6 Earth's awakening

Larcen stared at the red screen anxiously as it went down from 10 seconds to 0 and once it did, the screen vanished. He could only hear the honking of vehicles outside the cab and everything seemed to be normal, giving him false hope but at the same time, increasing his anxiousness.

It didn't take too long for things to change as the ground began to shake. The magnitude wasn't too high but the new messages on his system screen sent shivers down his spine.

{System Server Installing... Server Installed}

{Calculating Mana present in the atmosphere...}

{6%... 6.2% ... 6.7% ... 7.4% ... 8.2% ... 9.1% ...}

The numbers kept rising and only stopped after reaching 10. He thought it was the end but a few more messages popped up.

{Foreign Intervention detected.}

{Tower of Preservation has been installed - compatibility 100%}

{Tower of Destruction has been installed - compatibility 100%}

{Initiating merging of towers... Error detected: Exceeds limit}

{Select a tower to merge}

Destruction - Releases monsters and beasts by using mana

Chances of survival = 0.003%

Preservation - Deploys energy shields in specific areas

Chances of survival = unknown

The word unknown looked ominous but he decided to follow the unspoken rules and try his best to survive. He also didn't know if he would have control over these towers after merging so he decided to go with preservation since the "unknown" chances of survival were logically better than a mere 0.003%.

'Maybe unknown means that I have a chance to change the probability of survival. I'll go with preservation.'

{Initiating merging of towers... merging successful. Upgrading the tower of preservation to the tower of Hope... Upgrade complete.}

While he was focused on the screen, his driver had fainted and so were many on the road. The only reason there were no casualties on the road was because they all had their vehicles turned off due to the red light.

Unfortunately, the other people on the other roads weren't too lucky but that wasn't even the start as a large matte black tower with protruding red crystals shot down from the sky and lodged itself into the ground at the place where the roads intersected.

This incident caused shockwaves which pushed Larcen out of his reverie. The moment he looked at the tower, he knew that he had to get away from it and he had to do it as soon as possible. He ignored the unconscious driver and ran out of the car before sprinting away from the tower.

He only ran for a hundred meters when he saw another notification on his screen.

{Tower of Hope activating... Tower activated.}

The moment he saw those words, another message appeared.

{Due to the appearance of the Tower of Hope, the system interface will temporarily change. System levels will be deleted. User will have the ability to...}

He shook them off from his vision and focused on the road as escaping was his priority at the moment. He knew what the red tower was and he didn't have to confirm his theory as he heard screeches behind him.

Larcen turned around to see what was happening and what he saw made him turn back around and run even faster. Small creatures with grey skin were appearing around the tower like they were spawning in a game. Some of them had stone daggers in their hands while the rest were bare-handed.

While he was at his top speed, he saw one of those creatures lunge at him from the corner of his sight. He could have evaded it if he was a little slower but unfortunately, he wasn't. The creature was only half a meter away from him when he instinctively swung his fist at it.

The only thing he felt was indescribable pain but he was glad that he wasn't bitten since he didn't know what would happen if he was. He could hear screams behind him but they weren't at the level he expected them to be.

He wanted to turn back and have a look again but he fought the urge and continued running until he was about to lose his breath.

'Ah, I screwed up this time....', he thought as he slowed down and turned to look behind him. There were three of those grey creatures that were following him while ignoring all the people who had fainted.

'Ah... that explains the lack of screams...', he thought as he opened his inventory screen to pull out the axe, only to stop when he saw a guy in a bike stop near him. He didn't have to speak as the guy's eyes screamed, "Get on!"

He followed his instincts and jumped onto the bike while the guy accelerated his vintage-looking bike. The bike roared while Larcen looked around to check if any of those grey things spawned near him before opening his system interface that had gone through a considerable change.

In fact, he even had an edit option at the bottom right of the screen. He checked that option first, only to find out that the edit option worked on inspection skills.

'So now people can check my information huh...', he mused as he looked at the new system interface.

{

Name: Larcen

False Name: Jack Turner

Race: None

Lifespan: 11 months 16 days 07 hours 13 minutes

System Points: 0

Stats:

Strength: 0.3

Stamina: 0.4

Agility: 0.6

Mana: 0

Aether: 0

Talents:

Manufacturer (Unique) - Scanning and Replication

Merchant (Unique) - Inventory access and ability to sell replicas

Server Administrator (Unique) - Set up a server

Aether Affinity (Racial) - Ability to gather, store and convert Aether

Active skills:

Merchant's Eyes - Ability to view information and stats. (No Cost)

Flow State - Enter a state of extreme focus (0.1 Stamina/ Minute)

Passive Skills:

Mana Conversion - Converts Aether to Mana (Current Ratio= 1:10)

}

He quietly changed the contents on his screen by using the bikers' as a reference before marveling at his work.

{

Name: Jack Turner

Race: Human