ACT 1 – Ryun

Dealmaker

A loud beeping woke him up. Ryun groaned and started flailing around next to his bed looking for his phone. Finding it, finally, he turned off the alarm and closed his eyes. After a few seconds his groggy mind processed the time he had glanced on the phone. It had been nearly nine. He shot out of the bed and cursed. He had to have used the snooze button before—he just didn’t remember. He dressed quickly and stepped out of his room, grabbing his shoes and heading for the door.

“Slow down, or you are going to break your neck!” his mother shouted from the kitchen.

“Sorry, sorry!” Ryun said as he put his shoes on.

“Come have breakfast,” his mom said.

“Can’t, I’m already late. Zach is waiting for me,” Ryun said. He had three messages from his best friend, and he hadn’t even had the chance to check them. He rushed out of the door, stopping only to pick up the backpack he had prepared last night. He yelled his goodbye to his mother as he slammed the door closed behind himself, cutting off her response.

Zach was going to kill him.

He ran down the stairs, apologizing to the startled neighbors who hurriedly moved to make way for his hurtling form. He exited the building and immediately saw his friend sitting in his car with an annoyed expression on his face.

“Finally, bro! I was just about to come up and get you,” Zach said.

“I know, I’m sorry, I overslept,” Ryun told him as he ran to the back and put his backpack in the trunk, then walked around to the passenger’s side and got in. Zach shook his head as he started the car.

“If I lose my chance with Linda because you overslept, I swear to God, Ryun, I’m gonna tell your mother about last Christmas,” Zach threatened.

“Hey, now, there’s no need for threats! I said I’m sorry—and I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, right,” Zach answered.

Ryun could tell that his friend was nervous, and he could understand why. Zach had been crushing on Linda for months now, and this camping trip was the perfect opportunity for him to make his move. The only problem was that Henry, a dude from their World History class, had somehow managed to invite himself along for the trip. Zach, Linda, her friend Melody, and Ryun had been a part of a close friend group since the beginning of the semester. Zach and Linda became friends at the start of the year, and then Zach brought in Ryun, and Linda brought in Melody. Since then the four of them had been inseparable. Henry was one of the guys that they had a few classes with, one of those types that tried to be friends with every group—staying on the outskirts, then interjecting himself into conversations uninvited. Ryun didn’t like him, but he also didn’t want to say anything. Henry was jacked and almost a head taller than him. Zach, for his part, was just too good of a person to say anything.

Still, it wasn’t like there was anything really bad about Henry—he was just the type of a person who Ryun rarely interacted with: outgoing, popular, handsome, everything that Ryun was not. Still, the man had never been anything but generous to both Ryun and Zach, insisting on buying the entire group’s meals and such, even when he didn’t have to. It gave him a few points in Ryun’s eyes.

They moved out of the city and toward the mountains. They had agreed to meet up near the base of the mountain with the others, seeing as they lived on different sides of the city and the girls had their own car. He didn’t know how Henry would get there, but he had a car, too.

Ryun saw that his friend was anxious. Zach looked the part of a playboy—he was tall, fit, and handsome—but Ryun knew that his personality didn’t fit his appearance. The two had grown up together, and had always been more interested in more geeky stuff rather than girls. Sure, they’d both dated, but nothing serious, and their relationships tended to end once the girls found out just how geeky the two of them were. Linda and Melody were the first girls they had met who were interested in the similar things as the two of them, which was mainly movies.

As the silence stretched, Ryun decided to distract Zach. “So, I read an interesting article last night…”

“No way!” Zach argued. “Thor cut through a fully powered Infinity Gauntlet beam and nearly killed Thanos. Captain Marvel was sent flying with a blast from the power stone alone!”

Ryun grinned. “Sure, but she physically overpowered him before then. Plus, she can fly through space, and Thor barely held his own against Endgame Thanos.”

“He was out of shape. Prime Thor is more powerful,” Zach insisted.

“But not stronger,” Ryun quipped.

Zach groaned in annoyance and opened his mouth to respond when Ryun’s phone chimed.

He glanced at the message and turned to Zach. “It’s Melody. They’re at the meet-up spot,” Ryun said.

“Let them know that we’re a few minutes away,” Zach responded.

Ryun typed the message and hit Send—but almost at the same moment, a loud crackling sound broke all around, startling them. Ryun raised his eyes from the phone. The sky was cracking, lines spreading all over it, and light, bright and shining, washed through and toward the ground.

