Raul’s attention shifted from the open inventory panel to the four figures still rotating slowly in the center of the room.

“Alright, which class are you leaning towards?”

I immediately disregarded the Black Hat subclass. All four of the classes sounded cool, but the description gave me the impression that I’d be a liability in a straight up fight. The jedi mind tricks might come in handy as I investigated Harry’s problem, but without other players around me that I could trust, I felt it left me a little too vulnerable most of the time. The tradeoff just didn’t seem worth it starting out.

“Are these choices permanent, or can I change my mind later on?”

Raul bobbed his head side to side, as though weighing how to best describe the situation.

“The subclasses themselves can be changed, but at a severe penalty. So much of a penalty, in fact, that I would encourage you to make your choice based on the assumption that they are permanent.”

I took a deep breath. This decision had just taken on an another level of significance.

“Alright. So how much overlap is there between the classes?”

“Eventually, all of the abilities are available to all of the classes, though you will advance much more quickly in your chosen specialty. Black Hats can learn to channel Rectifier battle magic, Render’s can learn psionics, etc. Usually most of that overlap doesn’t start to kick in until past level ten.”

It was reassuring to know that I wouldn’t forever exclude myself from certain abilities just because I picked something that was a little more useful right out of the gate. Not that I intended to be a long term resident of UNDR Online, my priority was still clearing Harry, but the world was already drawing me in.

I took a look at the Rectifier next. The damage per second focus was easily the biggest payoff starting out, but I worried that it was a little too focused. Dealing damage was great in a straight up fight, but in a cyberpunk world like UNDR Online, I wondered if I could close some of that gap with advanced weapons. In the end, it felt like too much of a one trick pony, so I dismissed it.

The final two classes, Engineer and Render, remained. The Engineer sounded powerful, but I ran into the same worries with it that I had about the Black Hat. I was certain that Engineers would make powerful additions to medium to large groups once they reached higher levels. I could easily see how Engineers could set up larger attacks or overcome problems that required more than a blunt instrument, but they would need someone else to give them time to set everything up. Again, it didn’t offer the balance in short term survivability and long term potential that I wanted.

As the Engineer class disappeared, the Render avatar broke from it’s static pose, rolling it’s shoulders and tilting its head from side to side as if loosening up. I understood that it was most likely a pre-programmed pose, but the figures movements and lopsided grin came across as almost cocky.

“Render. Nice.”

Raul smirked.

“We don’t get too many Renders. You would think it would be a more common class, but the prerequisites are pretty stiff, so that eliminates most new players, and it’s powers don’t fit into common game stereotypes, so very few people end up appreciating how useful it can be.”

The figure stepped down from it’s hovering perch above the book, and outside of the glowing light that I assumed was keeping it in place, I could get a better look at the enhanced version of my character.

The figure had on a plain black jacket, long in the back, hooded, with both sleeves rolled up just below each elbow. Basically, a generic version of the jacket I wore.

I wondered if receiving the Dueller Jacket had subconsciously nudged me in that direction, since I was already half dressed for the part, but I shook the thought away. I could accept being manipulated by nature or physics, trusting that everyone was getting a roughly equivalent shake, but once you start introducing human motives into the equation, that was a power I knew not everyone would be able to resist abusing.

“So, will I look like this right at level one?”

Raul smirked. The hands and forearms of the figure before me were covered in lattice of lines, intersecting at hundreds of points, creating an intricate mesh of polygons. The lines glowed with an inner light, as if the avatars arms were paused at the inception of an explosion, the energy inside rupturing the bonds of the polygons that made up the 3D model but not able to escape further.

“Not at level one. The figures are mockups of a level ten progression for each class, meant to give you an idea where you will be once your powers develop a little more.”

He gestured to the figure, and it casually walked up to me and extended it’s hand. Looking over at Raul for confirmation, a subtle nod from him later I was reaching for the hand. As soon as my hand wrapped around the Render’s, a brilliant white light blasted everything in the room, overpowering my vision. Once the light faded a few seconds later, I found that the figure had disappeared.

In the upper left corner of my vision, the SYSTEM menu dropped down and began scrolling text that zipped by faster than I could read. I knew from my tutorial tome that the text could be reviewed at a later time, so I didn’t bother trying to keep up.

