Arthur woke up freefalling from thousands of feet up in the sky. “What the fuck!” He screamed in both terror and confusion at the air whizzing past him. A sense of vertigo gripped him and he reflexively closed his eyes to stop the irritating winds. The last thing he could remember was the system telling him he’d lose consciousness and then... this.

What the hell was going on?

“Calm down. Calm down.” A voice suddenly called out to him, doing little to settle Arthur's fears.

“You're not actually here, kiddo, none of it's real. It's all a figment of your imagination. Unfortunately.” The last words were mumbled in such a way that Arthur was unsure if he had just heard things but if his senses hadn’t failed him, it didn’t bode well for what was happening right now.

“Hey, kid. Stop looking around for me. I’m not the bloody air.” The strange, grouchy voice grumbled. “Or maybe I am the air. Who knows what that bitch Aria was plotting.''

The voice sounded confused and unsure of itself, the last words muttered quietly, no doubt unintended for Arthur's ears. But with the way that the voice came from all around him, Arthur could hear the statement loud and clear as if the words had practically been shouted directly into his ears.

He stopped frantically looking around for the speaker. Judging from the man's tone of voice, he too seemed a little unsure about what was going on right now, though Arthur was certain that the strange individual knew far more than him.

Instead of trying to find a way to save himself from his imminent destruction as a pancake, Arthur instead asked the first questions that came to mind.

“Who, no actually, what are you and where the hell am I?”

His questions were answered by the loudest sigh he had ever heard. It was as if the entire world itself was tired of his bullshit and just breathed out in resignation. Arthur bore through the casual indifference as his rapid descent was abruptly halted.

“This is why I should have never listened to Aria,” the man grumbled. “Meeting uncultured savages from infant worlds is the worst. No sense of propriety. Why did the real me even agree to this job?”

Arthur was shocked by what the man had just said so casually and ignored the rest of the grouchy voice’s continued complaining. Though not the main part of the strange man's speech, Arthur focused on two specific words that he had said.

‘Infant worlds.’

It raised so many questions, and yet answered so many others. Arthur was starting to get an inkling of what exactly had happened to Earth and who it was that he was currently speaking to.

It was only a small suspicion, but Arthur’s guts were telling him that he had the nail on the head with this one and that feeling terrified him. Because if Arthur was right, he was so far out of his depth it wasn't even funny.

“You created the system, didn’t you?” Arthur asked quietly, unsure if he was doing the right thing by voicing his suspicions.

Everything suddenly went silent and Arthur felt the incredible beings’ full attention focus on him. It made him feel infinitesimally small, like a tiny bug to be crushed underfoot and he wondered if he had fucked up by being a little too forward with his questioning. Thankfully, it seemed that he was mistaken.

“Well no then. Who do you think made the system? The fucking goblins.” The voice retorted sarcastically.

Arthur was taken aback by the strength of the man's response but didn’t question the vehemence in his voice, too busy thanking his lucky stars that the strange individual didn’t seem to care about him. No attention was good attention when it came to this man.

“Wait, why are you still here anyway, kid?" Shouldn’t you have gone off by now?” The voice asked him.

It paused for a moment.

“Actually. Wait. Wait. Don’t… don't tell me you can’t.”

When Arthur nodded, it screamed in frustration, the sound like a thousand thunderstorms, cursing to the high heavens.

“That bitch, Aria. She said they’d be able to skip the introduction if they wanted to!” Muttering an inane series of curses he whispered, “Remember what Syrus always said, don’t trust a succubus longer than you can fuck them!” Which was usually in the realm of three seconds.

“Excuse me.”

Arthur tried to get the voice's attention.

“Where am I, why am I here and who even are you?” Perhaps it wasn't the best idea to be rude to a seemingly all-powerful system creator but Arthur was quickly getting sick of this charade and judging by the way the voice had acted, it didn’t mind a little disrespect.

“You're a feisty one, aren’t you,” the wind seemed to whisper, “But I like that. It reminds me of myself when I didn't know better. I hope you don't have to learn the hard way boy. Some lessons leave you scarred for life.”

