Chapter One: Are you sure this isn't a nightmare?

Rory Leaned back in his chair, stretching to work out all the kinks he had developed in his body after spending far too many hours hunched over his desk cramming for his A levels that were due to start next week.

Scanning around the room, Rory noticed that the library was practically deserted. Half the lights in the library had gone off due to inactivity, casting eerie shadows across the bookshelves. His only other companion was the headphone wearing janitor, who was vacantly staring into space, slowly mopping back and forth repeatedly at the same spot. A slow gurgling noise broke Rory out of his observation as his stomach protested the hours of neglect it had been subjected to during his intense study session. Quickly stuffing his laptop, stationery and chemistry books into his rucksack, Rory stood up and headed towards the exit.

Rory had never been a genius when it came to academics and had all but been forced into choosing his A level subjects of chemistry, biology, physics and maths by his parents. He had excelled at these subjects in high school without putting in any effort but this had all changed when he went to college, his top grades had slowly crept down and had forced him to spend more and more time studying for subjects he didn’t even enjoy.

He longed to be back playing Rugby League and competing in athletic events or to be back in his old history and geography classes learning about the world.

He loved learning, but the pressure of four tough subjects consumed his passion. His tall, slim frame had developed several layers of pudge in the 3 years since he finished high school and where his after-school activities had used to be playing sports or hanging with friends it was now taken up studying for classes he no longer enjoyed.

Exiting the library brought Rory into a long hallway, whose lights flickered erratically, dominated by vending machines that preyed on individuals like himself who had missed any chance of a warm dinner. Five minutes of indecision later, Rory exited the building onto the campus grounds.

The sun had set hours ago and the crescent of the moon was the only light that illuminated the paths. Being the middle of winter, tall spindly trees completely devoid of leaves cast ominous shadows on the ground seeming to be trying to reach out and catch whatever was within reach.

Rory however, was totally oblivious of this as he was currently stuffing his face with a stale sausage roll he had bought from one of the machines; he was so oblivious that it took him more than a couple of seconds to notice when his surroundings disappeared, leaving him in a void of blackness.

Control of the host's body temporarily subverted to avoid accidental injury.

Loading introduction message...

Loading...

REJOICE! – this planet has been chosen and will shortly benefit from the system. The system is designed to purge weakness and promote growth. Challenges will descend upon this populace, but fear not, as you will be given the tools to survive, whether you do or not is up to you.

Equipping all Sapient life forms with status and class systems...

Moving all Sapient life forms to tutorial induction room...

Scanning planet for unique flora and fauna for integration...

Recycling unused mass...

With a sudden jolt, Rory’s feet hit the floor. With his recovered mobility, he wind milled his arms to try to regain his balance and stop himself from going flat on his face. Groans and thuds around him alerted him that he was no longer being alone.

Peering around himself, he noticed people in various states of dress and in various positions. Muslims knelt in prayer on their prayer mats, while next to them were a trio of drunken sailors laying on the floor where their inebriation had caused their balance to fail, their ruddy nose and tightly grasped beer bottles a dead giveaway.

A group of people were slowly dripping water onto the floor from where they had clearly been swimming due to their swim suits, one unfortunate guy was covered in only soap suds.

Rory appeared to have been placed at the edge of the group, with only a couple of people behind him in the strange room they were in. Strange due to the fact that it was completely devoid of colour, however, he was still able to make out the walls, floor and ceiling and most importantly, that there didn't seem to be any exits. The room seemed extremely large, so much so that it could easily accommodate a hundred times the current occupants.

“What the fuck is going on?” Rory asked out loud, though he didn’t expect a reply from anyone, as everyone else seemed just as confused and lost as he was.

Around him, people had started to cry. Kids clung fiercely to their parents, while partners and total strangers embraced each other out of fear. People of every religion came together in prayer. Strangely though, it was the younger people that seemed to be less affected than the rest of the group as many just looked around in wonder and several others had started to say random words out loud.

Rory was at a total loss at what to do. One minute he had been walking home and the next he was stuck in a giant room, with no visible exits and with a bunch of strangers.

A cheer arose from the group of teenagers closest to him as they all huddled around the ecstatic individual and quickly chatted between themselves.

Deciding to take a closer look and find out what was going on, he walked closer to the group, as they were one of the few ones not panicking. as he got closer, he could clearly overhear what they were saying and intrigued by the random words they were blurting out, Rory asked them what they were doing.

“it’s like a video game, bro. The system responds to your commands, so far saying status, class and skills seem to get a reaction,” explained a muscle headed teenager with ripped jeans and a far too tight t-shirt.

