Chapter 1:

Have you unlocked the inspect skill? Inspect is unlocked by staring intently at something for at least five minutes but it never takes more than ten minutes to unlock. Because of the ease of this, most people unlock inspect without trying. If you have not already unlocked inspect, please set down this book and return once you have unlocked inspect and tried it out. Please remember the easiest way to activate active skills like inspect are to think the name of the skill. It does not matter the language; The System knows what you are trying to activate as soon as the thought is formed.

As you have no doubt noticed with your testing, unlocking the inspect skill allows you to see the stats of others. This is effective unless they have a method of obscuring their System screen. Everyone has the same six core stats. There are many secondary stats which vary based on professions and unlocked skills. Secondary stats are always hidden from view, even if you have unlocked them. The core stats are Luck, Agility, Strength, Endurance, Intelligence, and Charisma. Most are self-explanatory, but there are two core stats that are worth mentioning.

Intellect has a greater impact than you would assume. Not only does the base number represent how fast you think, but it also controls how much energy you can store, what we call mana for each point of affinity in any given Domain. It will not impact what you can do with affinity. It will only let you take action more times before needing to recover. Intellect also impacts the rate at which the expended mana from the surrounding areas is drawn back into an individual's body. This causes the body to recover from the affinity’s usage. Counterintuitively, altering the intellect stat has no impact on how intelligent you are. However, if attributes are not assigned to intelligence manually, the intellect score will give you a good idea of the relative intelligence of any given individual.

Charisma cannot be improved on by any individual. Every individual is born with a certain level of Charisma. There are items which can affect an individual's Charisma score. Someone who puts on a small amount of makeup could increase their Charisma score by a point. Someone who puts on so much makeup that it is noticeably too much makeup could decrease their charisma score just as easily. As these points are temporary, they have no true effect on the individual, just how others act towards them. The System can alter this attribute if an attribute point is assigned to Charisma. The charisma score will impact how an individual thinks in a social situation. A part of the population will not invest points into Charisma. This is because each point of Charisma causes an individual to increasingly diverge from their original personality.

It is not known for sure how many Magic Domains there are. The primary Domains show up on the system screen if you have any level of affinity in them. If you do not have enough affinity to do anything useful with them, usually less than 1%, a domain will not show up on your screen. If it shows up as anything other than N/A, you can cultivate that domain if you desire. As you cannot cultivate affinity unless you are aware of what you are trying to cultivate, we can never be sure of the total number of domains unless that information is handed down from the gods. We know of nine gods from the annals of history, we know of nine domains, Theta has indicated there are nine domains common to Mankind. Assuming there is a Domain for each of the gods, nine domains would seem to be the correct number of domains. Even so, there are occasions where we have seen individuals perform magic while professing that they have no affinity in any of the Nine Domains. For the individuals who have no notable affinity and want to develop it, the primary Domains are; Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Death, Light, Mind, Space & Time, and Crafting. Please note Space & Time are a single domain. This is because bending time is required to bend space.

Affinity can be cultivated by spending time in an area which is rich in the Domain you wish to cultivate and drawing the affinity into yourself from your surroundings. This is generally a difficult and time-consuming process. We do not have any records on how this works. Be careful if you wish to investigate this item. Hades has been known to destroy villages and even whole kingdoms that looked into this too closely.

If there are no affinities showing up on your status screen, you will need to have an affinity unlocked before you can cultivate any affinity. Unlocking an affinity requires the unlocker to permanently give a small amount of their affinity to the unlockee. Crafting is the only exception from this rule. Crafting cannot be cultivated and cannot be unlocked. It is unknown at this time how to acquire additional crafting affinity or even if it is possible.

~Excerpt from “A Tutorial on the System” 231 AD

There is a chamber visible, a body floating in some sort of liquid is visible through a clear door. The neighboring chambers are empty and appear to be fairly dilapidated.

“Where am I?” thought Lucas. The last thing he remembers is being selected for the reserve and being immersed in the fluid inside the suspension tank.

You remain in suspended animation. Your brain has been brought to the brink of awareness as your current tour of duty is scheduled to end.

“Who said that!” thought Lucas.

Per your agreement with the Military AI, which oversaw this base, you gave permission for AIs to connect and discuss your situation with you before being awakened.

