It was a place like any other. The sun shone down on a small orb, blue and green in swirling color, as it rotated its way through the vast expanse.
Down upon the surface of the orb, human beings carried out their daily lives with all of the gusto of the unaware, unaware, that is, of the fate that was barreling toward them in its conquest, its expansion and its conscription of untold legions of realms within the infinite universe…
I swipe the back of my hand ineffectually across my brow in the age-old gesture of the sweaty workman as I bend down once more and continue scrubbing at a particularly irksome bit of grime on the corner of a bathroom floor tile.
Exhibiting some elbow grease, I finally manage to abrade the stubborn remnant and with a sigh of relief, make my way to my full height a few inches over six feet, my frame kept athletic from hard labor. As I do, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the bathroom mirror and for but a moment, take in my slightly wearied features.
Dark hair shorn short on the sides with a bit more stylishly tousled over the top crown a face of slight features with a long nose, high cheekbones and a slightly mischievous tilt of the lips; all accentuated by large hazel eyes, eyes that in direct light occasionally flash gold.
But those features are just the surface, a more detailed look reveals slight bags under those bright eyes, a subtle clench of that sharp jaw, and finally, a pale tone to the skin, a paleness brought on by exhaustion, by loss, by being lost perhaps.
Noticing for the umpteenth time these none so attractive additions to my visage, I let out a deep sigh and resolve, finally, to make some changes in my life.
I had dropped out of college due to lack of interest and had been mainly surviving on minimum wage jobs for years now and as I begin the final approach to my late-twenties, I’m doing only slightly better.
I had taken a job as a janitorial supervisor, with a pay above minimum but the responsibility was starting to really interfere with my life. For you see, I spent nearly all of my free time reading or watching or listening to some form of media or another, just to escape. To explore untold worlds, experience great love, be a part of saving a world or worlds. And the real world could just never compete.
I had been doing what I needed to survive while I consumed stories of worlds consumed in war, of the hero felling the villain, but most of all, of magic.
That was the crux of the matter, of my lack of interest in the real world.
It was just all so….mundane.
“Come on, man.” I quietly plead with myself as I glare into my eyes in the mirror, willing myself to take the leap, to make those changes I know I need to, to grow up in all the ways my peers have, as they left me behind, left me alone.
But I had been nearly alone since my parents passed in a car accident just after my high school graduation and alone I seem to be staying, besides my loyal animal companion, Artemis, no matter my struggles.
I feel my resolve slacken as my fatigue settle in, my anticipation of that story all loaded up in my e-reader at home starting to overpower any interest in change.
Finally, I turn from my reflection in disgust, the realization settling in once more: today would not be the day that I would change.
Or so I thought…
A half hour later finds me unlocking the front door of my shabby but serviceable apartment to the welcome and tail-wagging figure of my 4-year-old Siberian Husky. I had gotten lucky and found Artemis to assuage my loneliness not long after my failed stint at higher education and she has been by my side ever since. I give her all the belly rubs she could want after a day of my absence before heading into the kitchen to fire up dinner.
As I set a pot of water to boil on the stove, I let my mind wander, fantasizing about one of the many running adventures I had dreamt up for myself. But then, in one single moment, everything changed.
And I was set free.
Free at last!
APEX Leveling System Uploading…
“Uhhh….really?” I ask aloud dumbly, shock and excitement warring with trepidation and a not so small amount of fear for my already no-doubt questionable sanity.
But a moment later, my thoughts, no my dreams, were answered…
Upload Complete!
Congratulations!
Your world has been inducted into the APEX, rejoice!
Mana is now flooding your world, making changes both great and small, profound and simple.
Fear not, for all species residing upon and within your planet will be provided with methods, skills and other capabilities to better survive the tumultuous changes even now beginning.
Your world shall take
…approximating…
translating…
6 months! (local time)
… to become fully saturated with Mana down to its molten core, until that time no outside interference shall be allowed and Earth(local name) has been partitioned to prevent tampering by outside entities or Systems according to Great Contest regulation 6.68.600.