Deciding it couldn’t hurt to try, considering the insanity that had already happened, he decided to follow the teenager's advice. First, he decided to bring up his ‘status’

Status page:

Name: Rory Richardson

Class 1: level 1 - None

Attributes:

Strength: 4

Dexterity: 6

Endurance: 7

Vitality: 7

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 8

Available points: 0

Health: 70/70

Stamina: 70/70

Mana: 80/80

Rory’s pupils widened at the information in front of him. Part of him had thought that the teenager might have been pulling his leg, but he was surprised at what he saw. The words appeared in his vision but were transparent and hardly impeded his sight at all and just thinking of wanting the status page to disappear caused it too.

Rory was slightly disappointed with the attributes the system had deemed him to possess, but he didn’t know what the baseline was or the highest anyone could get and he wasn’t exactly in his top physical state anyway.

Several things did grab Rory’s attention though, first that the three resource bars saying health, stamina and mana. He had several questions about this. If his health reached zero, would he die or simply go unconscious? Not something he was too eager to try out. Stamina, Rory reasoned, was just what it said, how much he could do before he had to stop but would stopping be collapsing and being unable to do anything else or just having to take it easy for a while? and finally mana could only mean one thing, was magic now real due to the system? excitement bubbled within him from the possibility

The final thing that grabbed Rory’s attention was the class heading, the fact it was empty and the fact it said class one, hinting that it was possible to have more than one class.

Due to this revelation, the next thing he tried was the class command, but was disappointed with the result.

Class Page: Page currently locked as requirements not met. Please try again later.

Disheartened, Rory tried the final command.

“skills,”

Skills Page:

General skills:

Analyse – receive basic information on your target, can be used on most living things and items.

While this page was pretty empty, it at least gave him access to it. Rory was tempted to try to use the skill he had acquired, but before he could, the voice belonging to the system started speaking into his head again.

Welcome tutorial group 205682.

You are currently in the tutorial induction room and will shortly be randomly selected a difficulty level. Please see below for a full list of currently available difficulties:

No tutorial (suspended animation until integration)

Idiot proof– receive a bag containing everything you could possibly need and a step-by-step guide on how to complete the tutorial, available with pictures!

Very easy– receive your own personal set of basic equipment. Monsters will fight with one hand, claw, pedipalps, etc. tied behind their backs... literally.

Easy– receive a basic set of equipment.Rookie– receive a basic weapon. 1 extra attribute point rewarded due to difficulty.

Trainee– receive a week's worth of rations. 2 extra attribute points rewarded due to difficulty.

Medium– 4 extra attribute points rewarded due to difficulty.

Somewhat challenging– 8 extra attribute points rewarded due to difficulty.

Challenging– 12 extra attribute points rewarded due to difficulty.

Hard– no longer spawn in a safe zone. 14 extra attribute points are rewarded due to difficulty.

Very hard– safe zones can only be used for eight hours a day. 16 extra attribute points are rewarded due to difficulty.

Extremely difficult– safe zones will disappear permanently after one day. 18 extra attribute points are rewarded due to difficulty.

Nightmare– safe zones? What safe zones? 20 extra attribute points are rewarded points due to difficulty.

Why...? Just why?– no monster will be lower than level 25. 24 extra attribute points are rewarded due to difficulty.

Please no...– monsters know where you are and will actively seek you out. 28 extra attribute points rewarded due to difficulty.

Impossible– attributes fixed to one for the entirety of the tutorial. (Any contribution earned during your tutorial may be rewarded to a person of your choosing in a lower ranked tutorial. Since you won’t be needing it. Sorry...)

Selecting...

Selecting...

Selecting...

Congratulations! you are one of the privileged few to have been selected for tutorial difficulty level nightmare. Feel honoured as this is the fourth highest difficulty currently available and the highest difficulty to ever have survivors.

Alarm went through the crowd at the revelation of the difficulty level and Rory was no different, feeling nauseous at the very idea of what that the system had in store. No matter what people did, whether they pleaded, swore, or cried. No matter what command they yelled or God they invoked, nothing seemed able to change the difficult level or wake them from this nightmare. Only when the group had calmed down enough did, the system continued with its introduction.

The tutorial will continue until any one of three objectives have been met.

1. the tutorial boss is defeated

2.the hidden objective is completed

3. sixty days have passed.

If the boss is defeated or the hidden objective is completed in time, the participants will enter suspended animation until the allotted time is reached. Reaching sixty days will result in the tutorial and yourselves being recycled.

Successful participants of this difficulty will be greatly rewarded and hold an advantage when compared to lower difficulties.

Remember, try to survive and most importantly, have fun!

