???? A.M.? P.M.?

January 6/7?

Void Between Worlds

In the end - and with not a small amount of morbid curiosity - he had simply walked off into the void past his little island of safety. Gary had been understandably nervous at this but he’d come to the conclusion that it was needed for the ‘process’ of being isekai’d to continue. With a great heaving sigh, he complied with the conclusion and had stepped off. He’d expected to tumble away but he simply floated gently without a sense of motion, the island vanishing behind him into the nothingness.

Gary made damn sure his Virtual Network System’s wireless connection feature was turned very firmly to the off setting. One of the last things he needed was for the darn thing to pick up some virus from a stray transmission in this place. He tried not to even think about it, just in case. Jinxing himself would be nothing but a fatal disaster at this point.

Welcome, traveler!

The blaring light display before him sprung to life as a floating box about halfway forward of his arm’s reach. It took everything Gary had not to try and adjust settings on it with his mind. The design was a bright blue with a simplistic border; very basic design-wise. He settled for a few rapid blinks before the box before him cheerfully continued like it didn’t notice his reaction.

Oh, my! It appears you’ve lost your way, citizen! How did you get so far from Veotera? It seems that you somehow don’t have your System activated, either. Curious! Let’s see about fixing that, shall we?

“I guess,” Gary replied hesitantly. This was sounding like canned content. He quite liked Earth, thank you very much. The wording caught him a bit off guard, though. Did it think he was from this ‘Veotera’ and had simply lost his way? Well, if he was going to get possible powers and so forth out of it and maybe safely transported to solid ground Gary was perfectly willing to shut his damn mouth and let the process play out.

Now let’s get started activating your connection to the System! The screen before you - that’s me! - is part of a System spanning countless worlds. With my help you’ll be able to gain the strength to attain your desired life, so I’m gonna need you to be honest with me. Let’s start with your status screen. Please state “Status open” now.

He shook his head in disbelief at the canned approach but dutifully stated the line. “Status open.” A larger box sprung to life behind the one speaking to him. It displayed ratings for statistical representation and basic information about himself. Name, age, gender, marital status? He noted empty spots in the “class” slot below that and the “skills” slot below the rest of it. That probably was covered in the later parts of this process.

Name: Gary Zavon Age: 17 Gender: Male Marital Status: Single Affinity: Onyx Strength: Adept Agility: Master Constitution: Grandmaster Intelligence: Master Mana Control: Adept Mana Reserves: Prodigy (100%) Class: Skills:

Excellent! These ratings represent your ability in each category of activity. Higher is better, but the only way for them to go to nothing is for you to be dead! Try to avoid death. Now, we’ll see about choosing your class! This will not be the only thing you can do for your entire life, but it’s what you’ll be best at. Now I will prepare a class based on your current stats!

“Can I choose my own regardless of my stats?” Yeah, it was truly time to play a semi-clueless isekai protagonist. The System was not his friend. The System was not Earth’s friend. Something that had this implied level of power was something to be wary of. To be able to simply glance at him and categorize his physical and mental capabilities into such simplistic rankings was suggestive of a System that didn’t offer protections from abuse by the gifted who lacked the discipline that came along with training to improve oneself. It might also be responsible for the holes in reality that had swallowed him and presumably more from Earth that he didn't know about. A lot of isekai stories had a System pop up right before an apocalypse happened.

Sorry, that’s not an option. If we let people choose like that, everyone would be a “Hero” and that’s boring! What you get is what you get as far as Class goes! It will be tuned based on your stats, so don’t worry about physical compatibility! You’re pretty darn smart so you should have something pretty magical! Let me calculate your Class for a moment. Please hold.

The box talking to him scrolled through various ASCII symbols as it supposedly processed an answer for him. Gary floated without comment, reaching out to try and move the statistics box to one side so he could look at it uninterrupted. There wasn’t any graphical body display or ‘paper doll’ mechanic, so he figured he’d still have to put on equipment manually. There didn’t appear to be a limiter indication on the rankings though there did seem to be a toggle beside every part of his status besides his name and Class entries. Pressing the toggle grayed out the linked display though he could still see it. A toggle to show or hide things? Clearly a double-edged sword. Hiding would let him surprise or bluff others, but if he could hide things there was clearly going to be an ability or item to reveal it. There was also the social aspect of people asking ‘what does Gary have to hide?’ and that sounded no fun.

Thank you for waiting! Here is your class based on your statistics.

A third box materialized as Gary moved the status screen further to the side to make room. Within this new box there was a single flowery entry.

Plunderer

The shadows beckon, and you heed the call. Riches lay behind guard and lock, but are yours for the taking. Lives and secrets hang in the balance held by your blood-slicked blade. Some call your skills magic and some call it a black heart’s reward for damnation. You are the night, you are the last gasp, you are the one who can steal the stars as easily as you can baubles. Thieves, assassins, spies, the desperate, and monsters in the looming black; thus are your kin.

Your class is Origin rank in strength.

Gary blinked at the brief descriptions. Flowery text aside it was clear that each had some influence from his scores and hidden attributes about himself that the “skills” section would likely cover. The teenager gave a bizarre look at the fact he'd gotten what was at first blush a thievery-based skill. Gary wasn't one to shy away from what needed to be done but he'd never recalled an instance of having committed theft or otherwise taken something from another without asking for or being gifted it. Well, duh. He would have slapped his face in disgust at himself if he wasn't trying to ham up his role as clueless John Q. Public. He was 'stealing' information from this part of the System, and had intent on stealing himself a way back home if the opportunity presented itself. That sounded pretty thief-y. He found his voice after reading the words and committing it to the running text file in his mind that he was trying to be super subtle about. “What’s with this ‘rank in strength’ bit?”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Oh, my! An ORIGIN?! You have a blessed life, dear traveler! To answer your question each grade indicates how powerful the skills inherent in each Class will be. Think of it as how effective and efficient a given action would be in relation to how your Class works.. A sword blow from a Master Warrior may be able to cleave leather armor or weaker metals like bronze with one focused swing, but the same identical attack from an Origin Warrior would cut hardened steel with a half-aimed flick of the wrist. The ranks are as follows: Novice, Adept, Master, Grandmaster, Prodigy, Saint, and Origin.

