Professor Walters' monotone voice droned on about economic theories as Adam Morningstar stared out the lecture hall window. It was another predictable Tuesday afternoon at Westlake University. On the massive screens in the campus square, news tickers scrolled with the latest global tensions—China's naval exercises in disputed waters, Russia's troop movements along European borders, and America's deployment of strategic bombers. The world was teetering on the edge of World War III, just as it had been for months now.
Adam suppressed a yawn. Even the threat of global annihilation had become mundane.
His phone vibrated with incoming messages. He discreetly checked the screen beneath his desk.
Sophia: Tonight still happening? 8pm?
Vanessa: Did you get my pics this morning?
Amber: We need to talk. You can't keep doing this.
Adam smirked. His "collection," as he privately called them, was getting harder to manage. Each woman thought she was special, or at least convinced herself she was. Sophia knew about the others but pretended not to care. Vanessa suspected but never asked. Amber had just found out, apparently.
He quickly replied to Sophia confirming their date, sent Vanessa a suggestive response about her photos, and ignored Amber completely. The thrill of juggling multiple women was one of the few things that still gave him a rush—the calculated risk, the delicate balance of lies and half-truths, the challenge of keeping them all satisfied enough to stay.
"Mr. Morningstar," Professor Walters called out, "perhaps you'd care to share your thoughts on how economic sanctions might influence the current global military standoff?"
Adam slipped his phone into his pocket and straightened. "Sanctions are largely theater at this point," he replied smoothly. "When nations are determined to go to war, they'll find ways around economic obstacles. The current escalation is following the same historical patterns as previous global conflicts—we're just waiting for the equivalent of an archduke to get shot."
The professor narrowed his eyes. "That's a rather fatalistic view."
"Is history fatalistic? Or just predictable?" Adam countered with a slight smile.
A few students chuckled. Professor Walters opened his mouth to respond when a blinding blue light filled the lecture hall. Adam squinted, raising his hand to shield his eyes. The light pulsed once, twice, then vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
In its place, hovering in the air before each person in the room, appeared a translucent blue screen.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING]
[PLANETARY RECONFIGURATION: IN PROGRESS]
[CANDIDATE ASSESSMENT: APPROVED]
[AWAKENING SEQUENCE: INITIATED]
"What the hell?" someone shouted from the back of the room.
Adam stared at the glowing interface floating before him. Around the lecture hall, two hundred students were doing the same, some rising from their seats in panic, others frozen in shock.
Professor Walters reached out to touch his screen, his hand passing straight through it. "Everyone remain calm," he said, though his voice trembled. "This appears to be some sort of mass hallucination or—"
[WELCOME TO THE SYSTEM]
[TIME UNTIL CLASS SELECTION: 120 SECONDS]
[PLEASE PREPARE TO CHOOSE YOUR PATH]
Adam's heart raced, but not with fear—with excitement. His mind immediately connected the dots to countless novels and games he'd consumed. A system. Classes. This was the premise of every fantasy he'd escaped into to avoid the monotony of real life.
Now it was happening. For real.
"Is everyone seeing this?" called out Jessica from the front row, her voice high with panic.
Affirmations echoed around the room. This was no individual hallucination.
Adam focused on his interface, which had expanded to show a search bar and category filters. He quickly tapped the search function.
[CLASS SEARCH]
[TOTAL AVAILABLE CLASSES: 783]
[PLEASE REFINE YOUR SEARCH OR BROWSE CATEGORIES]
Seven hundred and eighty-three options? Adam's mind raced. The countdown timer in the corner of his interface showed 105 seconds remaining.
He quickly tapped "Popular Classes" and a list appeared:
[POPULAR SELECTIONS]
- WARRIOR ★★★★☆ [Strength-based combat specialist]
- MAGE ★★★★★ [Versatile spell caster with high damage potential]
- PALADIN ★★★★☆ [Holy warrior with healing abilities]
- RANGER ★★★★☆ [Ranged combat expert with tracking skills]
- HEALER ★★★★★ [Specialized support with unmatched recovery abilities]
- ASSASSIN ★★★★☆ [Stealth and precision damage dealer]
Basic, predictable options. Adam scrolled further, seeking something unique. Around him, students were shouting out class names, some excited, others terrified.
"I'm going Mage!" called Tyler, a basketball player who sat two rows down. "Healer is five stars, that's gotta be good," said someone else. "What the fuck is happening?" screamed a girl from the corner.
Adam spotted Sophia across the room, her face pale as she stared at her interface. Their eyes met briefly before he returned to his search. Her survival wasn't his concern.
He typed "Necromancer" into the search bar. The class had been his favorite in Realms of Azaroth, a novel series where the protagonist commanded undead armies.
[NECROMANCER] ★★★★☆
[Death magic specialist capable of raising and commanding undead minions]
[Starting abilities: Bone Shard, Sense Death, Raise Skeleton (basic)]
[Projected path: Summoner → Commander → Death Lord]
His finger hovered over the selection. It was tempting—commanding an army of the undead would be powerful, especially in an apocalyptic scenario. But then he hesitated. If this was happening to everyone, how many others would choose this path based on the same novels and games? The thought of being one among thousands of necromancers seemed... ordinary.
Adam checked the timer: 67 seconds left.
He rapidly browsed through more obscure categories: Beast Tamer, Blood Mage, Runesmith, Shadow Dancer, Chronomancer... Each had unique abilities, but none felt right. Nothing that would set him apart in this new world.
The room had descended into chaos now. Professor Walters had apparently chosen his class and was trying unsuccessfully to restore order. Some students had fallen to their knees, praying. Others were frantically calling family members, finding their phones still worked.
