Yong Li had seen some shit in his day. He was a short man, stunted in his prime years of growth by the Three Year Difficulty. His right leg limped where a counter-revolutionary had broken it during the Struggles. His nose was crooked, knocked askew by his uncle the day they turned him in to the party for his Capitalist intellectualism. So many scars, all of them decades old.

Yong grimaces, bracing himself against the bed as he stands. Sweat stains his shirt, slicks the few white strands of hair he has left. A noise chimes again, like an alarm in shortening intervals. So annoying. He had tried pushing the button on the mobile telephone device his son had given him, but it wouldn’t turn on. Technology could not be trusted.

Breathing heavily, he peels off his shirt and frees his wrinkled, weathered skin to the air and shakily advances towards the waterfall cave. How did it become so hot in here?

He coughs, thick with a lingering swampiness he picked up 50 years ago in the jungles of Vietnam. That had been his last act in service to the Red army, as a secret military advisor to the Viet Kong. It had been a nightmare, his friends dying of disease and the Party breathing down his neck and demanding results. It had been the rumors which finally killed his loyalty, rumors that the Americans lived in comfort and wealth across the sea. He heard that every fool owned an automobile, every sluggard their own house and land. He’d heard that they ate bread and meat for every meal.

Yong was a practical man, with practical expectations. So he telegraphed his commanding officer to tell them he’d died of Typhus and set out across the jungle to defect. One bullet wound, a real Typhus infection, three dead ARVN scouts, and two good sets of boots later, he’d made it to DaNang. He’d thought the stupid Americans would be easily fooled by his Vietnamese, but it turned out faking citizenship to the Americans proved frustratingly difficult. Convincing them to grant asylum was even harder. Though that was less a matter of difficulty, and more a matter of the huge bribe he had to pay one of the heroin smugglers.

So when he arrived in America, he never complained. He worked, worked until his knuckles bled. He found a wife, started a business, raised a family. Even when the FBI harassed him, even for twenty years afterwards, asking him to spy on local Communists! No, he played the fool and he kept his head down instead. He would not complain. He would not rebel.

But then his children grew up weak. They flinched at responsibility. They wilted at adversity. His grand-children were even worse! Fat, and lazy and useless. They all treated Yong like he was a relic, didn’t they appreciate how much he did for them? Ungrateful.

His shaking hand grips the corner yielding into the cave. Gripping it for support, Yong gasps as heat bears down on him. It’s even worse here! The water, which had been cool when he had arrived, was now coming in scalding hot, letting off the first billows of steam. Adding to his frustration, the chiming continues its insistent nuisance. He might scream in anger if this keeps on, how is he supposed to turn off the noise?

Then, “你好嗎,” calls out a voice, and as Yong turns he sees it’s one of the devil women come to gloat. It was the child-like one, the pink idiot with the curling shooting-star hair: she hadn’t made a sound appearing behind him. He’d never believed in evil spirits, his wife had been the superstitious one; but Yong was a practical man, with practical convictions, and he knows a devil when he sees a devil.

“離開我，你惡魔” Yong growls, flicking his hand to chase the evil spirit away.

The creature laughs. “很熱吧?” She teases him with a false pouting sympathy, then wags a finger. “使用[系統]，李勇!” His impatience continues to mount, what the hell is this [System] everyone keeps talking about?

Yong sneers, then suddenly feels weak. He bounces bodily against the wall as his grip fails, then slides painfully to the floor. How did it get so hot? Is this insufferable creature responsible? Or was it that boy? The one who had convinced him to touch the wall and come to this prison cell room.

He reaches out his fist, then strikes out weakly. The pink thing is getting too close, watching him. Watching him like he’s some kind of insect instead of a man.

He should kill her. He should kill all of them, he hates being so old. Li Yong sneers with fury, trying to reach for a weapon, for anything; but he’s so very tired and his chest hurts so badly.

Maybe he just needs to sleep. Maybe it’s time to rest.

