On January 1, 2025, humanity awoke to an unsettling message: World Protection System Deactivated. This simple phrase answered the age-old question, ‘Where were all the aliens?’ as the night skies erupted with signals on every imaginable wavelength. It goes without saying, the entire human race freaked out. If not about the aliens, the fact that the message appeared in their field of vision like a system message in a UI from some mobile game.
“Character Growth System Activated”
The second message followed shortly after, accompanied by a loading icon. This one was spoken aloud in an androgynous, unfamiliar voice with a stilted accent.
“Scanning Character Data”
Matt’s body froze in place, reportedly along with every object in the Solar System. It felt as if his mind and body were being probed—each cell, neuron, memory, and thought examined by unseen fingers that groped at his very being—or so he thought he’d have felt. In the time that he was stuck he was drawn into a world of white void. He would later find that almost everyone on Earth had a similar experience.
In the void, there was his consciousness and nothing else. That is, until a giant panel appeared in front of him which eerily resembled a character creation screen from an MMORPG.
CHARACTER NAME: Mathew Gio Munro
“Character has been determined to be a 7* E-Class | Level 1”
HEALTH: 008 MANA: 000 SPIRIT: 020 STRENGTH: 010 DEXTERITY: 010 INTELLECT: 030 MEMORY: 025 FORTITUDE: 020 RESILIENCE: 020 LUCK: 002 TOTAL: 145
“Character has been awarded 700 Free Use Points to use.”
“Points may be used to add stats, alter physical characteristics, treat ailments, purchase skills, knowledge, abilities, equipment, including vehicles, pets, mounts, etc.”
“Character will now be given the choice of Basic Archetypes”
KNIGHT WARRIOR CONTROLLER MEDIC ENHANCER WEAPON SMITH ARMOR SMITH TOOL SMITH COLLECTOR REFINER ROGUE
“Each Archetype has trait bonuses, skills, abilities, and equipment that are given upon selection. Choice is final upon confirmation.”
He stared at the messages and menu in disbelief, not knowing whether any of what was shown was good or bad. It said that he was Level 1. He took that as a good thing, because it meant that age likely didn’t affect it and everyone would be starting off there and if this was going to be anything like an MMORPG he could just diligently get better over time, even if he wasn’t the most skilled person. Next, he read that he was designated a 7* E-Class. This worried him. E-Class was almost always bottom of the barrel or close to and 7* could mean anything, different systems having different caps. Not mention that because they were together it could mean that he was good E-Class or a bad 7* or any combination of things.
Skimming down the stats, his suspicion was that they were derived from my actual traits. No MANA made sense. Comparatively Low LUCK and HEALTH, looking at his life and physical condition of being incredibly out of shape, made sense. That meshed with the lower STRENGTH as well, but he questioned the DEXTERITY score. Whether it meant hand dexterity or general dexterity, to him, it didn’t hold that it should be that low given he always was good with hands when it came to drawing, weapon handling, musical instruments, etc., and he was certainly more flexible than most people he had ever come across, but maybe it was measuring how good he was with tools. He was no good with tools no matter how hard he tried, so maybe that was a factor, and maybe his age, nearly 40, was too.
Moving on, he looked towards the last 5 stats. They looked appropriate for the most part. He couldn’t argue that those stats should be higher than at least his STRENGTH, although one could argue that the lack of FORTITUDE or RESILIENCE is probably the reason his HEALTH was lower. And if he was building a character based on himself his INTELLECT should be higher than his STRENGTH, but a 3x difference? That seemed a bit crazy. The one that took him by surprise, however, was the SPIRIT stat. Nothing he could think of should have led to that so maybe it measured something he didn’t understand.
Having no reference to make sense of it, he moved on to the Archetype selection options and he hoped that his game knowledge would be useful there. Normally, he’d choose Warrior. That was his go to in most games, but his current stats would make that a fairly dumb option if there were no way to change them. After a moment, it became clear to Matt the Archetypes were divided into 2 major groups; Combat and Non-Combat, with Rogue, which would normally be considered a combat role being separated away from that grouping. None of the Archetypes seemed to imply MANA or SPIRIT usage which made him believe that it was a sort of sub-option. Given his stats and how the classes seemed to be laid out Matt didn’t like his options, but then a thought crossed his mind.
He shouted… thought selected? ‘Rogue’
“Rogue Archetype. Please confirm Rogue Archetype selection.”
‘Well, that’s not exactly helpful, but sure… Confirm Archetype’ he thought into the void.
“Rogue Archetype registered to character. Applying bonuses”
“Archetype Beginner Weapon - 10 (Rogue) Weapon Points”
“Archetype Beginner Armor - 20 (Rogue) Armor Points”
“Archetype Beginner Skills - 10 (Rogue) Skill Points”
“Archetype Beginner Abilities - 10 (Rogue) Ability Points”
“Archetype Trait Point Modifiers - 50 (Rogue) Trait Points”
“Rogue Archetype converts all points into Free Use Points.”
“Character now has 800 Free Use Points”
“Character may now apply Free Use Points as they see fit.”
“Upon Character Registration completion certain alterations may become locked, require more points, or become much harder to access due to Character’s traits, skills, abilities, ailments, or status. Please, review all options before finalizing Registration.”
