The intervention of the commander worked like a charm. The appearance of someone from the top brass had injected confidence into the room. Mr Frog remained baffled only for a moment. He called to his assistants for the list and explained the basic rules of the ceremony, which sounded not much different from the standard ones: sit down on the chair next to the glyph, swallow a Talent stone and wait.

“Robert Atkin.”

A short guy, in an oversized tuxedo, stood up and on wobbling feet walked over to the empty seat next to the large, black glyph. Despite his dark complexion, his face remained pale. He sat down on the chair as per instructions of Mr Frog. It really reminded Keynes of the Sorting Ceremony. One could say the Talent Unlocking ceremony was a social, coming of age event. The most important transition in life.

Keynes had attended his cousin Ricko’s ceremony and remembered the changes. Would there be the same changes as then? Beneath thick layers of stress, Keynes was intrigued. How would this new ceremony affect them? He would feel even better if he wasn’t on the receiving end.

“You’ll do well!” someone shouted from the crowd after Robert Atkin swallowed the small stone. It didn’t help the poor guy, who looked like he wanted the floor to open up and take him. Mr Frog went to pick up a tablet from a desk. His fingers began dancing on its surface and a few seconds later Keynes felt the pressure in the room go up.

“That thing is on another level,” his father murmured. “I’d love to see it from up close.”

The pressure was a new thing and Keynes didn’t know what to think about it. Some other students looked ready to run. Robert Atkin on the other hand had a distant look as if not seeing them at all. Keynes noticed changes right away. They were subtle and he saw them only because of his photographic memory which allowed him to remember perfectly how Robert Atkin looked just a few seconds ago. Nonetheless, the transition between an ordinary body and a Level 1 body was difficult to describe. It seemed as if the skin became a little smoother, muscles denser and toned. Even the eyes gained a bit more contrast. Details were hard to spot but the total sum of them was more than visible.

The pressure disappeared and Robert Atkin blinked as if he forgot where he was. His parents stood up, expressions on their faces clear – what kind of Talent did their son receive?

He smiled, which was a response they waited for. Robert Atkin sprung to his feet, a shock plastered on his face. A Level 1 body was noticeably stronger. Still, he was drenched in sweat, his tuxedo resembling a wet swimming suit.

Mr Frog thanked him and Robert Atkin returned to his parents. They didn’t stay as they weren’t required to do so. Seeing their happy faces, the general mood lifted.

The process was repeated six more times before Keynes heard his name. No one received an inactive Talent so far. Keynes wondered if it was a good or bad sign.

His parents gave him words of encouragement, he hardly heard them. His heart was hammering in his chest. It was the most important moment of his life. In a couple of minutes, Keynes’s future would be determined. Talents were unchangeable. He never thought what Maria Brown had had to go through when she’d received the worst possible outcome in this insane lottery. I hope the Foxgloves’ method worked.

Keynes’s legs didn’t fare much better than Robert Atkin’s and his feet felt like they were laden with lead.

He made his way to the chair, looking at it with trepidation. There were still over a hundred people in the room, watching him.

“Please swallow the Talent stone and take a seat,” Mr Frog said, then added quietly. “I can’t wait to see the interaction between your memory and the Talent. I expect it to be amazing.”

Keynes sat down, swallowed the stone and waited for the pressure to appear.

It didn’t, in its place, Keynes felt his body go cold, then the world around him froze and before his eyes words appeared, suspended in the air. He tried to blink, it looked surreal. Yes, he knew something like this would happen but experiencing it couldn’t be passed on to those who didn’t go through the same process…

Transition into a Level 1 Human initiated…

Basic conditions met.

Initializing…

Keynes lost the connection to his eyes, going blind. He still could see the text though.

A Level 1 Human body unlocked!

Despite knowing that the change drained a lot of energy, Keynes expected to feel… powerful? Or at least something like this. Instead, he was exhausted but his body felt a little different. Even with his perfect memory, he wasn’t able to tell what exactly was different. He needed to regain his strength to figure this out. But the process was not yet over. One more thing still needed to be unlocked – his Talent.

