From what he would very much like to call ‘anticipation’, Sean had closed his eyes. If anyone asked if he was afraid, then he’d violently lash out via a barrage of bashful remarks about why exactly there was no reason for him to be afraid of such a thing, and then he would proceed to berate them for underestimating him. Alas, that was exactly what he did when he was indeed afraid and was questioned about it. And quite frankly, no one could blame him for what he did. It was the most obvious course of action. After all, he was indeed covered in light for a while, and he didn’t want to be blinded, either temporarily or permanently.

When he opened his eyes, he saw nothing. Not nothing, as in impenetrable darkness that couldn’t be seen through. Far from it. In fact, it was a white room, if it could be called that. A white ‘void’ would be more accurate, as there was simply nothing. No trees, roads, or even abstract concepts like color, smell, and movement. This wasn’t what he’d expected, or inversely, exactly what he’d expected —he was abducted by aliens.

“Greetings, Player E-3,579,450,065. Your Calibration has begun. I am your Virtual Assistant, TI-O, and will guide you through the process. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them now,” spoke a disembodied, female voice. It had the distinct feel of being an artificial one, constructed from a voicebank that contained small snippets of noises that were conjoined in a manner as to emulate speaking. Nothing complicated. He could make one, provided with enough time.

“Is this a dream?” asked Sean first. That was the only real question that mattered right now. It was an unreliable source, quite frankly. If he was dreaming, then the voice would be a fabrication of his dream and would most likely not answer truthfully. Maybe he’d just try to… enjoy this? No, that wouldn’t do. On the off chance this was reality, then he’d end up doing something that he’d regret later on, “And what exactly is happening?”

“Your planet has been chosen to become a part of the System,” said the voice, as if it was obvious. Maybe not, but mechanical voices didn’t have all that broad of an emotional spectrum they could convey with their voice. This one was like them. It didn’t have any real emphasis or anything that could imply emotion.

“Why?” said Sean, pressing further for answers, hoping that this was perhaps one of those AIs that could connect the dots from the context from the conversation they were having. If this was some sort of alien ploy, then surely, they would have advanced to that point, wouldn’t they? Or maybe he was overestimating what aliens were capable of in the AI department.

“I do not have an answer for that,” said TI-O, and after a not-so-brief pause, deemed that the questionnaire was over due to over a minute’s worth of silence as Sean pondered. It was a habit of his, getting lost in his thoughts mid-conversation, “Let us start the calibration process, Player E-3,579,450,065. Please, make your way to the door with a red sign over it and enter the room.”

“What do-” started Sean, but stopped the moment he spotted it. He could swear it wasn’t there just a moment ago. Whatever. He was in some sort of white void dimension talking to an AI. Thinking about how something appeared out of nowhere wasn’t something that he even had to bat an eye for, “So that’s how it’s gonna be.”

Thankfully, TI-O did not respond to that. He walked over to the door. It was intriguing how despite the fact that it was quite literally a void, he could make out the dimensions and the overall ‘shape’ of the void if he could call it that. The mere existence of the door made it a lot better, somehow. Maybe because that served as an anchor to reality in the middle of quite literally nowhere where nothing was visible moments prior. He didn’t sway, too, which he thought he would due to how there was no way to know whether there was ground beneath him or not or whether he was simply existing and perpetually falling before the door appeared.

When he pulled the door, though, he saw something peculiar. It was yet another white room. There was a monitor which resembled the one back at home, but it didn’t have the Sony logo in bold at the bottom bar below the screen, which was just the name of the company.

Not a moment sooner, he heard a soft buzz straight inside his skull. It caused a momentary headache, but that was gone as fast as it had appeared. It lasted maybe a second. Then TI-O spoke, clearly trying to explain the phenomena and why exactly that had happened, “Your Physical Calibration has been completed. Please say the word Status out loud and summon your Character Screen.”

Whatever this Calibration Process was, it was too streamlined —he didn’t like things like that. It felt like he was being dragged around through a single road in an open-world game. It wasn’t satisfying in the least in most scenarios, but he could live with this. He was in some sort of void.

“Status,” said Sean out loud. Was he supposed to say it out loud, even? Maybe something like thinking about it would be alright, though he supposed it would be annoying if it popped up in the middle of a conversation. A screen, much like before, appeared. But this time, though, its contents were different. Quite self-explanatory.

Character Screen

Name:

Sean Morris

Class:

Calibrating…

Health Points:

150 (+10 per minute)

Mana Points:

210 (+0.6 per minute)

Attributes

Strength: 8 (???)

Intelligence: 21

Agility: 11 (???)

Perception: 35

Durability: 15 (???)

