Jake found himself standing in a white void with nothing but a seat and a desk in front of him. As he sat down at the desk, a voice rang out in his head, and text appeared in front of his face.
"Welcome to the Universal System. As you are new to the system, would you like to run the tutorial? Yes/No. Note: If you pick no, you will be required to wait in this room for your universe to finish its preliminary integration."
"What the fuck is this? I'm sure I just died, didn't I?" He looked over the prompt again, still not comprehending what was going on.
"Um, so have I been isekai'd like from one of those cheesy anime, or what? And what's with the option to not do a tutorial? What kind of dumbass wouldn't do a tutorial to something as messed up as this? Now, how do I select yes? Oh, a randomly placed screen."
Jake reached out to touch the transparent screen, his hand going straight through it.
"Well, of course that didn't work. Just imagine all the people walking around poking at the air in front of their faces. Let's try something else."
Jake started to think of what he wanted to happen.
"You have selected yes. You have five minutes to select a class. After five minutes are up and you haven't selected a class, one will be randomly picked, and you will be assigned the grade TG with stats relevant to your race."
"Okay then, what classes can I pick from? Oh, random voice in my head."
"Starter class options list:
1. Light Trooper
2. Hunter
3. Brawler
4. Light Mage
5. Trooper Shadow Mage"
"Well, let's do this scientifically." Jake closed his eyes and pointed. "So that shall be."
"You have selected Trooper Shadow Mage. The starting knowledge of your class will be imprinted on your true soul upon integrating into the tutorial. Your starting gear." Jake saw a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. Moving to inspect what it was, Jake noticed it was a set of clothing in colors of greens and black. Beside a table, there were two wooden-handled knives and what looked like a muzzle-loading rifle. Beside that, there were two small satchels, one with powder and the other with bullet-shaped objects. "Equip your gear before the tutorial begins in 30 seconds."
Jake grabbed his gear and quickly put them on, tying the two satchels to his belt. The moment he took off his old tattered clothes, they vanished.
"Ha, it was a good thing I didn't need them anymore," Jake laughed.
The next moment, Jake's head started to ache, forcing him to close his eyes and wish for the pain to end. After what felt like hours had passed, he slowly began opening his eyes, finding that the environment had changed once again. In his mind, some instinctive knowledge had been deposited. With a little experimentation, he figured out how to open and close his stat windows, and with some effort, he felt like he could modify the look and feel of the interface.
"Now what? Maybe I should have a look around." He found himself in a corridor of sorts and decided to investigate his surroundings. He noticed that the walls were made out of metal. As he moved down the corridor, flashes of light could be seen up ahead. Moving to where the lights seemed to originate from, the corridor opened up into a large atrium with glass windows all around.
"I'm in space? How is that possible?" was his first thought, followed by sheer panic as he noticed large spaceships firing even bigger streams of light at each other, causing utter chaos. Objects from the destroyed spaceships were colliding with other objects, creating big clouds of what he assumed would be his certain death.
"There has to be something I've missed. No, I'm sure I read it correctly; it just said explore, right?" He stood there for a minute, just looking out at the chaos happening just outside.
"Screw it, Jake, stop being so stubborn and just have another look at the interface."
"Welcome to the Universal Constant Interface. All of your stats are laid out in a simple-to-understand format. Your unspent stat points are located at the top of your stat page, any skills that you earn, and start multipliers titles will be located underneath your stats. This is the end of the welcome tutorial introduction. Go forth and explore, Jake Everval."
Universal Constant Interface
Name: Jake Everval
Race: Human
Grade: TG
Level: 1
Class: Trooper Shadow Mage
Class Level: 1
Profession: None
Profession Level: 0
Stats points Available: 0
Mana: 100
Arcane: 0
Stamina: 100
Health: 100
Strength: 15
Agility: 15
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 10
Perception: 15
Integrity: 10
Skills:
1. Steady Aim (Common) - This is a basic trooper skill that gives a passive stat boost of 5 to agility, strength, and perception.
2. Summon Projectile (Common) - As a mage, you can use mana to summon projectiles. Note: Summon Projectile does not include any ability to launch the projector. The mana cost is determined by the projectile size.
3. Transmute Powder (Common) - Requires pre-existing object to be turned into powder before transmuting can commence. Transmuting the powder requires knowledge of what you wish to be transmuted into. The mana cost is determined by the quantity of powder being transmuted and the rarity of the power.
4. Shadow Strike (Common) - To strike from the shadows is your business. Gives 5% damage if the target is unaware of your attack.
5. Universal Translate (Common) - as a newly integrated you were given the skill to understand the language of all humanoid life forms.
6. Identify (Common) - The ability to identify basic information on objects and other life forms.
Titles: None
"Yeah, that's what I thought; it only said explore. Wait, wait a minute. It said stat page; does that mean there's more than one page? Possibly even an objectives page?" Jake thought, and then instantly, a new page opened up in front of him.
Objectives
* Main Objective: Do not die
* Secondary Objective: Escape the ship and travel to the third planet in this system.
* Bonus Objectives Available
"Okay, so that's pretty stupid. Of course, the main objective is not to die. So, Jake, what do we need? We need a way off this ship without dying, and we need a way to navigate to the third planet." Jake thought for a moment about his dilemma and then came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"Okay, so ships have escape pods, right? I just need to blast myself off into the void, and Bob's your uncle, job done. Yeah, that should work." Jake looked at his equipment, rolling his eyes at the muzzle-loading rifle.
