Where… what happened? Mike sleepfully asked himself as he slowly woke up. His first instinct was to sit up, but he found nothing when he tried to push himself off the ground. Mainly because there was no ground for him to actually touch.

He found himself floating through some kind of void. Mike didn’t feel hot or cold, nor did he feel unpleasant in any way. But his mind felt like it was filled with a heavy fog, like the worst case of still not being fully awake after a deep, deep sleep. Yet, save for the all-encompassing void, there were a dozen objects of interest that quickly caught his attention.

Though it would have been frankly impossible for him to miss them. On account that each one appeared to be the size of a planet and surrounded him in an evenly spaced ring.

What the Hell? What was I… I was cleaning, that’s right. The damn pigeon shit! But then, how did I get here? This has to be a dream, so did I fall asleep after I finished cleaning or something? Mike asked himself. He didn’t remember actually taking the time to clean up, but the events of that morning felt so far away. As if they were the actual dream, trying to recall what happened only made the memories feel more slippery and harder to pin down.

As he failed to remember when he actually fell asleep, Mike looked around at the planet-sized spheres. Aside from their immense size, they were actually relatively simple in appearance. Each one was just a single color that it glowed with. The light they gave off was bright, though not blindingly so.

Starting from 12 o’clock and moving clockwise, the colors they had were simple ones. In order, they were red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Though it was by the time that he saw what he believed to be indigo that Mike recognized the ones so far as matching the colors of the rainbow. Yet it was the colors after that they broke off from this pattern. Because continuing the order, the next ones were black, white, silver, gold, and… clear?

Mike wasn’t sure how to describe that last one. It wasn’t totally see-through like glass. Maybe semi-transparent would be a better way to put it? That might actually be it. Because he could clearly see the void through it, yet the inner sphere was still distinctly visible as its own solid object.

In any case, he then looked down at himself. While floating in the middle of this space, directly center of the giant planetoids, Mike didn’t see anything of note about his own body. He was still wearing the same clothes he’d woken up in, which was a pair of thick pajamas with long sleeves. He opened and closed a fist with both of his hands, and felt that he had both full strength and feeling in how they clenched and his fingers moved.

He tightened his grip with one hand, digging his fingers into his palm into as tight of a fist as he could make. But even as just a small action, it felt peculiar to him.

That’s weird. Aren’t you usually supposed to feel pretty weak in dreams? Well… maybe it’s different for a lucid dream. Never done it before, but this is what a lucid dream is supposed to feel like, isn’t it? Mike thought to himself.

But he had also heard that people could take direct control of their dreams when in a lucid state, so maybe he could do the same. As interesting as these colorful balls were, something about this place felt… off. Like at the very back of his mind, some deep-rooted instinct was telling him that there was more to this situation than he could consciously comprehend. Even if it was just a dream, he definitely could think of more pleasant things that he could experience instead.

Mike closed his eyes, and tried to visualize somewhere else that he would rather go to. Maybe some medieval fantasy land, like specifically one from his favorite game or book? After picking one game in particular, he made a mental picture of the starting area. Somewhere that he could easily imagine in detail after he’d poured so many hours into replaying the game over and over again.

However, upon opening his eyes, Mike found himself still in the same place. But now, a new sensation had started to creep in on him. One that was slowly but steadily growing stronger by the second. The spheres weren’t just there to look pretty, but for him to choose from between them. As if sensing his recognition of this newfound sensation, a deep pulse of pressure blasted out from each of the planetoids. Each one crashed into the tiny human, all of them coming together in sync to cancel each other out in the end.

Mike had no idea where this feeling had come from or why he needed to choose. Yet he could now sense that the gravities of these planets also canceled one another out. However, that was only true for the very specific spot that he was still floating in. He could just tell that if he moved by even an inch toward one of the planets, its gravity would take over and pull him in.

Alright then, guess this is just what I’m doing now. Let’s see, I can only pick one. Aside from the colors though, is there really any other difference between them? Mike asked himself. At least as far as he could tell, there wasn’t anything else that made them feel distinct from one another.

But perhaps… that was only true because he was still relying on how he just saw them as colors. Maybe instead of that, he needed to focus more on something like the mysterious feeling that told him he needed to pick one and see if that revealed anything else.

