The world seemed to fade into the background as Owen read the message his ears ringing from the voice reading it off in his head. "There is no way I'm still drunk," He mumbled to himself. He tried moving the screen with his hand, but it fazed through. "I think I remember this a little bit from last night, what was it that I said? Go away," He said waving his hand and the screen disappeared.

Deciding he must still be drunk, he went about his normal morning routine grabbing an energy drink and staring at the coffee maker he had trying to convince himself it didn't seem like too much work to get a pot brewing.

He was only able to pretend the system didn't exist for a few minutes before his curiosity boiled up inside of him and he pulled the screen back up. It still said the same thing as before and the voice spoke the words out again in his head as soon as he started trying to read it.

*Welcome to a brand new world of wonder and adventure. Fight Monsters gain power and fulfill your every dream. Once again, Welcome to the system!*

"Cool, what next?" he imagined pushing the screen off to the side as if flipping a page of a book and the screen shifted to pull up a new screen.

*You have boldly stepped up on a new path of power and have the chance to climb to the peak of power, but as of now are still in your infant steps. Climb high and don't look back.*

Owen fell back onto the couch and felt like all his energy had left him. This was exactly like the systems from all of those litrpg novels he had read as a college student. But seemed all too different so far, he hadn't seen any monsters stats or anything else normally associated with system powers. Glancing back at the window, he imagined flipping the page and continued to read as the voice thundered through his head.

*Would you like to begin the tutorial Y/N ?*

He hesitate for only a moment before selecting no. "I am going to need to find out more about this before I try something like the tutorial. Though I suppose maybe the tutorial could be like a user manual for the system," As soon as he had the thought he felt dumb, in all of the litrpg and videogames he had played, the tutorial was something used to get you more familiar with fighting monster and skills than anything else.

Apparently, he only had access to a few message windows right now; the one asking him if he wanted to begin the tutorial, a status menu, and more surprising than any of the others, a settings menu. Every screen he read through had an androgenous voice speaking directly into his head.

To his surprise there was actually an option to turn off the voice as well as change the voice itself, though the options were his voice or the current one. Just imagining himself speaking into his head while reading it made him cringe a little. He did turn off the voice entirely and selected an option to have system notification pop up in his peripheral vision.

His curiosity got the best of him and despite not having high hopes, he excitedly switched over to the status menu. He felt a little disappointed when he scanned over the page. It was empty, well that wasn't exactly true, but it might as well been. It had a list of stats, all with values of zero.

It had a skills tab, but that was also blank, the only bar actually filled in was the race, which was obviously labeled as human. The mere presence of a race bar, made him both a little terrified, but thrilled as well. He might get to see elves, dwarves, or evens orcs. His mind flashed back to game he had played when he was younger, remembering a certain rather promiscuous lizard.

Deciding there was no time like the present, he started reading the list of stats themselves

Vitality = 0

Mana = 0

Strength = 0

Perception = 0

Agility = 0

Resilience = 0

Dexterity = 0

Luck = 0

Owen felt a big grin spread across his face, it was just like a videogame, though he started to get concerned. He had seen different books where the world would slowly descend into chaos as the rest of the world would be unable to keep up with the strength of its residence and it would become a world based solely around how strong you were. That was a world he was already starting to feel uncomfortable with the idea of.

The more worried he got the more he felt like he was missing something, "My phone!" He thought before rushing to grab it. "Fuck, 9 missed calls." He said before dialing his dad, "Hey, Dad are you okay," He tried to say but was interrupted by his dad shouting in joy as soon as the call started. "Thank god, you are okay, I've been worried sick."

"Yeah, I'm okay dad, just feeling a little weird this morning." He hesitated to tell his dad about the system that had popped up for him, it wasn't that he didn't trust his dad but it would surely convince him that he had gone crazy.

"Have you done your tutorial yet? I know the system popped up last night, but I've been too worried to take it myself." His dad said nervously. Owen immediately felt stupid, of course something like this wouldn't happen to one person. "So, you have the system thing as well?" Of course, it was announced on the news this morning how to remove the screen and some of the other key features to try and prevent too much widespread panic, though it only helped so much. Most stores have been being ransacked since late last night when the system alert first popped up."

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Owen nodded his head in thought before remembering he was on the phone. "So, it is something everyone has, did they say what the tutorial was like?" "I haven't heard anything like that yet, I got in the car as soon as none of my calls would go through. I'm on my way to you right now." Owen and his dad spoke a little bit longer about some of the information that everyone had been given, before his dad said that he was less than fifteen minutes out. "Alright, then I'll wait to go through the tutorial until you get here, maybe it will let us do it together."

He ended up spending the fifteen minutes pacing back and forth trying to convince himself to tidy up a bit, but every time he would start cleaning he would quickly get too distracted thinking about the system and would only get half of it done. He ended up trying to find any information at all about the tutorial, but the only thing that seemed to be the case was that people were disappearing as soon as they would select to start.

