Damian woke to a black void surrounding him on all sides. He was barely able to get his bearings before a system notification popped up in front of his eyes.

  Damian just nodded his head, he was still clearing out all the cobwebs, but he felt amazing. There were no aches or pains from his wounds, and even the old injury to his knee, from when he crashed his cousin’s dirt bike, was gone. A smile rose on his face. Flashing light drew his attention to the many text boxes appearing before him. Before he could read the first, they all flashed again, almost seeming annoyed, and combined into one large box. How convenient.

  D

  Damian took a moment to process. He now had twice the physical ability of the most elite special forces on the planet…... nice, but it still felt subpar when compared to some of the creatures he knew of. He would need to get a workout plan going asap.

  He wasn’t even going to touch the stuff about his brain. Just accept that it was better now, hopefully. The governor nonsense was going to give him a headache he just knew it. Anything that even remotely resembled politics made his skin crawl. Damian was going to ask a question when another smaller box showed up in front of him. It was filled with congratulation messages and told him not to ask about anything related to the governor position as the chat group had a newbie info packet ready. He should use this time to either, process what he went through or ask something that he felt was necessary. Deciding to heed the advice, Damian pondered on what to ask.

  “System how does magic work?” Damain asked what bothered him most. He believed that he had a basic understanding, but a concrete answer was always nice.

  That was interesting, he figured it worked on symbolism, but not being able to cast a fireball was a major disappointment. The applications for magic as a force multiplier were exceptional though. While magic couldn’t be directly manipulated, alchemy could revolutionize the medical industry, that didn’t even include the many new metal alloys it could likely create. Runes and enchantments would allow their military to better combat monsters and any future threats. It could also allow for the creation of a truly emission free energy. Damians’ eyes sparkled at the thought of all he could accomplish as long as he could get the needed knowledge. Which brought up his next question.

  “How would I get access to knowledge necessary to start learning any type of magic?”

  Damian only thought for a brief moment before saying, “Yes proceed please.”

  He figured he could always go bother Maladus if he had more questions.

  Damian nodded, it made sense he was more concerned with escaping the ghost than exorcising it.

  Damian perked up, and immediately dismissed, the notion of enhancing his body and started to peruse the skill trees, while making inquiries to understand how it worked. From his inquiries he learned that he could only have a total of nine skill trees that would give him perks and provide knowledge. Once he chose his core nine, anything else he wanted to learn, would have to be done the old-fashioned way.

  After a moment of deliberation, he decided to purchase two skill trees, and raise them to the second tier, Occult and Runes. These two skill trees would give him the basic knowledge he needed to get started, and with the second-tier perks, he gained the tools needed to utilize that knowledge as well. Unfortunately, it only left him with 25 essence remaining, which he decided to just hold onto wondering if he could do anything else with it.

  There was a flash of light, and Damian found himself sitting in the same booth he was waiting for his buddy Lu in, before he was taken for the trial. However, it was filled with a lot more people than when he left, and they were covered in bandages soaked with blood. From the staccato of gunfire he could hear in the distance, Damian guessed that the weekly monster wave came early. A bottle of whisky and a glass was placed in front of him. Looking up he saw a nurse in full scrubs with a harried look staring back.

  “Welcome back man, you get one drink to celebrate before I need to use this as disinfectant, the usual shipment of disinfectant was delayed.” The man said with a weary voice.

  Damian nodded, poured himself a small amount, and passed the bottle to the waiting nurse. He downed the shots worth of liquor he poured and said, “Let me know if I can help, I only have basic first aid training, but any little bit helps right?”

  The nurse gave a tight smile, and waved him over to another outside, who was attending to less injured civilians and soldiers. Damian made his way over and started to help where he could. Overall, this wave seemed to be going well, all things considered. Most of the wounded only needed to be given a quick patch up, before getting back to the front lines.

  Damian wanted to join them, but standard procedure was to wait for the UN appointed official to find him after becoming an Inducted. He did manage to get a soldier to pass along word of his return from the trials to speed the bureaucrats up, and let him put his new prowess to work. Unfortunately, he never got that chance as it took the officials two and a half hours to get to him. The fighting had ended an hour into his wait. Needless to say, he was not very pleased when the “mayor” finally showed up.