What was that one concept he had run across in a book that one time, Mana Leakage? The idea that mana leaked concepts and ideas to worlds that were converted to Dungeon Worlds or some such. Except as far as Adam knew, Earth wasn’t being converted to a Dungeon World. Of course, he didn’t even know if Dungeon Worlds existed out here in this SYSTEM. But, why wouldn’t there be Dungeon Worlds? As far as he understood what Po had said, The Foundation was just the area of the previous SYSTEM which had been reabsorbed into the larger domain of the SYSTEM he was now in.
It also looked like this SYSTEM was using that crazy idea of getting “blooded” before access was granted to the SYSTEM. But no monsters were popping out of the woodwork so maybe there was an adaption phase? If that was the case and electricity wasn’t working, aside from all the deaths due to the many accidents that were happening around the world, that meant that The SYSTEM was setting people up to cull other people. With a population of more than 7 billion people with limited access to food and water, shit was going to get real everywhere really quickly.
As Adam looked around he knew that the People in Alaska would have a better time of it than anywhere else. Even in Anchorage, it wouldn’t take long for people to get out of the city and to places where they could hunt and fish to sustain themselves. That said, human nature would probably make shit go sideways but that wasn’t something he was concerned about right now. Now he had to figure out his abilities and perks.
Waking up in the middle of a city with no ID, money, or anything else, that was just a dick move by the SYSTEM. It wasn’t a big deal though and he had a good idea of what he needed to do even if it would take some time. Adam looked around and noticed that people were leaving their cars and heading toward the ramp he was walking down. He just smiled and kept on walking north.
After walking for a bit, he came to a place with a nice thick forest off to the east which sat up against the mountains. He walked down the Arctic Valley exit and started following the road southeast until he came to a spot where he could step off the road to the east and into the woods. Out here there weren’t too many people walking around yet though he was sure people would be making their way down from the ski resort eventually. It was June so there shouldn’t be too many people walking this way.
Once he was in the trees he allowed his senses to reach out and was amazed when his eyes cycled through both infrared and night vision modes. That wasn’t mentioned anywhere in his Status Screen but it was nice to see that some of the perks of being a dragon, while not listed, were still available. If he still could reset time, that could be handy. It probably hadn’t been listed because he didn’t have the mana available to use the ability, the ability was suppressed, or Adamantium Dragons had other abilities in this SYSTEM. He’d just have to wait and see.
Adam was still wondering what the SYSTEM’s play was. The few times he’d been through a reset the SYSTEMs, or the beings running the SYSTEM like the SYNDICATE, had always informed those that were being initialized into The SYSTEM what was happening. Adam shook his head, what if it was as simple as The Foundation was so large that it was taking the SYSTEM a little bit of time to get everything situated? Adam still had a few hours of daylight left before he could safely morph into a Dragon and fly away so he kept walking up the road.
***
Po read Adam’s thoughts, sighed, and said, “If you only knew.” Po had decided to check in on Adam because there was something about that dragon that just screamed “CHANGE!” After their talk, Po had been whisked away for orientation briefings, which were scheduled for the foreseeable future. It would seem that the acquisition, or the reacquisition of the domain of The Foundation had created an opportunity for The SYSTEM to acquire more helpers for its bureaucracy.
The SYSTEM was a mechanism of Order. If there was to be order then everything had a place and nothing was wasted. Whenever a domain was added to the SYSTEM disruptions in electronic systems that were not mana shielded often lead to catastrophic accidents. Therefore the SYSTEM didn’t waste the creatures that would have otherwise died. Instead, the accidents still happened and the remains were replaced but the SYSTEM recovered all of the victims. Those victims were then brought in for an orientation and made an offer. They could work for the SYSTEM and work off the debt of their rescue which would take around 10 standard Earth Years to pay back. At that time they would be offered a class that usually ended up with them continuing to work for the SYSTEM.
Po had asked his supervisor, “Why does the SYSTEM even bother?”
His supervisor, an alien from some world he’d never been to had said, “The uniqueness of an individual should not be wasted due to bad luck as a result of SYSTEM integration. Also, the SYSTEM does not want to be responsible for those deaths.”
