Kymber got lost trying to find the Biology classroom on her first day of high school. She searched a seemingly endless series of identically beige-painted hallways smelling faintly of pine-scented cleaner. Different hallways were distinguished only by the particular cheesy motivational stuff tacked up here and there, and the somewhat different sounds the aging HVAC system made.

She wore glasses, and if there was a name for the not-quite-brown shade of her hair she didn't know it. A bully once called her "skinny-fat butterface" and she still wished that she could have been outraged that it was unfair, not merely rude. She was pretty sure nobody had ever noticed her in public, and if they did they surely hadn't remembered her for long.

Today, she wanted to cry or rage, or something, to release her frustration. Why did it have to be like this? The teacher's first impression of her was going to be terrible. Biology was her second favorite subject after physics, but the teacher would think she was a stupid slacker. Finally she found the room, 10 minutes late. Her mistake had been to not look for a classroom that was practically right next to the gym.

The room was darkened and the students were watching a video. She smelled a faint whiff of something, maybe formaldehyde, probably from dissections. That would be new to her. She wasn't sure if she looked forward to it or not. Through the gloom she could see that the walls were not decorated in a biology or other science theme but with football pictures. She quickly gathered that the teacher was the football coach. It didn't bode well.

"Kymberli Murphy, call me Kymber," she whispered to the teacher as she entered. "Sorry I got lost."

The teacher handed her a worksheet. "We're watching a video. Just fill in what you can. Don't worry about it."

Kymber had no idea where they were in the video so she just started answering questions on the sheet. The first was "this microorganism has both animal and plant characteristics." Easy - euglena she wrote.

She filled in a couple more, coming to "this is the largest animal that's biologically immortal." She scowled as she wrote lobster. She wanted to write more, a whole diatribe. No. That never went over well. Tell the teacher what he wants to hear and move on. A moment later the video got to that, but she felt it was just as inadequate, never mentioning how lobsters inevitably died as they grew larger due to the ever greater difficulty of shedding their shells. The immortality of lobsters was a myth - the death of every lobster was as biologically predetermined as that of a human being, it was just the mechanism was different.

The rest of the class was simple rote filling in of answers from an insultingly elementary video. It didn't bode well for biology being anything but an easy A. At least she'd gotten into AP Physics even though she was a freshman. 

While the assignment dragged out, she chewed on the matter of lobster immortality. It wasn't just a factual nitpick, though she was certainly not above obsessing over those. Could it be a coincidence that the only complex organism that had evolved away from the mechanism of cellular senescence was one that would inevitably be killed by their inability to shed their shell when they grew too large? No, she felt certain this was a clue to a deeper biological truth.

Mortality wasn't necessary, or lobsters wouldn't have evolved away from cellular senescence. But neither was mortality a mistake - it was a feature, not a bug. It might be bad for an individual to age and die, but mortality seemed to be so vital to the survival of a species that evolution had ensured every complex animal was subject to it. And it wasn't hard to guess why. 

If the old just kept getting stronger and more skilled, they'd crowd out new generations with beneficial mutations from the species' ecological niches. Eventually, the changing world would wipe the species out and it would be unable to adapt. Beyond evolution, how dysfunctional would politics be if not even age limited how long politicians could hold and accumulate power? If politicians could live to 200, we'd probably have folks in Congress from the 1800s, making laws for a world of internet and AI. Immortality was a trap that had surely exterminated any species that fell into it. That was why the video's simplistic take galled her so much.

Eventually the video ended, a few minutes before the end of class. Kymber handed in her worksheet, and the teacher looked first surprised then a bit impressed that she'd filled out the whole thing despite starting late. She shrugged and tried to look more self-depreciating than cocky, because she'd long ago learned everyone hated it when she let out her cocky side. With that she joined the movement of students out into the hall.

On her way to her next class she heard people talking about a fight, some freshman boy having gotten beat up by a sophomore. It wasn't the kind of thing that she was interested in so she just ignored it and found her next classroom. That was a class that made history boring, but she got through it and after that was her lunch.

She joined the raucous line of students queuing up for what the menu said was pizza, the line stretching into the hall. When she got to the servers, the food looked like the same mass produced junk she'd learned to expect from middle school lunch. Tater tots that weren't remotely crispy, salad that was mostly iceberg lettuce with a bit of carrot and red cabbage to add color, and pork & beans. The high point leading up to the pizza was fresh broccoli, if that could be called the high point.

