The cool, crisp breeze blows through my new buzzcut. I lay on the grass, imagining what the clouds reminded me of. It was a game I used to play with my mother before she left us at the ripe old age of six. I never blamed her. If I got beat by Dad every night, I would think about leaving, too. Fortunately, I was his prized wrestler, and he never touched my sister and me. That was a long time ago now. It had only been me and my sister since the conscription happened when I was ten. We lived in a communal place for the earthbound. Our new elf overlords weren't cruel. They gave us rations, clothing, shelter, and education. A few ex-homeless people told us how much better their lives had gotten once the elves came in. I didn't care; tomorrow was my 16th birthday. I would be a man, meaning I would be gifted the system and must register for the war effort. The sun was still setting, its fiery yellows and oranges a whisper.

  "You know that weigh-ins are at 5 am?" Rebecca said to Dane

  "I know. I just wanted to remember Mom a little longer." Said Dane

  "Can I lay next to you?"

  "Of course."

  We lay next to each other in silence until sunset.

  "Are you scared?"

  "A big brother is never scared."

  I tussled her hair like I used to when we were little.

  "In three years, I will join you in the war effort. Don't die, okay."

  "I'm going to live until one hundred and fifty," Dane said with bravado

  "You better be aiming for something higher than E rank."

  "Come on, Rebecca, you know that only one in 100 makes it past E rank, and earthlings die on the battlefield too easily."

  "I know, but who wants to hear that their hero is only an average person." Rebecca teased

  "Well, we need to go to bed," Dane said with authority.

  I lay in my cot, the nerves too great to let me sleep. I wanted to become a conscripted warrior. The caste system was unforgiving to those without talent, but I was strong and the best fighter in my class. If I could become a warrior, my contribution points would be enough to have an everyday pre-system life based on what the teachers had said. Sure, I would constantly fight, but that would also mean my cultivation rank would increase faster. The system blessed those who pushed themselves.

  …

  I woke up as the auditors made the first wave of inspections. I scrambled to make my bed, threw on my issued clothing, and gathered the two items they had let me keep when they took us five years ago. They found my sister and me surviving in the wilderness, Glenwood entirely overrun by monsters. I had fought tooth and nail to make sure my sister and I survived, but with every day, the animals mutated and leveled up. We took to running away and hiding. It was hard. I was in the fifth grade, and my sister was in the second; if it weren't for my dad's insistence on keeping a 1700s rapier within reach of small children, we wouldn't have made it.

  "All of those sixteen or older lineup," said the colossal elf auditor

  I could not believe how large the elf was. The elf looked like he was most likely a half-bred with shorter ears and a burly chest that looked more akin to a gorilla than anything human. We lined up from oldest to youngest, with me at the end of the line. This was all a dog and pony show. We knew that all the old people would not be conscripted, and it would just be me today.

  "Next." Said the massive elf

  I walked up to the scale and stepped on it. The elf glanced down and scribbled on a piece of parchment. I wasn't exactly sure what I weighed since the auditors never let us see our numbers, but I guessed I was around 205 lbs. He told me to stand back in line and wait for the announcement.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  "Today, we will be accepting everyone into the military." Said the auditor

  A collective gasp was heard along the line. This was unheard of. Some of these people were in their 60s. With the system, that age would be more akin to 30 if you could level up. Hand-feeding levels to earthbound was not something the elves did. They would all die. I was about to step out of line to protest. But before I could, Rachel, a seamstress in her early thirties, started to cry hysterically.

  "You can't take my grandma to the frontlines." She wept.

  "Don't worry, miss, she is not going to the frontlines."

  "She will be going to the mines." The Gorilla Elf chortled

  …

  I finally noticed all the guards they brought. Usually, they would only have a couple, but today, they had about thirty or so, one for each of us. They marched us like it was the trail of tears; I kept my head down. That day, you could only hear the labored breathing usually reserved for old folks' homes. It didn't matter; the only thing I cared for in the world would be safe for another three years. I searched for Rebecca as we walked by, but we didn't live on the same block. Most likely, I would never see her again, but I would try to make something of myself. I heard that if conscripted warriors earned enough contribution points, they could buy their citizenship. And it stood to reason that if I could buy my freedom, I should be able to buy my sisters. That was my goal, and I would ace this placement exam. The exam consisted of Three parts. The first was reminiscent of an old-world IQ test. It was easy just figuring out patterns. The academy spent all its time preparing us for this test. I was not worried about it; I did well based on how the teachers treated me. If you did poorly, the elves would not bother, assuming that the mines or the graveyard were ahead of you. They would be a little nicer if they thought you had a chance of becoming a powerful cultivator and returning for revenge. Prudence, as the Earthbound were weak half the time, they didn't survive their first trip to a training dungeon. The second was a combat test where you would spar against another trainee and slay a monster. The third was a magic affinity test. We would grab a stone, and it would rate your cultivation abilities and your magic affinity. From what the teachers told us, we needed to be system users to activate the stone, and the magic test wasn't something you could train for; either you had it or didn't.

  …

  I took the IQ test, and let me tell you, I was cocky, it was okay for the first half, but then the patterns stopped making sense to me. I felt let down like a toddler who fumbled his ABCs. I would have to destroy my combat and affinity section.

  "System initiating"

  "Happy Birthday"

  What was going on? They always taught us in school that the system was a gift from the empire. And what is with the messages? Why did the all-powerful system sound more like a doting babysitter than someone who shaped the world?

  "System renamed to Babysitter."

  "Would you like to turn personal notifications off?"

  "No, that's fine. It just startled me."

  "Would you like to go through a Tutorial for your new Babysitter interface?"

  "Sure."

  "To pull up the menu, just think menu. During your initial tutorial, the interactive areas will be highlighted in blue."

  "Can I just have the highlights and figure it out myself?"

  "Of course, Dane McAllister."

  I thought a menu and a black screen popped up, like the old-world games I only saw at friends' houses. Can't the system make a better menu? Navigating the tabs will be rough.

  When the system prompted him this time, it was a text box like the menu screen.

  "Would you like to reconfigure your menu?"

  “Y/N”

  "Yes."

  After the system interpreted my thoughts, the menu was a single-page

  Race: Human

  Rank: F

  Name: Dane McAllister

  Exp: 0/100

  Level: 1

  Strength: 6

  Dexterity: 5

  Constitution: 5

  Charisma: 2

  Stamina: 6

  Intelligence: 6

  Willpower: 10

  Unassigned Points: 0

  Skills

  (Common)

  Unarmed Combat LVL 2/25

  Axe Proficiency LVL 3/25

  Small weapons LVL 1/25

  Identify LVL 1/10

  (Uncommon)

  Haste LVL 3/5

  LVL 1/100

  HP 10/10

  MP 1/1

  Stamina 10/10

  Not bad; I already had some decent skills. It looks like I would be sticking to Axes and a knife. I even had one uncommon skill already. My rank limited my skills: for example, I wouldn't be able to get a skill past its standard threshold unless the skill was upgraded or I had evolved. I had no idea if five skills were common for someone, so I would need to compare once they sent me to my unit.

  "Move it earthbound." Said a husky voice that belonged to a dwarf half my height, but the stature he lacked in height was made up in width.

  I started to shuffle forward again with the crowd. In retrospect, it may have been foolish to dick around with the system in the middle of the crowded sparring grounds. The sparring grounds were an old football field dressed like the Roman Colosseum. You could still see the faint lines of the ground where the stone wasn't covering it up, but the goalposts had long been destroyed. This would be where I proved myself a warrior.