After the meeting ended, Uncle Tim showed everyone how to leave the guild space. Ray found out that apparently, one could just double-tap the guild interface to create a portal to leave the room. The portal looked pretty basic and uninteresting, just a gray circle with a white border outlining it. It looked incredibly low effort, which made Ray initially not want to go in. At the assurance of Uncle Tim, he did and was brought back to his room back home.

Ray sighed at his computer. He felt a little apprehension at the plan the guild cooked up after he mentioned the Dublin backroads.

Were they really going to attack that monster-infested house today? And what about the infestation of monsters along the roads? It seemed like a random decision, based on information that even Ray couldn’t gauge the accuracy of.

Crazier things have happened. He felt that he should just trust Uncle Tim’s judgment on this one. But there was one thing about last night that still annoyed Ray. He could understand where Uncle Tim was coming from and how he had assembled his friends into a guild immediately.

But he couldn’t understand what his ex-girlfriend was doing with her uncle in that haunted house. Or what they were doing fighting the goblins.

That was something that just did not add up.

Ray scratched his head in boredom and continued his research online. Apparently, most of the internet had now woken up to this new world system and the first articles were popping up on the web just now. It had been about a full day since everything had changed, and Ray wasn’t sure about his next moves.

It just felt like he needed to carefully plan it out, and make the optimal moves to succeed in this new world order. A mistake like last night might kill him the next time if he went ill-prepared as he was.

Judging by what he was seeing online, not many people had uncovered abilities. It was still all rumors and hearsay, the way people were speculating about the immersion and what it might bring. Ray knew one thing for sure, though.

The world had changed on a fundamental level. It was almost as if the previous rules of the world did not apply, the laws of physics overwritten and shattered. Ray felt like there might have even been supernatural occurrences even before the immersion, but this changed everything. It was like another level of difficulty had just been added to Earth.

Yeah, that’s it,” Ray thought. It’s like a whole ‘nother level in a game.

People were changing as well. According to the status windows, people were leveling up into different classes. Ray ended up looking through the leaderboards once more. The top five rankings had shifted since last night.

Name

Class

Rank

Michael

Angel

1

xDarkOverlordx

Slime

2

???

Enhanced Human

3

???

Daoist

4

???

Demon Trainee

5

RayD

Altered Human

246

It seemed like people’s levels were increasing along with their class descriptions. The top four were no longer trainees. Ray was no longer even in the top 200 in terms of level. It was interesting to note that Uncle Tim was now a Slime, instead of a Slime Trainee.

Had he leveled in the few hours after the meeting again?

Ray felt that it was strange that there was no mention of classes during the meeting. He also felt like he shouldn’t be sitting around wasting time. Maybe Uncle Tim didn’t trust him to venture out and hunt down monsters for levels? It didn’t feel good staying stagnant, though.

Ray opened up his status window to check on his own progress. It hadn’t changed much since the last time he checked.

Nickname: RayD

Level: 10

Class : Altered Human

STR

20

HP: 500/500

AGI

25

Total EXP/Percentage to Next Level: 2500 / [0%]

INT

10

Stat Point Available: 20

If I put points into strength, I’ll be stronger. But if I put points into agility, I’ll be faster. But. . . maybe intelligence scales better? Would I be losing out if I dump points into strength? Ray considered his options. It seemed that most people were spreading out their points into intelligence to increase their mana stat, the one stat he didn’t have. Ray felt that he could potentially have an advantage here if he specialized in one attribute.

Maybe I should just be fast, Ray finalized his thoughts. If I’m not fast enough to react to anything, then I’ll be one step behind.

It was similar to how he played assassins in online games. Assassins relied on their speed and reflexive capabilities to quickly burst down an opponent. Ray always felt like that was his strong suit, to wait on the sidelines in stealth for an unsuspecting player or NPC to walk by.

Ray made up his mind and jammed all his points into agility, then reopened his stat window again.

Nickname: RayD

Level: 10

Class : Altered Human

STR

20

HP: 500/500

AGI

45

Total EXP/Percentage to Next Level: 2500 / [0%]

INT

10

Stat Point Available: 0

He then checked the time. It was about two in the afternoon. That meant his mom was probably awake.

Maybe I should talk to mom about this, Ray thought to himself. He still hadn’t done that, even after all that had happened. Maybe she’ll know what to do.

Ray ended up walking downstairs at the thought of that, hoping to talk about the situation at hand. He saw his mom on her computer in front of the TV, the usual work-from-home setup. Playing on the screen was some Chinese drama.

“Hey, mom,” Ray called out casually, as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, Ray,” his mom replied absentmindedly. “Did you just wake up?”

“Been up for a while, why?” Ray wondered.

“You missed out on a lot,” his mom continued, barely noticing him coming in. “Apparently, there’s some kind of video-game system in real life now! They’re currently discussing how this impacts the company now.”

So even his mom knew now. News sure traveled fast in the age of the interwebs. Ray wondered if it was even possible to keep this kind of news low-key. Probably not, when all one had to do was say or think of their status to find out.

“Are you busy?” Ray asked his mom. He wanted to get her thoughts on everything, to start from the beginning of the night. Ray thought that she deserved to know everything, given all that she'd done for him. "I need to tell you something."

“Don’t worry, I know everything,” his mom turned to face him. Ray gasped as he saw his mom.

Her usual dark brown eyes were now bright purple.