"Hey... Are you still there?"

The voice woke me up from my thoughts. Damn. My thoughts were the only place I could escape, where no one could follow me. But, like every time I ran away, something always managed to pull me back. I stared as hard as I could to the speaker's eyes. He probably took it as an agreement and continued. "The deal will go on as we agreed then?" He looked nervous, no doubt he heard the rumors about me.

The guy was here to make a deal about a new expansion location for my company. I had no idea who sent him, he was not the best, hell, he probably wasn't even in the top ten in where he came from. Probably no one else wanted to talk to me. It didn't matter. I didn't care about others.

His deal was agreeable and I was quite bored from listening to his voice. Taking the pen and the deal from table, I continued as I signed the parts needed. "Very well. I will not be following the rest - it is all bureaucracy anyway. Don't bother me with every little thing, contact Alex from now on."

He relaxed on the couch and let out a deep breath. Nervousness visibly left his eyes. Then, he took a breath. He was probably say something about how the deal was nice, how I wouldn't regret it... Classic bullshit. I raised my hand to stop him. "Alex." Taking the cue, he stopped. I turned to leave. The moment he left my vision was the moment I forgot about him.  My destination was the elevator, then garage and lastly my home. Only place where no one bothered me.

When I left the room, someone was standing beside the door, waiting for me. I didn't stop, except for the brief moment when I talked. "I'm leaving," I said to anyone who heard me. It didn't matter if those who needed to hear heard it. They would soon enough.

While walking slowly, I started thinking about this whole company. It was the last gift of my father - one I was sure to never give anyone. The company was the reason why I was bothered constantly, but it was also the reason why those people always stayed on a reasonable number. The money made sure of that. Being rich had its perks. But honestly? If it wasn't my father's last gift to me, I would've probably bailed out years ago. It was making me feel old, and I was only 19.

My school life was destroyed by this company work as well - homeschooling was the only choice for me until university considering what I needed to learn compared with what they taught in high school. After high school, everyone expected me to apply for an economic degree - it would be quite helpful after all. But I knew what I wanted, psychology. The secrets of humans lay there, together with the answer to the most important question I had: "Why I was like this?". University also helped me get away from the company work - after all, I was studying now.

Sadly, the first two semesters did not help me in my quest for answers and left me to my own devices when they ended. Seeing me being free, I was pulled in to the company business again, ergo the situation today. Whenever I was present in the company, someone made sure that I had a job on my hand. Sometimes I wondered whether I was the leading figure or not, but it was probably the result of neglect during the year. Thus, home became my only escape. I barred doing any business done in my house, every visit could purely be a visit to see me. It made sure I had the time to relax my mind and not go on a rampage.

The elevator door opening to garage didn't woke me from my thoughts, I simply entered my car and drove off. My house was a bit outside of the city center, but it was a lovely one - another gift of my parents. It was quite big for me to live alone, but I didn't want anyone polluting there. This house was where we lived before they passed away - I wasn't going to let anyone dirty it. The housework was done by someone when I wasn't there, no idea who it was.

Entering the house, I simply walked towards my room, and laid down. A sleepiness was on me, and it was getting stronger as the time passed. The deal probably tired me more than I expected. I checked the TODO list on my head - there was nothing to do. I let myself drift to sleep.

When my eyes opened again, the room was quite dim. The windows showed the setting sun - I had slept shorter than I expected. Normally, I would've slept until the middle of the night. My focus slowly returned from the sleep, and my jaw dropped.

What. The. Fuck.

A screen was in front of me. Literally. With something writing on it. Now, I liked acting like a mad person, it kept the undesirables away. But, being real mad? That was not what I wanted, at all. That would be bad, not being able to control my thoughts. It terrified me. Perhaps this was a dream - rather than me being mad?. Trying to wake myself up, I slapped myself, hard. It hurt quite a bit. The pain, sadly, didn't took away the screen however. No dream. Damn.

After trying a few more things to wake up(I even punched the screen! My hand just passed trough it.), I stopped caring. It didn't matter whether I was mad. No one was going to know about it. I was going to take constant notes to check my mental wellbeing, and focus on my major more. It was not going to affect me. I made some small plans - and it relieved me like always. With the relief, my attention turned to the screen itself.

[The System is loading... 99% completed.]

