[ Do you wish to proceed? ]

The prompt pulsed in midair, waiting for his decision. As much as Dexter wished to reject the visions that were shown, board a flight back to New York and ease back into his monotonous job as if nothing had changed, he couldn't.

But was there a point in fighting against the inevitable? Why suffer against a horde of the worst imaginable nightmares? The choice to leave the barrier and enter a field of chaos, or wait inside with fear of the unknown hanging over your head, had been upgraded. The new choices were rather simple, however, but Dexter wasn't willing to die just yet.

Locked in a state of limbo, he looked at the floating map of the planet that could no longer be considered Earth. Images of cavemen entered his thoughts, where they huddled by a fire, grunting what would become the origins of all human language. As they painted, decorating cave walls, the image swept into sand dunes, solidifying into three great pyramids.

The ancient wonders sparkled like diamonds under the Egyptian sun, until that very sun morphed into an eye. And before Dexter knew it, the sphinx was staring down at him. It seemed everything that humanity accomplished; from cave paintings to rovers on Mars, were completely erased.

The thought brought a current of emotion that was too vast for him to comprehend. He felt isolated, like a sense of identity had been stolen. But the staple of struggle had been a part of humanity since the beginning, and right now, it was all he had. Feeling his resolve grow, Dexter accepted his new reality.

[ Bonuses applied. Please select your chosen attunement. ]

[ Attribute Scaling ]

[ Body Modification ]

[ Tributary Offering ]

[ Affinity Enhancement ]

As Dexter read over the options, impressions imprinted their effects on his mind, and a wave of excitement overcame him.

Attribute Scaling offered a total of five points to his base attributes and a method to increase them further. Whereas Body Modification did exactly as the name specified. If he so desired, he could walk away with a tail, or gills that allowed him to breathe underwater. It could even change the type of vital energy his body produced. However, there was a hard cap that restrained the modification, like all the other attunements.

Tributary Offering could best be described as a soul bound item. But it also offered a compatible skill or companion that leveled alongside him. He would have selected it if the cap didn't hamper the possibilities.

Affinity Enhancement was a complete gamble out of the four options. It would raise his affinity level in a similar manner to Attribute Scaling, but as he questioned the interface, it refused to tell him what his affinity was.

[ Please select your attunement. ]

The system rushed.

"Attribute scaling, body modification, tributary offering, affinity enhancement," Dexter went over the options. He had a unique idea for all four of them. Each one dredging up memories where he spent glued to his gaming chair, grinding away at virtual reality. "I can't select between them without reviewing my attributes first."

[ Displaying status. ]

Status//

Name: Dexter Hawk

Level: 1

Class: N/A

Titles: Initiate

Renown: 1,000

Attributes//

Perception: 11 – [Locked]

Strength: 8 – [Locked]

Constitution: 9 – [Locked]

Dexterity: 18 – [Locked]

Magic: 10 – [Locked]

Effectiveness: +0%

Free Points: 5

Essence Tokens: 1,000

The amount of information that accompanied the status page was staggering. Dexter barely got to absorb the fine details before the next info packet flooded his mind, forcing him to focus on the next topic. He suspected the rush was a safety measure in case of brain overload.

The Class system was by far the most intricate item on the status page. It was inextricably linked to his attributes, which held their own designated skill slots. Skill slots that enhanced the assigned skill, drawing more potential out of its corresponding attribute.

"So this is how we're supposed to fight back against those void creatures? Interesting…" The mechanic had him salivating before he could even begin theory crafting.

There were two concepts heavily impressed upon Dexter's mind; unification and growth. They resided under a Skill Link system that functioned as a marriage between a person and their Class. Synergy was the absolute goal. Like an armor set, it granted a bonus to attributes when Class skills were linked as a whole.

Titles and Renown were systems he was more familiar with, and operated similar to what he expected. Titles granted bonuses, and points towards Renown for accomplishments. Those points would accumulate until they reached a certain bracket where low to high ranked content hidden in the Shop became available. It was there he would spend Essence Tokens; a System governed currency forged from vital energy.

"Initiate," Dexter inspected the Title.

[ Initiate: Renown +1,000. Essence Tokens +1,000. +5% to all stats. Welcome to the Nexus. ]

"Ah, so it's a standard title. And here I thought I was rewarded for past deeds."

[ No significant accomplishments detected. ]

"What?" Dexter looked up to the floating screen. It hadn't moved or updated its text since urging him to select an attunement. "Does that mean I could have started with a higher Renown score?"

