Level: 1
Class: N/A
Titles:
- Natural-Born Killer – You were the first major organism in a newly inducted planet to kill another major organism.
"In the silence of a newborn world, you wrote the first chapter in blood. Before law, before mercy, there was only instinct—and you proved yours was sharper than any other."
Reward: +3 Strength, +30% Strength, 10% efficiency in Strength - Cain – You were the first person in a newly inducted planet to kill another person of the same species.
"You have etched your name in the oldest story, the first betrayal, the original sin of your kind. To be human is to kill—yet you were the first to embrace it."
Reward: All attributes gain 10% additional efficiency - The First Reaper – You have killed another creature within one second of planetary integration
"Before the world had time to breathe, you had already taken a life. Swifter than thought, faster than fate—your hands moved before the universe could even record your existence."
Reward: +3 Dexterity, +30% Dexterity, +10% additional efficiency in Dexterity, all attributes gain 20% additional efficiency
Attributes:
- Strength: 23 (18 + 30%) [40% efficiency]
- Dexterity: 24 (19 + 30%) [40% efficiency]
- Endurance: 16 [30% efficiency]
- Mind: 14 [30% efficiency]
- Power: 10 [30% efficiency]
- Temperance: 10 [30% efficiency]
Free Attribute Points: 0
Skills:
- [Ferryman – Level 2] – Ferry the souls of the deceased towards the next step, processing their resentment to make this journey simpler. For each successful soul ferried, a variable number of attribute points may be earned
I blinked.
“What the honest-to-god fuck is happening?” I muttered as I stroked my goatee and stared at the violet window before me.
Then down at the cooling body of Randall, whose soul I had just ‘ferried’.
Query: “What is happening?” accepted!
Earth has been inducted into the Infinite Nexus!
The Infinite Nexus is a vast network that spans multiple worlds, dimensions, and planes of existence, woven together like a great cosmic web. This integration marks the beginning of a new era for humanity, where the very fabric of reality will be reshaped by the presence of the System.
System integration is currently in progress!
Lifeforms across the planet are undergoing synchronization.
New rules of existence are being implemented.
Anomalies are forming as reality stabilizes.
Things will be strange, but those who adapt will reap the greatest rewards.
Upcoming Changes:
? Ecological Shift Imminent! ?
- Monsters will soon emerge across the wilderness, adapting to local environments.
- Predators and prey alike will be altered, gaining new abilities as dictated by the System.
- The food chain will be rewritten—survival will belong to the strong and the cunning.
? Dungeon Manifestation in Progress! ?
- Dungeons will begin forming in areas of high mana concentration.
- These anomalies will act as both danger zones and sources of untold riches.
- Brave or foolish adventurers may attempt to conquer them… at their own risk.
? Societal Restructuring Incoming! ?
- Civilization will be categorized and formalized by the System.
- Individuals will receive Classes, Titles, and Attributes, defining their new roles.
- Governments, corporations, and existing power structures will be forced to adapt—or perish.
So… everyone was getting these floaty windows? I looked around in the dark streets—couldn’t find anyone to share in my confusion with, but I was hearing some commotion from within the surrounding buildings. When I focused on my hearing, I could hear shouting.
I looked back at the window, fixating on one line.
Things will be strange, but those who adapt will reap the greatest rewards.
Okay.
I took a deep breath and tossed out everything I thought I once knew, replacing it with pure curiosity instead, making room in my head for this new reality.
Levels. Okay. Levels were power. That was easy enough to intuit. Video game logic.
Thus, the only other question of interest was… “Where does it end? How far does it go?”
Another violet window popped up before my eyes, replacing the one I had finished reading.
No one has reached the level cap as of yet. The power that the system offers is transcendent and unending. There are those that can extinguish your star system’s sun with barely a thought, and they too are considered trivial by even greater existences within the Infinite Nexus. In this vast cosmic web of reality, you are barely an atom.
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But all journeys of a thousand miles begin with a single step. You, too, can gain this power—by felling monsters and absorbing their essence, gaining experience points, completing quests, gathering and processing objects of power, the list goes on and on.
I blinked.
Power unending.
Okay. Power unending, sure, yeah.
“And… everyone is level one? Did everyone start off at level one? I mean—on Earth, at least?”
Earth’s system integration occurs all at once—no human on Earth gained access to it before any other. You are all at the starting line.
My mind boggled at that.
Really?
“Hah!” I couldn’t help but let out a loud chuckle at that.
Just like that? I could just—become godlike just like that? With no one to stop me, and soon with no one that could claim to stand above me—unless their level reflected that reality?
I blinked repeatedly at the screen.
Suddenly, it was as though all weight left my shoulders—everything, even my own weight. I felt like, with a thought, I could just take off. Fly like Superman.
There was a lightness to even my thoughts, too, as though I had shrugged off some sort of mental yoke that stopped me from thinking certain things for fear of consequences.
But… what if… consequences no longer applied to me?
What if I could just… do whatever the hell I wanted?
But, what did I want?
