[Initializing Class Specialization Options…]

[Alteration Mage: Sometimes a solid defense is the best offense. Using the weave, conjure barriers, wards, and walls to protect and disrupt.]

[Conjuration Mage: Manifest from the weave to subdue and vanquish your enemies with conjured creatures and items.]

[Evocation Mage: The keystone magic-user. Use the power of the elements to force your enemies into submission.]

[Illusion Mage: Things are not what they seem with the power of illusion. Confound your enemies and unravel many of life’s mysteries.]

[Necromancy Mage: The border of life and death is a fickle one. Using this branch of magic, restore un-death to those who recently died and have them join forces with you.]

Wis? Int? Those were terms that were rather unknown to Sophia. She took an educated guess and coined them as wisdom and intelligence, subject to change once she actually figured out where she was and if she was still even dreaming or not. She was having a hard time believing that it was a dream, considering how real that metal chair felt when she was smashed into it. Sophia decided to take this seriously. Just in case.

She took a quick glance at her options and was thankful that at least there were a few more than the first set of classes. The one that Sophia physically shuddered when she was reading the list was Necromancy. That was something that she’d only read about in some horror stories and she wasn’t about to pick that one. Nope! Couldn’t pay her enough! With that one out of the way, she proceeded to take a look at the rest of her options.

Let’s see, after Necromancy, that leaves Alteration, Conjuration, Evocation, and Illusion. She didn’t have much to go on as her own experiences of magic were rather lacking. Her brother was the one that played those video games. She searched her memory as best she could for any information that he may have talked to her about but was coming up rather dry. She decided to get rid of the ones that she really didn’t know much about and couldn’t form too much of an opinion. That left Conjuration and Evocation. The only reason that Evocation made the cut was that, even though she didn’t know how that sort of magic worked, the description led her to believe that most magic users were from the Evocation class and it warranted at least a second look.

She wasn’t really all that fond of animals. Her family had a cat once and it would always piss on everything. Her mom eventually had to get rid of it because it tore up the couch and urinated all over Sophia’s clothes, forcing her to get a whole new wardrobe because nothing they did got the smell out. Would her conjurations piss all over her stuff? She didn’t think so, but her lack of knowledge of animals was enough to lead her into the alternative. Evocation it is.

“Uhmm… System, thing.. uhh words? I want to be an evocation wizard, mage, caster thingie.” She calls out to the silent steel room. She wasn’t too sure of her choice, but if it was a keystone caster thing, surely it would be really difficult for her to mess that up.

[You have selected Evocation Mage. Confirm your selection now: Yes/No]

“Yes.” She replies, hands clenching the sides of her chair, not wanting to be thrown around again through some sort of multidimensional shunt. After several moments of waiting, all she could hear was her own labored breathing and the feeling of her pulse radiating across her body, seemingly beating faster and faster as the moments ticked by.

[Congratulations, Sophia Espinoza. You have selected [Evocation Mage] as your class specialization. The following spells are applied:]

[Initializing Evocation Mage spell list.]

[Fire Bolt - Conjure a flame and hurl it at your opponent. Can also catch flammable objects on fire. Range: 5 Meters, Damage: 4, Mana Cost: 5]

[Frost Bolt - Conjure a ball of frost and hurl it at your opponent. Can freeze water and slow your opponent. Range: 5 Meters, Damage: 4, Mana Cost: 5]

[Lightning Bolt - Conjure a bolt of electricity and hurl it at your opponent. Can also paralyze or stun your target. Range: 5 Meters, Damage: 4, Mana Cost: 5]

She felt the same tingly feeling as the system blinked the spells in front of her. With some effort, she was able to scroll the words down so that she could read everything. It was a lot easier once she thought about it. Her eyes shifted down wanting to know more about what the rest of the text was and the ‘window’ seemed to scroll on its own based on how much she willed it to scroll. The tingly feeling continued to get worse and worse as the innate knowledge of how to actually cast the spells became ingrained into her psyche. Her breath started to pick up as her chest began to heave at the knowledge of magic and how to use it. It was if someone force fed her brain the entirety of the dictionary in seconds, except instead of random words that she’d never have a need to know, it was instead the foundations of magical theory and a brief inkling on how to access her newfound abilities. Her senses quickly became overwhelmed as she slumped over sideways in her chair, her mental faculties all but gave up. After a few twitches and an indeterminate amount of time later, for the second time in less than 24 hours, Sophia awoke with a sharp gasp and a start.

Still seated in her chair somehow, she took in the steel room around her again. Yup, everything was still the same. She carefully stood up and with wobbly steps and began to explore her surroundings. Trying to recall all of the information that had just been dumped into her brain, she recalled how to pull the energies from the world. In an attempt to cast some magic, she reached into the inner workings of her brain and sort of tapped into a part that she didn’t know existed. She took all of her willpower while burrowing herself into that part of her brain and something clicked within her as a flame manifested itself into her hand. Looking at the flame, the odd sensation of it being hot, but not burning her fascinated Sophia for a minute. After snuffing the flame by pulling her conscious self out of that inner part of her brain, she began to search the room, now with a bit of a smile. She, Sophia Espinoza, just cast magic! She was a mage! If only Nathaniel could see her now! Oh, how she wouldn’t hesitate to throw a bit of fire, no lightning at Genette’s stupid face.

