“First I have a question,”I said.

“Speak.”

“Who the hell are you?” I asked. The man’s clothing was too substantial, too…real…to be cosplay. He also had a certain aura that reminded me of powerful people, confident people.

My hand went to my pocket, but even my fucking pocket knife was gone. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered with a chuckle. The surprise of someone popping up in the corner of my room still had my hair standing on end and gooseflesh on my arms, but I was adapting fast already.

“My name is not important for the time being. We do not have much time to converse, either, so I will keep this quick.”

I didn't respond, just sat further back in my recliner with my heel drumming the floor. The man raised an eyebrow. “I will admit I am surprised. You are not going to ask me how I got into your house or keep demanding to know who I am?”

“Fuck no.” I shrugged. “The world is ending, all my gear just vanished, and there’s no logical way you could be in here right now. No point asking dumb questions in a dumb situation. Besides, I stopped denying the impossible when I started seeing screens floating in the air a couple years ago. Also, judging by your clothes and mask you are not from here unless this is Halloween or a geek convention, but sir, this is a Wendy’s.

“What?”

There was a moment of silence as I internally cringed. Meeting new people wasn’t my strong suit, much less strangers who popped out of nowhere inside my house after the end of the world began. I coughed. “Don’t worry about it. It’s an old meme. Earth humor. Uhh, just tell me what you need to tell me. Please. I have a feeling things are going to start getting completely FUBAR really soon and I don’t have a pot to piss in. Maybe I can break up some IKEA furniture and make a makeshift whalloping whacker.”

The man cocked his head and I could see his eyes glitter through the holes of his mask. “I only understood about half of that, but I don’t think you really appreciate how lucky and blessed you are to be chosen by my Lord.”

I chuckled without any humor. “Yeah, well, isn’t it your job to tell me that? How can I be impressed before you tell me what I should be impressed about?”

“That is… a good point.” The man shrugged and sank into a cross legged position on the floor. One of the TVs to one side had commercials, another maintained a static screen, but one of the radio stations I’d been dialed in to had started a controlled chatter. It seemed folks in the world knew something had happened, but nobody was sure what yet.

Welcome to the club, I thought.

The masked man said, “I have been sent by my Lord to tell you the basics. This is part of the favor he has shown you starting with the quest you received in the past.” He seemed to be waiting for me to respond or ask unnecessary questions, but I just motioned him on. It was obvious he was talking about my quest window. The stranger coughed and continued, “You must have seen your character screen by now, with numbers listed as abstract representations of your physical and mental capabilities.

“Some humans in your world will be able to figure out what this means on their own. What will be less obvious for some time is that your race has fewer stats than some others in the multiverse. Physical stats in your world have an average value of four to five for males, and two to three for females.

“Mental stats, Intelligence and Willpower, have an average value of three or four. Luck and Reflexes are completely separate from your other stats. You cannot raise them through normal leveling and will usually stay static forever.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I already figured out most of that. But my Intelligence stat seems really high, too high if I’m being honest.”

“Your mental stats are more about your current potential than your effectiveness at any given time. Physical stats are more straightforward. There is a bit of a sliding rune, two 4’s can be weaker or stronger than the others so the numerical stats are not usually exactly comparable. But a six is usually the highest anyone in your species can achieve without being at the absolute pinnacle of your world. ”

“Even luck?”

“No, not at all, actually. Luck and reflex both have an average value of three for people on this world.”

“Ah,”I said. I glanced at my character sheet again.

Miles Lindstrom

Level 1

Class: none

Skills: none

Traits: none

Stats:

Str: 5

Dex: 4

End: 6

Int: 6

Will: 5

Luck: 6

Reflex: 7

I wasn’t anyone special, or super educated, or even all that talented at anything. But if I had high stats that couldn’t otherwise be raised by this new system, it might offer at least some reason for why I’d started seeing screens and quests a few years ago. The alternative to having some sort of advantage I wasn’t aware of is that the universe had just spun some dice. That would be par for the course, I guess. And if I were going to be lucky at any thing in life, it was ironic as hell that it would actually be…a high luck stat. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Also, I only had a four in Dexterity. That was…probably accurate. Even though I’d been training for the end of the world, I had to admit my flexibility still sucked, and even though I could run all day, I was still pretty slow.

“Okay,” I said. “What about this armor stat? People don’t have armor. I’m assuming that if other races have other stats, like magic or whatever, and we don’t have that, it is just not listed. But I have ‘armor’ here and it’s at zero.”

