The System Gave Everyone Superpowers

I took the subway back to District 4. The train was mostly empty. I sat in the corner, staring at my reflection in the dark window.

I was still angry. The memory of my family laughing at me played over and over in my head. I wanted to level up. To get stronger just to prove them wrong.

But wanting to be strong and actually being strong are two different things.

I pulled up my Status Screen.

Level: 1

BP: 19/20

I was weak. The anger in my chest wasn't going to magically make my stats higher. If I walked into this Public Zone and fought like an idiot, I was going to die. I had to be smart and careful.

The train stopped. I got off and walked up the stairs to the street level.

The address Miller gave me was an abandoned subway entrance that had been closed down years ago. The gates were rusted shut, but someone had cut a hole through the chain-link fence.

There were no police lines or HRC proctors standing guard. Just a dark hole leading underground.

This was a Public Zone.

When the System arrived, it also created Zones. Zones are pockets of space controlled by the System, filled with hostile Constructs.

Private Zones are owned by rich companies. They are safe, have medics and automatic teleportation if you get hurt. Rich kids pay thousands of dollars to train in them safely.

Public Zones spawn randomly in abandoned places. They are free to enter, but they have zero rules. If you die in a Public Zone, you just die. Your body stays there.

I took a deep breath, squeezed through the hole in the fence and started walking down the dark stairs.

The air immediately felt different. It was like breathing underwater. The temperature dropped and the only light came from green moss that the System had spawned on the walls.

I reached the bottom of the stairs. I was standing on an old subway platform. The tracks were covered in trash and rust.

A blue System notification popped up in my vision.

[Entered: F-Rank Public Zone]

[Objective: Defeat the Zone Boss and retrieve the Core.]

I pulled the baton off my belt. It felt lame, but Miller was right. I couldn't rely entirely on my BP. I only had 19 points left.

I started walking down the platform.

I stopped after hearing a sound coming from the darkness ahead.

I squinted and saw two figures step out from behind a concrete pillar.

They were Constructs. These Constructs looked like dogs. They had gray stone skin and glowing red eyes with sharp teeth.

They saw me, lowered their heads and growled.

I swallowed hard. My heart started beating faster.

This wasn't a test. There were no proctors watching. If these things bit me, my Level 1 Health Points would drop to zero, and I would bleed out on this dirty floor.

The first stone dog lunged at me moving incredibly fast, aiming for my leg.

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I panicked and reacted out of fear.

I swung my hand forward and used Master of the Elements.

I pulled all the moisture out of the air in front of me and flash-froze it. I created a wall of ice between me and the dog.

The dog slammed headfirst into the ice wall, yelping and falling backward, shaking its head.

I looked at my Status Screen.

Cost: 5 BP.

I winced. Five points! That was a quarter of my entire gas tank gone in one second.

The ice wall was strong, but the second dog was smart. It ran around the side of the wall, leaping off a bench to attack me from the side.

It was mid-air, flying right at my face.

I gripped my baton tightly and swung it as hard as I could.

The baton hit the dog right in the jaw and the force of the blow knocked the dog out of the air, but the impact sent a terrible shockwave up my arm. My wrist flared with pain and I dropped the baton.

The dog hit the ground, but it shook off the hit and stood back up, its red eyes glowing brighter. The first dog recovered and ran around the ice wall to join its partner.

Now there were two of them, and I had dropped my weapon.

Welcome to the bottom.

The two dogs slowly circled me,learning. They realized I wasn't going to just stand there and let them bite me.

My wrist throbbed with pain and my baton was on the floor, five feet away. If I tried to dive for it, the dogs would jump on my back.

I had to use my Blessing again.

I looked at my BP pool. 14/20.

I couldn't afford another big ice wall. I needed to kill them, and I needed to do it cheaply.

The first dog lunged, going for my knee.

I focused on the air directly under the dog’s paws and used a concentrated blast of wind, shooting straight up from the floor.

Cost: 2 BP.

The wind hit the dog's stomach like an invisible uppercut. It yelped as it was flipped completely upside down in mid-air.

While it was upside down, I reached out with my mind and dropped the temperature of the air around its metal teeth to absolute zero.

Metals become extremely brittle when they are flash-frozen.

The dog crashed onto its back, its frozen metal jaw shattered into tiny pieces upon impact.

A blue notification popped up.

[Construct Defeated. +10 XP]

The dog dissolved into gray pixels, leaving nothing behind.

One down. One to go.

I turned to face the second dog. It leaped right at my chest, claws extended.

I was out of time to use a smart trick so I threw my arms up to protect my face.

The dog hit me hard and the force knocked me backward. I fell to the floor, the dog landing right on top of me. Its claws dug into my shirt, scratching my chest.

Pain shot through my body and I looked at my Health Points.

HP: 60/100.

One hit took almost half my health.

The dog opened its mouth, aiming for my neck. I grabbed its throat with both hands, trying to push it away but my Strength stat was only 5. The dog was much heavier and stronger than me. Its teeth inched closer to my face.

I couldn't push it off. I had to use my power.

I placed my palm against the dog’s chest and used pressure.

I created a tiny pocket of high atmospheric pressure right inside the dog’s chest cavity. The pressure expanded rapidly.

Cost: 3 BP.

The dog’s chest burst open from the inside out and it went limp, falling onto me before dissolving into gray pixels.

[Construct Defeated. +10 XP]

I lay on the floor for a few seconds, breathing heavily. My chest hurt where the claws had scratched me and my arms were shaking.

I pushed myself up and checked my Status Screen.

Level: 1

XP: 20/100

HP: 60/100

BP: 9/20

I had lost more than half my BP, and I hadn't even found the Zone Boss yet while I had forty health points missing.

I grabbed my baton off the floor and stood up. My legs felt a little weak.

This was the reality of the unregulated wild. In a Training Zone, the proctors would have stopped the test the second the dog jumped on me. Here, nobody cared. If I ran out of BP, I was going to die in this dark subway station.

I looked down the dark tunnel where the Boss was somewhere.

I had to keep moving. If I didn't clear this Zone, Aegis would take my bonus back, and I would be homeless.

I gripped my baton tightly and started walking down the tracks. I had to be smarter. I couldn't afford to fight hard anymore.

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