“What the—” Zach started, but his voice was lost in the noise. As the light intensified, Ryun could soon no longer see, and the sound matched that intensity as well, and he could hear nothing but noise. Words flashed in front of his eyes and he frowned at them.

Framework initializing. Prepare for integration.

Ryun closed his eyes and covered them with his hands, but the words were still there. The sound intensified and he was screaming from the pain, but he couldn’t hear his own voice. And then, in a single instant, it was all gone. He heard his coarse voice, and stopped. Breathing heavily, he pulled his hands away from his face and opened his eyes. His vision was blurry but he could tell that he was someplace else.

He blinked and looked to his left, seeing only darkness. Zach wasn’t next to him; in fact, he was no longer in the car.

“Welcome to the Framework,” a voice said, startling Ryun.

He turned around and saw the speaker. Ryun was sitting in a chair, with a table in front of him covered with some black cloth, and across from him sat a person. Ryun blinked his eyes, then squinted, but he couldn’t see them clearly. The person was wearing some kind of a black cloak and had a hood raised up so that Ryun couldn’t see their face. In fact, the only thing that he could see inside the hood was an endless darkness. The person had their hands resting on the table, and both were covered with black gloves. There was no skin showing anywhere.

“Uh, hi?” Ryun said guardedly. His mind was working furiously as he tried to figure out what was going on. The light and the noise, then this darkness… Did we crash? he wondered. It would certainly explain the pain and the flashing light. That would mean that this was some kind of a dream—except that it didn’t feel like a dream.

“I am called the Dealmaker,” the person said. By their tone of voice, Ryun assumed that this “Dealmaker” was male, although he couldn’t be sure as the cloak obscured their physical appearance. “I am here to help you make the first steps inside the Framework-run world.”

Ryun didn’t understand what he meant, but he remembered the words appearing in front of his eyes. The words had mentioned this “Framework.” A suspicion occurred to him as his mind recovered. He had watched enough anime and read enough books about similar premises to know what the signs meant, but that only gave more credence to his dream theory. This can’t be real, can it?

Ryun coughed uncomfortably when he realized that the man, the Dealmaker, was waiting for him to say something. “I am Ryun Nacht. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise, Ryun. Your world has been incorporated into the Framework system. It has been reshaped and populated with challenges that will force your race to grow. You have ten years to do so; once the ten-year period expires, your world will be destroyed and harvested for Essence. Only the most powerful ten thousand humans of your world at the time of the end will be granted free passage to the next reality called the Infinite Realm. The rest will be placed in stasis until such a time when all the Rankers from every world and their Iterations have been transported. Power comes in many forms, and as such you have different routes available to you in order to grow. Your world is the seventh Iteration of the world known as Earth, meaning that those of you who become powerful enough to be considered Rankers will arrive to the Infinite Realm in the seventh wave, after the other six Iterations of your world and the eight separate worlds.”

Ryun blinked at the information. He could only just barely understand what the Dealmaker had said, but his previous knowledge gave him the ability to at least comprehend it. He didn’t respond, but instead just thought about what he had been told. By now he was certain that this wasn’t a dream; it felt too real, and Ryun doubted that he could’ve come up with a story like the one he had just heard. But, this meant that Earth was about to be, or had already been, changed. He didn’t know what those changes would be, but he doubted that they would be good. Taking a deep breath, he looked into the darkness of the Dealmaker’s cowl.

“You said that you are here to help me?” Ryun asked.

“Yes,” the Dealmaker said, and raised an arm. A window opened up next to him with text inside of it.

Name

Ryun Nacht

Essence worth

3000

“What does that mean?” Ryun asked.

“The Framework has quantified your life, and assigned you the Essence in the amount of your worth. You may use it to purchase a path from one of three areas.” He waved his arm and three nodes appeared in front of him, each individually labeled as Class, Cultivation, and Skill. As Ryun focused on each in turn, he saw more windows appear beneath them. He took his time and read through them.

A Class is a structure that facilitates growth. Each Class has three abilities which can be upgraded based on a branching path. The power of these abilities depends on the Class and its rarity. Leveling a Class requires Essence.

A Cultivation path is a way of reinforcing a person’s body and spirit. Each path has a unique style and unique breathing forms, along with three techniques which can be evolved. The power of a path depends on the path and its rarity. Climbing through the Cultivation stages requires Essence.