Then there was the pizza. By the time she got her crustless rectangular slice, she thought she had an idea of what to expect, but it was somehow worse than that. It was just crust, sauce, and cheese. And the cheese was a translucent white, melted layer that somehow showed bubbles trapped in it. Did mozzarella melt like that? If so, how was it even possible to make mozza melt that way?

She overheard a guy say "The cheese looks like cum," and assumed he meant the male form. Did it? And did that statement make her think worse of cheese or male jizz. Ewww. She poked it with her fork and it was rubbery. The realization that broccoli would be the high point of her meal brought a sigh.

The cafeteria, in contrast to the halls, seemed to be trying too hard to be bright and cheerful. There were abstract shapes in different colors painted on those parts of the walls that weren't occupied by the folding tables with their gray plastic stools attached to the table frame, the lunch line itself, or the windows. Everything seemed... not old exactly, but well used. There was the same pine cleaner smell, but also an overtone of something that suggested food had gotten stuck somewhere the cleaning staff couldn't find, or hadn't bothered to.

The far table had enough space that she wouldn't have to engage with anyone, let alone with the political drama that was already going around at the tables closer to the lunch line. She got some ranch dressing, then walked over and sat down. The pizza wasn't bad, but certainly wasn't good. It was only pizza in the broadest possible definition of the word.

A somewhat tall but chunky boy with sandy blond hair wandered over and sat down a few stools away, his body language saying he didn't want to talk. Kymber was fine with that and continued eating. She glanced up though, and noticed bruises. Was that the kid who got beat up? She wondered if she should say something. But she had no idea what the right way to handle the situation was.

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Eventually, she could bear it no longer and said "Hi, I'm Kymber. Are you okay?"

"Huh, oh... um, yeah, I'm fine. Will."

It took her a moment to realize that Will was his name. She didn't think "fine" was an accurate description, and the look on Will's face suggested hers showed that.

"Don't worry," he continued, looking down and picking at his half-eaten rectangle of fake pizza, "I'm used to it. My old man..." He seemed to decide he didn't want to talk about that and trailed off to eat some broccoli.

"Sad that broccoli is the high point of our meal," Kymber said, trying to find something to say.

"Yeah. What even is this?" he poked the pizza slice. And how do you screw up tater tots?

A rat-faced boy with dark skin and black hair sat down next to Will.

"Last period I had biology," he said. "They were watching a video so I pulled on my extra hoodie and sweats and slipped out of the room. Picked the lock on that asshole's locker and threw his jacket in the garbage, then dumped a can of soda over it so it will be sticky and gross." He sounded extremely pleased with himself, and vindictive.

"I appreciate what you're trying to do, but you shouldn't do stuff like that," Will said. 

"Don't worry about it. The cameras would show someone wearing gray sweats, and I'm obviously wearing black right?"

"Um... fine..." Will sighed. He turned to Kymber. "This Sam."

Kymber's first reaction had been shock, hearing Sam casually admit what he'd done. You couldn't do things like that, right? But this kid just did. And it sounded like it wasn't the first time. She envied him so much she almost hated him for it. She could almost taste the feeling. There'd been so many bullies and assholes over the years. What would it be like to just... get even. With impunity. The intensity of her reaction scared her a bit. She was a good person, right? But she supposed every person was capable of doing bad things. Wasn't that the danger of social movements that justified violence?

"Uh, hi," Sam said.

"Hi Sam," said Kymber, trying not to let her thoughts show.

Sam turned back to Will, "You remember how he was in middle school, right? Well, he shoved me first thing this morning as I was walking through the door. Fuck him. I'll let it blow over a bit. Then I'll find a way to really get even."

Just then, something seemed to shift, like a heavy truck driving by or a sudden change in air pressure. Then the lights went out. Some students started to curse, cheer, or laugh, but there was a growing murmuring of alarm. Kymber instinctively looked at her phone to check the time, but it was dark too. She tried pressing the power button but nothing happened.

Suddenly her vision of the shadowy interior of the darkened cafeteria was partially blocked by a translucent blue window with white text. She put her hand in front of her face and the blue window was still projected in front of it, like it was inside her vision.

