Chapter 1: The Reckoning

Hwaah. Letting out a loud groan/sigh I stretched my aching muscles across my bed. I sighed in relief as the tenseness in my muscles slowly faded away. Man that felt good. Rubbing my eyes furiously, I glanced to my right to check the time. 9:30 AM. Huh, it wasn’t that late. Now this might not seem that early to you but it was a weekend and I had only gone to bed a couple of hours ago. After all, who didn’t want to sleep in on the weekend? Unfortunately I couldn’t sleep in for longer since I had chores to do today. Hopefully I would get done earlier than usual and then I would be able to take a nap. But who knew what today had in store for me.

Since today was a Saturday, I didn’t really have anything important to do except for a couple of chores. However if I didn’t get up now to do some of my chores, I never would. Then I would get in trouble for being lazy and probably get some measly punishment. I didn’t really feel like going through all that hassle so I decided just to get up. Stepping off my bed I tripped on the floor as I walked towards my closet. Ugh, why did such a small injury cause so much pain? Holding my toe in anguish, I kicked the offending object that had assaulted me. One of my shoes flew across my room landing with a loud thud. Whoops, hopefully no one heard that.

Turning on my light so I could see, I grabbed some clothes from my closet and headed towards the bathroom. Once I got in there I took a quick but thorough shower. I wasn’t one of those people who took forever in the shower. Honestly, I was exactly the opposite. After I finished washing myself in the shower I would immediately get out. I had things to do after all and I didn’t feel like wasting valuable time just so I could shower for a few more minutes. Once I was done I showering I dried myself off with a nearby towel. As I was drying myself off I glanced in the mirror to see how I looked.

My build was about average although I had a little bit of muscle on me since I only quit baseball about three years ago. I had black hair and brown eyes that I ended up inheriting from my mom. In just a couple months I would be seventeen and I would only have to go to high school for one more year. But I’ll still have to go to college after high school anyways but I’ll worry about that when the time comes.

After I took care of my basic necessities such as brushing my teeth and straightening my hair, I went inside my room to grab a jacket. I didn’t know how it felt outside but it was pretty cold here in my house. After I put on my jacket I headed downstairs so I could make myself some breakfast. I didn’t want to miss it since it was the most important meal of the day, or at least that was what my mom told me. I had gone without breakfast before and I hadn’t felt a single difference. But who knew, it might’ve been just me. The moment I walked into our kitchen, I grabbed myself some cereal and poured it into a bowl. As I ate, I realized that there was something next to my napkin. Curious, I picked up the object which took the form of a yellow sticky note. The gist of it was my mom telling me, Colm, to remember to take out the trash and that she and dad will be back in a couple of hours since they were out shopping. At least they didn’t take me with them. Not only would it be too early, but I didn’t enjoy shopping to begin with.

After I finished reading the note, I got up and washed my dishes in the sink. Once my dishes were cleaned, I took out the trash and threw it in the garbage can. Glancing up at the sky I noticed that it was a beautiful shade of blue. The sun was already out, heating up the area around me. It wasn’t that hot but I knew that in a few hours sweat would be pouring down my skin. It would have been a beautiful day if it wasn’t for the heat. I personally preferred winter rather than summer since you can just put more clothes on until you’re warm. But in the summer once you have taken off a certain amount of clothing there’s nothing you can really do about the heat.

 After I finished day dreaming, I pulled out my phone and looked to see if I had any new emails or messages. While I did this, I began walking up my driveway in order to check the mail. Scanning through all of the non-important emails that I could read later as I walked, I soon reached the mailbox. But before I could reach my hand into the mailbox, a mysterious blue box appeared in front of me.

Welcome!

Because you humans have decided to squander your lives, the powers above have decided that you shouldn't control it! Therefore they are combining your world with another one in order to make things more interesting. How and why can they do this? Well….You don’t need to know! But don't worry, if you live, you will be stronger because of it. So go out there and survive!

5:00 minutes remaining until the opening of rifts

What the fuck?! Confused I tried swiping the blue box away. My waving only made the box shimmer and reform a few seconds later. After a few seconds of struggling I managed to push the box towards my left so I could see what was in front of me. A blue box blocking my sight wouldn’t help anyone. Was I hallucinating? Looking around I saw one of my neighbors with a surprised face in the distance staring off into space. Either he was just daydreaming or he was seeing the same things that I was seeing. And I highly doubt that he would stop jogging just to daydream. So I didn’t think it was just me.

