We slipped off to the side to sit on an empty stone as the Dean trekked up to the altar in the center of the crowd. The students who weren’t sitting down parted like the red sea as the charismatic man scaled the stone steps onto the ancient altar. The sense of wildness and untamed power was palpable now, thrumming in the air like a thready pulse as the Dean turn to address his audience. “Welcome. I must say I’m impressed. Most years we have at least a few students who are too entrenched in the mundane to make it through the forest and into the faerie ring.”

He scanned the crowd with satisfaction eyes glittering with pleasure at the apparent strength of his current crop of students “Those of you who are here are ready and able to start this journey, but before you do you should heed this warning. There is no limit to the graduating class, no finite number of students who will make it through. But if you decide to enter the program, there is no leaving. You don’t drop out, and you don’t transfer. Your options for leaving are graduate, or die. If any of you are scared, you may leave now, it isn’t too late to turn back. But once you perform the ritual any attempt to leave will be met with execution.”

There was a rash of muttering from everyone present at that revelation but surprisingly no one actually left. I glanced over to my friends, meeting each of their eyes and nodding to show we were all in this together. The Dean looked pleased that no one had decided to leave and finally gestured one of the students to step onto the alter. “Now Professor Malgrim here” he gestured to a tall unnaturally beautiful blonde standing next to him “Is going to be assisting with the ritual, now, the rules are simple. Before one undergoes the ritual you are outside the fold and no details will be given to those not part of our world. If you mention details of what you’re experiencing to those around you before they undergo the ritual, you will die. Don’t even think about just mentioning it to someone secretly either. Trust me, we’ll know.”

My brows crinkled. Well shit, we couldn’t share details of the training, and I assumed they had something built into the ritual to alert them when a student violated the rules based on what he just said. I shared a worried glance with the others. Even if we wanted to leave, which I didn’t, we had passed the point where it wouldn’t be suspicious, and from the extreme secrecy rule I could surmise they weren’t big on spies here. I glanced at professor Malgrim again.

The woman who was undoubtedly the fae who was assisting with the ritual was breathtaking. With her long platinum blonde hair, high cheekbones, and beautiful bright blue eyes, she was every inch the faerie princess. She kind of reminded me of Ali honestly aside from her being much thinner and more fragile looking. She was dressed in a green robe made of velvet so soft and fine it seemed like it might’ve been moss, and she had a circlet on her head with a blue gem in the center.

The first student, a short pretty dark haired girl with an absurdly tiny waist and outrageously generous proportions bounced cheerfully up onto the stage big blue eyes wide with excitement as her….cat ears…twitched with enthusiasm. The professor placed her hands on the girls head to either side of her face and closed her eyes. The smell of wild places and chaotic growth grew heavier as the lights seemed to shift in the faerie ring. After a minute of the feeling of power building she stepped back and the Dean stepped forward. I couldn’t see what he did from where I was but the building power in the air suddenly snapped like a power line.

The girl gasped out loud and wobbled until the Dean caught her and helped her steady herself. She looked at him, confused for a second before she said in complete astonishment “Are you fucking kidding me?” The Dean gave her a stern look and she held up her hands “I’m not giving away details I’m just…. You cant be serious right now.” She shook her head dazedly and walked off the stage, heading over to an empty portion of the clearing I hadn’t noticed before but that was obviously for the already…incarnated I guess, students.

The next fifty or so students were a blur, I felt the magic build and snap the same way as the day wore on, the reactions from the students were mainly the same each time, confusion and shock, and as the day proceeded I could see professor Malgrim start to sway on her feet as her already pale skin faded to a gray and sallow tone from the obvious strain. My friends and I stood off to the side as the crowd around us steadily drained away to the other side of the clearing until, finally we were all that was left. I gave a decisive nod and stepped forward, climbing the stairs as so many others had before me.

My friends didn’t say anything about it, we had seen enough people undergo the process that we were all completely sure of its relative safety. At least in the short term. I could see on their faces as I strode up that they were all a bit relieved I went first though. Whatever, its not like it was a big deal, that which doesn’t kill you gives you indigestion at worst.

I reached the top of the stone steps and felt the same thrum of energy and power building on the air, the Dean stepped up and nodded to me as professor Malgrim removed her hands from my face and looked directly into my eyes. Suddenly his solemn expression gave way to a smirk and with a wink he reached up and…flicked my forehead. I was about to blow a gasket and freak out about this being an elaborate hoax when I noticed something strange in my vision.

Welcome friend, to the Divine Entropic Variant Infernal Logistics system, today is the first day of the rest of your eternity! Due to your advanced age on introduction the next three days are designated as the “Tutorial Period” and all XP and skill gains will be doubled! You have been offered a quest by [Zachary Kelloway] “Get the hell off my altar so I can get to the next person” due to doubled experience this quest offers 50 XP! Do you accept?

I blinked at the blue square of text in front of my face. Then blinked again. More blinking. Wait. What the fuck? I looked up at Dean Kelloway, who had finger to his lips. Arching his eyebrows he drew the finger across his neck with a grin and gestured me off the stage. I figured this must be a joke but I might as well accept the quest just- Quest accepted! In case. Right. I hopped down off the altar and made my way over to the crowd over on the side of the clearing, as soon as my feel touched the forest floor another window popped up in from of me.

Congratulations! You have gained 50 XP from the quest “Get the hell off my altar so I can get to the next person”! XP remaining to Level Two : 50/100! Achievement unlocked :Shut up and do what I say! Because you wisely chose not to mouth off to someone that could crush you like a bug all experience rewards from quests given by Dean Kelloway are permanently fixed at Tutorial levels!