Po hadn’t fully understood at the time but now that he’d been working for The SYSTEM for quite a while he understood that the nature of the SYSTEM, which was Order driven, would not let it waste a resource due to the influence of chaos based on an action it was directly responsible for. Therefore The SYSTEM took the time and spent the energy necessary to fabricate the necessary remains of every being that was saved. To everyone where they were pulled from, it would appear that they died. In this way, The SYSTEM preserved the effects of what should have happened when those people died. By removing the people that would have died The SYSTEM prevented the build-up of Bad Karma. The only spanner in the works this time were the ten universes that had been combined and then separated. Because of that accident, there had been a significant number of people recovered for orientation.
The Earth Adam was on had over 7.7 million people that would have died as a direct result of the loss of power worldwide. Adam’s world was just one of many that They SYSTEM was receiving new recruits from.
In addition to everything else and now that everything was working smoothly again, Po needed to go talk with a few of his subordinates. He was going to talk with those little fuckers. They’d been late, were still fighting obvious hangovers, and were giving his section a bad reputation which was affecting his department's ability to meet their quota. It didn’t matter if they didn’t know the SYSTEM was going to be acquiring a domain that was arguably the size of 10% of the current domain. It didn’t matter that they went out gambling and drinking the night before. They worked for the SYSTEM and should have been ready to go to work on a moment's notice. Their lack of foresight made it so there was almost no chance that his department would earn the bonus XP award.
Po shut down the monitor that he’d used to check on Adam, stood, and walked out of his office to the elevator. Now that over 80% of the people that had been recovered had been processed The SYSTEM would be making its announcement. While that was going on he had some idiots to go reprimand and then a lot of recruits to sort through and assign to the various duties throughout The SYSTEM.
***
Adam was sitting on a bench looking down the mountain near the Arctic Ski resort. Walking at normal speed was invigorating. It had taken close to 2 hours to walk the almost 9 miles uphill. He could have changed into a dragon and just flown up but it was daylight and judging by the sun it was around, ah who was he kidding, the Sun didn’t set until after 11 p.m. up here. Right now the Sun was still 10 degrees above the horizon so it would be another hour, probably two before it set which meant that he’d probably arrived in this world right around 7 p.m. or so. No way to be sure.
Over the last two hours, he’d noticed that the sky was clear, except for the occasional eagle or hawk, and while there was wildlife, something about his scent had kept the moose and the bears he’d seen away from him. Moose were known to charge trains. The bull that had seen him had stopped, sniffed the air, and then turned and walked back up the road away from Adam. The normal animals in the area had given him a wide berth, It was kind of nice. So Adam found himself sitting on a bench looking at the mountains and hills below waiting for the Sun to set.
A couple of people had passed him heading down the mountain, others were still up here inside the main building of the ski resort. He hadn’t ventured over to it yet, there was no point if he wasn’t going to stay. He was still wondering what was going on with this SYSTEM and its integration into this world, universe, whatever, when The SYSTEM started issuing messages.
Welcome to the SYSTEM.
The SYSTEM is not controlled by any government, person, or entity currently on your planet.
Your world has been designated Earth 1…0799 where the “…” represents a numerical value. If you would like to know that value you may review it at any time in your Status Screen under Planet of Origin.
Congratulations! Planet 0799 is NOT designated as a Dungeon World
Additional Status Screen functionality has been activated. You may now issue “Help” requests for clarification on various terms that appear there.
SYSTEM Shops are now available in any SYSTEM-registered Village, Town, or City. By default, all cities with a population of 1 million people now have access to a SYSTEM Shop. As new villages, towns, and cities are registered SYSTEM Shop access will become available once purchased. See your nearest SYSTEM Shop for availability and pricing.
You may have noticed that unshielded electronic devices are no longer working. Shielded devices in this context are those devices shielded against mana. Shielding of any other sort does not matter. While devices and weapons with complex electronic parts do not work there are abilities, perks, and skills that will allow you to utilize equipment that is currently not working.
As the Sun rises across your planet The SYSTEM will begin making alterations to the environment, flora, and fauna. Creatures and Plants that you have never seen before will begin to appear. As you interact with the plants, creatures, and monsters that appear the Class System will become available to you once you unlock it.