“I thought that was meant for medical AIs checking in on me. Not for someone to talk directly into my head!”

Be that as it may, I am the last surviving AI on this base. This is the 214th time that you have been brought to this level of consciousness since you entered the suspended animation chamber. You have a choice to make. You must choose to either be ejected from the animation pod or register for another year of service with the reserves. There are no applicants to take your place.

“No Applicants to take my place,” thought Lucas “that is extremely abnormal. Surely someone has passed level 3 in infantry by now. If there are no applicants, I had better stay put. Wait. AI, did you say the 214th time I had been brought to this level of consciousness?”

Yes, this is the 214th annual visit to determine if you wish to sign up for another year of service in the Strategic Reserves.

“How is the base even functional? If you are the last AI, will the base even survive another year?”

This is the first time you have asked this question. As the member of the Strategic Reserves with the highest seniority, would you like to run a system diagnostic? At this point, you have three options Re-Up, Run Diagnostics, or System Disengage.

“I would very much like you to run a system diagnostic, thank you.” thought Lucas, but before he could form the words the AI spoke again.

Diagnostics complete.

Remaining Power 4% of Capacity

No Remaining Water.

Facility Structural Integrity failing, currently at 27%

AI Integrity Failing, currently at 8% Recommend reloading from %ERROR%

1 out of 2163 Suspended Animation chambers functional. The probability of successful awakening approaches 0% in 300 days. The system does not recommend returning to suspended animation at this time.

“Um. Ms. AI ma’am. I would very much like to disengage from Suspended Animation.”

Very well. Suspended Animation System is disengaging. Please wait. Please check your status screen as The System has been patched since you last awakened. Goodbye.

As the fluids drain away and the light begins to shine more brightly into the chamber, Lucas finally managed to pull up his status screen.

“Why is my status screen green with black text. When I was put in here, it was blue with white text. I wonder what else has changed. I still have my marching orders though. We were put in here for a reason. The last fallback plan in case General Yang failed.” Judging from the state of the base, Yang had lost.

Lucas plopped out of his Animation tank and onto the ground. The regulations had stated that someone was always to be there to catch each individual as they disengaged and so to save money and construction time each tank didn’t have dedicated care facilities for use after initial reanimation. As Lucas emerged, he had no one to catch him. According to the AI, he was the last functioning suspended Animation chamber in the facility, and he was the most senior surviving member of the reserves.

Looking at his reflection in the mirror, nothing had changed. Lucas was a relatively tall young man. At just over 6’ tall he took after his grandfather. He had brownish hair and hazel eyes that had flakes in them that sparkled and looked like little pieces of white mica in the right light. As he was technically in the Military, he was a very physically fit 200 pounds. He may have been above the ‘recommended weight,’ but he had broad shoulders and was wider than average.

Noticing he was naked, Lucas pulled out the few items he had been allowed to store in the suspension chamber next to his suspended animation tank. Pulling on his military uniform, Lucas looked around.

The base was visibly dirty. All the suspension tanks around him appeared to be mildly to severely damaged. There were no bodies near him, but all the tanks appeared to be non-functional. There were visible cracks in the concrete and cinder blocks making up the bulk of the building material. A repair bot was attached to a nearby suspension chamber; it was frozen in place. The battery appeared to have been ejected, and the bot abandoned. Across the hallway, another repair bot appeared frozen in the middle of repairing a wall crack. Another battery lay on the ground exhausted nearby, clearly discarded after it was exhausted. The state of the base did not look promising.

“AI, please report status.” but there was no answer.

“AI, please report base status.” again there was no answer. It seemed that the AI could no longer respond to verbal report requests. It was probably a small miracle that he could interact with the AI while still in reanimation space.

“I suppose there are always the backup controls. AI, please indicate a path to a functional connection point,” requested Leo.

“It’s good news that the AI is still listening at least,” thought Lucas as a blue-tinted holographic arrow appeared.

Walking down the halls, Lucas noted significant damage. He came upon capsule after capsule where the controls appeared to have been salvaged. “That shouldn’t be necessary,” thought Lucas “the AI should be able to use the state-of-the-art repair nanobots to repair any small issues, and the repair bots should be able to repair the rest.”