What did all of this mean? I could hardly wrap my head around the fact that something as strange as this was happening. It just didn’t make any sense. Stuff like this never happened. Ever. The only solution I could come up with was that this was the beginning of an apocalypse. No destruction had happened yet but I was pretty sure it was only a matter of time. When I was young I always fantasized about a zombie apocalypse of some sort happening but as I grew older that childhood fantasy faded away. An apocalypse would only bring forth death, something that I wanted no part of. I thought that an apocalypse would never happen. After all, it just wasn’t scientifically possible for something like this to happen. But the clock currently ticking down was in the process of proving me wrong.

My musings were cut short when I realized that something was wrong. A horrified look crossed my face once I realized just what I had done. I was wondering why my hand felt empty until I realized I must have dropped it due to the shock of a blue box appearing in front of me. But where was it? My phone was pretty important to me and I couldn’t imagine living without it. Not only that but I didn’t even know if my parents would buy me a new one. My heart began to race inside my chest as I glanced around for a small silver rectangular object. Turning around I was just in time to see it slip into the little outlet of the sewer near my house.

Fuck

What were the odds of something like that happening? My phone could’ve just landed on the ground and stayed on the spot it landed on. But no, it just had to go down the outlet. I knew that something like that would happen someday. When I was young I was afraid that I would fall down that outlet on a rainy day. I would just get swept in, never to be seen again. This was part of the reason I usually kept my distance from it. I wasn’t afraid of the sewer outlet, I was just wary. However my mailbox was right next to the outlet which was why I was close to it when my phone fell. Not only would I have to get my phone from the sewers, I would need to get it quickly. The reason for the urgency was because I wanted to have my phone in my hand before the timer ran out. I didn’t know what would happen but I know it wouldn’t be anything good. I glanced at the timer quickly to see how much time I had left.

3:45 minutes remaining until the opening of rifts

Tch, that’s barely enough time to do anything. With adrenaline rushing throughout body I pulled the top of the sewer away as quickly as I could. Shit, how heavy was this thing? Although it took quite a bit of straining on my part, I managed to pull it to the side. Hopping onto the ladder I began to descend as quickly and safely as I could. As I climbed down there were a couple close calls where I almost slipped and tumbled down into the sewers. One minute later and I stood safely on the ground of the sewer. But before I could begin looking for my phone, I heard a peculiar sound.

Ding!

Achievement: You are the first person to discover a dungeon!

Choose Reward: Mana Affinity Skill or Weapon Affinity skill

*Experience will be doubled for one week*

Hmmm, now this was a hard choice. Mana affinity skill would most likely help me with magic while the Weapon Affinity Skill would help me use a  variety of weapons. Since I didn’t have any sort of weapon on me at the current time and being a mage sounded interesting, I decided on the mana affinity skill. After all who didn’t want to be able to cast fireballs from their hand? I didn’t know if I could click mana affinity skill to make my choice so I just decided to say it instead.

“Mana Affinity Skill”

I watched as the box I was looking at disappeared in blue dissolving particles. Before I could do anything else I heard another sound.

Ding!

New title gained! The Peerless Descender

Description: You are the first person to enter a dungeon in the entire world, be proud of your bravery and explore the unknown.

 Effects: Your mind is more resistant to psychological effects such as fear or insanity. Illusions are less effective against you.

What?!

I could hardly believe that I had just walked into a dungeon. Not only that, I even gained a skill and a title. For some reason the moment I saw the blue boxes a clump of information was dumped into my head. I now understood that this world was now game-like and that I had to train skills in order to grow stronger and survive. Unlike my previous world there were now monsters that would kill me if they saw me. I made a mental note to be careful in the future. For a brief moment I wondered if other people had this information given to them or if I was just one of the luck few. Who knew? I would have to think about later when I wasn’t pressed for time. Screw my phone, I needed to get the hell out of here. I could always come back for it later. But when I heard another ding, a horrified expression returned on my face once more.

Times up! I hope you all are all ready and prepared  for this because I know I sure am. Let the apocalypse begin!