After a moment, the high velocity word crawl ended, and the menu retracted like a door with a hydraulic shock. As it retracted, the entire interface flickered, glitching with the briefest of static laden screen tears, and the tabs had changed. The options were the same, but the edges of the translucent tabs took on a more angular appearance, almost like the tabs were cut from glass or modelled in a rudimentary 3d design program.

I glanced up at Raul, who smiled back at me, gesturing to my hands. Bringing them up to my face, I could make out jagged polygonal lines bisecting the joints between each of my knuckles. The lines began from a central point in my palm, passing over the webbing between my fingers and reconnecting with one another. The lines were white in color, and were recessed like my skin had tried to heal over them. A few small triangles spread across the back of each hand, but the overall effect was much less impressive than the fractured appearance of the level ten Render.

“So, how does this work?”

Raul understood what I meant without my needing to go into further detail.

“The instructions should have appeared in your system log during the transformation. If you turn on the automatic parsing function, the information will download into your mind automatically. There’s really too much information to be read effectively while you’re in battle, but sometimes it’s useful to scroll back up and see the raw data if you need to see the effects of a new item or ability.”

I focused my vision on the System Menu in the upper left of my periphery, and the tray slid down as before, exposing the translucent black window within and the white text that had blazed past earlier. A small toggle at the bottom of the tray drew my attention, and I flicked it on. That feeling of my brain straining against internal pressure happened again, though in a much weaker manner, and I understood the basics of my new subclass.

Raul, knowing that I had just absorbed the information, began talking again.

“A few things that your system update would not have told you is the rules of etiquette that all Renders are expected to adhere to.”

“Wait...etiquette?”

Raul nodded patiently.

“Yes. etiquette. What makes a Render powerful is their ability to absorb and use the surrounding geometry and materials of their environment. Not such a big deal if they’re doing so in an abandoned warehouse, but,” he gestured around the office “less appropriate if you are in a trusted mentors office with legions of priceless knowledge tomes. It’s considered in bad taste to deconstruct objects without permission, or unless you are reasonably sure that the materials are open source.”

I chuckled.

“So, don’t fuck up your office. Got it.”

Raul nodded, more than a little relief at my ability to grasp the concept so willingly.

“Now, let’s get you to a place where you can test our your new abilities.”

One of the bookcases retracted, and a moonlit courtyard could be seen through the opening. Sunlight streamed through the opening as though the space it occupied wasn’t another mentors office space. Reading my expression, Raul clarified.

“This is a microportal leading to a training area. It’s exactly what it looks like.”

As he spoke, he moved through the opening and into the starlight beyond. I followed, and was surprised to feel the drop in temperature on my skin. The level of realism was impressive.

Large blocks of different materials ringed the courtyard, set equidistant from each other, like the numbers on a circular clock. I could see concrete, wood, various types of metal, even water and smoke confined to large rectangular shapes through some magical means.

“As you know, the power of a Render is their ability to utilize the surrounding geometry and materials of the world of UNDR Online to create constructs to assist them. At lower levels, these constructs are rudimentary. At higher levels, these constructs increase in complexity. There are even tales of Master level Renders able to craft sentient creatures from materials they’ve absorbed, and those creatures take on the abilities and characteristics of the materials used.”

He pointed at a block to my left. Under the caustic illumination of the blue-gray moon overhead, I could make out a fluid pattern of darkened lines over its surface that I quickly identified as wood. It was entirely solid, the growth rings expanding out from the center of the block as though it had come from an enormous tree that someone had squared off on a saw mill or a magical equivalent.

“Now, I want you to concentrate, and use some of this material to create a simple cube. In the center of the courtyard.”

I raised my eyebrows, but did as asked. As I extended a hand to the block of wood, the white lines on my hand flaring to life. The wooden block was the size of a minivan, but I could sense it vibrating from around twenty feet away. There was no visible shaking, no seismic activity under my feet, but I understood the strain I was putting on the material in much the same way that you know things in dreams, and sound like a psychopath trying to explain it to someone who has never dreamed.

At first, the wood resisted me, but as I poured every ounce of will I could muster into it, a faint gridlike pattern of golden diagonal lines shimmered across the block. The light dappled across the moonlit courtyard like a tropical sunrise through shallow ocean water. Realizing that I was probably spreading my focus a little too broadly, I picked a single knot in the wood and directed all of my force there.

