A bright flash, similar to his teleportation earlier, seared into Alex’s vision. He had the familiar feeling of traveling incredibly fast while not feeling like he was moving at all. This trip was much shorter however, and after a short moment he was in another white room nearly identical to the first one he entered. This one was much smaller and had a door at the end of it. There was only one chair in the small room.

His head was still swimming and from the last couple bombs that Vix had dropped on him. Sure the whole conversation had been a nuclear bomb but the last few things seemed to stick in his head.

Earth was in the same sector as the Threxari home world. A species as powerful as that had been their neighbor. Humans were just barely starting to really explore space and from what we could tell so far, life on other planets was either nonexistent or extremely limited. How big is a sector exactly? The size had to be immense. And two sectors had collided? Did that mean that the sector was now twice as big as it had been? Or is it just extra condensed now?

Earth had been lucky. There were extremely powerful and almost innumerable groups of people? Aliens? Were all of them different species or were some of them humans too? Were the humans on Earth the only ones? Well anyway, Earth was lucky they were surrounded by mostly benevolent cultures. If they were as primitive as Vix insinuated, then they could have easily been made into slaves or worse. Who knows how different his life could have been?

Was it terrible to draft people unwillingly into a war? Yes. Was it bad to essentially kidnap people and give them powers? Well, it was probably better than kidnapping them and eating them or using them as human piñatas or something like that but still, probably mostly bad.

The last thing both did and did not trouble him. The Qurath. From the sounds of it they were vicious. If they had an entire coalition of extremely powerful planets worried, they had to be bad news. And he couldn’t help but feel like he had heard that name somewhere. Alex didn’t know where he would have as this was his first contact with any force outside of Earth. Not like he was that important on Earth either. So, why did it sound so familiar?

There were too many questions that kept popping into his head. Too much had been thrown at him too quickly. He felt like he was neck deep in pool, in the middle of a lake, surrounded by the ocean. He felt like every question would only bring more questions. He didn’t have any answers and he didn’t like it.

He was so caught up that he hadn’t really noticed the notification pop up.

Make your class selection.

Mirage- if you don’t like your reality, change it. Specializes in altering reality or creating illusions.

Morph- take on a different shape. User has many forms. Can be used in a variety of ways.

Might- sometimes the answer is just to have more. Enhanced to get the job done.

Elemental- control the elements. Nature has strength, utilize it.

Chrono- time is master of fate. You are the master of time.

Shift- energy is neither created nor destroyed. You are the catalyst of change.

Psion- mind over matter. Some problems can’t be solved with brute or brawn.

Well that was something. It seems that awakened have seven options to pick from when selecting their classes. He finally had a choice to make. Not that those description helped that much in actually making a decision. How vague was “sometimes the answer is just to have more”? This is the first decision that he was going to make after his life got turned on its head.

Alex began to analyze each one to see if he could discern any hidden meanings in the descriptions. He started with some of the obvious ones.

Chrono seemed pretty straightforward yet also maybe a little enigmatic. It was a class centered on some form of time control. Did that mean that he could stop time? Go back in time? Turn everything in slow motion? It seemed to be an extremely powerful power set but it had to have massive drawbacks. He imagined you couldn’t just pick and choose which timelines existed otherwise why have any other class? Couldn’t the Coalition just pick a timeline in which they won otherwise? No there had to be some way to balance the scales on that type of power. He also felt like the use of that type of power would be limited. It wouldn’t be very useful in every situation. He moved into the next one, Elemental.

Again this one was pretty self explanatory. It seemed as though one could control the elements. Did that mean all of the elements? One element at a time? Alex could see the benefit of this power set much more than Chrono. It seemed to have much more utility. He imagined skating through the streets on ice he made himself, or flying on powerful gusts of wind. And who didn’t want to launch a fireball at a bad guy.

The next one he looked at was Mirage. The description sounded really cool. Right now he didn’t really like his reality and he wished that he could change it. The nature of the name however sounded more like it leaned on the illusion aspect rather than the actual changing of reality. He didn’t really envision himself as an illusionist and so quickly moved past.

Morph sounded like a really interesting option. One of his favorite heroes actually had a power that sounded like it would be included into this power set. Micro Man could shrink down to the size of a breath mint. He was great at infiltrating a criminal base of operations either gathering intelligence or springing a trap when they were unaware. This was the kind of power that Alex appreciated. Being small didn’t seem like it could be useful but he had made the most of it. Actually, thinking about this gave Alex some hope. If Micro Man could take a power that seemingly is useless and make it into something incredible, Alex could make probably any power he chose work incredibly well also.

Actually, now that Alex thought about it, why were there super heroes on Earth? Did they also get awakened? That can’t be it. Vix said that they had just now made contact with Earth. Plus, the Forge’s notifications hadn’t come up in English right off the bat either. It kind of shuffled around making random characters at first and then had changed into English. It seems like an AI that had awakened on Earth and in the United States would already know English. Vix herself said that translator taught her the language after interacting with someone for a while. Interacting with awakened seemed to her full time job. If there were other awakened on Earth she would have likely started to talk to Alex in English or at least another language on Earth. So they must be getting their powers some other way. Yet another question that seemed to only create more questions.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Alex didn’t have time to focus on that right now as another notification popped up.

Class selection will end in 30 minutes. If a class has not been selected, one will be selected for you. At the end of class selection, the tutorial will officially begin.

Right. So, now wasn’t time to ask questions that he didn’t have answers for anyway. Right now, he needed to focus on what he could do something about. Back to class choices.

