Walter came flying out of the blue portal, his head slamming into the wall as he landed. Crumpling to the ground, his dangly bits exposed to the cool air in the room. He laid there on the cold floor, letting his senses catch up to him.

Blinking away his disorientation he looked around to see what type of world he was on. The floor was tiled, perfectly smooth, and cool against his bare skin. Flickering long bars of lights were embedded into the ceiling illuminated the room even though it had a window letting light in.

Counters and cabinets stood against one wall with a single mirror over a metal sink. A metal table with cushions and paper covering the cushion sat next to him. Weird devices were connected to a gray box with blinking lights on the wall next to the metal bed. The main exit of this room was a flimsy-looking wooden door with a picture of the human musculoskeletal system taped to it.

“Thank The System this is a human world,” Walter said. He knew that there were alien worlds you could end up on. Those were the worlds where he would most likely be hunted as a monster and spend most of his time hiding from the locals.

Walter immediately focused his attention on the mirror, his lifeline to accessing The System. Even his nudity was forgotten now that he had the chance to access his status. Standing in front of the mirror, he had learned how to access The System. But until they passed through a portal it would be inaccessible.

“System load status and skills,” he said while holding his hand against the mirror.

The mirror fogged over as he removed his hand from it. A physical connection with a mirrored surface was only needed the first time he needed to access the system on a world. Any reflective surface that wouldn’t distort his image too much could now be used as an access point to The System.

As the fog dissipated a blue glow began to emanate from the mirror.  The excitement he felt for finally accessing The System was more than he could imagine. The mirror now shining a bright blue bathed his grinning face in its glow as he began to read his status.

Name: Walter Freeman

Race: Human F-1 0/10

Titles: Exile of Valhalla

Experience: 0

Physical: F-1 0/10

Mental: F-1 0/10

Soul: F-1 0/10

Skills: Skitter F-1 0/10

His status was what he expected it to be. Being an orphan in Valhalla they had given him the last name Freeman. There were clan and family names in Valhalla but not everyone was blessed with them.

The title was something he had never hear of but it made sense. How would they teach him something if the word literally meant he was banished from his home. It would forever be a stark reminder that he now had no home to return to. He would travel the multiverse as a vagabond fighting The Darkness on any world he landed on.

With that sobering thought, Walter wanted a more in-depth description of what his skill would do. Giving the command for a more in-depth explanation “System show description of skitter” he watched the screen change showing just the skill.

Skitter: F-1 0/10: Dash across a flat surface.

The skill was rated at the lowest level like all of his ratings. He would need to kill a large number of beasts to gain enough experience. Increasing his stats was tantamount to survival. Every increase in level would take incrementally larger amounts of experience to make them more powerful. Every skill he learned in addition to this one would just increase the amount of farming he would need to perform for the experience. He could only hope that skitter would be useful at its low rank.

The last thing to check was what quest he had to accomplish to open his exit from this world to the next. There would always be a set amount of time he would have to stay in a world surviving. So even if his quests were easy, and finished quickly The System gave him time to farm more experience.

“System show quests” Walter commanded The System.

Quests: Create a Base, Rescue Survivors, Obtain Supplies, Escape Hospital

Time: 28 days

The first three were all basic quests he learned about from his old instructors, but each one could have a unique requirement. He wouldn’t know unless he asked for further descriptions. The fourth quest let him know he was in a hospital infested with beast without having to read more. Deciding to read his quests was prudent he said, “System show description of quests.”

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Quest: Create a base: Create a defensible location that is above ground level.

Bonus: Make it self-sustaining for increased rewards

Quest: Rescue Survivors: 0/10

Bonus: Rescue any number of survivors above the required amount for better rewards

Quest: Obtain Supplies: Obtain supplies not for the base but for you. Holding hands above required supplies for 10 seconds will cause The System to absorb supplies.

Supplies: Cement 0/1000 Food 0/100 Water 0/100

Bonus: Find hidden supplies for hidden reward

Quest: Escape Hospital: Escape hospital full of infected humans

Bonus: Save the Doctor for hidden reward

The base quest bonus would be too difficult to accomplish, but the survivor quest bonus would be a given if the survivors clustered together and were nearby. The supplies quest was usually The System given quests for gathering supplies needed in Valhalla. Being the exile of Valhalla he didn’t understand why he received it. But he still wanted to repay them for the training and raising him even if he never found his way back.

