Another day of work and Evangeline Sanders was absolutely burnt out as usual, the 19 year old collapsed on her bed closing her eyes in the brightly lit room as if in defiance against the light shining from above. She was done with the world. She wished she did not have to get up every morning go to university and then straight to her part-time job afterwards before finally crashing into her accommodation. She wished she did not have to think about the all the assignments she had for her modules. Sometimes she just wished the entire world and this boring life would disappear.
[IS THAT SO?]
Evangeline found herself in a world of complete darkness. She attempted to look around but found that she did not exactly have a body to move in the first place. Another message like the one above appeared in front of her again.
[PROCESSING INFORMATION BODY . . .]
[PROCESS COMPLETE]
[BUILDING NETHER BODY. . .]
[PROCESS COMPLETE]
She could not move nor talk the entire time (missing a mouth and all) however as the last 2 lines were being said she could finally feel herself, literally, coming to into being. But also completely naked in this dark directionless space. Once her body was completely formed a basic looking door appeared in front of her close. She found that there was now a purple-coloured carpet hanging in space and in front of her leading to said door. As she took a tentative step forward on the carpet something else happened. A mass of the darkness coalesced together forming an even deeper darkness, robes of purplish and dark blue colours appeared around said mass as it formed into a vaguely humanoid shape. A pair of glowing red eyes form at the collar of the robe and a ghastly mouth followed soon after. All being said whatever that was look positively terrifying. Evangeline stopped her movement instantly at the horrifying sight.
The being regarded her for a moment cocking its "head" to the side as it studied her. Suddenly its ghastly mouth smiled as it spoke while inviting her to the door with one hand.
"Go on in." its voice sounded very much like the robotic voice talking to her earlier and just like said voice it seemed to resound from all around her.
The door opened on its own and the little she could see through it showed a brightly lit room in a bar like setting. She could not see anyone behind the counter but not wanting to upset the being she briskly walked through the open doorway.
After walking through the door she turned around to close it, only to find that the doorway was gone altogether. The "room" appeared to go on forever in all directions but still had a floor and ceiling at the very least. Turning back to the empty bar to find it wasn't so empty any more with the being behind the bar regarding her once again.
"Wh-who are you?" she half-choked out.
"You can call me…the Grand Administrator," it said after a moment. "I manage this world."
"And what is this world you manage?" more confidently this time.
"Glad you asked, you can call this world Eternum."
"So you brought me here?"
"I suppose you could say that."
"Could I go back?" she might have thought all of that before but coming to some weird place with a horrifying looking monster was certainly not what she wished for.
"Wishes, hm?" the monster grinned.
Could he read her mind?
"You could say that, though do not worry I don't make it a habit after this part at least." She noticed he did not dispute the monster part.
The grin got even wider.
"Well enough about that, you wanted to know If you could go back, the answer is yes you can, however you would forget about everything and return to that life you deemed boring just moments ago".
"Could I at least learn about what is going on before I decide?"
"That is not a problem since you would forget it if you decide not to anyway. Simply put every few years a group of humans like you are invited to this world where you are granted abilities what you do with said abilities is up to you however you would have to fight every once in a while, against other 'players' like yourself. You with me?"
She took a moment to process the information given so far. Another world? Abilities? Of what kind? Fight? Players? This all sounded surreal.
"Before you ask, the reason you are forced to fight is to keep your access to this world and if you lose all your point you would lose access forever and just like I said you would lose memories of this world. Oh and note that if you accept this you would still be able to go back to your world without loses your memories of this place although again you would be forced into fights to keep access. Note we don't have all the time in the world so you would have to make your decision soon or you would be forced out. You would need the time you are spending here for the next part."
Honestly she barely got it, but the things he said earlier certainly piqued her interest. She really was tired of regular life and this seemed to be a once in a life time opportunity.
"Ok, what do I need to do?" there was clearly far more to this but she could figure things out as she went along.
The Grand Admin grinned once again before waving his hands of darkness (which she noticed had claws on the finger ends) in front of it. A screen appeared in front of her.
STRENGTH
RESILIENCE
MOBILITY
ENERGY
POWER
"These are the basic stats and they all start from G- and go up to EX, choose three of these with one as a major, one as a standard and one as a minor".
"What do these affect?" she could tell at a glance but wanted more confirmation.
"Strength affects your body's base physicality resilience is more about durability and endurance but works with strength to increase said durability. Mobility is your base speed and agility. Energy affects how much paranormal energy you have and also your control over it. While power affects the strength of your energy. The point of this choice is to pick your starting base stats and to hand you your first Sigil. A weapon that represents each player."
