It was going to have some of the answers that he was after.
He flipped through it, searching for any interesting insights. There were a couple of summaries that immediately caught his attention.
The first was ‘Current and Forecast Ranking Points.’
Dragons: Current Rank 1 with accumulated points of 310 million and year on year accumulation of 7 million. Additional notes: Peaked at 433 million.
Insects: Current Rank 2 with accumulated points of 302 million and year on year accumulation of 9 million. Additional notes: Peaked at 420 million.
Giants: Current Rank 3 with accumulated points of 278 million and year on year accumulation of 4 million. Additional notes: Benefited from an unexplained 20 and 30 million jump in earth years 28 and 34.
Tom’s eyes widened in horror as he saw the next couple of lines.
“Fuck, no,” he swore as anger exploded through him. “No, this isn’t right! They said we were in touch. That’s not being in touch! We’re losing. This is a fucking disaster.”
He stared at the position of the humans.
Wador: Current Rank 4 with accumulated points of 276 million and year on year accumulation of 4 million.
Humans: Current Rank 5 with accumulated points of 262 million and year on year accumulation of 2.5 million. Additional notes: One off gain of 100 million from GOD’s action.
Inventors: Current Rank 6 with accumulated points of 201 million and year on year accumulation of 5 million. Additional notes: Advances by rapid stops and starts every couple of decades. Over due for an influx of points.
Chosen: Current Rank 7 with accumulated points of 42 million and year on year accumulation of < 1 million.
In horror, he read and reread what was displayed, but if anything it reinforced his initial reaction.
Humans were losing, and not by a small amount.
They were getting thrashed.
Fourth was a personal disaster for most people, but any lower than that was an extinction level result… and that’s where they were positioned.
When he had overheard Pete and Delilah, he had interpreted their words positively, and if he was honest, the headline numbers had supported some of their optimism. But how could anyone with basic mathematics see this summary and think things were going to be okay was a mystery. Yes, humans had two hundred and sixty-two million points and were only sixteen million behind the third-placed giants. A gap like that was possible to close, but that wasn’t the problem. The issue was that year on year humans were earning only two-thirds of what the two species directly above them were.
The points between them and those ahead were only going to widen.
His need to not only be good but to strive to be the best couldn’t be clearer. Over the next ten years, the gap between them and third place was going to double and grow to over thirty million. To close it, he was going to have to do something huge. His gamble with the trolls was supposed to have been such an attempt, but while given the extra fate he had, it must have partially worked, it clearly wasn’t enough.
On the next page, there were additional summary tables that attempted to explain the consequences for the non-reincarnated of what not getting lower in the rankings meant. He and anyone like him, of course, already knew.
Eight billion humans were currently in stasis. It was a lot of people. They had gone through the same tutorial he had, but had not done as well, because he had made it into the competition, and they hadn’t. Tom didn’t blame them. Most modern people would naturally struggle to fight monsters and that is what Existentia had plenty of, and when the competition ended, they were coming here. The only question was the advantages they would be able to bring with them, and that depended on how the one million champions of humanity performed.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
And the unfortunate fact was that the different outcomes were not the difference between a ford and a BMW, or between growing up in third-world slums or first-world luxury. A lack of advantages in Existentia was basically a sentence to be torn apart by a monster. Competition Success was literally the difference between life and death.
The book he was reading did not downplay the situation. It was very candid about what failure meant. It would be horrific, dreadful, and cause untold misery for humanity.
The information was presented across multiple pages with different lenses to make sure it was easily understood.
For example, if you won the competition, everyone from Earth would be gifted a hundred thousand experience, a tailored tier three skill, a random trait, an eligible class plus sixteen levels and the right to spend your contribution points how you wanted.
Contrasting with that, if the champions failed, then everyone coming would get nothing to help them. They would just appear in a random location on Existentia, naked. Whether that was in a jungle, the middle of the ocean, or in a pit of flesh-devouring mice, didn’t matter. With each person coming without levels or items, even a tiny bunny could kill them. Existentia was not Earth - everything was far more lethal, even in low-levelled areas.
No advantages meant exactly that. You could die before you even registered where you had been dropped.
And it wasn’t just personal benefits that were up for grabs. If you ranked first, there were also societal level advantages you would be awarded. Humanity would be split up amongst eight massive kingdoms. All of those would have no threats either in or outside their borders, and an assurance that there would be no terror race within a year’s travel. That was the guarantee of security part, but there would also be less important, but more tangible bonuses. These vast, sprawling kingdoms would come with pre-established buildings to support industry, master level workshops for the crafters and farming infrastructure complete with golems to feed the population for generations. Basically, the advantages were so substantial it would be almost impossible for any of those nations to fail.
However, the lower you dropped, the less you would receive. By the time you were ranked only fourth, then humanity would be spread out into enclaves with only a million people each. That would be a single city-state kind of arrangement, and, if that group got bad luck, they could have a billion strong terror species camped next door. An outcome like that would cause the enslavement or death of the entire population within weeks. Then, if you got last, the result was even worse. Every single person would be dropped into Existentia by themselves. All of them scattered, and each so weak they’d be unable to defend themselves, and if they somehow survived, then it was possible that they could explore their whole life and never meet another human.
Getting last was a delayed death sentence.
The position humanity achieved in the competition was critical, and the summary that best captured that urgency as far as he was concerned was the one dealing with survival chances.
Position 7: 1 in 100,000 is estimated to survive ten years. No prospect of intergenerational survival.
Position 6: 1 in 1,000 is estimated to survive ten years. No prospect of survival beyond 10 generations.
Position 5: 1 in 100 is estimated to survive ten years. Fifty percent chance of one pocket of humans surviving beyond 10 generations.
Position 4: 25 in 100 is estimated to survive ten years. Survival beyond 10 generations guaranteed.
Position 3: 65 in 100 is estimated to survive ten years. Intergenerational survival as natives highly likely.
Position 2: 85 in 100 is estimated to survive ten years. Intergenerational survival as natives guaranteed.
Position 1: 99 in 100 is estimated to survive ten years. Intergenerational survival as natives guaranteed.
Finishing in the last three positions effectively guaranteed humanity’s extinction, and, while ending up fourth would prevent such an outcome, it would still result in three-quarters of the population dying within ten years.
That was six billion people!
Even third wasn’t that great, but at least humans wouldn’t go extinct if they ranked that high.
That was why their current performance was such a kick in the gut. Unless their trajectory changed, they were going to end up fifth and possibly sixth. Both outcomes were a disaster. Fifth place meant ninety out of a hundred people dying within ten years and only a fifty percent likelihood of any human living beyond ten generations.
Tom couldn’t bring himself to consider what getting sixth would mean, and, if one read between the lines, one could see the inventors had a good chance of passing them.
If the arrangements for him being reincarnated hadn’t included the promise that he could make a difference and that he wouldn’t be here if humanity was doomed, he might have given into despair at this update on how they were performing.
As it was, he drew hope from the incomplete history of other people who had been reincarnated. Apparently, others had achieved amazing feats within thirty years - and that without the benefit of these isolation rooms and resources, not to mention the early fate that he had available to build his abilities.
I will do better than them, Tom promised himself.
He had to do better than them. The giants, wador, and even the insects and dragons might not know it, but the humans were coming, and Tom was going to be at the point of the spear when they did.