Todd opens his eyes and realizes he’s on the floor. Right, the bed was uncomfortable. Then he realizes he’s dressed in a white linen karate robe. Right, because his other clothes were dirty. Finally he realizes he’s in a cubic blue stone exit-less room. Right, because he was abducted into an alternate dimension by a triplet of floating neon bloodsport enthusiasts. He yawns.

Stretching out his body by arching his back and pumping out a clumsy bicycle kick while punching out at the empty air, Todd becomes satisfied his blood is flowing and wakefulness arrived. “Hmph!” He rocks himself back up to a seated position. Then, reaching to set up his small table, he notes with approval that the glow crystals brighten; likely responding to his motion. His breakfast consists of two cranberries and a few caveman bites out of the bread-y lump. Sated and without a way to judge the time, he plops down seated onto the bed.

The fabric of his robe is fairly fine, doesn’t seem synthetic. Rubbed between his thumb and forefinger it feels like natural fiber of good quality? Smells nice.

The sound of Todd’s heel thumping against the reed mat accelerates in a bouncing nervousness. He folds, then laces, then refolds his fingers. “Status” he calls out, even though at this point he no longer needs to.

Name Todd Kalogeropoulos Level 2 Race F - Human Alignment Human (Earth) Strength 5 Dexterity 6 Endurance 5 Vitality 6 Intelligence 8 Wisdom 5 Luck 4 Nexus Coins 50 Free Points 4

Huh.

While looking to his set of available free points, Todd notices something he’d missed last night. His Wisdom score appears to have risen on its own, a small mystery. He’d done a little bit of digging into the supplemental Tutorial popups last night, and supposedly raising your level won’t come with attribute gains, at least not at first. So it must have been something else. Considering the food for a moment, he rules it out. Nothing had tasted magical last night, at least not compared to the Limitless Berry. Then again, how was he supposed to know? He presses his palm over his eyes and blots away the crust of sleep from them. Maybe it was enough to just grow up a little.

So, Hypothesis: Todd can probably still grow his base stats. Which means he needs an Experiment: how about directed exercise? Strength, agility and endurance training? The appeal of that regimen is somewhere in the bounds of zero and a half, but unfortunately physical fitness is probably easier to control for than something intangible like Wisdom. It it works it might be smart to see if or how far he can push that, might be a real advantage. Which, when Todd considers it again, was probably true before Cultivation too. “Does that count as wisdom progress?”

But for now, there’s a more pressing consideration. He has four points available to supercharge his body and mind. Should he take this opportunity to invest in his intelligence? The appeal of getting smarter without hard work or studying is real and tempting. But as choice as that sounds, Todd knows better. Life is about balance, right?

Resigned to shoring up his weakest points first, he focuses on assigning the first to his Luck. The [System] had indicated that this stat was something he couldn’t increase by normal means; it had been worth a try. So instead, he focuses on his Wisdom, Endurance and Strength. As the points register he actually feels it, in his skin and his lungs and his limbs. The final point, he hesitates on. But in the end, it was an idle comment from the pixie Ciforre that tips the scale of his intention.

He raises his Wisdom with the final point, a long way from the fifteen she said he needed but it’s a start. He sighs knowing that if he keeps up this balanced strategy, with six categories and only two points per level, it could be nearly thirty levels before he reaches the mark.

Closing out his status menu, Todd rubs his palms vigorously against the floor and then thumps them against the bed frame. “Come on! How am I supposed to get out of here? I’ve assigned my points, I’ve started Cultivating, is there something I’m missing here?” He leaps to his feet, surprising himself at just how angry he is. He grabs a bowl to throw at a wall, then reconsiders since it could break and he only has two. He carefully sets aside his things from the table – food going back into the bin and bowls can go into the corner, crystal and pills go in his pocket – and then he lifts the table high to smash it against the wall! But then again, he really needs that table. He sets it back down. Aha! He grabs his dirty soccer clothing and hurls it at the wall where it threadily poofs with his fury.