Looking over the stats she made her decision after a couple of minutes. Choosing Energy, Mobility and then Power as her major, standard and minors.
[CHOICE MADE]
[ENERGY HAS BEEN UPGRADED FROM G- RANK TO F- RANK]
[MOBILITY HAS BEEN UPGRADED FROM G- RANK TO G+ RANK]
[POWER HAS BEEN UPGRADE FROM G- RANK TO G RANK]
After the messages flashed up in from of her, an object appeared in the air, a Sigil as it floated down to her right hand it formed into a weapon she could easily recognize as a revolver. It was dark blue in colour with slightly lighter blue outlines and it was long, from the handle to the barrel was roughly 30 cm in length. Right after she was done studying it, clothing appeared on her. Baggy pants, a black tee, dark boots and a slightly too big jacket coloured dark blue with lighter blue highlights just like her gun and her pants.
"Good, now say or think 'status'".
Thinking 'status' brought up a new screen.
STATUS:
NAME: FLORA
CLASS: UMBRAL SHAPER
LEVEL: 0
POINTS: 0
STATS:
STRENGTH: E
RESILIENCE: E
MOBILITY: D
ENERGY: D+
POWER: D-
SIGIL(1): SHADOW REVOLVER
SKILLS:
SHADOW STITCHING.
GENERAL SKILLS:
NONE
That was a lot of information. The Grand administrator regarded her again interest truly sparking in his eyes now.
"If you want more on each thing in the status window just concentrate on an element and you would get more information".
Something occurred to her.
"Where are the typical stats you would see in games like dexterity?"
"Hmph, quite a question, simply put what you see right now is not every stat some things are hidden from the players and are far more personal according to the system. What you have now are the basic stats every player gets and more could be opened up to you as you level up." He said that with finality as if to make it clear that this was all he would say on it and that they were running out of time.
Another door appeared next to the bar and opened on its own just like the last one. She figured what she was meant to.
Walking through this one she ended up in a huge circular plaza, this was the first time she saw other people besides herself and the Administrator. She saw other people walking out of portal doors that disappeared moments later. And once the plaza was full that was when she noticed that there were sitting stands surrounding the plaza and some people were up in them, clearly higher level players based on how they carried themselves.
"Thank you all for coming," looking up into the night sky filled with stars she saw the Grand Administrator yet again, except this time he was huge, at least the size of a skyscraper and she suspected that this was closer to his real form than his human sized version.
It seemed everyone recognized him and considering they all were arriving from the similar doorways to her it seemed he had been talking to hundreds of people at the same time.
"This world is known as Eternum after you first few days here you would be able to go back to Earth before the regular summons happen. Please note that attempting to talk to others who are not players like you about this world is impossible. Time here flows about ten times faster so after your first days you would go back to your now relatively normal lives with only a few hours having passed. The systems automatic summon is sufficiently advanced so that forced summons are never during awkward times. Now that you all have your starting gear your first test would begin in a few minutes, winning would grant you one hundred points and losing would have you wiped out of this world as you all have 0 points." he grinned menacingly.
This guy was certainly not messing around after his explanation on how you forget everything about this world upon losing all your points, he drops a bombshell like this. Obviously, the whole plaza went into a panic, the players in the stands made very little movement further cementing her guess about their identities.
"I am not so heartless to throw you all in without any preparation however so take these few minutes to get familiar with your skills before you get into the one versus one fights, you would not be able to use your skills in this plaza however, that's all for now, see you in a bit" with that he disappeared in a silent explosion of darkness.
Evangeline took the time to look at her skills properly.
SHADOW STITCHING – Touching the shadow of a person with your paranormal energy causes them to be paralysed in place for a few seconds.
SHADOW REVOLVER – This firearm is loaded via your energy, so despite being a 6-shot revolver it does not need reloading. However, this also means that running out of energy makes this revolver useless.
Looking at her revolver which she realised she could materialize and dematerialize at any point she studied the others around her also looking at their equipment, from modern looking weaponry to swords, spears and even bows. This confused her because shouldn't a modern weapon have the overwhelming advantage over any of the medieval level equipment? As she wondered this she sensed (sensed? Interesting) a person approaching her from her left. It was a tall guy, as an aside she realised that she was slightly taller than her normal self on Earth if even by a couple inches making her just shy of six feet tall (she had always been pretty tall), even so he still was a bit taller than her and a bit on the lanky side too. He had short brown hair as opposed to her long black hair now tied in a pony tailed with a dark blue band. And his green eyes behind his glasses studied her deep brown ones. He looked decently handsome and wore a black casual suit. Didn`t look very good for fighting in her opinion.