Taking a pause, the owner of the voice seemed to come to a decision.

“Might as well do this bloody job properly.”

“Young goblin, I shall honour you with my name. Be delighted for you are in the presence of Sir Rufeus III. Earth-shaker, Dragon-friend and master of the seventh order.” Rufeus grandiosely stated.

'Seventh order, what's that? And dragon- friend. A title or something?'

“Ah, forget it. It's not like I'm going to exist for longer than a few minutes anyway. Who cares if some child doesn't know me.”

Confused Arthur asked, “What do you mean you’ll only exist for a few minutes?”

“Aha, ever the curious little goblin, that's good. As the old saying goes, curiosity helped the goblin grow, and then die not long after. Stay curious and you might actually make something of yourself.” Sir Rufeus advised.

‘That can’t be an actual saying and what does this guy have against goblins?’

“As for what I meant,” the man continued, “Well to put it simply, I technically don't exist.”

Seeing the puzzlement on Arthur's face, Rufeus mumbled. “Too confusing, hmm, I thought so.”

“Well, it's not like you can ever hope to understand everything in life anyway. As for why you're here, well your guess is as good as mine. The only explanation I can come up with is that you're significantly stronger than you're supposed to be for a citizen of a newly evolved planet, but that can't be the case,” the old man mused. “The system was designed to only integrate onto tier 1 worlds.”

‘Well," Arthur interrupted, “That might just be the case.”

Over the next few minutes, Arthur quickly summarised the events and strange circumstances that had culminated to reach this specific, strange moment. Maybe he was being too trusting of the senile entity, but Arthur desperately needed answers and this was probably his best chance at getting them. From the source, no less.

When he finished with his story, the old man began to laugh, so loudly that Arthur was thankful that his voice was no longer coming from everywhere. It would have given him a headache. Halfway through his story, Rufeus had appeared in the air in front of Arthur as an old-looking individual with pointed ears, to better participate in the conversation. If he hadn’t, Arthur probably would have lost his hearing by now.

'He could be an elf.'

Arthur simply couldn't find it in himself to care that he might be meeting an exotic, fantasy species for the first time though. Ten seconds later the old man still hadn’t stopped laughing. Wiping a tear out of his eye, Sir Rufeus was finally able to speak.

“Well, I don't know if I should call you the luckiest man alive or a talented genius in the making. You found a bloody shadow panther core in only a level 11 monster and you somehow managed to make an elixir out of it. If you're telling the truth, kid, that helps explain a lot.”

Looking at Arthur with a lot more interest than he was comfortable with, Rufeus said, "I wish the real me could meet you. You’d have been an interesting study for sure.”

The old man was a lot more friendly now after Arthur had explained who he was.

“I'll have to be quick.''

Rufeus seemed to have come to a decision of sorts.

“No matter how strong you’ve gotten in the last five days you won't be able to maintain this place for long, especially after we’ve wasted all this time talking.”

“To answer your earlier question, the reason you're here is because your soul is significantly stronger than the parameters we designed for newly integrated worlds. This part of the system introduction was supposed to explain the reason why it was created but because your soul already had grown so strong, you didn’t get the standard initiation process and instead manifested a portion of the energy I left within the system.” The old man explained.

“Then why were you complaining so much when you woke up?” Arthur asked.

Though he had no reason to believe that Rufeus was lying to him, Arthur did remember how the old man was first rambling when he ‘woke up.'

“Ahem, well you see, even the best of us aren’t in the right state of mind when waking up after such a long slumber,” Rufeus spoke, seemingly embarrassed with his earlier display.

'An act, definitely an act.'

“Anyway…”

Rufeus quickly went on to speak on the intricacies of ether, as if trying to change the subject, summarizing why it was eventually decided that the volatile power source of magic needed to be governed for the 'greater good.'

“So let me get this straight,” Arthur asked after the old man had finished speaking. “Ether is everywhere, always has been, even before the system came. It’s the source of all magic as you just explained as well as why we can all grow stronger.”

