The phrase ‘life isn’t fair’ typically refers to specific instances of suffering. Since then, the phrase has just become a commonly known facet of existence, like breathing or sleeping or emptying your bowels. Yet, what the phrase commonly evokes is a situation of oppression or disconnect, a situation where one could say ‘This is not my fault and should not be happening to me!’.
Often overlooked is the fact that life can often be unfair in our favour. Chance encounters bringing prosperity. Unexpected windfalls. Promotions, beauty, wealth, power - all of these things can just fall into our laps without our doing, and yet do we lament how life is unfair? No, ironically enough we tend to take ownership of these good things. We say to ourselves ‘I earned this’ or ‘I deserve this’ or ‘It’s about time something good happened to me’, completely suppressing the knowledge that they did nothing to earn or deserve this.
Which is all to say that, when Mitchell LeFleur awoke one Friday morning at 6AM EST, in his bedroom in a rented house, he groaned - quietly - about how unfair it was he had to go to work. He lamented how unfair it was that his knees were failing at the young age of 28 when he got out of bed, and as he splashed his face and looked into the mirror in the ensuite bathroom it was almost routine to look at his unfairly balding head. His eyes, a dull blue, held a spark of light that the world had yet to extinguish. His face, though young, bore the signs of stress from his demanding job, with a few premature wrinkles etching their way across his forehead.
Thanks, Dad…
Mitchell quickly brushed his teeth and threw on some deodorant, turning the light off before heading back to the bedroom so as to not wake his fiancee. This was a well-practiced routine, and so even as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he carefully stepped through the memorised room, gathering clothing by feel. He balanced precariously as he dressed, unwilling to risk sitting on the creaky bench or the wooden stool. Too loud. Too risky.
After another couple of minutes of blind activity, he found success. Leaning over, he planted a kiss on his fiance's forehead, smiling to himself at her sleep-laden mumbles. Another morning without waking her was great in his book. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be with her in the morning - that was the furthest thing from the truth. He just knew she needed more sleep than he did, and didn’t want her to have to deal with the day while tired. That wouldn’t be fair.
So when a bright blue screen appeared with a ‘Ding!’ right in front of his face, he did his best. Oh how he stumbled, he swung his arms in windmills, he hopped once, and somehow ended up on his hands, but no matter how he tried, he could not save himself.
He fell down. Loudly. From the thumping, he had woken both his roommate, and his roommate's cat. Odd, George was usually gone to his own job by now. Even worse, though, was that he awoke her.
“Everything okay?” She mumbled from under the covers.
“Yep, everything’s fine. Go back to sleep my love.” Mitchell answered slowly, staring blankly at the screen before him:
Pseudo-System active
Loading Pseudo-System intro…..
As mandated by the IDTJCS (Inter-Dimensional Trans-Judicial Court System), all new applicants to the System are required to be given the following:
(1)A reasonable expectation of the coming transition
(2)A reasonable chance to thrive before integration
(3)A reasonable explanation of the changes, if any, between the Applicant's current reality, and the impending one.
(4)A reasonable gift for each Applicant to ensure a balanced start as per 14457.156-86c65 s59ss987225(26)(amended).
(5)A period of between 7-10 local cycles - whichever is closest to the local unit of measurement must be given with access to the Pseudo-System before the Tutorial.
Congratulations! Your application to become Systemized has been accepted! The applicant, Earth, has been granted the opportunity to become the latest addition to the System-Guided Universe and as such the local apex population, Humans, will become systemized. This change will occur in approximately 162 hours, or at noon on Friday, October 13th.
[Addendum]
As per subsection 2, the Pseudo-System is now in place to allow the Human body to begin acclimating to systemization. For this period, XP gain is turned off, but stats can still be trained and it is encouraged to do so. Also as per subsection 2, the applicants are given System Tokens, with which items, buildings, or companions such as pets or mounts may be systemized.
Warning: As per the amendment to subsection 2, you have the right to be warned that non-systemized objects will degrade at a 1:100 ratio. Non-systemized or non-bonded creatures will be removed from the applicant's location at the commencement of the Tutorial.
As per subsection 3, you will be informed:
-that your body is now immune to mundane, un-systemized disease and illness.
-that your ability scores are now visible to yourself and others*, compared to the default hidden setting across the Universe.
-that you can train these ability scores by performing tasks which utilise the respective scores.
-that you are currently at the very lowest level of the Mortal rank, and most things in the System are a danger to you.
