A young man with tawny brown skin and a short twisted hairstyle is hovering over an injured man. He adjusts his glasses before finishing the makeshift bandaging. When he finishes up he uses some of the stored water to scrub blood off his hands, and after he applies some hand sanitizer.

"It's a good thing we got back when we did, huh Zack? Otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to put all of those premed classes to use." Darius closes the water bottle he gave Zack to rinse his hands.

"I would rather not have been in this mess, to begin with. Little green people attacking college students. What is this, an anime or something? What's next, Dragons?" He puts his hand sanitizer back into his backpack.

"Be careful what you wish for baby", Elana says as she and X join their company. "Look who flew in."

"Well shit, I didn't think you'd still be alive. Glad I didn't bet on it. Norman has been telling people you died." His expression gets a bit more serious. "What was the deal with the Crow?"

X explains everything that happened to him between the clearing and the Seer's hut. The group sat and listened to the whole story without interrupting.

"I don't know if I would even remotely believe any of this shit if it wasn't for Elana being a part of it. I need some proof." Zack crossed his arms and looked unbudging. He cast a glance at Elana expecting her to do something.

"I have an idea! What if Elana can use one of her skills on you. Would you believe us then?" X looked through the skill menu and saw that sneak and pickpocket were still there.

"Sure, if you can do that then I will buy your snake oil." Zack's face was still full of disbelief.

"This should be fun." Elana opened up her menu and read the skills again. After a second she let out a toothy grin and knew what she needed to do. She pointed at one of the people that Zack bandaged earlier.

Both Zack and Darius turned their heads for a split second to look at what she pointed at.

'Sneak', Elana thought to herself. Her presence became undetectable.

"What are you pointing.... Where did Elana go? She was just standing next to you. I didn't hear her leave." Zack scanned the space in front of him looking for his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Elana managed to sneak and move behind them before they could turn back around. 'That was the fastest I have ever moved in my life. Pickpocket.' Elana held out a hand at the backpack Zack was wearing. In her hand appeared a bottle of hand sanitizer. With that, she felt she had enough proof and enacted her escape plan. She tapped both of the boys on the shoulder at the same time and dove back for the spot she initially came from.

When Zack and Darius turned around there was nothing there. Upon turning back around they were somewhat in shock. A lot happened during those four seconds.

"I believe this belongs to you." Elana holds out the familiar bottle of hand sanitizer.

"Is that mine? It was in my backpack! How did you get back there so fast? There is literally nowhere to hide in this space, how did I not see you get behind us?" Zack's face full of disbelief morphed into a shocked face.

"Maybe there really is something to this whole system thing." Darius rubbed his chin. "So how do we join this party thing you have going on?"

The invite option popped up once again.

"If you are willing to help me complete this task the invitation is open," X added in the touch of ceremony.

"What kind of significant other would I be if I didn't go with my girlfriend on potential suicide missions. Besides I am sure my medical skills will come in handy." After saying this a system message materialized in front of Zack showing that he was now a member of the party.

"Heck yeah, I finally can use those fencing lessons I have been getting from the kinesiology department." The system notification appeared in front of Darius as well.

*System Alert*

2 New party members recruited.

Achievement unlocked.

CONSCRIPTION

50 Exp points awarded

LEVEL UP!

Skills unlocked!

Unspent stat points!

'Holy crap I leveled up from getting new party members? How did that happen?' X was surprised when a hint window opened as if the system read his mind.

*Hint*

The strategist class can gain levels in a few ways.

Winning battles with your teammates, succeeding in your strategies, accomplishing epic feats, and gaining new allies.

However, Exp is not gained by killing enemies yourself.

X decided to look at his skills first before dedicating any of his stat points. Know One's Self, Opening the Board, Gift of the Crow, Messenger. It seems as if Know One's Self was already unlocked. The other three skills all had glowing icons.

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Know One's Self: you gain insight into your party's classes and stats. (Passive)

Opening the Board: The Strategist enters a meditative state. They receive half damage and must maintain concentration in order to remain in this form. During this form, Strategist skills may be used.