Induction by the APEX has conscripted you and all other sentient life from your world into the Great Contest!
The Great Contest pits the disparate and vastly different Systems of the vast Universe against one another in head-to-head match ups. These competitions consist of Players utilizing said Systems to battle and complete quests that will determine the final overarching System Authority for Everything in Existence. Not all Players will be allowed to participate but instead shall be selected by their own System based upon its own criteria and recognition. Victorious Players will be granted awards commensurate to their contributions, methods and effectiveness in proving their System’s viability. The losing System will lose control of the world under its current stewardship, resulting in catastrophic failure of all life on said planet. Fight well, for the stakes are high indeed, Player.
The next round will begin in
….evaluating….
….1 month!….
…pitting your APEX System against…
…calculating difficulty…
…finding other recently inducted worlds…
Success!
In 29 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 22 seconds your APEX System will face in round #299,998,675 of the Great Contest:
The Essence Cultivation System!
Utilize your Personal APEX Interface Data(PAID) to select skills and spells, to build and grow yourself into a Player worthy of your great System!
Dungeons, Beasts and Objects of Interest will begin to populate in
60…
59…
58….
“Oh, damn!” I say, eyes wide at the information, the sheer potential I can see, almost feel as I consider the wonders my future could have in store…
“No! Think!” I order myself stubbornly, knowing how limited my time is.
38…
37…
First, I consider the other occupant of my apartment as I look down into my dog`s ice-blue eyes, and move to grab her harness and leash.
20…
19…
Seeing I only have time for one more action, I grab my other trusty companion from the hall closet , although I mainly only use it for hiking and camping. The foot long solid oak handle fits smoothly into my hand, the hatchet head featuring an eight-inch-wide blade and an ice pick in place of a traditional flat-backed head giving it a more sinister appearance than your basic woodsman`s aide.
5…
4…
As the final seconds begin to tick away, my nervousness causes my slightly sweaty hands to slip, making the hatchet head slide down and into my palm about a centimeter, drawing blood and painting the point of the blade crimson.
“Shit!” I curse, noticing a notification popping into sight just as a shockingly bright light blinds me for a moment.
Populating...Beware!
As that announcement fades, the notification from before pops into view again:
Congratulations! You have created a soul-bound weapon!
Weapon: Ice-pick Hatchet
Quality: Common
Damage: 1-10 (Physical only)
Description: A hatchet that doubles as both weapon and tool, dealing middling damage for its tier. Bound to and will grow with Player: (Choose Designation).
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Wow! For being the first to soul-bound a weapon literally in the process of System Introduction, you have been given one tier advancement to your new weapon!
Weapon: Icy Soul Hatchet
Quality: Uncommon(U)
Damage: 5-15 (Physical[Passive] or Soul[Active])
Description: Upgraded common hatchet that has taken its ice pick characteristic and had it applied to its damage dealing ability, now allowing damage to be done to the soul of a creature. Enables piercing of armor and ignoring of elemental resistances when used in Soul[Active] mode and will require a lesser amount of Mana to be [Active]. Bound to and will grow further with Player(Choose Designation).
“Wow….” I trail off as I observe my new and improved weapon.
The handle is now tinted blue, like ice, the blade itself a dark grey almost black with a lighter silvery color along the sharpened edge. The back half still features the ice pick attachment but now, I can see it overlaid in my vision with the option to toggle on the Soul damage ability, which I do not hesitate to do with a flick of my will.
Instantly, the ice-pick head turns a shade of deep blue and seems to give off a freezing feeling spiritually that is not quite there physically. Almost as if my bones are being directly cooled but skipping everything else anatomically in between.
“Hmm, peculiar.” I muse to myself as I marvel at it, “But wait, I haven’t even opened my interface yet!” I nearly shout excitedly, always a sucker for some good interface/character sheet time in my reading of LitRPG novels.
