Chapter 2 02 - Hack System
Leo's heart was racing. He was worried that something really bad could happen to him because of how buggy the message on the screen was, but he couldn't do anything to fix it. The only thing he could do is wait and see what that would turn out to be.
Finally, the remaining 60 seconds passed and another message appeared.
[Your life experiences have been… AnAlYzEd… Your fun in abusing the system to gain illegal advantages… ErRoR… SECURITY PROTOCOL, SYSTEM RISK INITIATED… SECURITY PROTOCOL 01 fAiLeD… STARTING SECURITY PROTOCOL 02… Success! Your skill has been defined.]
"Have I triggered a security protocol?" Leo's mouth dropped open in shock. He didn't even know there was a security protocol in the system. It was never made public, and the worst part, he hadn't even done anything to trigger it.
"Maybe it's because I only have fun playing games when I use hacks?" Leo was speechless after deducing this. "Has it at least been resolved?"
Curious, Leo called up the status screen to see the changes that had occurred to him.
[Leonardo Lentz
Age: 17 Years
Rank: Bronze 1 Star
Talent: Hack
Quirks: Aim-Bot Lv. 01: In a 10 meter radius around the user, anything the user throws or shoots will hit the target with 100% hit rate. With each level the distance and accuracy will increase.
Available Quirks: Wall-Hack (500 Evolution Points), Speed-Hack (1,000 Evolution Points), ?????? (?????? Evolution Points)]
Leo looked at his system and was shocked by what he saw. The skill he unlocked was really related to the hacks he used to play - something that wasn't unacceptable, as other than studying Awakened, that was the only thing he did for fun. But by using these skills so much in games, Leo knew how strong these skills were, to the point where he could kill 46 people in one game and not die once. Even playing MMORPG games where people had even stronger skills, there were hacks that allowed him to dominate other people with ease as well.
"Apparently I only have FPS Game Hacks. Maybe that's just for now, but this alone is already great!" Leo got very excited as he looked at his abilities, but there was still something that confused him.
"System, turn on beginner's question mode," Leo said out loud.
[Beginner query mode activated. During the next hour the system will answer all user queries. After the end of that time, the system will not answer any more questions.]
This mode was something that helped the newly Awakened a lot when the system appeared, but over time it became more and more useless, since all the questions anyone might ask usually already had answers on the internet. However, for Leo it was essential now. He saw that there were different things in his System that he needed to clarify.
"What does Available Quirks mean?" Leo asked, confused. He knew that normal people didn't even know what skills they might unlock later, but for him they showed up, and it even came at a price for him to do so.
[Because of an Error initializing System connection to user, User System needed to be updated to version 2.0, which is not yet available to other people on this planet due to Error Recovering Data. To be fixed in Timestamp Error.
Available Quirks is a method where the user can unlock other quirks at the cost of Evolution points.]
Leo was shocked to hear this news. Probably no one in the world knew that their system was still at version 1.0 and that someone on Earth had already unlocked a version 2.0!
"How do I get Evolution Points?" Leo asked with a frown.
[By killing monsters the user receives Experience Points, which can be used to level up or be converted to Evolution Points to level up Quirks and unlock new Quirks.]
Now Leo was shocked. It was common knowledge that when killing monsters, Awakened would level up. Rising from Bronze 1 Star to Bronze 2 Stars after killing a decent number of monsters, but no one ever heard that Quirks could also be evolved that way! Even though it would delay a person from leveling up in the short term, with more powerful quirks it would be easier to kill more powerful monsters and consequently rise to even higher levels in the future.
…
Leo spent the rest of the 60 minutes asking the System questions about things he had doubts about and the answers were very satisfying. He knew he had an advantage that no one else in the world had, and he would use that advantage to outshine everyone else.
"Let's test this skill," Leo told himself as he held a pen.
Looking around his living room, Leo took a sheet of paper and drew a target on it with his pen, then placed the paper with the target on a chair and walked away a few feet.
Leo focused and activated the Aim-Bot Quirk. As soon as he activated the quirk and focused on hitting the bull's-eye on the sheet of paper, his arm started moving by itself until it stopped in position to throw the pen.