When he finally heard the knock on his door, he bolted towards it and opened it to let his dad inside. They gave each other a quick hug and exchanged a few pleasantries before conversation slowly died down and they both sat in anticipated silence.

"So, I guess we should try and check out that system then," Owen said nervously, but then his dad held up a hand. "Hold on, what even is this system, I saw them saying it is a weird power source on the news, but I was in my car heading over here before I could get any specifics." Owen thought for a moment before gesturing for his dad to take a seat and then sat down himself.

"I'm not sure. I have read a couple books as well as played a few games that have a mechanic called the system before. In those it was something like a stats sheet from like Dnd and doing different things like killing monster to slowly gain level and increase those stats. In the books I've read with it, the world changes to bring the monsters, so sometimes there are portals that form and in others the world changes to where monster are a normal occurrence."

"And so this tutorial is something that will what have us fighting things like dangerous monster and the like?" His dad said starting to sound a little cold to the idea. Owen nodded but then paused again. "I guess its hard to say, after getting the prompt to take the tutorial, I haven't been able to do anything other than play with the settings menu a little bit." "Settings menu?" His dad asked. Owen quickly showed him the settings that he himself had selected. "Well, let's check the news and see if they have any type of description for this tutorial thing." His dad said.

"Well that's the weird thing, I haven't been able to find any mention of the tutorial, they have said it is a thing, but that there isn't any information about it." His dad's face blanched. "I don't think this is something we should do."

Owen tried to think rationally, but also couldn't help being slightly excited. He knew his dad was right, it wasn't ever smart to charge headlong into something without knowing enough to know whether it will be safe or not. He couldn't help but think of all the litrpg series he had read where the main character gets overpowered and saves the world. A small part of him still liked to imagine himself as some sort of hero. But the look on his dad's face brought him back to reality. "Dad, I think we should start the tutorial at the same time."

He stared at his dad intently, watching him fidget as he thought it over before tentatively nodding. "I don't like the idea, but since I know you would probably do it if I wasn't here, I'd feel much better being able to go through this with you." They both pulled up their screens and hesitated.

*Would you like to begin the tutorial Y/N ?*

They both hit yes at the same time. Owen felt like he had short circuited his dad had been standing right in front of him, but as soon as he had hit the yes option, everything around him had changed in less than the blink of an eye.

The world around had shifted into what looked like outer space, without stars glittering in the distance. Grid lines seemed to span a meter in every direction mapping out the surrounding area like a chess board. Directly in front of him was a new menu screen.

*Welcome to the tutorial, while inside of this tutorial, your body will not be able to keep up with the stress or other external factors. Please design the new you and express yourself through it to the best of your ability.*

As he finished reading it the menu expanded outwards to envelope the world he was standing in, now containing a mirror and having a list of character creation options. "Holy fuck," Owen whispered, "It's just like a videogame." Owen's first thought was to just choose to look the exact same, which was a listed option, but he had never been able to avoid the several hour long grind people would spend in character creation to have the perfect avatar.

And so the grind began, minutes slowly became hours as Owen slipped from his creator stupor and look upon the final touches of his new avatar.

Looking in the mirror felt foreign, as a face that was not his stared back. He stood several inches taller now, going from 5'9 to standing at a full 6 feet 2 inches. His slightly out of shape body had slimmed considerable, but he felt too awkward to make himself ripped. He changed his hair from a sandy brown color, to a much darker brown. His eyes which had been slightly green were shifted to a dark hazel.

He smiled as he looked upon the version of him that could've easily been a model and sighed. It didn't feel right, he knew others might change their appearance drastically, but looking in the mirror and seeing a strangers face made him feel uneasy. He selected the option to keep his appearance the same.

It took a few seconds before it felt like he was suddenly being crushed into a ball. Everything hurt and he felt like he was about to explode into dozens of tiny pieces, but then the pressure let off and he was able to stand tall again. He took a second to regain his breath and examine himself but nothing felt off, but he did feel somehow more present like he was anchored into place unless he chose to move.

Taking a step was just as easy as normal, but it felt like there was a weight behind each of his movements. Scanning the system screen that was sitting in his periphery, there was a flashing message next to the status screen.

*You have earned the skill Self Creator. You have created for yourself a new body that will let you take part in the system. Self Creator will allow the user to redesign their body, however this process will not change the users mana signature. This skill has a 24 hour cooldown period.*

Owen couldn't help but feel a little excited, this was his first step to learning about the system and it already had given him something spectacular. The world around began to shrink and a new screen popped into view.

*Are you ready for the next round of the tutorial? Y/N*.

Not hesitating for a second Owen selected yes and the world faded out.