John’s eyes fluttered open.

He raised his head, wiping drool and wincing at the crick in his neck, then straightened himself to sit more comfortably against the wall. The sky above, visible through the missing portion of his shelter’s roof, had darkened from mid-morning blue to evening lavender, the air now laced with a harsh chill. His fire had diminished to little more than glowing, orange sections along blackened logs.

His “refinement manual,” a large, leather tome entitled Way of the Balanced Mind - though in John’s world it had been a three-ring binder called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression - rested open upon his lap, a new line of text having scripted itself upon the page.

Foundational Soul Refinement Complete.

Funny, John didn’t feel any more “refined” than before. If anything, he felt disorganized. He felt internally displaced, like someone had stuck a whisk into his mind and stirred around all of his thoughts and feelings. Somehow, he could hear the smell of charred wood. He could touch the howls of distant animals and taste the faintly twinkling stars. His senses had been connected together at some nexus point and allowed to freely exchange their impressions, rationality be damned. Whatever had just happened, it had… rearranged him.

After hastily rebuilding the fire, John summoned his new alert messages.

Alert: Your Foundational Soul Refinement is complete.

Alert: Classes have been unlocked. Open Soul menu to choose Class.

John couldn’t help it. He smiled. Yes, he was in the worst predicament of his life, having been teleported into a psychotic video game universe where he was a level zero character and everything wanted to kill him. He was lost, alone, diseased and near death. He had almost no hope of making it out of this forest alive, much less ever making it back home, and every second he survived was essentially borrowed time. Still, despite all of that, his heart swelled at the thought of choosing a class.

Character creation had always been John’s favorite part of RPGs. Even in his earliest gaming days as a wee lad, he was known to spend hours in the creation menus, perfecting a hairstyle, angling the nose just so, distributing and redistributing attribute points and cycling through dozens of badass-sounding names until one of them felt right. Finally satisfied, he would get ten minutes into the game and decide his character’s neck was too long and then delete it, beginning the whole process again. It was a wonderful itch to scratch.

His most agonizing decision had always been class. Nothing was more important to the RPG gaming experience. A character’s class dictated how they fought, how they interacted with NPCs, which armors they could wear, which weapons they could wield and what types of abilities they could access. Choosing the wrong class was like marrying the wrong person. You could tolerate it for a while, but eventually, the resentment and misery would build to such intolerable levels you had no option but to rage quit and erase all reminders of your terrible mistake.

Ironically, despite his belly-aching about which class to choose, John had always managed to pick pretty much the same one. Mage. Yes, John was all about the magic. He couldn’t count the number of times he had spent half a day making a stealthy rogue or hard-hitting barbarian, telling himself he would play differently this time, only to get bored at the first fight and reroll a mage. When John played an RPG, he wanted to stay back from his enemies at a safe distance and decimate them with godly, earth-shattering elemental spells. No matter how many times he did it, it never got old.

John’s Nordic Runes character, Polaris, was by far his finest achievement. Polaris was a Frost Mage, meaning he specialized in ice magic, and by the time he had reached the max level of 20 his blizzards and ice spikes could clear hordes in a matter of seconds. Loaded from head to toe with enchanted items, his stats outclassed anything in the game. He could end low-level enemies by just standing there, literally, and letting his auto-defenses do the work. If John could become something like that in this world, it would quite literally be a dream come true.

He navigated to the “Soul” menu of his personal interface.

Soul

Name: John Robbie

Age: 22

Class: Unknown

Class Rank: 0 Stars

Path Rank and Affinity:

Erudite: Beginner,

Affinity: High

Nature: Beginner

Affinity: Moderate-Low

Social: Beginner

Affinity: Low

Artisan: Beginner

Affinity: Very-High

War: Beginner

Affinity: Exceptional

He focused intently on Class: Unknown, and he was taken to another screen, this one listing several classes along with their general descriptions. Some of them he recognized from Nordic Runes, such as the basic but effective “Fighter” class.

Fighter: A common warrior with strong melee attacks and enhanced endurance.

Path Affinity Requirements: War - Moderate.

Potential: Average.

Some of the classes, however, were entirely unfamiliar. Two, in particular, caught John’s eye.

Juggernaut: A heavily-armored tank with potent damage absorbing and crowd control abilities.

Path Affinity Requirements: War - High. Artisan - Moderate-High.

Potential: High.

Weapon Sage: A martial grandmaster possessing unrivaled skill with a particular weapon. This dangerous combatant favors offense through devastating weapon-based attacks and buffs.

Path Affinity Requirements: War - Exceptional. Artisan - Very High. Erudite - High.

Potential: Legendary.

John’s heart sank. Every class listed was connected to the “War” Path, meaning not one of them utilized magic. With an almost audible flush, he felt his dreams of becoming a real-life wizard swirl down the drain. He tried backing out of the list and back into it. He tried shaking his head around, yelling at the interface and even swiping at it with his hands, but it was no good. Apparently, in this weird, hallucinatory RPG world into which he had been teleported, John had to be a warrior.

