The most irksome fact of the System is that, in order for your brain to understand and hold the knowledge and abilities it offers you, it replaces those parts of your mind that handle your innate skills and abilities to do so. You have not merely forgotten what you once were capable of – the way your mind stored those skills has literally been replaced with one compatible with the System and how it operates. We hypothesized, given we know that the mentioned 'First contact' team had the ability to let individuals opt out, that the intent was that those people vital to the survival of your society would be flagged as such, as well as those below the age of informed reason, as the System would need to properly integrate and function in conjunction with your society.

Since it has not been configured since only a few dozen 'Standard Orbits' after its creation, instead it destroys civilisation. The Monsters and Adventurers are but two of the three things that make this the most important document you will ever see in the Store.

You MUST learn and prepare for what will happen.

- What you need to know to survive the Voidbound System, By &*%:・%^%

Francine set off, and the team settled down to review their chores: For Jonathan, it was a revelation. Launching the store, he found options for equipment, for spells, for skill books, and a pretty comprehensive filtering system to refine what he wanted – everything, in short, that was missing from Sunday's skill selection.

What he saw seemed to be split between 'default', System-created content, and content that had clearly been created by other System users – alien ones, going by the little names attached (More than half of which couldn't even be legibly translated by the System into something he comprehended). They seemed to be split – for him, at least – between Skills, Spells, and Equipment: so he set it up to show him everything he could afford, appropriate for his skill set, within those categories – and there were still thousands of entries: The one that grabbed his attention, however, was a piece of Equipment – a 'Dataset', according to the display – that was available for all of 1 SMU – and was titled: 'READ THIS. What you need to know to survive the Voidbound System'. Considering that... boded somewhat, he had no qualms in buying it without delay.

As usual, the System did not ask for confirmation, and deducted 1 SMU: There was a faint shimmering before him, a pulse of energy through his mind, and what looked like a tablet materialized on the table before him – causing Frank to look over in surprise. “Where the hell did that come from?” he asked, his tone alarmed. “It looks like it's the System for Dummies.” Jon replied, frowning with a hint of worry as he perused the contents – he seemed to intuitively know how it operated. “And going by the title, The System causes issues – It's How to Survive the System', only laden with what I presume are alien swearwords.”

“Shit.” Replied the others, echoed by a 'Fuck!' from Dave – who reached over and snagged the device – before Jonathan went back into the Store, to see what he could find.

Prodding amongst the options he found out how to get his 'Basic Equipment Issuance', but apparently didn't have any: looking over the Skills, the cost seemed to vary from anything from 144 SMU for some at initiate 1, up to twelves of thousands for a few of the skills, that seemed to promise journeyman level comprehension. Spending some time – and making notes – he focused on getting a comprehensive idea of how various skills were costed, before looking at the equipment: almost all of it appeared to be made by fellow players, and prices varied wildly. He decided to hold off on searching through the thousands – if not millions- of entries, until they had an idea of what they might need: Going by his test with the Dataset, delivery was instant, after all.

Lastly, he turned to spells: specifically, Life spells. The perks had given him the basic idea, but looking over the spell list confirmed it: Life magic seemed to apply to any and all manipulation of living things. Two spells in particular caught his eye – one out of interest, the other out of mild horror. The first was only a little odd, but certainly seemed useful:

Rejuvenation (Requires Life Magic at Journeyman 1, 5184 SMU)

72 Mana, Touch - This spell was devised by the Grandmaster !%^&!￡$^**, to deal with the population crisis on his World. Upon casting this Spell upon a System enabled subject, over the next 28,812 seconds, it will rejuvenate their cells and bodies back to their sexual prime, and raise their health and fitness level to 12% above baseline for their species.

Again, the focus on Procreation was more than a little disquieting, especially referenced to a population crisis. The other spell seemed almost innocuous, until he realised that there were no limitations on applying it to non-sentient monsters.

Enslavement (Requires Life Magic at Beginner 12, 3456 SMU)

48 Mana, Touch - This spell allows the Life Magic Practitioner to alter the physical and neurological biochemistry of a System enabled subject, imposing the Loyalty and Soulbound Traits upon them with regards to the Caster for the rest of the life of the subject.

