*Ding. Teleporting to Introduction. The countdown will begin in 3…2...1 Countdown has begun. Ding.**
Jon looked around and saw that he was in a rectangular white room with no doors. He was sitting in a chair at a table, and there was another empty chair in front of him.
He also saw a timer that was counting down and showed 59:37.
“Where for Pete’s sake am I?” Jon accidentally said out loud.
“You are currently in the introduction room,” A voice said in a calm tone. Jon was so surprised that he fell out of his chair - for the second time in the span of a few hours. That was a record.
When he got back to his seat there was a weird human-like creature across the table on the other chair. It reminded him of that one teacher who would always remain calm even if the most stupid questions were asked.
Ok, this is just ridiculous. Jon thought to himself. He calmed down as he took some deep breaths. Maybe the shock of being fired made me faint; so I’ll probably wake up soon, Jon thought to himself although he was not looking forward to it.
“Is this place made out of marmor or what?” Jon said, kicking the wall. He felt how stable and hard it was. And he was again astonished at how good he was at asking stupid questions.
“The room is made out of an unknown material. Just know that breaking out is extremely hard, so I would not recommend trying,” the weird creature, or the intro guy, as Jon had decided to call it, responded in the same tone.
“Who are you and why are you here?” Jon asked, happy that he was finally posing a useful question.
“I am commonly known as the guide, and I am here to answer any questions that you may have about the System. Do note that once the countdown reaches zero, you will immediately be teleported away to your starting pod,” the intro guy said calmly.
Jon decided to process this information one by one. First, the “thing” sitting in front of him was called the guide; although he thought intro-guy sounded better. Second, he could ask any questions about this “system” person, which was a bit of a weird name.
“Who exactly is this System guy?” Jon asked curiously
“The System is not a person but an entity. It is what will control your life and what you humans would consider a government except that it governs galaxies, not one country on one planet.”
OK, so a very important guy. Note to self: Do not make the system angry. Jon thought to himself as he moved on to the second part of what the guide said, the timer. Taking a glance at the clock he saw that he had 51:38 left.
Shoot. If I continue at this speed I won’t learn anything. Jon realized as he moved on to the last part of what the intro guy had said.
“You mentioned something about starting pods. Does this mean I will be with other people when I am teleported away?”
The intro guy seemed pleased to answer an important question and responded gleefully: “No. You will be all alone initially. You will be teleported into an area with certain physical boundaries that you must stay within, called your “starting pod”. Your pod may expand in size when others leave their starting pods depending on whether their pod shares a boundary with yours. Do note that you are not stuck in your starting pod forever.”
Again Jon had a lot of information to process. First was the fact that apparently, he was in some type of pod with physical boundaries; so he asked about that first.
“You mentioned a physical boundary that impedes me from leaving my starting pod. Is it some type of electrical fence or just a wall?”
The intro guy was for a split second caught off guard, before quickly collecting himself and answering “I can only tell you that trying to go through the barrier is impossible due to the high amount of magic used to create it. Additional information about your starting pod will come as you enter it.”
Jon almost fell out of his seat for the third time after hearing the word magic. Of course, magic is a thing Jon; what good video game doesn’t have magic in it? Jon asked himself rhetorically. This new world, or “the system” that Jon was in was beginning to seem a lot like a videogame-rpg. Seeing that Jon was going to learn more about his starting pod later he decided to find out if this “system” had any other aspects akin to videogames.
“Do I have any new abilities now that I am part of the “system” that I didn’t have before?” Jon asked
“Ah, quite the change of topic,” the intro guy said, beginning to develop a personality. “Because you have been integrated into the system you can now gain classes, new skills, and much more. Do note that you may see all of your skills and classes and much more on your status screen”.
Wait, I have a status screen? Jon thought to himself as he reminded himself that he was living in a video game.
“How do I access my status screen?” Jon asked
“You must simply make a mental command that you want to see it, and it will appear.” the intro guy said with a hint of irritation.
Sorry that I don’t know everything like you. Jon thought to himself, picking up on the irritation. Jon didn’t quite understand how to make a “mental command”, It wasn’t like he was a Jedi that could use “the force” to move objects. Eh, I guess I’ll just try it out. I want to see my status screen! Jon thought in a commanding way, and to his surprise, something appeared in front of him.
