Heat blazed through his body, concentrated mostly in his head. It was neither pleasurable nor painful just well… hot. The sensation ended more quickly than he thought it should as well.

  No dramatic music played, no third arms grew. But suddenly, he had new memories. He remembered being able to see and shape mana, learning how to do so by interacting with a generic oak tree floating in a featureless void. The memory was clearly artificial designed solely to integrate mana manipulation into his mind and a kind of mana manipulation ‘muscle memory’. A genius way to do it really.

  But enough about that, what could he do?

  Looking up from the phone for the first time in a while, he looked around. They were back under the tree. James had dragged the dead hawk thing next to them. Reminded of their fight, he first felt a surge of satisfaction, then a deep dread as he realized something.

  “James.”

  “Huh?” James was still battling invisible enemies.

  “We have to bury Hank. We can’t let the hawks just eat him.” Ardwin said, his voice monotone with resignation.

  James didn’t need to think about it, he just solemnly nodded.

  “Let me distribute my points, then we can drive it off or kill it.”

  Ardwin looked back at the phone, clicking on the blinking notification asking him to distribute his points. Fortunately this wasn’t a decision he would agonize over. Ard had always been a sucker for specialization, so he simply dropped one point in Vitality, never a good idea to stay at 0, then dropped the other three in Processing and clicked confirm. His body felt a brief flash of fire, then his head a longer one.

  But has soon as it was done…it was like he had drunk a shot of espresso. His thoughts moved faster jumping from one subject. It was like someone had upgraded his brain’s RAM hardware. He liked this. A lot. Suddenly killing the bird was a lot more attractive, if this is what he got out of it. It was like weeks of working out at the gym paid out in seconds, or acing a test after weeks of studying. It was time for round two.

  Jerome slapped at whatever fly was buzzing on his face. Just five more minutes of sleep were all he needed. But now that that infernal thing had woken him, for some reason light was shining right through his eyelids. Had he fallen asleep at his desk?

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  He opened his eyes, and sat up in wonder. He was sitting in the middle of a rainforest. How the hell had that happened? He lived in Alabama! Moreover, sitting up hadn’t come any aches in his back. His back had hurt with every movement for almost fifteen years now. Upon inspecting his hands, they were clean of liver spots. They were the blasted hands of a 20 year-old man for heaven’s sake. Apparently someone had kidnapped him, dumped him in the fountain of youth, then left him in the rainforest.

  He wished they’d stuck around so he could kiss them on the mouth. Feeling around in his pockets, he found a strange phone. But oddly it was stuck to some video game nonsense and refused to change from that screen. He replaced it in his pocket and stood up. If he was stranded the first step was to make a shelter. He set about gathering fallen limbs, humming as he worked. What a grand adventure.

  Strangely, just as he was finishing his rather shabby lean-to, the phone in his pocket buzzed. Upon pulling it out, the screen had changed. Instead of a list of some strange statistics, it a stream of text was appearing on a blank green background.

  Basic shelter crafted! Experience awarded! Level Up! Please Choose A Class!

  Classes Available

  Warrior (Hand-to-hand)

  Scholar (Explorer)

  Scholar (Historian)

  Scholar (Philosopher)

  Tradesman (Cook)

  Socialite (Bard)

  Administrator (Teacher)

  There was a bar on the side indicating he could scroll for more, but Jerome had eyes only for Cartographer. Jerome was a historian, specializing in the era of exploration. He had always pined for those days when intrepid adventurers had set sail and brought the world together one map at a time. When new species and new lands were discovered daily. Not daring to hope, he clicked the dropdown.

  Scholars have forsaken the pursuit of physical power entirely for the sake of the power of knowledge. This class provides a bonus statistic, Memory, that will gain free points per level. Unlike other Scholar classes, Explorer is a fusion between the Scholar and Rogue archetypes. As such it does not get any free bonus to Processing, instead gaining skills at regular points that aid them in exploration, mapping, and survival in order to chart this new world. Points in athletics will be expressed 40 percent in fine motor control, 40 percent in endurance, and 10 percent in strength.

  New world? Could it be? Perhaps some cataclysmic, somehow magical event had either changed the world or transported him elsewhere. Or he had died and this was heaven. Jerome didn’t dare look this gift horse in the mouth, and selected that beautiful description. He would map and discover every last secret of whatever planet he was on.

  After he was done testing his new abilities he climbed the tallest tree to assess the area. He got lucky, finding an extremely tall one allowing him to see the trees stretching to the horizon. But...the distance to the horizon seemed...off. That meant the very curvature of the Earth had been changed.