He wasn't sure what Traits were, but given the way the name of the spell was translated, it wasn't that hard to guess what those two did. There were spells for curing disease, for reshaping living things, he found one that used both life and plasma magic to create what seemed to be living fire elementals – he didn't have the Initiate 8 rank in plasma Magic to use it, but it looked kinda tempting, and confirmed that cross-discipline skills were a thing: Indeed, when he altered his settings to view all the spells, he noted that multi-discipline spells seemed to dominate the list, and there seemed to be more than one way to skin a cat, as it were: There was a combination time/Destiny/Life spell that seemed to do something similar to Rejuvenation, and the things that needed Grandmaster level abilities? There was one that promised to terraform a world in 11.4 seconds, needing Life, Space, Creation, Mana, and Destiny at ratings ranging from Adept to Grandmaster.

It took about an hour and a half before the rest of the team arrived – It seemed that, much like the programming ability, Francine's Skills for driving her bike applied to every wheeled vehicle., as they returned in Shawn's SUV. They all gathered round the table, Michelle distributing some absolutely stunning snacks for them to eat, and Shawn took over the room, as was his habit.

“Right. Briefing, please, Let's see how fucked we are. Larry, you start. What are our Options? Anything useful that's not been automatically configured?” Larry nodded.

“Good news on that front. If you go in through Options, into Time, you can get it to display things in minutes, hours, months, and years, instead of just seconds – apparently, we need to personally teach it what those things are. There are the options we'd expect, for altering how the information is delivered to us – instead of those damn blue boxes, there's a lot of control over cover, opacity, and intensity. Even delivery method if you don't have vision as a primary sense – but there are some senses in there I've never heard of. You can also control how Perk, Ability, and Spell given senses are perceived, activated, or in some cases if they're always on or not – that seems to be configured per buff. Finally, you can enable additional things on the sheet – having it show resistances, how pools are calculated, where modifiers come from, and the like – and enable a history of when things have been affected you that you were able to perceive.” he emphasized that point, his face grim.

Everyone took a moment to process that – and no doubt start fiddling with their interfaces – before Shawn nodded to David. “And what have you learned?” David snorted. “We're fucked.” he held up the Dataset Jon had provided. “According to this, as far as the author can tell, the System was created a long time ago by some race that was really into games, and thought it would make a good way to handle diplomacy. They were the ones who were supposed to send out the first contact teams, and the like. Apparently they were wiped out a couple hundred years later, by a world that took offence - and apparently convinced their star to vaporise their world.” he paused, slightly, letting that sink in.

“Because of this, the dungeons will apparently spawn randomly, since they weren't set, and since no Adventurer zones are established, the monsters they generate can roam without limit. According to this, it took his world four Standard Orbital Units to get a handle on things – and they lost two thirds of their population in the doing.” There was a moment of silence as this statement propagated, but Dave did not let up.

“A good chunk of that was when the galaxy system opened up, and the high-level adventurers, and by the sound of things, pirates, started coming over to visit.” his expression grim as he delivered that news. “According to the author, our best bet is getting something called a 'Fortress Spike' from the store – which was apparently intended to create safe bases inside Adventurer zones – but since the whole world will be an Adventurer zone, it's the only way to make a safe base.” he sighed. “Apparently, they cost something like ten thousand SMU's.” eyes turned to Jon at that statement, who just nodded. “Regarding Perks and Skills – by default, we get one Perk every four ranks in an ability or twelve ranks in an Attribute, but. If we're being taught or trained by someone with the Instruction ability at Apprentice or higher, then apparently when Perks come around we get extra, based on how skilled they are – and our Perk choices are based on System-default ones, others should appear based on how we use our abilities, and the like. Happily, they seem to skill up by use. We also will apparently get Attribute boosts every time we level.” he sighed.