Status Screen:
Name: Jon Ravenson
Planet Of Origin: Earth
Race(s): Human (Pending)
Class(es): None
Race Core Skills:
Human Race Core Skills: (Pending)
Class Core Skills: None
Special Skills: None
Other Skills: None
Stats:
Strength: 4/4
Speed: 6/6
Magic Power: 4/4
Health: 6/6
Focus: 9/9
Intuition: 6/6
Achievements: None
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
**Warning: You have a pending race [Human] and pending core skills to accept. If you do not accept them soon, you may permanently lose access to all skills and the race [Human]**
Okay, that’s a lot to unpack there. Jon thought to himself as he finished reading over his status screen. Jon understood the first two parts of his status screen. The system was simply saying that his name was Jon Ravenson and that he was born on the planet Earth. Jon was still dumbfounded by the fact of how many other galaxies existed, but right now he needed to focus on the basics.
“My status screen says that my race, human, is pending. Am I not already a human?”
“To answer your second question first, since you were born human you are by Earth’s standards considered Human. However, the system only considers you a human until you accept the fact that you are human. I would strongly recommend accepting your race due to the skills you will gain, but it is entirely up to you. You should know that if you are planning on accepting the human race you should do so as quickly as possible”
That was quite a bit of information so Jon once again decided to process it one by one.
First and foremost, Jon had to confirm the fact that he wanted to stay human. He saw no reason not to do so, and the fact that Jon would gain some skills if he accepted the human race was just a bonus. However, he still planned on learning a bit more about his status screen before truly becoming human.
Second of all, the intro guy had said that if Jon wanted to truly become human he would have to do so soon and Jon fully knew that it was the truth since he had also received a weird message along the lines of that at the end of his status screen. Jon was tempted to just accept the race right there and then but decided to learn more about his status screen before doing so instead.
There were still a lot of things bothering him about his status screen so Jon decided to go from the top to the bottom. The first thing that was bothering him was the class thing. Jon personally would consider himself middle-upper class, but with the new world he was in with tens of billions if not trillions of other beings existing he would probably be considered lower class but he wasn’t exactly sure so he decided to ask. See
“What is a class, and how do I get one?” Jon asked the intro guy
After a short pause, the intro guy responded “A class is obtained by combining six skills. These skills are called the core skills and are very important. You may be asking yourself why these core skills are so important, so let me give you an analogy. Think of a class as your Job, and the core skills of a class are the most important skills you need to possess to do your job well. You will also gain 6 core skills after accepting a race which is one of the reasons why you should obtain the Human race. You will also learn much more about the actual functionalities of a class once you create one.”
There were a lot of important bits of information the intro guy had given to Jon, so he decided to make a mental note of all of them.
First: Classes were very important, and getting one should be a top priority. Jon would need to merge 6 skills to get one and it seemed that the class would have a theme related to those six.
Jon was Immediately confused about something so he asked the system guy.
“I am assuming that the core skills of a class cannot be core skills of other classes, so does that mean you need to “create” the core skills?” Jon asked, proud of having asked such a good question.
“Yes you cannot use skills from races or classes to create a class, and as you correctly guessed, you will have to create the core skills. In your status screen, there is a section that says “Other Skills”. Once you are teleporting to your starting pod you will gain the ability to create skills. To create a skill you will need to master a good amount of control of the skill without having the actual skill. The intro guy responded enthusiastically.
I knew you could create skills Jon thought to himself happily. He still had no idea how to create a skill but at least he was making baby steps. Jon also remembered that his time with the intro guy was limited so he took a glance at the clock and saw that he had 32:42 left.
There were still three things bothering him.
First was the “Special Skills”, and the second was how his “Stats” worked, and he was also curious about “Achievements. Since achievements and stats existed in video games already, Jon decided to ask about the first option.
“What exactly are Special Skills?” Jon asked curiously.
“Special Skills are a rare type of skill that usually are very powerful. They have the same functionality as Other Skills, so they can be a Core Skill of a class although it is not very common. Anybody who owns a Special Skill is considered extremely talented, and just for a perspective every 3 Planets most of the time only have 1 being with a Special Skill among them. To gain a Special Skill one must usually create or do something extremely hard for their standards.”