Talent unlocking initialized…

Talent detected…

Unlocking…

…

…

Error detected.

What the hell is going on?! His thoughts were slow and seemed to come from far away.

…

Anomaly detected…

Analysing…

…

Talent Unlocked!

Accessing the Talent Interface…

Talent

Type

Affinity

Details

Lockpicking

Active

Error

Ability to open locked objects and locations. No cooldown.

Keynes’s eyes greedily read the name of his Talent and its description, and his heart sank to the bottom. He was screwed. Such a Talent would be good for a thief not for him. The Foxgloves’ method failed. Keynes didn’t receive a mind related Talent as they hoped.

The more he thought about the Talent the more he understood how bad his Talent was. It was just a step away from an inactive one…

He gasped as the world unfroze and he was back in the room with a hundred people, their eyes weren’t on him though. He turned his head to find out what they were looking at.

Webster Frog stared bewildered at his tablet, his mouth was working but produced no sound. What was going on? Keynes glanced back at the gathered people, finding his parents standing. They seemed worried. And they weren’t the only ones. Keynes noticed Vivena standing next to her mother near the entrance. Both of them had concerned looks. After all, Mrs Foxglove told him he was an investment.

“What’s going on?” Keynes’s father asked. There was a murmur, some parents became worried again. No one could blame them. This shouldn’t have happened, right?

Mr Frog shook his head and cleared his throat.

“Please do not worry, Keynes received his Talent and it isn’t an inactive one.” But it’s close. It’s totally useless to me.

“Then why did you look like you saw a ghost?”

Others picked up on the question and repeated it. It’s the error thing, the anomaly. Is this the Foxgloves’ doing or the military’s fault?

“It’s an internal thing. We’ve captured more important data than we expected. Everything’s fine.”

He was so bad at communicating but that didn’t matter to Keynes right now. He stood up, expecting his legs to feel weak. They were not. There was strength to his body now.

“Can I go?”

Mr Frog turned, startled.

“Yes, yes. Thank you.” Keynes sensed a hint of disappointment in Mr Frog’s voice. He expected me to get something mind-related as well, I get it. But why was he so invested in it? It was a kind of question that didn’t matter anymore.

He met his family on the way out of the room. They weren’t going to stay. Without company representatives, no one was announcing their Talents anyway. They made their way to Vivena and her mother.

Her brows raised expectantly as they approached.

Keynes found his throat dry, so he managed only to shake his head.

“What do you mean?” she asked, harshly. For the first time, Keynes felt her spiritual pressure and it left him… terrified. An ordinary human didn’t have Spirit attribute and couldn’t feel the spiritual presence of others. If this was the spiritual strength of Level 5 he didn’t want to imagine how powerful was the Highest Level in the solar system.

Before Keynes explained what happened, they’d exited the room. Strangely, his parents didn’t say anything. They were as curious as Mrs Foxglove. He didn’t blame them.

“It’s nothing mind-related.”

“Show me.”

“What? How?”

“Access it and make it visible to us. It’s an intuitive process.”

He did as she said and she was right. It was easy. They looked at his Talent interface in silence.

The silence stretched. Yes. They realized what he’d realized back in the room. This Talent was useless.

“This can’t be,” Mrs Foxglove said then frowned. “And why is there an error in the categories section?” Keynes knew from the Talent class that the categories section showed tags related to the Talent. From what his mother had told him he knew she had two – mind and harmony. Not having anything made his Talent even worse. Tags allowed a Talent to be targeted by runes, glyphs, other Talents and so on.

“During the process, the text showed an error and an anomaly but that was all.”

“This damn military,” she cursed, she spun on her heel and added. “I’d advise you to sue them. Whatever they’ve done, it messed up with his Talent.”

They nodded weakly.

“What’s the problem?” Harter asked.

No one answered him. Keynes watched Vivena follow her mother out of the corridor. She gave him a sad smile before she disappeared around the corner.