‘Well, that’s terrifying. To think someone might mess up something so badly that they could never recover from,’ he thought, but he pushed the thoughts out of my mind for the time being, hoping that no one would make those mistakes.
Once the character alteration options opened up Matt went to work. The first thing he did was fix his vision, cure his genetic health conditions, make some minor aesthetic changes, heal all his old injuries, turn back his physical age to his 20s, and remove a bit of weight, but only just a small chunk. He didn’t want to waste too many points on such things since he was going to be a lot more active now and that would probably cause him to lose the weight fairly quickly. And while some of the things he did might have been a small bit vain, they were all to improve himself for what was to come. There was a very good chance, the moment he was finished here he would be forced into combat and the last thing he needed was to be slowed down by being old and overly fat. And the other things, he might not be able to fix them later and so he got rid of their inconvenience now. When he looked at the price of all of those changes though, it sealed the deal. A hundred points for all of that seemed way too cheap. He suspected at least some of the choices would be more expensive later on, if available at all.
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“Altered physical parameters have altered traits.”
The next thing he chose to do was discover why his LUCK was so low and fix the problem. Of course, that meant probing all the data that he had gotten access to on the Character Sheet UI. It didn’t take me long to figure out what the issue was. Cascading LUCK nerfs from unlucky events and traits. One event or trait led to the next which led to the next and soon he was one unlucky SoB. It presented him with a philosophical quandary. He could spend points to delete these debuffs, but they could have unforeseen consequences, especially for ones that some of his personality was linked with. He might turn into a psychopath if he started messing with things that affected his morality. He decided against it. Instead he dumped points directly into LUCK and said good-bye to 103 Free Use Points, raising his LUCK to 41.
“Low LUCK effects counteracted. Traits will gain their original values.”
“Rank re-evaluated. 7* B-Class.”
‘Wait. My Low LUCK was affecting my other stats as well?’ he pondered. He saw generally how Free Use Points worked with stats. He thought over his options. Dumping 597 points into stats wouldn’t buy him a significant advantage since all of his stats, other than MANA were now above 20, giving each category 10 would cost 30 each at a minimum and that would cost 300+ of his points. He thought better of it and moved on to checking the Skills and Abilities options.
He scanned the options. Some of them were things he’d like to get, but he decided against them at the moment. ‘Survive first, then get the other stuff,’ he thought. The Skills he selected are the following;
Antidote (F) Armor Synthesis (F) Augment Synthesis (F) Boost (F) Combine (F) Curse (F) Dash (F) Detect (F) Dodge (F) Focus (F) Food Synthesis (F) Invincible (F) Lock (F) Mana Pack (F) Mana Wrap (F) Mend Wounds (F) Poison (F) Purify (F) Refine (F) Seal (F) Tool Synthesis (F) Weapon Synthesis (F)
And after those he grabbed these Abilities;
Appraisal (F) Detect Mana (F) Detect Mineral (F) Detect Spirit (F) Earth Mana (F) Electricity Mana (F) Fire Mana (F) Health Regeneration (F) Life Mana (F) Light Mana (F) Magnetic Mana (F) Mana Generation (F) Swordsmanship (F) Threat Detection (F) UI: Encyclopedia UI: Encyclopedia: Achievement UI: Encyclopedia: Armor Recipes UI: Encyclopedia: Augment Recipes UI: Encyclopedia: Items UI: Encyclopedia: People UI: Encyclopedia: Quest Log UI: Encyclopedia: Species UI: Encyclopedia: Tool Recipes UI: Encyclopedia: Weapon Recipes UI: Inventory (F) UI: Map (F) UI: Options (F) UI: Party (F) UI: Store (F) Water Mana (F) Wind Mana (F)
Once finished with those, having seen an option to upgrade his ‘Traits’, what he called stats, increasing their rank and after he had selected [Mana Generation] automatically the system gave him the first rank in [MANA]. It wasn’t a hard decision to increase its rank and he had just enough to take it from F to D leaving him with 7 Free Use Points. All went into MANA, increasing it by another 3 points.
CHARACTER NAME: Mathew Gio Munro ARCHETYPE: ROGUE RANK: 7* B-CLASS LEVEL: 001 Free Use Points: 001 HEALTH: 035 MANA: 018 SPIRIT: 030 STRENGTH: 020 DEXTERITY: 020 INTELLECT: 035 MEMORY: 035 FORTITUDE: 030 RESILIENCE: 030 LUCK: 041 TOTAL: 294
Matt gave his stats a once over before deciding he was satisfied.
‘Now what?’ he thought.
“Confirm Registration?”
‘Yeah…,’ he thought, but nothing happened. A second later he thought, ‘Confirm?
“Character, Mathew Munro, Registration Confirmed.”
“Returning Mathew Munro to Real-Spacetime.”
For billions of people around the world, a similar set of events took place. It all but confirmed that they were living in a simulation and game at that. Most people handled the news well enough, but for others the shock didn’t sit well. Others found that nothing they did could fix any number of situations that they were in or realized that they could, but would have to put themselves at a severe disadvantage. Of course, there were also those that were so far gone mentally that even though they could have fixed themselves, they couldn’t. The number of all these people would never be known, but many of them were accounted for in the 1.5 billion casualties that soon fell.
“Invasion Tutorial Mode”
“Characters lost in the Invasion Tutorial will be permanently lost. Territory will not be.”