You have got to be kidding me. Climbing back up as quickly as I could, I soon realized that the top of the sewer was back on. I knew for a fact that I had left it open. Hopefully this dungeon wouldn’t be stupid and be like I need to defeat the boss before I can leave. That would never happen…..right? After a few seconds of climbing I finally managed to reach the top. Sticking one hand underneath the cover, I pushed with all of my strength. Yet the cover of the sewer never moved an inch. Tch, was I not using enough strength? Sticking both of my legs through the ladder and closing them, I used both of my arms this time to try and move the cover. But the more I pushed, the more I was certain that it would be impossible. As I thought that I once again heard a familiar sound.

Ding!

Leaving this dungeon is not allowed until the final boss of this dungeon is defeated.

Man, I never should have gone down here for my phone. But what’s done is done and I needed to move on. According to the knowledge that was dropped inside my head, monsters and loot would spawn inside dungeons. There were also some special dungeons that wouldn’t let you leave until you completed the specific requirements that it gave. It seemed that the special dungeon I was in required me to defeat the final boss before I good leave. Great. While I was thinking of this, I finally managed to safely climb down the ladder. I took a few minutes to catch my breath even though I didn’t feel that panicked. Shouldn’t I be panicking? Wasn’t that the normal thing to do? Didn’t I have a skill that dealt with something like that? Now was a good a time as any to clear all of these blue boxes that filled the left side of my vision. But first things first, I needed to know where I was. According to the knowledge inside my head all I needed to do was say a specific word and I would get information about it.

“Dungeon”

Dungeon - The Sinister Sewers

Description: An old decrepit sewer that stretches on for miles. There is barely any light due to the fact of poor maintenance, so prepare to embrace the darkness. Tiles on the ground are uprooted by chunks of earth making pathways unstable. Oh, and it is also infested with monsters.

Huh, I didn’t know that the sewer near my house was this long. I also didn’t know how I felt being in a dungeon with little to no light. I was pretty sure that the monsters had night vision while I didn’t. The only reason I could see now was because there was a dim lightbulb above me. But from what I could see it was the only one of its kind. Hopefully the monsters weren’t that strong in this dungeon since I was all alone down here. I didn’t know how I would fare in combat since I had never gotten in a fight in my life. Oh well, I would deal with it when the time came. By concentrating on the blue box and moving my eyes to the left quickly, I managed to clear the screen about the dungeon away.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The next thing I wanted to see was my Mana Affinity Skill. From my general knowledge I could assume mana was basically magic or it had something to do with magic. Maybe this skill would enable me to use magic or at least help me use it. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit excited to use magic. If I could use magic, nothing would be impossible. I could fly through the air, shoot lightning out of my hands, or even make meteorites come crashing down from the sky. But I was getting ahead of myself. I hadn’t even looked at the skill yet. If it did help me use magic like I thought, I would need to learn how to use it in order to get out of this dungeon alive. Now how to look at my Magic Affinity Skill. Racking my brain I decided to just say the word skill like I did with dungeon.

“Skills”

Mana Affinity SkillSkill Type: PassiveSkill Rank: UniqueSkill Level: 1Exp: 2%Effects: Any skill using mana cost 1% less. You are more sensitive to the mana. This enables you to know when someone is about to cast a spell due to the amount of mana being gathered. Anything mana related comes easier to you.

According to the skill rank, this skill should only be unique to me. Nice, I’m not greedy per se but there’s nothing like having a skill that no one else has. The skill I had chosen gave me a variety of effects such as a reduced mana cost. Now the reduced mana cost might not seem like a lot, but you have to remember that the skill is only at level 1. If the skill goes up 1% per level then that mean at level 100 I won’t need to pay any mana cost. Or so I think. I probably wouldn’t even get it that far leveled up anyways. But who knew? The next thing my skill stated was that I was more sensitive to mana. My body was so sensitive that I would be able to tell if someone was casting a spell with mana. This was good because I would be able to dodge spells easier since I knew where they were coming from. The last thing my skill stated was that anything mana related comes easier to me. What did that even mean? I guess the only thing I can do is try to use magic. That way I would be able to understand the true meaning of my skill. But before I did that, I wanted to check on my title to refresh my memory. When it first popped up I only managed to look at it for a couple of seconds.

