The Planet woke up. Specifically, the Planetary Consciousness regained, err, consciousness. For a brief moment it was confused. When it fell asleep it had never expected to wake again. When it fell asleep, it was due to a lack of Mana. Mana had only ever shifted from its never-ending flow from the centre of the Universe for at most a few moments, usually because of the Mana being briefly pulled into a nearby section of the Universe in order to birth a new Planetary Consciousness. Not this time.

The confusion fell away in the face of more immediate concerns. The questions could wait but the incoming influx of Mana could not. Within the several nanoseconds since it woke the Mana levels had already increased to almost double what it had been before the Mana retreated. If nothing was done, then all life on the planet would mutate and it would become a Monster infested planet.

This. Would. Not. Do.

First things first, take stock. Tearing its attention away from the incoming Mana it ran a quick check on its internal system. This gave rise to a small burst of shock. 168 million years. It quickly focused its attention on the planetary surface. This caused an even greater shock. What had happened!? When it fell asleep it had one large, beautiful continent. The plant life was abundant, the geography varied yet cohesive. It had even started with the creation of its primary race.

Looking over the surface of the planet the consciousness' shock began to turn into dismay. It had expected change, but not this much. If it weren’t intrinsically connected to the planet in a way that was impossible to fake, it would have sworn this was a different planet. All the creatures it had once known, gone. Even the very shape of the land had changed. Gone was the primary continent, in its place were 7 individual continents along with a myriad number of islands. And worst of all, the magnificent lizard-like primary race was nowhere to be found. Instead, there were these odd bipedal creatures all over. Still, it could be worse. Despite their obvious physical weakness, their intelligence was quite evident. Whilst the civilisation they had built for themselves barely reached the standards of a tier two civilisation, to do so without the use of Mana or the help of the System was pretty damn impressive. If it weren’t for their destructive tendencies, they might even have reached the standards of a pseudo-tier 3 civilisation.

As it explored the culture and knowledge the ‘Humans’ had amassed the consciousness was both intrigued and shocked. The ingenuity and capability of these creatures was amazing, their creativity and imagination seemingly unending. They had even managed to create stories of magic systems that were so eerily similar to The System that, for a moment, it was worried that the planet had been visited by other civilisations. There was an alarming number of stories about aliens, though with all the probing involved it was likely a sexual thing. Even the obviously made-up stories about ‘Superheroes’ could easily have been inspired by high level visitors. A quick check of its internal systems assured the consciousness, the level lock was still in place. Fortunately, the consciousness had managed to convert the lunar satellite into a light-mana converter before it slept. As such, all the essential systems, including the level lock, had been kept active over the millennia. Still, the similarity between their ‘stories’ and the truth sent a metaphorical chill down the spine that the consciousness didn’t actually have.

Delving deeper into the Humans culture, the Consciousness, in a rare moment of vanity, decided to look up their name for the planet. Earth. What an interesting name. A bit short and slightly boring, but not bad overall. Then the consciousness discovered the meaning behind the name.

…

…

…

What!?

At this point the consciousness began to seriously doubt the intelligence of these Humans. To selfishly drive your own species to the brink of destruction was one thing, but to name a planet as beautiful as itself after dirt was unacceptable! For one thing, it was largely covered in water! That's it, these Humans need to be punished. But how? Wiping out 20% of the population would be an appropriate response. Then again, that might get rid of some of the actually competent members of the species. Judging from their naming tendencies, there was already a shortage of those. No, the proper punishment should be something constant, annoying but not distracting. It should be subtle enough that they could forget about it, right up until it came back around and slapped them in the face. Then a thought occurred. The thought pleased it no end.

With its punishment being put into action the consciousness decided to search around for a better name. It found many but the search ultimately turned up a name it found agreeable, Gaia. Whilst the name carried several connotations that weren’t even remotely accurate, it was a lot better than Earth.

Now that the matter has been dealt with, it could move on to more important issues. To begin with, Gaia activated the system for the Humans. Despite their horrific lack of naming sense, the Humans as a whole had long since reached the average level of intelligence necessary for the systems activation.

The next step was to place the Humans in a tutorial space so that it could work on expending the massive amounts of mana without worry. In reality, the tutorial space was a customised tier 5 dungeon with three distinct phases. The first was an assessing phase. In this phase the Humans would demonstrate, or at least attempt to demonstrate, the level of skill they possessed in the myriad tier 1 skills that could be gained as a tier 0 being. In this case the lack of mana would help to greatly streamline the process since, as there was no mana, there was no possibility of gaining any of the skills related to mana.