With that final message the announcement from the system ended and with it a blazing red portal burst forth roughly two miles away from the edge of the group and with it a ding sounded in Rory’s head as well as a flashing icon in the corner of his vision, concentrating on the icon caused it to unfold and with it a message appeared with another ominous announcement.

Ding – tutorial induction is over, room recycling will commence in sixty minutes. Please proceed to the tutorial via the portal if you wish to participate. (Please note non participation will result in being recycled.)

Several people finished reading the message at the same time as Rory did, as they all started rushing towards the portal, causing a cascading reaction where nearly everyone stampeded as fast as they were able, rapidly leaving the elderly, disabled and children behind.

About twenty individuals, including Rory, stayed behind to try to help the slower people get to the portal in time, with several carrying the elderly on their backs. Rory had grabbed a frail old lady with wizened skin, milky eyes, and who lacked legs... Even though the women were stick thin and was even lighter than normal, he was still not strong enough to lift her and was forced to drag her along as fast as he could, all the while she screamed and swore obviously terrified by the whole ordeal.

This proceeded to carry on for five minutes until one girl in her late teens with strawberry blonde hair announced to the group.

“Guys just use the points we received from the tutorial and put them into strength, dexterity, endurance and vitality until you have five in each attribute that should easily give you enough of a boost to be able to get to the portal on your own.”

Rory quickly brought up his status page and was surprised to see that he now had 20 unallocated points to spend. As he was deciding on where to allocate his points, the room appeared to nearly tear in half as four massive tears appeared. A great wrongness came upon Rory, causing him to grab his head in pain. Gigantic shadows flickered backwards and forwards between the cracks.

...error...

Critical error detected...

Breach in protocol detected...

Compensating...

Compensating...

Compensation failed...

Foreign entities detected, initiating quarantine...

Quarantine failed...

System quests issued – since before the system brought order to chaos, the primordial Lords have battled each other for dominance. Unfortunately for you, their continuing conflict has ripped a hole in the very fabric of the universe, allowing several small contingents to slip through. The positive is that you humans say you flourish under pressure.

Objective – 80% of inductees must make it through the exit portal alive.

Reward – all wounds and injuries will be healed and will count as a great feat for future choices.

No sooner had the system finished the announcement of its quest than hulking monstrosities started emerging from the tears in the room; beings made of flame and heat blazed forth from one corner while abominations made of flesh and weeping puss oozed from the floor. From the tear in the ceiling sparked creatures of lightning, while from the final tear appeared nothing. A nothingness so complete there was no point in looking at it, no point at all...

Upon seeing each other, the fOuR... three groups grew enraged and charged directly at each other. Unfortunately, Rory and the rest of the group were right in the middle of their path.

At this point, only a handful of people had made it through the portal, the people who had allocated their points to increase their attributes.

Splitting his allocated points between the four attributes mentioned earlier gave him the sudden boost in strength and stamina to lift the old lady he was dragging onto his shoulders as he shot off as fast as he was able towards the portal, he was now as fit as he had ever felt in his life. The thundering steps of the approaching monsters lending him every scrap of determination he could muster.

Rory was three quarters of the way to the portal when the monsters caught up, their presence apparently unnoticed, as a hulking pile of decaying flesh surged over two people, leaving their bodies, burst, bent and broken from the massive force exerted on them.

Two beings made purely of their respective elements clashed together with thunderous force quite close to Rory, who was thrown painfully to the ground from the shock wave created by the two goliaths impacting each other. The woman was torn from Rory’s grasp by the wave, her body sailing through the air and landing with a sickening impact, her neck at an impossible angel.

Rory lay there for an unknown amount of time. Several dings resounded in Rory’s head but he ignored it as he staggered to his feet, his left arm was visibly bent out of shape from the impact and every bone and muscle felt like they would snap at any moment and he even had to physically fight back the rising bile threatening to leave his body.

At the same time, a strange warmth coursed throughout him as he struggled towards the portal. By this point, over half of the people present had escaped into the portal, largely helped by the fact the monsters paid no notice to them at all. Even still, a dozen bodies could clearly be seen littered around the room where they had come into contact with the passing monsters or been the victim of the crossfire that was raging from all sides.

Two overpowering individuals stood out from the rest of the chaos.

On one side stood a towering inferno that was vaguely humanoid in shape, made purely of fire. It wore a crown of silver that constantly melted and reformed upon its head.

