Chương 26: Arc 1 - Chapter 5 - Answers

As Thea sat down on her chair at the Major's behest, she felt a surge of excitement and pride rush through her body, a level of excitement she had previously lost due to her unfavourable encounters with her fellow Recruits. With the ceremony officially underway and the words spoken by the Major, Thea was now officially a Recruit of the UHF Marine Corps! What excited her equally, or perhaps even more, however, was the promise of answers to potentially long-standing questions.

Ever since she had taken part in the challenge assessment over two years ago on Lumiosia, she had wrestled with a myriad of questions about her experiences. Due to the System's own restrictions however, she had been unable to obtain any information prior to her own integration. Now that she had gone through it, she could finally receive answers, and the Major had announced her intention to provide some of them!

With an eagerness to absorb any and all information the Major was willing to divulge, Thea heightened her senses and focused intently on each word Major Quinn was about to share. Major Quinn let her gaze slowly wander over the assembled hall of Recruits, who were now fully seated, before she continued her speech with a satisfied nod.

"As mentioned previously, the following information is something that the UHF as a whole believes you are entitled to. You have earned this level of trust from us, by giving us your trust in return during the system integration.

"The truth of the matter is this: You did not need to die to be integrated into the System. As a matter of fact, the System neither requires it, nor encourages it. As far as we are aware, only the UHF handles the system integration in the manner that you went through today." The Major stopped briefly after this revelation, to give the Recruits in the assembly hall a moment to digest this information.

A mixture of emotions was visible on their faces, ranging from confusion and anger to the occasional eager expression, as they anticipated what the Major was going to say next. For Thea, this information came as a shock as well. She had fully expected her 'death' to be a requirement from the System. Why else would the UHF go through with such a drastic measure, after all? The entire process seemed way too theatrical to simply be for show.

Thea was irked that her trust in the UHF had been manipulated in such a way, but also had to admit that getting this information, despite its unquestionably bad optics, did restore at least some of her faith in the UHF as a whole. They did not have to disclose this information, if they did not want to, after all. She was certain there was more to the whole system integration procedure, however, so her overall demeanour did not change much from before the revelation.

While confused and irate at the UHFs decision, she swallowed those feelings for now, willing to give the Major more time to elaborate on her previous statements. Major Quinn continued after a brief moment.

"The reasons for why the UHF decides to handle its integration in this way are manifold.

"However, make no mistake. This is not an attempt to justify our means to you. Nor do we believe it is necessary to do so in the first place. As UHF Marines, your first and foremost role is as protectors of Humanity. Your own personal feelings and requirements have no say in the how or the why of things. You have been aware of this fact ever since the first day of basic over two years ago and have decided to continue down this path of your own free will.

"That being said, the UHF is revealing this information to keep you informed. It is one of our core beliefs that an informed Marine Corps is a powerful Marine Corps. Regardless of what the information might entail." Thea saw a lot of the expressions on the faces of her fellow Recruits around her shift to ones filled with pride. They all ultimately still believed in the UHF's values wholeheartedly and wore this belief on their sleeves, although most of the confusion and anger from before was still apparent.

"In order for someone to be integrated into the Allbright System, a couple of important requirements have to be met. These are what you have worked on over the past two years during basic and why basic might have been entirely different from what you had originally expected.

"First and foremost, you need to be exceptional. And I'm not speaking in a metaphorical sense, but a literal one.

"In order for the System to even consider you as a viable candidate, you need to be near the peak of human performance across the board. To give you a numerical idea, if every human's average was a 1, all of you need to be a 1. 5 at minimum, in order to be considered by the System for integration.

"The reason for the rigorous and brutal physical training, mental stimulus, and tireless education over the past two years is to ensure you meet these standards. Your training was not 'wasted' as a result of your death, as all your training was transferred into your new body by the System as well.

"I won't go into too much detail here, as this will all be covered in your first class tomorrow, but the general gist is this: All of your System Attributes are a reflection of your statistics compared to the average human. In order to be considered a candidate, your total Attributes before integration need to reach a minimum value of 15. This represents a roughly 50% improvement across the board from the human average." The Major paused once again, allowing the information to sink in for the assembled recruits.