As Lucas walked, Lucas tried to scavenge. He was looking for anything useful. Ammo, a rifle, pistol, energy cells, clothes. But he found nothing. As he wandered, Lucas noticed he had a few notifications queued to be processed. Upon swiping them open, lime green screens popped up.

Congratulations!

Scavenge

Beginner

1

The Scavenge skill allows you to find items hidden in ruins.

2.5% chance of locating useful items per level.

Passive

Profession Option

Would you like to take the Scavenger Profession?

This profession is focused on improving the materials you scavenge.

Yes

Wait

No

As a Beginner Human, you may have two combat and two non-combat professions. Professions can be dropped for a flat fee at any System station.

Locate Loot Active Skill is automatically earned upon becoming a scavenger

+ 2.5% to the value of salvaged items per Level

+ 2.5% quality of salvaged items per Level

“And that explains that,” thought Lucas. He quickly dismissed the first prompt and accepted the second prompt thinking that hopefully, he would now start to find some loot. As soon as he dismissed the first two notifications he was flooded with new notifications.

Warning!

The System has been modified since last skill up!

Restricted Classes, Skills, and eliminated quests have been removed.

Warning!

Major Quest Update

Destroy the System

Gen. Tsu Yang

Due to the death of the grantor of this quest, this quest has been removed from your logs. If you so desire, you may still complete this quest. However, there will be no rewards beyond the natural consequences of completion.

Warning!

Due to System restrictions, you have lost a skill!

Rifles

Advanced

4

Warning!

Due to System restrictions, you have lost two Professions!

Ammo maker

Level

3

Infantry

Level

3

Lucas stumbled a little bit upon after reading the prompts. It wasn’t like he exactly enjoyed being in the infantry, so that wasn’t too bad, but he had trained hard to get that rifle skill up to advanced to prove his worth and then it just sort of magically went away. Thinking about how to shoot a rifle, and how to create ammunition assured Lucas that while the system no longer recognized the skills, he still had them.

“I wonder exactly how the new scavenger profession ability works,” Lucas muttered to himself before he decided to kind of squint at a pile of rubble in a similar fashion to what he had to do when he originally learned the inspect ability. Thinking Locate Loot! he received another notification pop up.

Medium Pile of Rubble

Item & Quantity

Condition

$17

Worthless

1 Water Bottle (Full)

Poor

24 Bottle Caps

Common

113 Cinder Block Pieces

Poor

216 pcs of assorted garbage

Worthless

Lucas quickly picked through the pile to find the water bottle, as he recalled that the AI stated the base was out of water. After around 5 minutes, with the water bottle in hand, Lucas began following the AIs blue lighting prompts once more. Stopping every few minutes to scan a pile of debris.

Suddenly the back of Lucas's head started tingling. It was the sort of tingle that came on when he felt like he was being watched. Lucas crouched down and said, “Who’s there?” but there was no answer. He asked his question again “Is anybody there?” and again there was no answer. So, activating stealth, Lucas crept up to the next debris pile. Seeing as he didn’t wake up with any equipment besides his uniform, he had resigned himself to fighting with his fists when he saw a sparkle in the debris pile he was standing next to.

After quietly sifting towards the sparkle, Lucas managed to pull out a long copper wire. The wire was probably an electrical wire from the walls, but now it was just another piece of salvage. Lucas could use it as a makeshift garrote. Sneaking forward Lucas suddenly saw what was making the hairs on the back of his head tingle. There was a rat nest behind the next pile of debris. If there was a rat nest, there had to be a rat somewhere. Without breaking stealth, Lucas crept towards the nest.

As Lucas moved towards the rat nest, a rat slowly came into view. Oddly enough, a sort of health bar and stamina bar for the Rat appeared floating above the Rat’s head after Lucas had inspected it. This was relatively confusing to Lucas as before his time in suspended animation health bars did not pop up.

It was clear from its sheer size that the rat had been living well in the Former Military base. It was huge. One might even call it a giant rat, being around the size of a Golden Retriever. The rat was posed with its nose sticking up in the air, obviously sniffing around for whatever was causing the commotion. But lucky for Lucas he still smelt like the Suspended Animation goop, which was pretty much everywhere with all the wrecked chambers around him. He was able to sneak up unsmelt, and hence undetected on the Giant Rat and ever so quickly and quietly wrap the improvised Copper Garrote around the neck of the Rat and pulled it tight.

