New World Day 1

Overcome by exhaustion, I staggered backwards into the garage and collapsed onto the ground. My baggy white t-shirt was soaked in sweat, and it wasn’t until I heard a squish upon hitting the ground and felt how wet my jeans were that I realized I had wet myself sometime during the chase or fight. Shaking my head, I told myself there was no shame in such a reaction. A beast straight from children’s nightmares had been chasing me through a crazy twisted world which just happened to be my new reality. As that realization sank deep into my bones, I finally turned my attention to the little transparent screen blinking faithfully in the corner of my right eye. My voice still hoarse from my wild screams I growled, “Begin Tutorial.”

Text began scrolling slowly down the screen in the corner of my eye while a familiar yet stiff, almost mechanical, voice whispered into my mind, “Welcome to the System tutorial. This short tutorial will familiarize you with the System’s abilities and functions. The System is designed to help strengthen the denizens of this universe as quickly as possible so that they might have a chance to survive their deadly new environment. However, due to the short time frame involved in its creation and the sheer number of users, there are a number of restrictions.”

Continuing calmly the voice said, “Due to the prevalence and popularity of the games found on this world, the System has molded itself into a similar form for the convenience of the users. At any time the user can think the word Status and a screen showing your level, titles, jobs, skills, and stats will appear. Let us begin your tutorial by going through the key points of the System one by one. First, the level of the user is determined by the amount of energy that the System is able to absorb due to the user’s actions. The primary but not sole way for the System to absorb energy is through the death of another living being. When a being dies the energies contained within it begin to leak out and return to nature. The System is designed to absorb a portion of these energies. The energies that the System absorbs are then split into three parts. The first part goes to power the System, the second part is set aside for the user’s personal level, and the third part is set aside for the user’s Job level. Once a sufficient amount of energy is set aside, the level of the user and/or their job will increase. Each increase in the user’s personal level will give the user bonus stat points that that can assign to any stat available to them. The number of bonus stat points awarded for each level is equal to the number of stats the user has awakened. Each increase in the user’s Job will award some stat points and Job points that may be used to purchase Job exclusive skills. Due to the increasingly large amounts of energy needed to raise the user’s stats or allow the user to learn certain skills, each level will take greater and greater amounts of energy to reach. The distance to the next level is shown by a percentage next to each level.

The second key point is that all System titles, jobs, and skills are divided into ranks and rarities. There are seven normal ranks which are from lowest to highest: Basic, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Mythic. Rarity is denoted by stars going from one to five. The higher the rank and greater the rarity of a title, job, or skill the greater the strength. Separate from the normal ranking system is the Unique rank which goes from one to ten stars in rarity. The strength of a Unique rank title, job, or skill varies wildly depending on the type of title, job, or skill, and the title, job, or skill will be transferred to the normal ranking system should it become one that is no longer unique.”

The voice and text paused for a brief moment to let me absorb the given information before resuming, “Titles are earned via actions undertaken by the user, and they will represent the achievements, both good and bad, of the user. Each title earned will grant the user points that can be used to buy skills from the System database. Skills bought in this fashion will be imprinted directly into the user’s mind allowing the user to activate them almost immediately. The number of points awarded for a title is determined by the rank and rarity of the earned title. Basic rank titles earn the user one to five points varying due to the rarity of the title and each jump in rank doubles the points awarded. In order to prevent the user’s untimely death, the skills available for purchase from the store database are limited to ones that the user can safely withstand learning. As you grow stronger and more capable, more and more skills will become available for purchase. Some titles that the user may earn represent great enough achievements that they may grant skills directly without the need for purchase via points. Such skills can often only be strengthened through an increase in the rank or rarity of the title that granted it in the first place.”

Once more the voice paused briefly before resuming once again, “Ideally, the System would allow the user to learn any skill and would strengthen the user as they learned it so that said skill would not endanger their life. However, there is simply not enough energy to go around for such a wide-ranging function. Hence, Jobs were created. The Job portion of the System is designed to provide the user with a limited ability to learn skills that they wouldn’t normally be able to learn. Once a Job is taken, the user’s body will be modified by the energies of the System so that they are able to learn a limited set of otherwise unreachable abilities. Some Jobs will immediately award certain skills once the Job is taken, and some may even awaken a dormant stat for the user. Additional job restricted skills may be purchased with Job points earned by leveling the Job. Each Job level will also award a certain amount of stat points to the Job’s most used stats as well as a few bonus stat points. The number of stat points and bonus stat points awarded depends on the rank and rarity of the Job. Due to previously mentioned energy restrictions, Jobs will only become available once the user reaches level 10. User’s can have more than one job. Additional Job slots open up after every 20 additional levels. Some titles may award additional job slots as well. Jobs available to the user are determined by the titles, skills, and stats of the user.”

As I absentmindedly gazed up the gravel driveway at the line of trees in front of me, I belatedly realized how unbelievably stupid I was to just sit there in the open while the voice droned on in my mind. Before the voice could continue on I yelled into my mind, “Pause!” Thankfully, the System tutorial responded as I had hoped, and the voice stopped immediately. My status screen now blinked with the question, “Continue?” As quickly as I could, I staggered to my feet and pressed the button to close the garage door. Walking slowly and swaying slightly side to side, I opened the door to my right that led to my Dad’s basement workshop. As I entered the workshop and flipped the lights on, I came to hear a loud humming noise emerge from its depths. Glancing around, I saw the workshop was just as it always had been. It was a long room in the shape of a fat L. It was well organized with a series of shelves on each side and a large wooden workbench straight ahead at the joint of the L. The workbench and shelves weren’t anything fancy, just your basic metal and wood, but they contained a multitude of tools that would no doubt prove useful in the days ahead.