I should've checked this before making any assumptions.

The possibility of me being mad was still there - there was no way I was convinced this early. But, it also looked like something that existed in science-fiction. Well, the stuff that would prove me being mad did also exist in quite a bit of movies - but the possibility of this being real excited me a bit. A real change in my life would be quite nice.

With a spark of an idea, I rushed to the bathroom. Perhaps something was attached to my face? It would prove this being a kind of a technology, especially if others could see it. The question then would be who? Aliens? Government? Terrorists? Some other bullshit? No matter who it was, I didn't like the thought of someone doing stuff to me. Perhaps it was time to upgrade the security system and hire a better team.

Nothing was on my face. After moving my erratically for some time, I was quite sure - unless someone did something to my eyes or brain. That possibility later was getting higher and higher. I could see the window with my eyes closed, and it always followed my vision. Touching my eye returned no results as well, it didn't even got distorted. This would've been visible to me even if I was blind. If it was the result of some technology, I was quite sure it was not from humans. We didn't have anything as sophisticated - not even close.

After doing everything I could think of, I returned to my room. Now, it was time for waiting - I didn't know anything about what was loading - except the name, of course. It didn't take much time to load, a few minutes at best.

[The System is loading... 100% completed. Complete.]

[Welcome to the System. Your planet's ambient mana reached the minimum requirement for the introduction of the System. The System will automatically adjust your mana settings to the rest of the universe. The tutorial will now begin. We wish you good luck.]

[Tutorial starting.]

[To accommodate the newly introduced worlds to the rest of the universe, the System will help you learn the skills that is required around the universe and will help you hone your bodies.

The monsters will be spawning soon as the ambient mana level increased very quickly. When you kill a monster, you will earn experience which will be used to increase your level.

One of the most basic parts of the System is your class. For System to increase your skills and adjust you, a direction is needed. The class will be providing that direction. After the tutorial, you will be taken to the class screen.

The Status is one of the main parts of the System. It is the quantification of you, and it is a list of the skills you have. It can be opened by simply thinking about it.

The stats in your status is the quantification of yourself. To learn more about the stats, you can think about them in your status. This is also true for any skill, affinity or anything else you can be curious about.]

[Tutorial ended. The class screen will be opening.]

I... Wow. The meaning of shocked still became quite apparent to me at the moment. No matter I expected, it wasn't anything like this. Mana? Experience? Level? Class? What was this, an RPG game? What kind of bullshit was that? I upped the possibility of me being mad to max - aliens wouldn't bother with this shit.

Interestingly, acceptance came easier than I expected. Probably because I accepted the possibility of me being mad - in other words, nothing mattered. No matter why, I didn't dwell on it anymore - no answer would come out of that question. Not with the level of knowledge I had.

Most of my attention was on the tutorial - the best place to get more knowledge. It was pretty straightforward. Combined with the similarity with RPG games, there was not much to question for me - except what would be the mana, but I was pretty sure it would be the outside the scope of this tutorial. I had no idea what ambient mana was, never seen it, never felt it before, but it was probably the main component of magician classes, if something like that existed. I was not sure whether it existed or not - my class screen felt a bit unique even if I had nothing to compare.

[Available classes(1):

    - Child of Luck

]

My first guesses about classes were the classic D&D classes, at least a twisted version of it. Warlock, Sorcerer, Monk, Druid, etc. I could bet that this Child of Luck didn't fit into any of those, no matter how you twisted it. Another problem was me having a single choice - it wasn't much of a choice than, is it? It was certainly possible to have a list consisting of multiple classes, considering the number showing number of available classes. I didn't know why.

But as before, thinking why wouldn't give me any answer. There was simply not enough knowledge for me to even speculate shit. Perhaps I could take something out of my ass, but that wouldn't help me any. Instead, I focused on the class to get more information.

[You can not see information about this class.]

No info available for me... I didn't want to blind shot my class. At all. If this all thing was real, it would be the dominating part of the life - therefore classes were extremely important. As tutorial said, it would be the direction which would shape my future. I tried again. Result was still the same. Bloody hell.