“On the topic of levelling: You level through experience. You gain experience by creating new things – and apparently that Journeyman rank cap applies to all creative and Magical skills – I'm looking at you, Jon – and by killing monsters. Our Abilities, happily, will skill up just by using them – and when we hit level three, we get to pick our base class – As far as this guy could tell..” he taps the dataset again, “The classes you get are based on everything from your skills, to how you use them, to how you think of them, to the myths and legends of your world – that partly applies to the monsters, as well. A class comes with its own Perks and something called Traits – He gives an example he's got, called Indomitable, which he apparently picked up at level twenty-four: It apparently makes him immune to spells that alter his body or mind.”

Jonathan winced at that. “Shit like that appears at the high end of Beginner Life magic.” he noted. “Which makes me think that's a lot more common than we'd like.” this led to another round of cursing: Shawn took a moment to calm everyone down, then gestured to David. “Anything more?”

David nodded. “Apparently classes evolve every twelve steps thereafter, either offering you new ones or altering your existing one: and apparently teaching yourself magical skills is easy – if you already have understanding of the same magic branch, or you have a teacher of at least Adept rank. So someone like me? With choices in both the Elemental and Arcane groups? I can potentially learn every type of magic by myself – but I won't be able to learn Arcane magic as well as Jon over there, since apparently the highest level of understanding you have in a given group affects your ease of understanding the rest of the group – and there are some rules nobody can make sense of, that seem to be tied to the logic of the guys who wrote this bullshit system.” a slight pause.

“Also worth mentioning: the Respawns thing is exactly what it sounds like. If you are killed, you reform three hours later in your 'home' location. A notable little wrinkle is that there's apparently a conservation law of respawns – they aren't destroyed, they are transferred to whatever killed you. Which is why the Galaxy System is such a damn problem - there's no newbie zone, so they can go to town on the newbies in PvP, and gain lots of respawns to use on their high level quests. Literally farming new worlds to extend their lives. How's that for a kick in the nuts?” Another round of swearing filled the room, and as it died down, David added, “As for how the attributes work? Stare at them and think hard on what they do, and you'll know. Most are pretty obvious: Alacrity apparently handles how quickly your mind works, Luck affects drops and a bunch of the destiny magic plugs into it: Essence represents your connection to the game's gods, and is used to calculate your faith pool, Magic is the same for spellcasters and Mana.” He sighed, sitting down with a generally depressed expression, like a boy whose dreams were being crushed by harsh reality.

Shawn moved quickly on, gesturing to Frank to speak. “So tell us of these E-mails.” he asked, a note of humour in his tone. Frank just sighed, though there was a hint of laughter in his words. “Well, I Messaged my various applicants back, asking for more information and pointing out the issue I have – and I've had multiple offers in return offering, if I follow them, to help instantiate a version of Jehovah. I'm still not entirely sure how to respond to that, yet.” he seemed to have settled on laughing about it, going by his voice, which was a bit of a relief.

“They have made it clear that they are game gods, not Real gods, and that no actual worship is required if it makes me uncomfortable. So my potential employers – one of them phrased it that way, and I like it, are - on this world at least - Nerph, the patron of debuffs; Hakor, Patron of destiny and good fortune: Xerg, patron of War: Maskeline, patron of magic and monsters, and Pal-a-tine, patron of heroes and buffs.” he laughs. “I'm just going by how they brand themselves. Nerph seems to be going for a dark and edgy vibe, giving miracles that weaken and hinder those whom oppose me. Hakor – I swear, these guys have just scanned the internet for names they thought appropriate – promises the ability to understand secrets and the rules of the System – I'm pretty sure he means subverting them, and that it comes with consequences. Xerg all but promises to make me a priest in the old testament, wrath of god style, which sounds appealing, I admit: But I'm getting a definite Zerg rush from his promo material, lots of tricks for summoning and spawning cheap, disposable mobs. Maskeline seems to be hinting at a magic-boosting, magic-using spellcasting priest build, which might work quite well with the mix we have here – I get the impression we do his cause favours, he could swing us extra tuition in magic.” That got everyone's attention.

“Pal-a-tine – He wants Paladins. Holy Knights to go forth, battle evil and help the weak: He's also flat-out said that they can issue quests that can give us XP. He.. Also sounds like a lot of fun. Probably the most Christian of the lot. So I'm inclined to go with him or Maskeline.”