Bird's eye view(Gift of the Crow): Your mind's eye can see some information about your opponent based on the difference in power. (Strategist Skill/Passive)

Messenger: gains the ability to communicate with one party member via telepathy for 1 second per Int stat point.

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'You would think that a strategy based support class would be based on wisdom, but I guess Intelligence is my class's guiding stat.' With that, he thought of a few different ways to apply his stat points. He ended up putting two into Durability, one in Dexterity, and one into Intelligence. 'Now I can capitalize on taking half damage and avoiding getting attacked. Once I can get that to a suitable point I will start to put more into Int. I am so thankful I grew up playing video games!'

"So are you going to show us what we have stats-wise," Darius inquired as he stood closer to X.

"Absolutely! Let's all gather around so we can see what everyone is working with." X sits down on the ground and motions for everyone to move behind him. "We will start with Zack first." X clicks on the notification he received when the two new party members joined him.

*System Alert*

A new Party member has joined you.

Zackary McGee (Mage class)

A new Party member has joined you.

Darius Holiday(Fighter class)

"Mage?!" Everyone looked surprised.

"Does this mean I can use magic?" Disbelief was common for Zack, he was skeptical of many things. This was something beyond his realm of understanding.

"Let's check what your skills say." X opens up the skill menu.

The menu showed two skills, Knowledge of Body and Contemplating Mana.

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Knowledge of Body: Your understanding of the body is paramount in your perception of the world. As your understanding of mana grows, so too does your understanding of how it affects the body.

Contemplating Mana: Mana is the natural energy of the world around you. Once you can manipulate it, the world around you will yield to your will.

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"The world around you will yield to your will. So then how do you manipulate Mana?" Before he could even contemplate his statement Zack exclaimed his epiphany. "So the body has electrical signals within it that allow the brain to control the muscles through the nervous system. What if Mana works something like that." He holds out his hand and focuses on his fingertips. After a few seconds, sparks begin to jump between his fingers.

"That is so cool!" Darius gets closer to the hand. "How are you doing that?"

"I am just feeling the sensations in my hand and extending them beyond where they normally will go. This deserves a lot more experimentation." Another system alert pops up.

*System Alert*

New skill achieved

Manipulating Mana

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Manipulating Mana: Your ability to comprehend the world around you has led to you being able to manipulate mana. This is the foundation of magic.

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Zack lowered his hand and the electricity arcing between his fingers faded away. "I've played enough video games and watched enough anime to know skill notifications are life-changing. I'm going to take some time to play with this and see what my limits are. What did it say Darius was again?"

"I'm a fighter class. I guess that's because of my studies. Like I said they were teaching us fencing this semester in my department. I wonder what my stats look like." Upon saying that the stat menu appeared in front of Darius. "Dope, we can control the menu for ourselves. It would have been kinda strange being player two this entire time."

Name: Darius Holiday______________________HP: 30

Class: Fighter ____________________________MP: 15

Level 1 ____________________________________ST: 20

EXP 0/100

(?)Hint

Durability __________ 3 +

Strength ___________ 4 +

Dexterity _________ 4 +

Wisdom _________ 3 +

Intelligence _______ 3 +

Luck_____________ 25 +

"Wow, I'm pretty well rounded. Do you think I can learn how to do that thing Zack just did? What if I could do something with my mana to make my muscles act faster or let me jump twice as far. That would be so cool." Suddenly there was a message from the system on Darius' screen.

*System message*

Skill unlocked

Adrenalin Rush

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Adrenalin Rush: The user of this skill is comfortable being in dangerous situations. When their adrenaline starts pumping their fighting prowess, strength and durability grow. Lvl 1

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"So cool! I'm sure this is gonna come in handy!"

Darius' excitement drew attention from a few others. Among those were Adriana and Norman who were unaware of X's return due to them working on setting up camp with the other two teams.

"Hey, trash! Get over here and make yourself useful!" Norman sets down the wood he was hauling for the group building the shelters.