It seemed like the system was bent on not giving me any information before I chose. There was nothing I could do, as it seemed like I couldn't interact with the system before choosing my class - trust me, I tried closing this window. With a sigh for the frustration the system caused me, I chose the Child of Luck. This would definitely not be the last time system caused me sigh this way, I was quite sure. With my class decided, quite a few windows opened. Of course, now was the time for it. Not before I chose, no. Bloody system.

However, I couldn't read the windows - except the last one. That had my total attention.

[You have died.]

...

Oh.

---

When my eyes opened again, what greeted me was a scarlet sky. My memory slowly came back - together with that last window. I had died. Why, I had no bloody clue. The sky made it sure that I wasn't on Earth, there would never be a sky this crimson there. Before I read the windows, I took a quick look around to make sure there was nothing dangerous. It didn't seem like it, so I started reading.

[You have entered hell.

This is where souls unworthy of heaven goes after breaking away from their bodies. You have been deemed unworthy by the gods, and thrown in to the hell. What awaits you is the worst nightmares you can imagine.]

Hell, huh. Isn't that lovely. I am not denying it's not where I should've gone after my death - definitely not heaven - but it was a bit early for me, being only 19 and all.

However, this explained the my apocalyptic environment - an unending scarlet sky with a bright crimson sun. It was quite odd, seeing both sky and the sun were shades of red. I thought they would've blended into each other, but the sun was quite distinct. It was glowing with a blood colored halo around. There was nothing else on the sky, at least nothing else I could see.

The ground was not much different than the sky - it was as bland. Unending rust colored plains, with few white something dotted around. Same color, different pattern of whites filled everywhere. The hell seemed quite flat - I couldn't see the end of the plains, and there was no horizon. On top of that, the whites were quite far away as well - no way I could see what they were. 

All this blandness of sky and ground made what was visible in the distance much more out of place.

A black arc.

Given the distance, it must've been gigantic for me to see this clearly. Or it could've been the work of magic - it was certainly possible given the place I was in. No matter what it was, the arc was quite majestic. It was as dark as the night sky, gray filled the place between its legs. My eyes were glued on to it - I couldn't take them away. That is, until a window opened.

Stolen story; please report.

[Gate of Hell - This is the only exit of Hell. This gate is open to everything - if they can reach it. It opens to the whole universe with the sole exception of Heaven, as those who were tainted by Hell can never enter that place.]

Well, my destination showed itself. I would've probably gone there even if I didn't know what it was considering that was the only interesting thing I can see. Now, however, it became a certainty. Although my knowledge of hell was quite limited - i.e none - it seemed like quite important. And if the window was to be believed, it was the only exit from this bland place. The blandness had already started to bore me - exiting this place was quite the priority.

I closed the windows about hell, and continued reading. The reason for my death was quite important - why the fuck I was dead? There was two screens opened before the "You are dead" one - except the long one, which I assumed was about my class.

[Skill used: Manipulate Luck]

[You have taken damage: -120]

If I didn't know better, I would've thought that someone was joking with me. The windows suggested that I used a skill, named Manipulate Luck no less, and it led to my death. Why would changing, manipulating, whatever my luck made me die? Should it be, I don't know, send me some angels from heaven to help me or some bullshit?

Complaining to no one didn't help. The system was unresponsive, even though I cursed it quite a bit. No one else did either, no god/goddess, demons, Satan... Not even an angel came to admonish me. Giving up, I opened the last screen.

[The class Child of Luck has been chosen.]

[Child of Luck: Owners of this class is from the race of Lokkich. They could somehow manipulate their Luck, bending the universe to their bidding in a much different but similar way to the magic. Because of their threat to the balance of the universe, they were eliminated by the concentrated efforts of those who protected the balance of the universe. Be wary of them. 

- +1 for stats every level, additional +1 for intelligence.

- Race changed: Lokkich.

- Luck stat disappeared.

- Mana has been eliminated from your body. You can not use mana.

- Lack of mana has made your affinities be always zero - they no longer can be seen in the status.

- Skill granted: Manipulate Luck.

- Item granted: Lucky Die.

- Title granted: Lucky.

Trust your luck.]

My lack of information showed itself, I didn't know whether the stat increases were good or not compared to others. But everything else was, well, quite peculiar.

Most important was the information about my new race, but I left it for last. It would've taken quite a long time if that was what I focused first.

