I woke up lying in a cold, musty, dimly lit, hard stone room. There was nothing in it, and it seemed to be a perfect cube. After looking around, I only saw one deviation from the perfectly smooth stone walls, an old looking wood door at the far end of the room.
“Well, this is odd,” I thought to myself. After all, I do remember going to sleep in my cozy little apartment in the suburbs of Toronto, Canada. And this was certainly not my cozy little apartment in the suburbs of Toronto.
“Well,” I said, “Why not go and have a look at that door, eh Jack?”
So, I stood up, and walked over to the wooden door. As I approached it, I noticed some irregularities. For one, it didn’t seem to have any hinges. It had a knob, but no lock, and no window to see through the door. Looking closer, there seemed to be weird symbols on it, mostly geometrical. But the weird thing was, it looked completely natural.
“How does this work!” I exclaimed. There is literally no wood in the world that could look like this, and I would probably know if there was, as a prospecting botanist, at least before all this happened. Looking at the door a little longer, I noticed something odd about the symbols, as a sense of déjà vu began to form.
“Is it just me, or do those look like the writing in the book that Gramps was always reading when he babysat me, and my sister, eh?” Of course, no one responded. “Okay, so that’s not suspicious at all.”
After inspecting the door, I got a great idea.
“Hey. What happens if I touch it?” I wondered. “I’m sure it’s fine, because you know, what could possibly go wrong, right?”
Of course, as soon as I touched it, things went weird. A screen suddenly popped up in front of me, saying:
Initiating Planet . . .
Planet Mass: Low F-Grade
Planet Energy: Error . . . Energy below F-Grade
Calculating . . . Please wait . . . Solution Found:
Merging Planets . . .
Suddenly, the room started to shake a bit.
“What the hell is happening!” I yelled.
Then, it stopped. There seemed to be no damage done to the room, with its stone walls as pristine as ever.
New Planet Mass: Low D-Grade
New Planet Energy: Mid D-Grade
Welcome to the System, Cultivator. To access your status, please think “Status”.
“What the hell is this!” I shouted, before wincing, as the sound ricocheted off the smooth stone walls. “Is this a prank?” I wondered. Maybe . . . I thought, “Status.” Suddenly, a new screen appeared in my vision.
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Status
Name: Jack Goldring
Age: 18
Species: Human (G)
Loyalty: -
Core Attunement: Wind
Core Sub-Attunement: Sword
Core Level: 1
Credits: 0
Skills: -
Titles: Cultivator (All stats + 5%), Integration (All stats +10%)
Health: 50/50 (5/hour)
Stamina: 60/60 (6/hour)
Mana: 70/70 (6/hour)
Attributes: Dex: 8 (115%) 9 Str: 6 (115%) 7
Vit: 4 (115%) 5 End: 5 (115%) 6
Wis: 5 (115%) 6 Int: 6 (115%) 7
Per: 7 (115%) 8 Lck: 4 (115%) 5
Free Points: 2
“Okay, it’s confirmed, this is crazy!” I exclaimed, as I looked over my Status. In it I saw, obviously, my name, my age, and then my species, which was a bit odd, as it made one believe that there were other kinds of species out there, which kind of made sense. There was also my Loyalty, which was blank, and then there were several things about my Core.
There was my Core Attunement, which was wind, and then there was my Core Sub-Attunement, which was sword.
“Okay. How am I freaking attuned to Sword. How does that work!” I yelled, “That literally makes no sense. When I was little, my mom literally didn’t let me touch a knife until I was 12, because I almost cut one of my fingers off! Now, honestly, if someone handed me a sword, I’d probably poke my eye out. How did this system even decide that?”
The last thing under Core was the Core Level, which was just 1.
There were also credits, which was probably just a currency, and then skills, which were blank, even though I thought that I was pretty skilled, and titles, which I had two of, both giving a percentage increase to all of my stats, 5% and 10% respectively.
Then there were health, stamina, and mana, which seemed to be based off of my attributes, with different regeneration speeds, too. I had eight attributes, Dexterity, Strength, Vitality, Endurance, Wisdom, Intelligence, Perception, and Luck. Health seemed to be Vitality times ten, Stamina seemed to be Endurance times ten, and Mana, which probably was like magical fuel, was Wisdom times ten.
“Okay, so my Vitality is kind of trash, along with my Luck, but that makes sense, as I kind of just sit on my couch and play video games, these days, when I’m not studying, and, well, my Luck is kind of the reason I had to do that.”
The regeneration for Health was also my Vitality, with the regeneration for Stamina being my Endurance, and the regen for Mana was Intelligence, not Wisdom.
“Mana regen tied to Intelligence? Sounds about right—plants can photosynthesize, so maybe this is my brain’s version of that. Science for the win, I guess!”
Finally, there were also two Free Points, which I think that I could put into any attribute, but I held off on distributing them for now.
“Well, Jack, you’re officially a cultivator now. Whatever that means. Guess it’s time to figure out how to open this door—and pray there’s not a dragon waiting on the other side.”
With that, I made the brilliant choice to once again touch the door.