"Did it work?" asked Brandon.

Both Adam and the Powerguard looked at him.

"What does my tag say?" asked Adam.

"It's a black block," answered Brandon.

"Then I think it worked," responded Adam, "since that could be due to two classes overlapping. Unfortunately, I can't test it because I don't know what skills the Powerguard had."

"Can't you just tell him?" Tom asked the Red Clan version of Adam.

"Seriously, Tom?" sighed the Powerguard. "I only have Adam's memories, not the previous owner of this body. And Adam doesn't know."

"Then what good does it do to get the class?" asked Randall.

"Hopefully, it'll let me understand the structure of Warrior skills so I can build them for myself or others," Adam explained.

With that, he re-entered his soul space and headed through the soul bond and into the Powerguard class. To his great relief, the skills and structures looked a lot more defined. He felt an affinity with them which hadn't been there before. It pleased Adam that even if working in the soul was still challenging, it was becoming less disastrous as he knew what would cause positive or negative reactions.

Now he could tell the size, shape, weight, and density of the various skills. Adam wasn't sure what each did, but he could get an understanding of what part of the body they worked on and whether they were for internal effects, such as self-buffs, or melee versus ranged attacks.

There were a few dozen skills within the Powerguard class and Adam inspected each one closely. Even though he could understand their structure better, he would need additional knowledge to define what they did. He was still very far from even exploring the possibilities of creating a status display within the network he had built.

After spending a long time inspecting all the skills, Adam decided to try building his own skill, as he had for Hammond.

Randall was the next person who offered energy to Adam, and once it was drawn into his own soul and fed through the soul bond, Adam began to shape it. He wasn't sure what to make it do, and knew he couldn't guarantee the results, but figured there was no harm with experimenting a bit.

Adam created shape after shape with the energy, feeling the resonance or conflict of it as he tried to allow it to fit in with the existing skills. The energy was molded and then broken apart repeatedly as Adam tried to fit it or make it do different things.

Several times he would connect his skill, then go to a safe room within the prison Rift where he would feed energy into it to test it against Brittney or Lucas. None of the skills really felt like what he wanted though, even when he successfully got them to work.

Over the course of another week, the time spent repeatedly shaping the energy, he constructed and destroyed the skill repeatedly, reusing the energy instead of leaving inadequate skills within the class region. None of Adam's attempts yielded much benefit.

He did spend time inspecting the skills within Lucas, Tom, Randall, and Joseph to get more of a framework with their classes. Adam felt confident he could have enhanced their existing skills or duplicated their skills into a similar form within the Powerguard, but that also felt unnecessary. Without the status the [System] provided it would be too difficult to identify the changes, and Adam didn't want to accidentally harm his friends' combat styles by making skills inaccessible to them.

All of that led to Adam feeling frustrated as he floated within the Powerguard while he kneaded the energy.

"How can I best use this?" muttered Adam. "How do I even know what to create? I sure don't have the attention to detail that'll let me understand all the nuances of what I can create."

Adam absently stretched out the energy construct he had begun to create. Then he compressed it. He added spikes, then smoothed them out. A spiraling layer was added and then another, which he cut in half flipped and pressed back together.

"Too many options," he sighed. "Too much uncertainty."

There were no eyes within the soul body that Adam used in here. No way to close off his [Soul Vision] and still stay within. So instead of eyes, Adam closed off his mind.

He allowed the energy to move and flow. His thoughts meandered and the energy did too.

All the experiences that Adam had since the [System] arrived would have been unimaginable in the before. He could never have envisioned the things he saw and did. The fights. The invaders. So many memories of other species and worlds that he had watched, practically the same as being there himself. The number of experienced was so vast, and his current options were infinite. Yet, it was that very openness that made the decision too vast to consciously choose.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

As Adam remembered all these things, the energy moved around, guided by those memories. It took on different forms, as if through mentally controlled modelling. When Adam released control and just allowed his intention to flow, the energy seemed to try and become what he thought about, what he wanted. But Adam questioned what he wanted.

How could he form something when his thoughts were shifting so much?

Of course, throughout this whole time his friends had been with him. They had supported him and followed him. Starting as just some classmates and bullies, they came from different backgrounds. They weren't similar and had nothing in common to hold them together, other than the faith they had built in Adam over the fights and struggles.

His friends were important, pillars that held Adam up as he went from a nobody teen to the leader of the human resistant, but even the concept of those pillars that Adam considered didn't give the energy a concrete shape.

Along with his friends, there had also been the constant presence of the [System]. It made promises and guided things but proved that it wasn't in humanity's interest. That had been obvious even before Adam found out its purpose and method of operation. Yet, everyone but him had been dependent on its duplicitous existence.