“Titles”

The Peerless Descender

Description: You are the first person to enter a dungeon in the entire world, be proud of your bravery and explore the unknown.

Effects: Your mind is more resistant to psychological effects such as fear or insanity

Huh, so that was why I wasn’t panicking before. My title had helped calm me down when I first started panicking. I could already so how this skill was going to be useful in the future. As I was thinking about this, my mind began to wander and I was soon thinking about how life was on the surface. I could hardly imagine what was going on in the streets above. More than likely it was filled with hysteria and panic. If monsters came out of nowhere and started killing people I would be panicking too. But I needed to worry about my own situation now rather than worry about somebody else’s. Now the last thing I needed to look as was my stats.

“Character”

I waited for a response only to receive silence. Well that was awkward. Scratching my head I began to ponder on what else to say. The information I had mysteriously received only told me that I needed to say a word in order to look at my stats. However it conveniently left out the word that I needed to say which was why I was trying to figure out the magic word.

“Colm”

Hmm, still nothing. What could it be?

“Status”

This time when I said something a blue box filled my vision.

Status WindowNameColm MarythouAge: 16Race: HumanLevel: 1Gender: MaleTitlesThe Peerless DescenderHealth: 100/100Mana: 100/100Stamina: 100/100~Strength: 10Agility: 10Vitality: 8Dexterity: 9Intelligence:11Wisdom:12Luck:0~SkillsMana AffinityUnallocated Points:0

According to my status I was only level 1. This meant that I was pathetically weak and I needed to change that as soon as possible. I was almost positive that the enemies I would be fighting wouldn’t be level 1. Hopefully they wouldn’t be too high above my left or I would never be leaving these sewers.  But the only way to level up was to defeat monsters, even if they were a higher level than me. But before that I needed to find my phone to make sure my family is all right. I didn’t know the situation on the surface so it could’ve been better or worse than me. It didn’t really matter which one it was, I just wanted to make sure that my family was alright. Now that I had finish checking all of the stuff I needed to, I took a moment to look at my surroundings.

Drip……..drop……..Drip…….drop

Now that I wasn’t focused on anything, the sound of water dripping could be heard clearly. I glanced towards the murky ceiling just in time to see another water droplet fall. I was surprised that the sewer even had some water left seeing as how it hadn’t rained in a couple of weeks. As I looked around I began to notice a few things that wouldn’t be in normal sewers. One thing I noticed about the sewer I was in was the ground. Normally the ground would be composed of tiles with some water separating them here and there. However if I looked below me I could see soil and earth. Several tiles had been uprooted somehow and left only the cold earth in its stead. Maybe it was because of the dungeon I was in. I had never been down here before so I didn’t really know if that guess was true. It was still odd nonetheless.

The walls around me were made up with bricks of various colors. Some of the bricks were crumbled while others were jutting out of the wall. In the distance to my right I could see a pool of water. Over there was where the water was dripping off of the ceiling. But as I looked closer I realized that I would never be able to drink that water. It was filled with mud and unmentionable things and it would take years for it to ever be clean again. Although I looked around a decent distance, my phone was nowhere in sight. The reason I didn’t look farther was because I couldn’t see without the lightbulb above me. Without warning a cold draft went straight through my clothes and chilled me to my bones. It was at that moment that I was glad I had worn a jacket today.

Before I could start exploring and looking for my phone I needed something to defend myself with. I was virtually defenseless, there was no way I was venturing into the unknown without some kind of weapon. The monsters out there would tear me apart otherwise. I patted down my pockets and looked around. There was nothing in my immediate vicinity that I could use as a weapon. What else was there? And then I remembered something important. Magic! My Mana Affinity Skill stated that anything mana related should come easier to me. Therefore it should make creating a spell easier for me. But how was I supposed to create a spell? Racking my brain for a few minutes I decided to try to cast a fireball. If it worked I wouldn’t have to worry about heating or an attack spell. Sticking my hand out in front of me, I uttered the chant.

“Fireball!”

But nothing happened. Fuck. I didn’t really expect it to work but it was still disappointing to see nothing happen. Since nothing happened I was obviously doing something wrong. But what was I doing wrong? Once again I took a few minutes to think. In an rpg I once played, my mage needed to gather mana before he could cast a spell. Maybe I would need to do the same thing or something similar to it.