Again, Mike closed his times. This time, he truly tried to focus on the sensation and dig deep into it. To try and actually concentrate and open himself up to what it had to say, rather than just passively feel it like background noise as he had until now. And as the sensation was continuing to grow ever pronounced, it just made it easier for him to latch onto it.

It’s… not just a choice. It’s picking a path. Choosing one means going through a door and then closing the rest. But to what? There’s more to the colors than just how they look, that much I can already tell. Beyond that though, hmm.

Opening his eyes, Mike could tell that the clock was ticking. He had already wasted enough time on just floating around as it is, and it wouldn’t be much longer until a random decision was forced upon him. But he now knew that what he picked now would determine what happened next in this strange dream of his. So, without anything else to go off from, he would just need to trust his gut and simply go with what felt right.

Gold, he thought to himself. Moving toward it, Mike felt the pull of it gravity of all the other planets turned dim and muted. There wasn’t any logical reason behind the decision to pick this in particular. It’d just been the one to stand out to him at that exact moment above all the rest.

Mike blinked as he was hurled toward the golden sphere. He gained momentum as its pull grew stronger and stronger, yet he had the distinct sense that he wasn’t in any danger. That this was how things were supposed to be.

The moment that he was about to crash into its bright surface, Mike’s body suddenly stopped. He was no longer falling, but instead back to floating in the middle of space. Yet it was different this time.

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Again, a dozen different planets surrounded him. But rather than the void filling the empty space and area beyond them, it was now all filled with gold. As if he was now in the center of the golden sphere, its bright light seemed to stretch out as far as his eyes could see. Once more, he had another choice to make between the dozen options. And just like before, he was on a time limit before one got chosen for him. But at least the feeling was much weaker than it’d been just a second ago, which seemingly meant that the countdown clock had been reset.

Alright then, guess this is just what we’re doing now, huh? But at least this is better than a nightmare, so I can’t complain too much. Anyway, what do we have this time around? Mike internally asked as he looked around at the new set of colossal spheres.

Although… to call them spheres this time might not be the most accurate description in the world. Because rather than being smooth balls, these ones were chaotic and almost jagged in their appearance.

Once again starting from 12 o’clock, Mike looked at the top as the example. Instead of being defined by just a color, its trait was the fact that it was made entirely of swords. Each one looked small, but that was probably just a trick of perspective due to the relative size of the entire planet itself. What appeared to be a faraway sword that a person could hold would easily need to be the size of a small country to appear as such at that far distance.

Each of them seemed to represent an object, specifically a weapon. After swords, it followed as axes, spears, bows, small guns, long barrel guns, explosives, hammers, slings, staffs, daggers, and knuckle dusters. All in all, it was a very interesting mix of both modern and ancient weapons.

Mike’s first thought was to with the long barrel guns. Which as far as his relatively untrained eye could tell, he counted both shotguns and rifles under the same umbrella. He wasn’t sure if they were comparable enough to actually group them together like that. But hey, what did he know? Maybe it’s because he didn’t really know much about guns that his brain just threw them together as it conjured up this dream.

Hmm, okay, still have no idea if there’s any reason for picking this stuff. No clue what my brain is even subconsciously pulling from to make this stuff up, but oh well. At this point, it might be safe to assume that these options are just going to keep appearing. Don't know how gold relates to weapons or if there’s even a relation at all. Maybe they’re entirely separate choices, and it’ll all come together after I go through every layer; however many there end even up being anyway.

Yet just before Mike picked the long guns on another whim, he paused. Since there was still plenty of time left on the background countdown, maybe he didn’t need to be too hasty. Unlike something as random as colors, weapons were a topic that he could actually think about and decided on a real preference.

Let’s see here. Guns? Cool, but I never learned how to use one. And with my crappy… The very thought of that word temporarily cleared the fog in his brain, making Mike’s memories swim with the terror of the pigeon. Shaking his head, the fog returned, and this time, he was somewhat thankful for it as its presence dulled the evils of the morning.