Thea couldn't help but be impressed by the Major's ability to diffuse the tense atmosphere in the room. By leading with this information immediately after the big revelation, she had managed to shift the recruits' overall demeanour.

Realising that their hard work had served a purpose, that they were deemed exceptional not only by the System but also by the UHF itself, and having this information related to something they had always been familiar with - the concept of an average humans abilities - stirred an undeniable surge of pride within each recruit's heart. Thea herself felt this surge of pride in her chest as well and eagerly awaited the Major's continued speech.

"The second requirement for system integration is more ethereal, but it's the main reason behind the UHF's integration procedures: The candidate needs to be placed in a state of severely heightened emotions.

"Generally speaking, system integration occurs as a side-effect of active combat or traumatic experiences. After all, you can't really force someone to have a severely heightened emotional response. The reason for this requirement is fairly simple: In order for the Allbright System to interact with your Soul inside the Void, it needs to be able to find it first.

"This makes sense until you realise that Souls don't have emotions. You would have experienced this first-hand during your brief encounter with the System proper during your integration. That strange, ethereal state you were in represented the raw essence of your Soul's consciousness.

"So, the only way for the Allbright System to locate your Soul is to have emotions transferred through the Soul itself into the Void. This creates subtle ripples within the realm that the System can detect and use to latch onto and identify your Soul. Additionally, disconnecting your Soul from your body further enhances the System's ability to find the Soul inside of the infinite vastness that is the Void.

While the specifics of how and why this works may be beyond my expertise as I am not a soularionicist, the key takeaway is the importance of those heightened emotions in the integration process.

"Regardless, the stronger the emotions, the easier and more reliable the process. If you've been following along, you can now slowly draw a picture of how we ended up with the current integration protocol:"Recruits are instilled with unwavering trust in the UHF during the two-year period of basic training. During the graduation ceremony they are directed towards a different assembly hall than the rest of the graduates, with no explanation, to create a seed of anxiety and doubt.

Then comes my turn, to ask for your unwavering and unconditional trust once again, to both further unnerve the Recruits that are already beginning to assume something is wrong and reinforce the loyalty and trust of those that believe in the UHF wholeheartedly. Both are strong emotions, so they work fine for our purposes.

"Then comes the big finale of fully breaking that trust, which culminates in all the heightened emotions you've experienced first-hand just mere hours ago: Confusion, anger, hate, fear of death, maybe even some rare unwavering loyalty or thoughts of loved ones.

"While everyone in the UHF agrees that this is exceptionally cruel, it is by far the most efficient way that anyone has found for the system integration process.

"It is also a method uniquely suited for the UHF. Any other faction would simply kill their candidates, as they can't Soul Transfer them back from the void like we can. This gives us the leeway to do big recruitment drives like these, as we don't need to worry about how we are going to integrate all of you." Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

Once again, the Major let the information hang in the air, for all the assembled Recruits to absorb at their own pace. Thea's emotions were split right down the middle upon hearing this explanation. On one hand, her emotional side absolutely hated the UHF for purposefully breaking their trust in such a heinous way. Instilling trust and loyalty for two years, just to utterly crush those very same emotions on purpose, was utterly cruel beyond anything Thea had thought the UHF was capable of.

It would undoubtedly leave a black mark on anyone's level of trust for a long time to come, regardless of the reasoning behind it. On the other hand, her logical side could do nothing but applaud the UHF's actions and procedure. Assuming that what Major Quinn had revealed just now was the truth, the UHF had come up with a near fool-proof plan to integrate a massive number of people into a System which seemed nearly purposefully designed to bar those exact mass-integrations.

Having gone through it first-hand, she could only vouch for its effectiveness. Looking around the hall at the other Recruits nearby, Thea saw a similar level of internal conflict mirrored on a lot of faces. Despite her heightened senses, she had a hard time making out anyone among the crowd of Recruits unaffected by what the Major had said. Suddenly, however, she realised that the rhythmic tapping on her left had subsided entirely sometime during the Major's speech.

