I soared through the city once again. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to make another trip to the ranch for food and other resources, but the rewards from ruin were substantial. Checking my watch, it was currently 2:50. After checking with multiple people, I was able to figure out that both the first and second wave took place exactly at 3:00, while the third wave came early around 11:00 am or so. I expected the fourth wave to come today, and I wanted to be in the city proper before it launched so I was ready for it. As I flew through the city, I kept an eye on my watch, keeping track of the time.

Before long, I saw a familiar building in the distance. I was only about two blocks away, and reaching the building, I turned down the alley. I decided to set down in the parking lot in the back then take the doorway and stairs because getting all of these long weapons through the small window would be a huge pain in the ass. After arriving at the parking lot however, I was left pretty confused. Instead of the chain-link fence that I was used to, I saw a fence made of roofing metal. I could also hear the sound of a diesel or gasoline generator.

Quickly flying over the fence, I was greeted with a strange image. I saw a humanoid gold dragon with a welding torch working on the fence. The dragon was easily 8 feet tall, not including the wings and tail giving even more length, and I could tell that its neck would let it stretch even further up. The cars were all moved into a corner of the lot, and because there were only three of them, there was plenty of space. The generator was powering the welder, humming along, and there were five gas cans around it. The dragon was pretty into their work, as they didn’t seem to notice me when I approached. I was also startled to realize that the dragon was not wearing a welding mask, just looking directly at the torch. I quickly inspected the dragon.

Race – Young Gold Dragon; Job – Cosplayer; Class - ???; Level - 11

I remember Cindy saying something about Donny being a literal dragon, but I wanted to make sure it was him. It was pretty shocking to come home and find a huge lizard working on your fence, and I didn’t really know how to take that. I was honestly at a loss for words. Not to mention the dragon wasn’t wearing any clothes, so in retrospect that made it even weirder.

I called out to the big lizard, but I had to shout over the generator. It took a few tries, but eventually, he stopped the torch and reached out with his tail to hit the kill switch on the generator.

“Um, hello? Who are you? I appreciate the work, but I don’t really understand what’s going on. Was the fence broken or something?”

The dragon smirked at my question, which was almost terrifying to watch, mostly due to the massive sharp teeth.

With a voice that was not nearly as terrifying sounding as the beast looked, it said, “Come on Vic. Don’t you recognize me?”

Yep. I knew that voice anywhere. It was Donny for sure, but... he was all confident. It was weird. I guess being a nine-foot lizard beat the shy right on out of him.

“Damn Donny. I always knew you were into some weird stuff, but I thought it was limited to an excessive dedication to cosplay. I never thought you would be the kind of person to go naked in public.”

He scowled. I’d never seen a lizard look chuffed before, and it took everything I had to not burst out laughing. He actually hunched his shoulders a bit as I said that, trying to look away from me. Yep. Definitely Donny.

“Well, Vic, for your information the clothing stores have all been picked clean, and for that matter I’m not sure they make pants that can accommodate someone 9 feet tall with digitigrade legs and a huge tail. Not to mention how inconvenient having wings would make finding a shirt. For that matter, it’s pretty clear that you have some problems as well. That shirt looks at least two sizes too small. And are those bloodstains? How unprofessional.”

That made me chuckle a bit. This shirt was pretty tight though. Not to mention filthy, and full of holes from my fights. I was starting to run out of good things to wear, and I needed new clothes pretty badly.

“Oh, shut the hell up Donny. *sigh*, You do have a point though. We definitely need to either go raid a clothing store or find someone who knows how to sew and adjust clothes. I noticed your job is cosplayer. Is that from all of your Comicon stuff? I have some presents for you if you’d be willing to help us out. I could use someone who is willing to craft some stuff.”

He looked over me, and then immediately burst out laughing. He must have looked at my job.

