A single blink was enough to change everything around him. Zach stood alone in the middle of a vast white space as if he was transported forcefully out of his free will. He looked down and his body and clothes were all intact. Even the cup of ale was still in his hand, unperturbed. He questioned what was happening. It was so sudden that Zach was still in disbelief as his mundane life changed drastically.
“Welcome to Creation,” the archaic voice emerged once again.
Left and right Zach looked. Yet there was not a single person around him unless they were camouflaging themselves into pure white itself.
Zach swallowed a mouthful. Despite the place being clean and tidy, he couldn’t help but be fearful of the unknown. He was outrightly kidnapped by whatever entity that blasted the whole moon to shine brightly on Feywood. His eyes wandered across the vast space, stopping short as the ground started to shake. Right in front of him, something emerged out of the white floor. A white podium slowly ascended from the floor. Once it stopped, out of thin air, a white pristine book manifested on the podium.
He waited without moving an inch as the whole place turned calm and tranquil once more. Seeing nothing was amiss, Zach found the courage in his heart and approached the podium. The moment he was a step from the podium, the book unfolded itself. The fluttering noise of the white pages echoed and before he knew it, it stopped. He peeked at the page, and the letters made him frown. They were letters that had been far too long since the last time he saw them. His interest grew, and he read through them.
“The cosmos bell of war had rung. The Aeternus universe is ripe for the picking. Worlds will blend and the strongest will preserve. Show your prowess and conquer among yourselves. Fight and rise, and may the stars deem you worthy,” Zach read.
The frown never left his brows. Zach was deep in thought over the things that he had read. Things were far too random and nonsensical, except the part where he needed to fight to be deemed worthy.
“For a book talking about a war, it needs more than a paragraph to explain it all,” Zach said. Flipping the other pages and found there were all empty.
Frustration grew, and Zach was inches away from shouting at the top of his lungs, heeding an answer. But right before his lips could part, the sound of the pages being turned drew his gaze. A new page opened, and letters emerged.
“To rise in strength and status, power is needed. Choose what befits you, and you shall claim its strength,” Zach read.
His eyes went down. A list unfolded before him and the puzzle started to come together. Those names he read were more or less familiar in a time when skyscrapers invaded the skies and knowledge at the tip of one’s finger.
“Knight, Warrior, Archer, Rogue, Mage, Healer…” the list went on. “Shit . . . I don’t want to admit it, but this is awfully familiar to an RPG.”
Zach uttered words that would be too strange to his kin and people. He had a secret. A secret he had withheld from the ears of everyone besides himself. A secret that had no use to him when everything that he knew was redundant to his new life.
Zach reached the end of the page, and the last line gave him a single command. He voiced it in a whisper, “unveil.”
Name: Zachary Gardwin
Level: 0/50
Species: Human
Title: -
Class: -
HP: 190/190
MP: 100/100
SP: 80/80
Strength: 8
Vitality: 8
Defense: 5
Agility: 7
Perception: 6
Intelligence: 10
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Spirit: 6
Charisma: 7
Point: 0
A swift scan of his numerical interpretation revealed he was quite an intelligent man, and it wasn’t a surprise considering what was contained inside that brain of his. At first, he thought his physical attributes would be at the low end, but surprisingly quite high. Truth be told he was quite lazy these days, and his early venture into honing his swordsmanship managed to at least keep his body up to standard. The lowest of them was defense at five, and much to his ignorance, the defense stat was quite new to him. Considering the defense that he knew only was affected by the armor worn and not influenced by the given points.
He guessed that every system had its own unique flair, and this one had a tint of unfamiliarity. “So the level limit is fifty. That’s quite strange if I have to comment on something,” Zach said. His eyes gazed at the interesting method of showing his level. It was his first seeing such a thing and he wondered why it was designed as such. “I don’t know whether that limit is enough, but let’s just hope the enemy or whatever monster that will pop out won’t exceed that level range.”
He kept the level limit at the back of his mind. Thinking that perhaps there would be a twist behind such numbers as to his knowledge, a hundred was the standard.
Curiosity grew, and questions piled inside his mind. Zach gazed at the book and threw his hesitation away. “How does each stats affect a person?…” it was one of the many questions he threw at the book, and seeing how only his voice could be heard, it was a rather one-sided conversation between him and the inanimate book.
