Chapter 57: Letters
It explained how Morgan died, at least. That mutated ghoul had done untold damage to him back in the hallway; whatever Maxwell’s friend did to him must’ve been enough to finally push him over the edge and into fatal territory.
As for Miles, his wounds hadn’t been explicitly fatal. If he’d gotten to a first aid kit on time, it would likely have just left him crippled. The same went for the others as well.
Ryan took a step towards the pylon, then stopped and glanced at Miles.
"Why don’t you check it first?"
Miles raised a brow at that, so the boy explained.
"You’re the first among us to touch it. I’d say you’re also one of the main reasons we aren’t all dead right now. So you deserve this much at the very least."
He pondered for a little before shrugging and walking forward. He couldn’t really understand what he’d done to be offered that. Everything he had done so far had been for himself, or only because he saw it as necessary.
Stopping before the dark, metallic mass that was the pylon, he felt that odd sense of oppression once again.
He placed his bloody, bandaged hand on the surface once more and felt an alien cold slip into it. It lasted only for a moment before a screen popped up.
[Level 1 Pylon detected. Do you wish to access it?]
[Y/N]
Miles mentally selected ’Y’, making the pop-up disappear and a menu come up in its place.
[Pylon #10755 is currently being accessed by User #6745]
[User #6745]
[User name: Miles]
[E.G.O: None.]
[Skills: Delusion Lv1, Cold resistance Lv1]
[Points: 0]
[Pylon #10755]
[Pylon rank: Level 1 (600/6000)]
[Current capabilities: Reality stabilization field (Level 1), Information, Upgrades.]
The interface was rather sparse, but instinctively, he got a sense of what each part was for. The User section was basically a miniaturized version of his status screen.
He focused on it, only for his actual status screen to pop up. Having already viewed it multiple times, he had no interest in looking at it again and promptly closed it.
Besides, nothing had changed.
He shifted his gaze to the more interesting pylon portion of the interface.
’6000 points.’
There were higher levels to the pylons. Though it seemed the price for each increased exponentially.
’Will it be 60,000 at level 3? What of 4 and 5?’
It would only grow horrifyingly expensive to keep upgrading. Miles focused specifically on the pylon rank section, and the text there automatically highlighted itself, popping out while blurring the rest of the screen.
A new line of text appeared below it.
[Not upgradable. User does not have an EGO.]
It circled back to that EGO that he, and apparently everyone else, lacked. He had thought a bit about it over yesterday and today, but since he hadn’t been able to do much about it, he’d promptly dropped the topic.
Sighing, he shifted his gaze away from the text, returning the menu back to normal. Naturally, he was most interested in the actual capabilities of the pylon, so he went to that next.
The line was highlighted, blurring out the rest of the menu as a list appeared below it.
[Reality stabilization field]
[Current status: Online (Directly suppresses Soma class anomalies, and resists Oikos class effects.)]
[Information.]
[Three letters currently in inbox.]
[Upgrades.]
[One upgrade currently available.]
The reality stabilization field didn’t show more detail when he focused on it. Though, what was visible was rather self-explanatory in and of itself.
He’d seen the term Soma when dealing with the ghouls back then.
’It seems like the lowest class of anomaly there is.’
Oikos was unfamiliar, though.
’Is that the next level?’
He couldn’t help but wonder what the principal ranked under. It didn’t make sense putting him on the same level as those ghouls.
His eyes moved on to the next, and perhaps most important, item.
[Information]
[Letters]
[What is the SYSTEM?]
[The world you live in now.]
[Goodbye.]
Miles hesitated a bit, staring at them. He didn’t know what counted as proper reading order here, so in the end, he just read them in descending order.
[What is the SYSTEM?]
[I have not many words with which to speak to you, child. But you may address me as Gaia. In a sense, I am what you could call the earth’s soul.]
[The SYSTEM protocol, or what I assume most of you now call the system, is an emergency measure created by me to deal with the evolving crises on earth.]
[It is, in a small way, to enable humanity to survive in this new world.]
[As you’ve likely seen on your statuses, the system consists of three main parts: EGO, skills, and traits.]
[EGO is the primary method through which you grow strong. It influences what direction your skills evolve towards and also grants you your second trait. Upgrading skills beyond your current EGO level has been restricted for your safety. Your EGO is the most important part of your strength; it is also fundamentally the most dangerous to you.]
[Traits grant passive, sometimes nebulous effects. They are formed of a mix of your personality and EGO Their effects can sometimes be the difference between life and death.]
[Skills are outward effects of yourself on the world. You can have them inherently or gain them by killing entities with skills of their own (This does not always work). You are limited to five unremovable skills throughout your life now, so be sure of whatever it is that you pick.]
[Of the three above, only EGO and skills can be upgraded using points at any level one pylon. Each a total of five times. The same with pylons.]
[Millions of inactive Pylons have been distributed all over the earth. When near one, your interface will alert you about it. They are much more than just stations to level up.]
[There are many more effects and details to be talked about regarding dangers. But I can only spare you the basics, I’m afraid.]
The letter ended abruptly there. Miles took a moment to process it.
’Gaia... was that the entity talking in the beginning?’
It seemed likely. There had to be more to this apocalypse than just the strange winter and monsters. There was something fundamentally wrong with all of it.
’Most important of all this is EGO, yet somehow, none of us even have it.’
The rest of it seemed to roughly fit with what he’d concluded for himself, with some key blind spots he counted himself lucky to be aware of now.
Still, it was all overshadowed by the absence of EGO.
But Miles was in no hurry to find that yet. He still had two more letters to go through and the rest of the pylon to explore.