“Aria, oh Aria. You’re not the only one who lost your family but, unlike myself a few hours ago, at least you aren’t alone right now,” Siged Kara. “Your hands are going to hurt but the message is scary and we don’t know what’s coming. We need whatever this gift is…..”

Waking up a few hours later, Aria didn’t know what or even how to feel. Losing one's family is clearly devastating but Aria lost his entire world. Besides, as a certified quiet kid social situations of any kind aren’t his specialty. Looking around at the cave in a deadpan manner, he slowly lifts his left hand to see that there is a missing finger. There might be pain on his hand but nothing can compare to the mental anguish he’s feeling. Finally just collapsing on his back he laid down to stew in his thoughts, completely forgetting the facts that there’s another person nearby, a lack of food, a collapsed tunnel behind them, and an unknown fate in front.

Unsure of what exactly to do, Kara took a small blanket out of her backpack and put it over Aria’s chest. She isn’t in a relationship with him nor does she know anything about him so this is really the best she can think of. After placing the blanket on him, she sat down while facing him to allow him to stew in his thoughts for a while. Well, two hours before her hunger started to get to her. Deciding that they needed to at least escape this peril before he gets too depressed, Kara went into action.

She lightly slapped his face. “Come on, you can’t spend time stewing and being depressed if we die in this trashy cave. There’s one tunnel open and stuff we need to talk about. Such as what in the hell is happening…” Her voice drifted off.

Shaking his head as he jolted awake, Aria still didn’t know what to think. However, she was right. He needed to confirm for fact whether or not his mom was alive. He needed to figure out what this so-called system is. But he absolutely needed to find this so-called Linley because if Linley truly killed his mom, well he didn’t know. He truly wasn’t sure what he would do if that was the case, but he would need time to figure it out. To obtain that time Aria needs to first escape this cave.

“Al-Alright. You’re right, we need to leave this cave. I need to know for sure mom’s dead. I need to know who this Linley is. I-I-I don’t know what I’ll do if she’s gone and he’s the reason, but,” no longer stammering, the more he spoke the more Aria’s mind seemed to clear up, “I need to know all the same. I-I need to know.” Seemingly coming to an understanding, Aria whispered, “You couldn’t have known this news much longer than I did, yet you did all of this to help me. I’m not good with talking but if you need someone to listen, I’m here.”

Startled for a moment, Kara helped him stand up. Smiling as she said, “Alrighty, so, let’s get started. Before we do anything, check that system thing and tell me what you have, stats, world assignment, class, or something else and then we can figure out your gift. Uhm…” Stammering she spoke, “I forgot I had this, umm… finger I cut off of you. I’ll place it on the ground but don’t touch it until we learn more about your situation. Also, the amount of cash money you owe me went up since you wouldn’t have your gift if I didn’t take quick action and cut it off.”

“World assignment? Check the system…..” Aria mumbled to himself as he focussed on the red dot and the small, five to six inch, tablet once again appeared floating in his vision. Aria reached out to see to what degree he could interface with the tablet and it seems that he’s able to interact with the tablet just as he would with a touchscreen device with the limitation of being unable to physically move it with his hands. While checking through the tablet, Aria noticed a message system, calculator, storage system of ten mystic bytes (Unclear how mystic bytes compare to gigabytes), mapping system, and something called nearby sharing. The calculator was just as you’d expect and so is the storage system, basically looks like a standard file explorer on a cell phone or tablet. The only difference is that the only folders are for things such as maps, knowledge, and a few other minor and standard folders, however, many of them are grayed out and unable to be opened. The nearby sharing function is also grayed out.

Closing out of the storage app, Aria thought of swiping the screen to get to another page of apps and it worked! There was a single app on the screen, one labeled Character Progression. Feeling a bit excited for the first time since being put in this situation, Aria tapped on Character Progression and felt a chill run through his body as an interested screen appeared.

Name: Aria White

Race: Human (Earth, Mystic Realm)

World Assignment: Southern Doaheaven, Lower Realm

Primary Class: Weeb Cultivator

Description: The system read your memories and created this class based on your weeb-like tendencies along with your mild obsession with cultivation novels. Weeb Cultivator ensures a world assignment to a lower world in the cultivation-based Universe with a unique body. One that doesn’t have an assigned cultivation talent, instead your talent is determined by the first cultivation technique you train in. Weeb Cultivator also changes the system to an earth technology-based platform familiar to weebs with the potential to grow. The final benefit of this class is the dream of every weeb, the hope of a harem! If a female truly cares for you than you can, only once, reset their cultivation based on a cultivation technique. However, this isn’t truly limited to romantic relationships so you don’t have to form a harem, It’s just a bit of a joke inserted by me, the great Master Linley.

Secondary Class: Creation Inheritor (1% Unlocked)

Description: Inheritance of the Creation Path founder. Tempered Body World Seed

Cultivation Technique Unlocked.

Title: Inheritor of the Creation Path (Provides Secondary Class of Creation Inheritor, minor initial cultivation progress in the void element, and seed of the Mystic Realm).

Level: 0

Stats:

Strength: 12

Agility: 15

Vitality: 15

Endurance: 12

Mind: 50

Qi: 15

Will: 10

Element: Void

Inner World Stability: Not Yet Formed. Choose dantian for seed.