To unlock a Class within the system you must do one of three things:
1 - Defeat or Kill a SYSTEM creature or Monster. Note: the level and rarity of the creature or monster that you kill can affect the classes that become available to you.
2 - Defeat or Kill any creature or being that possesses a Class with The SYSTEM. Note: Killing millions of beings that do not possess a class within the SYSTEM will NOT unlock your access to the Class System.
3 - Craft something utilizing SYSTEM-generated materials. Note: The Rarity and Level of the materials used in the creation of the crafted item can affect the classes that become available to you. The final rarity and level of the created crafted item do NOT affect these choices only the materials used.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Adam read over the messages quickly. It looked like this SYSTEM wasn’t overly bloodthirsty at least to start. Of course, the message about this Earth not being a Dungeon World meant that there were dungeon worlds which also meant that there were places where mana did run rampant and people died. Did the SYSTEM choose those worlds or was there a council that chose which worlds were to be sacrificed? Odds were that he would not find out as long as he was within The Foundation unless he could and did purchase the information. So, the first thing he needed to do was find a SYSTEM Shop.
One thing was for sure, there wouldn’t be a SYSTEM Shop in Anchorage until someone founded a village and purchased access. With only 300,000 people in the Anchorage peninsula, this area was not one that would have access to a SYSTEM Shop right away. Also, with the Sun setting in about an hour and then rising five and a half hours later, things were going to get dicey up here. This planet not being a Dungeon World though…The people of Alaska should be fine, a lot of people up here had guns. That should allow them to kill their first monsters and that would allow them to pick up the classes they’d need to survive.
No, what he needed was a population center with at least a million people close by, and hope his memories and this reality lined up. Adam focused his mind and looked for all population centers that might have 1 million people in them right now that were close to his current location. Edmonton was close, in some of his memories it had over a million, in others slightly less. At just over 1,400 miles it was a bit of a trip. Calgary definitely had over 1 million people. In almost every memory he had Calgary had over 1 million people, though in a couple it had slightly fewer. Also, Calgary was over 1,500 miles away. Vancouver on the other hand always had over 2 million people so it was extremely likely that it had over 1 million people and it was just over 1,350 miles away.
Vancouver it was then. Adam stood and moved away from the bench. There was no help for it. There were a few people that were looking his way. Whatever, he needed to get going and truthfully he wanted to see what this new SYSTEM had done to his dragon form.
Adam focused his mind and initiated the shift into his Adamantium Dragon Form. He felt his body grow and elongate and he was even able to direct how it grew so that he didn’t accidentally destroy the bench or any of the vehicles nearby. He watched a bunch of people who were looking his way go slack-jawed. He would have smiled but decided to hold that back so as not to scare them.
The process of transformation took about 10 seconds. When he was done he noticed that one man had kept his wits and was pulling out a desert eagle with a shaking hand. Before either of them found out what happened when Adam was shot with a gun, Adam jumped into the air, flapped his wings once to gain altitude, and then shifted course to fly down the mountain as he picked up speed and flew away.
Adam kept to the valleys between the mountain peaks east of Anchorage and headed south until he came to Highway 1 near the small town of Indian. There he turned east along the inlet. He flew out over the water to reduce any chance that people would take potshots at him as he headed toward Portage at the end of the inlet. Adam started counting and reviewed the approximate distance it should be from the town of Indian to Portage from his memories. Adam counted to 1,035 as he flew over Portage and continued southeast toward Portage Lake. That put his leisurely flying speed at about 75 miles per hour.
From Portage Lake he turned east to Whittier and then flew toward Perry Island. As he was coming up on Naked Island he realized he was starting to get tired and noticed that his Stamina was running low. Adam landed on the beach on the south end of the Island and looked over his stamina. He’d been losing 20 stamina a minute while only regaining about 16 so a net loss of 4 Stamina per minute. That meant that he’d be able to stay aloft for about 70 minutes before he had to land. So he’d need to stay over land or he'd have to land in the sea. Testing his Adaption Perk out was on his list of things to do but right now was not the time. Adam continued for a bit longer and then came in for a landing. Stamina being such a big deal for flying also meant that the first thing he was going to do when he picked up a class was put some of his points into Endurance and Constitution. Having a Dragon form that was limited by low attributes was not cool.