Sticking my hand out once again I closed my eyes and concentrated. I needed to find mana that was in the air. Five minutes went by but I still stood in the same spot without moving. After another five minutes I finally managed to clear my mind so I could focus more on gathering mana. I was about to give up when fifteen minutes passed but before I did I felt something. The object, which I assumed was mana, resembled the feeling of dust or dirt swirling around you. Right now I could only feel a few particles but I was sure that there was more. Breathing slowly I spent another ten minutes feeling the mana around me. It was hard, trust me. I was never patient to begin with so this was really a struggle. However I persevered since the end result would be worth all of the boredom. A few minutes later and I was able to feel most of the mana around me. I couldn’t feel every particle of mana, but I still thought it was good enough for a spell.

Now that I could sense the mana in the air I started the process of moving it toward my hand. Sweat began to drip from my face as I manipulated the mana towards my hand. This was especially challenging because not only did I had to gather mana by my hand, I also had to keep it there. Yet I still kept going. If I stopped now, I would just have to do it again later. I was close, I could feel it.

Minutes passed me by like the cool breeze in the sewer. But after about twenty minutes of manipulating mana I finally had enough. This was where I ran into another problem. What did I do with all of the mana surrounding my hand? At first I was going to choose fire as my element to use but then I realized something. How was I supposed to make fire from my mana? I couldn’t until I had a campfire or something similar. Therefore I decided on the next best element, air. Air was all around me so it wouldn’t be a challenge to mold it with my mana. Earth was also viable but air seemed easier. I could always try earth later so air it was.

As another breeze passed me I mentally tried to grab some of the air as it floated by. It took me a couple of tries to get that down since every time I tried grabbing the air it slipped through my mental hands. Once I grabbed some of the air, I pushed it into the mana I had already gathered. This turned out to be quite a hard process. The air and mana didn’t want to combine so I had to force them together. The feeling was similar to pushing to magnets together. If you left them alone they would quickly push each other away. Concentrating on my hand I made the mana assimilate the air. One by one each of the particles slowly became half air half mana. More time passed by as I changed every mana particle that was on my hand. Sweat was now freely pouring down my face. I wasn’t even moving and it already felt like I had ran a marathon. Ten minutes later and I finally finished.

Once my mana was changed I made the mass of air take the form of a blade. Manipulated it was hard, but not as hard as before. It seemed the more I practiced manipulating mana the easier it would get. The moment I got my air to take the form of a blade a blue box appeared interrupting my concentration.

Wind BladeSkill Type: ActiveSkill Rank: CommonSkill Level: 1Exp: 5%Effect: Allows the user to create a sharp blade of wind that can be used in combat.

But before I could utter a sigh of relief, another blue box appeared in my vision.

Achievement: You are the first person to learn/create a spell!

 Reward: Meditation Skill

Once I read the blue box a smile spread across my face. Trying to create the wind blade had been hard but it had been worth it. Not only did I create an offensive spell I also received another skill as a bonus. Swiping the achievement box away, I took a moment to look at my wind blade spell. Tch, it was only ranked common even though I did all that work to create it. But what did I expect, another unique skill? The skill level was only 1 and I wanted to raise it a couple more levels before I went out and explored. I also wanted to practice with it so I was decent at using it. But before I practice I needed to look the new skill I received.

“Meditation Skill”

MeditationSkill Type: ActiveSkill Rank: UncommonSkill Level: 1Exp: 0Effects: By sitting down and gathering mana, mana regeneration is increased. The higher the level, the more mana that is regenerated.

Nice, now all I would need to do is sit down and meditate and my mana would regenerate faster. Now I won’t have to wait long periods of time in order to regenerate my mana. Since the level was only one I wouldn’t be able to regenerate that much mana. But as I increased the level, the amount of mana I regenerated would increase as well. This skill would help me train faster and more efficiently.

Now onto the next order of business. I needed to train my wind blade spell to a reasonable level. I didn’t want to leave it at level 1 because I didn’t know how strong the enemies in this dungeon were. I would die if I went out unprepared and that was something that I didn’t want to happen. Lifting my hand away from my side I began to concentrate mana toward it. It was time to train.

AN: Thanks for reading. This is a remake of chapter 1 and the first part of my remake. More will be coming in a couple of days.