Shawn nodded. “Something we can discuss, but either option sounds like it would work well.” all eyes moved to Jonathan, as Francine leaned over to grab another snack.

“We can get skills, spells, and equipment from the store. Most of the really powerful spells seem to be cross-discipline, and they are not cheap. Skills – they seem to be either skill books or direct downloads: it's not clear, but you can buy anything from initiate 1 up to Journeyman twelve with the kind of money I had to throw at it, but something like Plasma Magic to that level would set me back just over twelve thousand SMU – and that's not including any spells. The equipment is all made by other players of the system, as far as I can tell – with the exception of your Basic Issue, I presume, if you have any: Go into the Store, look under Inventory, then BEI.” a pause, then he added, “But you won't necessarily have any. Regarding spells – I can get Journeyman rank skills for about five thousand, but now I'm wondering how hard, exactly, it will be to make my own. I did see a must-buy, though it's a little creepy. Who here wants to have the body they had a decade ago, only if you'd actually done some exercise?”

Briefing over, they discussed what to do. After some discussion – and apparently some correspondence with Pal-a-tine and Maskeline – Frank chose Maskeline as his patron, with a quest right out the gate to build relations up with Pal-a-tine and form a basic pantheon of good magic. This would apparently be the first step in spawning a new System deity.

Quest: Glory on High

Issuer: Maskeline, Pal-a-tine (Joint Holy Quest!)

At the Instantiation of the System In your world, there are no alliances or pantheons between the Twenty-seven Divinities that have graced your world. As a follower of Maskeline, use your gifts and miracles to defeat evil and protect the weak, earning +4 Status with Pal-a-tine in Maskeline's name.

Rewards:

Dual Cleric Miracles and Perks unlocked (Followers of Maskeline or Pal-a-tine only)

5184 XP

A Spell book

Limitations: None.

This Quest may be shared.

The result of his acceptance was also pretty interesting: A halo of blue light shone around Frank, and what was presumably his BEI appeared – vestments that would not look out of place on a wizard, and a tall staff of what seemed to be woven copper, capped with a crystal orb of softly glowing azure.

Frank was not the only one who had some interesting equipment issued. David had what looked like cloth armour covering his frame, and Larry had gained what looked like a blend between a tablet and what the eighties thought a 'cyberdeck' would look like. Jonathan, meanwhile, had gone shopping. First, to see exactly how buying skills worked, he purchased Mana magic at Initiate 4, for 576 SMU: Again, there was a shimmer, and something like the data-set appeared before him: Examining it, the moment he touched it he was asked if he wanted to implant the skill. He did so, causing s brief flash of pain and disorientation as the item disappeared, the knowledge flowing into his mind: they were in business.

Wincing, he went shopping: grabbing the fortress spike, liquid magic for Michelle – they figured it would complement her ability to create food – and three copies of the apprentice level instruction skill. Their planning session had concluded that those whom learned it (notably those with unique types of magic or skills) could train others, and see what sort of additional perks appeared – Jonathan had spotted a spell for Larry that would let him create undead warriors out of thin air, requiring both Creation and Death magic, and since Creation magic popped up in a lot of useful spells, it had been suggested that they should all see about learning it.

That done, he had just under eighteen thousand to spend – and he went looking at spells. He grabbed Rejuvenation and a spell for creating a Fire Elemental – he was definitely thinking minions might be helpful, which had him eyeing that enslavement spell again – and required him to go back and snag an upgrade to his plasma magic skill. He grabbed a pair of Liquid spells for Michelle, and the improved undead spell for Larry, once they taught him enough creation magic. By the time he'd done that, he had all of 701 SMU to his name, and thought he'd stop there. His final shopping list, piled up before him, was nonetheless somewhat impressive.