Personal APEX Interface Data(PAID)
Player: (Choose Designation)
Age: 27
Race: Human
Class: Unlock at Lv. 5
Level:1
0/100 XP to level
Attributes (Human range between 1 and 5):
Strength 3
Dexterity 2
Constitution 3
Intelligence 5
Wisdom 3
Soul 1
1 free attribute available!
Mana:5
HP: 15
Skills: None
1 free Skill point available!
Spells: None
Unlock first free Spell point at Lv. 2
Items: Icy Soul Hatchet (U)
“So, I guess maybe I should have finished college after all, huh?” I chuckle darkly to myself as I peruse my statistics and notice my upper end intelligence stat.
Other than intelligence, I seem to be fairly average. Except for Soul but that likely is 1 for every human, at least for now. I try mentally selecting the attributes to get explanations of their mechanics but nothing happens.
“Hmm, guess the Apex System wants us to figure it out on our own? Well, I can at least infer that Mana appears to be my Int score and HP is sitting around 5 times my Constitution. I suppose I do still need to choose a name though…” I say as I wrack my brain for a good callsign or nickname I can live with for well… the rest of my life, I would guess.
Finally, the answer comes to me! A bit derivative, perhaps, but a suitable name all the same. With a thought and a quick click toward the Soul attribute, I choose to place my first point there to hopefully protect the very core of my being from any threats in this newer, more dangerous world, my PAID repopulating with the changes.
PAID
Player: Nova
Age: 27
Race: Human
Class: Unlock at Lv. 5
Level: 1
0/100 XP to level
Attributes (Human range between 1 and 5):
Strength 3
Dexterity 2
Constitution 3
Intelligence 5
Soul 1 à 2
Mana: 10
HP: 15
Skills: None
1 Skill point available!
Spells: None
Unlock first free Spell point at Lv.2
Items: Icy Soul Hatchet(U)
“So I guess Mana is actually my Intelligence value multiplied by my Soul value!” I observe. Satisfied with my attributes and my new name, I move to look through my available spells and skills when I am interrupted by the sound of my apartment building beginning to creak and groan, as if being compressed by some great weight.
“Uh-oh…” I say, eyes wide, “Come on!” I announce to all those present…namely my dog who has the good grace to at least look at me with interest following my shout.
Chagrined, I quickly grab Artemis` leash and rush out of the building, shouting out for anyone still inside their units to get out if they can.
I sprint out of the double entry doors and into the bright sunlight but that is where the familiarity with the old world ends and the reality of the new one stomps its way in.
And then proceeds to pummel my perception of reality, mercilessly.
Great clouds of small…particles, I suppose I would call them, are glowing with light and seem to be snowing from the sky, falling to the earth only to be absorbed by anything and everything encountered in its descent. Trees, pavement, buildings, even the occasional bird in the sky seems to draw in a number of these particles, which I take to be Mana, and then begin to change.
The trees grow bigger, more vibrant, their bark looking to be harder than before. The birds and I assume other animals as well, begin to seize and convulse, even in mid-air, before mutating into slavering beast-like versions of their pre-System selves. The buildings fall to the ground and join the pavement in beginning to crack and dissolve into freshly bared earth, fresh and exotic trees shooting up from the soil in random areas, returning the world to a more primal state.
I can even literally watch an entire forest grow on a massive hill jutting up into the sky just outside our city`s former skyline, great trunks of mutated redwoods reaching for the sun, drawing my attention and seeming to resonate with me deep inside, somehow.
Our world is once more growing truly…wild.
And I feel more and more fascinated by it, enraptured even.
At least, until, with a final creaking groan, my building joins the rest in rubble quickly swallowed up by the ground
Myself, my dog, who is already absorbing small bits of mana herself and slowly growing with each passing moment, watch on with a small crowd of my surviving neighbors quietly sharing in our collective sorrow. Sorrow felt not solely for the destruction of our home, but for the destruction of our old lives as well.