-that death within the system is permanent outside of very high level abilities or divine intervention
-that Humans are fairly unique among the System Races, in that they receive both a Primary and a Secondary class, and their Race level is the average of these two levels. As a direct consequence, humans have no racial abilities beyond the first 3.
As per subsection 4, amendment 7, all applicants will be given an appropriate boon upon the discovery of their Primary class. Due to the nature of humans, the value of this boon will be split between the Primary class, and the Secondary class, and will be granted when both classes are discovered.
You have one week. Gather your party, train, and be ready, for the Tutorial is dangerous and what comes after even more so.
Time Remaining: 6:18:22:18
Mitchell blinked. He read it again, and blinked again. He was in the middle of reading it for the third time - still on the floor where he fell - when a knock came at the door. “Uh… Mitch?”
“One sec.” He whispered back, glancing at the bed to see that he hadn’t truly awoken Miriam and slipping out the door into the hallway.
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George was tall and had long, wavy brown hair that he kept back in a ponytail for work on most days. His hoodie and jeans were distressed, being work clothes, and his glasses shone with the reflection of the hallway night light. He and Mitchell had known each other for years before moving in together, and though the shared habitation had strained the friendship somewhat, it never broke.
Mitchell waved his hand, gesturing silently towards the kitchen, and the two made for the first room in the house whose lights got turned on. On seeing the coffee pot full, Mitch grabbed a mug and filled it up. After a thought, he grabbed his bottle of whiskey and poured some of that in his coffee too, doing his best to ignore the bright blue screen that still hovered at head height. He found that if he used his peripheral vision, he could still function just fine.
“Alright, I wrote mine down. Same as yours?” George waited with what could be described inaccurately as a semblance of patience.
With a biting gulp of hot coffee, Mitchell let out a sigh and pulled the paper over. It was the same words he even now tried to look around. “Yep. Same thing. I’m going to call in sick today, figure this out. Hopefully my boss ignores the ‘Immune to disease and illness’ part.”
“You can close the screen.” George pointed out, noticing his roommates struggles. “Just gotta.. Well you need to want it to close?”
Mitchell hummed in acknowledgement. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, opening the camera function. “Damn.”
“What?”
“I was going to try to take a picture, but it isn’t showing up. What is this, some sort of AR? Do my eyes look different?”
“Like I’d know? Ask Miriam.”
Mitchell shook his head. “Nah, I’m going to let her sleep a bit longer. Hopefully I can have an answer or two for her.” With the contents written down, Mitchell closed his screen down, letting his shoulders slump in relief as the glaring light no longer interfered with his night vision.
Then he blinked, as another screen popped up.
VIT: 1->2
Tooltip: Stats can be trained by utilising them. In this case, you took damage from an outside source. This will be the only stat training tooltip.
“Did you get something?”
Mitchell shook his head, marvelling as the screen remained fixed in place in front of him. “Yea. Turns out I took damage when I fell over earlier, and it gave me a Vit point. I imagine that’s vitality.”
George nodded. “So… it’s a game?”
Mitchell frowned at him. “I guess? I don’t feel any different though.”
“Punch me.”
His frown deepened. “Excuse me?”
“Give me a good old gut punch. You aren’t that strong, Mr. Office Work- oof!”
Further convincing wasn’t required. From George's wheezing smile, the effort had succeeded. “Vitality 2.” He coughed out.
“Know what this means?” Mitchell grinned.
----------------------------------------
It was about 9 AM when the two finally stopped swinging the training swords, and it wasn’t due to fatigue. No, with the increasing vitality, George felt like he could actually run again, something he didn’t do since… well since a while ago.
Miriam, with her short, black hair partially brushed and sticking out in all directions, stepped into the backyard. Her Italian heritage was evident in her olive skin and expressive eyes. She was slightly overweight, but it didn’t detract from her charm. Her outfit, a hodgepodge of colors and patterns, somehow added to her unique appeal.
Just as she emerged, George began his training jog. A chuckle escaped his lips as he took off, his laughter fading as he disappeared into the small forest that served as a boundary between the field and the yard. Unbeknownst to the others, he had just earned a stat point in Instinct, a secret achievement he held close to his chest.
Mitchell took off his shield and wiped his forehead off, smiling at his fiancee. “Good morning, love! Did you have a good sleep?”
Miriam glared.
His smile hitched. “There’s coffee in the machine, if you want to wake up a little more first.”
Her glare intensified.
Mitchell couldn’t take it. “What? I just wanted to let you sleep in! God knows we’ve got a busy day - or week, I guess - ahead.”