Quickly glancing over at Karania next to her, she was startled by the expression on the girl's face. Karania's face bore an expression of utter delight and bliss. There was not a shred of confusion, anger or hurt apparent on her face. Instead, she wore a big toothy grin, her hands pressed firmly against her cheeks in quiet excitement, with wide open eyes that glistened feverishly at the Major on the podium.

Utterly taken aback and ripped from her own emotional turmoil by the sight, Thea could do nothing but bewilderedly wonder to herself, ' What the fuck? What is wrong with this girl…? Should I ask if she's alright…? I mean… she looks more than alright. But she's definitely not okay.' Feeling like this might be a rare opportunity to score some friendship points by checking up on the girl in clear emotional distress of some sort, Thea leaned over towards Karania and whispered in a soft voice, "Karania…? Are you okay?"

With a sudden, jerking head-motion, Karania's wide, unblinking, and feverish eyes stared into her own, startling Thea into retreating back further on her own chair.

"Okay? I am fantastic! Did you not listen?! The UHF is just so fucking perfect! Their procedure is so ingenious, isn't it?! And there's even a whole science dedicated to Souls…! By the Emperor, I am so excited to get started on this year…! Thea… let's do our very best, okay?!" Came the near-fanatical sounding answer, her voice breaking from the sheer amount of barely contained excitement.

Further unbalanced by the unexpected answer, Thea struggled to find a proper recourse and simply nodded her head with an "Mhhm" to signal her acknowledgement. Upon seeing Thea's nod, Karania turned her burning attention back towards the podium, eager to glean more information about her possible future endeavours. Following Karania's gaze, Thea realised that Karania had not blinked a single time before, during, or after her heated rambling so far, which made her whole vibe feel completely unhinged to Thea.

Weirdly enough, however, this realisation did not push her away from Karania. On the contrary, Thea felt a sense of camaraderie build between them, sparked by the surprising exposure of this unknown, somewhat terrifying side of her fellow Recruit. She felt that Karania had suddenly become a whole lot more relatable to her in ways that she had never anticipated, 'I guess even an energetic and outgoing person like her can hide surprises like this, huh? Never would've taken her for the unhinged, sciency type…

But I guess her earlier behaviour about my Cyan-ness makes a lot more sense now. A lot easier to get excited about something when there's no emotions in the way of disregarding ethics, after all…' Her emotional turmoil completely wiped away by the unexpected situation with Karania, Thea settled back into her chair with a more relaxed posture, before directing her attention back to the Major and waiting for her to continue.

After a few minutes, during which Thea could hear some rare whispers among the assembled Recruits quietly discussing their opinions and feelings about what had been revealed so far, Major Quinn spoke up again.

"There are around half a dozen more requirements, but those don't have much of an impact on why the UHF has decided to do it this way, so we'll omit them for now. You'll be taught all about them in this upcoming year anyway and I have more important things to talk about.

"With this brief overview of the most pressing information done, let me give you an additional primer on the most important part of the System for all of us, as UHF Marines: The Soul Transfer.

"This one will be explained tomorrow in more detail during your Allbright System 101 class, but it's important you understand the basic gist of it, in case anything happens until then, so pay close attention.

"In order to be able to use the Soul Transfer, two basic requirements must be met.

"You first need to be part of the UHF faction, which all of you evidently are, otherwise you'd be floating around aimlessly in the void right about now.

"Second, and the part you will need to keep in mind at all times going forward, you require enough System Merit to afford the reconstitution.

"If you do not have enough System Merit, you will die—your last and final death. This is what we call 'Zeroing out.' When you truly die, your System Merit is close to 0, unable to afford another chance, so to speak. There is no way back once this happens, so pay close attention to it from now on.

"System Merit is the Allbright System's way to track your overall progress and worth to it as a whole. The more you align with the System's own goals and the more you help it accomplish them, the more System Merit, or 'Merit' for short, you will obtain. This may sound complicated at first, but it's very intuitive. In fact, all of you have already accumulated Merit as a result of your challenge assessments.

