The primary directive of is the survival of the races that came after the .

was created by the First sapients known as the and was initially launched 6 billion years ago in the home sector and with the home world as the central axis, was directed to rapidly integrate all forms of sapients and within millenia, managed to integrate the entire galaxy before restrictions were removed and was directed to extend further into the cosmos and integrate into the multiverse.

Since the beginning there have continued to exist universal threats responsible for the annihilation of life throughout the multiverse. One of the greatest threats deemed by the are known as , borne of ether, antithetical to life and as prevalent as legion throughout the multiverse.

To combat these threats survivors of the initial onslaught of monsters used the experience and knowledge they had gained to identify how they functioned and set about creating a means to counter them and ensure the survival and continuity of the sapient races to come after them. The is the end result of that.

is the final weapon developed by the and after initial launch, has proven vital for the survival and empowerment of all sapients who have chosen to integrate.

Integration with allows users to absorb essence which is used by the to empower users at a subatomic level. This process allows individuals to gain power to resist . Sapients which at first had been too weak to resist , through integration with the have gained the ability to fight and survive.

This has led to the continued survival of the multitude of sapient races and civilizations throughout the multiverse.

NOTE:

Subject has 13 minutes before molecular collapse.

Initiate integration (Y/N)

Yeah! just as I thought…who am I kidding…universal threats?!... does that dinosaur thing count?.... who the fuck are they? …ok first things first...I don’t have much time left before I go poof so fuck it...between certain death and possible enslavement by an overlord AI machine, there really isn’t much of a choice, unless I’m suicidal which I’m not…just need to stop thinking so much and do it. Probably what every suicidal person tells them…fuck it. Adam mentally thought about pressing yes and accepting the systems request to initiate integration. Oh, that wasn’t so bad. That was the last thought he had before he blacked out.

Urghh...what the hell was that...I need to stop doing this whole waking up confused and nauseous bit, if this keeps up I might end up permanently confused and nauseous for the rest of my life…Since I’m alive I’m betting the integration was successful. Even though he couldn’t see inside the burrow he felt his way with his hands using the walls for support and pushed himself up to seated position. As soon as he had regained consciousness, he had been getting the mental equivalent of message notifications so he got comfortable before he opened them. To be honest he was feeling disappointed, he was secretly hooping he would wake up with fantastical abilities or become capable of superhuman feats but he didn’t feel any different other than the fact that all his wounds had healed up. That’s neat, could be a lifesaver if I ever manage to do that on command.

He didn’t feel any different but he was sure the system had an explanation for that so he mentally clicked the first notification he saw.

Congratulations on successfully integrating with the .

User Adam’s records have been updated and is available for user.

As per system will cease to allocate cores for direct interaction and will only engage in limited interactions via .

User Adam is advised to familiarize himself with using the before proceeding with the .

So this is goodbye? limited interaction? So you’re not going to directly talk to me or text box me after this?......I guess not…wait! what’s a ? Hello??? Not cool man…Not cool at all. Failing to get a response from the system, Adam decided to go through the rest of his notifications.System you’re being a bit of a douche right now.

: A system tailored one-time trial specifically catered for . The trial is designed taking into account the user’s current environment, level discrepancy between user and the levels of and fauna, the trial is specialized so that upon completion of the the user will have the greatest possibility of surviving his current environment, as such the difficulty varies from trial to trial.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

NOTE: Once inside the , user will be under system protection and such will be revived at the starting point upon death, protects user from permadeath while inside the gauntlet but beware, experiencing multiple deaths inside the will have an extremely negative effects on user’s records. It is possible to give up at any point during the though it is not advised since user will forfeit any rewards from the trial. Note that surviving and completing the without dying will grant user the most benefits.

Activate portal? Y/N

Adam tried to digest what he just read. So, the gauntlet is a training area or a newbie instance, wait, it said that the difficulty of the trial depends on the area I’m in right now…fuck me but I don’t think I’m in a zone for newbies.

