Dull rays of morning sun shone through the mesh of Lloyd’s tent as he was stirred by a comfortable cold on his face. Stretching out his arms Lloyd rubbed his forehead regretting getting so little sleep last night. As he groggily blinked himself asleep, he pulled on his jacket and a worn out pair of boots, stumbling on his way out. Lloyd mumbled grumpily about having to wake so early, yet despite this, he couldn’t help being excited for the day ahead of him.
Kicking around the ashes of the still smouldering fire he threw on some sticks and sat down on a stone as he let the flames warm him. Downing a mug of shitty coffee, Lloyd got out a map to plot his course, and he had to say, he was glad he’d ditched the ferry since it was really a waste of time and money.
His biology teacher had told him to stop complaining and piss off to the island himself if he was going to keep moaning about the cost. This might have been sarcasm, but that miserable old bastard had given him the idea, and when dealing with senile old wretches like Mr. Reed, it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
From the looks of it, the island he was headed towards was around a kilometre or so from the shore and shouldn’t be too hard to reach while the weather was calm. As the morning continued Lloyd wrapped up all of his chores at camp, stuffing his face with some half burnt toast as he trudged down to the waterline.
Sitting alone by the surf was his ticket over to the island, an old wreck of a boat his grandfather had left him before he died. It may not be the best, or even good, but it would be more than enough for him to safely cross the bay. Pulling of the protective tarp and brushing some dust off the seats Lloyd could barely hold back a grin as he dragged it down to the water.
It was finally time, after suffering through biology classes for six semesters he was actually able to dig up some fossils. Pushing the boat through the wet sand and into the surf, Lloyd leapt forward onto the rusty deck. Excitement urging him on Lloyd could barely contain himself as the engine roared to life, spitting diesel fumes into the air.
The engine screamed, as it was pushed to its limits, skimming across the waves at breakneck speeds. Lloyd gripped on to the edge of the boat as it shot across the bay, waves crashing onto him as the water got rougher. As the waves got higher and stronger Lloyd was really regretting coming across in the little speed boat instead of the ferry the school hired, but screw em, he wasn’t paying $350 when he could do it for free. Probably.
Soon enough the beach came into sight over the water, the destination was a small island about two kilometres across with some rock formations and a small forest. Lloyd aimed to dock on a sandbar near a large rock, and as he got near, he cut the engine leaning over to swing the boat sideways for a smooth landing.
A sudden barrage of water shot around the sides of the boat from every direction as a wave crashed down on him. The water surged forward as the boat was launched sideways through the air. Lloyd tucked his head into his knees as he barrelled towards the rock in front of him, bracing for impact.
After a few seconds Lloyd felt that something was off and opened his eyes, his heart was pounding as adrenaline rushed through his veins. All he could see was the text floating on a screen in front of him.
Welcome to the multiverse
Initiating integration sequence
“WHAT THE FUCK!” Lloyd yelled looking around “AM I DEAD?
“No, you are being prepared for your tutorial, in the meantime would you like to select your class?”
The voice was strange, monotone yet full of emotion, it was also completely androgynous. Lloyd looked around and fully took in his surroundings, was he in space? It looked as though he was floating in a void, but unlike the night sky he was used to, all around him were nebulas shimmering in vibrant colours with shining stars and space dust all throughout.
It was beautiful, completely incomparable to anything he’d ever seen, and it was everywhere. With one exception, a large white table with two chairs, and when he said white, he meant completely white there was not a speck of colour on it, it was completely blank. Yet that wasn’t even the strangest thing, that title would go to the two and a half meter tall creature sitting across from him.
Just like the table the creature was the same impossibly blank white, with the only change being a marking on its completely smooth face. In the centre was an everchanging symbol etched in an extremely light grey that appeared to be some sort of rune.
“Who are you?” Lloyd asked with caution.
“I am an avatar of the system” it responded.
“What’s the system?”
“The force that integrated you into the multiverse.”
“Integrated? Multiverse? What are you talking about?”
“…”
“Would you like to select a class?”
“What the hell is that? what are you on about?”
