"Well shit, you got me there." Adam admitted. It had been a careless comment. When did this conversation become a game? Adam thought to himself. It hadn't originally been like that he was almost certain. Whatever, this is the first time in a long time that I've actually enjoyed talking to another person. That thought made him wince. He wasn't exactly a social person, but for him to not be able to remember the last conversation he had that wasn't directly work related… Damn, I really am the perfect kidnapping victim. Shaking his head in an attempt to physically clear away the weird funk that had somehow swept over him, Adam focused back on the weirdly realistic hallucination he was currently stuck in.

"Alright, that threw off my plans, but this is still manageable. What are the questions I should ask you?" He was really hoping Kendr would let him get away with this.

"You know, I'm just going to call that a wash. Come on man, that's just a little to open ended. I could call that one of your questions and give you basically any answer at all." Kendr dashed his hopes. Admittedly, it had been a long shot, but the supposedly godlike being had been pretty receptive to what were admittedly barely even real questions.

"Ok, that's fair, then I guess my next question is, what's this class business with my last notification?" Adam asked, not even a little surprised at the response.

"That's…" Kendr faded off, a conflicted look on his face.

"Is that not a valid question?"

"No, it is, it's just that it's such a massive topic and I don't really feel like giving you a full rundown."

Adam sighed. "Just an overview?"

Kendr nodded after a moment, "Yeah I can agree to that. But that's your last question."

"What? Why?!" Adam exclaimed. This was such bullshit!

"For three reasons. Firstly, Answering this covers enough to easily qualify for multiple answers. Second, I don't want to give you the keys to the kingdom as it were, that wouldn't be very interesting. Lastly, and most importantly, I'm kinda getting bored and I want to wrap this up. I have literally billions of other places to be right now." Kendr rattled off shamelessly, not even slightly caring about changing the rules of their little game.

"Ugh, fine, I guess, since there's literally nothing I can do about it." Adam whined. This had actually been fun for him, he didn't really want to stop. He was figuring when this conversation ended, so would this whole drug trip, and he wasn't looking forward to what would happen next.

"Excellent! So, the class system is the main method by which the people of this world gain power. Things like your lovely epithet that directly grant powers are indescribably rare. Like, one in a million, and that's for one class independent power, let alone three. Classes are split into three categories, mind, body, and soul. Everyone can have one, and only one of each. All three types have different benefits and interact with each other differently. The number of classes is endless and beyond imagining. To gain classes, you have to perform actions related to the class. There's stats, and levels, and there you go. You good? Good. Bye!" Kendr rattled off rapid fire, visibly becoming more and more uninterested until he finally just up and disappeared with a slight distortion of light.

"Wait! Fuck, now I just have more questions!" Adam shouted into the air, his mind literally overflowing with all the questions he now had. "Damn, that guy was an asshole."

Looking around, Adam stared at the small clearing he was in, the tree surrounding it, with various bushes and other plants underneath. "This is just incredibly realistic. Kind of amazing that my mind can manufacture something like this." Waiting for a minute, Adam idly observed his surroundings, waiting for this whole experience to end. After several minutes passed, he figured he would look into this whole class thing, since the conversation being over haden't changed anything. He pulled up his last notification, wondering at the fact that he just instinctively knew how to do it.

Argentia offers you the body class: Outsider's Body

Outsider's Body:

You have been to the Outside and back. This has tempered your flesh and inured it to the chaotic nature of fundamental reality. This class will allow you to control that chaos and harness it.

Upon acceptance:

Muscle+50

Bone+50

Organ+50

Ability+10

One class dependant Ability

Every 5 levels:

Muscle+15

Bone+15

Organ+15

What is this? Muscles, bones and organs? Where's my strength or dex or con? Adam idly speculated. Oh well, it's not like it's hard to understand. Higher numbers means stronger, more durable. More efficient? What does better organs mean actually? It would be cool if I didn't have to go to the bathroom if I got organs high enough.

Adam was much more curious about how much 50 was in this context. A lot? A little? There could be people running around with millions in every category, laughing at his piddly 50. Also how did leveling work? Ugh, he had so many questions! He flipped off the sky, just in case Kendr was watching. He figured if he was as powerful as he claimed, it was a possibility.

Whatever. He thought, accepting the class. It's not like he had other options to look at, and he didn't really care, considering this was-

Congratulations! You have accepted your first body class! Prepare yourself for Body Transfiguration!