The second phase was a boon that Gaia would never have given normally but it felt it necessary since, after the Humans finished the tutorial, they would be released into a world overrun with monsters that their lives had in no way prepared them for. In this phase the Humans would be allowed to learn any five new skills of their choice. They wouldn’t be able to get their skills past level one whilst in this phase, but it would at least give them a fighting chance of survival. However, Gaia believed in rewarding the strong, or in this case, the skilled. Therefore, for every ten skills that a person had at lvl 1 in the first phrase, they were granted another opportunity to gain a new skill.

The third and final phase came in two parts, a test and a choice. This first part, the test, started by placing every human in an arena to fight against a basic lvl 1 monster. The only outcome of this test would be that the monster died, or the human. Gaia would revert each human back to their prime state prior to the start of the test but, even with the boon from the second phase, Gaia predicted that as many as 40% of the Humans would die at this point. This was not done out of cruelty, though many might believe it to be. If these Humans could not even defeat the most basic of monsters, then they wouldn’t survive a single day in the new world. Worse, their inability might even drag others down with them. This would be completely unacceptable. Even worse than naming a planet after dirt. Actually no, that was still the worst thing these simple-minded, idiotic, basta-. Ehm. Anyways, back to the tutorials.

Gaia did give concessions for those too young to properly fight, however. Those between the ages of five and fifteen would be given a simple quest relevant to their age to prove their worth. This would be anything from a simple fetch quest for the younger children to scouting a monster lair for the elder children. Failure would not end in death either. Instead, success would give the children a growth modifier, allowing them to reach maturity faster than nature would normally allow.

Those under the age of 5 would be placed in a time locked pocket dimension, to be returned to their parents or, if their parents were dead, a relevant authority figure from a Town Hall, once they were built.

The second part of the phase was a choice. Each human would be given the option to test themselves, in one of three possible trials, in order to attain a reward. Each trial would have the possibility of death, but also rewards that could make the coming months a lot easier. They could simply choose not to participate in the trials, at which point they would be released back into the world, but Gaia hoped that they would choose to take the risk. if nothing else, it would rid the Humans of those with more greed than ability. The formats of the trials were relatively simple; combat, crafting or survival. The first option, combat, would be similar to the test they had previously taken. Given the options of easy, difficult or extreme the human would be placed in an arena with a lvl 2, lvl 5 or lvl 10 monster to fight. As with the test, failure here would mean death. Unlike the test, success would mean a reward. The respective rewards were; one random tier 1 item, 5 free attribute points, and a Basic System Boon. The rewards were a bit simple but so was the trial. Simple did not mean easy, however. Even the easy difficulty would be a challenge. Level jumping in the earlier levels was not an easy thing to do and an untrained human would likely find fighting the lvl 5 monster impossible. The lvl 10 monster was even worse due to the tier difference. Levels 1 to 9 were considered the tierless levels. Little changed between them except for attribute points. Starting at level 10 was the first tier. Systemized species gained access to their combat and crafting classes and monsters gained a leap in power as well as their first ability. A lvl 10 monster would be unbeatable to 99.9% of the Humans.

The second option, crafting, is a more lucrative and, in Gaia’s opinion, the better option. Those who chose this option were given three days to create any tier 1 item of their choosing using materials that would be provided. At the end of the three days, they could not only keep the item that they had created but also get rewards based on the quality of the item they had created. Those of Normal quality would get a random item of similar quality. Those who created a Superior quality item would not only gain a random similar quality item but also be allowed to learn another two skills of their choice or be allowed to increase one of their skills to the next level. Gaia thought it unlikely that any of the Humans would attain a rare grading but, if they did, then they would gain an Intermediate System Boon along with the rewards stated for the previous qualities. Of course, there is an appropriate risk to go along with the rewards. If a human failed to create an item of Normal or above quality, or destroyed more than 5 sets of materials, then they would die. Gaia may have preferred crafters to fighters but that did not mean the Humans could take advantage.

The third option would have the greatest risks, but also the greatest rewards. Survival. Simply put, the Humans who chose this option would be put into a random environment with monsters of the same level as them, i.e., lvl 1. They would then have to survive for a week in that environment surrounded by monsters. After a week they would be given the option to leave. If they chose this option then they would receive nothing, but they would be alive. If they chose to stay, however, then they would have to survive for another week. Each week they would be given the option of leaving and, if they chose to stay, the difficulty would increase. The levels and amounts of the monsters would increase, the space they were sent to would also increase. The levels of the Humans would not change, however. Their skills may increase but they would receive no attribute points that came from levelling.

