When Dylan woke up, he didn’t know how long had passed.

The pain was gone. Left in its wake were the warring sensations of a dull ache and a rushing invigoration.

He’d been initiated. He had a class. Stats. He had power and would never be as helpless as he had been in that basement.

He hoped.

In front of him was the System’s prompt.

[Are you ready to begin Class Tutorial: Deckmaster? Yes/No]

Deckmaster?

That was his class?

He’d never heard of it before. Maybe it was new? That wouldn’t be particularly unusual. The System and its Awakening Stone seemed to produce new classes from time to time. Of course, most of them were variations on those that already existed.

It could also be that Deckmaster was a more specialized class that wasn’t easy to learn about in a town as small and remote as Fairbasin. His teachers had done their best to prepare him and his classmates for life after being initiated into the System, but there was only so much time available for System studies.

The students still needed to learn practical knowledge about the world around them. Common monsters and methods to deal with them. Dungeons, with both their dangers and rewards. Applications of manatech they could still use while uninitiated and what to expect when they could use it all. Not to mention the more mundane studies like math and history.

So, the school only had time to cover the common classes, making sure to supplement that knowledge with the skills the students would need to search for more detailed information about lesser seen classes themselves.

If Deckmaster was either a rare or specialized class, it would be normal for Dylan to have to do his own research after getting back.

If Fairbasin still existed…

No, Dylan thought, shaking his head. Don’t do that again. Stay here. Don’t drift.

He focused back on the System’s prompt and chose to begin.

[To view your Status Page, concentrate your will and think Status. Do it now.]

The System began to teach every class with the same standard instructions.

Dylan was ready, and immediately thought, Status.

A new screen appeared in front of him.

[Personal Status: Dylan Thatcher]

[Class: Deckmaster, Tier 1]

[Class Skills (expand)]

[Statistics (expand)]

Dylan knew what the System would say next.

[To get a more detailed breakdown of different aspects of your Status, focus on a tab and think Expand. Begin by expanding your Statistics.]

Dylan did so.

[Statistics]

[Resilience: 10, Tier 1]

[Physical Power: 3, Tier 0]

[Magic Power: 10, Tier 1]

[Mana: 100/100]

[Mana Regeneration: 1.0/minute]

[Class Statistics: Resilience, Magic Power]

Seeing the numbers, Dylan was relieved. Looks like I’m some kind of caster.

The System then began an explanation of what the different stats meant, which Dylan mostly ignored. None of this was new to him. The world had 150 years to get used to the System and the changes it brought. Even for young children, what this part of the Tutorial taught was already common knowledge.

The numbers did not represent a person’s previous physique and capabilities. They represented the additional power gained as a part of a class. Not all classes granted all stats, but three were seen in everyone.

Resilience was a person’s life. Not literally, but in practice, the meaning was much the same. It was the shield that guarded against harm, preventing wounds and softening impacts. It was also the force that healed any damage that did actually get through. Each hit you took would reduce it. Every injury patched would drain it. When it was gone, you were vulnerable, like the uninitiated, and without special means, it took dedicated meditation to restore.

Physical power was the measure of how much stronger a body was after being initiated by the System. It represented how efficiently someone could channel mana through muscle and bone, strengthening reflexes, durability, and explosive force. This was mostly an unconscious action, but there were some classes and skills that would actively exploit it to the extreme.

Magic power was much the same. The higher it was, the better a person could harness the power of mana, channeling its energy to create spells, enchantments, and any number of other wonderous effects.

The tiers listed behind each number were how the System classified power.

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For stats, each tier was a watershed, with the tier number often acting as a multiplier, sometimes even exponentially so, on the power of the skills and actions that those stats governed. The threshold for reaching tier one in a stat was ten; the threshold for the next tier was ten times the previous threshold. So, tier two required the stat to reach one hundred, tier three needed one thousand, and so on.

Class tiers had a similar effect and their growth was also dependent on stats. Once all of the designated class stats rose to the next tier, the class tier would rise as well. For Dylan, that meant resilience and magic power.

After he made sure the System wasn’t teaching him anything new, Dylan went back to examining his screen. Ten resilience was the standard, and resilience was almost always a class stat. Three physical power wasn’t the worst he’d heard of; at least he wouldn’t be completely useless if forced into close quarters. The ten magic power made him excited. That meant that the primary focus of his class would be on using some kind of magic, and combined with the lower physical power, he doubted his place in battle would be the front line.

Dylan was impatient for the System to finish its explanation. He wanted to learn about his class skills. To him, that was the most important part of this phase of the Tutorial. It was what would determine whether his decision to choose a random class was a mistake or not. Based on his stats, he was hopeful, but it was impossible to know for sure until he saw what a Deckmaster could truly do.

Finally, the System issued another prompt.

[Now, expand Class Skills.]

Without hesitation, Dylan obeyed.

[Class Skills]

[Meditation]

[Deck Management]

[Card Creation]

[Card Play]

The System continued.

[For detailed explanations, concentrate on each skill]

Dylan knew that the Tutorial was now paused until he inspected all of his new skills.