After many attempts in trying to pluck more information for future planning, Zach finally gave up. The book kept quiet as its pages remained still.
Zach sighed. It was a long shot, but at least he tried. Since he was totally ignored, Zach turned his attention to the list of classes at his disposal. Again, he tried asking the book.
“Can I see the description of the knight class? . . . Please?” Zach asked.
By luck, his question was answered. The pages turned on their own and stopped.
“Knight class. A close combatant that focuses more on defense rather than offense. Relies heavily on their armor and shields. Offensive skill options are limited when compared to defensive skills. The primary weapon is any one-handed weapon with a shield. Class bonus per level; +2 Defense, +1 Strength,” Zach read.
'I don’t know why, but if there are more people in the same situation as me, I think they would not hesitate to choose knight as their class,' Zach thought. There was a sure possibility that everyone in Feywood along with the rest of the whole world would be caught up in this nonsense, and according to his hunch, he was ninety-nine percent sure that most people would choose knights as their class. Well if he was to be more specific, people of Brittania saw being a knight as a dream. Be it for honor, or for rising in the social caste.
He couldn’t say the same thing about the other nations around Brittania, like Ziyad, Morrowland, and the Alliance of the Islanders. But he was confident of his home nation.
“Mage class. The wielder of the arcane. The might of their spells can decimate any opponents in a single blow. Highly reliant on the intelligence attribute. Despite possessing incredible offense, they have an innate trait of lacking defense. The primary weapon is any magical conduit-based weapon. Class bonus per level; +3 Intelligence. Class penalty; 2 free points to raise defense,” Zach read.
Now, this was an interesting one. Zach was well accustomed to magic. Well, the magic in games of course, but this new life of his also had its fair share of the arcane. It wasn’t as mainstream as most that practiced it were almost always in a cult and a bad one at that.
Back in the day, his father, Alren Gardwin along with the whole of Brittania went into war against the cult of the Sun’s Flesh. It was a terrible war, with most death not on the battlefield, but through strange incidents that ran rampant within the allies' territories. From puking black vomit to turning a naive man into a crazed killer, everything strange happened within those years of fighting against the Sun’s Flesh. Father told Zach, that it was the job of those filthy mages, using curses and hexes, away from the light of the battlefield. A dishonorable bunch, father said to him. Well, it wasn’t exactly word-to-word as most of it was a bunch of swear words that were not easy to the ear.
“I better watch out for the crazy bunch that would take this class,” Zach said. “Especially if they’re the remnant of the Sun’s Flesh.”
He made a mental note to be wary of his potential enemy. Not to mention, the family’s enemies would definitely be a headache if he met them later on and adding up with the madness of this system*, those types of people would definitely let their ego talk rather than their shallow logic.
“Come to think of it, can I not choose a class?” Zach said. The first thing that came to mind was whether he could gain access to all the skills if he abstained from choosing a specific class. He waited, and as if luck still shone upon him, the pages began to move and stopped right at the last bit of the thick white book.
“You may, but it is far from being wise,” Zach read.
He reckoned one of the cons was the absence of class bonus status points. He wasn’t sure about it, but it might not be that far from the truth, and to make things worse his assumption of being able to access all the skills might be wrong.
“What are the perks of not choosing a class?” Zach asked. Taking a shot while he was at it. Sadly, his luck seemed to dry out. The book didn’t move a page and remained still. It annoyed him quite a bit as he could only throw a glare.
Zach stood at a crossroads. Pondering between the safe route or the gamble. The latter would pose a bigger perk in the long run but only if his assumption was right.
Time went by as if it was endless. As if there was no urgency in him choosing a class and embarking on an unknown journey. He glanced again at the book.
“Is there a problem if I stay here forever?” he asked.
He thought he would be ignored. But the pages began to move. Zach read through the text. An intriguing smile at the end of his lips. It seemed however long he stayed here it wouldn’t matter. The moment he made a decision, time would start at the exact same moment for everyone.
Then a thought came to mind. Something that made him smile wider when compared to his first time in this new life with a maiden he stumbled at Kathura Falls.
“If this is a movie, then I think it’s time for a training montage.”