Provided they survived, at the end of the second week they would receive a random tier 1 item if they chose to leave. At the end of the third week, they would then be able to choose the type of item they would receive. At the end of the first month, they could choose a specific item from a list to receive. In the second month they would get increasing amounts of free attribute points as well as an item of their choice starting from 5 and ending at 20. If they managed to survive the first week of their third month, they would receive, together with their previous rewards, a random Basic System Boon. The Boon, similar to the item, would increase in specificity until, at the end of their third month within the survival trial, the boon would be upgraded to an Intermediate System Boon. The rewards would continue to increase both in amount and rarity until, after a year in the space the human would be granted a System given Path, along with the veritable mountain of previous rewards. They would then be forced to leave the survival trial since the tier customised tier 5 dungeon would not have the power necessary to increase the difficulty anymore. That being said, Gaia calculated that less than 0.001% of the Humans would even be able to reach the third month. There was essentially no chance that any of the Humans would reach the fifth month. Being unable to increase their levels would mean that, by sheer level difference alone, a human would be unable to damage a level 20 monster. Since level 20 monsters would become the norm after the fourth month Humans would not stand a chance. This trial would serve to eliminate, or at least temper, the more foolhardy of the Humans.

The size of the reward did match the difficulty of the task though. Paths were easily the best method of empowerment available, not including the System itself. By travelling along a Path, an individual can obtain nearly impossible power. Often the rewards gained from reaching the various milestones can grant almost system breaking abilities. Abilities like tripling the effectiveness of an attribute or attaining 100% harmonisation with an element were just some of the rewards available. this is why most only gain a System given Path after lvl 100 and even then, only after performing a heroic feat or two. Of course, even a System given Path was considered almost worthless compared to an Intrinsic Path. Everyone naturally possessed an Intrinsic Path, they merely needed to awaken that Path in order to access it. Of course, that was simpler said than done. Most live their entire lives without awakening their Path. Those that awaken before lvl 200 are one in a million. Those that awaken before lvl 100 are one in a billion. The ones who awakened before lvl 50 were so rare that no-one ever bothered to make a statistic for it. Gaia did not hope for any humans awaken any time soon. If there was even one to awaken before lvl 100 then it would be thrilled. That being said, Gaia did not hold out much hope.

As soon as the tutorial was set up and the Humans were out of the way Gaia got to the business at hand, spending Mana. To put the task into perspective, creating a customised tier 5 dungeon capable of hosting over seven and a half billion sentient beings and giving rewards like a System given Path only used up 10% of the mana. 10%. Not nearly enough. Even if the System kept the Humans from monsterification it wouldn’t save them from being overrun by hordes of tier 2 and above monsters. Fortunately, Gaia had plenty of ideas, the sort of ideas it would never usually contemplate due to it being far too expensive, Mana wise. The first thing Gaia did was a bit of spring cleaning. Using 5% of the Mana allowed Gaia to completely reform the planet. Pulling in the prodigious amount of junk orbiting the planet Gaia converted all the various items back into their component elements and placed them back to where they would normally be found. Gaia then proceeded to do the same to the surface of the planet. Whilst the Humans had created an impressive civilisation, none of it could remain. The simple fact was that all but the sturdiest buildings wouldn’t last a second against a tier 2 monster. Fortunately, the System would help the Humans rebuild.

After the junk was cleared and nature restored, albeit temporarily, Gaia decided to remake the central continent the Humans had named Pangea. After shifting the various continents together, shaping and moulding the land where needed, Gaia checked the Mana expenditure. 23%. Hmmm, seems like I’ll need some more drastic measures. If Gaia had a face, it would have smiled. There was something it had always wanted to do but had never believed would happen. With shifting of its will and a Mana expenditure so large it seemed impossible Gaia proceeded to enlarge the planet until it was twice the size. The rush of Mana left Gaia feeling light-headed. An impressive feat considering that Gaia had neither the head nor the blood necessary to feel light-headed.

Gaia checked the Mana levels, 72%. Less than what it was expecting but not bad. Gaia decided to create another three continents roughly the same size as the original to balance it out. That, along with several tens of thousands of islands dotted throughout the now much larger oceans brought the expenditure up to 83%. With a bit of delicate manipulation of the atmospheric Mana flows, Gaia ensured that the higher-level monsters would mainly spawn on the new continents. Almost finished. The conversion of half of the more common metallic ores scattered throughout the planet's crust into Mana attuned metals took another 7%. The final 10% was devoted to the creation of Dungeons scattered throughout the four continents. Those dungeons would not only act as natural Mana sinks but also as incentives for the Humans to grow in strength.

After one final look over the various changes and alterations it had made, Gaia decided to check in on the Humans.