When Mark awoke, his eyes glazed over. What he saw was not the familiar sight of home, but a vast darkness shimmering with hundreds of lights. And he was not alone in this void.
Brightness in the shape of a humanoid stood a fair distance away from where he was standing. As if studying him, the creature tilted its head and watched Mark look around. Once he stopped and focused his eyes on the being, it started to speak.
"Greetings, denizen of Sector E-216. You, and the rest of your world, are henceforth welcome to the multiverse. Integration into our system will begin with a tutorial, designed to guide you into how the multiverse functions. It will present both a challenge and an opportunity."
Mark failed to understand most of the words the thing was spewing. All he knew was that the world had irreversibly changed, and that this change began with a tutorial. He gripped onto that familiar idea. One question hung in his mind, and he asked, "What'll happen to my mother?"
"All denizens will be transported into a tutorial instance if they meet the minimum requirements. The system is fair. Small illnesses and weak diseases will be cured, while others will be given a chance to await the end of the tutorial without any risk of harm. What comes after, however, is up to you. Your planet will undergo change as well."
Mark relaxed a little when he heard his mother would be safe. At least he had the entire duration of the tutorial to prepare. "The tutorial...is it timed?"
"Yes. This is a unique opportunity afforded only to newcomers to the multiverse. The Core of Eternity welcomes you to its labyrinth, and to witness the history which dwells within." The being made a gesture of spreading its arms wide, though it was stilted, like a bad actor. "You will have three months to stay before being sent back to your original world."
Mark felt more and more relieved as he digested the entity's words. His blood pumped away the worry with a newfound excitement at a chance to save his mother. Magic was real.
"Will we reappear in the same location?" he asked. "Including the ones not in the tutorial."
The entity nodded. "All humans of Sector E-216 participating in integration will indeed return to the exact location they were before. The environment around them, however, may appear entirely different."
Mark didn't like that. What if his mother became trapped inside a certain death zone? She would be defenseless.
He couldn't have that happen. To assure the safety of his mother, he needed a way to rush to the hospital and deal with any threats which might appear.
Suddenly, his eyes twitched and forced themselves shut a moment later. There was no pain, but he could somehow feel something emerge in the dim recesses of his mind. He had the urge to investigate further, but decided to ignore the feeling and deal with the astral being first.
"Any other questions?" it asked. "Time is almost up."
Mark shook his head, satisfied. He had both a long-term and a short-term goal to strive towards. He was no longer drowning in endless work, and the chance to change his family's fate had arrived. With confidence, he met the astral being's gaze, motioning at it to continue.
"Very well, then." A massive wheel of colors materialized behind it. One black line became the pointer, and the being stepped aside to let Mark have a full view. "The choice is yours, newcomer," it said. "Decide your fate."
There were so many symbols and markings that it was impossible to discern all the choices. Instead, Mark reached out to the lever on the side and pulled it without hesitation. The wheel spun for ten seconds before stopping between a pair of symbols, a skull and a pair of jaws.
Then the lever reset with a weighty clunk. The pointer whirled back to its original position and Mark immediately spun it again. A symbol of a cave emerged, containing many specks of dirt.
His third spin revealed a bag containing symbols of meat and water drops. Mark prepared to pull it again, but the wheel had stopped resetting. Something else caught his attention in the form of screens in his vision.
Choose your initial starting class.
Warrior (Common)
Rogue (Common)
Mage (Common)
Mark chose to become a Mage. The allure of magic drew him in, and he had the feeling he needed this new power to try and cure his mother's condition. His class choice lit up before dissolving into the fragments of another few screens.
Skill Gained: Basic Magic Manipulation (Common) - A passive skill expected of all beginner mages. Grants the minor ability to sense and manipulate magical energies around the user.
Skill Gained: Magic Missile (Common) - An active skill accessible to all beginner mages. Shapes and propels magical energies forwards with a degree of force.
After a quick readthrough, Mark turned his attention to the last screen.
Mark Winters - Level 1
Class: Mage (Common)
Stats - 6 Free Points
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Strength: 5
Dexterity: 4
Endurance: 6
Vitality: 4
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 5
Mark studied his status screen for a while, but there was no explanation from neither the screens nor the astral being. It remained silent even when he asked it questions about the meaning behind the numbers.
With nothing else to do, Mark distributed each free stat point evenly. It was safer for him to minimize his weaknesses when entering an entirely new world until he gained more knowledge about what he should be doing.
As soon as the numbers finished shifting, the entity appeared right in front of him, raising a hand to grab his head. Mark tried to flinch away, but fell unconscious a moment later.
---
Tutorial Time Remaining - 719:58:25
The sound of dripping water awoke Mark from his slumber. He pushed himself off the ground, groaning and shivering. It was frigid here.
After willing the timer to disappear, Mark took a glance around the small cave. Water dripped from a crack in the ceiling and a wooden barricade blocked the exit at the other side of the room. The boards were heavily damaged, though, and didn't seem like they'd last for long.
His joints ached. A small bag sat neatly on the floor beside him, which he pulled over his shoulder. Mark's fingers groped around the bag for an opening. He encountered a wooden stick instead, held snugly in a pocket on the side. After picking it up, he felt a small pulling sensation inside him, and the torch somehow lit up in response.