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She didn’t make it far into the room when the system’s letters began to materialize in front of her eyes again. As she was starting to get used to the messages appearing out of nowhere, she took the time to read them this time.

[Initializing… You will be transported to the tutorial grounds in five minutes. Take this time now to familiarize yourself with your new abilities. Furthermore, to view your status, simply say or think, “Status.”]

After reading through the prompt, Sophia panicked. She rushed back to her chair to clutch onto the arms again, as that was the only sturdy, sure thing in her life right now. Just her and the chair. Together they were going to figure out what was going on. Hesitantly, she calls out the word, unsure if something was actually going to happen or not, “Status.”

What greeted her vision was the system, but it displayed information in a way that she hadn’t seen it yet.

[Personal Information]

[Name: Sophia Espinoza]

[Race: Human - 0]

[Class: Evocation Mage - 1]

[Class 2: Locked]

[Profession: Locked]

[Vital Resources]

[HP: 10/10]

[Mana: 30/30]

[Stamina: 10/10]

[Status Points]

[Strength: 1]

[Dexterity: 1]

[Constitution: 1]

[Intelligence: 3]

[Wisdom: 3]

[Spells Known:]

- Fire Bolt Level 1

- Frost Bolt Level 1

- Lightning Bolt Level 1

[General Skills:]

- English - Level 5

[Special Skills:]

With the clock’s timer moving incessantly towards that five-minute marker, Sophia didn’t have much time to consider everything that was going on with her status. One red flag that piqued her interest the most was the fact that the system felt it necessary to designate her as a human. Wait. What if there are actual, no shit aliens out there? She racked her brain even harder and remembered the initial messages she received when she had first woken up that morning. There were some messages about galaxies and universes and stuff. Not just one Universe, but quite a few of them if she remembered correctly. Didn’t it also say something about her species being human? Could there be intelligent life outside of her little bubble?

Holding onto the chair for dear life, she couldn’t help but think of all of the different combinations and possibilities of creatures that could exist. She sure hoped that she wouldn’t run into one of them, or at least they’d be friendly if she did. The second piece that drew her attention was her stats. She looked at each of them and was able to formulate at least some sort of connection to each. She assumed that strength was raw power. It must mean how hard she can hit stuff, how much she could lift, and things like that. Where strength was how strong she was, she assumed that dexterity was how fast she was. Taking a look at constitution, she couldn’t really guess how the stat affected anything, so she moved to Intelligence and wisdom. Those were the two stats that she guessed gave her the ability to cast her magic. She would have to do more research into that later but she was running out of time to run her tests.

“All right chairey,” She says to the chair, her body still giving some involuntary twitches due to her newfound power and knowledge being crammed into her brain. “I really hope that this one isn’t going to be as bad. I don’t know how much more of this teleportation stuff I can handle.” Sophia giggles to herself as she realizes that she was just talking to a chair. In some weird sense, it was enough to bring her out of her stupor at being teleported again, and at a quick guess, she probably had a minute or two left before being warped to yet another piece of the tutorial. Might as well see if she can actually throw her magic or something.

Digging into that deep portion of her mind again was much easier the second time around. She quickly found the same spot she was in last time when she manifested the flame and as she stood up from the chair, the flame grew in the palm of her hand. Not really having any sort of target, she awkwardly throws the fire at the wall. The flame ball leaves her hand and just like the spell description said, a bolt of fire springs forth much faster than she was expecting. It connected with the wall and fizzled out, not even leaving a mark. That wasn’t enough to deter her though. Steel was pretty strong. She began to think about how it flew so fast. It was almost as if there was some sort of force or the magic itself was taking a hold of the fire bolt to form it to what the spell's description stated. Even if she, herself could only throw a regular ball a pretty short distance, the fire flew fast and true to the spot on the wall she was looking at.

“Oh!” She exclaims to herself, pretty proud of the fire’s ability to shoot forth so fast. “That was really cool! I gotta try that again!”

She manifests yet another ball of fire and hurls it at the wall, except this time she extends her hand out in front of her and gives just the lightest of pushes with the flame in the direction that she wants it to go. The flame bolt responded to her touch as it also launched itself off towards the wall. Hitting roughly the same spot as before, almost as if being guided by some sort of laser system. She giggles at the impact again. She could actually cast magic! The feeling of power filling her up and giving her hope that even if it was a dream, it was still a pretty cool one and she couldn’t wait to have the chance to try to tap into that spot in her brain once she got home again, or woke up, or however it was that she got out of this.

“I wonder…” Sophia says as she tries to manifest a flame ball in both hands. It brought itself into existence just fine in her right, but there seemed to be some sort of barrier blocking her way from being able to also put one into her left. Shrugging at the idea not working, she hucks the last ball of flame before the blue light envelops her for the second time. She didn’t even have the time to see the impact before she found herself again in the stream of flashing lights, colors, and a feeling of being stretched and pulled in every which direction. Unable to scream, Sophia does about the only thing that she can do and that’s grit her teeth and try to wait out the incredibly unpleasant experience.