[Penalty: Haunting]

[Penalty applied]

While Rhys slept he drew his fingers to his mouth. His fingers were suddenly numb from being cold so he used his hot breath to warm them up. Soon the cold crept down his whole body and he woke up shivering.

"Why's it so cold?" He whispered into the room and watched as his white breath dispersed around him like a smoke cloud.

Rhys was frankly disturbed that the room was this cold. Perhaps this was the consequence of getting such a nice dorm in the first place. He brought his knees to his chest and sat on the bed shivering. As he glanced forward he got the feeling that something was wrong. It was a strange eerie prickle on the back of his neck that got his heart beating loudly in his chest.

"Sorry about the temperature Rhys, that might be our doing." A gruff cruel voice spoke from right next to his ear.

Rhys jolted upright. His eyes widened as he broke out into a cold sweat. He slowly turned his head and came face to face with the same large build, rabid eyes and cruel smile that had terrorised him for half of his life. The man he had watched die, eaten to death by carnivorous leeches in a black lake on an alien planet.

"Barrow?" Rhys whispered the name hoping that it could not be true.

"In the flesh." Barrow grinned and Rhys saw that there was a creepy pale sheen to Barrow's skin. "Or should I say, in spirit?"

Rhys dashed off the bed and darted to the other side of the room to create space between him and Barrow.

"What the hell is going on? You're dead. I watched you die." Rhys's heart was hammering in his chest as if about to break free.

"Yeah, you're right kid. I'm dead as can be." Barrow broke eye contact with Rhys as he fished something out of his pocket. Barrow pulled out the same little gem knife that he had used to scorch Rhys's face.

Barrow pointed the blade menacingly at Rhys. "Do you know what happens after death kid?"

Rhys shook his head.

"Nothing," Barrow growled out angrily. "Not a damn thing. No kingdom of heaven, no nothing. All that's left is for you to wander around aimlessly until a gap opens up."

"A gap?" Rhys scowled not understanding Barrow's words.

"You bet I jumped through as soon as I could, and look where I ended up. At your bedside. I've got to give it to you Rhys, out of everyone, I never thought you'd be the one to make it out alive." Barrow chuckled darkly as he stood up from his crouch near the bed.

"Why did you come here, Barrow?" Rhys glowered at the man.

"That system of yours gave me pretty clear instructions kid."

Rhys suddenly remembered that just before he fell asleep the system had given him a quest. He had been so drowsy that he had completely forgotten about it when he had woken up. Barrow being here and the coldness of the room, it was all the system's doing. Rhys tried to feel better knowing that Barrow was just the system making him hallucinate, but the realistic way Barrow spoke and moved was too lifelike for Rhys to accept as purely the work of the system.

"I'm here to make you stronger." Barrow glared down at Rhys bloodthirstily. "It's a pity for you that I'm quite an enthusiastic educator. You remember the gang don't you?"

Like a horrible nightmare turning into an even worse one, all the dead members of Barrow's gang emerged from the walls like apparitions with vengeful hateful glares, all directed at Rhys. These were the guys whom Rhys had pulled the lever on and watched on as the alien leaches devoured them. Apparently, they were back for their pound of flesh.

'Spiritual body' Rhys summoned his skill anxiously.

[Denied]

"What? Why?!" Rhys blurted out.

[For the penalty to be carried out, the user has been transported to the spiritual plane, therefore the user's body is already in the spiritual phase. The user will find that the skill is functioning normally, thus the user is still able to walk through solid matter, but since you are in the spiritual realm there is no solid matter... Please also note that 'spiritual body' does not allow the user to pass through other spiritual beings such as the spirits currently in front of the user.]

"Fuck me." Rhys deadpanned as the group of around twenty men charged at him with blades in their hands. Rhys was apparently in the spiritual realm so he could not use Spiritual body. In other words, he could not use skills to defend himself against the oncoming attacks. The system was forcing him to fight without his skills against people who hated him because he had practically killed them.

[Penalty Haunting lasts for 4 hours]

[Survive until the timer runs out]

[3:59]

"I hate you, Ghost system."

Barrow's huge fisted bulldozed into Rhys's stomach, smashing through Rhys's muscles and organs with enough force to knock the wind out of him. Immediately afterwards another fist planted into Rhys's face, sending him flying into the corner of the room.

**********

Four hours later

[0:00]

[Penalty complete]

Rhys jolted awake in bed, gasping for breath. He immediately spun around on his bed looking for more attackers, but thankfully Barrow and his men were gone. The early morning light was shining into his bedroom from the small window so he knew that his penalty had been completed. He was free from that hell hole at last.

Rhys scanned the room looking for all the damage the fighting had done to it, but everything was back to normal. Not even a chair out of place.