Mana was apparently eliminated from my body - no magic for me. Tough luck. Considering I never felt mana before, it didn't affect me much. Perhaps after seeing what others could do with it I would feel jealous, but there was no turning back.

The disappearance of Luck was the same. I never knew what it did, so it didn't matter much. Not knowing what I lost was a strange way of relief, but it worked at the moment. Also, it made more sense than the mana. Considering the skill I gained was named Manipulate Luck, it would be weird if I could still see it on my status.

The item interested me quite a bit. As recommended by the tutorial, I focused on taking it out. It appeared on my hand, out of thin air. The color of die was opposite of the normal white with black pips(dots) - it was black with somewhat glowing white pips. It felt nice to touch.

I focused on it once again - I wanted to know why it was given, and what it was. Like I expected, a window opened immediately.

[Lucky Die - This die is made from combination of soul of the user and the fabric of the universe. It cannot be used by anyone except owner without permission.

Manipulate Luck is much easier to use on this die.]

The first sentence was ominous, and I had no idea what it meant. The soul, fabric of the universe, those were above my pay-grade. Quite a bit, in fact. The rest was much easier to understand - it can only be used by me, and my skill was easier to use on it.

With these done, I thought of my status.

[ Status Screen

Name: (not yet decided)

Race: Lokkich

Class: Child of Luck

Level: 1 (0%)

Strength: 8

Vitality: 7

Sensation: 14

Perception: 10

Agility: 11

Dexterity: 9

Intelligence: 16

Skills:

- Manipulate Luck

Titles: Lucky

Items:

- Lucky Die

]

The status was quite straight-forward and I was immediately drawn to my stats. As expected, my mental and sensational stats were much better than physical ones - I was not a fan of working out. However, when I thought of the stats no explanation opened. Was this not what tutorial meant..? Instead of stats, I focused on my race. Still no explanation. Perhaps there were a problem with the system.

Leaving the issue of explanations aside, I continued my inspection of my status. It was quite simple, not too crowded, concise and to the point. I was getting redundant.

First and foremost, the name tab was empty, no, it was apparently waiting for my input. My name was not yet decided. I thought of giving my old name, but I stopped. If this were a new start, what did I want? Continue being old me, or start again? A true escape. One that no one will ever be able to find me. Being a different person. Wasn't it always my wish? But it would also mean leaving behind my parents - there would be no new start without leaving them behind.

Thinking for a bit - or a long time, I was not aware of time too much - I decided to change my name. No matter what, my parents were dead. They would not be coming back, and they would've wanted me to start anew as well. I had just the name as well - class of Child of Luck, a title Lucky, a die as a starting item - so while apologizing to my parents, I inputted my new name.

Odds.

No middle name, no surname, nothing to tie me. A true new start.

But, I couldn't bear to let myself be excited. It felt like a true separation from my parents. Even if I knew that I would never be forgetting them, it felt wrong.

This time, I was not going to let myself be tied to something. Nothing and no one was going to be my weakness. Nothing would be able to influence my escape if I wished. At first, it was a friend, then it became my parents. Now, I was free. I swore to never get attached again after my parents, and I was not going to break it anytime.

With a sigh, I cleared my thoughts. Thinking deep was not going to help me, especially in this situation. My help would be the system. With that in mind, I took the only item I had - my die.

I rolled it in my hand. How was this going to help me? A 100% percent win ratio while gambling? I rolled it expecting a six. It was a two.

How was I going to use this die?

I actually knew how - it said it would be more effective with Manipulate Luck but... Well, I didn't know what it was doing, but last time it activated, I FUCKING DIED. It was normal to fell apprehensive about using it.

Sighing yet once again, I rolled the die again. This time, I used Manipulate Luck on it. Well, used is a bit of a strong word given I didn't know what I was doing - it was more like thinking about using the skill repeatedly. To my luck, the system understood what I wanted do and a screen opened.

[Skill used: Manipulate Luck]

Together with the screen, a feeling filled me. Something I had never felt. The feeling was asking, no, demanding two things from me: A target and a direction. From the timing, it was apparent that it was connected to the skill. So this was how a skill were used in the system. Curious. Although I was relaxedly thinking these, the feeling was getting stronger and a hunch was slowly filling me: it would be bad, very bad to let it go in this state. The thinking would be for later.