Endurance: 24

Vitality: 100

Wisdom: 6

“How the hell is my Wisdom that low?” almost shouted out Sean, looking at the puny 6. Since he wasn’t really all that great in terms of physique, the fact that his Strength was at 8 while his Wisdom was lower was utterly ridiculous. Was he that dumb? Really? He felt insulted. No, violated, even, “And what the hell are those question marks?”

“Triple question marks are used for attributes which denote the currently locked potential of your body’s capabilities,” said TI-O helpfully. It made sense how Strength and Agility had them. After all, there were stories of frail women lifting up cars to save their children. It probably referred to those, but why Durability had them was an enigma to Sean. But he focused on Vitality. Why was it so high? It was far beyond the others.

Perception and Endurance made sense. Even while he was getting beaten up, he felt barely anything. That was probably what Endurance was, which was one’s ability to bear the pain. As for Perception, he saw punches in the few fights he’d gotten into, but he couldn’t dodge because his body wasn’t fast enough. Pretty accurate so far, but that low Wisdom made him salty.

How did he even compare to others? Without knowing that, Sean was only able to make observations based on the difference in his attributes. As far as he knew, he wasn’t all that fit, but not obese or anything —a complete average in everything. Then he had an excellent idea. He had an AI Assistant, didn’t he?

“TI-O, what are the average and maximum stats for humans?” he asked, assuming that there were other races too. They were the 405th Generation. Of course, there were at least a dozen types of aliens. He somehow started to more or less go along with the things that have been said, mostly because not believing didn’t really have any benefits. This was one of those scenarios where paranoia wouldn’t help.

“An average human’s capabilities range from 1 to 10 in the physical attributes and 1 to 20 in the mental attributes. The greatest recorded physical attributes of a human is 1043 in Strength, 4540 in Agility, and 5305 in Durability,” said TI-O, making Sean’s eyes widen dramatically. Wait… the average was 10, but there was someone that was 100 times that value? That didn’t make sense. How did this stat system even work? It was clearly flawed. Unless…

“What is 1000 Strength and 4000 Agility capable of, TI-O?” asked Sean. There was a slight pause, and then the AI answered. He then noticed a sort of emotion in its voice. Was it a mocking one? He took that comment about it being a dumb AI back. It could clearly think, or it was someone that was using a Voice Changer to speak while acting like an AI.

“1000 Strength is capable of punching through a material known as Steel on your planet and 4000 Agility is a speed that is comparable to a type of transport known as a Plane on your planet,” said TI-O, and Sean wondered if he’d heard that right. A human that could punch through steel and run faster than a plane? That didn’t make sense. Not one single bit.

“What’s his name?” asked Sean, wondering whether the ‘System’ had made a mistake. That couldn’t be, could it? If such a person existed, then they’d have completely broken the world records with no effort. Maybe it was some sort of mutant experiment that the governments were conducting. That could explain it —some sort of super soldier program, “Or hers.”

“That information may not be revealed at the moment, Player. Please say the word Skills out loud and summon the Skillbook. It contains your capabilities at the moment,” said TI-O, completely dodging his further questions. Well, it couldn’t be helped, but he now knew that there was some terrifyingly strong human. Maybe the Tyrant Virus from the Resident Evil series wasn’t all that far anymore.

He followed the AI’s guidance and said the word out loud, and saw yet another screen appear. The Character Screen was still there, but the Skillbook Screen was in front of it. He tried focusing on the Character Screen and then it came forward, its contents now visible instead of being covered by the other one. And when he focused on the Skillbook, it then came to the front. That was interesting. He mentally tried to close the Character Screen, but couldn’t; and had to resort to saying it out loud again —and as expected, it was gone. The controls were voice-based, he supposed.

Skillbook

Skill Name

Skill Rank

Skill Mastery

Research

F

13%

Computation

F

20%

Technical Linguist

D

80%

He stared at the screen for a while. The first two made sense and the third one made him raise an eyebrow. So one by one, he clicked through the skills. At least he thought that clicking on it would bring up information about it, and thankfully, it did.

Research

After toiling for the pursuit of knowledge for so long, you have learned that you are capable of finding information you search for far more easily. Time seems to flow 13% slower for you when you are looking for a certain information in books and scriptures.

Computation

You have learned how computers and technology work on an intimate level, and can now enforce your mind to think in a similar manner to a computer. You are able to break down large amounts of information and processes in blocks and create coherent structures even if you do not know what each component does.

Technical Linguist

As a dabbler in the study of technology, you have started to notice a pattern in every technical language. You are able to learn Technical Languages at an accelerated rate.

Research was flattering. Had he really researched so much as to get a Skill out of it? Seemingly he had. Sean assumed just about every university student that actually tried to pass their classes with their own effort would have it. The ones that didn’t try to, not so much. Or maybe it was because he’d almost taught most of the Programming Languages to himself using some websites? He’d have to ask Clara whether or not she had it, he supposed. If she did, then that’d be a trait shared by just about everyone.