Item Cost (SMU)

Fortress Spike 10,368

Skill: Liquid Magic (B1) 1,872

3 x Skill: Instruction (Ap1) 10,800

Skill: Plasma Magic (B1) 1,872

Spell: Rejuvenation (Life J1) 5,184

Spell: Create Water (Liquid I1) 144

Spell: Liquid Whip (Liquid A4) 2,304

Spell: Fire Elemental (Life B1, Plasma B1) 3,744

Spell: Create Skeletal Undead (Creation I8, Death A8) 4,032

Dataset: Introduction to Spell Design 58

The fortress spike, for a start, was nearly six feet long, and a foot wide, tapering to a sharp point at one end. Made of a twisting weave of various metals and minerals: one of them, curling through the rest, glowing a beautiful Cherenkov blue. The Spells and skills formed a nice pile of datasets, which were distributed amongst the team with noises of appreciation. Jon, Larry, and Michelle received the Instruction datasets, and Michelle promptly pulled Larry over for an intense set of lessons on Creation magic.

As soon as Jonathan accepted the new datasets, he looked at the prompt that had been flashing since he learned Mana magic - a prompt informing him he had new perks to select. Bringing it up, he started with the Mana Magic perks.

・ Arcane Insight - 4% chance to learn an Arcane spell upon experiencing it.

・ Arcane Resistance - 4% reduction in damage from harmful Arcane spells.

・ Arcane Synergy - 4% reduction in cost of cross-discipline Arcane spells.

・ Arcane Aptitude - 4% faster skill development in Arcane Disciplines.

・ Magical Awareness - add Magical Fields to your primary sense, and knowledge of a subject's Mana is added to your primary sense.

・ Mana Aptitude (Stackable)- 12% faster skill development in Mana magic.

・ Mana Synergy (Stackable)- 12% Reduction in mana cost of Mana spells.

・ Mana Recovery (Stackable) ・ 12% increase in Mana Regeneration rates.

・ Optimized Mana (Stackable) ・ 12% increase in the maximum duration of all spells.

・ Aura of Mana (Stackable) ・ your body radiates an aura of perfected Mana. 12% damage reduction against all hostile spells and spell-based perks.

・ Mana Resistance (Stackable) ・ 27% reduction in Mana Damage received.

・ Mana Capacity (Stackable) ・ Increase Mana pool by 12%.

・ Blood Mana ・ You may convert your Health into Mana, at a 1-3 rate, at will.

・ Refined Mana ・ 3% reduction in Mana cost of all spells.

・ Spell Manipulation ・ You may choose to focus your Mana into specific parts of a spell, to optimise one aspect at the expense of another.

・ Aspect Awareness ・ Awareness of the nature of any Magical Fields you are aware of is added to your primary sense.

・ Suspend Spell (Stackable) ・ You may trap spell, mid-cast, in your Aura to be released later at will.

・ Language of Magic ・ Exposure to a spell adds 3% of the required as skill experience in the used in said spell.

・ Unweave Elemental (Stackable) ・ Your Strikes with against summoned entities has a 12% chance of Deleting them.

・ Unweave Aura (Stackable) Your Strikes with against an entity with any spells, perks or buffs active has a 4% chance per Spell, Perk, or Buff of disabling said spell, Perk, or Buff until reactivated, before your damage is applied.

・ Block Mana (Stackable) - Your Strikes with against a target that possesses Mana has a 12% chance of disabling their access to Mana for the next 11.4 seconds.

・ Steal Mana (Stackable) - Your Strikes with against a target that possesses Mana remove points of Mana from their pool and add it to your own.

・ Mana Fountain (Stackable) ・ Those around you regenerate Mana 27% faster.

・ Identify Item (Stackable) ・ You may discern the properties of any Magical Items within reach.

・ Redirect (Stackable) ・ You may attempt to alter the target of a spell you can sense, with a 12% chance of success.

・ Countermagic (Stackable) ・ With a touch, you may increase the Mana cost of all actions made by the target by 12% for the next 19 minutes, 14 seconds.

・ Devour Mana (Stackable) ・ You may absorb Mana from a standing Spell within reach, at a rate of 9 points of Mana per cycle. The power of the spell will reduce proportionately to the Mana withdrawn.

・ Backlash (Stackable) - Your Strikes with have a 3% chance of bestowing the Mana Vortex trait upon the target for 3 cycles.