“Is your job really ‘unemployed’? That’s freaking hilarious. Also, level 30? Damn, you’ve been working hard. “

I let out another sigh, explaining, “Yeah, honestly I don’t know what’s up with the job thing either. I think when I decide what I want to do it’ll change.”

“Hey, look on the bright side. At least you didn’t get ‘job-coffee slave’ or something like that.”

“So what are you working on? Just trying to reinforce the fence?”

“Oh, about that. Actually, I asked Mr. Garcia if I could use the parking lot to try and set up a small forge and crafting station. Ms. Selena had to translate for me, but he seemed okay with it. It's super weird that he's a fox by the way. Anyway, my cosplayer job gave me some bonuses in crafting, and I always enjoyed crafting more than battle in games. I took a class on blacksmithing, and I know some basics, and I learned how to weld from my dad.

As for why the fence, I heard about what happened to Taylor and James, and I wanted to make sure that I had a bit of added security when I set up the forge. The Home Depot down the street was abandoned, and I figured I needed the metal more than they did.”

I nodded at that, and then gestured to my bag of loot, “Hey, I’m going to head inside and drop this stuff off. You wanna come with? I got some good stuff that I think you’d be interested in.”

“Oh shit, really? That sounds dope. What did you get? Any crafting mats?”

“Yep, as well as a bunch of other fun things.”

“Lucky you. Maybe you can change your job from ‘unemployed’ to ‘treasure hunter’.”

“Hah, that sounds about right. I haven’t exactly given up my dreams of becoming a graphic designer, but at this point I can make way more money exploring ruins and dungeons. There is that whole thing about constantly risking my life though.”

With that, I walked into the apartment building. I didn’t get far though when I felt an alert come to the back of my mind. It was finally here.

The fourth wave is now coming along as scheduled. Many people globally have now reached level 10, which is the minimum level required to take a class, and so the fourth wave is now releasing. Prepare for the dawn of a new and improved world! –H.G.

The fourth wave will begin in 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, …

I quickly ran inside, but I wasn’t paying attention to the shop around me. I just waited for the final wave to take place. The seconds ticked by, and eventually the final screen popped up.

Update version 2.0.0

Conversion of the final percentage of the population complete. This conversion includes Techs, those that have been given rudimentary access to a field of research, and can derive different powerful and unique devices based on that. They are now essentially each a genius of a single field. If you are a Tech, find a place, and get to work! The future of the past is now!

Class system is now unlocked. In major cities and points of interest class obelisks have been distributed. Different cities have different amounts of obelisks based on population. Class change obelisks are a system enforced safe zone, and most monsters are repelled from them with the notable exception to world bosses. After reaching level 10, a user can approach the obelisk and select a class. At any point after the class can be replaced for a different one, but sticking with one class for longer will grant greater bonuses.

Dungeons have been unlocked and placed in specific locations around the globe. They come in ten ranks, numbered one through ten, and that rank is placed above the door where it can easily be seen by anyone entering the dungeon.

Rank is a rough estimate for power scale, and similar to the worldwide dungeons, there are ten of them for all races as well.

For monster races, each rank is reached at the level cap for your current form.

For magical races, rank is determined by the complexity of the spell circles you can produce.

For beastkin, rank is determined by the strength of your beast skills, and the amount unlocked.

For supers, rank is determined by the strength of their power, and how much it can affect.

For Techs, rank is determined by the quality and scale of the devices produced.

All people on earth are currently in their rank one form, so get busy if you want to get some interesting loot and magic items within the dungeons!

Numbers of dungeons worldwide:

10 – 3

9 – 9

8 – 27

7 – 81

6 – 243

5 – 729

4 – 2187

3 – 6561

2 – 19683

1 – 59049

Dungeons have a party size limit of 5 people unless explicitly stated on the dungeon entrance. Each floor of the dungeon can have only a single party roaming about it at a time, and once that party leaves, a different party can enter.

Good luck everyone. The system is now autonomous, and will only receive updates when they are absolutely necessary.