However, it wasn’t the tools I had my eye on right now. It was the large fat bodied gun safe that sat squarely to the right of the workbench. Yet something unexpected caught my eye as I worked my way towards the safe. The large gasoline generator that sat on the opposite side of the workbench was running quietly, emitting that loud hum that permeated the workshop. I stared in shock as I came to realize that the power must be out in the area, and promptly smacked the side of my head as my tired mind finally caught up and thought, “Of course the frikken power is out. Who knows how much new land has been spliced into the world. There’s no damn way the utilities could adapt to such a situation. The various utility lines were probably broken into pieces wherever new land appeared. This is the first time I’m actually thankful for the damn intermittent power outages in this area. If my parents hadn’t installed this generator to deal with them I’d be dead by now.”

With that realization firmly in mind, I quietly thanked my parents for their forward thinking and turned my attention back to the gun safe. After all, dealing with any new beasts that might come to investigate the bloody corpse just outside the garage was my most pressing concern. The generator could run for awhile yet without my intervention. Arriving at the safe’s door, I quickly punched in the code, twisted the handle, and threw the door open. Inside the safe, there were a bunch of ammo boxes, a holster, and a half dozen guns. However, only four of them would likely prove useful. One was a nine millimeter pistol, the second was a pump action shotgun, and the remaining two were .30-30 hunting rifles complete with scopes. The remaining two guns were an old twenty-two caliber rifle and a muzzleloader. I doubted either would be of any help in dealing with any of the deadly beasts I might encounter. I was a decent shot due to all of the time I spent here over the years, but I wasn’t a good enough shot to make those two old guns useful. Taking the shotgun and the pistol along with a few boxes of ammo and the pistol holster, I walked down the right hand hallway to the door at the other end of the workshop.

I passed by a dry sink, a washer, and a dryer on my right while on my left side there were more shelves and a refrigerator. At the end of the hallway there was a caramel brown wooden door which I opened the door into a nice sized bedroom complete with a small sitting area. Right in front of me sat a large king sized bed while to my right there was an entertainment center that sat snug against the wall. Just on the other side of the entertainment center there was a door to a bathroom and shower. Next to the bathroom there were steps that led up to the ground floor of the house. Opposite the entertainment center, I saw a floral print loveseat and ottoman. The last detail of note was another wooden door that led back out to the back of the garage. The room was adorned with paintings and quilts of animals and flowers befitting a home in the countryside. The decorations gave the room a kind cozy albeit rustic feeling. Laying the guns on the bed, I returned to the gun safe and grabbed the two rifles as well as a few more boxes of ammo before returning to the other room. Carefully closing the door behind me, I laid the two rifles on the bed next to the other weapons. Taking in the weapons that lay before me, I began to pick up and slowly inspect and load each of them before carefully placing them back onto the bed. Once finished, I took the pistol and shotgun and sat in the love seat before firmly thinking, “Continue.”

Promptly the voice resumed speaking, “Skills are abilities that users can either learn on their own or purchase through the System. Skills are a representation of the knowledge and abilities that a user has gained both naturally and artificially throughout their lives. Skills go up in rank and potentially rarity as the user becomes more experienced and proficient with them. The distance to the next increase in rank is indicated by a level and percentage next to the skill name. The number of levels it takes to increase the rank of a skill varies from skill to skill. User’s can ask the System to monitor the increase in experience for specific skills for them. By keeping an eye on exactly what actions cause a Skill’s experience and level to increase, users may be able to find a way to further their proficiency in Skills for which they have no teacher or fundamental knowledge of. Skills are divided into three types. Passive skills that are always active in exchange for a permanent drain of some form of energy, active skills that must be triggered in some fashion to be used, and burst skills that are more powerful extensions of active skills but often come with a drawback of some kind. The most common drawbacks are a massive drain of energy or a great burden on the user that causes them to suffer a self-inflicted injury.

The final System function revolves around your stats. Stats represent your body, mind, spirit, and soul’s basic abilities. Most users will initially only have access to the most basic physical stats. As the users becomes stronger and adapt to this altered reality, they will have the chance to awaken formerly dormant stats. Some Jobs, as mentioned earlier, can forcibly awaken dormant stats. Stats can be increased naturally via training, but the higher the number of points a user possesses for a specific stat the harder it is to increase by training. Stat points and bonus stat points awarded by the System will always raise the stat value by 1 point no matter how high the current value.

Dear Users, the System is designed to help you become as strong as possible as quickly as possible. If you are able to find a loophole or pattern of some kind that allows you to grow faster than you think you should be able to, then please feel free to exploit it as ruthlessly and for as long as you can. It is our hope, as the gods of this original universe, that the System will allow the majority of you to survive the calamity that has descended upon our home.”

Glancing at my screen, I noticed that it was now flashing “Tutorial Completed. Show Status?” Concentrating I thought, “Open Status!”, and immediately a series of messages popped up on the screen followed by my long awaited status.

You have reached LVL 1! 3 bonus stat points awarded!

Title awarded! Survivor (B) *

Skill awarded! Basic Axe Mastery (B) *

Name: Jason Silver

Job Name: N/A

LVL: 1 10%

Job LVL: N/A 0%

Job Points:

N/A

N/A

Titles:

Survivor (B) LVL 1 0%

Title Points:

*

1

Stats:

HP:

Endurance:

Strength:

Speed:

Bonus Points:

80/100

6

5

7

3

Status Effects:

N/A

Skills:

Basic Axe Mastery (B) LVL 1 0%

*