Meditation was easy to understand. It was the one class skill that was common between everyone initiated by the System. It allowed people to enter a state of focused relaxation where they could restore their resilience, increase the effects of any regeneration stats, and in some cases use special features of other class skills. Additionally, maintaining the state of meditation helped to slowly cultivate and increase a person’s stats. It was the easiest, but slowest, method of advancement.

After reviewing what he’d already known, Dylan was finally ready to explore the new features his class brought him.

[Deck Management]

[This comprehensive skill governs all aspects of deck management. This includes but is not limited to: loading a deck, creating a new deck, changing the cards in a deck, and restoring a deck.]

Well, Dylan thought, that was surprisingly unhelpful.

He’d been expecting a more detailed explanation than that. Maybe the next skill could provide some clarity.

[Card Creation]

[This skill governs both the creation of blank cards and the use of blank cards to create complete cards.]

He understood the words, but the context needed for him to know what the skill was actually useful for still eluded him.

Dylan took a deep breath. Moving on.

[Card Play]

[This skill governs the actualization of your loaded deck and the ability to play its cards.]

Dylan was still confused. He gathered that Deckmaster was a class that would allow him to create cards of some kind, form them into a deck, and then let him play the cards in that deck to do something. But he found no explanation as to what any of that truly meant.

Knowing he could create and play cards didn’t tell him what they were or what they did.

He hoped the System could answer his doubts, but the next prompt he received told him that it had already moved on to the next step in the Tutorial.

[Please proceed to the table to receive your initial class equipment.]

Frustrated, Dylan glanced around the room, surprised to find it empty. He’d somehow failed to notice the Awakening Stone was gone. He’d been surrounding by nothing but the glowing tiles for who knew how long, but he’d never thought it strange.

Unsettled something with such a large sense of presence could slip his mind so easily, Dylan watched as the floor where it used to be shifted. A table two yards wide rose from the ground until it reached his waist. On its surface were two objects. A book so large and thick that it could easily be used as a shield and a small box about the size of an open hand.

Dylan walked over and examined what he assumed to be his new class equipment. He didn’t know what the book was for. Other than its size and a dull metallic cover, there were no distinguishing features. The box was easier to take a guess about. Cards. It was bigger than the playing cards he was used to seeing, but it was close enough that Dylan didn’t think he was wrong. The box either currently held or was made to hold cards. He hoped it was the former. If he had an example of the kind of card a Deckmaster was supposed to use, maybe he’d finally be able to see what the class was all about.

[For more detailed information about System produced items, touch the item in question and think Examine.]

Dylan first reached for the book.

[Card Catalog]

[A collection of all cards owned by a Deckmaster.]

[Equip? Yes/No]

That was unusual. Most equipment needed to be worn manually. An equip prompt meant the item would most likely be worn ethereally, digitizing itself and being absorbed into the body until called.

Before equipping the card catalog, Dylan decided to examine the box.

[Starter Deck]

[Requires Card Catalog.]

Okay, then. Dylan reached back for the book, this time choosing yes.

There was a flash of light and the catalog began to disintegrate in front of him. He saw the mana patterns again as it did, but this time they were far less complicated. His head didn’t hurt, the only irritation a slight tingling feeling along his scalp.

There seemed to be an intangible breeze and the broken pieces of the book, drifting in the air around him, became orderly and flew into his chest.

When it was finished, he could feel it. By concentrating he could mentally examine the empty book. To his mind’s eye, it looked no different from when it rested on the table; only now, it seemed to be floating in a void.

He also knew he could summon it at will. When he tried it, in much the same way as it disappeared, it reassembled itself and began floating just before his eyes. He called it back, and watched it disappear once again.

The operation was weird. It was like he suddenly had an extra limb. He instinctively knew how to move it, but the fact that it hadn’t been there just a moment before was a thought always at the back of his mind.

Seeing the catalog settled back in place, Dylan reached for the box.

[Starter Deck]

[A small collection of cards capable of forming a simple deck.]

[Equip? Yes/No]

When he selected yes, the box vanished.

Dozens of cards, each about four-by-seven inches, rose to float around Dylan’s head and began the same process of digitization as the book.

He closed his eyes to avoid the mana patterns they created. Each one may have been relatively insignificant, but when all of the cards were taken together, each tingling sensation Dylan felt overlapped. Each time the sensation overlapped, he felt a deeper and deeper itch. Distracting and on the verge of becoming pain, it was a problem he’d rather avoid before it got out of hand.

With his eyes closed, Dylan found he could more easily watch the results of the digitization process. Unlike the book, the cards didn’t each occupy their own space. Instead, they merged into the catalog, and as they did, its cover got almost insignificantly brighter. If it hadn’t become a part of him after the equipping process, and if he hadn’t been focusing on watching it, he might never have noticed the change.

Finally, after several minutes, the cards were finished. He could feel the catalog was no longer empty.

After summoning the book again, he opened it to its first page to find a table of contents presented much like a message from the System.

[Catalog Contents]

[1. Rules]

[2. Decks]

[3. Card Collection]

Finally, Dylan thought, now we’re getting somewhere.