“A class will allow you to choose a path that aligns with your skill set to guide you on your path.”
Lloyd was about to yell at the system to give him a straight answer, but his vision was filled with yet another screen.
Pick a class
______________________
Warrior
(light, medium, heavy)
Light warrior – a class for landing lots of small, quick cuts to wear your enemy down with weapons like knives and daggers without getting hit yourself. Stats per level + 4 strength, +5 agility, +5 endurance, +1 toughness, + 2 vitality, +2 perception, +2 intelligence, +2 wisdom, + 1 willpower, + 2 free points
Medium warrior – a standard warrior class all about blocking and trading hits when necessary to slowly wear down your enemy with weapons like swords and axes. Stats per level +5 strength, +2 agility, +3 endurance, +5 toughness, +2 vitality, +1 perception, +2 intelligence, +1 wisdom, +2 willpower, +3 free points
Heavy warrior – a class about soaking up all the damage coming your way then demolishing your opponents with devastating blows from big, heavy hitting weapons. Stats per level +10 strength, +1 agility, +2 endurance, +5 toughness, +2 vitality,+2 willpower, +3 free points
Archer
Archer – a class for harrying your opponents with arrows from a distance and landing deadly attacks from afar. Stats per level +3 strength, +5 agility, +3 endurance, +1 toughness, +3 vitality, +5 perception, +2 intelligence, +1 willpower, +2 free points
Healer
Healer – a class not about killing your opponents but about helping your comrades recover and continue their pursuit of power. Stats per level +2 strength, +3 agility, +3 endurance, +5 vitality, +2 perception, +5 intelligence, +2 wisdom, +1 willpower, +2 free points
Mage
(fire, water, earth, ice, lightning)
Mage – the mage class is all about making use of your unique affinities and using magic to wear down and defeat your enemies. Stats per level +2 strength, +2 agility, +1 endurance, +3 vitality, +3 perception, +5 intelligence, +4 wisdom, +3 willpower, +2 free points
Looking at the screen Lloyd felt a mixed bag of emotions, for one utter confusion at what was in front of him but also excitement at the prospect of magic existing. He mulled over the classes putting all the pros and cons out in front of him. For one, the warrior classes were good since he had a basic idea of how to use those weapons, but he would be utterly incompetent since he was just a 17 year old and had no combat experience, especially not with medieval weapons like swords.
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The archer class had the same problems, with the exception that he’d used a bow, but his aim was just crap. Looking at the other classes, the prospect of magic was just too good to miss out on, but the prospect of being stuck as a healer sounded like shit as the idea of sitting in a tent healing the real warriors didn’t sit right with him on a fundamental level. That left him with the mage class, the wizard sitting in the middle of a fight launching magical destruction at the enemies. That was what Lloyd wanted to be. but then came the next question, what element?
Unfortunately, all of these elements came with large weaknesses, fire to water, water to ice and lightning, ice to fire, earth to water. All of them shared the same trait of being useless against a bad matchup, except one. Lightning. Lighting had no apparent weaknesses and several strengths making it a great option. After eliminating all but one of choices, Lloyd made a decision.
“I want to choose the lightning mage class.” Lloyd said to the system
“Confirming class choice.” the system replied, “Would you like to ask any more questions or continue to your tutorial?”
“what’s a tutorial?” Lloyd asked remembering he had no idea what was going on.
A new screen popped up in front of him giving a brief overview of a tutorial.
“A tutorial is a introduction to the multiverse to allow you to understand your new reality, it can consist of up to 100,000 others within 10 kilometres of you.” The system said
Before he could ask anymore questions, another screen appeared in front of him.
Tutorial
-10 years remaining
1 participant
“What the hell?” Lloyd screamed “it said you could have 100,000 participants, why am I the only one?”
“no one else was located in the 10-kilometre zone”
“What the hell? That’s bullshit, send me to a different tutorial!”
“That’s not an option, but before we send you off, would you like to collect your class equipment?”
“Wait I get equipment? Damn right I'll want it if I’m stuck by myself for a whole bloody decade.”