-Luna

Alright. We were finally done with the waves, and the world would stop changing. This time we got dungeons, classes, and from what I understood, mad scientists, but altogether it didn’t seem that bad. Now that that was done, I could finally look around.

The first-floor shop was, surprisingly, occupied. Mr. Garcia, the red three-tailed fox, currently sat on the counter. He was using telekinesis to flip through the pages of a book, while a lighter colored fox I recognized as Ms. Selena was restocking the shelves from a box. Obviously they were unconcerned about the final wave.

“Hey Mr. Garcia, Ms. Selena. I see you are both doing well? It’s good to see that you are… um, well, adapting to your changes.”

Ms. Selena turned to look at me, and then trotted over, sitting down on her haunches at my feet. I would have to visit and pet her some more.

It’s good that you made it back from your training, Ms. Gale. I can see by your level that It paid off greatly. Now Victoria, I know that we are all going through some difficult times right now, but it is the end of the month, and rent is due. Generally I would expect a check, but with all the madness going on, I can understand you want to wait until later to pay it. I just wanted to make sure you all know that you are allowed to stay here as long as you need to, and we’ll work it out later when all of the chaos dies down. Cindy, Taylor, Nick, and Trevor have been incredibly helpful, and we are grateful that we have such excellent tenants.

Only the Garcia family would even consider rent during the apocalypse. I wonder if it has to do with that kitsune instinct. Thinking about it for a bit, I actually had an idea.

“Um, Ms. Selena, I actually just came back from a temple, and I have some coins. It might be a weird question, but could I maybe pay for rent with this?”

I reached into my pack, and pulled out three gold coins, holding them out for Ms. Selena to see.

VICTORIA! Is that pure gold?!? That’s way too much for rent! I’m certainly willing to take the gold, but are you sure you should use that much?

“I figured this would pay rent for a while. I don’t want to have to worry about it for a good long time. Also, I found loads of coins while I was out, so I suspect the price of gold will plummet soon enough. I’d expect to get more people trying to pay in silver and gold coins in the future, so you might want to try and work out changing prices.”

I suddenly noticed a puff of hot air, like I was getting a heat gun blown at me, at the back of my neck. I turned and realized that Donny was staring over my shoulder at the gold coins that were now levitating through the air in front of Ms. Selena.

“Vic... what else did you get from that ruin? How much more gold could you possibly have?”

“Let’s go upstairs before we unpack everything. There’s lots of loot to go through, and I need to talk to everyone about the final wave. By the way, how did you manage to level up?”

“Oh, yeah. I caught some goblins in an alleyway a few days back and took them out. Also, when you do your job, you actually get experience based on what you did. One of the first things I did when the change happened was to try and experiment with some crafting. Whenever I tried to make costumes or armor, I would get a small amount of experience. I guess without a job, you didn’t really know about getting experience through that, did you? The experience gain seems to slow down pretty fast, so it looks like you can’t just craft your way to max level. I got three levels my first-day crafting, but only just barely managed to hit level 10 today, right before you showed up.”

I grumbled to myself a bit at the prospect of losing an easy source of experience. I must have actually made my anger verbal, as Donny started laughing at me as we ascended the steps. I almost turned and dropped the hammer on his tail. Almost.

My apartment was as clean as always. Even in the apocalypse, Cindy still made an effort to make sure that our living space was spotless. I could hear the sound of a guitar coming from down the hall, so obviously Taylor was practicing.

It was nice to hear that she wasn’t panicking too badly after James was kidnapped. We would need to take care of this pretty soon, assuming that he was still alive. I didn’t know him well, but I knew that Taylor cared about him a lot and that she was hurting. Her normal social demeanor was nowhere to be seen, and I had never been around her when she was like this. We really needed to do something, and fast. He had already been gone for three days, and there was no telling what condition he was in at this point, nor was there any way to tell where he was.

It was time to have a meeting, and decide on a solid plan to get him back. I was tired of waiting.