Her glare faltered. “You saw it too?”
Mitchell felt a stab of guilt and realisation, having not considered her enough. “Yes, my love, I did. So did George. You aren’t seeing things, I promise.” He moved quickly to embrace her, dropping the gladius onto the concrete slabs.
Miriam had undergone some fairly terrific trials when she was younger, which resulted in a psychotic break. Mitch was lucky enough to be living with her at the time and managed to keep her from breaking too many laws in her delusions, but eventually the police and paramedics got her to a psychiatric ward where she made a recovery. Since then, though, she’d been sensitive to gaslighting or misremembering events, and seeing a floating box couldn’t have triggered that fear any more vividly.
“Alright, it’s real. Who have you called?” Miriam made the switch to productivity so quickly it was hard to notice.
“Well I was going to call up Bill and Whitney.”
“Our tabletop group? I suppose we already know how to party.”
Mitch scoffed. “Sure, if by ‘party’ you mean run into literally every situation half-cocked.”
She shrugged it off. “That’s what the DM is for. What about John and Sarah?”
“They’re way up north, and Sarah’s family.. I didn’t think they’d come down here.”
Miriam rolled her eyes. “So you didn’t even ask. I’ll call them, you do Bill.”
Well, at least the phones still worked, even if the internet was down. “Bill, what’s up?”
“Hey Bill. You see those boxes?”
“I mean, I’d call them windows or dialogues, but sure. Listen, before you ask, Whit and I are sticking around here. My parents need me, especially if this is as dangerous as the System says.”
“What if we need you, too?”
“Mitch. You’ll do fine. You’re the one person in our group I wouldn’t be confident of a victory against. If you need me, it’s just to stop you from being so serious when it’s not time for it.”
He was surprised, even having heard the sentiment before and knowing it was more due to the size difference than any actual skill. “Wise words.”
“I’d hope so! I’ve been training my WIL and AGI since 4 AM.”
“How? We’ve just been hitting each other for Vitality.”
“Didn’t even think of that, nice. Agility is sprints, no problem, but Willpower was a bit tougher to figure out. Basically, you either need to force someone to recognize your words, or do something you dislike with utter focus. For me, I’m having my computer randomise one letter in a stretch of code every 15 minutes, and I pause my sprints to fix it. Once Whitney gets up I’m going to try dodging stuff, see if I can’t work on Reflexes a bit. The others slowed down a lot after I hit 5.”
“Reflexes? ”Mitchell asked, trying not to get upset at the headstart he’d gotten.
“Oh! Try saying or thinking ‘Status’. Things make more sense that way.”
“What, just say Status- whoa!”
“Yep. I’ll give you a call tonight, we can share notes.”
“Yea, sure, see you later buddy.”
Miriam was waiting, huddling up against the wind. “I got voicemail. Whitney is a no go?”
“Her and Bill. They’re sticking around for family reasons, but he agreed to share notes. For example, say or think the word ‘Status’”
Her exclamation was background noise, as Mitch was already perusing his own status sheet.
Name: Mitchell LeFleur
Race: Human (*)
Class: None
Level: None
HP: 40
MP: 10
STATS
STR 2
FOR 1
AGI 1
REF 1
VIT 4
CON 2
INT 1
WIL 1
INS 2
CHA 2
*Human Skills:
Common Ancestor: All Humans have access to racial evolution, regardless of ancestry
Duality of Man: Humans are able to hold two classes, though one of the two classes must be a non-combat class. Stat gains are cumulative. Race level is equal to the average of a human’s Primary and Secondary class.
Species Progenitor: For being the first humans to become systemized, all humans will find it easier to create and learn new skills. Humans can also replace existing skills with new ones.
Note, further born humans under the system will have this skill replaced with the following:
In Their Footsteps: Humans are able to learn new skills from existing practitioners of those skills with greater efficiency.
From this, a few things were gathered. Firstly, all stats started at 1. Hopes for a ‘Character Creation’ were out the window. Secondly, was the revelation that not every stat gain warranted a pop-up. Third was the fact that Racial Evolution was a thing, whatever that meant. Last was the implication that while humans could change skills, others couldn’t. Other races? Aliens? Fantasy races? He was unsure, though it was clear that the system didn’t see the word race in the same context as humans.
Mitchell closed down the screen as George loped out of the forest, a grin on his face. “Instinct, Reflexes, and Agility! Come, my friends, come frolic with me! For the stats!”
They spent 3 hours frolicing in the fields, and by lunchtime, all of them had at least 5 in one of their stats.