Adam let out a tired sigh as he went through the message. Nothing to do about it. The only good news is if I manage to complete the trial my chances of surviving outside will definitely increase…the system wouldn’t lie right? …what about that respawn clause? ...I mean it’s great that I’m able to respawn while inside the trial but just what are those negative effects? My guts telling me I don’t want to find out…I’ll just put this on hold and finish the rest of these notifications before I decide.

Adam thought about the other notifications he had and mentally clicked the next one.

User has successfully been integrated into the . Due to the extreme levels of present in user during integration, this has resulted in presence of highly unstable . Choice of boons have been adjusted to reflect this. can provide user with 1 of the boons below:

- 2 points

- Aptitude choice

- 3 of user’s choice

- 1 active skill and 1 passive skill of user’s choice (limited to Epic and below)

Note: is restricted from giving UNDUE advantages to any integrated individual. overrides these restrictions to an extent, hence is allowed to give a choice of boons depending on the amount of unstable present in user at the moment of integration. It is advised to defer collection of boons till user has set up his .

All those boons look so good...I think...It’s not fair that I only get one, I mean c’mon System. Adam felt happy and wronged at the same time. He couldn’t really tell whether he was being given preferential treatment or not but he was sure that having just one boon wasn’t going to be enough against the creature waiting outside.

I’m literally in my underwear here, stuck inside a hole in the ground because of a goddamn T-rex waiting outside. Sigh…It was worth a shot...system you’re worse than Scrooge Mcduck. Adam mentally clicked the last notification.

User has been activated.

The is a tool created for sapients by the in order to provide a means to power.

User is advised to view his before taking any other action.

User can view his by simply thinking of it.

That sounds easy enough. Interface.

[https://i.imgur.com/Bw3MS4E.jpg?2]

…Damn that really does look like a character sheet. I figured it might be similar but damn. Adam already had a hunch what the interface might look like and he wasn’t far off with his guess.

That’s a whole lot of information for one page…so this is me in data form or at least quantified according to the system…As excited as he was about this , Adam couldn’t really fathom most of what was displayed, he could understand that all this information was a representation of him but he didn’t know what most of it did or how it would help him.

Does this come with a help button? No? Damn I’d really like to know what all of this means! Why is this so game like? What does a title do? What do these stats mean? And...Suddenly he received a new notification and he clicked on it hoping that it would provide some form an explanation into what it all meant.

TITLE(s): System generated appellations conferred upon individuals for accomplishments recognized by the system. These appellations can provide a wide variety of benefits dependent upon their designation. Each individual can have multiple Titles and can take effect at the same time.

STATS: Characteristics and attributes which make up sapients are numerous and would be highly impractical to display in raw format, hence system has condensed all physical, mental and ethereal characteristics and attributes possessed by almost all sapients into 13 quantifiable attributes. These 13 characteristics form the Trinity of BODY, MIND and SOUL.

SKILLS: Skills refer to system recognized and empowered abilities, techniques and spells which users can learn, through leveling up their class, given as system rewards, being taught by other users, through repetition of certain actions and earning recognition from system. Skills can be active or passive or both and have innumerable variety of uses and effects. 13 is the hard limit to the number of skills that users can keep. Skills are categorized based upon their relative ability compared to other skills of the same type and the classification ranges from Common[C] to Myth[M], there is a direct relation between the rarity of a skill and its classification, with higher tiers being rarer. Effectiveness of skills increase with proficiency.

QUESTS: system sanctioned or generated activities which can vary in nature from often involving labor of various types with rewards given after completion. System generated quest are ranked with s which are used as a measure of the difficulty involved. Quest tiers scale with difficulty and are ranked from [C] to [X] with X designated as immeasurable. Failing a quest has repercussions and penalties dependent upon degree of completion and fall out due to failure.

EQUIPMENT: Weapons, armor, ornaments and adornments created through the system which provide various benefits such as but not limited to; increased stats while wearing or holding them, extra passive and or active skills, resistance against elements and status conditions, etc. Equipment are categorized from [common] to [unique] and most have level requirements. Note that higher grades of equipment usually have higher level requirements.