[ Please select your attunement. ]

Rolling his eyes, Dexter looked over his attributes. At first glance, they summed up his entire life, and he found himself nodding along without realizing it. His Perception was above average due to his innate hearing ability. It allowed him to name countless notes by ear.

Strength and Constitution were below average, but Dexterity gladly made up for them. The years he spent developing his hand-eye coordination had granted him a significant boost. It allowed him to reach twenty in one attribute before obtaining a Class. But it was his Magic value that had drawn his attention the most, further reshaping his world view.

Dexter had been a skeptic his entire life, doubting the supernatural, but apparently the countless tales regarding psychics and super humans that plagued earth for millennia, had been true. He personally never had any supernatural experience, although there was that one time he found a certain website and spent an entire day performing research, but at the end of the day he didn't feel particularly magical. Even if he had secretly believed it was impressive.

Scratching his head, Dexter peered over the five attributes. They were relatively balanced aside from Dexterity, but there wasn't much he could do about that. After all, he'd have to handicap himself. Magic, on the other hand, called to him. It needed two extra points to become his second focus. And with a base value of ten, he appeared to have an affinity for the attribute. So, after a second, he decided to assign Free Points to increase his vital energy, when he had an epiphany.

"Hey, Bot, how much time do I have remaining?"

[ 02h:35m:15s until new parameters are finalized. ]

"Two hours until the end of the forced stabilization of ambient vital energy, and the beginning of when those tears start to open in space?"

[ Arashic Rifts. ]

"Whatever," Dexter took a deep breath, nodding to himself. "If I'm going to do this, I'll have to disregard all reason imposed upon me by the old world. Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

Without hesitation, Dexter closed his eyes, focusing inward, and assigned all five points into Magic. He supposed he wouldn't have noticed the effects of 1 or 2 points, but as he focused on his chest, the rush of 5 points revealed themselves. Once again, Dexter felt the energy that the void coveted, but this time it wasn't through the visions given to him by the System.

"That was easier than I thought," Dexter grinned. He reached out with a thought to take command of the energy, but it faded like a breeze.

"No," he panicked, squeezing as if he was constipated. His brow furrowed and veins flared on the side of his head before he could grasp a sliver of the energy. However, he had managed to grasp a sliver and the relief was like dropping a toilet stopper.

"Now where do I go from here?" his plan was to take control of the energy and use it in a way that would increase the Renown cap on his attunements, but there was too little to work with.

Dexter cycled through various weeb techniques, yet each idea failed to grow the energy. He knew he shouldn't waste the introduction phase of the tutorial. At best, he had an hour to contemplate and pick an attunement before he interfered with the next phase. He hadn't even gotten to skills yet. But each time he was about to give up, he felt the chill of the void closing in around him. The damned System had given him PTSD.

By now the struggle to hold on to the wisp of vital energy had faded, but he was missing something fundamental about controlling the energy. Perhaps a skill was needed, but Dexter pushed that thought aside. It was his energy born from his body, and he'd force it to submit to his will one way or another. If he didn't have a method to control it then he would make one… by bribing it.

Not a second later, Dexter's guitar was slung across his chest while he coaxed the energy like a fire. First he started slow, getting into the old rhythm that reminded him of a tranquil sea. A single canoe, swaying gently on the lake behind his grandparents' old summer house.

"Oh? Does that bore you?" the energy remained stagnant as if nothing happened.

After testing out a few freestyles, Dexter kicked the lake into a storm.

"How about some Hendrix!?" this time the cords were harsh. Their notes echoed off the barrier like the first time he used his guitar, and cascaded towards him like a wave.

The strange acoustics eventually caused Dexter to frown, tilting his head, but the rhythm held, so he continued. But shortly after, Dexter noticed what he missed before. From the start of his arrival, the barrier contained vital energy, and his music was controlling it. Each time he struck the guitar the energy scattered away from him, then surged back to fill the opening void.

As he continued he realized the odd method regenerated his mana pool so to speak. It seemed he had thought about the energy entirely wrong. It was vital after all, no wonder half of it disappeared—becoming nutrients for his body.

The more energy he absorbed, the more his body changed. Or rather, he felt more alive, less dehydrated in a sense. His nose twitched at the smell of the half withered apple, sounds from outside the barrier grew clearer, and he could make them out under the brash timbre of his guitar. But most of all his body felt lithe and nimble, and he surprised himself by how fast he could play without tripping over his fingers.

[ ...Please select your attunement. ]