Skills are the paths to perfection and greater understanding. Each skill helps a person do one thing and can evolve as a person’s understanding of the skill grows. Skills require Essence to purchase, but do not require Essence to evolve. Instead, the completion of skill quests is required.

Ryun read through the information available to him a bit more in depth, seeing as the Dealmaker was ready to let him. What was available to him was limited; he could see that each Class gave six attribute points per level, with three being free and three being allocated to the primary and secondary attributes. That would allow for some freedom in the Class build as it was not all already assigned. There didn’t seem to be any increase in points at all, and he could see that the Class could be evolved at level sixty, where a Class user would be able to choose from a list of Classes that their starting one could evolve into and for which they had met the requirements.

The Cultivation path was different. It was separated into Realms, and the information only covered the first two: the Mortal Realm and the Foundation Realm. Each Realm was separated into three stages: Early, Mid, and Peak. A Cultivator only gained stats when they reached a new stage, and from what he could see it was harder to advance in stages than it was to advance in level. The points one got every stage were also flat to all stats, and increased depending on the path and the Realm. With a bit of quick math, he could tell that those with Classes would get more stat points than a Cultivator. But if he was reading right, Cultivators would get special effects when they advanced and, also, the stat bonus increased through Realms—the Classes always gave the same amount of stat points, meaning that eventually a Cultivator would outpace the Class user. That was probably an intentional drawback; a Class user had more power from the start, while the Cultivator was weaker at the beginning, paying a price for future strength.

Skills were interesting. They were described as paths to a “greater understanding.” Ryun wasn’t really sure what that meant, but the fact that they couldn’t be upgraded with this Essence was strange. He was assuming that Essence was something like experience.

After he finished he looked at the Dealmaker, the being had stayed quiet and waited for Ryun to finish.

“So I need to choose between one of these three paths?” Ryun asked.

“For now,” the Dealmaker said. “You will be able to come to me at any time and purchase any other path from me for Essence, as well as other things.”

Ryun nodded. Realizing that he could pursue all three paths was getting him excited. “So, what are my choices?”

The windows disappeared and three new ones appeared. Ryun was disappointed by the small selection for each. “These are my only choices?”

“They are choices for which you have met the requirements, and for which you have enough Essence,” the Dealmaker said.

Ryun looked back at his choices.

Class

Cultivation

Skills

Fighter (common) — 2000 Essence

Path of the Fist (common) — 2800 Essence

Danger Sense |passive| (common) — 2400 Essence

Hunter (common) — 2100 Essence

Path of the Watcher (common) — 2850 Essence

Clear Sight |passive| (common) — 2600 Essence

Thief (common) — 2200 Essence

Path of Knowledge (common) — 2900 Essence

Cut |active| (common) — 2800 Essence

Scout (common) — 2800 Essence

Path of the Sword (common) — 2950 Essence

Strike |active| (common) — 2900 Essence

All of them were common, and he didn’t know how he felt about that. He also didn’t know how the Framework had quantified his life; was three thousand Essence, a lot or only a little? He wondered what other people’s Essence number was, and what their choices were.

He had already decided to go for the Cultivation node, but none of the choices appealed to him much, especially since they had the common rating, but he knew that his future growth would be decided by his choice. Then, after a few minutes of thinking about his choices, something struck him, and he turned his eyes back to the being across from him.

“Your name is the Dealmaker. Does that mean that we can make a deal?” Ryun asked.

The Dealmaker tilted his head and spoke with what to Ryun’s ears sounded like mirth. “Depends on what kind of a deal you want, and what you can offer.”

Ryun felt a side of his mouth turn up. If the world was going to be more dangerous, if there was going to be a competition to see who was going to survive, he assumed that the world was going to become a much more brutal place. “What are the rarity ratings?”

“Common, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary, and mythic,” the Dealmaker answered. “Starting paths cannot be of a greater rating than rare.”

That meant that they could probably be upgraded afterward. “Can you show me rare Cultivation paths?”

Suddenly the area behind the Dealmaker was filled with hovering orbs, and upon focusing on one, Ryun could see the name of a path. The problem was that there were just too many; he couldn’t even begin to count them, but there were thousands at least. And the prices… Every one he focused on had a price tag of more than fifteen thousand. The problem was that each path had only a few words attached to it that explained what they were focused on.

“Can you show me only the combat-focused paths?” Ryun said.