"Thirty seconds remaining!" someone called out.
Adam's pulse quickened. Time was running out. He scrolled through exotic class options—Void Walker, Dream Weaver, Soul Binder—all intriguing but all predefined paths.
His phone vibrated again. Vanessa had sent another photo, oblivious to what was happening. The triviality of it made him laugh. In seconds, the world was changing forever, and she was still playing their little game.
Then, at the bottom of the interface, he noticed a small, pulsing option:
[RANDOM SELECTION]
[Let fate decide your path]
[Warning: Results unpredictable]
Ten seconds left. Adam smiled. What better way to break the predictability of life than to embrace chaos completely?
He pressed the Random Selection option just as the countdown reached zero.
The interface pulsed, expanded, then displayed:
[RANDOM SELECTION CONFIRMED]
[CALCULATING...]
[ANOMALY DETECTED]
[ASSIGNING SPECIALIZED CLASS: GENESIS]
[WARNING: NO PRESET ABILITIES]
[INITIAL RESOURCE ALLOCATION: 500 SYSTEM COINS]
[AWAKENING COMPLETE]
A wave of energy surged through Adam's body, unlike anything he'd ever felt before. It wasn't painful, but rather like every cell in his body was suddenly vibrating at a higher frequency.
When it subsided, he found he could access a status window with a thought:
[NAME: ADAM MORNINGSTAR]
[CLASS: GENESIS (UNIQUE)]
[LEVEL: 1]
[HEALTH: 100/100]
[MANA: 100/100]
[STAMINA: 100/100]
[AVAILABLE SYSTEM COINS: 500]
[ABILITIES: NONE]
[SKILLS: NONE]
No preset abilities? Adam frowned momentarily before understanding dawned. Unlike everyone else who received predetermined skills with their class, his Genesis class was a blank slate. The system coins must be the key—he could purchase his own abilities.
Around the lecture hall, students were testing their new powers. A flash of fire erupted from Tyler's fingers as he experimentally cast a spell. Another student had summoned a spectral shield. Professor Walters was reading something on his interface, his face pale.
"Everyone, please!" the professor shouted. "The system is giving warnings about—"
The building shook violently, cutting off his words. Outside the windows, the sky had turned an unnatural crimson. The news screens in the square flickered, showing similar phenomena worldwide—red skies over Moscow, Beijing, Washington DC. Military alerts flashed across all channels.
A sound like tearing fabric filled the air, and then they saw it—a massive red tear appearing in the sky above campus.
"It's a gate," Adam whispered, recognizing it from his novels.
Other students rushed to the windows. More tears were opening across the city skyline—five, ten, dozens of them, each glowing with malevolent red energy.
Adam noticed Sophia staring at him from across the room, her eyes pleading for reassurance. He gave her a casual salute and a wink, as if to say "It's been fun." Her expression hardened with realization.
Then came the screams from outside. Through the windows, Adam could see the first monsters emerging from the closest gate—chitinous creatures with too many limbs scrambling down the library building across the quad.
"The system says we need to evacuate!" Professor Walters shouted. "These are designated as 'Red Gates'—the weakest type, but still extremely dangerous for new awakened!"
Panic swept through the room. Students rushed for the doors, system interfaces forgotten as survival instinct took over.
Adam remained calm, calculating. He opened his store menu while everyone else fled:
[GENESIS STORE]
[AVAILABLE COINS: 500]
[BASIC ABILITIES]
- ENHANCED PERCEPTION: 250 COINS
- BASIC PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENT: 200 COINS
- MANA MANIPULATION: 350 COINS
- ELEMENTAL AFFINITY (CHOOSE ONE): 300 COINS
- WEAPON PROFICIENCY (CHOOSE ONE): 200 COINS
Most advanced abilities cost thousands of coins, far beyond his means. Adam quickly purchased Enhanced Perception and Basic Physical Enhancement, leaving him with 50 coins.
The changes were immediate. The world sharpened around him—he could hear footsteps three floors down, smell the fear-sweat of his classmates, and see minute details previously invisible. His muscles felt denser and more responsive.
As students flooded the stairwells, Adam walked calmly to the window. With his enhanced perception, he analyzed the monsters' movements, the pattern of the gates, the flow of panicked humans below.
"Fascinating," he murmured.
On the displays in the square, military jets could be seen engaging strange flying creatures over major cities. The global war everyone had feared had arrived—just not in the form anyone had expected.
Tyler appeared beside him, hands trembling with adrenaline and newly awakened magic. "Morningstar! We need to get out of here! Those things are killing people!"
Adam turned to him with a slight smile. "Tell me, Tyler, what class did you choose?"
"Fire Mage. What does it matter? We need to go!"
"Fire Mage," Adam repeated. "How predictable."
A screech from outside drew their attention. A larger creature had emerged from the gate, bat-like wings spreading as it launched from the library roof toward their building.
Tyler cursed and ran for the door, joining the stampede of fleeing students.
Adam remained by the window, watching the creature approach with cold calculation. His enhanced perception noted the creature's trajectory, its speed, and the placement of what appeared to be vital organs beneath its leathery hide.
For the first time in years, he felt truly alive. The mundane world had shattered, replaced by something unpredictable, dangerous, and full of possibility.
The flying creature smashed through the window of an adjacent classroom. Screams echoed down the hall.
Adam calmly walked toward the sound, his hunting knife—always kept in his backpack—now in hand. His system interface showed his first potential combat opportunity, a chance to gain experience in this new reality.
"Let's see what this Genesis class can really do," he murmured, a cold smile playing on his lips as he stepped toward the chaos.