His head hurt like he was coming off the worst bender ever, but he didn’t remember even having a drink—life had made little time for that lately. The funny thing was, the more he tried to think about the past few minutes, the less he could remember. He knew he had been driving home from work. It had been Friday night, and he remembered being upset. It was far too late to still be at work. He had been glad it was finally the weekend.

Then… well, nothing. He just didn’t remember after that. Until now, when he woke up feeling like a hippo had been using him as a back scratcher. He wiggled his fingers and toes and they moved; hopefully, there wasn’t any permanent damage. It was about then that he realized he should probably open his eyes.

That was when he knew he was still dreaming. At least, that seemed like the most likely situation. A big, blue flashing screen appeared as soon as he opened his eyes.

CONTINUE?

Yes or No

Try as hard as he might, he couldn’t blink his eyes enough to make his vision clear. He couldn’t shake his head. All he could move were his fingers and toes, and even those were limited. Tim tried willing himself awake, mentally chanting, “It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, it’s just a dream…”

Then he caught himself. What was he doing? If this was a dream, then why not go with it? There was a one in a quadrillion chance that it was real, but, oh, if it was… If so, then why wouldn’t he want to continue?

He had watched enough isekai anime and read enough litrpg to know that the blue screen was the universal sign of adventure. Anything had to be an improvement over life as an office drone—he really could have been an extra in the movie Office Space. So what did he have to lose?

Yes

Once he mentally triggered the choice, he felt as much as heard the soft whirring sound of a computer fan as a warmth suffused his entire person. In the background, it almost sounded like a dial-up internet connection was being made.

Welcome to your new life in Iocusinte!

You lost a bet, so you have been given a new start.

Now, it’s time to determine how you will begin in this new world. As is often the case, people think they have far more choice in matters than they actually do. So, you are probably expecting to get a list of classes and races and all sorts of points to assign.

Well… LMAO, aren’t you cute?

Life is random and so too shall your start be.

Here, roll this die 3 times, and let’s find out what your starting trait, class, and level will be.

In front of his eyes, he saw a multi-colored die spinning around. He couldn’t tell how many sides it had, but there must have been hundreds. Somehow, he mentally reached out and shook it, just like he would have with dice on a tabletop game. He even heard the rattling sound like it was inside of one of those cups that his grandma had used when playing Yahtzee.

Then it flashed in front of his eyes:

4,444,444,444,444,444

Oh, how exciting? It’s been centuries since any Sojourner got this trait: Ephemeral. Or wait… maybe this is the first time. Either way, it kinda sucks to be you.

Now, try for your class.

He screamed at the blue screen before him but didn’t know if anyone heard him. “What bet? I didn’t make any bet.” At least, he couldn’t remember making any bets. Admittedly, the last few hours, or maybe even the past day, were a little fuzzy.

He toned down his anger and tried asking more questions. He hoped a more conciliatory tone would elicit an answer. “What do you mean, it sucks to be me? What’s this all mean? What’s a sojourner and what is ephemeral? Does this mean that I only have a brief life?”

No answers were forthcoming. Eventually, after a couple of minutes of ranting, he looked up at the die. This time it was much smaller. He found he could mentally move it around, and instead of a blurring number of seemingly endless sides, it had exactly sixteen sides. He was still upset by what was happening, but he figured there wasn’t much he could do about it. So, here goes. He rolled the die again.

10 - Bloodmage

Okay, I guess it could have been worse—for you I mean. This should be pretty interesting watching you try to figure it out… while it lasts. LOL.

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The more that he focused on the words in front of him, the less he could decide if he was actually hearing the words or only reading them on the blue screen.

Okay, well, no point in delaying. Roll for your level. Then we can see where this goes.

He wanted to argue, but the voice or words on the screen, whatever it might be, was correct. So, he looked at the die once again. While it was the same sparkling prismatic form as the two times before, now it was numbered 1-20. Somehow, he felt better about that. A d20 was something he was familiar with from his days as a kid playing D&D, so roll it he did.

19

Wow, that’s almost as good as it gets. I guess you had some good luck coming your way after the earlier rolls. Sojourners usually get super excited about something like this. You will enter Iocusinte only 1 level from the max level—sorta. The thing that no one ever thinks about is that this means you have a whole crap ton of abilities and no idea how to use any of them. Good luck with that.

Now, though, comes the part where you get to pick some stuff. Even in a completely random universe, at least some of the time you get to make choices.

So, apply your level stat points for this class, and don’t be slow about it. I get bored easily.