The orbs shifted, many disappearing and others moving into their place. But there were still too many.

“How about the paths that have the potential to eventually reach legendary rarity?” Ryun asked on a hunch.

Even more orbs disappeared, but not as many as he had hoped for. There were still hundreds of them, and each had a price tag of more than a hundred thousand.

“Out of these, show me the paths that focus on destructive power,” Ryun said.

The orbs shifted and only three remained. Ryun immediately started reading their notes.

Path of the Storm (rare) — 300,000 Essence

Follow the path of the elements. Harness the power of the heavens themselves.

Path of the Final End (rare) — 250,000 Essence

Follow the path of pure destruction. Harness the power of your inner spirit.

Path of the Rampaging Earth (rare) — 150,000 Essence

Follow the path of primal destruction. Harness the power of the Earth.

All three paths cost an incredible amount, and each seemed to be powerful, or at least had the potential to become incredibly powerful. Of course, he couldn’t afford any of them.

“So, what would it take for me to get one of these paths?” Ryun asked.

“Essence,” Dealmaker answered.

“And how can I get more Essence?”

“Essence is earned by killing monsters, accomplishing feats and quests, and by recovering it from the environment. You can chose to keep your Essence without spending it, return to your world as you are, and then come back when you accumulate enough.”

Ryun frowned. The way that the Dealmaker had put it made him doubt that he could survive for long in this new world without a path. “Any chance that I can take a loan? Return the Essence afterward?”

“No,” the Dealmaker chuckled.

“You said that we can make a deal, right?”

“Yes.”

“These three thousand Essence that I have, they are based on the way I have lived my life. They’re like my achievements, correct?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Ryun thought about it a bit more, going over everything that he had learned so far. A thought occurred to him, but he needed to test it out. “You said that I can buy the paths from you, but also other things. What are those other things?”

“Items, weapons, potions, pills, concoctions… Anything and everything,” the Dealmaker said.

“Does that mean that I can also sell things to you for Essence?”

“Yes.”

“Is there any restriction on what can be sold?”

“There is no restriction. Anything you own you can sell,” the Dealmaker said.

“So, let’s say I wanted to trade my sense of smell for Essence. How much would I get?” Ryun asked.

The Dealmaker exploded in laughter. “Ah, this is not the first time someone has offered me something like this—but never on our first meeting! For your sense of smell, you would get five thousand Essence.”

“So little?” Ryun spoke instinctively.

“Well, your sense of smell is not particularly well developed, now is it? If you were a high-level Classer, you would get more.”

“If I sell you all my senses, how much would I get?” Ryun asked.

“For all of your senses, you would get one hundred and twenty thousand,” the Dealmaker responded.

That meant that some senses had more value than the others. Still, he had never intended on selling his senses; it was just an exercise so that he could test out what could and could not be sold. Ryun wanted to make a deal, not a trade.

He put his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a coin. The Dealmaker tilted his head as he studied Ryun.

“And what is this?” the Dealmaker asked.

“How about we make a deal. A wager,” Ryun said.

“You wish to gamble?” the Dealmaker asked.

“Yes, and if I win I get to pick one of these three Cultivation paths.”

“And what would you be betting? You do not possess anything of equivalent value even to the lowest valued path.”

“I want to wager my life,” Ryun said.

The Dealmaker didn’t respond.

“If only my senses are valued so, then I assume that everything that makes me human is valued more. Correct?”

“You would let a coin toss decide whether you live or die?”

“Yes,” Ryun answered. In the back of his head he could hear himself screaming that this was a bad idea, that he shouldn’t gamble like this. In truth, he didn’t know why he was doing it. In the other world, he had never been one to take chances, even when he wanted something. But here, he felt free; here, he felt no fear whatsoever. If everything that he had learned here, and everything that he assumed based on his prior experience with games, books, and shows was right, then he needed power in order to survive. Buying a weak Class and then dying to the first thing that attacked him was pointless—it was best that he walked out of here with a good foundation for the future.

“So, if you win, you get to pick the path, and if I win, I get all of you and your Essence?” the Dealmaker asked.

“Yes.”

“I accept this bargain, mortal. You may call.”

Ryun took a deep breath, then flicked the coin in to the air. “Heads,” he called and watched as it dropped to the table.

He stared at the coin for a long moment, and then he started laughing, the Dealmaker joining him a moment later.

“You are one crazy mortal, but a deal is a deal. You may choose.”