The last quest would be the one he focused on right now. If the hospital was infested with beast humanoids, he would need to be careful to not become infected himself. If he could find the Doctor and save him or her, he would receive some form of bonus that he probably would need.

Peering out the window, an expanse of towering buildings loomed all around him, blocking out most of the sky. The sky was something else they taught him about, and how flying creatures or machines could attack you from above. They failed to explain how beautiful it could be. Valhalla’s walls had enveloped the city before memory, encasing their part of the world in stone. A giant magical stone set in the apex of the roof created the day and night cycle for them but wasn’t fun to look at.

The ground he could see was flattened and paved with black cement, gray sidewalks lining it.  The only plant life he could see was strategically placed for no other apparent reason than for looks. Items he knew to be called vehicles were placed on the black cement between yellow lines.

He had learned about these “Vehicles” in class and that they should never get in front of them when they were moving. You could use them for traveling quickly on the roads. They had even seen examples of the vehicles but they were the size of toys in a museum dedicated to artifacts of technological worlds. These vehicles were found mostly in worlds that were magicless, technology-driven, and dealing with two forms of apocalypse: mutation or invasion.

The invasion apocalypses would usually have marching armies of beasts patrolling the streets or flying through their skies in ships. He saw neither of these so far. Invasion beasts were almost always physically weak and easy to kill up close. At a distance, they were considered most dangerous using long-distance weaponry to strike you before you saw them. In a worst-case scenario, their ships could raze a whole city from the sky making surviving them harder if they found you a threat.

Mutation based apocalypse was even more dangerous.  The beasts would infect a majority of species in a world. Then slowly mutate them into violent disease-carrying aberrations of what they once were. This infection could even be transferred to him if he weren’t careful. Some form of armor would be needed if he wanted to survive to fight up close with mutant beasts.

His long-time desire to access The System and see a different world finally sated he could now search the room for a weapon before he would exit. Some form of clothing would be useful, but that would be the last thing he would worry about.

Opening up every drawer, he looked for anything useful. Finding an assortment of gauze and medical tape he immediately taped any extremities that he could strike with. The drawers contained only one other useful item; scissors he could use as a stabbing weapon in a pinch.

The tall cabinet was where he found his real treasure, a 2-foot-long wooden dowel thick enough to use as a club and a long white coat. The coat being too large for him, could still be used to protect his body from the environment. Cutting off both sleeves kept his arm free from entanglement. Making it a bit shorter he could wear it, using the piece he cut as a belt helping keep some modesty.

Prepared as well as he could, he slowly opened the door and peered down a hallway. Flickering overhead lights illuminated the hall, doors lined the hall on his side. The opposite wall was lined with paintings until it reached a recess where he could just make out the front of a desk.

There were two obvious options at this point. He could scavenge for more suitable supplies in the rooms near him or leave the hospital through the window right now. If he left now though he would never find the Doctor. Going from room to room could mean better supplies but also could lead to finding a beast and fighting it. His instincts were telling him this was a mutation apocalypse and the longer he stayed the more he was pushing his luck. But fortune favors the bold and he needed more supplies.

The desk was his best option for finding different items without risking the rooms. Stepping out of the room he quietly shut the door behind him. Standing still he strained his ears trying to hear past the soft buzzing of the overhead lights.

Hearing nothing, Walter decided to test out his skitter skill to gauge its strength and uses. The activations of skills, in the beginning, were through the force of willpower. With training, the skills would activate instinctually in battle when needed.

His instructors taught that the true Hero would always call out their skills before using them. By calling out their skills they drew attention to themselves and in turn, would garner a grander image to the masses they were saving. To Walter, this always seemed stupid. Calling more attention to yourself just increased the risks to you.

Squatting down into a sprinter’s stance, he readied himself for a burst of speed that would happen. Willing his power to activate, he tensed his body ready to go flying down the hall. He could feel the power building up in his body but nothing happened. As he stood up thinking his starting position was wrong his power activated

He felt the energy flowing out through his feet as soon as he moved them. The world lurched around him as he went racing forward. Not in control of his forward momentum, he tripped over his feet tumbling hard across the ground.

As he rolled onto his feet, he could feel the strain the skill had on his body. Using this skill felt like he just performed a warmup jog before a workout. He could use this skill multiple times before feeling any strain on his body. As he prepared to use the skill again something moved in the corner of his eye. As he turned his head, the desk he was going to pillage was shoved into the wall as something dove at him.