She was on guard against this stranger and seeing this he raised his hands up out of his pockets in a placating gesture to show he meant her no harm.
"Hey, I am Lucilius or at least that is the name generated by the system, you?" he seemed amicable.
"Ev-I mean Flora also from the system of course." she had nearly messed up already in her first interaction.
"I am new here just like you, however I know a bit more than I should."
"Huh? How is that possible aren't people incapable of speaking of this world in the outside?"
"There are ways around it just like with anything else." he stated simply, "don't worry I would explain this to you at a later point."
"And why exactly are you speaking to me of all the people here?" she asked quizzically.
"Hmm… lets just say I have a good eye for people, which is why I am approaching you."
"How mysterious," she almost rolled her eyes.
"I can at least tell what you were thinking a while ago, about the weapon differences right?"
He was of course spot on so wanting to know more she just nodded.
"Simply put weapons here are incomparable to those that exist on Earth, that revolver you have there of course does not exist on Earth in the first place however it is far more powerful than any infantry firearm that does exist."
"Doesn't that just give me even more of an advantage?"
"Its not that simple it is not only the weapons that are above their counterparts, our very bodies are the same." he looked deeply into her eyes and that was when she noticed his pupil were slitted vertically like a snake's. "I am sure you remember the system rambling about building a Nether body."
As she nodded in affirmation he continued.
"We are stronger than any normal human, to give you some examples the G- rank is the lowest any stat can be however it also places us firmly above any human. So lets say you have an G- rank in strength. You would already be able to lift more than a powerlifter that holds the current world record. You can punch for harder than Mike Tyson or run far faster than Usain Bolt. And as the ranks go up the difference is exponential."
"That…just seems ridiculous," she could not imagine being that fast or that strong just a few minutes ago she was a perfectly average girl with maybe slightly above average looks.
"Its expected that you would react that way but that's how it is you would see it in the one versus ones in a moment, for this reason despite your bullets likely being far faster and far more powerful than that of even an anti-tank rifle people with decent ranks in resilience and strength could likely take a few shots and people with ranks in mobility could dodge them at least at range."
Leaning a bit closer he pointed to his eyes.
"I am sure you have noticed these slitted pupils; this should remind you that we are not exactly human anymore in these bodies and I am sure you did not notice what is on the right side of your head."
Shocked she lifted her right arm to the right side of her head feeling something hard, no wonder she had felt a bit uncomfortable ignoring the height change she had a single horn growing upwards in a near S like shape. Now she truly looked around at everyone and realised she did not the now rather obvious differences to a normal human body. From horns like hers, to weird hair colours to tails to ear shapes if anything these changes were more pronounced in the audience above with some even having wings.
"Anyway, don't underestimate anyone because you have a gun anyone here could easily smash through a brick wall even with the lowest level of strength and of course they all have their abilities like you." He certainly did not look as shocked as her about the physical changes cementing that he knew more than he should for whatever reason.
"Thanks for the information," she said sincerely, this was an advantage over the other perplexed looking people around her.
"Hey, don't mention it, I am sure we would meet after this," he smiled amicably before walking off to into the crowd.
He was still suspicious but she had to admit that this was immediately helpful to know with the upcoming battles. With what he told her, a plan was already forming in her head.
"And time is up, after the one verses ones are over it would likely be the last time any of you would see me for a while at least, I look forwards to how you perform," upon saying that he clapped his hands together and everyone disappeared from the plaza.
Evangeline appeared in another very large room, it was made out o white tiles with a few boulders strewn everywhere some reaching up to 4 meters in height. She noticed that she was in some transparent type box preventing her from move out of it and looking across she saw who she supposed was her opponent in something similar. He was very large even tall than Lucilius and was filled with muscle from head to toe. What appeared to be a sophisticated looking club was in his right hand which she assumed was his Sigil. Very primitive.
[Battle would begin in 10 seconds please prepare yourself]
Those words appeared between the both of them she noticed he could read them regardless meaning that they should be reflected around for him. A timer saying 300 was also floating in between them, she assumed that meant 300 seconds of battle.
The time counted down and she had not revealed her Sigil yet.
[BEGIN]