Why didn’t I check the weather? That was what was going through Theo’s head as he hid in a cave, waiting for the snowstorm that raged outside to pass. He cursed himself for his laziness. Theo had only planned on camping for one night, so when he realized an hour into his drive to the campsite that he left his phone at home, he hadn’t turned back.

He nonchalantly threw a pebble at the cave wall and made a small fist pump when it hit the small crack he was aiming for. His dad was definitely going to be pissed at Theo for losing all the camp equipment. The weather had seemed completely normal when Theo was unloading everything, so after he finished, Theo decided to take a nap in the truck. When he woke up, though, it was suddenly snowing and his stuff was being blown away by huge gusts of wind.

Theo had gone chasing after the equipment, but after a minute of running, he noticed that everything was off. First of all, why the hell was it snowing? He was almost 99.9% sure that he was in the Southern US and it was the middle of June, so how the crap was it snowing? Furthermore, the park he was camping in was a quaint little forest surrounding a lake, yet he now seemed to be in a valley between two towering mountains. On the bright side, there were still some trees around, so… maybe it was just an honest mistake? Theo could see himself accidentally driving to the wrong place, especially using the random map he had grabbed at a gas station.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Theo had gotten lost. In his childhood, he had constantly gone off wandering. On his fourth-grade school field trip to a national park, the police were called to look for a missing Theo, who had managed to sneak past the chaperones to go off exploring on his own. He was eventually found napping in the visitor’s center 24 hours later.

On a family vacation to Boston, he had seen a bunch of people lining up for a race and he thought it could be fun, so he snuck in. Turns out it was very not fun running over 26 miles, and even though he won the race, he felt no satisfaction. He later found out from his dad that winning the Boston Marathon was a pretty big deal, especially since he was just a high schooler.

Still, despite his history of moving around randomly, he found it hard to believe that he had not noticed driving into a snow-filled mountain range. Unable to solve this weird mystery, Theo decided to look around the cave he was sheltering in. The cave was long and narrow, and he only dared to go deep enough to avoid the weather’s reach. The inner depths of the cave were shrouded in darkness, and Theo had watched enough horror movies to know that he should not go exploring. Sighing in boredom, the 21-year-old decided to take a nap. He obviously had not watched enough horror movies to know not to sleep in a scary cave.

If Theo had examined the cave closer, he might have noticed the faint scratches that would have told him some creature called this cave home.

As Theo somehow managed to fall asleep on the cold stone floor of a cave, everywhere else in the world, natural disasters began spontaneously appearing. San Francisco suffered a massive earthquake, a tornado began devastating Paris, and Mount Vesuvius erupted once again. Barely any parts of the globe were left untouched.

It seemed as though the world was ending and all of humanity, excluding the sleeping Theo, was trembling in fear. Suddenly, all sounds stopped, and the world was enveloped in an eerie silence. In reality, the silence only lasted for one second, but to the people of Earth, that second seemed to stretch infinitely long. It seemed as though Time itself was acknowledging the great change that was coming. So, for one impossibly long second, the world lay silent. Then everything went dark and a robotic voice began speaking.

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[System Initiated]

[Welcome to the Multiverse]

Another impossibly long moment passed, before a screen flashed into the view of every human on Earth. Theo was jolted awake at the screen's appearance, feeling as though something had shocked him. As Theo looked around in confusion, the screen hovered in front and even shifted with him when he moved his head.

Name Theo Shelby Level 1 Race Human (Traces of Celestial Lineage) Titles The Light's Chosen, Cultivator Strength 6 Dexterity 10 Endurance 8 Vitality 5 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 10 Free Stats 0

Theo read the screen one time before deciding that he was having some sort of weird dream and ignoring it. As he began drifting back to sleep, another screen appeared, but Theo did not notice.

[Congratulations! You have been determined to be capable of cultivation. As a cultivator, you have gained access to the Tutorial. You have one hour to decide whether to participate in the Tutorial. Please select [Y] if you want to participate, or [N] if you refuse to.

[Y] [N]

*The Tutorial is a onetime opportunity for newly integrated worlds. There will be no other opportunities to join the Tutorial later.

After this final prompt, time seemed to return to its normal pace, the weather and natural disasters all ceased, and Theo Shelby continued to sleep, proving to be the last unvexed human left on Earth. For, ever since his birth, the sole heir of the Shelby family fortune had been entirely unconcerned with anything other than his fleeting interests. He may have found himself in a strange place with unexpected weather, but he certainly wouldn’t let some ‘Multiverse’ get in the way of a nap.

-----

In a distant part of the multiverse, a bespectacled man sat at a large desk, diligently filling out paperwork. Around him, hundreds of computer screens displaying various graphs and diagrams packed the room. Taking a break from his paperwork, the man gingerly sipped the steaming hot liquid in his favorite mug.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a tiny alert box on one of the computer screens. The screen displayed data from a scanner specifically made to track the aura signature of a long dead race. Slowly getting up, the man walked over and read the alert.

[CELESTIAL DETECTED!]

The mug shattered as it hit the floor, and the man who had been holding it was already running out of the room.