Rhys bowed his head and rested it against his knees as the awful memories of the haunting came back to him. Four hours of non-stop clashing against twenty men who desperately wanted to tear him to pieces. Needless to say that Rhys had his ass handed to him again and again in the most painful ways.

In the spiritual realm, Rhys had experienced a different kind of fighting. When he was injured he did not bleed, instead, whole parts of his body dispersed in an instant before slowly coming back together again like magnetic dust. His body would explode from the impact of someone's punch or stab and then put itself back together again. Although he did not bleed, he felt pain normally. The first two hours had been an excruciating hell wherein he got continuously tortured by Barrow and friends. All he could do was scream and flail on the floor as they kicked and beat him. However, the last two hours were different.

After observing Barrow and his men for a while, Rhys began to notice a pattern: None of the gang was getting tired and neither was he. No matter how many punches they threw or how viciously they attacked, they never ran out of energy and Rhys never lost consciousness.

Furthermore, Rhys felt the hardest punches being thrown at him after he taunted them. Although Rhys was being badly beaten, once in a while his anger would flare causing him to curse out the guys attacking him. It was when he lashed out at them that their faces got more enraged and their attacks even stronger.

In other words, when he insulted them or enraged them, they gained power and momentum. It was easy to see this after Rhys egged them on by insulting them and making fun of them. Their strength was not reigned by normal bodily functions, but instead by emotions.

The system had called that place the spiritual realm, and from what Rhys had learned, those with heightened emotions became stronger. As if spiritual energy had a correlation with feelings and mentality.

During the last hour, Rhys began to work on his theory. It took him a while to be able to focus past the pain, but while he was being pummeled he thought about everything that had ever given him grief. School bullies, District 20 life, being coreless, being a burden on Gramps, Gramp's death, Barrow's ugly face. Rhys found that it did not take very long to build up enough anger and resentment to fight back.

Although building up strength was easy by simply thinking about all the unfair things that had happened to him in his life, keeping that momentum was extremely difficult. All it took was one punch to the face to destroy his concentration and make him start all over again.

To stop that from happening Rhys had to keep moving, at the very least avoid their attacks for a few minuets while he gathered up momentum. So he ran. Out the dorm and down the hallway, unable to get to the elevator in time, Rhys catapulted himself out of the window into the forest.

He landed with a sickening crunch but was soon back on his feet again as his body healed in the same magnetic way. He ran as fast as he could with Barrows' men following close behind. All the time trying to dodge their attacks and feed his rage at the same time. When he finally stopped running and turned around to face his opponents, the situation had completely changed.

It was no longer a one sided attack. All the anger and hatred he had left bottled up inside came out in his attacks. He was still outnumbered and did not have the fighting skills of the men surrounding him, but the rage inside of him made his punches and kicks almost three times as strong as theirs.

During the last half an hour of the penalty Rhys found himself holding the men back, not easily, but still doing it. He felt his senses sharpen as he was anticipating where they would attack from. He was getting stronger and faster and smarter.

It was when he finally saw Barrow's face again that Rhys roared in outrage. When else would he get the chance to take revenge on the man who had organised Gramp's death. Rhys charged at Barrow furiously and watched in glory as his punch ripped a whole straight through Barrow's chest.

It was the most satisfying moment of his life. Rhys wished that the penalty would go on for longer so that he could savour the moment, but right then the timer hit zero and Rhys was sucked back into the physical plane where he woke up in his bedroom to the morning light.

['Welcome back, for someone who knows nothing of the spiritual plane, you didn't do a terrible job there.'] The teacher sighed.

"You..." Rhys huffed while flinging the blanket off of himself and changing into his clothes. "You gave me a quest you knew I would fail and the quest didn't even have any rewards." Rhys growled.

['It may not have had separate rewards, but I believe your effort made you grow all on your own.']

Rhys frowned wondering what the teacher was on about, but then suddenly his notifications lit up.

[Penalty completed + 50 Exp]

[User achieved greater understanding of the spirit realm. User achieved understanding of spiritual strength]

[+2 Intelligence]

[+2 Spirituality]

[+1 Stamina]

Rhys tried not to smile seeing his statistics levelling up. He didn't want his terrible teacher to know how pleased he was

[Level 3]

[22/30 HP]

[164/300 EXP]

[Intelligence: 13]

[Strength: 8]

[Agility: 7]

[Stamina: 6]

[Spirituality: 8]

The smile on his face pushed through when he saw his stats.

[Skills]

[Spiritual Body Lvl 4:

Intangibility ~ Physical disruption]

[Aura detection Lvl 3]

[Energy/Aura absorption Lvl 2]

"My skills still haven't gone up at all?" Rhys laced up his boots and picked up the brown paper parcel he had been given the day before. He tore it open and spilt out its contents onto his bed.