After a long, agonizing moment of contemplation, he eventually decided on Refined Mana as his solitary Mana perk, and moved on to his plasma perks – he knew he could grab two of these, and he was thinking that since he could buy spells in the Store, and even create his own, Perks were almost certainly the best purchase here.

・ Plasma Resistance (Stackable) - 27% reduction in Plasma Damage.

・ Heat Sense - Add thermal radiation perception to your primary sense.

・ Supercharged Plasma (Stackable) - Increase the damage of your Plasma Magic attacks by 12%

・ Plasma Touch (Stackable) - Your strikes with cause are infused with Plasma: 27% additional Plasma damage.

・ Searing Touch (Stackable) - Your strikes with scorch wounds, inflicting an additional 12 points of Plasma damage for a number of cycles equal to your

.

・ Fire without Fuel - You may fuel fires with the ambient Mana of an area, removing the need for an alternate fuel source.

・ Plasma Aptitude (Stackable) - 12% faster skill development in Plasma magic.

・ Plasma Synergy (Stackable) - 12% Reduction in mana cost of Plasma spells.

・ Plasma Aura (Stackable) - Those who strike you take 27% of the Physical damage they inflict on you as Plasma damage.

・ Mana Flame - The more plasma around you, the faster your Mana Regenerates.

・ Living Flame (Stackable) - Convert a Plasma source no larger than yourself into an unbound spirit of Plasma, at a cost of 12 Health and 12 Mana, that will owe you a Debt for the life bestowed upon it.

・ Plasma Orb - At will, create a ball of plasma that provides Illumination within 29 yards in your preferred visual frequencies only, dissipating in contact with any hostile source.

・ Static (Stackable) ・ At will, you may ionise the area within 14.5 yards of your position. This will bestow the Jammed trait on Electromagnetic communications within the area, and increases all Plasma damage to targets within the area by 12%

・ Ionic Aura (stackable) ・ The area within your reach is intensely ionised, and thus anyone with the Cybernetic trait has a 12% chance of having that trait disabled every cycle they remain within your reach.

・ Ionising Touch (Stackable) - Your strikes with ionise your target, Decreasing their resistance to Plasma damage by 3% per successful strike until the charge dissipates.

・ Short System (Stackable) ・ With a touch and the expenditure of 1 Mana, deal

Durability damage to an electromagnetic device.

・ Plasma Shield (Stackable) ・ A barrier of charged ions forms 1 yard beyond your reach. 27% reduction in accuracy of ranged attacks, those attacking with conductive weapons take

Stun damage.

・ Stun Strike (Stackable) ・ At will, targets successful attacks with receive their damage as Stun.

・ Recharge ・ By touching an electrical storage system, you may charge it at a cost of 1 mana per 20 KJ or part thereof.

・ Stun Resistance (Stackable) ・ 27% reduction in Stun damage received.

・ Irradiating Aura (Stackable) ・ you radiate Beta radiation. Those within your reach take

Permanent damage.

・ Beta Strike (Stackable) - At will, targets successful attacks with inflict 3% of their damage as Permanent damage, as some of the energy of your strike converts to Beta radiation.

・ Radiation Resistance (Stackable) ・ 54% reduction in Permanent damage caused by Radiation.

・ Plasma Burst (Stackable) ・ upon your death, your body explodes in a wave of energy: Opponents within 14.5 yards take 1/3 of your total Health in Plasma damage, 1/3 in Permanent damage due to radiation, and 1/3 in Stun damage.

He considered this for almost a minute, before grabbing Plasma Resistance and Plasma Aura. Living Flame was very tempting, if he understood it correctly - but he would revisit that idea once he learned Enslavement. He was getting the distinct impression it would be very helpful for uses other than the horrifying ones he had first thought of, if free roaming spirits and monsters were going to be as common as they seemed. Moving on, he opened up the menu for his Instruction perks ・ the prompt informed him he could pick six.

・ Accelerated Learning - Students under your Instruction accrue skill points 27% faster.