***

Billions of light-years away from Earth, several beings stirred from their slumber. They were awoken by the persistent alarm that blared in their minds.

One of them quickly accessed the Control Interface and found a wall of red warnings.

Unlock Category detected!

Emergency Protocol initiated…

Erasing the Talent failed…

Changing the Talent failed…

Corrupting the Talent failed…

…

Access denied!

Access denied? The being bypassed the Control Interface and reached directly into the code that held the rules and laws of this Universe. This, among many other categories, should be erased from the code.

And they were.

He’d personally removed them from the code aeons ago and apart from him, no one else in the Universe was capable of the feat. No one else crossed Level 75.

“What is the matter?” asked others who accompanied him since the beginning. They called themselves Ascenders although the System didn’t have a name for a person who breached the hard Level cap.

“Someone in the Universe received a forbidden Talent.”

“How do we proceed?”

“We erase the offender from existence. We do not want the code to adapt and mutate. We cannot allow history to repeat.”

“Agreed,” six other beings voiced their consent.

They were formless lumps of energy. Unless they had a need to assume a physical form, they could remain like this forever.

“I will do it.”

The leader of Ascenders reached the code and found the location of the Talent. He did not bother travelling conventionally because manipulating the code would take him there in an instant.

He appeared above a blue planet packed with Humans. From this distance, he could see the exact location of the person who received the forbidden Talent. Before he removed the offender, he needed to understand how the Talent had come to be. A glitch? Glitches happened all the time. Most times, they were harmless and left to their own devices the system took care of them.

His mind touched the offender…

Access denied!

That was new. He increased the strength of the connection. It would kill the offender’s body and soul but it mattered not.

Access denied!

This… this was not normal.

He once again checked the code, searching for the past manipulation. If this was a glitch it would not stop him from touching the offender and the Talent. Nothing in the Universe could stop him.

Another try was blocked. If he used more power, the Spiritual Core of this world would be affected. It could destroy the planet. But he had to understand what had happened to ensure it would not occur again. A hundred billion Humans were well worth sacrificing for that kind of knowledge.

He concentrated his power in a single thread…

“I wouldn’t do it.”

He froze. No one could see him in the higher realm and yet a man in white fur and crude weapons stood nearby, watching him. His red beard spilt over the front of his chest.

He slammed his Spirit against the intruder and… was completely rebuffed! Impossible.

The intruder laughed.

“Silly thing.”

“What are you?”

“Adventurer, traveller, explorer… I guess. Call me Traveller though. I like the sound of it.”

“Have you meddled with the forbidden Talent?”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then why have you stopped me from investigating it?”

“Because given the strength of your Spirit, it’d shatter the world, kill everyone on it and destroy their souls. Destroying souls, seriously? That’s low.”

He was looking at the intruder bewildered. His senses told him nothing. As far as they were concerned, he didn’t exist. The same thing occurred when he checked the code. It didn’t see the intruder.

“I have done it thousands of times before. Why would you care now?”

The intruder shrugged.

“Timing I guess.”

“This Talent must be removed from existence.”

“I bet it must but it—”

Access to the Code revoked!

Access to the Milky Way Galaxy revoked!

The blue planet disappeared and the leader of the Ascenders was hurtled into a vast, empty space, distant stars unknown to him.

With a shock he realized, he did not know the way back to the rest of the Ascenders.

He was lost.

***

Somewhere in the secret base in Jamaica, a quiet alarm flashed red. Specialist Willow Croft snorted, spilling coffee all over his desk. He didn’t bother wiping it as he stared at the monitor.

One of the functions of the new Talent system was to evaluate Talents in real-time, giving the military the chance to snatch an individual with a good Talent before others. That was the official, military version. Willow knew about a different side of the project. Led by the World Government secret organisation, it hunted for a certain group of Talents. Armed with the newest masterpiece, the Talent Evaluation system, it was a piece of cake. The Talent Evaluation System sieved through millions of Talents, giving them rank from one to ten, categorising and picking promising candidates to contact. What Willow Croft knew shouldn’t be part of the official version of the system was the rank eleven.

