I took a couple of deep breaths as I mentally prepared myself for what was about to happen.
I looked across my small room, it felt so much smaller now than when I first got it despite the fact that I hadn’t grown much at all in these past four years.
I took in the scent of the morning dew to calm me down, the entire house always had a faint fragrance of wood and flowers coming from nowhere.
It was something I got to experience every morning and the consistency of it eventually became something that I found comfort in.
Both excitement and trepidation filled my body, something that I ironically never felt on my birthday in either world.
I slipt into my bed and relaxed comfortably waiting for the notification I knew would eventually arrive.
I had been preparing for this day for so long.
This would be the accumulation of all my blood sweat and tears and would be my just reward for all of my efforts.
Sweat ran down my face the only indication that time was actually passing was the rhythmic beating of my heart.
Then finally…
[Congradulations you have survived for five years and have met all the requirements to evolve from a human (Toddler) to a human (Child)]
[Your evolution will begin shortly]
I closed my eyes bearly processing the information and the staggering amount of notifications I got and I needed to pay more attention.
To me, the reason I got a particular reward was less important than the actual award itself quite after waiting for what felt like hours, my soul was sent into a vast yellow space filled with white stats with text.
[Congradulation you have completed your second Advancement and achieved level 1 you can now choose your first job class]
[As you are not a Demi-Human nor a Homo-morph you will not receive any racial classes during this Advancement]
I opened my eyes to take in my surroundings but I was no longer in my bedroom.
My vision was filled with brilliant spheres of light, slowly pulsing to the rhythm of my heartbeat as I floated in a world of blue and black colors.
I had no idea where I was or how I got there. I was supposed to be doing my class selection.
I looked at some of the lights and found that a few of them had humanoid shapes.
Some were small resembling the body structure of an infant while even fewer looked like full-grown humans who could even move around.
One figure that caught my eye, in particular, was a distant masculine-looking cyan-colored light with a violet outline who seemed to be dressed in a robe.
The moment I latched onto its position it looked at me in surprise.
The light began to move its mouth but no sound escaped from its lips.
I tried to speak to the figure but I realized I didn't have a mouth to communicate with it.
I then tried to look at its mouth to see if I could decipher what it was trying to tell me through lip reading alone to no success.
As that attempt failed, I then tried to move toward it to see of getting closer would help me to hear its speech but my body wouldn't move like I was glued in place.
That's when I realized that my incorporeal body didn't have any muscles to move in this mysterious world.
All I had was my eyes my brain and my heart which continued to beat in the same rhythm that the strange lights would pulse, including the figure I was currently trying to talk to.
Unaware of what to do next I continued to look at my surrounding as a strange sense of body dysmorphia hit me.
I couldnt move my neck so how exactly was I able to look around me?
Whoops, Anyway, I then began to think of how I could interact with the lights surrounding me.
I moved my eyes from the figure that was trying to converse with me turning to a greenish-black light with and bright orange outline making for a heavy contrast.
As I thought of how to make it approach me to my surprise, it appeared right in front of my eyes in an instant.
I would have almost jumped out of my seat if I was sitting on anything and if I had a body that could actually jump.
As I “gazed” I guess, at the bright light information flooded my mind.
Class: Military-Styled Hunter
Rank: Unconscious
Possible levels: 10
Stats Per Level:
* 5 Strength
* 5 Dexterity
Description: This hunter specializes in tracking prey from a distance in both the wilderness and in civilization. Gain abilities related to tracking, survival, and long-ranged weaponry.
Story: A man sick of the horror and bloodshed of war abandoned his post hiding from his commander and unit in the wilderness. Though he left his country to escape violence, to survive in the harsh environment he now lived violence became his only ally.
***
After that information flooded into my mind, I was left railing
“This…” I stuttered internally.
This is the place you pick your classes. I’m not going to lie the short description Kent gave me of this process did not prepare me for this.
I looked around to see all the classes I could possibly choose from and it just seemed endless.
Thousands of lights surrounded me all of different sizes and colors and I could even see a few that were in humanoid shapes.
From Kent's previous descriptions, I expected to get about fifty options at the maximum.
I looked back at the orb that I summoned in front of me and it became clear how strange the description was.
Well, not the description exactly but the fact that I got such a class in the first place.
According to Kent who I've already established to be unreliable, classes were passively unlocked through your daily life.
For example, let's say you managed to pass the licensing exam at the adventures guild right before your twentieth birthday during your evolution you were more than likely going to get a class like fledgling adventure or underground explorer.