"It's a lot more complicated than that but yes, in essence. it was designed to keep things regulated."

“And because too many idiots were irresponsible with it, the-”

“They destroyed entire planets, boy.” The old man interrupted. Whole galaxies were wiped out because people reached above their station.

'Ah finally, a proper answer. Reaching above their station. That's a fancy way of saying people rebelled.'

“So a council of magicians consisting of representatives of each race decided to create a system to bind the usage of ether on newly evolved planets.”

“We didn't bind it kiddo,” Rufeus once again interrupted.

“You can still do magic without the system's aid. We could never really restrict ether. It's just more difficult to do unstructured magic than it was before.”

Rufeus sighed wearily.

“It had to be done, boy. It had to. And anyway, the system was designed to not limit you, but only guide you along the most suitable path to power. It starts to matter less and less as you grow in strength. Hell, when you reach four digits, the system won't be able to stop you from doing anything you want.”

Arthur gulped at the casual statement of such a high level only being considered the threshold to take the kiddie's shoes off. He didn’t think he’d ever get there.

“By that point though, you'll be older and more responsible to use ether properly,” Rufeus continued, “Which was basically the idea. So no destroying countries for you kiddo, at least I hope not.”

Arthur took a deep breath. It was a lot of information to take in and most certainly edited. From what he had just learned, Earth had just evolved five days ago and started producing enough ether that the system decided it fell into its parameters. Heck, even he had been producing the stuff before, just not enough for it to matter.

If what he had heard was true then there was an entire universe out there filled with sapient life. And that was only in this dimension. Rufeus had hinted at there being others but hadn’t delved into the topic even when questioned.

“You’ll learn about it in time.” He’d simply brushed it off.

“This soul space is weakening, kiddo," Rufeus interupted his inner turmoil, "You're approaching the limits on how long you can stay here.”

Arthur panicked. There was a literal treasure trove of knowledge and he was being limited by time!

“Don’t worry boy, I’ll answer your questions in the remaining time.” Rufeus consoled Arthur, sensing his despair.

Okay, at least that was some consolation. Arthur decided to ask the question that had been plaguing him for so long.

“Why was my teleport delayed?” He questioned.

“So many things you can ask about, anything in the vast cosmos, and yet you ask for the most simple of answers. But such is the folly of youth, I guess.”

“Well, there could be many explanations, all of them involving something about your soul being special,” Rufeus explained.

“The most mundane of them being that it’s simply bigger than the usual for level 1 or like I suspect, you have an affinity for soul magic.”

“Affinity?” Arthur questioned.

“What do you mean by an affinity and what's soul magic anyway?”

Just as he asked the question, the world around him began to fade away, as if Arthur was rapidly waking up from a dream, which he guessed he was.

“Sorry boy, it looks like your time is up, it was nice having a consciousness for a short while instead of just being a strand of energy wandering about in the system.” Rufeus sadly said. “Don’t worry, you’ll find out all about that when you wake up. And the rest of the world will be returning today from the tutorial, so you won’t be on your own anymore at least.”

Just as Arthur felt the remaining pieces of the soul space collapse he heard one last piece of advice from Rufeus III. “...and make sure you don’t go around mentioning my name, I have a lot of enemies you aren't ready to meet yet. Spend your stat points wisely boy. You'll run out of them before you know it boy.”

Arthur woke up on the bed, once again back in his own body. The sun was rising outside. It felt like he’d only been inside the strange soul space for a few minutes, but outside an entire day had passed. 'What did he mean by running out of stat points?' Getting up, Arthur thrust his concerns for lost time aside.

None of that mattered. Rufeus had said that everyone was coming back to Earth today and Arthur looked outside the window to see that the old elf had indeed spoken the truth.

The horizon was lit up with bright flashes of blue light and he could see them appearing more and more frequently.

Arthur smiled. At dawn, on the sixth morning since the system's arrival on Earth, humanity finally came back home.

Deciding to finally look at the system notification that had been demanding his attention since he woke up, Arthur grinned.

Would you like to see your status?

He said yes.