Ryun glanced at the three choices and picked. The orb for the Path of the Final End flew straight at him and entered his chest. He felt a burning sensation spread through his body, and then knowledge seep into his mind. When it was done, he realized that he knew how to begin following this path, and he felt elated. But then he pushed those thoughts aside and looked back at the Dealmaker.

“I still have my own three thousand Essence left, right?”

The Dealmaker shook his head and laughed.

Ryun woke up on his back, staring at the tree branches above him. Words were floating in front of his eyes inside a small window.

Welcome to the Framework.

It took his groggy mind only a moment to remember what had happened, and his dream—which, as it turned out, had not been a dream. He jerked up and thought about the window disappearing, and it did once he focused and willed it away. He realized that he was shaking. He couldn’t believe what he had done in the dream, or the other place, or whatever. He had gambled with his own life. Now that he was back in the world, he realized that something about that place had made him act differently. He had been able to think and act, but it was as if he had no self control. He had been so focused on getting the best deal possible that he had nearly thrown his life away. Ryun was certain that if he had been himself he wouldn’t have done what he had. He would’ve been too afraid.

He shook his head and looked around, seeing that he was inside a forest that looked much like the one he had been headed to for camping: Hemmlot Park. A groan made him remember Zach, and he turned around, finding him lying a little bit away. Zach got up and saw that Ryun was holding a scabbard and a sword in his left hand. His attention made Ryun remember his visit with the Dealmaker.

Putting that out of his mind, Ryun ran over to his friend.

“Did you have a strange dream, too?” Zach asked, keeping his eyes closed.

“I don’t think it was a dream,” Ryun said.

Zach grimaced and waved his hands in front of his eyes as he stared at something only he could see. “Right,” he said after a moment, turning to look at Ryun.

“The Framework,” Ryun said. “I would say holy shit, but I don’t think that it covers even a portion of it.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Zach said. “Where are we, anyway?”

“I think we’re in the park. We’d already been here when the thing hit.”

“Right,” Zach said. “The car?”

“It’s not here,” Ryun said.

“Shit,” Zach cursed, and then his eyes widened. “The girls.”

“Fuck,” Ryun said—he hadn’t even thought about them. “We were placed somewhere in the park, I don’t think that we are too far away from them. They might’ve been thrown somewhere close by like us.”

“We need to find them,” Zach said.

“What we need to do is be careful,” Ryun said as he pulled his sword slightly out of its scabbard.

Zach blinked as he noticed it. “Where did you get that?”

“I made a deal,” Ryun said.

“Right. Fuck, my head is all jumbled up. What did you pick?”

“Cultivation,” Ryun answered. “You?”

“I got a Class, Swordsman, an uncommon one.”

Ryun raised an eyebrow. “That was one of the ones you had on offer?”

“Yeah.”

“How much Essence did you have?”

“About ten thousand, you?” Zach answered.

“Crap, I had three thousand. But I got a rare Cultivation path. I kinda gambled with my life for it.” He wondered why Zach had ten thousand Essence. Sure, he was better looking, more fit, and all that—but there had to be more than that to it.

“What?”

“I’ll tell you later, I think we need to get out of here as fast as possible and find the others. I don’t think the wild is really safe anymore.”

“You’re right. Fuck me, this is really happening, right? I’m not dreaming?”

“If you are, then we are dreaming together, so it doesn’t matter.”

Ryun remembered the instructions from the Dealmaker and mentally called up his status. Several windows appeared in front of him.

Name

Ryun Nacht

Race

Human (Earth—Iteration Seven)

Titles

/

Essence

0

Strength

6

Dexterity

7

Vitality

7

Endurance

6

Intelligence

7

Wisdom

8

Cultivation

The Path of the Final End ( R )

Stage

No Stage (0/100 Essence)

Base technique

/

Branch technique

/

Fruit technique

/

Active Skills

Cut (0/10)

He had been lucky that he’d had enough Essence for a simple sword and a skill—especially since it looked like he couldn’t advance on his path until he earned at least one hundred Essence. In retrospect he probably should’ve left some, but he hadn’t known about that then. His stats didn’t look all that stellar, either, and his first boost to stats would come from the Early Stage. He just had to survive until then.

He dismissed his screens and was about to suggest to Zach that they start moving, when a growl made his entire body freeze. Ryun turned around slowly, only to see a wolf-sized monster with red eyes staring straight at him.