Then Computation was a fitting skill for him and Technical Linguist was even more so. He had a dumb grin on his face as he looked at the Skills. It finally felt like his efforts were being recognized. He knew that people knew he was a decent programmer, but this instant gratification was on a whole new level. No mysteries at all.

“What do the percentages mean?” asked Sean, clearly used to the AI’s presence. It was like having Siri —you could just ask and get an answer instead of looking up yourself, except, this one was more accurate and had things Google didn’t. Not much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, but still, it helped, “And ranks.”

“The percentage growth is how much progress you have until the Skill evolves to the next level. The Rank is the alphabetical ranking of how useful the Skill is for the Player and the challenges they are to face,” said TI-O back with its regular tone. Perhaps he’d imagined that mocking tone from before due to his insecurity. No need to blame a piece of technology for his own fault. Sean nodded to the answer, and once again, quieted down. TI-O clearly took that as a cue to proceed, “The Tutorial has been finished. Please proceed to the monitor to select the Stage, Player.”

After standing around for a good ten minutes fiddling with his status screens, Sean finally focused on the monitor. It was previously off, but as he made his way, it turned on and showed a sort of gallery. There were peculiar landscapes and words underneath them, which he couldn’t make out until he was almost a meter or so from it. The first picture showed a sort of meadow with flowers, labeled “Serpent’s Meadow”. The second picture showed a mountain range that reached the sky, named “Giant’s Mountains”. The third picture showed a forest with dark-leaved trees, with the name of “Goblins’ Forest”. Their contents were obvious.

“Wait… are you serious?” asked Sean after he looked at them. It was practically just ‘death’ written in 3 different manners and implied with 3 images. This was unbelievable. But if he had to choose, then he would definitely go for the goblin one. They were small and most importantly, they were humanoid. That’d mean they’d be far less deadly than some giant or a serpent that was just as large, “TI-O, is this mandatory?”

“I am afraid it is, Player. But as this is the Calibration, the trial will end upon your death and you will be transported back to your world with the rewards you have reaped and a Class that is fitting of you, which will be determined by the Calibration,” said TI-O. So ‘dying’ didn’t mean dying for real, but the manner with which TI-O said that made it seem as if dying didn’t matter only in the Calibration, which he didn’t mind, quite frankly.

“What happens when you die? System-wise, that is,” said Sean, wondering about what would happen if he died out there in the ‘real world’. If it said that he’d die for real, it was just what he was used to. If re-spawning was an actual thing now, then that’d make his life all the better.

“You die, but you may be brought back to life by the utilization of necromancy, technology, and artifacts,” said TI-O, and for the most part, Sean knew its answers. But the thing with that was that he didn’t really think about Magic all that seriously before then. He did see a Mana Pool in his Character Sheet, which he had an abundance of, but it was all too surreal. It was obvious that necromancy and such would be real in this new System-enhanced world. Otherwise, the AI wouldn’t have specified them, if they were exceptions.

Guessing that he may as well try to have a go at fighting in this clearly far more dangerous world, Sean picked the Giant’s Mountains Stage. He guessed that his death would be more or less painless against giants. As a man of culture, he’d watched some animes and knew full well what might happen if he lost to a goblin; and being killed by poison wasn’t all that enticing, for that matter —being ripped from limb to limb, and dying within seconds, was preferable.

“Good luck, Player,” said TI-O and he was once again covered by that bright blue light. It had read his mind before he audibly spoke out the command, but that wasn’t something he really had to be surprised about. Not anymore, at least. He was literally in some sort of fantasy world where magic was real. Even if it was only a dream, he would enjoy it to its fullest, but there was no reason to really doubt it so far.

***

Just like before, Sean closed his eyes. But this time, this wasn’t fear. It was him being cautious about being blinded. The System didn’t seem like it would throw him into the middle of a Giant’s lair, but being cautious didn’t hurt. And more importantly, this was where he could thrive. After all, his carefulness that bordered on paranoia was one of his defining traits, which was all but useless back in the white void, where he could only follow directions.

He looked around, taking in his surroundings. Just as expected, he was in some sort of mountain range, on a road that seemed to have been created by carving out a part of the mountain to create it. It was wide, almost 10 meters in width. He walked up to the edge and looked down, only to see a fall that was clearly at least a few hundred meters tall. And when he looked up, he saw the mountain tip just as far away —was he supposed to go up?

That said, it was cold. He didn’t even have a jacket, just a plain shirt that wasn’t even all that thick. But it wasn’t piercing cold —more so the kind that made you note that it was cold and that you had to put a jacket on rather than one that made you go numb. It was good enough, he supposed. On the other hand, the cold wasn’t the thing that was on his mind at the moment. The cliff was. With the cliff, he might be able to ‘kill’ the giant if he played it smart and commit suicide if he was in a hopeless situation.