But we aren’t left to mourn for long….
Roarrrrr!
I snap my head around at quite possibly the loudest roar I have ever heard to see a large pack of what seems to be huge feral rats skittering toward our small gathering. They are followed by slower but no less dangerous Beasts formerly natives of our fair city: racoons, squirrels, rabbits and assorted birds.
People begin to scream and to run, the traditional responses to a 2-foot-high rat with sharpened teeth and enraged red eyes sprinting towards you or a swooping bird the size of a dog with a meal on its mind and talons outstretched.
I would love to say I bucked the instinctual self-preservation, stood tall and fought my way to victory over the whole pack.
But a hero I am not quite ready to be.
A sentiment only emphasized by the terror that wells up inside me as I watch more and more people get dragged to the ground and devoured.
So, I turn and run for all I’m worth, pulling my still changing dog behind me in a mad dash for safety, turning away from the fleeing mob of my former neighbors with the intent of losing the hungry rats.
I round a corner of a crumbled building into the fractured remnants of an alley still in the process of dissolving and see that I have been forgotten by the Beasts, although considering the sheer number of corpses and soon to be corpses I witnessed in my mad flight, they are probably busy with easier prey.
I stop running with a relieved sigh, my hands on my knees with the sound of my dog’s panting breath and my own rapidly beating heart echoing in my ears.
“Skreee!” a chittering Beast rat shrieks as it rounds the corner, apparently alone, and screeches to a halt as it spots me!
Above its head, a small floating indicator displays a meager amount of info for me.
{Feral Rat, Lv. 1}
“Grrrr….” Artemis growls at the beast as I raise my hatchet threateningly in my right hand while placing her behind me protectively with my left, releasing the leash as I do to double up my grip on my hatchet.
The rat, done gathering itself, leaps towards me with a cry!
Clenching my fists around the handle of my hatchet, I swing down with all of my strength and the limited experience I have with the weapon.
Ka-chunk!
I feel the blade part flesh like butter, the rat`s battle cry cutting off abruptly as it falls to the ground with my hatchet buried in its skull to the haft.
Stunned at my success, I lever out the blade and look to the sky with expectation, ready for my just rewards!
….
And am not left waiting long as a notification springs to life in front of my greedy eyes.
Congratulations! You have killed a {Feral Rat, Lv. 1} for 20 XP!
And then another springs to life in its place!
Congratulations! For killing a Mana changed Beast before selecting any Skills or Spells, you have earned the title “Natural Born Killer”! Keep striving, Player!
Natural Born Killer: +1 to all Attributes
“Well, I`ll be…” I trail off wide-eyed at my fortune, looking down curiously at the now fading corpse, “Probably should get some of those Skills and Spells then. Maybe get you a kill before you change too much? Get you a doggy title?” Directing my questions toward my oblivious furry companion, too busy sniffing at the now empty spot of the rat`s demise to pay attention to me and finally seeming to have ceased growing, although no mutation seems evident.
My best friend stands as tall as my hip now, her form long and lean with muscle and her jaws full of enlarged pearly teeth. I find myself somewhat wary of her developing any behavioral Beast traits…until she sneezes at a scent and jumps back as if scared by herself!
With a laugh, brought on equally from relief as humor that she is still the same dog on the inside, I give her a soft click of my tongue and she turns around obediently and joins me as I disconnect and toss her leash off the side. I now realize we are going to need to work together to survive, our best hope is to act as a team. Leaving her constrained would certainly not help with that.
Plus, it’s the apocalypse, who`s going to come give me a ticket for having her off-leash?
We meander through a few now desolate ruins and empty patches of ground where buildings used to be, the world now looking truly like it had been hit by the apocalypse. The trees even now still growing throughout the fractured cityscape make it seem as if years have passed when its been but moments. To my surprise, and growing concern, we encounter no one.