In other words, the classes people could pick from were highly individualistic and gained through the result of their own actions and life choices.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Even things like running away from home or killing a particularly strong monster could net you a class during your advancement and here in lies and obvious problems.
I'm only a five-year-old child.
I've never been in the military and I've never hunted anything in my life unless you consider playing tag with my little sisters hunting.
I thought for a short while trying to figure out the core of the issue until a wide grin stretched across my nonexistent face.
Before I came to this world my dad and older sibling were deep into the military, camping, hunting, and stuff like that.
Despite not going down that path as an adult, as a child, I was basically forced to go to stuff like military parades and go out to shooting ranges while having long camps with my family.
Looking back It's funny how much I hated these activities when I was younger compared to how fondly I look back on them now as an adult or I mean, a five-year-old boy.
It gives life a sense of perspective.
If the classes I had access to were also determined by my life experiences in my old world then that would explain why I had such an overload of choices.
I'm not only getting my choices for my first five years in this world but also for my last thirty-five years in my last one.
I finally got my protagonist's cheat ability.
It's been five years of me being in this world and finally, the gods decided to bless me with my protagonist powers. If I was honest with myself I was beginning to think that everything that I did in my past life was going to end up being worthless to me now.
It's not like this world had electricity and a highly doubted that I could get very far introducing it into a world where magic can do a lot of the same basic things and where getting precious resources to make things like phones would be way too difficult.
I looked out to all of the lights surrounding me instructing them to circle my body In order of highest rank to lowest rank with just a single thought.
The ranks for classes which were also the ranks for monstered went in the following order: Feral, Delusional, Unconscious, Awakened, Wise, Ancient and Sentient.
Each rank had a corresponding color to indicate it for example Feral is indicated by a red outline while Awakened is indicated by a green outline.
After I commanded the lights to move they slowly circled around me and ordered themselves into place.
The first thing that I noticed was that the higher ranked the class was, the more humanoid and developed it tended to look.
The six lights in front of me all with an indigo outline indicating that they were ancient classes all had the shapes of humans with even some illusory clothes on their bodies.
The lights stood in one area making small repetitive movements giving each of them a hint of personality.
The first light I saw was a flat orange. The figure sat cross-legged dressed in a simple pants and T-shirt combo that were both ripped in multiple places. The figure had handcuffs on his hands as well as a thick ball and chain on his legs.
His eyes were closed and his temperament was tranquil, every couple of seconds his body would bulge and deform into different monstrous creatures before fixing itself and returning to its calm peaceful state.
I looked deep into the figure's body hoping to figure out how the class functioned.
***
Class: Prisoner of Madness
Rank: Ancient
Possible Levels: 15
Stats Per Level:
+8 Will
+7 Constitution
+7 Strength
+6 Wisdom
Description: This class allows one to temporarily transform into certain monsters gaining their abilities and a large portion of their stats.
You will be able to gain new transformations and upgrade previous ones by gaining more levels in this class and through the use of special class abilities.
You will gain the ability to recover from mental damage done to you while inflicting mental damage on others.
You gain the possibility of receiving a racial class in the future.
Story: One, two, three then a thousand. A man who was first murdered to save his loved ones grew addicted to the feeling of cutting others to pieces.
Eventually, he made a crucial mistake causing him to be captured and sent to Blossoming Mind mental asylum. Though he physically lost his physical freedom the empty cell he was confined in helped him regain the freedom of his mind.
***
After taking a few moments to recover from the implementation of new information. I went on the look at the next light in the circle.
The second light wore a sleeveless robe which was filled with wear and tear, bandages wrapped around his hand with faint blood stains hiding a sinister tattoo with was made of a collection of different symbols representing eyes.
The figure continued to inspect a pendant in his hand trying to look at it from a different angle as if it was a puzzle he was trying to solve. Shacking it around and applying pressure to different areas before
I looked at the figure in front of me to decode what the class' ability was.
***
Class: Diseceptic Warlock Apostate
Rank: Ancient
Possible Levels: 15
Stats Per Level:
+ 10 Charisma
+ 8 Awareness
+ 5 Will
+ 6 Intelligence
Description: This class allows one to form contracts with multiple gods gaining benefits from all of them while decreasing risks. One can even interchange their contracts with gods so that they don’t excite their maximum limit.
You gain the ability to form a pact with a creature, item, or concept and upgrade that pact through pact invocations obtained at different levels.
You are a master of deception, through the use of contracts and loopholes confuse your enemies and turn any action they make to your advantage.
You have been freed from your shackles may no one bind you with any chain you do not create for yourself.