I looked up surprised to see the dean wink at me. Thinking back, just about every student had said something derisive or questioning after they…became part of a video game? Apparently quests had some hidden requirements you could complete to get extra stuff. I shook my head of surreal nature of just having thought that about real life. I paused for a second (no not literally you morons, it’s a figure of speech) before biting my lip. I glanced around and when I saw everyone lost in their own worlds I said quietly “Status” and jumped out of my skin when another window appeared. Cool, guess that worked.

Name: Ethan Sunder

Class(es): None

Skills: None

Level: 1 (50/100)

HP:10/10

MP:10/10

Achievements: Select to open list

Statistics-

Charisma:3

Strength:1

Dexterity:2

Stamina:1

Intelligence:2

Luck:7

Passive- Infernal Evolution: You are permanently set to 100% experience gain. All party members set to 100% experience gain while in party.

Secondary Passive- Locked

Blood Concentration: 10%

I was shocked out of trying to puzzle out what half of that meant by the realization that my friends had all made their way over and the Dean was no addressing us as a group. “Now. Since you all have been incarnated, we can finally get down to the explanations. Yes this is a video game interface, no we are not fucking with you, yes we will really kill you if you tell anyone. Now before I explain how all of this works and what we know of why its like that are there any questions?”

The pretty dark haired girl with cat ears and the amazing body raised a hand and the Dean gestured toward her “Hi, I’m Melanie Campbell, I was wondering like, why some of my stats are high and some are really low. Like my intelligence says point five but my charisma is four? Do I get to like, add points when I level up? Can I become like, a super strong badass? Or like, a genius?”

The Dean actually visibly winced when she mentioned her intelligence. “Ah, that’s as good a place to start as any. Contrary to how video games portray things, we do not get free stat points when we level. The basic setup for stats is tied into their advancement, each person has stats when they are born and what they are to start decides what you can focus on in your training. For instance, a 1 in any stat is completely average for a starting score, a 2 is above average and a 3 is exceptional. A starting stat of 4 in any category could be considered a genius level talent in that aspect of your development.”

I wrinkled my brow at that, what the hell did that make my 7 in luck? “We usually see at least a few fours in any given year, and an exceptional year has perhaps one or two students with a five. I’ve seen exactly one six since I’ve been here, and he is now one of our more powerful professors. Now don’t worry, natural stats are a guidline for your path but you can still decide to go in another direction, it will just take longer to get there. Now as you may have noticed you have a level based on how far progressed you are. Most of you will be fairly low on that progression for reasons I’ll explain shortly but the reason I bring it up is how stat progression works.”

The Dean seemed to become more animated and charismatic as he spoke “Now as I mentioned there are no free stat points but you can increase your stats, whenever you do a quest or kill a monster or cast a spell that has an actual effect, you gain experience. Depending on the stat associated with which skill you use to gain the majority of that experience at the next level you will see that stat rise commensurate to the amount of potential stat bonuses warranted by your level. For example, if you beat a hundred goblins to death and level that way your point will go into strength.”

He looked to the cat eared girl, Melanie “For the first ten levels you get a stat point per level. Levels ten to twenty give you two stat points. There are only two people at this school who have made it past level twenty and they received three stat points for that level increase. Both of them are professors. For the first twenty levels the percentages don’t really matter, whatever your most used stat is gets the point, but past twenty more diverse skillsets will mean your stat points will be distributed based on the percentage of your level XP you gained with that stat. You can also train your stats through repeated use, but only up to your current overall level, which makes it an inefficient way to progress, though a good habit to get into as an afterthought.”

The girl mostly looked lost, but I followed what he was saying. The stats you use get stronger and people usually use the ones that are naturally higher because they do more damage, but you don’t have to. I wondered how the hell I was supposed to use luck but figured I could always ask about it later. The Dean looked out to us “That provides an excellent platform for our next discussion, blood concentration. We are all of us only partially attuned to our planes of origin blood concentration is the level of that attunement. We only gain that percentage of any available experience. So if your quest would be worth 100 XP to a full supernatural you will only get whatever your blood concentration is upon completion of that task. Any other questions?”

Shawn stepped forward looking interested but mildly annoyed by the news about blood concentration “What are classes and how many can we have?” Throughout the Deans speech everyone was waiting with baited breath as the man explained this absurd system to us. We were all so shocked we could barely utter a sound as he told us how everything worked. As soon as Shawn asked his question the tension around us seemed to just snap. Muttering and whispers among groups of people started to crop up but a single glance from Dean Kelloways sharp emerald eyes froze them all on everyones lips.

With a satisfied nod the Dean addressed the question “Classes are, much like an any of the games you’re no doubt reminded of, jobs that people can have. Different classes are based on different stats and you can have one class for every ten levels. You can pick any class, but different classes rely on different stats, the higher the class’s main stat the stronger its abilities will be. The benefit of this is say you take an intelligence based class and use magic to increase your strength and beat an opponent to death with your bare hands, since you used a class skill from an intelligence class that will raise your intelligence not your strength.”

The Dean made an expansive gesture to the world around us “Basic classes are simple to get and can even be created by repeatedly doing something, you’ll have the chance to find hundreds of option s during your four years here. Any other questions will be answered by your teachers in their classes, you’ll start learning skills from them later on tonight, and they should be able to help you reach your full potential. Remember our faculty are all powerful highsiders with levels in the high teens and even twentys, feel free to talk amongst yourselves about all of this before you head back to campus.”