“It seems stupid of me not to enjoy Plunderer’s obvious potential power, but sneaky-beaky types tend to get looked down upon. Not sure I wanna deal with the hassle of being a wanted man simply by existing.”

Not to worry! People are aware of what Classes are where you’re going. The people under the System understand that this is simply your Class. It will unfortunately likely lead to people having a strong opinion about you, and expect you to behave certain ways. Some Classes do inflict a compulsion on their wielder, but Plunderer is not one of them. You are also under the misconception that you’re simply another name for “Thief” or “Assassin”. Almost ALL stealthy professions are under your purview. A “Spy” employed by an army would also be an example under the awning of your prowess, as they 'plunder' the secrets of potential and actual enemies. The ranking of “Origin” is literal in this case.

Gary’s mouth puckered in thought as he reread the description of the offered option before he spoke again. “Am I locked out of everything else if I go forward with this? Like am I locked out of being a mage, a warrior, and so on?”

Oh, no. You can technically acquire every profession under the sun. You would just have to learn them the old-fashioned way: manuals, instructors, and lots and lots of training! The limiting factor tends to be time, since you are mortal. Your Class is simply what you’re going to be best at going forward. A Farmer could become the greatest ax-wielding warrior in the world, but he’ll still be better at farming than combat. There are ways around that limitation but it’s beyond the purview of this starting part.

He looked at the display again, then sighed in resignation. It’d be stupid to not take the most powerful option he could get at this juncture, since arguing about it would probably be counterproductive at best and get him a punishment at worst. He was confident in his ability to get training as a warrior and a healer in short order, but he’d have to find someone to teach him magic. He did have textbook after textbook in his head thanks to his little super-expensive toy from the United States government, so it was really just a matter of getting physical practice in. Not a terrible start at all.

“It’d be stupid not to turn it down, then. Let’s lock in Plunderer.” With a little fanfare, the third screen vanished in a blink and his sheet updated with Plunderer as his Class. The skills section on his sheet pulsed to catch his attention, then began filling with relevant things from his Class and personal training, plus a flood of items the fell one after another under the heading 'Knowledge'. The tutorial box was flickering rapidly between symbols as it clearly tried to process what was happening before it could get a word in. Gary smiled ruefully. His Virtual Network at work, then. Hopefully it had registered only as his knowledge and not as something to be suppressed by this System.

That… Is a lot of skills to start with. You really are blessed. I think the intelligence rating messed up.

Gary laughed at that. “Let’s call it the difference between Intelligence and Wisdom, to borrow a phrase. I know all of these things, but there’s a huge difference in knowing how and applying that knowledge. Lots of book smarts, not enough hands-on experience. The rating probably took that imbalance into consideration.”

An interesting perspective, traveler. Good feedback for later use. Now then, I would like to draw your attention to your skills list. You can mentally sort it by all sorts of types, and you’ll need to do this since some of your skills are passive and some require you to trigger yourself. I would suggest practicing once you arrive at your destination.

“Sounds like a plan. So is that it for your end?”

My part is done for now, but I'll pop back up briefly if you gain a new Skill once you arrive. Some new clothes suitable for your destination will be given to you once you arrive. Good luck and happy travels!

The textbox of the tutorial blinked out of existence. Gary hung in the void looking casually over his sheet while he contemplated the grave meaning behind something simply being able to measure his existence so thoroughly, yet be oblivious to the nature of his list of knowledge. It amused him to note that the listed bits under the Knowledge entry was simply an abbreviated list. He guessed the status screen didn't want to extend into the next fifty feet listing the topics he had in the chip in his head. The problems were going to be remembering that he had them all in the first place and not to use too much to make himself painfully obvious. That was the issue most isekai victims ran into: making too much noise with their advanced knowledge, even if they somehow remembered it perfectly dragging a world ahead by it's bootstraps never ended without a pile of innocent bodies the size of a small mountain in one's wake.

Name: Gary Zavon Age: 17 Gender: Male Marital Status: Single Affinity: Onyx Strength: Adept Agility: Master Constitution: Grandmaster Intelligence: Master Mana Control: Adept Mana Reserves: Prodigy (100%) Class: Plunderer (Origin) SKILLS Active

Stealth (synergy available)

Plunder (synergy available)

Sneak Attack (synergy available)

Quintessence Vivisection

Passive

Danger Sense

Perception

Martial Arts: Taekwondo

Martial Arts: Grappling

Weapons Training (Knife, handgun)

Language: English

Language: Common Veoteran

Knowledge (Architecture, Biology, Chemistry, Herbology, Mechanics, Medicine, Martial Arts, Metallurgy, Military Doctrine and Theory, Physics, Survival, Tailoring, Zoology, ...)

The moments passed as a feeling of movement picked up, drawing Gary's attention towards a particular point that was clearly growing larger into his vision. A ragged sigh escaped him before dismissing the screen with a thought. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “Guess I'm about to get where I'm going. Yay,” he droned to himself as his vision went white as opposed to the black it had when he got flung into this place.