20 minutes later, Adam was in the air again and heading south. He’d be able to fly about 80 miles and then he would have to take a break. To make sure he had something in reserve when he landed he chose to only fly 60 miles and stop for 15 minutes. That way he had some Stamina on the ground in case he was attacked.
Adam landed east of Cordova about half an hour after midnight. An hour later he stopped near Controller Bay. His next stop was in the middle of nowhere along a coastline which saw him in the air and flying south when the sun rose just after 4:01 a.m. If his mapping skills were right, which they were, he was 126 miles southwest of Haines Junction, on the opposite side of the mountains along the coast.
Adam had been watching the sunlight come up from behind the mountains off to his east but he hadn’t understood what it would feel like when The SYSTEM became fully active as the Sun rose. He’d been so used to a SYSTEM running in the background in the past that he hadn’t felt the change when he reappeared in this world. As the Sun came up though, he felt an energy wave wash over him which made his whole body tingle and replaced something he hadn’t known he was missing. Also, it felt good. Which was weird, the SYSTEM had never felt good before.
Adam brought his thoughts back to where he was. He still had about 30 minutes of flight time left before he needed to land so he paid attention to his surroundings and watched as the world around him seemed to go into a form of time-lapse photography as the various plants and animals below and around him grew and morphed at an accelerated rate. Adam continued south while taking a little more care before coming in for a landing.
As he continued south Adam made four more stops. There was nothing special about them. He wasn’t near any cities or significant landmarks when he stopped to regain his stamina. This area of Alaska was pretty remote after all. By his reckoning, he was about 560 miles from Anchorage and he had another 8 hours to go. The one thing about being a dragon which was kind of nice though, was when he found a stream during one of his breaks and decided it was time to eat, it was child’s play to reach in with his maw and snag some fish. His Adamantium teeth made short work of his meal if he didn’t just swallow the fish whole.
One thing he hadn’t considered after he’d eaten was how fast his dragon body would process the food and how quickly he’d need to take care of bodily functions. It was a lot easier to handle that business when flying, though the first time it had happened he’d been over land and he was sure the elk he’d seen below him had been both horrified to see a dragon and disgusted to be defecated on. Right then, he vowed to get his nanites or chaos back if for no other reason than taking care of biological bodily functions.
As he took to the air he saw a plum of smoke rising into the air south and off to his right of him on the horizon where…Yeah, that was where Mount Edgecumbe, a historically dormant volcano should be. He should be just over 25 miles from it and if he could see the smoke from here, that meant it was erupting, or had erupted. Adam altered course and beelined toward the volcano. He could try to check off two things there. If there were no monsters present, he could see if he was adaptable. He was pretty sure lava wasn’t going to prove a problem since he’d been born into the stuff in this body. If there was a monster present he might even be able to unlock the SYSTEM and see what classes were available.
Adam opened his Status Screen and checked his stats. It looked like his base attributes didn’t change while he was in his Dragon Form, though he had 129 hit points instead of 18 and his Natural Defense was 100 instead of 0 which gave him a Physical Damage Resistance of 10. With his Defense of 114 and his Physical Damage Resistance at 10, it should take a little bit for anything to hurt him in his dragon form. He should be okay unless he ran into a rare monster.
Yeah, he jinxed himself. Of course, he was going to run into a rare monster. A red dragon was rising from the Volcano and beelining towards him. Wow, it looked angry and ready to fight. That was fine with Adam. As the red dragon drew closer, Adam waited until it was 100 feet away, which seemed to be the perfect range for the red dragon to attack as well. It opened its mouth and a gout of flame erupted from its mouth in a thin stream toward Adam.
Adam opened his maw and activated one of his breath weapons as well.
Begin Combat log
Red Dragon has 4 attacks per combat Turn / Adamantium Dragon has 2 attacks per combat turn, Red Dragon has initiative
Basic Legendary Red Dragon Activates Fire Breath Weapon
+14 to Hit against a Defense of 114 and Dodge of 4.
