Emmanuel was scared shitless and for good reason. The world was literally crumbling into darkness. So, as if he was the protagonist of Subway Surfers, he started to bolt in the exact opposite direction. The problem was that he wasn't out-running a fat police officer. He was out- running the world crumbling behind him. Unlike the police officer, the blackness wasn't slow. Luckily, he had not yet allocated his lose attribute points, so he threw them into agility and continued pelting at high speeds. While he was running for his life his brain couldn't help but calculate how fast he was running.

His top speed was approaching NASCAR levels. Which was just insane to think about. But it still wasn't nearly fast enough because, after two minutes of breakneck speed, the blackness caught up to him. Frantically looking around his surroundings, he found nothing to aid him.

Should he just keep on running? He didn't mind dying as long as it was to a worthy foe in combat. But the Blackness was neither in combat nor a worthy foe, in his humble opinion. He didn't want to die to the night, or whatever it was.

Luckily for him, he didn't have to, as suddenly a shimmering blue portal opened just in front of him. All he could do was pray that the blackness wouldn't follow him through.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Bruno C. Vandicercan was stuck. Not literally but in the metaphorical sense. Like many beings, he was stuck at what was colloquially called a bottleneck. It was a common problem for people not born into affluent families. His parents were wonderful but didn't have the resources to support his assent. So when he reached F grade he moved out and tried to strike it rich on his own.

Things had certainly improved since he left. He was able to afford a reasonable-sized home in a neighboring sector to the one he was born in. In addition, he was almost E Grade. The problem wasn't qualifying for a class; he was certain he’d qualified, for it was an essentially common merchant class. However, he didn't have enough accomplishments to push him over to level 25.

So he was stuck waiting for an opportunity to push him over. And an opportunity presented itself but it wasn’t exactly ideal or even favorable. The system was, to put up mildly, a terrible employer. It frequently put its employees into harmful if not lethal situations. But for Bruno, the opportunity was great and it would certainly break his current bottleneck.

When he accepted, his vision blacked out for a moment before coming back to him. Looking around he wasn't sure where he was or what his job was supposed to be. All he saw was an abandoned town. But then everything suddenly became clear to him as knowledge poured into his brain.

He was the clerk for the first trial. The job of the clerk was, first, to greet the recently evolved and recently integrated beings to the trial. The second part was to introduce them to the Party system and Quest system. And finally part was when The integrated completion of the delve to function as a shopkeeper.

The problem was he needed newly integrated beings to do something. So he just stood there. And he stood there.The sun rose to its zenith and then set and then the moon followed its elders' lead. All the while Bruno stood there. He stood there, for a matter of fact, for three days and three nights until the morning of the fourth day.

As the glorious rays of the sunrise approached, two dozen portals opened in front of him. Each produced a newly integrated individual. To Bruno's disappointment, none of the races seemed all that unique -- unlike his own. The first amongst the races were, of course, the humans -- one of the most prolific races across the Multiverse. To say they bred like rabbits would be an insult to rabbits.

The second race was the Beast folk. Often commonly confused with Beastkin, Beast folk had Beast-like traits but overall looked humanoid. The third race looked to be Dwarves. The rather stout race was renowned for its interesting personalities. And as the saying goes, if there's Dwarves, there must be Elves. Specifically, these elves look to be High Elves, which meant they were more specialized in magic than the other Elven subraces.

Finally, came the runic Giants which out of all of the racists present were the rarest. Their large frames were covered in blue or green glowing rune fractals.

As each individual stepped out of the portal they all looked around in confusion. After all, over the past few days they hadn't seen any form of civilization let alone other sentient life forms. So to suddenly be surrounded by other thinking individuals was quite a shock.

One of the first things Bruno noticed was the disproportionate amount of runic Giants. They were the least represented of the races which only made partial sense. Out of all the races represented, they were the strongest from birth however, this resulted in abnormally low birth rates at low grades.

The other races however were fairly well divided. There were five Elves, six Dwarves, five Beast folk, and seven humans.

Before any of the new initiates could make a comment Bruno cleared his throat. ”Ahem. Greetings newly initiated! First and foremost I would like to congratulate you on your recent evolution. As I'm sure you're all aware by now you are currently in a system trial. Or for you, it's called The Culling. You have successfully completed stage 1 and are now advancing to the proper trials.”

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“The first trial is a dungeon delve. Upon completion of the delve, you can spend TP -- or Trial Points -- at the shop for a variety of items and skills. To complete the Dungeon delve successfully it’s recommended you party up. Party size can range from three to seven people.”

