My Plunderer System

After receiving his placement for his summer internship, Milo was happy that he had been placed at a guild over the GAA. The guilds were in charge of closing higher level gates than the GAA, as most higher ranked gatecrashers would choose to work for a guild. This was due to the glory and money that higher ranked gatecrashers could make in comparison to lower ranked gatecrashers that worked for the GAA. Along with this, guilds were privately owned, while the GAA was essentially a government agency, meaning that association members would be paid according to the taxes collected for the GAA.

Because of this, a guild could offer higher salaries than the association, where the association could offer more power over other gatecrashers, as they were the entity meant to keep awakened people in check. Milo's goal was to get stronger, and the only way to do that would be to enter gates of higher difficulty and fight stronger beasts. By doing so, not only would he gain more experience for his system, but experience fighting against more powerful foes as well. This was why Milo was more inclined to join a guild or start his own when he graduated rather than join the association.

After reading through the full contents of his message from the school, Milo learned that he would have to report to the association the following day in order to receive a provisional gatecrasher license. While there he would be guided around by a member of the association and would go through the normal process a new gatecrasher would go through, such as measuring their abilities. After receiving his license, he'd report to the guild headquarters the following week to start his internship.

Milo couldn't wait to start working and experiencing what it would be like to work for a guild. It would be a great experience for him, and would allow him to learn a lot, ahead of his graduation and eventually working as a gatecrasher.

After reading through all the nitty gritty details of the message, Milo noticed another message from Krista, saying that she would drag him to their class reunion if she had to, making him realize he had no choice in the matter from the beginning. Milo went to bed that night with two thoughts on his mind, what rank would he receive when having his abilities measured, and what would people do when he showed up to his class reunion two days from then.

Waking up the next morning, Milo ate a quick breakfast with Corinna before throwing on a jacket and making his way to the local branch of the GAA. It was quite a distance away, as the apartments close to the association headquarters were quite expensive and Milo and Corinna couldn't afford to live there. Their value was much higher than other apartments, due to the safety from the dimensional doors that came with having the association close by. Milo hailed a taxi and told the driver his destination.

"Awakened are ya?" he said, "Going to take the gatecrasher test?"

Milo told the driver about his summer internship and made a bit of small talk on the way there. Most of the time, Milo wouldn't talk so much to a stranger, but he was bursting at the seams with excitement from getting his provisional gatecrasher license. The license symbolized that someone was a gatecrasher, and the higher the rank on the license, the more respect someone usually got.

Once the taxi had pulled up to the front of the GAA's New York City branch, Milo got out and paid his fare, before turning and looking up at the towering building in front of him. Like the other buildings in the city, the GAA branch building was massive, towering over the nearby buildings. Taking in the view of the tall glass skyscraper, Milo calmed his nerves before making his way inside.

When entering, Milo was surprised by the number of people milling about, all of them were either awakened or worked as office personnel for the GAA. After taking in the view for a second, Milo found the front desk and told the receptionist why he was there. She checked his name, and then showed him to a conference room where a few others were waiting. The group waiting included a member of the Incubus guild, the person who'd be conducting his test from the association, and finally a representative from the academy who had come to make sure everything proceeded smoothly.

Milo then took a seat and was briefed on what the tests he'd be taking consisted of. Unlike the academy's tests, he'd have only two tests that he had to take. The first was a combat test, where he'd be placed into a sort of augmented reality room, where holograms of beasts would appear that he'd have to defeat. The beasts that appeared would increase in difficulty, and would be used as a way to measure his combat capabilities. And the second test was similar to the magic power test at the academy, where they'd measure his magic power output using a device just like the one he used to take the test for his class placement.

After his small briefing, he was guided to a room that he was told to enter, equipped with any equipment that he'd be using. The room was definitely the room for the combat test, so Milo equipped all his equipment from his dimensional storage earring. Rainbow mist snaked from the earring and wrapped around his forearms, hands and chest. Once the mist dissipated, his gauntlets, and new chest piece were equipped and in his hands was his chain sickle. The test giver opened the door and gestured for him to enter, the door closed behind him and Milo saw the other three people he was just with enter another room with a window that overlooked the interior of the testing room.

Once the three were all gathered inside, the man who was supposed to watch over his test spoke into something that looked like an intercom, and his voice could be heard from a speaker in the ceiling.

"The test will be starting momentarily, it will start with the holograms being set to level one, and as you defeat the waves of beasts, I will slowly increase the difficulty. There are five levels in total," he said, "as soon as you give me a thumbs up I will activate the first level."

Hearing the instructions given by the man from the association, Milo hyped himself up before giving the signal. As soon as it did, a few groups of beasts seemed to build themselves out of pixels. There were three groups around him, all three were groups of what looked like little green men, that Milo knew as goblins. One of the three groups wielded bows while the other two appeared to have small knives or clubs.

After they had all formed the two groups wielding melee weapons rushed in, goblins weren't intelligent and to Milo looked like a group of ugly, vicious kindergartners. Before the two groups could get close, Milo shot out a path of ice freezing the two groups in place. Normally holograms would be able to run right through it, but the simulation being shown appeared to be lifelike enough to recognize that a physical being would be stuck in place if their feet were frozen to the floor like Milo had intended.

After stopping the two groups of melee fighters, Milo dashed towards the goblins wielding bows, seeing him do this the group watching his test grinned. Milo, as well as the three watching, knew that the ranged fighters would be troublesome to deal with if he was caught in a battle up close. Because of this Milo closed the distance with the ranged weapon users and cut them down quickly and cleanly using his chain sickle, rather than using his ice ability, Milo instead used his Extortion skill to activate his Reinforce ability and his Hunter's eye ability at the same time to highlight the weak points of the green creatures.

After finishing the group of goblins using bows, Milo made his way up to the goblins that were frozen and killed each one at a time, avoiding the flailing attacks they made at him while frozen to the floor. With this, he had completed level 1.

The man giving the test announced that level 2 would now be starting, and Milo readied himself. Soon enough he had passed level two without much trouble as well. It was similar to level 1, only the groups of goblins were a bit larger and there were two more additional groups with the original three.

Level three was a bit tougher, rather than goblins he was faced off against a group of wolf like beasts. They were much quicker than the goblins and were able to avoid being frozen to the floor, which forced Milo to change his tactics up a bit. Instead of freezing the wolves, he chose to build walls of ice to give him more advantageous fights, singling the wolves out. Eventually he had killed the last wolf, but it took him considerably longer than the goblins.

Level 4 had just begun and Milo's previous strategies would no longer work. His opponents were holograms that appeared similar to humanoid lizards, commonly known as lizard men. The group he was facing included a mage which was quite annoying. They were much faster and smarter than the goblins and avoided his ice path the second he sent it out. Along with this, they wouldn't rush in and attack and instead chose a strategy involving protecting the mage who was sending balls of magic Milo's way that Milo was sure would hurt if it wasn't a hologram.

He avoided the magic attacks and used walls of ice to block the ones that got too close, before turning to his tried and true method of using spears made using his Ice ability. The spears moved much faster than his ice path and eventually all the guards were dealt with and Milo could get in close to defeat the mage. During this strategy, one of the lizardmen had pushed forward to attack Milo up close, forcing him to use his bind skill in order to keep it from advancing, and allowing him to finish the test beast off quite quickly. He had just completed level 4, which chose to be the toughest so far, as intended which caused Milo to grow a bit tired, all that was left was level 5.