Okay, so a very rare, OP skill. Jon thought to himself as he decided to not ask more questions about special abilities to the system guy as there was a very high likelihood that he would never need the answers. Seeing that he could either ask about Stats or Achievements he decided to go with Stats since they were much more common in Videogames and the only game that Jon knew with Achievements was “Minecraft”.
“Can you explain to me what each of the stats does and why there are two numbers for each stat?” Jon asked
“Each Stat will enhance your power in different ways. Strength will make you physically stronger, Speed will make you faster and also a bit better at hiding, and Magic Power will increase your proficiency in any act involving magic. Health may seem a bit self-explanatory, but reaching zero health will not kill you, and having high amounts of Health Will simply increase your resistance to pain and increase the speed at which you heal. Focus will make it easier to work on a certain task for a long time and under more extreme circumstances. It is also tied to your Endurance. Finally, Intuition will make you passively pay more attention to the environment and see if something is “off”. The reason that there is a second number for each stat is that stat points can also be “used”. Some skills require you to “use” a certain number of stat points to activate the skill. The skill will be related to the stat point you need to use and even if you have fully used a stat point that does not mean that the effects of having that stat point will decrease; you will simply not be able to “use” it until you heal it.”
A lot of what the intro guy had said made sense but some parts were confusing. Each Stat made you “stronger” in some way. Strength, Speed, and Health made a good amount of sense, Jon was still confused about how you could survive having zero Health, but Jon decided to worry about that later. Magic Power was also pretty obvious, but the fact that magic even existed was making it a bit confusing. Intuition was a bit more weird. It seemed like it would help with observing details, but it also gave some sort of intuition on if someone was lying or if there was a trap. Finally, there was Focus; It was Jon’s highest Stat, and that by quite a large margin. If Jon understood correctly then that meant that it helped with Focusing, although quite obvious.
Jon was also curious about how what Stats were the highest were related to who he was before he “entered the system”. Jon had always been very good at working over long periods and focusing, so that was probably why Focus was so high. His Speed, Intuition, and Health were all at six, which made sense since 6 was probably about average for any Human. Finally, there was Strength and Magic Power both sitting at a measly 4. Jon couldn’t consider himself a “Strong” Person, as he had not worked out once in his life. Jon also had no experience with magic, just like any other human although he did recall playing a certain magic card game in his Childhood.
Then there was also the fact that you could “use” stats. This was probably the reason why reaching 0 Health would not kill Jon. If his “maximum” health was zero, then he would die but Jon suspected that that was not the only way. “Using” Stats seemed like something Jon ought to do, especially since it didn’t affect how much the stat did in terms of power. But to do that Jon would first need to gain an actual skill that could use a stat.
OK now that we have at least a bit of information on our Status Screen, It’s time to become “Human”. Jon thought to himself as he also looked at the Countdown.
0:03
Uh-Oh, Jon thought to himself as he accepted the fact that he would not be able to accept the race before being teleported away.
Looking back to the Intro guy he waved to him, knowing that he would probably never see him again
.
**Ding Countdown is over. Teleporting into starting Pods now. Ding**
For the second time that day, Jon got a weird, disorienting feeling as he closed his eyes, waiting for the feeling to end.
As Jon opened his eyes again he found himself on a wet mossy ground in what seemed to be a Jungle. He immediately saw a message from the System, which he decided to look at immediately.
**System message to all sentient beings of Planet Earth. Hello everyone and welcome to the System. I hope you managed to learn one or two things from the guide before you were teleported to your Starting Pod. And I want to personally congratulate you all on making it here and I hope you may survive, and thrive here in the System. Currently, you are all in some parts of a Jungle where you are all alone. Well, not really, there are going to be a lot of monsters trying to kill you so watch out for those, dying would be quite inconvenient right? Anyway, since you guys are so awesome we decided to give you one minute to find shelter, or whatever you Humans do, before all monsters become active. More information will come later. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy!**
Below Jon saw a countdown just like when he was in the room with the intro guy. It showed:
Time Left until monsters become active: 0:05
The part of the weird message that mentioned monsters trying to kill you made Jon look around himself as his face filled with confusion and then horror. There was a giant-looking Cat with sharp teeth staring directly at Jon, and Jon knew that it was only unmoving because of the countdown.
And adding two and two together brought Jon to the conclusion that he didn’t want to be anywhere near the cat when it became “active”. And In that moment there was only one thing Jon had to do.
Run.