I, Imperial Prince Rayaund Krantach-Vreen from the dimension Ferath-Noracheen. I claim this dimension for the glory of the Imperium!

I have broken the isolation formations that your kind long ago erected to divide yourselves from the rest of the Universe, and you will begin Awakening to your potential power when you absorb enough ambient essence.

I decree that all beings inhabiting this dimension are henceforth Imperial subjects. Obey the law of the Imperium, which can be accessed through this Cosmic Library interface. Cultivate and maintain progress at least on par with the Power Curve to maintain your citizenship and preserve your rights!

Your local indigenous authority figures will be provided with additional details.

What the actual fuck? It sounded like a magical world's version of Commodore Perry forcing Japan out of isolation. Had humanity isolated ourselves like the screen said? And why had everything stopped working.

She was a bit surprised that no faculty were saying anything, but maybe they were being provided with additional details. It said something about a "cosmic library." She wondered what that was.

The cosmic library is an interdimensional store of the publicly known information in the universe, and all information you know. It will be presented to you in a form that you subconsciously expect to receive information, such as illuminated scrolls, runed sheets of copper, burned planks of wood, or baked clay tablets.

Ah, so it was just a coincidence that it looked like a game interface to her then. Do you know why my phone stopped working?

Much of the technology used by your people is only possible due to the isolation of your world from flows of cosmic mana, what your people call zero-point energy. But unrestrained mana is far denser than what you knew of before. And as such it becomes directly controllable by mortal will.

However, in particular your information exchange technologies are dependent upon voltage differences between tiny regions in close proximity. But mana has disrupted those finely controlled voltage differences, causing all such technologies to fail. 

Many other technologies your people use require fast chemical reactions. These in turn require steep gradients between the energy available in one area compared to another. The free energy available in every bit of empty space slows such chemical reactions down and makes all the technologies based on those principles ineffective.

It is predicted that these changes will cause dramatic disruption in your way of life. However the benevolence of  the Imperium's charities will attempt to mitigate the suffering that results.

Shit, was this what it was like to be colonized? Your whole culture and economy turned upside down? Forced to depend upon the "benevolence" of charities in place of the way of life you'd always known?

Kymber got up and walked to a window. At least the outdoors looked normal. But over the stadium, something that looked like an upside-down tornado of heat-shimmer was forming. As she watched, it got more pronounced until it looked like multiple layers iridescent oil-slick swirling in a vortex that tapered as it reached into the sky. What was happening at the bottom of that vortex? Then she noticed half a dozen more distant columns of energy.

Just then a new box popped up.

Congratulations, you have awakened. Your soul power is T on the H-A, S, T scale, which is very good.

Your primary ability is Telekinesis. Unfortunately, the though there is some utility in this ability at low levels, efficiency of this ability is rated as very poor in even modestly high realms. It lacks elemental effects, and the velocity achievable plateaus at high levels making it dramatically less effective than spatial manipulation powers which have effectively unlimited velocity, depending on Realm and Tier. More damning, the maximum velocity of Telekinesis is somewhat lower for high-magic dimensions, while the density of mana in high-magic dimensions enables greater performance with spatial magic in higher-magic dimensions.

Your secondary ability is Battlemaster, which can be used at a soul-power two levels lower than your primary power. This is a support ability with low starting power. It is speculated that this ability may scale at high levels, but no user has maintained the power curve long enough to find out.

Your tertiary ability is Healing, which can be used at a soul-power four levels lower than your primary power. This is a useful ability in some team compositions, but such parties historically under-perform Hell Rift clears compared to pure offense team builds of otherwise similar power.

Kymber didn't like the sound of any of this.

Will walked up to the window and looked out.

"The System talked about hell-rifts. I suppose it's what that is." He nodded toward the distortion. I guess it's good I'm used to getting beat up. The System made me a tank."

"And I'm a Rogue," said Sam as he walked up to stand next to Will. "Well, Illusion specialized in Obfuscation, Sneak Attack Bonus, and Physical Manipulation. Call it what you want."

"I guess I'm heals, maybe support," said Kymber.

Sam asked "Did you guys look up anything about cultivation?"

"Not yet," said Will.

"The top level is the 'Immortal Realm.' This should be interesting."

"You've gotta be kidding," Kymber said.