Must be magic, Mark thought, and finally located a zipper. Inside the bag were three bottles of water, three packets of bread, and one chunk of packaged meat. Somehow, the meat remained cold to the touch - another magical anomaly.
He swung his torch around the cave. Cracked dirt walls and soil were the only things left in the room. Mark then crouched close to the barricade and used the light to peer through the gap between the boards, confirming the room was safe to stay in for a while.
This place appeared to be a safe place at the start of the tutorial for people to grow accustomed to their new powers. Mark wondered if everyone had the same opportunity. As a Mage, he'd probably need a lot more time to become practiced with his powers compared to a seasoned Warrior.
He first tried to figure out how to control the torch's light. In case something did appear, he needed to know how to hide himself. Fortunately, his magical senses seemed to be fairly good. He could still feel the small pulling sensation, which he placed his focus on.
Mark figured out how to manipulate the stream of magic quickly enough. With a childlike whimsy, he tugged the tiny stream of magic back inside him, blocking the flow, and allowed it to flow through once again. The torch flickered on and off with ease until he grew bored and let it dim.
Darkness filled the room again. He closed his eyes. It was time to deal with the weird feeling inside his mind. It had always been there from the moment he awoke, constantly nagging at him to close his eyes and concentrate.
Mark brought his focus onto that sensation. His thoughts slowed down to a crawl, no longer as frantic as before. An immense calm filled him and it took some time before he recovered from that state. When he opened his eyes again, the first things he saw were a small spark of light, and an invisible object hovering inside a blank gray space.
"Is this my mind?" he asked. Though he spoke in a whisper, it sounded like normal speech.
Mark walked up to the floating objects. He tried to manipulate the spark of light first, and discovered the feeling matched what he did with the torch, only even more deeply connected. It seemed this was the source of his powers.
Intuitively, he wielded the small spark of magic like a bowl of water in his hands, even easier than in the cave. He brought the magical energies to flow into the invisible object. It became dyed in the colors of reality, taking the shape of a glowing orb. As time gradually passed, a faint symbol began to appear: the emblem of a leaf.
More of Mark's energy poured into the artifact, causing a bright light to form inside it. Eventually, as the amount of energy he could draw on dwindled away, the object vanished and he collapsed onto the floor, forced out from his inner world. With shaky hands, he propped himself up and stared ahead of him.
A shimmering blue portal had appeared out of nowhere. Tentatively, Mark stood up and circled it. There seemed to be no danger, so he threw one of the bread loaves inside.
It disappeared. Mark stuck a finger into the portal and pulled it back out, making sure the portal was safe to use. Then, he entered it.
A completely different environment unveiled itself in front of his eyes. Cool air caressed his skin and the sun in the sky gave him a familiar warmth. Vast fields of soil comforted his steps, much richer than the cracked dirt found in the cave.
"A pocket plane," Mark muttered. He stooped low and passed a few fingers through the dirt. He closed his eyes for a moment to immerse himself in the feeling.
"Wonder what I can do with this much space," he said. The soil looked rich. He felt its dampness. It might be perfect for growing fields of crops - enough to feed himself, at least.
The blue portal remained behind him as both the entrance and the exit. Mark stepped back out, and saw it slowly fade away when he looked backwards. He closed his eyes and concentrated, confirming that the glowing orb had returned to his inner world.
I cannot let anyone else know about this. On Earth, Mark had always been wary of other people and their greed. He did not expect magic to change this aspect of humanity. The lust for power would only increase.
He sent his magic inside the glowing orb again, but it was taking much longer than the first time. Mark figured it was because he drew too much magical energy from the cave. He was solely relying on the energy flowing in from outside the room.
When the orb was filled, he found himself ejected from his gray inner world again. Mark made a mental note of this and focused his attention purely on experimenting with the pocket plane. He grabbed a worm wriggling in the dirt and stuffed his hand into the portal. The worm disappeared when he pulled his arm out after releasing it.
"Strange," he remarked. His sense of touch had remained through the portal. Mark entered the portal again, picking the worm back up to watch it writhe around. It remained alive even after a few minutes had passed. He dropped it and allowed it to dig underneath the soil.
The environment looked good for growing plants and keeping animals. But Mark lacked the experience. The only thing he had taken care of before was a potted cactus in his college years, and a few succulents.
"This could be a good place for mom to stay," he whispered. Mark sat down and allowed the air to brush against his skin. The feeling was so wonderful he never wanted to leave.
But he had a job to do. After the tutorial, when they all returned to a changed Earth, it was possible for the hospital to be quickly overrun. And the machines which kept her stable would likely fail. If he couldn't cure her condition just yet, he would need a magical alternative to maintain her health.
"I have to do the best I can. Fight. Learn. Survive, then thrive." Mark stood up, determined. With access to magic, his mother's recovery was within reach. He only needed to make it through the tutorial and return to the hospital in the real world. But before doing so, he needed to attain the means to rescue her, and keep her safe for as long as he could. It was time to practice magic.