The man nodded. “Most people seeing their character sheets right now will not even see that line. You can because of your unique circumstances. The fact you’ve completed a major quest and have access to two reward systems within the first few minutes of your world’s assimilation is probably why. Once you begin the process of leveling up, the odds are great that you will acquire some natural armor. The system is likely just being proactive.”

“That seems kind of sus,” I muttered. “Anything else?”

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“Yes. My Lord apologies in advance for the form your special upgrade menu will take. Something you will not understand now but may understand later is that this world is under the domain of righteous gods, but they are still beholden to rules that allow…other entities to interfere. You are not the only person on this planet who was scouted before The Integration. There will be others, too. All of you, for as long as you are on this world will have access to the special store. However, you will not be able to earn points towards this store forever.

I nodded, running over what I’d just been told and realized that I was starting to understand. “So what you are saying is that I have an upgrade menu different from the one most normal people on this world will be using?”

“No, you have that one as well. Instead of one, you have two. An additional menu.”

“Because I was…scouted?”

“Yes. The other, special upgrade interface you have is shared among very few on your world and will eventually change into…something else in the future if you are lucky. That is the most I can tell you about it right now. Sorry.”

I gave him a flat look. “None of that sounds super, incredibly helpful.”

“Apologies. I can understand your frustration. Well then, know this. The standard upgrade system on this world is fairly simple. It will convey one upgrade point per level. Extra points beyond that can be obtained but it will be difficult.

“Skills do not necessarily have to be bought to be raised, though. Some skills can be learned through effort, or randomly, or through satisfying requirements, or even by completing quests. On top of that, because this is a new integration, every member of your race will have the opportunity to get a random starting skill immediately. You should have the option right now.”

I frowned, committing the one free skill thing to memory. Then I asked, “I can raise my stats through the menu? But only the ones that are not static, right?”

“Yes. Through the basic system, you will be able to spend upgrade points to raise your stats. The price will usually be half the value you are buying, rounded up. Raising a stat from a four to a five will cost three points. From nine to ten will cost five points.

“Purchasable skills will mostly be organized from common to higher tiers of power or utility. Basic skills will cost an average one skill point. General skills will cost an average of two points. More powerful skills will require an average of five points. Rare skills, when available, will cost ten or more points. Higher level skills than that will not usually be available and will usually require prerequisite skills or stats. Also, points may differ across the board. The system sets the price and the system decides what is fair.

“However, the additional…special…skill menu that you have been given access to will only be accessible by other humans in your situation, those being scouted by great powers watching your world.” He paused. “Iinfluence and meddling by others, peers of those like my master has made the system…less than user friendly, though.”

I shook my head and waved my hand. “What a minute.” The other man’s shoulders tensed. “How do I access all this stuff?” A lot of what he’d just said didn’t make sense, but I didn’t need a history lesson. I needed information to understand what was happening.

He visibly relaxed and said, “Simple. Just think, ‘Advancement.’ Now this has been all the time I have. Good luck on your journey. I pray you will one day officially serve my lord as he hopes."

With that, the unnamed man bowed and faded away, like a mirage. The only thing left was a faint smell similar to burnt hair.

I stared at the corner I’d just been talking to. “Well, that just happened,” I said out loud.

Part of me wanted to freak out, just sit in my chair and press my palms to my eyes. But sitting around and feeling overwhelmed was not going to do me any favors. I knew intellectually that I might be in shock, or that I’d get the jitters later or something, but I had to be better off than all the poor bastards out there who didn’t know what the hell was going on.

That thought sobered me, and I thought, “Advancement,” like the mysterious man had suggested.

Almost immediately, I got a new screen:

Advancement menu

Points available: 32

Holy shit! I thought. I was still level one, but unless I’d misunderstood what I’d just been told, I had over twenty levels worth of points already!

Under the numbers on my screen were some fairly obvious ways to add them to the stats I could raise. For the first time, the gravity of my interface, what the man had told me, and how many points I had really hit me. I thought, If the average man on earth is between 4 and 5 strength, and I’m at 5… I had 32 points. That meant I could raise my strength up to…11.

I wondered if that would let me crush rocks with my bare hands. Probably.

The implications were wild. I began to wonder if with a high strength stat and average endurance if I’d break my own bones by trying to use my power. But that train of thought had to wait. I had a few other things to think about before really even going down that rabbit hole.