Upon the completion of his little speech, Bruno was quite proud of himself. Every newly initiated being seemed to have gone glossy-eyed. The newly integrated paused, mulling over their options and then accepted the quest.

When all of them had accepted the quest, Bruno spoke up again: “Now, any questions?”

They all paused for a moment before a cacophony erupted.

“Where are we?”

“Take me back to my family!”

“What the hell is a quest?

“Party system? What's a party system?”

“What kind of goodies do you have in the shop?”

“Enough!” A man’s voice split through the cacophony like a hot knife through butter.

“Instead of asking questions, just get off your asses and do it.”

Bruno turned his head to the man. It was a human. The human was around 180cm; he was tall and lanky like a grasshopper. Despite his lackluster physique, the man's dark figure seemed to emanate an aura of command.

Bruno watched as the man organized all five of the races based on what class they initially picked. In the end, there were five Rangers, six Mages, twelve Warriors, and two Healers. Surprisingly enough the man who was giving the commands was not a Mage. He was a Healer and from what Bruno could tell a damn good one.

Typically competent people give off an aura of power. This man's aura was the most impressive one Bruno had ever seen from a newly evolved. The man, now fully done organizing the recently integrated, nodded to himself and walked over to Bruno.

“Hello, sir. I never caught your name.” The man's surprisingly deep voice said directly to Bruno.

“Yes. It's Bruno. Bruno C. Vandicercan. And yours?”

“ I never introduce myself either. I'm Rafael Baker. Pleased to meet you.”

“You as well.”

“Now if we can cut to the chase, I was wondering if I could get some more information on the party system and the quest that was provided to us.”

“Certainly," said Bruno with a grand smile. “XP within the party system is split based on merits; so. For example if your DPS you get more XP for doing more damage. In addition, it provides several other benefits dependent on the party leader's skill.

Another feature of the party system is that multiple parties can form a raid group. Finally, the dungeon is a mystery. You have to figure it out when you get in. I'm sorry I cannot disclose any information about it. However, I can tell you that there are several entrances located around the town. Each one of the entrances can only be entered by one party.”

“Thank you.” Rafael reached out his hand and Bruno shook it. Over the next five or so minutes Bruno witnessed Rafael organize the newly initiated parties based on power levels. In the end, the parties were roughly equal. After a few minutes of prepping and talking to one another each of the parties left separately.

Which of course left Bruno alone with his thoughts. The man he had just run into was certainly interesting. Bruno was certain of one thing with this group: that man would be coming back no matter if others didn't come back with him.

The aura around him was impressive for a newly initiated. Bruno wondered if Rafael would reach the Pinnacle of the new world but only time could tell. However, if that man did reach such heights, it would be far from a bad thing for Bruno to have a connection with a future powerhouse.

A couple hours later Bruno’s assumption was proven right. Rafael, along with 20 other newly initiated, exited the dungeon and came to the shop. Every single party member bought something -- a bow, a potion, some skills. Everyone except for Rafael who, with great foresight, decided to hold on to his points.

A few hours later the portals opened and to Bruno's surprise, Rafael did something interesting again. The man simply reached out his hand and said two words: “Follow me.”

And, to Bruno's surprise, most did. Except for an elf and a dwarf, every single surviving party member followed Rafael. So that left Bruno alone again but this time not for long. As the sun rose, two dozen portals opened once more.

Bruno gave the same old speech, they asked the same damn questions, and it continued day after day. For six straight days he worked. There was no one nearly as interesting as Rafael. Until the 9th day. His final day. Which to him made no sense. The last people that entered the first trial would enter on the 8th and only a few. Those who arrived on the 8th day were already extremely slow. Most that were slow would have already been caught up to by the wall or killed. But he had to stay even though the wall would show up tomorrow morning. But to his utter surprise, a singular portal opened. Releasing an almost entirely naked man only covered by what might have once been pants.

The man looked around in a predatory fashion. Eventually locking his gaze on Bruno. The look sent a shiver down his spine.

The man was strong too strong. To compare the man to Rafael was like night and day. Even though Rafael was a Healer so it wasn't a fair fight. But still, the power emanating from the man was many times that Rafael emitted. The second reason was when the man showed up. If the man really had as much power as his aura indicated. He should have been here the fourth day if not the third day an almost unheard-of event. But for some God knows the reason he arrived on the 9th Day. But Bruno can't ponder on the man's strangest any further, for the man in question spoke.

“What the fuck are you?”