With my terrible aim, I’d probably somehow blow my foot off the first time I even touched a shotgun. Swords? Pretty classic, but just a tad too generic as far as medieval weapons go. One by one, Mike started to nix weapons from the available list. Not in any particular order, but just whichever one happened to be next in grabbing his immediate attention.

The explosives, which were made of grenades and such, were disregarded for the same logic of not accidentally using it on himself. Bows were next, on account of the one time that he went to a free trial at an archery range… and was promptly banned for life. The details of said incident were neither here nor there to recall now.

After not really feeling knuckle dusters, which were also comprised of gloves and other items to largely fight just with one’s fists, Mike’s eyes settled on one planet in particular. That of the spear and other types of polearms.

He could vaguely recall hearing somewhere that spears used to be the weapon of choice for all sorts of armies throughout history, due to their relative ease in learning and use. Which did make sense. Just take advantage of the longer reach and move forward to poke the guy with a sword before he can even reach you, right? Sounds simple enough in theory.

Yeah, you know what? Why not? Let’s go with the spear and see what’s next, Mike thought as he officially made his choice. Just like before, it only took a bit of movement until the chosen planet’s gravity did the rest to quickly pull him toward it.

When Mike again suddenly found himself back to floating in place, he looked around. Now layered on top of the golden surroundings was a wall of spears. Their metal ends seemed to almost sparkle as the caught the gold light emanating from behind them.

But beyond that, Mike saw another dozen planetoids awaiting his attention. He wondered just how many of these things he would need to keep picking before this dream actually went somewhere. This time, the theme was once again quickly apparent.

This set each represented a different element. As in earth, air, water, etc etc. This time, Mike didn’t take too long to make his next choice. When it ended up being a close decision between the elements of light and fire, he ended up going with the latter. Another choice down, and then another reset to make the next one.

This latest one, however, quickly proved to be unique.

Rather than a dozen options, there were only two. And they felt more… abstract than anything prior. At least the first for a color could obviously be visualized, but this one felt hard to describe. Looking at the planets, Mike felt them more than he could see them. And as he stared at the first, an emotion seemed to well within his chest.

Vengeance.

Images quickly entered and exited his mind’s eye of what the concept embodied when he thought of it. A fiery rage that needed to burn that which set it aflame. Returning death with more death. Pettily returning the favor against one who wronged you. Vengeance was to meet fire with fire and make sure that the one who sent the first flames got just as equally burned. Every minor embarrassment sprang into Mike’s thoughts, every little misdeed that he ever wished to get payback on but hadn’t. The slights that he just ignored instead, because escalating hadn’t felt worth it or socially acceptable.

Turning away from it, Mike looked at the next planet. And rather than being the opposite, it felt more like the other half of a similar pair.

Justice.

If vengeance could be described as angry, then justice would be closer to being… passionate. It was still the righting of wrongs, but in a different way. Rather than answering a house burning by setting aflame to the home of the first arsonist in revenge, justice was to put out the original flames and then search for evidence in the ashes. Then with evidence gathered, smack the arsonist with the full force of the law’s hammer for their crime.

Like vengeance, justice was ultimately still about punishing the one who wronged you. But it did so in way that felt more righteous and measured. Less spur in the moment to meet extreme with extreme, but to take an approach that did not leave you worse off. Vengeance could be described as setting yourself on fire just to hug someone else to also burn them, which justice sought to avoid.

Maybe it was because of the inherent self-righteousness that came with the emotion. But justice felt like the superior choice. While Mike was tempted by the adrenaline rush of vindictive furry that vengeance brought, his mind still had enough clarity to know that it wouldn’t exactly be the healthiest in the long run. And while justice in the real world was often flawed and imperfect, what he felt now embodied it in its truest and purest form. Where the punishment dealt was always weighed and given out fairly in response to the crime committed.

Falling toward the sphere of justice, Mike did not find himself back floating with another choice to make. This time, he was in a true void of infinite darkness without any spheres to make from. But just as he started taking in the endless nothing, something popped up right in front of his face.

Summoner calibration has been completed.

Compatible Summon has successfully been found and will now be paired with the user.The chosen Summon will be manifested upon the user’s awakening.

Welcome to the System; further information will be provided soon after the user regains consciousness.

“...Huh?!” Mike exclaimed.