“Awaken?... Am I finally awakening my system?!!” said Cade excitedly. His potential was low and the chance for him to awaken naturally was slim. It not only happened to him but all humans with low potential had a low chance to awaken.

80% of humans were born with low-grade potential. The low-grade potential was people with grade E potential, the lowest grade listed in the system. Humans with grade E potential had a super low chance to awaken their system.

People with this potential rarely awaken and even if they awakened, they will be the weakest among the explorers. The only thing they could do was be another explorer’s porter or servant or slave if they intended to survive as an explorer.

Cade sat on the sofa and waited until the meter bar was full. It took about ten minutes for the meter to fill and Cade patiently waited for that.

Ten minutes later, the system sent Cade a few notifications. Cade was too excited and did not read the notifications. He thought it was a normal procedure for the system to do that when someone awakened and he said yes to all.

After a few times of ‘yes’, there were no more notifications. Flint opened his stats and new stats were shown in the system.

Name: Cade

Age: 20

Lifespan: 60

Potential: E

Level: 1

Stat Points: 0

Vitality: 10

Strength: 3

Endurance: 3

Dexterity: 3

Wisdom: 5

Luck: 1

Skill: Link Growth, Level: -, Grade: Special, Effect: Anything link with the user can grow stronger.

Cade had a lifespan of 60 years, which meant he will die of old age at the age of 60. However, that did not matter now as he had awakened.

All explorers will be able to increase their lifespan as they level up. How many years will they get was based on their potential. The higher their potential, the longer they will live.

However, the lifespan will only reflect their death due to old age. If they were in an accident, had a fatal illness and were killed by monsters or people, their lifespan will not affect that. Even when they are surprised and shocked to death can cost their life.

However, in the age of magic and technology, the resurrection was possible. With the right conditions, it was possible to bring back the dead to life.

Cade had E grade potential. With this grade, every time he leveled up, he will gain 10 stat points. People with higher grades of potential will gain more stat points when they are leveling up.

This was the reason Cade’s family kept his birth a secret from the public. No matter how high his level was, he cannot be on the same power as people of the higher grade but the same level.

The stats difference between explorers of different grades were like heaven and earth. They were too far apart, especially when they were at a higher level.

Other than his vitality, his other stats were really bad especially his luck. Out of the six stats, luck was the only stat human incapable of leveling up with their stat points. With only 1 point of luck, Cade will have a super hard time getting a monster drop and landed a critical hit on them.

Upon seeing his stats again, Cade sighed. Even if he had awakened, he was still part of the loser group. However, an awakener was still an awakener. When he became an explorer, the explorer title was enough to give him some fame to his name.

Then, Cade looked at the skill he got from awakening. Everyone who awakens will automatically get a skill. The skill everyone got was random. If they are lucky, they will get good skills.

Cade looked at his skill and he smiled when he saw the grade of his skill. It was a special grade skill. Special grade skill was not that rare. Many awakeners got special grade skills and most of them were different from each other.

Just like the grade implied, the skill was special. Everyone with this skill will usually make a name in society… if they had high potential.

Cade might not be able to make his name known in the universe but he was happy nonetheless with the special grade skill he got. At least, his 1 point of luck favored him this time.

“Link growth, anything linked to me can grow stronger?? Hmm~ I wonder what kind of link the skill meant?” Cade was thinking what the skill meant. Did his skill consider to be something linked to him?

Cade opened his skill list and out of three skill slots he had, one was occupied by link growth and the other two empty skill slots were glowing in blue. Upon seeing the blue glow, Cade was happy.

He read online that there was no such thing as the skill slot emitted some kind of color that happened to anyone. Cade concluded that that meant he can make his skills grow stronger. Upon thinking of doing that made him excited.

Cade was done viewing everything when he accidentally opened his storage slot. To his surprise, six out of ten slots of his storage were also glowing in blue. Cade was happy to see that. He can grow things he put in his storage… was his conclusion until he saw that the glowing slots were filled with things he currently wore.

However, all the things he wore were not inside his storage. Upon closer look, the picture of items in that slot faded.

“Hmm? What is happening?” Cade wondered and then he tried to bring out the item out of his storage. Unfortunately, it cannot be taken out. Cade tried to move the items to other empty slots but it was not moving.

Cade had a bad feeling about it. Cade put his cardboard short sword into the storage and the slots where a faded cardboard short sword was located gained its color back. Cade tried to move the cardboard short sword to another slot and just like before, it was not moving.

However, the system pulled out a new screen and upon reading what was written on the screen, Cade’s face went white.

Cardboard Short Sword (Link)

Level: 1

Next Level: 5 Level 1 magic crystal

Durability: 1

Attack: 1

“No way! No way!! No way!!!” Cade went panicked. Cade stored back his black hoodie, white t-shirt, black jeans, cardboard round shield, and cardboard mouth mask. He tried to move them out of the glowing slot but they were not moving.

The stats of all of them were shown in front of him and they were all linked to Cade. The level, durability and other stats of them were seriously the worst he had seen in his life. All of them had 1 point. Only 1.

“……..” Cade with only his underwear on his body sat silently on his sofa while looking at the white floor. He was silent for almost ten minutes until he snapped back to reality.

Cade finally remembered that earlier, he got lots of notifications from the system and he suspected that that notifications were asking him about linking what he wore at the time.

Cade felt like crying. He should have read it first before saying yes. Cade walked back to his room and took some clothes to wear and he suddenly got some ideas.

Cade took out the cardboard equipment and burned them to ashes. He thought that if he destroyed them, the link would be broken. However, to his surprise, the faded picture of the cardboard equipment was still there in his storage.

A minute later, they were restored. Cade blankly looked at his storage. He closed his system and lay on his bed. A few minutes later, he fell asleep.

An hour later, Cade woke up and checked his storage and they were still there. He went to sleep because he thought that that was all a dream and when he woke up, it would not be as bad as his dream. However, it was not a dream.

Cade started accepting his fate. He loses his mood of doing anything that day and all he did was lie on his bed blankly staring on the ceiling of his room. He felt like his luck stat said it all about what had happened.

For the next few days, other than going to class, eating and using the toilet, Cade did not do anything else. Cade thought that he would finally be able to change his life but his carelessness cost him a lot. He regretted not reading the notifications properly.

However, what was done cannot be undone. No matter how much Cade regretted it, he cannot change it.

Cade stared at his storage and then he realized something.

“That’s right! All of this equipment, no matter how weak they are, I can make them stronger. Equipment drop from monsters cannot grow stronger but my equipment can. I can still become stronger if I grow my equipment properly,” Cade suddenly came to his realization.

With that sudden realization, Cade's eyes were burning with passion.