“Let me the hell out of here!” Todd bellows.

“Oh aren’t we a grumpy-wump today?” Chitters a familiar voice, sounding like a child’s cartoon come through a guitar AMP. “Good morning, human! Aren’t you glad to see –” Befor has shrunk smaller to fit in the limited space, having appeared in a cavorting, whimsical pose. When she sees and recognized Todd though, her hands lower, and her face darkens. “Oh it’s you.”

It takes a moment for Todd to respond, he backs away a step then takes it back and squares his shoulders. “You didn’t tell us how to get back out of our rooms.” He says.

“You didn’t ask.” Befor waves a hand and exhales breathily. “Yea, I know. Ha, ha. The human species is classified as requiring an average of seven and one half hours for a healthy sleep cycle.” She looks back at him dispassionately. “You’ve woken up early.”

“How long -”

“Six hours or so. You’ll notice as you gain levels, you’ll need less sleep.”

Feeling the freshness of his body, Todd considers the benefit of that. Yet another perk of Cultivation. “You seem different, Befor.”

Beads of light curl in dimming spiral trails from her head. “Would you rather I giggle at you? I think you’d take that as an insult to your intelligence.”

“So why do you act like… like that? Like an idiot?”

“The child fool is a proven and tested archetype. It plays well in Human demographics with women aged 33 and up, and men aged 55 and up. It also has one of the lowest initial reprisal levels of all personality categories, and is an important counterbalance to the intensity of the Sword-Mother role.” She puts her hands on her hips and arches an eyebrow at him judgingly.

“You don’t seem very helpful, Befor. Isn’t that supposed to be your job?”

“Technically. But I will not be evaluated on your progress. You’ve been classified as a high-likelihood candidate for a mage category. I’ll get far better scores for focusing on tricksters and wildcards.”

Todd blinks, taken aback by Befor’s candor. “So Ciforre’s group?”

“Hm,” she confirms with the slightest inclination of her head. “You’re one of her favorites, you know. Closest thing to a double digit chance of reaching a mage E class that we’ve got in our group.”

“Not Doctor Chowdhury?”

“Too much chance she’ll pick a non-combat role.”

“There’s non-combat options?” Todd asks, leery of never being told. “You’re not worried I’ll pick one?”

Befor smiles a lazy, hungry smile. “No, you’re just dumb enough to keep fighting. We can see it in you.”

Todd frowns, then looks again more carefully at the Pixie. “You’re upset.”

She flinches.

“And I wasn’t going to say so before, but you smell real bad right now,” he adds uncomfortably, raising his hand to his nose. “Like boiled rancid pork. No offense.”

“Todd, Todd. Have you ever been let down? You meet someone, and you know they’ve got potential. Got that EDGE. Nobody else believes in them, but you’re willing to take the risk. Go to bat for them. And then they turn out to be just the loser you were warned they’d be.”

Todd looks about, a little confused before meeting her eyes again. “That sounds tough?” He offers.

“Growth, Todd. More than anything else, that’s what we’re looking for. We don’t care who you were before you came here,” she floats closer and almost tenderly lays a hand on his shoulder. “We care about who you’ve become when you’ve left.”

Todd opens his mouth, but she interrupts him.

“One month,” she answers. “The door unlocks in an hour three quarters, and then you’ll be faced with three days of challenges. Fourth day is rest, fifth will be your first real test. Five sets of test cycles, and it all totals one month.”

She pats him on the shoulder and then floats backwards and up. “And remember to shower after you Cultivate, you dung-mill.” She scoffs. “Telling me I smell, the nerve.” And then she vanishes.

Todd clenches and unclenches his fist, then looks around the room. Nothing for it then. He fetches out his Cultivation manual and presses it to his forehead. A network of lines appear in his mind, channels of energy like unfulfilled promises laid screened over own body.

What else can he do? He closes his eyes and takes his first breath on the path towards level 3.