He just thought of throwing the pen at the target and his arm had already done that by itself!
Swooosh! With a startled look, Leo saw the pen fly across the room at terrifying speed, before he heard the ripping sound of paper.
Not believing what he was seeing, Leo ran to the sheet of paper and saw that the pen had gone right through the dot in the center of the target!
"This is amazing!" Leo yelled in shock as he looked at the pen that went through half the paper.
p??d? n?ve? He knew that if he tried to do this before getting the skill, he would still be able to hit the paper but maybe not even hit the target.
"Let's try further." Leo said as he dragged the chair across the room to his apartment and put the paper back in the same place.
This time he moved to the end of the hallway that led to the bathroom to try to get as far apart as possible. As the apartments provided by the military were not too small, Leo managed to clear a distance of 12 meters from the paper.
Swooosh!
After the same processes, the pen flew out of Leo's hand and through the paper again, but when he got closer, he saw that this time the pen had missed the center of the target by 2 cm.
"So the further away, the less accurate…" Leo said to himself as he analyzed the place the pen went through.
After that, Leo decided to try a more daring idea. He placed the pen hanging on the other side of the chair.
He backed up a few steps and used the skill again.
Swoosh, peng, peng…
This time the pen flew out of Leo's hand with even more force, hit the wall sideways, bounced off the window and landed perfectly in the center of the target.
If Leo was surprised before, now he was completely stunned.
"With Aim-Bot I can hit any target I know of within this small space, but if I have Wall-Hack, how strong will that be, I wonder?" Leo looked at his hands in amazement as he thought of the infinite possibilities of what he could do with that power.
As much as people with Fire or Ice Quirks could seem very flashy, dazzling, and powerful, Leo knew that his discreet Hack ability had far greater potential than those abilities.
"The 10 meters range for now is a small limitation, but if I get enough Exp from killing monsters, the range of this skill can probably be improved!" Leo said excitedly.
Leo didn't think twice and left the house to buy supplies. He was determined to kill at least one monster the next day.
Despite having little money, Leo managed to buy some useful weapons for himself to use. With the money he had, he wouldn't be able to buy a bow to shoot monsters from afar, so Leo bought 3 throwing knives and some camouflaged clothes. The rest of the night he spent playing with the knives and testing the limits of his skill until bedtime.
The next day Leo took a shower to get rid of the residual sleep in his body, ate a hearty breakfast, and went hunting. Leaving home with a Quirk now changed Leo's worldview. Before, he just walked down the street with his head down, looking at his cell phone, trying to study as many things about the Awakened as possible, but now he was looking ahead, feeling confident, and subconsciously sifting through possible targets he could take out with his skill.
The three knives were strapped to his waist, two on his right and one on his left. As much as he could hit targets with either hand, being right-handed, his right arm could throw knives harder, so he only carried a knife for his left hand in case of an emergency.
Upon arriving at the city gate, the guards looked at him with a confused expression, as Leo was very young.
"Do you want to awaken your Quirk, boy?" a guard asked.
"I awoke yesterday. I'm actually leaving to practice my skill," Leo replied calmly.
The guard looked at Leo suspiciously, but after Leo projected a screen in front of him with his name on it, the guard finally believed the boy and let him through. The system screen had an option that allowed one to project their screen just for one person to see, project for multiple others to see, or project for others to see just what they themselves want. Leo only allowed his name to be visible, and with that he was already allowed to leave town unaccompanied.
"Those Bronze 1 Star kids are very reckless. So many boys his age die because they just unlocked their skill and think they're powerful…" the soldier sighed toward his companion.
"Even though I'm Bronze 3 Stars, I'm still trying to get out of town alone. These kids have no sense of danger," the other soldier also sighed.
Unlike what they imagined, Leo did have the common sense to know that it was dangerous to leave the city, but he still left because he needed to get Exp points to level up his skills, and with how much he studied, he was confident that he could do it safely.
'Monsters, here I come,' Leo said mentally as he walked into the forest outside of town.