Devon and Trey made their way into the wide open field of mellow grasses and flowers. Any other time Devon would have thought the place would evoke a calm sense of serenity, but that was a sensation for another time, when they'd dealt with the pressing issues at hand.

Their primary goal was a source of water, and to gain a better understanding of the world around them. It was clear they were no longer on earth, as some of the flowers along their path contained hints of alien beauty.

Soon enough the gentle grassland gave way to a slightly more rugged prairie with grass and ferns that reached almost head height, and they found their first sign of trouble.

"Is it just me, or is that an oversized duck?" Trey asked nervously.

Devon just nodded, also taken aback by the size of the thing. It was at least four times the size of a regular duck, and it was feasting upon the carcass of some other unfortunate animal. When he tried to identify it he received;

[Duck? - Level 3]

I can't tell if it's mocking me or not.

"Wanna go for it?" Trey asked.

"Sure, why not," Devon said, flipping open his folding pocket knife. As the knife clicked into place the duck whipped its head around towards him. Devon only had a second to regret his decision upon seeing the frightening visage of a wolf's maw attached to the duck's head, its blood red eyes trained on him.

He instinctively reached down for his gun, but the duck was on him too fast. He barely had time to block with one arm before the duck's jaw latched on, sending a flood of pain up his arm as blood ran down the length of it.

Devon frantically stabbed whatever he could reach, but it only made the duck bite down harder. Devon felt like he could feel his bones crunching under the weight of the duck's jaw strength.

The pressure finally let up when Trey approached the thing from behind and swung his sword against its neck as hard as he could, cutting through almost half of the duck's nape. It wildly flailed around before Trey landed another strike, completely decapitating the creature.

Assisted kill - [Mawbird - Level 3] - 13 Talons

[Level up. Level 2 obtained.]

Initializing Ladder function… Done.

[Ladder] function added to list of available functions.

Devon cursed under his breath as the System assailed him with messages, none of which he cared about over the pain of his mangled arm.

Trey quickly rushed over and presented him some strange ball. At his friend's insistence he reluctantly swallowed the unknown pill, doing his best to ignore the pain in his arm.

And then it was as if the pain was lifted away and Devon could see the world clearly again. He looked down at his arm in astonishment and marveled at the wounded flesh of his arm literally knitting itself back together before his eyes.

"What on earth was that?" Devon asked, astonished.

"One of the healing items that came with the starting gear. I didn't think it would be this effective though…" Trey was staring at Devon's arm, equally astonished. The healing wasn't instantaneous, but it was damn fast. What would have taken weeks to heal took only five minutes for the flesh to stitch itself back together.

Once Devon had caught his breath he took a cursory glance over the barrage of System messages. He cursed himself on seeing that only a single creature was enough to level up. If they had been smart they'd have searched for something weaker to start off with. Then maybe they wouldn't have had to use one of their precious healing items.

Sighing in resignation, Devon opened his stats screen.

[Status]

Name: Devon Wells

Race: [E-Grade Human]

Level: 2

Class: [Feature locked until level 10]

Mana: 55/55

Talents: None.

Skills: None.

Titles: Initiate, Despised, Protected [30 days]

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 9

Vitality: 8

Endurance: 7

Arcane: 6

Free Points: 5

Talons: 13

All of his basic attributes had gone up by one, and he'd gotten five 'free points.' Devon guessed those were meant to be points he could freely allocate to any attribute he wished, but he found he couldn't actually invest them without the proper command, which he gave up trying to find after a minute.

"What are Talons supposed to be, you think? Are they a glorified points system?" Trey asked, playing with his goatee.

"What do you mean?"

"You looked at the ladder yet?"

"Oh, right," Devon said, quickly opening up the new menu. It forced him to input a He was surprised to find that the ladder consisted of two different dialogues. There was the level ladder and the talon ladder.

Stolen novel; please report.

[Level Ladder]

1. Eve - Level 3

2. Stein - Level 3

3. Joe - Level 3

4. Trey - Level 2

5. Brad - Level 2

6. Hart - Level 2

7. Ingrid - Level 2

8. Devon - Level 2

9. Ash - Level 2

10. Ray - Level 2

[Talon Ladder]

1. Eve - 65

2. Stein - 47

3. Joe - 42

4. Trey - 28

5. Hart - 23

6. Ingrid - 19

7. Devon - 13

8. Ash - 11

9. Ray - 8

"How the hell are people level 3 already… Wait, you're closer to level 3 than I am, if I'm reading this right," Devon said, feeling annoyed that he'd received less exp despite the fact that he was the one that got mauled.

"Group split seems to work on a contribution scale, with both the exp and talon split," Trey muttered to himself.

Devon sighed to himself, knowing his plight was lost upon his friend. "Anyway, I'm starting to realize we can't see nearly as far in the brush as I first assumed we'd be able to. Let's make our way to the forest and see if we can't find a tree to perch on. We're not going to make any headway unless we find a way to see over all this brush."