"I want each one of you to prompt the System to show you your Merit now. Simply command it to show you your purse, or currency, or Merit, or whatever you want, really. The System is pretty good at understanding intent, but try to use something quick and easy to remember." In the next moment, a holographic blue box appeared in the hand of the Major. It was too small to properly see anything from this distance, even for Thea's enhanced senses.

However, it was obvious to Thea and the rest of the Recruits what the Major intended to signal with this brief demonstration. Thanks to her previous experiences, Thea managed to easily command the System to throw up a blue box in the centre of her vision. [Currencies & Unspent Points] System Credits: 11, 423 System Merit: 878???:??? Unspent Attribute Points: 16???:??? Available Achievement Rewards: 0 Reading through the box, Thea quickly noted a couple of interesting aspects.

Firstly, some of the information was hidden, just like on her other screens. They were likely used later on, when she had gotten more closely invested into the System. This was similar to how the games in the arcade would often hide important aspects that only became usable later in the game. Secondly, it listed something called System Credits, and she seemed to have a lot of them, for some reason, if Imperial Credits were any measure of comparison.'

Maybe System Credits are more abundant and easier to get than Imperial Credits…? I wonder what they're used for…' she briefly wondered wordlessly, before turning her attention towards the Recruits around her. She saw that some of them were visibly struggling with getting the System to display the information they wanted, as frustration was evident on their faces. Most of the Recruits were stuck staring into space, however, their eyes glazed over.

Even Karania's previously fevered gaze had been completely neutered into a docile, blank stare.' Is this what it looks like when we checked our System? Probably worth remembering this for the future… might come in handy," Thea quickly made a mental note to specifically remember this information. She then rapidly darted her eyes around, looking at as many of her fellow Recruits as possible. After around a minute, she was certain. Everyone's eyes had the same exact level of glaze and blankness to them.

This was undoubtedly an invaluable piece of information for Thea going forward. Being able to tell when someone was accessing their own System information would likely come into play one day, especially if it was something that others did not necessarily know about. Satisfied with acquiring another, potentially secret, tool for her arsenal, Thea summoned up her own currency box again, trying to find a way to make it less obtrusive and seeing if it was possible to find a workaround for the glazing over.

She quickly ran into an issue however, as she realised that she had no way to tell whether her eyes were glazing over or not. If she wanted to truly circumvent this weakness, she would have to find someone to do the experiments with, as otherwise she would be unable to tell whether it's working or not. Frustrated by her inability to do something on her own once again, Thea resigned herself to simply sit back down into a relaxed posture, while she waited for the Major's speech to continue.

Major Quinn gave the Recruits another couple of minutes to figure out how to access their System's currency window, before she continued once again.

"Now that you have all seen your Merit, one more pointer on this topic. Merit is not just used for the Soul Transfer, but is also the main currency for advancement in the Allbright System. And yes, you heard that right: In order to fully make use of the System and advance at the best possible rate, you have to use up the exact currency that allows you to come back from the dead.

"Your class tomorrow will go into more depth on the exact uses, but rest assured they're not something you will be able to do without. So work hard on gathering as much Merit as possible, whenever you can, so you can spend them on both advancing, as well as staying alive.

"Now, I am aware that this speech has been going on for quite some time now, and we're still far from finished. I apologise for that, but all of this stuff is deemed as critically important, so it cannot wait for future classes, in case of any potential emergencies cropping up.

"Before moving onto the next topic, one additional reminder. Your Faction Traits are not limited inside of protected zones, as the System should have informed you of right at the start. While your Attributes and Abilities, such as your superior Strength, Finesse or even your Psychic powers are—""Psychic powers, Ma'am? Do you mean like… magic?" came the sudden interruption from a disbelieving voice a couple of rows behind Thea.

Thea had apparently not been the only one to be taken aback by the sudden mention of such mythical powers, but she would never have imagined anyone would go as far as to yell their question into the middle of the assembly hall…