Stat Sheet

Name: Timothy Stein

Age: 70

Ht: 5’10

Wt: 149 lbs.

Class: Blood Mage*

Level: 19th

XP: 156,000/192,000

Hardiness: 14

Flexibility: 10

Acuity: 20

Sagacity: 14

Hit Points: 218

Mana: 285

Offense: ?

Defense: ?

Faction: Terran: +50, Roshya/Asmar/Ogria: -10

Traits: Ephemeral

Equipped Class Skills/Spells:

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

Tim. That was his name! Being out of touch with his body, completely disoriented, and staring at a blue screen had almost caused him to forget his name. He still felt foggy, but seeing his name pop up on the stat sheet felt like a ray of sunlight piercing the clouds. It was a little piece of himself.

He looked at the sheet. It differed from any game that he had played, but he had a pretty good idea what most of it was. He wondered if he could ask any questions to clarify exactly what the various stats meant, so he called out or projected out with his mind—whichever may be the case—“Isn’t there a tutorial or something?”

You’ve been reading too many books, or maybe you are just confusing me with someone who cares. Let me make it simple for you. This is about you entertaining me, not the other way around.

“Still, that isn’t a no. I bet you I could be far more entertaining if only you explained the basics to me.” No sooner had he said the word ‘bet’ than he had the oddest sensation of watching an addict with their hand shaking as they were jonesing for their next rush—of course, Tim didn’t actually see anything like that, it was more of an intangible impression.

Silence was his only answer, but still, he waited. Finally, a sound like an explosive sigh filled his senses, and a new text popped up.

Fine, whatever gets this over with faster.

The first thing you need to know, and don’t think I’m going to repeat this, is the Rule of Fours.

Four is the controlling number. Four nations, four primary stats, and four derivative stats. Four class groups and four classes in each group. Four skills or spells, plus one for every 4 levels. Even the impact of stats is determined as multiples of four.

Hardiness is a combination of your physical hardiness, resistance, strength, and offense.

Flexibility is a combination of your speed, dexterity, agility, and defense.

Acuity is mental processing, mana pool, spell power, and perception.

Sagacity is empathy, wisdom, willpower, and persuasion.

Everything else is derived from those stats, your levels, and your gear.

There is, of course, crossover in that Flexibility controls precision, which certainly can impact offense, or Sagacity controls understanding, which can influence how you utilize your perceptions. Free advice incoming, but don’t get used to this. Every stat depends upon the others in some way, and they work synergistically.

Derivative stats control how you interact with the world. Hit points are a summary of your ability to absorb or avoid damage. As long as you have at least 1 hit point remaining you will never die. Even being stabbed through the heart wouldn’t kill you, although it would certainly deal more damage than say being stabbed in your hand.

If you are killed, then you, like all creatures of Iocusinte, will fade away into whatever comes next, and your body will dissipate. The higher your level, the longer it will persist before dissipating, and thus, the more time for Restoration Magic to be used on you.

Mana controls how much energy you have to use for certain spells or skills. Both hit points and mana regenerate based upon the controlling stat and the Rule of Fours.

Offense controls how hard you can hit with a stick or how effective a spell will be and is governed by your relevant stat, level, the skill or spell in use, and modifiers from your gear. If you had any…

Defense controls how hard you are to be hit as well as various resistances and such. It is governed in the same way as offense.

Now, you get 1 stat point per level, so you have 19 stat points to assign. Do so quickly before randomness takes over.

Tim looked at the sheet. Blood Mage wasn’t exactly a cheery class, but he hoped it was something like a necromancer—not a class that he had much experience with, but he had seen how effective it could be in various games. He was certainly willing to give it a chance. Based upon how his stats were already assigned, he had to assume that Acuity was the most important stat, so he figured that was where the most points should go, but he was also mindful of what he had read about the Rule of Fours.

He couldn’t bring himself to believe that Flexibility had no value as defense was always important, so he put 2 points into that, followed by 2 into both Hardiness and Sagacity. Then he dumped 12 into Acuity. Tim figured he might as well add the last point, even though it wasn’t a multiple of four.

As he looked on, his hit points went up by 10—not much, but he figured every bit could help, his mana went up dramatically to 384, and his offense remained an unknown. He figured that was because he didn’t have any skill or spell equipped. Defense was a measly 3. He didn’t have any basis for comparison in this world, but he couldn’t help but worry that it was rather pathetic.

That’s it. Time’s up. Here are some skills and spells. Now, off you go.