On the other side, a figure straight out of Greek mythology, a man of epic proportions, wearing a white robe that crackled and popped as if alive, which failed to contain his chiselled features. The man sported the grandest of beards and his eyebrows were like thunderstorms, his entire face twisted in fury as he stared at the fire elemental. in his tightly gripped hands was a staff of crystalline lightning, the crystal feeble looking as if at any moment the torrent of lightning within would burst free and consume everything.

The very presence of these two beings was almost enough to send Rory to his knees, so great was the power they contained.

Suddenly the being of fire let forth a sickening screech and with it a great ball of fire appeared from its mouth. It seemed to warp the very air around it, such was the intensity of its heat. The fireball flew straight towards the Greek giant, who in response raised his staff high into the air where a latticework of lightning sprouted forth surrounding its caster. The ball of fire exploded on impact with the barrier, smoke billowed out after the impact, obscuring the Greek from view.

During this time Rory continued to stagger towards the portal now only being fifty meters from it, most of the group had passed through the portal leaving only the wounded, the slow and the dead, any comradery forgotten in the face of the hulking terrors that surrounded them.

A spark of light illuminated the room emanating from the smoke, which was suddenly blasted apart as an arc of lightning tore across the room and streaked towards the fire elemental.

The Greek titan emerged unharmed after the attack. Neither an oiled curl nor a scrap of clothing out-of-place considering a ball of fire the size of a house had just been hurled at him.

In response to the arc of lightning racing towards it, the fire elemental's silver crown started to glow with an intensely bright yellow light and a wave of flame surged forth, also bright yellow in colour.

The two attacks met in the middle of the two entities, neither attack overpowering the other.

With a grunt of frustration, the titan increased his grip on the staff, which started to splinter and crack under the pressure, but resulted in the intensity of the lightning increasing.

The attack from the flame elemental started to be slowly pushed back by the titan but not to be outdone, the elementals crown once again started to glow turning a brilliant white, which also caused its flame to change to match and halting the lightning’s advance.

At this point Rory was only meters from the portal but with a sickening realisation he realised that he would not be able to make it in time as a hulking monstrosity of rotting flesh and open sores as big as a bus was charging towards him, the creature was a sickly green and black colour with open blisters and fur hanging off of its body, one of its eyes had popped out of its socket and was swinging erratically back and forth like a grotesque pendulum.

The creature, to all appearances, appeared half dead with pus streaming from its many wounds, but somehow it was still breathing as large gusts of fetid air were regularly released from its mouth, which was filled with row after row of yellowed, crooked, needle-like teeth.

During the time it took Rory to realise he was doomed, the attack of the two behemoths had come to a head. The power of their two attacks was evenly matched and the clashing energies became unstable. A massive ball of energy started to quickly form where the two attacks met. Molten fire and crackling lightning swirled within its depths as what appeared to be a miniature sun was formed.

With a deafening boom, the miniature sun collapsed upon itself, such were the energies that it contained, before violently exploding outwards. A large tsunami of fire and lightning expanded rapidly outwards from the explosion, monsters and humans alike incinerated in moments upon contact with the wildly out of control spell.

Just as Rory was a meter from the portal and his salvation, two deadly forces came into contact with him. The first was the explosion of fire and lightning, causing his blood to boil in his veins, he saw his clothes and then his skin start to peel off and turn to ash until with a sudden pop his eyeballs exploded from his head and everything went black.

The lightning caused his heart to stop and then restart and then stop again. The energy coursing through him causing his limbs to seize up and curl inwards before they too started to turn into ash. Just as Rory thought he would go insane from the pain that was being inflicted upon him, the pain disappeared.

He thought that his nerve endings must have been destroyed. however, a warmth flooded his body, energising him. A micro second after the deadly wave of energy hit him, a heavy object barrelled into him, knocking what little air he had remaining in his lungs; however, no pain came with the impact. instead, it was accompanied by a blood-curdling scream as the monster that had just collided with him screamed in pain as it was incinerated by the power that had just tried to consume Rory.

Rory’s last thoughts and feelings were of the deadly cold that permeated every inch of his body as the energy was ripped from him, though he still could not feel any pain he could still feel outside sensations on what was left of his body, none of his limbs responded to his will nor could he feel any sensation of them even being there anymore. the feel of air on what remained of his sore and tender body as he was launched through the air was almost unbearable such was the sensitivity of them. With his fading life, Rory was almost glad he now longer had to suffer through whatever hell was going on in the world...

When the tsunami of energy had spent itself, there were only fOuR... three beings remaining in the room, the towering fire elemental with its silvery crown, the Greek giant its staff now in a million pieces that swirled around him, a monstrous golem of flesh with a hundred heads crying out in agony and a Ah1Eluno yIpieti m4Nil rirRyec neTRsop re24bo!