Lloyd was about to ask for his equipment when he saw a bundle of items appear on the table out of thin air. He thought about questioning how the system could do it but decided to classify this as ‘magic bullshit’, which was starting to seem like a new branch of science. Lloyd grabbed onto the bundle and went to inspect it but he was interrupted by the system.
“Enjoy your class, unfortunately your time here is up, good luck in the tutorial”
“Wait whaa..”
Before Lloyd could finish trying to glean information out of the system, he found himself once more flying through the air toward the beach. Lloyd pushed himself back to his feet, spat out some sand and took in his surroundings. It seemed the only reason he didn’t hit the rock was because it was now almost fifty metres away, but it was also nearly forty metres tall now, opposed to barely being two meters before, in fact the once small beach he had aimed for stretched on into the horizon.
Looking up towards the rock once more Lloyd figured it would be best to get a vantage point before continuing, but first things first he had gear to inspect. Unravelling the sack onto the ground Lloyd looked over its contents, inside he found 9 bottles of strange liquids with varying colours. Three were a sanguine red, three were blue like the sky and the last three were somewhere between blue and purple. Lloyd stared at them for a minute wondering what they were when he saw some text in front of them in his mind.
Mana potion (inferior) – Restores mana
“Potions? I swear I’m going insane.” Lloyd sighed “wait a minute how the hell did I see that?”
Suddenly a stream of information burrowed into his head telling him about a status screen and how to access it. The feeling of having knowledge implanted into his mind was quite painful and was almost like being mentally burnt. After getting over the feeling Lloyd gave a simple thought and before he knew it a screen materialised in front of him.
Status
Name: Lloyd Tethys
Race: Human (F) – lvl 0
Class: lightning mage – lvl 0
Health points (HP) 82/82
Mana points (MP) 105/105
Stamina points (SP) 75/75
Stats
Strength – 9
Agility – 11
Endurance – 10
Toughness – 7
Vitality – 13
Perception – 12
Intelligence – 22
Wisdom – 16
Willpower – 11
Free points – 0
Titles: [welcome to the multiverse]
Class skills: [electrify (inferior)]
Race skills: [multiversal tongue (unique)], [identify (common)]
Looking over the menu was quite interesting, his stats all seemed pretty good or a least above average with no outliers except intelligence at a whopping 22. It also seemed he had some skills and a title which he decided to go over.
[welcome to the multiverse] – successfully integrate into the multiverse. This is symbol that will one day command great respect, proof that you’ve been there since the beginning. +50 to resource pools
[electrify (inferior)] – the most basic of lightning attacks, shoot a barrage of electricity at your enemy from a short range.
[multiversal tongue] – the multiverse has countless languages, more than one could ever learn themselves. Allows you to understand every language you hear or read.
[identify (common)] – gives general information such as a race, level or a materials name when you focus on something.
The title wasn’t anything important and didn’t actually do anything, it was just there to say ‘congratulations, you’re here’. His class skill sounded cool and from the information it imparted him with, it would do decent damage, and he would have a high resistance to his own magic so he wouldn’t fry himself. His two race skills seemed super useful, with the multiversal tongue skill straight up letting him understand every language in existence and the other one being like a mental encyclopedia for his finds, this was probably what told him what the mana potion was.
Having now gone over his skills Lloyd decided to look over the rest of his gear, after sorting everything out he ended up getting a dark blue cloak and a very dry loaf of bread which he left in the sack. Now that he was done, Lloyd tied the sack onto his belt and set out for the top of the rock. Lloyd skirted the edge of the rock for about 10 minutes without finding a foothold, but rather a crumpled-up piece of metal in the sand.
“So that’s where the boat went.” Lloyd sighed
Lloyd kicked the bent-up hull of the boat and it bent like grass, the integration hadn’t treated it kindly. He scrounged around in the wreckage of the boat for a while but found nothing, just grabbing a few scraps of metal for safe keeping. Seeing his old supplies were gone, Lloyd carried on for a few minutes until finding a path onto the rock. After securing his path Lloyd decided to have a rest at the bottom of the rock. Sitting in the shade after the long walk, Lloyd closed his eyes and soon enough drowsiness overcame him.