The target was simple, the die. The direction was a bit more tricky, how did you directed the luck? A positive, negative system? Something more concrete? Not knowing what to do, I guessed. The direction I chose was the six. Just that. I imagined the die rolling six.

True to my imagination, the die immediately stopped spinning. A six. This was quite cool. I could be the best gambler with this die, at least in die games. I rolled the die and wished for six again. Another six. One more roll, one more six. No matter what I wished it stopped on that number. It was actually working, I was manipulating the luck.

Jokingly, I rolled it again, and wished for it to stop on a corner. Like in a movie.

It stopped not long after. On a corner. It looked quite stable too, it was not rolling to another direction. It was somewhat creepy. Cool, but creepy. I tried this again, and it showed the same results as my previous testings. Excitement started to fill me, this was not just being lucky. This was something else. There were tons of stuff that was coming to my mind to try - some would even be used in attacking or defending.

I rolled the die again. This time instead of wishing a result, I simply wished it to not stop. Roll forever. The die rolled. And rolled. And rolled. Even though I felt like quite a bit of time passed, it never showed any sign of stopping. I broke the skill, and the die immediately fell to its side, a three this time. I was quite sure that if I were to never broke my concentration the die would roll, forever. It was a chilling thought. What happened to the rules of the universe? Gravity, conservation of momentum, the entropy... My thinking was completely broken. I knew that this system was something above the physics, but seeing it, hell causing it, felt weird. Like somehow the world I knew ended at that moment. It was a new world, for my new beginning. I smiled at the thought.

Shaking myself from the thoughts, I returned to my experiments. With the result of the last one, I knew which phenomenon of the universe I wanted to challenge next. Rolling the die on my hand, I prepared the skill. This time my wish was simple, for the die to stay in its place - not stopping its rolling but never moving from its position. The moment my skill completed, the die disappeared.

What happened just know?

I didn't know what happened, or where the die was. Losing it would probably be the end of me - I had no other idea to help me. Using the skill on myself was a big no no, and I was feeling that using it on someone else would be quite hard. I hurriedly opened my status, and to my relief, the die was there. I took it out again, but didn't try anything just know.

Instead, I started thinking. My skill was not the problem - I didn't feel anything when using it. It couldn't have been it anyway, why would it cause it to disappear instead of not activating? No, the problem must've been about the direction I gave. But why? I just wished it to stay in its place so it should have floated on the air but it didn't... My thoughts were getting quieter and quieter. The problem was damn obvious.

My wish was it to stay in its position. It meant one thing, its absolute position. If this hell/world was moving through the space it was in, then it meant that the absolute position moved away from me - no, I moved away from that position in a matter of instants. It would explain why it was in my status again, if the die had some sort of distance limit. I couldn't believe I did this kind of a mistake - what if I were to never get the die back?

My wish to experiment returned, albeit slowly and with a huge amount of caution. A mistake like last one would be quite bad. Still, I needed to confirm my ideas before I even begun to leave this place so it was an obvious choice.

I rolled the die on my hand again. This time, I focused it to not move and roll in the same place forever, but the position of it was relative to me and the world and my hand... It was quite a difficult direction. If you know about the Cartesian coordinates, then you would understand what I did. I made the point I was standing and the die was in relative to the world I was on the origin point. That was the reference. I wanted die to not move, relative to its position to the new coordinates I gave. In simpler words, I fixed the point of origin.

I slowly moved my hand downwards, taking care to not move the die much. After a few seconds of slow descend, the tickling feeling of the die left my hand. My eyes were fixed on it. There it was, floating on the midair. Rolling slowly, but never stopping. I made something float. By myself. Well, the system helped too, but this was amazing. With this die I could bend the rules of the universe, however I wished.

My experiments continued. Next, I tried moving it on the air. Check. Returning the die to me. Check.Making it somehow sharp. Check. Though it was quite weird. My direction was quite vague, I just wished it to not be stopped by anything. When I threw it to the ground, it simply moved, making a die sized hole. My last experiment was about the limit of distance I could have. While moving the die at a constant speed, 5m/s, I counted my heartbeats. Although they were not the most precise way to measure time, It would do in a pinch. And if my calculations and time measured were not wrong, the limit was about 100 or so meters.

With everything done, I looked towards the horizon, and more importantly the gate that signified my escape from here and started moving.