The knot began to pull away from the larger block, the lines criss-crossing it’s surface flickering brighter and brighter until the faceted chunk of wood that contained the knob popped from the block. Other wooden fragments followed it through the air as it moved towards me without my having to focus on them directly. It seemed there was an initial resistance to overcome, but once that threshold was breached the focus required fell considerably, like the structural integrity of the object only needed to be weakened first.

As I continued to concentrate, the white lines on my hands took on the same golden hue as the compromised wooden mesh. I could see the scanline-embossed edges of the chunks as they approached, breaking down into individual, two dimensional triangles with golden neon tinged edges which looked for all the world like a merry train of magical tortilla chips flying towards my outstretched hand.

I glanced at Raul, who nodded his approval.

“Good, but you can do better. Focus. Pick up the pace.”

I did as asked and the chunks began to move so fast I could no longer make them out individually. The sensation was strange. The closest way I could describe it would be like someone pouring loose dirt over my hand, but instead of bouncing off my palm, my hand drank up the geometry. I could smell the sawdust of the disintegrating wood, which was an alien scent to a kid like me that had never been out of the city.

“That should be enough. Now comes the hard part. Try to form a cube in the center of the courtyard with the wood polys you have absorbed. Take your time at first, you’ll have to visualize how you want it to assemble in your mind.”

“Polys?”

“Polygons. Renders absorb and generate their constructs from the underlying geometry of UNDR, which is comprised of polygons.”

As the final triangle floated towards my palm, I took another look at it. The central section of it still retained the same woodgrain appearance as the rest of the block, but the edges flared with the same golden light as the lines on my hands.

“Right here?”

I pointed to the location a few feet away that Raul had indicated, asking for confirmation. I had no idea how the process of making a construct would work, but my hopes were not high, my redundant line of questioning just a stalling tactic. In the few games I’d played, breaking down items tended to go rather smoothly, but crafting new ones could sometimes explode in the players face.

My first attempt went poorly. I visualized a cube, but like everyone else if you asked them to draw a cube on a piece of paper, I attempted to create my cube with square polygons. I projected a mental image of the cube inside of my head, how the pieces would connect, in what order they would be placed, yet when the polygons tried to form up, I realized that they were all triangles, leaving gaps in between the sides where I would need to use more geometry to complete it. After a brief moment of uncertainty, the cube collapsed, the triangles I’d committed to its construction falling the the ground and fading away. Raul directed a patient smile in my direction. .

“Initially, you’ll have to build your constructs out of triangles, or tris. At higher levels, you’ll be able to unlock abilities to use polygons with more sides. It’s one of the early limiting factors for Renders, the complexity of their constructs being limited to a finite number of polygons based on their level. As you increase in level, you will be able to maintain more complex objects. Then, once you unlock the ability to use polys of more complex shapes, the resulting number of polygons required to craft a specific object will decrease do to the lower number of polygons needed, thus increasing your efficiency.”

I stood there, trying to absorb what he was saying. He glanced over my head, as though he was seeing something off in the distance that concerned him slightly.

“Alright, we’re almost out of time for tonight. Let’s see if you can get this cube created before you wake up.”

I looked up, and realized that the earlier void of night was slowly being replaced with a graying dawn, the stars losing their contrast and receding into the background.

Focusing on orienting two triangles together to make each side, I crafted a cube roughly one foot in all dimensions, it’s edges growing in luminance for the briefest of moments before leaving a completed cube of wood on the ground.

Raul walked over and picked it up with both hands. He looked it over, tossed it up lightly and caught it as though he was testing its structural integrity, and handed it to me.

“Nice work. I’ll teach you how to build a handful of more complex constructs tomorrow, and then I think you’ll be ready for your first quest.”

“Raul...I appreciate all of the help. You’ve been amazing, but there is soemthing I’m supposed to be doing, I’m not sure I have time to run a bunch of errands.”

He smiled at me good naturedly, but his voice was iron.

“You will do nothing until we have finished our lesson, and I release you. It’s my job, to make sure you are prepared, and my superiors take it very seriously, so, in accordance with that. I take it very seriously, and you will too.”

I stared back at him, not quite sure how to reconcile the warm smile on his face with the cold, pragmatic tone of his voice. In the end, I mentally flipped a coin. Smiling back, I took the diplomatic path and reached out a hand as the first rays of full sunlight struck the tops of the trees ringing the courtyard. As he shook It, I said the only thing I really could think to say.

“Tomorrow, then.”

And the light came for me.