"Is this for real? This looks like a muzzle-loading rifle, but there's something odd about it. For starters, what is with this ornate design? Who puts an engraving of a dragon eating what looks to be a spaceship? And why is the muzzle length being shortened to about half the usual length of muzzle-loading rifles? I wish I had my F88 instead of this ancient piece of crap. I don't even remember how to load it. Well, obviously, I get the powder and the projectile, and they go down the barrel, but how much powder do I need? If I remember correctly, if I put too much powder in, I will just blow my face off." He looked at it for a good 15 minutes before he remembered something.
"Identify," he thought, and instantly, a screen popped up in front of his face.
Item: Stick of Thunder (Common)
Can be used to frighten weak-willed enemies or bring death. Enchanted with a self-loading function.
Enchantment Requirements: Must have appropriate materials on your person for enchantment to work. Enchantment uses mana to gather materials from your person.
"I should really start identifying things more often. Maybe I should have a look at some of the other stuff I've got, like this cloak and those knives."
Item: Enchanted Daggers (Common)
A set of two daggers usually used by those in trade professions, enchanted with the skill Raise Edge, gives 2% damage multiplier.
Item: Minor Cloak of Shadows (Common)
You may not be able to hide in plain sight, but you can hide in the shadows. Increases stealth by 10%.
Items: Simple Clothing (Unranked)
What do you expect? They cover your body.
"Ha, that last description. I like it. Anyway, let's load this thing and find a way out of this place."
As Jake was just about to leave the atrium, a cracking noise came from behind him. Looking back, he could see the dome had started to crack. His heart was pounding as he took off running for an exit. As he got through the doorway, he slammed his hand on what looked to be a switch mechanism. Red lights started to flash, and a siren started to wail as the door started to close. Jake didn't stop as he ran, looking for an escape. Turning a corner, he ran directly into a group of humanoid creatures.
Identify
Race: Humanoid Lifeform (Unknown)
Grade: Unknown
Level: Unknown
Jake pulled up his rifle, poured mana into it, and jumped to the side. The three creatures started yelling, "Surrender, human." Jake didn't hesitate, squeezing the trigger before pushing more of his mana into the weapon and repeating the process once more until all three of his enemies were on the ground. Jake moved over to the three dead unknown lifeforms.
"I wonder why Identify didn't work on them," Jake thought as he started going through their pockets for anything good.
"I probably should check how much mana it cost me to kill them."
Mana: 40
Stamina: 60
Ding!, experience gained plus 3 points.
Class level increased.
Race human level increased.
Seeing the notification, Jake checked his stats page again.
Universal Constant Interface
Name: Jake Everval
Race: Human
Grade: TG
Level: 2
Class: Trooper Shadow Mage
Class Level: 2
Profession: None
Profession Level: 0
Stats point Available: 5
Mana: 40
Arcane: 0
Stamina: 60
Health: 100
Strength: 15
Agility: 15
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 10
Perception: 15
Integrity: 10
“Let's run a few tests. I'll add one point to strength to see what happens.”
Free Stats Available: 4
Mana: 40
Arcane: 0
Stamina: 70
Health: 100
Strength: 16
“So my guess is if I add a point in 2 Wisdom and Integrity, I should also get an increase in health and mana.”
Stats points Available: 2
Mana: 50
Arcane: 0
Stamina: 70
Health: 110
Strength: 16
Agility: 15
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 11
Perception: 15
Integrity: 11
“It doesn't seem like adding in wisdom has made an instant genius, but it does seem that adding points in strength feels a little stronger, so I am thinking adding points in Agility would make me quick and nimble. Let's add the last points into Perception. I would like to see what is trying to kill me before it does. I wonder what I need to increase the arcane stat.”
Stats points Available: 0
Mana: 50
Arcane: 0
Stamina: 70
Health: 110
Strength: 16
Agility: 15
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 11
Perception: 17
Integrity: 11
“Yes, it does work as I thought. It feels as if I can sense everything around me better. I should add more points to that stat when I get a chance. But I shouldn't neglect the other stats. Ha, maybe should test out Intelligence next time, maybe that will make me an instant genius that I totally already am.”
After searching the three dead humanoids, Jake found a necklace and six potion bottles: two red, two blue, and two green. Reading the labels, they said "Product of the Scarlett Emporium of Potions," and under that, it said "Health, Stamina, and Mana," one for each color.
It was starting to sound like rain was hitting the spaceship, so Jake continued his search for a way out of this death trap of a ship.
He searched corridor after corridor, the rain sounds getting louder, and then...
Bang!
The air started to hiss out of the corridor. Jake took a chance and pried open a locked door. As Jake squeezed through, the door slammed shut behind him. Looking around, Jake found what he was hoping for.
“Fuck yes, it's a ship. It's not pretty, but it's still a ship. It kind of looks like one of the shuttles from the NX-01 Enterprise, except for this one is clearly armed with some kind of weapon pods on either side of its nose and more rust than any spaceship should ever have. Oh well, if it's all I've got, it's all I've got. Let's just find out if this thing can fly.”