My Werepanther System: Starting with Nine Lives

They spent an hour limit testing. Rex's hands burned from all the fire orbs he cultivated and boosted the heat of. It didn't help that there was a recruit beside him that could summon ice armor and weapons at will— making the jungle air around him colder. Making his flame weaker.

His name was Nathan.

As their Mana reserves shrank and their bodies began showing the signs of ability overuse, the bickering and elitism that once filled the air like a fog had faded.

Nerves heightened.

Rex was reminded of Imani's words.

"The more you use your ability, the more it spreads, the more you increase your risk of rejection. The sooner you become a statistic."

It felt foolish to be training in such a way with that concept in mind.

Then Rex got realistic.

"If Alpha General Brennus can look at us— in person, and still talk about us as statistics….. as numbers, then so can all the other staff. We're being culled. This isn't only to make us a good investment. It's to weed out the bad—"

"AHHHHCK!" Nathan screamed and the ice shield he just summoned beside Rex shattered like glass.

Everyone spread out as cold winds began to spin in a chaotic cyclone around the recruit. His long blonde hair began turning white at the roots. His tanned skin gained frosty splotches as he began to flash freeze from the inside.

"HELP! HELLLLP! OLIVER PLEASE!" He screamed for the forcefield conjuror who could also manipulate mana from across the steel course, vocal chords freezing and cutting off his words.

Oliver didn't move an inch toward him.

In a bubbling mass of tendrils and bulging white veins, his martial-skin began trying to stop the eradication of the recruits entire body with heat.

Rex didn't join in. Not when they were all either trying to kill him or wouldn't mind watching the others try.

Victor had other thoughts in mind and took the student in a bear hug as his tiger flame bloomed.

A cloud of steam hissed to life, covering the floors and waking Staff-Sergeant Dream.

"Session over! Clear the area! Clear!!"

Everyone was on the move, spurred into faster sprints as the steel floor began to freeze.

A recruit was caught in the icy spread. It glued his foot to the ground, giving his left leg frost bite immediately.

His martial-skin squeezed and cut off his leg at the ankle.

"ACK!"

"Stop bitching." Syrus wrapped his Mana webbing around the recruit's midsection and yanked him to the front of the group.

Once they made it off the platform, they came to a stop to turn and witness the horror.

But before they could, from the trees, a dozen small black orbs were thrown around the course. From them, blue holographic light bloomed, spawning a protective prism that went from hardlight to solid blue steel, encasing the two recruits inside and containing the growing disaster.

"Holy crap….. it's snowing."

Rex looked up at the sky in disbeleif. "Is this how it happens?"

"Yes. When the Mana Grafting of Inheritence Abilities is a failure, the ability goes haywire. It uses up everything inside and out to purge the failed host. Kind of like when your body rejects a skin graft or a piercing." The mind reader with glasses replied from beside him. "By the way, my name is Gregoire— Greg, preferably. Not mind reader with glasses."

"Right. Greg. Piercings. Got it." Rex said as he watched the sudden snowfall fade.

"His Patriarch was a strong weathermancer. But they weren't related. He knew the risk. And Oliver knew not to help him." Greg explained in a hushed whisper.

"Why?" Rex asked.

"Because, Family Rankings are public. The Frost Guild is a step above the Odon Defense Agency. Now, they aren't."

The shield walls came down, revealing Victor standing next to a statue of ice. Nathan, no more than a dead husk inside the frozen sculpture. It was turning red as the final remnants of his blood froze.

"A whole family— generations of families, reduced to nothing after putting all their faith and growing power in one seventeen year old kid." Greg mused, "This world is a cruel one."

"Yea…." Rex knew better than most.

The Jungle-Monkeys spoke on loudspeakers clearing the area and sending them back to the barracks to shower and get to the mess hall.

It had been twenty minutes since then. Rex got himself cleaned and back in his suit in five. For the rest of the time, he walked The Box, letting his nose take him down a set of grated metal stairs and past a number of stations before reaching the Mess Hall.

It was a small dark tarp over a cafeteria styled clearing behind rows of junk tanks and Drift Cycles.

A line of new recruits waited to be served their breakfast as they held trays and water cups in hand.

Ahead of them, the upperclassmen were served first.

Rex recognized Koby Kobalt at the front as he grabbed his tray and cup. The line grew behind him, with a certain someone in particular.

She was pretty. Prettier than anyone he'd ever seen with her dark almond skin tone that somehow looked freshly moisturized at all times. Coupled with her shining braids, full lips, long lashes and pointed stature, she could've been a queen in ancient times.

Instead she was a cold and calculating Drift Soldier in training.

And a billionaire….

"Hey." Rex said to Imani.

"Morning." Imani replied before adding, "I heard you lost another in your specialized Inheritence Ability user training today."

"Yea. Nathan Frost." Rex said.

"The DNA Miners will salvage what they can of Nathan's Inheritence Ability. They'll add to it with the remains of the others and create a new Inheritence Ability. They'll offer primary shareholdings to the Frost Family— but they won't take it. They're a prideful group. They'll exit the Mana Gene Pool Accords and cease to exist." Imani mused as they approached the breakfast line.

"I don't know any of what you just said."

"I know. You seem new to this world. Or like you lived somewhere else….. maybe among the animals." Imani replied.

"Easy." Rex said as they grabbed their food.

Military chefs handed them spoonfuls of slop and eggs. Another chef filled their cups with a brown fluid called a multi-nutrient blend with caffeine, six superfoods and ground mana stones.

Rex continued their convo after scanning the cafeteria, "Oliver refused to help him as he died. Nathan, I mean."

"Odon Defense Agency. I'm not surprised. I don't wish to be in your position. You're all enemies— I'm sure you're already realizing that when you're not watching another die." Imani said, "Inheritence Ability users and their surrounding families are so lost in being on top of the world, that they forgot the mission is to save it."

"Well said." Rex replied, "But I've been in worse." He finished his green slop and moved onto the yellow slop they called toad and egg stew.

"This will get worse too."

"How so? We're in a magic military camp in a magic jungle with homicidal nepo babies…. with powers. How could it get worse?"

Imani sipped her drink, "Today we have weapon selections."