Leo groggily woke up to the annoying feeling of itchiness on his face. As he rubbed his face he realized that he had grabbed onto something, and this something began to writhe in his hand. As it turns out, it was a rather big centipede. He screamed and dropped it on the ground. Poor centipede probably couldn't even anticipate the flurry of stomps that followed.

After his initial shock had subsided, he tried to figure out where he was. He remembered the cave and vaguely recalled that something weird happened to him before passing out. He looked around him, trying to remember what exactly happened.

To his surprise, his surroundings changed drastically. Gone were the stalagmites and stalactites that he had seen earlier and replaced them was strange glowing vegetation. At first glance, it looked like a thick carpet of green moss growing along the floor. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that it glowed and moved under his feet as he walked.

"Oh shit."

Leo quickly backed away from the green carpet, afraid that it might start crawling toward him. His fears were unfounded as nothing happened. Even if this strange moss had the capacity to move, it was completely disinterested in Leo. Or anything else for that matter.

As Leo continued to explore the cavern, he noticed that there were many plants and fungi of different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some of them looked similar to what he expected to find in the Amazon rainforest while others looked more like they belong in a fantasy videogame. His stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten anything since... morning? Today's morning? Yesterday's morning? He wasn't sure, but all the same, he was getting hungry. Some of the mushrooms looked particularly appetizing, but he decided not to risk eating anything yet.

He also noticed another detail – this cavern was much bigger than the one he was in. Not as big as the main resort building, but definitely larger than his dad's lodge. In fact, it was so big that his flashlight's beam barely illuminated the walls on the other side of the cavern.

"That's odd. Well, everything's odd."

At this moment he realized that he was ignoring something in his vision. It was as if someone put a notification marker into his eyes. It was blinking with a soft blue light. He focused on it mentally and several blue screens popped up in his vision. Each had its own message. Leo began to read them one by one.

Welcome to the new world! Your planet was selected for integration! Enjoy!

'Enjoy? Enjoy what? I am now even more lost than before, how do you even get lost if you are already lost?'

Setting up basic stats.

System gives a fair chance to any inhabitant.

You will be transported to the Tutorial Safezone. Complete the tutorial to gain your initial class.

You cannot access Tutorial Safezone from within a Prime Dungeon.

You cannot access Tutorial Safezone from within a Prime Dungeon.

You cannot access Tutorial Safezone from within a Prime Dungeon.

You cannot access Tutorial Safezone from within a Prime Dungeon.

Please leave the dungeon first.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

You can only leave Prime Dungeon after defeating a boss.

'Defeat a boss? Is this game for you?'

System comes with a hundred percent guarantee that everything provided by system is real.

He didn't know whether to laugh or cry as he looked around at the glowing mosses and fungus. His brain had almost shut down in shock as he began to realize the gravity of what was happening. Tutorials? Dungeons? Classes? And all this stuff was inside his head! What the hell is going on here? How do I even exit this place? Did he just get stuck in some kind of VR-like virtual reality? Did someone kidnap him and plug his brain into a computer in some sort of cruel joke?

The last possibility sounded more and more plausible as he thought about it. Maybe this is some kind of VR-like experiment or something?

He looked around at his environment and thought about his options. He wasn't sure if he wanted to explore this world, but at the same time, it would be stupid not to investigate it at least a little. Besides, if he truly was in a VR environment, he had no obvious way of leaving it.

The primary setup is finished.

You can access the system interface now. The brave will be rewarded.

There was no denying that this was all too much for him. All of this happened too fast for him to react properly. If he wanted to leave, he had to defeat a boss first? What the hell did that even mean? The brave will be rewarded? Should he just go looking for the boss straight away? Maybe it is some kind of test of sorts?

Leo turned his attention to the remaining notifications. Maybe they could give him some answers.

'Why such a thing is even happening?'

Your species has been selected because it is well suited to the integration due to its high intellect.

For some reason, Leo felt slightly insulted. He continued to read through the few remaining notifications.

Feat Achieved: First Steps

Feat Achieved: Insight

'Feats, huh?'

He was starting to feel overwhelmed with all these new concepts. But still, none of this seemed particularly threatening to him so far – it could have been worse! He read on with the last few notifications. The next one looked different, but the rest were talking about feats again.

Level 0 Centipede killed.

He looked over to the mess that was left of the poor insect on the cavern floor. Its body was smashed into pieces with hemolymph leaking out of the severed ends. The sight was revolting but he couldn't really feel any remorse. Anyone would probably panic if they woke up to a thirty-centimeter-long centipede tickling their face.

Feat Achieved: First Blood

Feat Achieved: First Delver

Feat Achieved: Trailblazer

"Is this even real?" Leo mumbled to himself, looking around again. Everything seemed unreal. Like some sort of weird dreamscape created by a madman. An amalgamation of ideas mashed together to create this new peculiar reality. Maybe he was just dreaming or hallucinating? No, he was awake; his every sense told him that. His heartbeat, his breathing, and even his skin tingled, signaling that his body was alive and well. He could feel the wet smell of his sweat; it was real. His muscles tensed and relaxed under his touch, and the sensation of gravity pushing down on his limbs confirmed his presence. He was definitely not in dreamland.

He brought his attention back to the messages in front of him.

'System interface...' Leo thought in his head and all notification windows collapsed. A new one popped up instead. It was divided into two parts. The main section was big but currently empty. The smaller section to the side contained several items, but most of them were just question marks. The only two available ones were Stats and Feats. Leo mentally pronounced 'Stats' and the large section quickly transformed.