“TI-O,” spoke Sean out loud, checking if it was there. He was only answered with the whistling of the wind. So the AI was only limited to that part of the Calibration, or maybe it was not allowed to interfere with the Combat Stage? Having an AI to act as his Google all the time didn’t seem like a bad idea. Not at all.

As he walked up the road that circled the mountain, Sean chuckled slightly. It’d take some time, it seemed. Not that he minded it. It was everything he wanted, after all. He had picked up programming because he wanted to make games, much like every other kid in his generation that had too great an ambition after learning about video games. He’d given up, though. Practical fields paid better. But to be transported into a game? That was practically a dream come true!

“Status,” said Sean and he once again looked at his stats. If this was a game, then clearly, he would gain stats in some manner. Completing quests and killing monsters was his best guess. But he wasn’t informed of a Quest mechanic, so perhaps it wasn’t all that simple? Or inversely, far simpler than he assumed, which basically meant that only killing monsters would give him XP and stats? Then there was the matter about his Class being decided by his performance in the Calibration Test.

Just as he had started to ponder about what it implied, a notification popped up, clarifying to him that there was indeed a Quest System. There wouldn’t be a Quest if there was no Quest System, after all.

Main Quest: Giant Hunt

You have been tasked with defeating Helthur the Giant at the apex of the Giant’s Mountains —a task that is far too difficult for a meager human to complete. Your progress toward the end will decide your rewards, but completing the Calibration Test will yield even greater rewards. What path will you choose?

Current Progress: 0%

Average Progress: 15%

Sean didn’t know what the Average was based upon, but it wouldn’t be unrealistic to assume that there were humans or at least an equivalent that had been integrated before which set the average. Or was it based on the number of people who have already completed it? Regardless, he could rest easy if he just got past 15 and get better than average grades —there were no expectations to answer to, after all. He dismissed the panel and walked, following the road.

The road seemed to stretch on forever, but after around thirty minutes or so of walking, he saw something. Not right in front of himself, but slightly above him. As the road encircled the mountain, he could see what was up above. The fact that it had taken him almost thirty minutes to walk an eighth of a circle was a testament to the height of the mountain. He had to do at least a hundred spirals, but this would become smaller the further up he got.

As for his discovery, it was something akin to a straw hut built in a particularly thick part of the road. It was around 2 circles away, and that meant it’d take some while. Unless… he could somehow climb the mountain? Then a plan started to formulate in his head. If he somehow managed to create an ice axe or at least something that would dig deep enough into the hard dirt of the mountain while providing a good handle, then he could maybe climb up the area between the roads.

So he looked around and saw nothing but rocks of varying sizes and shapes. There weren’t any convenient-looking ones that could be used as a ice axe right away, but there were some that were the size of Sean’s forearms in width but not as much in height. Sean grabbed two of them and lined them up in front of him, and looked at the duo. They’d work.

“I should have joined the Boy Scouts when dad offered me to,” said Sean, contemplating his life choices. If he’d played his cards smarter, then he could have known exactly what to do in this situation. Not that he didn’t. He just didn’t have a practical solution in his hand. It all boiled down to him hitting the rock till it had a sharp edge without breaking it in half.

It was harder than expected.

Three failed tries later, he managed to create his first. And another two failures later, he managed to create his second. Using the environment to his advantage was a thing, huh? He’d never gotten into a situation that required it before, and he was surprised how fast he’d thought of a solution. And he grabbed both rocks and twirled them around in his hands. Somewhat heavy, but they’d do. The distance between each ‘circle’ was around a dozen meters or so, and this was the first time he was climbing a mountain with iceaxes.

He didn’t like his odds.

Sean frowned. If he fell, his laptop was goodbye. Hell, even his spine might go goodbye. Was it worth risking his life for? Well, not life. He’d come back to life, but what of his laptop? If it broke, then all his assignments would be gone. This was a hard choice indeed. Leaving the laptop at the bottom of the mountain was not an option, and neither was carrying it with him. So Sean groaned.

“If you exist, please don’t let me fall on my back, God,” said Sean and he prepared himself. He breathed deeply, taking in as much of the air into his lungs as possible; and then he let it out ever so slowly, calming himself down. It wouldn’t do if he somehow had a panic attack while climbing. Not that he’d had any in his life. Then he added, “And if you do, and let me fall, fuck you.”

And holding it in a reverse grip, with the side with an edge facing down, toward his pinky, Sean stabbed the first one into the soil of the mountain. It was difficult to get it in, and that made him frown. Would he be able to do it suspended in the air, with only one hand supporting him? He’d just have to make do. With that, he stabbed the second one a fair bit above the first, ready to use it as leverage...