Might just seems too confusing for him to look at seriously. It enhanced you somehow so that there was more? It really wasn’t a lot to go on and he didn’t feel comfortable basing his whole life on that extremely vague description. That just seems like something only an idiot would do. His best guess was that it would make you stronger or something else along those lines. Which could be useful, but again, there was no way to know what it would actually be. Not that he could know for sure what any of these actually meant.

If might was the brawn then Psion was the brains. It was likely a type of mentalist though what kind exactly Alex wasn’t sure. It could have some aspects of mind reading, and maybe even telekinesis. Which could have some potentially cool uses. He could imagine getting a snack without even leaving the couch on a lazy Saturday. How many times had he wished for that? When his body wasn’t functioning the way it used to, Alex instead invested in his mind, not that it made much of a difference for him. The description of this one rang so true. There were many things that couldn’t be powered through. No amount of muscles could solve every problem.

The main issue he had with this class was that he was going to fight in a war against powers he knew nothing of. Visions appeared in his mind of him standing on a battlefield trying to move something with his mind only to squashed by a meathead with a hammer because he was too focused on using his mind magic to notice a threat closing in on him. Sure he would likely not be alone and would work on a team, but he didn’t want to rely on that. He needed to be able to stand alone if needed. Plus he just got his body back, why wouldn’t he want to use it.

The last option was Shift. The description of this one reminded him of high school physics. Alex always liked math and physics. That wasn’t to say he was that smart, he actually struggled a lot in school, he just liked learning about them. Especially physics, that’s why this one seemed to call to him from the beginning. “Energy is neither created nor destroyed. You are the catalyst of change.” He knew from his physics classes that energy was more than just the fuel used to power a lightbulb. It was the term that was used to explain how things happened. Things could have a potential energy which is essentially the energy or “power” stored in an object which could be used. An example used in his physics class was a bowling ball held at shoulder height that was then dropped on the ground in the parking lot. It made a loud crash and actually left a small indent in the pavement.

The utility of this power seemed limitless to him. Could he tank a hit and then somehow redirect it, changing kinetic energy into something else?

Alex spent a few minutes debating with himself about the potential pros and cons of each class. He looked at his time left and saw that he had around five minutes left. His indecision was gnawing at him. He knew that he needed to make a decision but there were too many unknowns. He discounted the ones that would likely leave him as a sitting duck if he wasn’t with his team. That removed Scion, Chrono, and Mirage. He just didn’t want to be reliant on a team if something went wrong. He didn’t want to pick Might and though he liked Morph, it just didn’t really feel like a good fit for him.

That left Elemental and Shift. It was a hard decision. He could see the utility of both of them. If he were left alone during a fight, both would give him a lot of options to turn to. While Elemental seemed to have potentially a lot of tools, Shift would allow him to take a lot of damage. Overall Shift would probably make him stronger, if this AI functioned anything like an RPG. Elemental would probably be a less physical class overall.

He thought back to the day his life changed the last time. (He really needed to stop having these life changing events. One day they are going to get him killed.) He tried to think of what could have changed the outcome that day. Immediately he thought of Elemental. He could have caused a gust to kill the fire or shot water to put it out. But, at the end of the day, that wasn’t what had paralyzed him. He had been struck by Voltstorm, and been launched through a tree. If he had been able to block that attack, things would be different. If he could have done something to absorb the shock of the tree, it would be different. Alex wasn’t sure if this was how the class would work but he felt it would and that was enough for him. He sent a mental command to pick Shift.

Select Shift? (Y/N)

He confirmed it and felt a shudder of power inch its way up from his toes to his head. He felt electrified.

Congratulations on your awakening. Expanded status screens granted.

Expanded status screens? What does that mean?

As soon as he thought it a new screen popped up.

Alex Sullivan

Race- Human

Class- Shift

Level- 1

Strength- 8

Agility- 6

Intelligence- 6

Durability- 15

Endurance- 7

Health- 150/150

Stamina- 70/70

P.E.- 0/150

Alex looked at his status screen and tried to take it all in. He didn’t have much of a baseline for what the stats meant though. He knew that he felt stronger and slightly more agile so likely there had been an increase to his stats in some form from being awakened. Obviously durability got the largest increase. This only solidified his assumption that he would essentially be able to tank attacks to some extent. His health and P.E. stat appeared to be related to his durability as well. This most likely meant that durability would be an essential stat for his powers. Stamina looked to be related to endurance which made a lot of sense as well.

Until Alex could do some field testing, he wouldn’t know exactly how strong he had gotten. He also expected to receive some super powers. He was basically a super hero now in all but name, but no matter how he prodded at the Forge, nothing happened. Maybe he would get access to stuff like that inside the tutorial. Or, maybe he would just have the abilities and they wouldn’t be given to him. Again, he needed some field testing. At least the Forge seemed to understand that there would be some growing pains with new powers and gave a space to practice.

Alex couldn’t wait to try his new abilities out. He still had around a minute left before he would officially be entered into the tutorial where who knows what would be waiting for him. Not even Vix knew what the Forge had planned. He hoped that it would help. Could he get hurt? He assumed so since it was essentially training him to be an elite soldier and because the only combat ability he could think of would be to get hit so that he could hit somebody back. Getting hit usually required a little bit of pain. Could he die? Hopefully not in the tutorial but who knows.

He began to prepare himself for what was to come. He tried to get used to his new stats and cleared his mind so that he could face whatever was through that door.

“I should’ve made my decision sooner. I don’t know if I’m ready yet,” Alex grumbled to himself.

He began to walk forward, towards the door. The moment had arrived. The tutorial was about to officially begin. He grabbed the handle and, with a moment of hesitation to gather himself, he opened the door.