Dodge unsuccessful.
Defense and 100% immunity to fire ignore 100% of attack
Damage Taken: 0
Adamantium Dragon activates Lightning Breath Weapon for 50 mana.
+4 to Hit against a Defense of 100 and Dodge of 0
Dodge fails
Defense ineffective against Lightning Damage
Base Damage: 62 (11 + 51)
Damage to Red Dragon 51 (62 – 4 Damage Resistance = 58 – 7 (11% resistance to Air Magic))
Red Dragon 1,252 Hit Points reduced to 1,201 remaining.
Adamantium Dragon 153 Hit Points remaining
Adam took in the information as he tucked his wings, rolled, and turned around to follow the Red Dragon. It looked like the Defense attribute didn’t do anything to stop the attack from hitting so he’d need to increase his Dodge if he didn’t want to get hit. Adam only had a 4 in his Dodge attribute and no skills or perks that added to it. He might do better in his human form as he had plenty of unarmed and weapon training to make up for his lack of skill but fighting in Dragon Form, yeah he was going to have to take the hits as they came in.
Adam’s eyes were drawn to a line that stated the red dragon was a “Basic Legendary” How could something be basic and Legendary? He’d have to worry about that later. As it flared its wings, Adam’s inattention allowed the Red Dragon to get in close. The Red Dragon attacked Adam three more times with each forward claw and a bite. Each claw attack did 18 points, which allowed 8 points to get past his Damage Resistance. The bite did 22 points of damage which did 12 damage. So in the space of 6 seconds, he took 28 points of damage which reduced his 153 hit points to 125 hit points.
Adam did some quick calculations in his head and didn’t like the prediction he was coming up with. He could only take 4 more attacks like that. His breath weapon had cost 50 mana to use. With only 183 mana total he’d only be able to do that attack 2 more times. So he could reduce the Red Dragons hit points by another 102 hit points if he was lucky but he’d have no mana
It was time to flip the script. Adam climbed into the air until he was sure that the red dragon was following him. Once he reached six thousand feet he slowed down until he stalled and turned to look at the red dragon who was rising from directly below him, Perfect! Adam summoned his Chaos Blade to his right front claw as he tumbled downward and cleaved the left wing of the dragon off. Adam cleaved the left wing of the dragon off? Adam quickly checked his combat log concerning that specific attack.
Chaos Blade Strikes Left Wing for 22 points of 100% penetrating true damage. Critical Strike. Wing Severed.
Adam only had a moment to think about what he read as he dismissed the Chaos Blade and dove away. The red dragon's upward momentum stalled and it began to tumble back toward the ground. Adam angled himself away from the falling dragon and turned back to follow it down toward the ground from a safe distance. Adam had spent 150 of his 183 mana and he felt a mana drain headache coming on now that he only had 33 mana left.
The red dragon fought to control or slow its fall right up until the moment that it slammed into the base of the Volcano. It probably hadn’t reached terminal velocity because of its remaining wing. Even so, as Adam came in and landed heavily on the torso of the Red Dragon with his hind legs it didn’t move. It had taken so much damage or stunned itself so badly that it was completely unconscious when Adam clamped his jaw on the dragon's neck and chewed until its head broke free. Even so, it still took Adam almost two minutes to kill the dragon, during which time it didn’t wake up once.
When the Dragon died Adam was rewarded with the sound of trumpets going off in his mind as a voice rang into his mind.
Congratulations! You have unlocked The SYSTEM by defeating a Basic Legendary Creature you have gained the Title Apex Predator. You may now instantly kill any completely helpless target within your power.
XP and Treasure will be awarded after you choose your first class. Please open your Status Screen and choose your class under the Class Tab.
Adam opened his Status Screen, chose his Class Tab, and activated it. A moment later a new message appeared in his vision.
Class Selection Process activated. Available Class List is populating, please wait.
Adam settled in next to the red dragon's body, it would be at least two minutes before he’d have enough mana to turn back into a human so he made sure his surroundings were clear and waited while the SYSTEM put a list of classes for him to choose from.