Adam looked at the message confusedly. Body Transfiguration? What is that suppo-

Then the pain started. Adam was no stranger to pain, he had been shot before, beaten several times, and burned one of his arms quite badly. This was nothing like that. This was like all his blood had been replaced with acid while his muscles were set on fire and every square inch of his skin was worked over by brawny men with tire irons.

Amazingly, horribly, he remained conscious throughout the whole thing. Some time later, he wasn't sure how long, Adam sat back up. He was almost offended that everything about him was the same. No gaping wounds or puss leaking from his pores. He looked completely unharmed.

"Oh fuck, this is real, isn't it." Adam whispered, the realization hitting him like a ton of bricks. Even if it was fake, he didn't want to mess around with anything that could hurt him like that. "Ok, time to get serious." He had been in this place for several hours now, if this was some kind of drug trip, he should have come down by now. At least, that's what he assumed based on his incredibly limited knowledge of drugs. He had to assume this was real, and he wasn't leaving any time soon. So, he focused instead on the new series of notifications he had received.

Name: Adam Mac Cuill (Unintentional Outsider)

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Mind: N/A

Skills: 0/0

* Know the Unknown

Body: Outsider's Body

Tier: !@)I#(

Level: 1 exp: 0/100

Muscles: 50

Bones: 50

Organs: 50

Abilities: 1/10

* Unusual Attraction

* Form of Chaos

Soul:N/A

Magics: 0/0

* Contained Chaos

Well that looked like a stat sheet if he had ever seen one. Although it was formatted differently than the other messages, which struck him as odd. Still, there were a couple more to go through, and one looked to be about the new ability he had.

Congratulations! You have successfully gained your first class

Congratulations! You have accessed the ability: Form of Chaos

Form of Chaos:

You are chaos itself given form.

Passive: Once a minute, you gain immunity to a type of damage

Active: Once a minute, transform one or more of your limbs into a weapon

That was certainly going to be helpful. Kendr had said that there were a lot of monsters in between him and anything that could pass for civilization. He didn't have any weapons or armor, so hopefully this would help. Just like the other powers he had, once Adam read the description he gained an instinctual knowledge on how to wield it. Focusing on the ability, Adam triggered the active.

His left arm started to twitch, before twisting unnaturally with a disturbing noise not unlike stirring mac and cheese. In less than a second, from his shoulder down he now had some sort of vine, roughly the same length as his arm had been. Luckily, the whole process had been painless. Even if it had been gross beyond words.

"Ok, I'm not sure if I hate this or love it." Adam muttered to himself. After using it, he had a bit better understanding of the subconscious knowledge he held. Firstly, he could dismiss this weapon at will, and it would remain until he did so. The timer until his next transformation started the instant the first one ended, so he could feasibly switch from one weapon to another. Secondly, He had a basic understanding of the nature and use of this new appendage. Otherwise, he was sure he wouldn't have any idea at all how to even move it.

Lastly, and this was the kicker, the transformation was random. It could be literally anything that qualified as a weapon. The only real limit being that it was biological in nature. Considering what he had right now, being some kind of plant based lifeform. He bet that the abilities definition of biological was a bit broader than his.

He looked at the new limb, inspecting it closely. It looked like several vines wrapping around each other, ending in a slightly orangish-green bulb with several leaves around it. As he focused, a message popped up.

Pyrovine limb: strong, flexible, durable. Capable of dealing medium levels of heat damage.

Which was a very accurate description. Focusing, Adam could flex the groupings of leaves on the end into the facsimile of a hand. Along with that, he could stretch it out to over four times its initial length for a short period. What he was really interested in though, was the bulb at the end. With a thought, it started to rapidly heat up, until there were visible ripples in the air. After a moment, the heat started to travel back up the vines, if with less intensity.

"I really don't want to meet a Pyrovine." Adam commented appreciatively. Getting wrapped up in vines as hot as a conventional oven? He shuddered at the thought. What a horrifying way to die.

This contemplation was interrupted by an earth-shattering roar off in the distance.

"Holy shit!" Adam yelled in response, almost falling over. It sounded like something straight out of Jurassic Park or Godzilla movies. Luckily, it seemed to be off in the distance.