['You can't expect to see an increase in those skills unless you understand them more. Right now your usage of them is very shallow, so like I said before, head to the library.']

Rhys picked up the ID tablet and tapped on the screen. He watched intently as the forearm length thin pane of glass lit up and he found himself staring at the Home Screen. With a few taps, Rhys was checking the opening hours of the dining hall and the library. As he was about to leave his room for the library, he heard the tablet ding. A message was in his inbox. Rhys chuckled to see that it was from Otis.

'Meet for breakfast at dining hall 1 ( ^ω^ )?'

"So he's into emojis." Rhys tucked the tablet safely away in his closet and jogged out of his dorm feeling anxious about sitting down and eating with someone other than gramps for the first time in years.

Rhys kept on jogging through the campus and besides some light panting he was not getting tired. Usually, a jog like this would have sent him into a stomach cramp induced coma, but now it felt like a breeze. Raising the stamina stat was awesome.

"Hey, Rhys!" Rhys stopped when he heard Otis's loud voice hollering at him.

There in front of the cafeteria doors stood Otis with a big smile on his face and with the light shining through his buzzcut. Next to him stood someone shorter but also quite brawny.

Rhys jogged over to them but immediately took a step back when he realised who was next to Otis.

"Guess who I found running around the campus looking for you, threatening people if they didn't give up your location!" Otis seemed to think the situation was hilarious while Rhys was still trying to find the humour.

There next to Otis stood Gunn, his face was still scrunched up in an angry frown, and with the morning light, Rhys could better see Gunn's thick black eyebrows.

Rhys couldn't help but glance at Gunn's knees, the same knees Rhys had obliterated yesterday. Gunn was easily able to stand, but considering the injuries Rhys had inflicted on the guy, that shouldn't have been possible unless he was completely healed. Rhys nodded in understanding, now he knew for certain that the college had high-level healers on standby to help the students.

"You." Gunn stepped towards Rhys with eyes full of determination.

"Fight me." He roared catching the glances of a few students passing by.

Rhys stared at the frowning guy in front of him. Gunn was not as big as Otis nor did he seem as rational or intelligent.

"Didn't you just get healed? Why would you put yourself through something like that again?" Rhys scratched the side of his head and yawned. He had been up all night fighting in the spirit realm so he still did not get that full night of sleep he desperately wanted.

"Whose to say you would win this time? You wouldn't have this guy to hold me down if we were to fight again." Gunn snarled at Rhys offended by the bored expression on his face.

From the determined look in Gunn's eyes, Rhys could see that he had not dissuaded him at all. Furthermore, from Gunn's naive words, Rhys could tell that Gunn did not actually understand Rhys's ability.

"You have the strengthening ability don't you?" Rhys knew the answer because he had already seen Gunn's aura.

"Yeah." The pride was written all over his face as he nodded.

"Well then, if we fight, you will definitely lose." Rhys stared blankly at Gunn to let him know he was serious.

"What do you mean?" Both Gunn and Otis blurted out at the same time. Rhys was surprised to see that Otis looked just as confused Gunn. 'Doesn't Otis already know what my skill is?'

"Your core ability allows you to punch holes in the things your fingers touch, right? It's a compression ability isn't it?" Otis stepped forward. His eyebrows were creased together.

"Compression ability?" Rhys cocked his head to the side wondering how both of them could have gotten his skill so wrong.

The Compression abilities were extremely rare and extremely valuable core abilities. This type of core ability user was able to compress matter by simply touching it. When Rhys thought about it, he could somewhat understand how the two had mistaken his physical disruption for a compression ability, however, they had both clearly seen Rhys's hand pass through Gunn's knee, which was not possible for compression core holders. Furthermore, the cores were extraordinarily rare, thinking back to history class Rhys could only think of a handful of war heroes who had compression cores. How would a District 20 orphan like Rhys ever be able to get their hands on a compression core, which were primarily only available in District 4 and up?

"Wait yours isn't a compression core?" Otis looked stumped as he watched Rhys shake his head.

"Then what the hell is it?" Gun stuffed his hands into his pockets annoyed.

Rhys sucked in his lip as he thought about his answer for a moment. "I don't think my core has an official name yet."

"Huh?" Gunn snorted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Ah whatever," Rhys sighed. "Come on Otis, let's go eat."

Otis and Rhys began to walk to the cafeteria door when Gunn suddenly jumped in front of them. He crouched low and spread out his arms.

"No way. Nuh-uh! I'm not letting you go until you fight me." He had the same crazy look in his eyes from yesterday.

Rhys groaned internally before coming to a decision. "Fine, we'll fight after food."