This was the aim of the entire secret operation.

He read the short message. It ordered him to contact the man in charge of the secret project.

Lord Waxillium Earl.

A few minutes later, he managed to get through.

“Sir, a system just pinged a Talent ranked eleven.”

“Where?!” Waxillium Earl cut in sharply. “Where?!”

“Calaveras Military Base in San Antonio.”

Waxillium Earl immediately dropped the call. Willow Croft remained in his seat, staring at the alert. They didn’t expect a hit so early.

He attempted to check the Talent but the system denied him access. What? He had a high-level authorisation and it shouldn’t be possible.

It didn’t matter. In a few days, he would see the Talent with his own eyes.

***

Keynes and his family returned home. Very few words passed between them on their way there. Even Harter realized that something was indeed wrong and stayed quiet.

“You still have your photographic memory,” his mother said.

“There must be good jobs that would need someone with your Talent.”

“Yeah, like what?”

His father fell silent but perked up before anyone else could interrupt the silence.

“What about security? You could audit or challenge the security of buildings with your Talent.”

“Or go rogue,” Harter added.

Keynes snorted at the absurdity of the idea. But then his Talent was perfectly designed for criminal use. He wouldn’t be surprised if the police or the military warned him about misusing his Talent. And if the knowledge about my Talent spread out, how long before some criminals show up and tell me to open locks for them.

“This isn’t funny,” his mother said. “Going bad is never an answer.”

Harter shrugged and left the living room.

“Are we going to sue them?” Keynes asked, reflecting on Mrs Foxglove’s advice. It was a shame that he missed the best opportunity in his life.

“We should have. This is their fault. They must pay Keynes damages.” Keynes agreed with his mother.

“No, we shouldn’t. Doing this will expose Keynes’s Talent to the world and we don’t want shady people to know about his Talent.”

He also agreed with his father.

“The military would want to keep it quiet. They can’t allow it to go public.” Good point, mum. “Ewan, this is about Keynes’s future. If we do nothing now, we’ll regret it.”

Her husband didn’t respond.

***

A day later, Keynes still wondered if this was a bad dream. His mood was soured when Joe’s mother came over to give them the excellent news, Joe got a fantastic Talent – the ability to see through some materials. She didn’t specify what materials but she said, he had already received several well-paid job offers. Good for him, Keynes thought sourly.

It only cemented Keynes’s conviction that they should sue the military. His mother tried to contact the Foxgloves but their number was no longer active.

“I’ll go and visit them,” she said to Keynes and then walked out of the house.

With his father at work and his brother at school, Keynes sat alone in the house.

He brought up the Talent Interface.

Talent

Type

Affinity

Details

Lockpicking

Active

Error

Ability to open locked objects and locations. No cooldown.

First of all, how could he see the attributes? Yes, he knew that most people couldn’t see them. He didn’t want to be one of those. He concentrated on his attributes.

Insufficient Spirit to gain access to the Body Interface.

And there it was. Confirmation that he, like most people, couldn’t check on the attributes. It sucked. He closed his eyes and reached inside himself, hoping to sense his Spirit.

It didn’t work. He was aware of Spirit inside but he couldn’t detect it. He spent an hour like this. He only found frustration. This thing didn’t work like in the cultivation stories where people had spiritual cores inside them.

Resigned, he still wanted to check one more interface that he knew existed. It was called the General Interface. He knew this from his uncle who was Level 2 and had access to it though very limited. His uncle Ricky could only see his level, next level progress and race. A rumour went that the higher levels had access to more of the interface as their Spirit attribute grew. It made sense judging by the message he received from the system. That was another thing; what was the system? The school and literature were rather vague about it. Maybe they the humankind didn’t know? Unlikely. With the wealth of the Talents in the solar system, there had to appear people smart enough to offer an insight. I hoped to be one of them.