Aria was truly amazed. Strange information like this appeared on the tablet almost like his favorite video games. However, a sense of embarrassment welled up in him when he saw the class Weeb Cultivator but, just as he was thinking of a way of hiding this class name from Kara, he felt immense pain throughout his entire body and even his soul. Falling to the ground, spasming and oozing a black substance.

“Aria! Aria, what’s happening?” Shouted the panicked Kara as she jumped up from reading her stats and ran to Aria’s spasming body. Upon getting near him, she noticed an odd but very dense flow of energy flowing near him with a portion flowing into him, along with the absolutely wretched smell from the black substance. Jumping back in fear, Kara felt an ice cold chill run through her body as a portion of the energy split away from Aria and went into her body. Having no idea what was happening, she instinctively checked her status only to reel back in shock. There are a few additions, Secondary Class: Cultivator (Allows the absorption of energy. Mid-Level Universal talent with the potential to ascend to the mid realms), QI: 5, and Element: Ice. However, the most shocking thing was the change in her World Assignment to Southern Doaheaven, Lower Realm. Coming out of her daze, she remembered the situation Aria was in and immediately looked at him only to see him rubbing his head as he sat up.

As Aria stood up he looked at the Character Progression app and noticed the Inner World Stability was now listed as ‘Unstable, can’t support life, spirit, or soul based entities. Located in Braincore.’ As he fell over previously, a warning flashed onto his tablet screen.

Warning: Cultivation settings being applied. Immediately choose a location for your inherited Mystic Realm Seed: Heart, Gut, or Brain. Body unable to support origin energy, selecting lower realm void world energy as a replacement.

Thinking through the pain, Aria remembered an older wuxia book where a cultivation core formed in the heart increased physical stats, brain increased mental stats, and gut/dantian increased a little of both. Physical strength was never his strong suit and a cut core sounded average. Average might not be great so instead he chose the brain and immediately felt a stream of knowledge flow into his mind. Basically he learned that this seed in his brain is the beginning of the formation of a special inner world, however, his inner world can only house non-living beings, soul or spirit lifeforms included as lifeforms. Items can be moved into and out of the world by surrounding the item with qi and linking it to the seed via a strand of qi or sending a strand of qi to the seed and imagining the item inside being surrounded by the qi (an image of the inner world will appear in your mind as your qi enters the seed). Choosing this increased his Will stat to 15, added a Mind stat with a value of 50, and caused the world to, well, seem more clear. He could see easier in the dark cave, smell and hear better, and even think faster. Hell, Aria could even vaguely sense the energy referred to as qi in the surroundings. The odd thing was that a strand of cold feeling qi was surrounding Kara.

Realizing he was spacing out before and currently smelt atrocious, an embarrassed smile was on his face as he attempted to back away from Kara in the very small cave. As Kara saw his actions, she laughed and said, “ Your class is a cultivator, right? This is so cool! During your weird spasm or whatnot I got the cultivator class from being near you and the ice element whatever the hell that means. Come on, show me your stats, I’ll show you mine. Just imagine a specific person being able to see it, in this case me, and it’ll appear in front of them.”

Aria was a bit concerned. Thinking that although Kara has helped him he really doesn’t know if he can trust her so he decided to try and show only the Name, Race, World Assignment, Primary Class, and the stats not related to Inner World Stability. He also chose to have it shown as the tablet but not allow it to be interfaced with by Kara. Luckily it seems he was able to choose what to show and what to hide, unfortunately it showed the embarrassing class Weeb Cultivator along with it’s even more embarrassing description. Shyly looking at Kara he saw the biggest and most sarcastic smirk imaginable causing Aria to groan while hiding his face in his hands but it couldn’t hide the deep red flush covering his head and neck.

“Dammit Kara, stop laughing at what that asshole Linley did to me and show me your stats already!!” Screamed Aria as he buried his head into his knees. He was truly embarrassed, more than ever before in his life. Damn Linley, even if my mom is alive I’m going to beat you the fuck up for this!!!!!!

“Ahahahahahahaha! Damn, I’ll lower how much money you owe me. Your life is already screwed enough to owe a massive amount of money, now you only owe a very large amount to mwah.” Heavily laughed Kara as she hunched over and eventually fell down laughing. Eventually standing back up and sharing her stats with Aria.

Name: Kara (Last Name Deleted)

Race: Human (Earth, Mystic Realm)

World Assignment: Southern Doaheaven, Lower Realm

Primary Class: Trickster Merchant

Description: The system read your memories and created this class based on your tendencies to trick people into owing you money along with massive obsession with money and decent physical appearance. The Trickster allows you to get a rough estimation of an items value by touching it, the value will appear as a numerical figure only visible to you. It will also be described in the local currency along with the next most standard currency accepted in the region. This class also causes living creatures of the opposite sex (Or ‘sex’ equivalent for that species) to be slightly more susceptible to trickery or, in other words, slightly more likely to believe you whether or not what you’re stating is true.

Secondary Class: Cultivator

Description: Allows the absorption of energy. Mid-Level Universal talent with the potential to

ascend to the mid realms.

Title: Mysterious Enlightenment (Obtained enlightenment into the Ice element through a non-standard method, without the use of a cultivation technique or martial skill. Increases the rate of cultivation when in physical contact with the item or being that initiated the mysterious enlightenment. The greater the contact the faster the cultivation.)

Level: 0

Stats:

Strength: 9

Agility: 13

Vitality: 11

Endurance: 10

Qi: 5

Element: Ice