Those were the two constants in Adam's life since that message had appeared to everyone at school. His friends and the [System]. Invaders came and went. Even reality was immaterial as the Rifts allowed him to destroy, create, and reshape the physical world. Just like souls were all slightly different, so was reality. Not nearly as immutable as humanity had previously expected.

The energy flowed around Adam, becoming a shield, a sword or spear, a cocoon that was an orb, a box, a pyramid, and many other shapes. Then Adam realized something.

There had been one more thing that had been with him this whole time. He rarely experienced it before the [System], but since the [System] had arrived, this thing was always trying to work with Adam. It pushed him, pulled him, empowered him and tried to control him. Adam never thought he would miss it until it was gone, but as much as it forced Adam to struggle, it also gave him the drive and determination.

Rage.

The pseudo-skills had been there from the beginning. [Unquenchable Rage] had turned Adam into a completely different person. As frustrating as that had been, it had also been a comfort. It protected him from pain, forced him to fight and face the difficulties in front of him. The rage burned him up and burned those around him since his body wasn't even strong enough to handle it.

That rage was a curse and a blessing. Making it this far without it would have been impossible. It was a single emotion, one that was just a hint of other struggles within. Yet it had defined Adam. It created this version of him, so different than the apathetic teenager he had been.

It wouldn't be accurate to say that Adam missed it, but he understood the importance of it. The modifiers it created to his stats didn't tell the whole story. Anger and rage could consume a person, which it often tried to do to Adam, but it could also spur on choices. It might take away from who we are if we let it, or a person's struggle with it can dare them to surpass the impossible.

Something in Adam's thoughts relaxed as he remembered the pulsing of the heat and violent flow of the river inside him. Relaxation wasn't the effect he would have expected from those thoughts, but when weighed against the destruction of his people and world they felt right. Adam's rage was justified and necessary. So long as Adam held it, he knew he would be able to face down any enemy.

There was a click in Adam's insides. He fell out of his thoughts and looked at the energy in front of him. It had taken a shape. It had also needed a lot more energy and Adam realized that in the physical world, Randall was complaining about feeling drained.

But the energy…the skill. Adam hadn't felt such resonance before. The synergy wasn't between the Powerguard class and the skill, but with the energy that came from Adam. This skill was Adam. At least, who he was now. Just looking at it made him realize how badly he needed to have it.

Adam connected the skill to the Powerguard class. The strength of it was weaker now than it would be once Adam's energy acclimated to the Red Clan soul, but it was what Adam wanted. What was needed for Adam to be whole.

The density and weight of the skill was more than five of the existing skills combined. It was a heavy weight to bear, but one that felt comforting to Adam.

With a sigh of contentment, Adam returned to his body.

The Powerguard was tapping a fist on his chest.

"It's like soul indigestion," he complained. "Couldn't you have made something a bit more manageable for your first skill?"

"He finally has a skill?" asked Brittney excitedly. "Does it work? What does it do?"

"Let's test it out," suggested Adam.

All his friends sat up straighter. They were curious or excited to see what the skill did. Adam smiled at all of them.

"Do we need to move to the safe room?" asked Lucas.

"No, it isn't that kind of skill," said Adam.

"How do you know what it'll do?" asked Andrea.

"Because the shape came from me. What I want and need."

The looks became even more confused. As the strongest one there, Adam knew they would wonder what he needed.

"Ok, here goes," said Adam breathlessly. He activated the skill, causing his eyes to flash with red and gray flecks. Then he turned to Joseph. "Randall is the one who has been taking your magazines."

"What?!" shouted Joseph. "You've been taking my stash without asking?"

He stared daggers at Randall. He stood up and clenched his fists at his friend.

Adam felt his skin warming.

"You never let me look at the older ones," defended Randall.

"Oh, and Randall?" said Adam, getting his attention. "Rachel turned you down after Joseph told her how trashy your condo is. He wanted to ask her out himself."

"You backstabbing jerk!" yelled Randall, standing up violently. Only the chair being a Rift built object attached to the floor kept it from flying backwards. "I have the Rift clean the room at least once a month!"

The two close friends squared up, both looking ready to attack the other. Fortunately, neither went for their weapons, confirming that they were used to squabbling.

"What's the smile for, boss?" asked Tom, drawing everyone else's eyes to him.

Adam held up a red tinted arm.

"The skill is rage," said Adam as he inspected his colored skin. "It's more powerful than my pseudo-skill was. I can turn it on and off. And best yet, it works off everyone else's anger as well as my own."

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.