Strangely, before unlocking Level 1, Keynes hadn’t had that necessity to learn the inner workings of the system and everything that was associated with it. Now there was a nagging urge at the back of his mind that wanted him to learn more.

His parents weren’t home so he couldn’t ask them if they’d experienced the same peculiarity.

Keynes tried to bring up the General Interface

Insufficient Spirit attribute to gain access to the General Interface.

It made so little sense. Why give people the system but restrict most of it? What was even more pronounced now to Keynes was the lack of sustainable ways of farming essence required to level up. As of now, the only way to gain levels was to kill other people. A big no-no for Keynes. It felt like the world was incomplete. It most likely was a hunch caused by all the games and stories he’d exposed himself to over the years. It only didn’t make sense if the system had been created by a god. But the prevalent belief was that the system was natural, a part of evolution and like evolution, it evolved blindly and seemingly without logic.

With free time on his hands and no willingness to find a job, Keynes booted his computer. He needed to learn more about the system.

“No Internet? What age do we live in?” he murmured.

A violent knocking made him jump. Apparently, all Level 1 bodies were the same. A crazy idea.

He made his way to the front door, wondering who was so desperate to knock like a madman. He stopped a few steps from the door and asked himself again – who is this?

“Please, open the door,” a man called from the other side. Does he know I am inside? How? “Keynes Kid, open the door.”

Shit, they’ve figured out what my Talent can do and they’re afraid I will go and start robbing houses.

“What’s this about?” he called back without opening or unlocking the door.

“We would like to have a chat with you. Please, open the door.”

“And who are you?” he started retreating. No chance he’d open the door to this man.

“I’m from the military base. You forgot to sign a few documents. Can you open the door?”

“What documents?” He knew the man was lying.

“About your Talent. Standard paperwork. Can you open the door?”

“One moment.” He went to the phone and dialled the police… No way. The line was cold. The Internet didn’t work. What’s going on?

No one stood at the rear door. He could run away but what then? If this guy spoke the truth and he was military, Keynes wouldn’t get far. In a few hours entire Texas would be hunting for him.

More importantly what about his family? Would they be in trouble if Keynes try to escape? He regretted not reading any law books. He’d know what he should do now…

CRASH!

Footsteps of several people sounded in the house. They broke in? That’s not normal. He stepped outside, closing the rear door with care. He didn’t wish to alarm them.

It didn’t matter though. A man materialized out of thin air. He looked a lot like Agent Smith from Matrix and without touching Keynes, the man slammed his spiritual energy into him. The world spun before Keynes’s eyes. It felt as if Keynes spent a couple of hours in an ice bath and his body lost feeling but at the same time, every inch of his body screamed in unnatural exhaustion.

“Do not resist,” the man said.

“You…do…n…”

“Good,” the man from the front door said. “We take him in now. Quick.”

Something stung Keynes in the neck and he lost consciousness.

***

Keynes was jerked awake by a sharp smell.

“What…is…this?” he mumbled. No one answered him though he saw two people in the room with him. The room itself filled him with panic. All the walls and the ceiling were plain white without a single feature. It gave off a feeling of a mental hospital. Did the unlocking do something to me? Keynes quickly got rid of the unwelcome notion. His mind felt a bit sluggish, which must be the consequence of the drug they’d injected him with.

The two men wore black suits, their faces as plain as their clothes. They sat on each side of the dull green door, observing him. Keynes didn’t feel their spiritual presence. That was odd. So far, every person emitted a little spiritual energy with the higher levels radiating more than a little.

“Why did you kidnap me?” Keynes asked.

One of the men stood up and knocked on the door.

“He’s awake.”

The door didn’t open immediately and he needed to wait for at least ten minutes before another man came inside the room. He displayed complete ease, a shadow of a smile played on his face as his grey eyes took the scene in.

“Just uncuff him already,” he said with a quiet whine. “He isn’t a criminal.”

Only then did Keynes notice that he was cuffed. It seemed that his mind didn’t fully wake up as he believed.

They quickly uncuffed him.

“Alright, boys. I will take it from here.”