Story: A man dissatisfied with his lot in life and wanting the power to change the world devises and grand plot to deceive the gods he once served however in the process of carrying out the grand scheme he realizes that he was not actually the betrayer but the betrayed.
***
The third light was a checkerboard pattern of deep blue and light purple. The figure held five chains in its right hand which disappeared as it went into the distance but looked like they were connected to someone or something by the neck.
The figure's body stood tall, stiff, and proud only shifting its head to look about its surroundings periodically.
***
Class: Prison Guard of Madness
Rank: Ancient
Possible Levels: 15
Stats Per Level:
+10 Intelligence
+ 7 Will
+ 5 Wisdom
+ 4 Charisma
Description: You gain the ability to alter the mental state of people around you over a long period of time allowing you to hypnotize and control others without their notice.
Creatures with a weak mental state or who are completely insane will naturally submit to your instructions without question
Story: A former Prisoner of the blossoming mind asylum is fully “treated” leaving the facility only to be so unadapted to life outside of it.
Unable to start a new life he returns to work at the asylum as a guard.
Though he hated the facility and the abuse it forced upon him for a crime he did not commit he later finds his only source of pleasure to be in passing on the same abuse he faced to others.
***
The fifth light was a dirty brown in color with lines of white flowing up, down, and around the figure in complex spiraling patterns.
The light looked like a wrinkled old man sitting over an edge looking for something in the distance. Just below him, a small fog of ancient symbols swam around in an unorganized fashion.
Every time the man would move his eyes a collection of strange symbols would reform first into mini sentences then into fantastical scenes that looked as though they came straight out of a fairy tale.
***
Class: Knowledgeable Hermit
Rank: Ancient
Possible Levels: 15
Stats Per Level:
+20 Intelligence
+16 Wisdom
Description: As a knowledge hermit you gain the ability to understand the innate composition of things as well as the ability to turn your ideas into reality.
Your mind is expanded you find that understanding concepts, memorizing information, and upgrading skills come much more naturally to you.
The more knowledge you know and the rarer that knowledge is the more powerful you become.
Story: A researcher who figured out the reality of the world he lived in was banished from his homeland by the very people he worked to protect.
Though he was heartbroken by the isolation forced upon him by his own people said isolation allowed him to reach heights of knowledge he never thought possible.
***
The final light was a beautiful shade of pink with a deep black center.
It was in the shape of a woman who seemed to change clothing and attitude every five seconds.
At one point in time, she was a princess in a tower talking to an invisible prince subtly hinting that she wanted to be his bride. In another, she was an adventure dodging invisible traps and obstacles looking to find a lost treasure before changing form once again.
***
Class: False Demoness
Rank: Ancient
Possible Levels: 15
Stats Per Level:
+ 7 Charisma
+ 7 Awareness
+ 7 Poise
+ 7 Dexterity
Description: This class turns the user into an extremely beautiful woman with all the necessary functioning parts. This change is not reversible.
The user gains exceptional acting skills and abilities related to that of a demon lowering their karma and making them more cold and ruthless.
Possibility of gaining a racial class in the future.
Story: A man desperate to make his childhood friend fall in love with him is told by her that she only loves women.
Desperate to win her heart he undergoes a forbidden procedure allowing him to become one of the most beautiful women to ever exist only to find his one and only love in the arms of a man.
Though his love was shattered he came to fall in love with his new self more than he ever was with her.
…
The fact that I was even able to get so many options was amazing, especially considering how good each and every one of them was.
Before I could seriously start considering my class options however I saw three figures in the distance with a violet outline who didn't seem to follow my command to organize themselves including the masculine cyan figure I saw before.
His eyes were filled with curiosity and another emotion that I couldn’t yet recognize.
He tried to move toward me until he hit some sort of barrier. At the same time, I felt a slight force hit my body,
It wasn’t painful but it felt as though my body was being compressed.
After not being able to pass through the barrier the figure of light began to hit the barrier each blow more forceful and terrifying than the last.
My nonexistent body felt as though it was being pulverized every fiber in me was being racked with unbearable stress.
Realizing that his physical punches weren’t getting him anywhere he began to chant. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but I knew he was casting some sort of spell.
Looking at him through blurry vision, I could finally see the emotion that was coursing through his eyes.
It was hunger.
Whatever that thing was, it was trying to consume me.
As the figure continued to chant the space where I assumed the invisible barrier to be started to turn black and red.
It was at that moment the voice of the system which I had grown accustomed to began to roar.
[Host is being consumed by hostile class “Wanderer Of The Cosmos”]
[Host will be consumed if retaliatory measures are not undergone]
[Commencing retaliation protocol 109 in 3, 2,1]