・ Boosted Start - Students who learn a new Ability from you will start with an effective skill rating of your Rank in that Ability.

・ Additional Perk - Students under your Instruction gain an additional perk upon reaching the next Perk threshold.

・ Expanded Perk List - Students under your Instruction may select from any Perk you hold in the Ability you teach in addition to their System designated ones upon reaching the next Perk threshold.

・ Tailored Perk - You may select which Perk a student under your Instruction receives from the Ability you are teaching when they reach the next Perk threshold.

・ Siphon Learning - When teaching a Student an Ability, for every point of that Ability they learn from you, you gain a point of a chosen Ability from the student, provided the targeted Ability is higher than your own value in that Ability.

・ View Profile - By touching a student under your Instruction, you may view their Abilities.

・ View Perks - By touching a student under your Instruction, you may view their Perks in the subject you teaching.

・ Track Progression - Once a student has learned a point of an Ability under your Instruction, you will thereafter be able to learn their current progression in that Ability for the rest of your life.

・ Train Attributes - You gain the ability to Instruct students in Attributes, provided their value of that Attribute is lower than your own.

・ Inverse Learning - You may choose to have your Instruction reduce a student's rating in the topic you are instructing, Gaining one third the points they lose under your Instruction.

・ Create Dataset (General) - You do not meet the requirements of this Perk.

・ Create Dataset (Spell) - You may encode a spell you know into a physical medium, at a cost of Mana, a Maximum times of per LRP.

・ Loan Ability - You gain the ability to have your teachings be temporary, fading at a rate of one point per LRP.

・ Group Instruction - You may Instruct a number of students at once equal to the Rank of Instruction.

・ Cooperative Learning - When teaching a student, the Student is assumed to have an Instruction value equal to your own, and may choose to instruct you in turn in an Ability you do not possess.

・ Distance Learning - You may use Instruction and your Instruction perks remotely, through such mediums as the Message system.

・ Student Teachers - You may recruit up to individuals to teach Students. While under your authority, they are assumed to have your Instruction Value and your active Instruction perks and may teach the specified Ability up to your own rating, regardless of their own comprehension of the subject.

Looking over the list, Jonathan felt a little sick, and vowed to only ever buy skill books from the system directly. After a minute or two of consideration, he chose Accelerated Learning, Boosted Start, Additional Perk, Expanded Perk List, Create Dataset (Spell), and after another moment of indecision, Cooperative Learning. Resting for a moment before he cracked open the guide to spell design, he pulled up his sheet to take a look.

Name: Jonathan Black

Age: 45.2 Standard Stellar Revolutions (SSR)

Level: 1 (12 XP to next level)

Class:

Respawns: 4 remaining

Home: Apartment 5, 126 Orchid Avenue, San Francisco

Balance: 759 SMU

Health: 84/84 (Stamina x Level x 12)

Mana: 240/240 (Magic x Level x 12)

Spell Slots: 2 (May cast 2 spells simultaneously)

Attributes

Strength: 6 Dexterity: 7 Stamina: 7

Intelligence: 7 Perception: 4 Alacrity: 5

Charm: 5 Looks: 5 Luck: 7

Essence: * Magic: 20 Creativity: 7

Resistances

・ Infection ・ 100%

・ Starvation ・ 100%

・ Plasma ・ 27%

・ Age ・ 27%

・ Sleep - 27%

Skills

Basic Life Skills

Life Magic (43/444)

Plasma Magic (0/156)

UMA (0/48)

Mana Magic (0/48)

Perks

Additional Spell Slot - Increase spell slots by 1

Peak Conditioning - Injuries heal 27% faster, you age 27% slower, immune to infection.

Vampiric Touch - 27% of damage dealt is added to your Health.

Life Aptitude - 12% faster skill development in Life magic.

Life Synergy - 12% Reduction in mana cost of Life spells.

Sustenance - Your body no longer requires food.

Balanced Biorhythms - You require 27% less sleep, and you recover from strain and injury 12% faster.

Supernal Awareness - 27% increased awareness of incoming attacks.

Refined Mana ・ 3% reduction in Mana cost of all spells.