"God damn, he wasn't kidding about the monster thing. Fuck!" Adam started to panic. This was so far outside of anything he could imagine. He didn't even know what direction to travel in to get somewhere safe. He was in the middle of nowhere, at least according to the only person he had seen since arriving. He had one ability that seemed decently strong, but he could be going up against creatures with dozens or hundreds of abilities. Did monsters have classes? He had no way of knowing!

"Actually…" That thought made him pause for a second on his panic spiral, a light bulb going off in his head. He pulled up the description of his single skill.

Know the Unknown:

You have seen things beyond belief. This skill allows the learner to understand aspects of reality that they did not previously.

Passive: this grants access to the Status Page.

Active: Focus on a target to learn more about it.

It wasn't much to go on, but at least he could learn. He wasn't completely in the dark. He had some qualms. Out of all his powers, this was the one that came with the least instinctive knowledge. He only had a vague sense that there were a multitude of conditions that affected how much he could learn from it. Still, every little bit counted.

Resolved, Adam started heading toward where he had heard the roar coming from. He figured, whatever was making that much noise was probably the biggest boss around here. This way he could figure out exactly how screwed he was. Not letting himself contemplate all the horrible ways he could die, he started hiking through the forest full of deadly monsters.

After a few minutes, he was actually a little disappointed. He had been expecting something to leap out the trees or bushes and murder his face off. Instead he hadn't seen a single living creature. He wasn't sure what exactly that meant from an ecological perspective, he wasn't a biologist, or whatever the technical term was for a scientist that studied environments. Plus, this was a magical other planet. Adam wasn't exactly sure how far earth biology would get him anyway.

He didn't even have a frame of reference yet. The only living thing native to the planet he had seen so far were the trees. Which looked like normal trees. Green, leafy, not much else to say. They weren't pine trees, and the weather was on the warm side, so he figured he was closer to the planet's equator than its poles, if that logic still applied here. Outside that, Adam realized he had almost nothing by way of information.

As an Idle thought, he stared at one of the trees.

Cormanth Pine: It's a normal tree.

Well that wasn't exactly helpful. Looking at some of the bushes around him, he tried again.

Belzent Berry Bush: The berries are mildly poisonous, but have some alchemical uses.

Well, at least there was more to work with here. Adam decided to use Know the Unknown on all the plants he was passing. As he went, he figured out a few things about the skill. It seemed at least moderately based on his own knowledge.

For example, the cormanth pine. All it said was that it was a normal tree, which meant it was basing that off of his own definition of normal. Looking over the skills description again, it specifically stated that it would only tell him things he didn't already know. So far, what that meant was anything that would act exactly the way it would on Earth, the skill provided no information beside a name.

It was rather comforting to think that some things here were at least similar to earth. Maybe the names of the trees were different, and the leaves a different shape or whatever, but they were still trees. Plius, it gave him some certainty over what things were magical, as they would have more thorough descriptions. He became absorbed for a time, observing the many plants he walked passed. It was refreshing, as it let him feel a little less lost.

Adam wasn;t sure why he wasn't curled up in a ball on the ground, sobbing. He was genuinely terrified of everything that had happened so far, now that he truly believed that was all real. His best guess was the adrenaline from the pain and monster roar, knowing that there was an imminent threat to his life so nearby, was allowing him to compartmentalize the soul crushing terror. That, and he didn't really feel a great sense of loss from leaving Earth behind.

You have (1) Unread notification

Congratulations! You have earned the mind class: Apprentice Botanist (tier: 1)

Apprentice Botanist:

You have learned the names and basic properties of 50 or more plants.

Upon Acceptance:

Cognition+3

Retention+5

Inference+3

Skill+3

Every 3 Levels:

Cognition+1

Retention+2

Inference+1

Well that was interesting. Now he had several more questions, but finally a few answers. If this was the average, or close to average stat spread for a tier 1 class, he was feeling a lot better about taking Outsider's Body. Also, he now knew what the mind stats were. It made him all the more curious about this whole tier business. He had a lot of ideas, but no way to confirm them. His next question was whether or not to take the class.

After some deliberation, he decided not to. He had three reasons. Firstly, it would not help him survive his current situation, which was his main focus. Secondly, and a follow up to his first concern. He had no idea whether or not switching classes was possible. Thirdly, and least importantly, he had no interest in being a botanist. With that in mind, he rejected the offered class.

Moments later, he stepped over a fallen tree, and through a gap in the foliage, saw what exactly had been roaring earlier. He really wished he hadn't.