I had so many other questions. “Explain the attributes—”
I heard faint, muffled shouts through the streets and immediately put those thoughts away in order to prioritize the present. I looked around at the ground and found the bullet I had ejected from the gun’s chamber. Swiftly, I picked the bullet up, pushed it into the magazine, and the magazine into the gun before facing the noise.
Out from an alleyway, a pack of ski-mask wearing dipshits ran out, looking around. When one saw me, his hand darted towards his waistband.
I aimed the gun and fired, hitting his chest, but not putting him down. I took a chance and tried for his head. It was reckless, but I felt calm enough that I thought I could make the shot, even from forty feet away.
I hit.
The gunfire immediately alerted the other gangsters—friends of Randall, possibly—but they couldn’t get their guns up in time for me to aim and fire.
I aimed at the heart of one guy.
Then I hit the heart.
I barely questioned the luck before moving on, aiming at another guy’s chest—specifically the heart.
I hit the target again. The first guy whose heart I hit dropped by the time I moved on to the third, hitting his heart, too.
Then the fourth—heartshot. “The fuck?” I whispered. I aimed at the blue ski-mask-covered head of a fifth gangster, struck him right on his forehead, and moved on to the sixth.
Hit the sixth guy, too.
All done.
I blinked. I looked down at the gun and blinked again.
Then I frowned.
“What the actual fuck,” I whispered. I walked up to them—all dead. All of them.
Human slain!
Human slain!
Human slain!
Human slain!
Human s—
I waved the windows from my vision like batting away a bunch of flies as I continued to inspect each of them.
Yeah.
All dead.
My eyes caught sight of one window that had stubbornly remained despite my waving it away.
All beings within the system are in possession of six core attributes. Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Mind, Power, and Temperance.
Strength affects one’s ability to exert physical force with their body. Dexterity affects one’s control over their body. Endurance affects the body’s durability, resilience and recoverability. Mind affects cognition, memory, and mental skills. Power affects the intensity and magnitude of the various forms of energy that a being can harness, and Temperance affects a person’s ability to control that energy, and incidentally, oneself.
…Okay?
The hell did they mean, though? The numbers.
Ten is the average value across a species’ population. Thus, each attribute is weighed differently depending on species.
So a bear’s ‘Strength 10’ was miles greater than a human’s ‘Strength 10’? That’s what it was saying, at least.
Hold on, then why was my aim so much better all of a sudden? I summoned the screen thing once more and inspected my attributes more closely.
- Strength: 23 (18 + 30%) [40% efficiency]
- Dexterity: 24 (19 + 30%) [40% efficiency]
- Endurance: 16 [30% efficiency]
- Mind: 14 [30% efficiency]
- Power: 10 [30% efficiency]
- Temperance: 10 [30% efficiency]
I ignored the numbers in the square and round brackets for now, and instead focused on the numbers right next to the attributes. Dead average Power and Temperance, above average Mind, good Endurance, and… twice the magnitude of Strength and Dexterity compared to an average human?
I definitely considered myself stronger than two average people pre-all this, but there’d be a time and place for measuring what those attribute numbers meant in real terms. And that time wasn’t now, and the place definitely wasn’t here.
This particular… murder spree of mine, though… hmmm.
Dexterity? Yeah, it was definitely Dexterity.
I supposed that’s what I would be leveling up on then, from now on. “How do I get a free attribute?”
A window didn’t appear. Wait—what?
“Also—where is my level up? I killed a bunch of guys just now, didn’t I?”
Due to this being the first day of system integration, the denizens of Earth are granted a unique opportunity to gain levels—and thus attribute points, both free or assigned. All experience gained from killing via system-approved methods are tripled during the first twenty-four hours of integration.
Wait—holy shit!
Wait—system-approved?
Death dealt via the delivery of projectiles not propelled through a person’s own Strength or Power does not constitute a system-approved method of killing, and will thusly be penalized.
Huh?
It took me a moment to piece together exactly what the fuck that meant.
Guns didn’t use physical strength to propel bullets, so… that was right out.
Okay. No guns. Just brawn. Hands. Melee weapons, too, I guessed. Anything that didn’t use non-strength-based propulsion.
Was it also not allowed to just drop stuff on people to kill them? That would be using gravity for propulsion after all. Probably. Not important.
“Penalized by how much?” That was the more important question.
Nothing. Okay, then.
I heard sirens in the distance and my eyes widened.
Then I looked down at the dead gangsters and—just to be safe—grabbed another glock, ripped off the stupid fucking switch, and reloaded the gun I had just used to a fresh mag.
“What the fuck am I doing?” I asked myself.
But I didn’t stop.
I inspected the trigger of another gun, made sure it wasn’t tampered with, before stuffing it into my pocket. Then I pilfered the magazines from the other guns—what the fuck am I doing?
“Pushing forward the inevitable,” I said.
I chuckled. Jesus Christ, Charon. This is where we’re at, now.
I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop, really.
Among all the things the system had told me, one thing was most important, by far.
Things will be strange, but those who adapt will reap the greatest rewards.
This was just adaptation.