Plasma Resistance

- 27% reduction in Plasma Damage.

Plasma Aura

- Those who strike you take 27% of the Physical damage they inflict on you as Plasma damage.

Accelerated Learning - Students under your Instruction accrue skill points 27% faster.

Boosted Start - Students who learn a new Ability from you will start with an effective skill rating of your Rank in that Ability.

Additional Perk - Students under your Instruction gain an additional perk upon reaching the next Perk threshold.

Expanded Perk List - Students under your Instruction may select from any Perk you hold in the Ability you teach in addition to their System designated ones upon reaching the next Perk threshold.

Create Dataset (Spell) - You may encode a spell you know into a physical medium, at a cost of Mana, at most per day.

Cooperative Learning - When teaching a student, the Student is assumed to have an Instruction value equal to your own, and may choose to instruct you in turn in an Ability you do not possess.

Spells

・ Arcane

◦ Hygiene - Clean and sterilize yourself and your wrappings!

◦ Heal - Touch: Heal 6 points of damage

◦ Mend - Touch: Regenerate 4 points of Permanent damage.

◦ Rejuvenation

・ Elemental

◦ Spark

- ignite an object within your reach.

◦ Fire Elemental (Life, Plasma, 24m) - Invoke a lesser Fire elemental from any plasma source to serve you for 24 minutes. It gains the Soulbound trait upon creation.

Satisfied, he took one last look around the room, as he pulled out his phone. Michelle and Larry were over there, reading the Survival guide. Shawn was in the other corner, using every form of communication available to him to disseminate what they had learned – By the looks of things, it was even being repeated on the news, though he had to wonder how many would actually see it. As for using social Media? If anything, the frenzy of yesterday was even worse, with reports of accidents and plane crashes from other parts of the world, riots and looting, which would surely drown out any warning they could give. The moron in the White house certainly seemed to be yelling it was fake news, and there was no hope of getting the Emergency Broadcast System to be used. A lot of people were going to die that night, and he was going to do all he could to ensure his family and friends were not among them – Francine had already headed out with a list, using her boosted speed to go on pickup duty and bring as many family and friends to their location, and David and Frank had gone with her – apparently one of the Miracles Frank had gained let him extend the reach of spells, and they were using Dave's Triple-step spell to make Francine's driving even faster.

Moving out into the hallway, he Dialled up Mike: When his cousin answered, it sounded like there was a party in the background. “Hey, Bro! All set for the fun?” Mike sounded tipsy, but not quite drunk yet.

“Yes.” Jonathon’s tone was sufficiently flat that Mike fell silent. “At something like 2 am, the dungeons will spawn, and everywhere on earth will flood with monsters. There will be nowhere safe unless you can get something called a Fortification Spike. For the love of god, man, tell me you guys have got one, or have the cash to grab one – It’s nearly 11 grand, but you can pool resources. You said you guys were putting a group together – tell me you can afford it.”

“What? But... What are you talking about, man?” Mike replied in a somewhat confused tone. “We’re gonna slay them! We got a cool plan, Bro.”

“No. Look. There’s a dataset you can grab in the store. You know how to access it, yeah?” Mike gave a vague sound of assent. “It’s 1 SMU, and called ‘what you need to survive the voidbound system’. This System wiped out Half his population in a couple of years. That was with the respawns. The only safe places are fortifications. See if you can grab one, okay? We can’t use them until the dungeons go live, but.. I don’t want to lose any more family, okay? Promise me.”

“Wait.. I.. Okay, Man, Okay. I’ll take a look.” Mike replied, sounding a little perturbed. “Some of us got some awards, I’ll put it to the..”

“No, Mike. Don’t’ put it to the guys. Get them the dataset, show them chapter two, and buy the damn fortification spike. Get ready to run.” Jonathan isaid, interrupting, his voice filled with concern.

“Alright. Alright.” Mike said, subdued. “I promise, man. Look.. Stay safe, okay? I’ll.. I’ll get it done.”

“You too.” Jonathon replied. “Stay safe, Bro. I hope you survive this.” Mike sighed, and then hung up.

Now there was just the wait.