Unlike Nordic Runes, which allowed you to choose any class and then adjusted your Path skill growth accordingly, this world had simply assigned Path “affinities” to John. Evidently, he could only choose classes connected to his highest affinity, which, inexplicably, was “War.” Interestingly, these classes also had “potential” listed, which was not a part of Nordic Runes. John could only assume this indicated the obvious, meaning how powerful each class could theoretically become.

If he had to pick one of these, which seemed to be the situation, John supposed the “Weapon Sage” class looked okay.

It had a “Legendary” potential, which was nothing to sneeze at. Legendary was the highest rarity level for items in Nordic Runes, so it stood to reason it was the highest level of potential as well. It did have an “Erudite” Path requirement, meaning there was a chance it involved the use of magic in some form or another, probably something lame like flaming weapons or rock armor, but still. Maybe that was better than nothing. Or maybe not. Dress them up however you wanted, melee classes were the fucking worst.

Perhaps John wasn’t considering all the possibilities, though. Sure, Weapon Sage was a weapon-based class, but who said the weapon couldn’t be ranged, like, say, an arcane staff? Even a bow or crossbow would keep him back from his enemies, which would be a huge plus. At higher levels he would probably be forced to specialize into a specific class of weapons, but by then he would know much more about this world, and he could choose one with ranged magical attacks to make himself into something like an arcane artificer. Okay, maybe Weapon Sage wasn’t all that bad. John could make it work.

With a deep sigh, knowing he must choose a class now to have any hope of reaching civilization, John selected the Weapon Sage class. A new message appeared.

Alert: A weapon is required to choose this class. Please select a weapon:

He was taken automatically to his inventory, where only one weapon currently resided - the common woodcutter’s axe John had dubbed Jackass. Surprisingly, its information now reflected its new name.

Jackass (Woodcutter’s axe)

Quality: Poor

Rarity: Common

John selected the item.

Would you like to use Jackass to evoke class Weapon Sage?

Yes. No.

This process would almost certainly destroy the axe - because why else would a weapon be required? - but it was a sacrifice John was willing to make. In combat, he would probably be better off with a moderately sized stick from the firewood pile.

“It’s been a good run, Jackass,” he said to the axe, currently leaned against the wall. “See you on the other side.”

He selected Yes.

For a while, nothing happened. John merely sat, tense and alert, waiting for an emotional eruption like the one he had felt during his Foundational Soul Refinement. If it came he would endure it, but he really didn’t want to go through that again.

Confused that nothing was happening, John tried to reopen his interface but found he could not. It was then that he noticed it. Bringing a hands up to his face, John removed the glove and discovered each of his fingers was surrounded by a neon blue corona. It covered his entire body, in fact, like a shell of blue energy over his skin. The axe too had begun to glow with the same light. A tendril of blue extended from John’s chest and met a similar tendril from the axe, linking them together like comic-book speech bubbles.

His sense of discombobulation faded away. A wave of serenity passed through him, aligning his mind and body into harmony as though a master of feng shui had crawled into his mind and achieved its perfect configuration.

When the light died away, opening the way for all of John’s self-loathing and insecurity to flood back in, John longed for its return. Would he ever feel that kind of peace again, or had he just experienced the most wonderful moment of his life?

Three new alert messages appeared.

Alert: Class evocation successful.

Alert: Rank increased to 1 Star.

Alert: Ability awakened.

Surprisingly, the axe had not been consumed by the ritual. John didn’t necessarily care one way or the other, though, since he planned to trash the stupid thing the moment he found something better. From now on, John would have to carefully consider what type of weapon he wanted to specialize in.

When he opened his “Soul” screen to view his new class, John realized he had made a terrible mistake.

Name: John Robbie

Age: 22

Class: Jackass Sage

Rank: 1 Star

He read and re-read the name of his Class, trying to come to terms with what he saw. With growing anxiety he focused on the horrifying words, shifting his interface to the “Abilities” screen.

Class: Jackass Sage

Description: A martial grandmaster possessing unrivaled skill with the axe Jackass. This dangerous combatant favors offense through devastating weapon-based attacks and buffs.

Soul Reservoir: 0%

Refinement Progress: N/A

Abilities:

Immortal Weapon: Having bonded permanently to your soul, the weapon Jackass cannot be destroyed. If it receives critical damage it will reform itself to its original, soul-bonded condition, and if you become separated it can be teleported back to you at will. It cannot be replaced. All further abilities can only be used while wielding Jackass.

John took a moment to let this sink in. Not only was he a full-on melee fighter now, but he had permanently bonded himself to a common fucking woodcutter’s axe - possibly the worst weapon in the history of RPG weaponry. He couldn’t get rid of it, and if he wanted access to any of his future abilities, he had to use it. Maybe worst of all, though, his class name had changed to reflect the emotionally abusive moniker he had given the axe as a joke. Given how John’s entire life had unfolded up until this point, why would any of this surprise him?

That's right. Look out world. Here comes John Robbie, the Jackass Sage.