First off, I had no way of knowing how hard experience levels were to come by. That was important. Since most average people on Earth had the chance to be at Olympic levels of strength or agility plus some skills at level ten or higher, it was kind of a big deal.

Was hitting level ten a 15 minutes or 15 years sort of situation?

I could also infer a few more things based on the information I’d gotten from the dog mask guy. First, physical stats were not necessarily linear regarding power. If an average strong man was a five, and an above-average man was a six, then a professional athlete or maybe a body builder was a seven, that was a number spread of only three points. Meanwhile, there were four levels before that. Was a small child a one in strength?

And if this was all true, was the system parabolic? The fact that it cost more advancement points to get higher levels stats kind of suggested this might be true.

I definitely didn’t want to invest in physical stats without knowing more about how they worked. The fact that sitting around too long could make people’s muscles disappear, and stats reflected physical capabilities, I wondered if investments in, say, Strength, could be lost through neglect.

“Shit,” I cursed. In the moment, I hadn’t thought to ask the stranger all these questions. He’d also vanished as soon as he told me how to actually open the menu. Maybe if I’d asked better questions, I’d known more by now. Granted, he might not have answered or not had time, but I was still sitting here with a lot of unknowns.

“Still better off than the assholes in the cities who don’t know what’s going on,” I reminded myself. It did make me feel bad, but I couldn’t deny that I was pretty stoked about my 32 points. I was also pretty happy that I’d been proven not to be crazy. Deep down I’d been pretty worried about that for a while.

In my menu, I scrolled down, finding a list of some skills that were available for purchase. I could immediately understand why skills were valued so highly.

I read a few random skills with their costs and descriptions. Some of them stood out as examples of how the system worked.

Mana Sensitivity - Cost: 1 - Basic - Ability to sense and eventually even see mana. Conveys the stat: Mana sensitivity to core stats.

General Magical Theory - Cost 2 - General - (Requires Mana Sensitivity) Understanding how to manipulate mana . Includes a mental list of ten basic magical spells.

Basic Mana Barrier - Cost 3 - Common - (Requires General Magical Theory) - Using mana or endurance or both, generates a barrier to block physical damage. Size of barrier and strength can vary upon skill and power used.

Basic Magic Protection Barrier - Cost 3 - Common - (Requires General Magical Theory) - Using mana or endurance or both, generates a barrier to reduce magic damage or to unravel harmful spells. Size of barrier and strength can vary upon skill and power used.

Rune Casting - Cost 5 - Uncommon - (Requires General Magical Theory) - Static spell creation with an embedded trigger. Can utilize physical mediums or arcane scribing.

Automatic defensive field - Cost 10 - Rare - (Requires General Magical Theory) - Ability that automatically counters harmful spells or physical damage as long as sufficient mana or endurance resources are present to fuel the skill.

I soundlessly whistled. Seeing these skills laid out with point values was starting to help me understand the power of points. However, I couldn’t find many examples of skills that actually listed prerequisites. Others probably wouldn’t show up until I already had the prerequisite skill. Maybe buying spells would required already being a wizard or something.

After I swiped around a bit on my upgrade menu, I found the button that the masked man had mentioned. It read:

Push this button and receive one random skill to help you survive your integration! Have fun out there!

I eyed the button, tempted to push it right away. Ultimately, I decided to wait. Part of me really wanted the extra skill immediately, but I reminded myself how the world worked now. Better skills might likely be dropped as a “Reward,” if one met the requirements for them. Skills with requirements were stronger. Maybe if I could get a stronger skill for free, it would be the best way to efficiently use my points.

Like, maybe I’d get a badass spell if I was already a wizard first. Skills were expensive, more than stats were. Waiting for now was a gamble I was willing to take.

“Alright, now let’s check this one out,” I said out loud. I clicked into the Special sponsored skill menu.

“What the hell?” I muttered.

Theses skills had no real descriptions, just weird names and a line that didn’t make any sense. I read a few options.

Coughing Eagle - Cost 8 - Rare - Heaving airways and angry energy

One Flew over the Phoenix Nest - Cost 12 - Epic - spicy and cool

Vagaries of Baseball - Cost 12 - Unique - Gloves and balls and bats oh my

Take me to the Mountains - Cost 14 - Legendary - Stony boi, uh oh

Jersey Corn Chowder- Cost 15 - Unique - Mmmm, delicious. Tastes like mediocrity

I scratched my cheek and studied the list. Nothing as in alphabetical order or organized in any other way, either.

“This might take a while,” I sighed.