"True. Alright, let's go," Trey said without hesitation.

"Wait, can you ask your helpful system buddy what the internal command to allocate free points is?"

"Oh, uh…" Trey frowned, "That's weird, it won't give me a direct answer."

"Figures. I'll just have to work it out myself somehow," Devon said, though he'd already tried every mental command he could think of.

They started making their way toward the towering trees, but stopped when they found something half hidden in the brush. Its appearance almost looked like a tear in reality, with a soft white light seeping through.

"What the heck is that?" Trey asked, visibly intimidated by what looked like a glitch in reality.

Devon tried to identify it and the system came back with [Terminal].

"The system says it's a terminal," Devon said, "I suppose that's one thing we were looking for found."

"That's a terminal? The hell are we supposed to do with it?"

"How the hell should I know? Try to have your magnanimous system interact with it, see if anything happens."

Trey approached the crack in reality cautiously, seeming afraid it would swallow him if he got too close to it. Devon rolled his eyes and stepped forward to reach out and try to touch it, except his hand passed right through the seam in the air as if it was only a mirage.

"Yeah, okay. Seems like some kind of shop. Once I get close enough my system gives me an interface to interact with."

Devon frowned, once again annoyed that Trey had an automatic process while Devon had to blindly search for some random keywords. Thankfully, it didn't take Devon too long to stumble upon this particular activation phrase.

Access terminal.

A large window appeared before his eyes, several tabs sorting various functions.

[Teleport]

[Function Shop]

[Item Shop]

[Generalist Abilities and Magic]

[Datalog Selection]

Curious, Devon immediately tried selecting teleport, just to see what would happen.

You do not know any other accessible Terminals.

Teleport feature will remain active for [30 days] within Tutorial Block #247.

Next, he opened the function shop, to find that there were only four available functions. The first was a map function, which seemed extremely useful. The second was a messaging function, to send messages to other people through the system itself, which also seemed good. The third was called [Omniversal Language Integration].

The final function seemed far and away the most useful, as it was called [Interdimensional Inventory]. Devon desperately wanted each and every one of them, but all of them were listed as costing 100 talons.

"I guess we know what talons are now," Trey said, "Seems to be the currency this system uses."

Devon looked in the item shop next, and found a listing of a bunch of different weapons with the prefix [Starting]. Listed also was the basic leather armor and healing items. The healing items cost 50 talons each, 30 more than the 20 that the starting weapons cost.

Pretty generous of the system to give out five of the things for free before anybody could even afford them. Generous to everyone else, that is.

There were also more expensive weapons and armors listed, but their prices quickly ramped up to triple and quadruple digit numbers. But what really caught Devon's interest was the items beyond the typical fantasy fare. Tents, cots, and all manner of survival items were listed for pretty cheap. He took immediate notice of the fact that there were filled water canteens available, yet no food anywhere on the menu.

So the system is encouraging us to spend our time progressing without spending too much effort on surviving. The lack of sustenance available for purchase implies that we've got to go out and hunt for our food ourselves, leveling in the process.

He looked at the abilities and magic section next, not even feeling surprised that magic would exist. He felt like it would take something above and beyond to genuinely surprise him at this point.

There was a list of game-like abilities and magic within the dialogue, just as Devon had expected. He perused the selection for a little bit, taking note of what was available before moving on. There just wasn't much point in contemplating what he wanted when it was all too expensive or potentially not worth the investment. Arcane was his lowest stat, and he didn't feel very confident investing in something he was probably pretty weak in.

Perhaps most interesting of all was the datalog selection. They seemed to be packages of information, but all of them were extraordinarily expensive. Two that caught his eye were [Integration, Phases One Through Three] and [The Nuances of the Tutorial Procedure].

"I'm getting you a weapon," Trey said suddenly, "What do you want?"

"What? Why?"

"Well, we can't just have you get mauled every time we get into a fight. We both know if everything else here is like that duck then your little knife isn't going to be worth jack."

"You're fine with using your talons on me?"

"I mean, yeah. Why wouldn't I?"

Devon smiled at his own foolishness. Situations like this usually devolved into every man for himself before some measure of unity was established, but Trey didn't feel that way at all. He was a team player to the core.

"Grab me a spear then," Devon said.

"Suppose it does make sense to diversify our fighting styles," Trey said, reaching toward the crack of light. To Devon's complete surprise, Trey stuck his hand directly into it before pulling it back, a spear in hand.

"Your system tell you to do that?"

"Yep. Oh, I should probably also mention this thing," Trey said as a blank black piece of slate appeared in his hand. At first glance, it looked like some sort of tablet, but upon closer inspection it was simply a rectangular piece of black stone.

"The hell is it?" Devon asked.

"The system mentioned it when I queried about the inventory function. It said that everything stored in the inventory must enter or exit the 'system tile.' Then, when I queried about what a system tile is supposed to be, it said it's like a manifestation of an individual's system, whatever that means."

"Well let's grill your helper AI, since it seems just a little important."