.

As soon as Mako decided to focus on the blur-blinking light, it suddenly got brighter and brighter and started to expand as well. In an instant, the blue had covered everything in Mako's line of sight. It happened so fast that, Mako jumped at the sudden change, and landed on his butt.

*Thump!*

"OUCH!"

While rubbing his butt, Mako slowly opened his eyes to see that a screen was being displayed in front of his eyes. Astonished by what he was seeing, he again subconsciously reached out to touch the screen but it was nothing but air.

"Right, don't touch, think." Mako reminded himself and decided to access the screen through his thoughts.

[Initializing complete]

[Welcome, User]

A welcome message greeted Mako, and as he sent his thoughts to move forward, the screen moved too.

"Woah, so it really is operated through my thoughts." Mako realized as he went forward with the system's greeting messages.

Mako had never heard of the technology that can disappear once opened, and be directly implanted in your brain all the while can also be accessed by thoughts.

There were many advancements made in the technology sector with many different types of advanced AI, but this was on a whole another level.

After the system finished with those initial messages, five tabs were displayed in front of him.

[Profile] ⓘ

[Quests] ⓘ

[Skills] ⓘ

[Inventory] ⓘ

[Shop] ⓘ

All the tabs were greyed out except the profile one, and after not being able to access any of the other tabs, Mako decided to open the profile tab.

[User: Mako Grey] ⓘ

[Health: 84/100] ⓘ

[Energy: 50/50] ⓘ

[EXP: 0/100] ⓘ

[Level 1] ⓘ

[Strength: 2] ⓘ

[Agility: 3] ⓘ

[Perception: Null] ⓘ

[Intelligence: 5] ⓘ

[Mentality: 2] ⓘ

[Stamina: 4] ⓘ

[Charisma: Locked] ⓘ

[Fortitude: Locked] ⓘ

It displayed all the different attributes of Mako, while some of those were locked others had a numerical value next to them.

'How the hell does this know my name, and what is this 'EXP' thing that it's talking about? Is this all a type of game? Am I dreaming? No way this is real, right?' A plethora of different thoughts were coursing through Mako's mind as he read all the different attributes of his current body.

Each attribute had an 'ⓘ' symbol next to them which indicated that it would reveal more information, but before Mako could read any of them; he noticed an envelope with a red dot on it near the corner of the screen. Intrigued by what it was, he decided to open that first.

[Notifications] ⓘ

[(1) Unread message]

[New video message]

"Hmm...., I wonder what this is about?" Mako's curiosity peaked as he sent his thoughts to play the video message.