Lloyd awoke to a sharp pain in his leg, he jumped up in fright slamming into the rock wall, he swung his head down just in time to see a reptilian head duck into the bushes. As an Australian his first instinct was that it was a snake, so he checked his leg with reluctance. But luckily the bite wasn’t the signature puncture wounds of a snake, and rather in the shape of a lizard’s bite. Glad that it wasn’t a snake Lloyd looked back down at the bush in curiosity, he crouched down and pulled back the leaves of the bush to look at the lizard but instead, he saw a small head and sharp claws flying towards him. Unable to react in time Lloyd felt a tail slam into his chest as bony limbs wrapped around his head.
The creature kept his head in a vice grip and wouldn’t let go from him shaking his head, luckily the grip didn’t hurt, but what did hurt was the small teeth digging into his head. Lloyd reached up to his head to try and stop the biting and found purchase on a long bony neck, when he clamped his fist onto the neck the creature dug its hands into his head but after a few seconds of struggle let go. Once it let go Lloyd ripped it off his face and launched into the rock, the creatures body let out a crack as its bones splintered and it fell to the floor with a thud. Lloyd panted finally getting a breath after the struggle, but one question burned bright in his mind, what was that thing?
Lloyd crouched down and stared at the broken form lying in front of him, he thought of all the reptiles he knew but couldn’t put a name to it. after checking his status to check his health he saw his question had been answered.
You have slain a Hypno-fang Compy -lvl 3
Experience gained, + 15 credits
Level up available, you have reached lvl 1 in your class.
Going back over his status Lloyd noticed some changes had happened.
status
Name: Lloyd Tethys
Race: Human (F) – lvl 0
Class: lightning mage – lvl 1
Health points (HP) 86/90
Mana points (MP) 117/117
Stamina points (SP) 73/77
Stats
Strength – 11
Agility – 13
Endurance – 11
Toughness – 7
Vitality – 16
Perception – 15
Intelligence – 27
Wisdom – 20
Willpower – 14
Free points – 2
Doing a quick scan of the status screen Lloyd saw that he’d made gains in both his stats and resource pools, he’d also gotten his first two free points. After seeing his stat spread and realising his lacking defence Lloyd put his free points into toughness putting him up to 9 in that stat. satisfied with his gains Lloyd exited his status screen and went back to the creature that had attacked him, a hypno-fang compy it was called, but what even was that? he looked at its frame for a few seconds until he had a realisation.
“That’s a fucking dinosaur.”
Lloyd’s mind was racing, he remembered the system saying it would incorporate local fauna, but these things had been dead for millions of years, why on earth did it bring them back? Also why was there a compy here? those things were from Europe. The system must have just gathered up local fauna and figured lots of fossils, you get dinosaurs. Lloyd crouched down and picked up the compy, while mulling over what to do with it. He ended up stuffing it into his sack, since it was small and he was low on food. Before he set out Lloyd sat down one more time as a grin spread across his face, he’d just killed a dinosaur.
Lloyd finally set out and managed to scramble his way to the top of the rock within about 15 minutes greatly aided by his increased attributes, as little as two points each in his physical stats made him faster, feel lighter -despite all his gear- and pull himself around the rocks with ease. Apon reaching the top of the rock Lloyd sat down and grabbed out the bread to eat, he decided to be conservative and only had a little off the end, but he just needed something to not feel empty. Putting the bread away Lloyd had a look around the plateau, on top of the rock were a few rain puddles, some stones and a patch of dirt with two trees, -a small eucalypt and a large dead ironbark tree-. Looking away from the plateau Lloyd saw massive changes, even over forty metres in the air trees towered over him further onto the island and the mainland was nowhere in sight. The parts of the island Lloyd could see were covered in dense rainforest and it looked like there might be a mountain in the distance.
The island was completely unrecognisable, what was once essentially a large sandbar was now a sprawling landmass stretching into the distance. All that was on Lloyd’s mind was exploration, but the sun was setting quickly, and he didn’t want to risk running into something bigger than a compy while in the dark. Lloyd sighed and headed over to a patch of grass and started preparing a camp for the night.