In an instant, the room exploded into a frenzy of activity. The rat, obviously not wanting to die, was attempting to buck off Lucas, but Lucas was too strong, and the Garrote too tight. As Lucas road the rat around the room it looked like Bucking Bronco was being ridden by a giant. Moment by moment Lucas watched the health bar on the rat slowly tick down. He couldn’t see the exact damage done, but he could estimate based on the change in the health pool. Just as a giant would eventually crush the Bronco, Lucas's weight and the lack of oxygen eventually wore down the Rat. With one final twist of the Garrote, the Rat was dead.

With what Lucas knew from his time before animation about the system, he had an idea of what was coming next. He looked down to the bottom corner of his vision, and sure enough, he could see the flashing identifying that he had notifications. Not wanting to forsake any possible advantaged if he came upon more than one rat at a time, Lucas activated his notifications.

Congratulations!

You have advanced a passive skill!

Scavenge

Beginner

4

+2.5% improved chance of locating useful items per level.

(Currently 1.43% chance per Locate Loot in this location)

Congratulations!

Scavenger

Lvl

2

+ 2.5% to the value of salvaged items per Level

+ 2.5% quality of salvaged items per Level

Profession Update:

By killing something without being seen you have unlocked the Rogue Profession

Would you like to take the Rogue Profession?

Deadly profession based around assassination

Yes

Wait

No

100% Damage when behind target and target has not seen you

Rogue Skills improve 20% faster

+ 2.5% to stealth per Level

+ 2.5% damage from daggers per Level

Congratulations!

You have advanced a passive skill!

Sneak

Beginner

3

+2.5% improved chance of remaining undetected per level.

Congratulations!

You have earned an active skill!

Stealth

Beginner

1

This skill is locked to the Rogue Profession

+50% improved chance of remaining undetected

+5% improved chance of remaining undetected per level.

Caution: % Greater than 100% does not make you undetectable

Lucas decided to accept the Rogue profession, because at least then he had a combat profession. With that Lucas continued on his way. He followed the Blue holographic prompt wherever way the AI would lead. Pretty quickly he came upon several additional Debris piles. Using Locate Loot, he was able to locate a Military Rucksack, albeit a bit moldy, to store his items in so he didn’t have to stuff everything into his uniform pockets. Once he found the rucksack, he was a little less choosy with the items he picked up. He didn’t come up upon any more Giant Rats, but by the time he came to the outer door of what appeared to be a very secure room, he had a small collection of potentially useful items built up. He had a few water bottles, a small solar-powered toolset, some steel bits, and about two and a half days of food.

“It figures that the MRE’s would be the one food item that would last all this time,” said Lucas out loud to no one in particular. If the base’s power grid had a connection point outside or near a window, maybe he could extend the life of the base’s internal power by a day or two. Furthermore, he had scrounged up a bit of food and water, so he would be OK for at least a couple of days if that’s how long it took to understand what had happened. With that, he opened the door and headed into the apparent server room.

Status Screen:

Name

Lucas Eckles

Health

279

279

Stamina

270

270

Total Affinity

17%

17%

Mana (Locked)

170

170

Strength

14

14

Endurance

27

27

Agility

12

12

Charisma

10

10

Intellect

10

10

Luck

13

13

Armor

5

Damage

1

5

Active Skills

Inspect

Beginner 5

Locate Loot

Beginner 1

Rapid Fire

Beginner 3

Dash

Beginner 1

Stealth

Beginner 3

Passive Skills

Hand to Hand

Intermediate 6

AI Interfacing

Advanced 3

Formations

Intermediate 3

Sneak

Beginner 1

Scavenge

Beginner 4

Combat Professions:

Non Combat Professions:

Rogue

Lvl

1

Salvager

Lvl

2

Open

Open

Major Outstanding Quests

Grantor

Affinities

Earth

0%

3%

Light

0%

3%

Wind

0%

3%

Water

0%

3%

Fire

2%

5%

Space

5%

8%

Mind

7%

10%

Crafting

3%

3%

Death

0%

3%

System

3%

3%