I was dreaming. I laid down next to my wife after a long day at work and closed my eyes. I remember thinking how pleasant the cold bed was compared to the heat of the shower I had just taken. The kids were asleep before I had gotten home, and I didn’t want to risk waking them so I didn’t open their doors to check on them. When I closed my eyes, I felt waves of relaxation roll through my body, like I could feel my organs shutting down for the night. I was up in the sky, falling from an incredible height. Except… I felt no resistance and couldn’t hear the rush of air as I flew past. It was almost like the sky and ground were rapidly moving upward, and I was standing still in the air.

In front of me, standing solidly on a cloud that wasn’t rising with the rest, was a young boy with a chilly bowl cut and t-shirt that said “Is it cannibalism if I eat chicken nuggets?” and depicted a T-rex in a thinking position with a question mark over its head. He was smiling at me, his smile growing broader the longer I looked at him.

“Time will soon catch up to us, you know. When it does, it’s best we’ve finished our business or you may be flattened. You should pick a class for living in my game world.”

“Eh?”

“I’ve watched you toil your life away, giving up your hobbies for your family. Rightfully so, of course. You could hardly call yourself a man if you put your family second. But still, I’ve visited your thoughts and dreams before, and you might feel guilty for admitting it, but you long for adventure. Freedom for a time, before returning to the family you adore. The good news is, I don’t find you boring. So I’ll go ahead and say it again. You should pick a class for living in my game world. You could be a swordsman, sorcerer, assassin, archer, healing priest, knight, merchant… whatever. There are over a hundred classes to choose from, but most have to be unlocked through your actions and levels of other classes. You just have to play my game, which is styled after your world’s dungeon exploration RPGs, level up, and save the world. Or don’t. I don’t care. To be honest, I’m just bored and trying to live vicariously though you. Since you’re more likely to enjoy yourself, and by extension I’m more likely to enjoy myself, I’ll let you choose whatever class you like, even if you don’t possess the prerequisites. But you only get one, and my rather lengthy explanation has already taken up most of our remaining time. I suggest you pick quickly.”

Once the boy finished his diatribe, I looked down again and saw that the ground was much closer to us. It looked like we were falling straight towards a castle town in the middle of a large plains. In the distance, a huge body of water, a small mountain range, and a forest were visible.

What, no desert? I thought dryly. Even at a time like this, I’m having trouble taking my dream seriously. While I admit it is a thoroughly convincing dream, I still don’t really believe it. The boy talked about how I gave up my hobbies, but it isn’t really true. I never gave up gaming. I didn’t play anywhere close to the amount that I did in college, and I refrain from playing when my kids were awake, but I still play. At any rate, gaming is the one hobby I wish I would give up, since I know I’d have been a much more productive member of society if I had never touched my first controller.

“Alright, fine. I’ll just enjoy my dream. I’ve long thought that if I had a super power, I would want the ability to go control time. I’d jump back into my body when I was a kid, and live as a genius who could read, write, and do calculus at the tender age of ‘just born’. Assuming my pudgy baby hands to could a pencil. Are there any classes that can do that?”

“Oh? That does sound interesting. But sadly, you wouldn’t be able to utilize its power properly until you leveled up quite a bit. A Time wizard could do what you want, but it is a class that’s prerequisites have never been fulfilled. Locking onto a moment of time could be done as a level 1 without any other classes… but actually transferring to that moment would take… let’s see… around three thousand MP.”

“So it isn’t possible?” I do hope it is. Even if I have to wait a lifetime to use it, I could still come back. Besides, it’s a dream. Who cares how long something takes in a dream? I’ll still wake up in the morning and go to work. A longer dream is preferable, to be honest.

“It’s perfectly possible. You’ll just won’t have any usable abilities for a long time. Your owner will be quite displeased with such a useless slave.” The boy said, his tone verging on mocking.

“I don’t mind not having any abilities at first. A sword will still be dangerous in the hands of a novice. At any rate, I can just live in the easy zones, farming all the mobs for extra cash and experience until I level up a bunch. That’s how you play games like this on easy mode. Then it doesn’t matter how angry my owner will be, I’ll still be… earning… money…. What do you mean, slave!?” I clearly heard what the boy had said before, but I wasn’t really interpreting.

“Welp, times up. You haven’t chosen anything else, so you’re a Time Wizard! Good luck down there noob!”

The city was now around 1000 yards away, and it was flying towards me rapidly. I was going to be hit first by what appeared to be a huge coliseum type building without a roof. Right as the floor was about to collide with me, a white light enveloped me, and I was standing firmly on the stone floor of the coliseum. A large balding man quickly strode up to me and pressed a mechanical collar at my throat. It wrapped around and locked into place. The man smiled broadly at me, looking over my body like I was being appraised.

“Finally, a boy with some muscle on him. All I ever seemed to get before was children! You ended up costing a fortune to summon! What powers can you use?”

Feeling compelled, I answered him truthfully. “I have no usable powers.” After all, what use is locking onto a place in time, if I can’t use the spell to go there?