Our city, once home to nearly 100,000 people now seems…deserted, and after only 5 minutes since the System populated the Beasts at that.
Finally, we find a serviceable shelter in the form of an overhanging series of roots that now wrap around nothing but which before appear to have grown around a medium size bridge pylon.
Artemis and I make our way inside, with me taking care to bend down and avoid the low hanging “roof” of roots about 5 feet from the floor of the shelter and reaching down to the ground in a natural end cap of the “cave” about 10 feet deep.
Taking a seat in the dirt, I gesture next to me and my companion eagerly curls up and shuts her eyes, a puppy nap just as easy to take in the apocalypse as before, apparently.
And then, for what we have all been waiting for….
Well, I have been, anyway.
If you haven’t, keep it to yourself, yeah? Nobody likes a downer.
…I open up my available Skills list, that free point burning a proverbial hole into my metaphysical pocket!
Skills List (Recommended by Compatibility %)
Athletics(98%)
Hatchet Mastery(97%)
Small Blades Mastery(95%)
Wilderness Survival(92%)
Animal Companion (90%)
........
The list goes on and on, into the hundreds and then the thousands, finally coming to a close with:
Apple Picking(1%)
Knitting Needle Mastery (.9%)
I mentally click curiously upon Athletics and an expanded view drops down from it:
Athletics(Basic)- [Passive] Player is better able to exert themself physically and is granted increased instinctual knowledge of athletic capabilities. Higher levels of the skill will allow for further growth of athletic ability. Every 10 levels earned in Skill will unlock a new additional benefits associated with Athletics.
Somewhat underwhelmed, I look next at Hatchet Mastery:
Hatchet Mastery(Basic): [Passive] Grants basic instinctual knowledge on the utilization of the hatchet and an increased ability to incorporate said knowledge into combat. Higher levels of the skill will allow further growth of mastery. Every 10 levels earned in Skill will increase tier. (Basic:Apprentice:Journeyman:Unknown)
“That`s more like it!” I declare, although truthfully, I don’t see this one as a good first choice. The unknowns on the timeline for further available Skill or Spell points make me beyond cautious.
Assuming the other weapon/tool masteries are likely similar, I next select Wilderness Survival with an eye towards the newly grown yet ancient appearance of the forest now consuming half of the city.
Wilderness Survival(Basic): [Passive] Grants basic knowledge needed to survive and even thrive in a wilderness environment. Includes useful information on creating shelter, tools, and other necessities as well as about edible plants and characteristics of both predator and prey animals. Every 10 levels will increase tier. (Basic:Apprentice:Journeyman:Unknown)
Pleased by this one and leaning towards it, I still peruse Animal Companion before finalizing my choice.
Animal Companion(Basic): Grants the ability to communicate mentally in simple ways with chosen animal, will increase loyalty and intelligence of chosen companion. Includes the ability to utilize animal`s PAID to guide its growth. Every 10 levels will increase tier and unlock additional effects. (Basic:Apprentice:Journeyman:Unknown)
“Next time, maybe…” I suggest to myself, excited by the possibilities but knowing that our immediate survival is more important than getting to actually talk to my pup…barely.
Then, I anxiously select Wilderness Survival!
In a moment, all of my enthusiasm is crushed as a wave of psychic pain floods my mind, knowledge cramming itself into my gray matter, seeming to etch itself into my very being.
A moment later, it mercifully comes to a close, leaving me panting and sweating in the cave as a concerned Artemis looks on.
At last, the pain fades like a bad memory, leaving only an energy, a need to act upon my new knowledge in its place!
“Let`s go!” I cheer, urging my dog to follow me as we begin a somewhat mad dash toward the nearby forest, its branches and leaves holding the arena for our future growth now.
As the forest begins to loom over us, I keep a hopeful eye out for any surviving people and grip my hatchet tightly in one hand as I crouch low and make my way into the foliage, ready for anything.