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  Brammar was in his office reviewing documents and approving what required his approval. It was a busy time with the 11th universe’s integration. As he had expected, he had been assigned a planet of his own to lead the empire’s forces and delegation. What he didn’t expect was for it to be an insignificant and small planet named Earth.

  He. A tier 7. An Adept. And the best they could assign him was this? A planet that had 70% of its surface covered in water, and the best name they could come up with was “Earth”. If that wasn’t a clear indication of the lacking intelligence of the humans of this planet, then I don’t know what is, he thought, contempt clear on his face.

  A knock on the door took him out of his thoughts. “Come in,” Brammar answered.

  “Good evening, Mr. Brammar,” the man greeted. “I trust everything’s in order?”

  Arthur… Brammar had no idea why Lord Keldoz, a Guardian and a distant relative to the Kanaz empire’s Kanaz family, gave any value to this man. A man of his standing and stature bothering with a backwater planet at the edge of a newly integrated universe, and not only that but even going as far as asking him to ally with this Arthur, something much bigger was undoubtedly going on. He saw value in neither the planet nor this… Arthur man… but he wouldn’t have made it this far if he couldn’t see the bigger picture. Right now he couldn’t, which was why his eyes had to be peeled. If something of value presented itself, he had to take advantage, because it would be his head if anything went wrong.

  “Mr. Arthur. As I informed you before, the correct decorum is to use my rank before my name,” Brammar responded, trying not to let his irritation show on his face at the blatant disrespect he was being shown.

  “My apologies, Adept Brammar,” Arthur responded while bowing his head ever so slightly, his face stoic as ever.

  Brammar growled, “Yes, it’s done, but do keep in mind that if this request of yours ends up costing us, you and yours will be the ones paying for it.”

  “You made that abundantly clear when I made my request, and my response now is the same as it was then. There is no cause for worry,” Arthur responded calmly, not bothered by Brammar’s obvious hostility.

  “Be that as it may,” Brammar grunted, not pleased but choosing not to push the issue any further. “If that is all, then I’d like to get back to my work,” he finished.

  “Very well, I’ll be taking my leave then,” Arthur replied before turning around and walking to the office door. With his hand on the doorknob, he turned his head around and addressed Brammar one last time, “I’m looking forward to the results of the tutorial. I hope the trainers are as competent as you’ve made them out to be.” He looked Brammar straight in the eyes for a few more seconds before opening the door and exiting his office, with a polite, “Excuse me.”

  Brammar watched as Arthur left. He was clenching his fist around the armrest so hard, it shattered. “Vile, uncultured swine,” he spat, now seething with anger, disgust the only thing on his face. Seeing those Earth humans and their lack of mana was revolting, and having to oversee them as they learned to use said mana was like watching apes try to pilot a war golem. And the audacity they had. They should be prostrating themselves on the ground, thanking us, instead, they have no respect for authority and act as if we owe them.

  “Despicable,” he spat once more before tossing the now broken chair into his spatial ring, and taking another one out, along with a plate of food. He always carried a few extra chairs when dealing with the uncultured. Taking his anger out on a chair was better than on an 'ally'.

  He grabbed a burger as he continued flipping through the documents. They may be uncultured, but they know how to cook, he thought begrudgingly as he tried to drown the unpleasant meeting with food.

  Matt didn’t know what to think. On one hand, rejecting him didn’t mean they were horrible people, it just meant they had made a horrible mistake, and people tended to do that. On the other hand, that horrible mistake involved him, effectively hindering and separating him from his friends. He wasn’t even counting how being rejected kinda left a bad taste in his mouth. “Could it be possible that the rejection was a mistake?” he asked, a tinge of hope in his voice.

  “No,” Sal answered definitively.

  Matt narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “You seem sure about that,” he commented.

  “I am.”

  “You know why they rejected me, don’t you?” Matt asked, already knowing the answer.

  “I do.”

  “And you’re not going to tell me,” Matt stated.

  “No. You need to find the answer to that question yourself,” Sal answered.

  Matt kept staring at Sal, and Sal didn’t avert his gaze. They stared each other down for what felt like forever. Finally, Matt sighed. “I figured.”

  It wasn’t ideal, it being a mistake or for a petty reason would’ve been one thing, but now knowing there was an actual reason for it made it all the worse.

  He shifted his gaze to Sal, who had a genuine smile on his face, probably relieved that Matt wasn’t some pompous ass who was gonna throw a tantrum demanding answers.

  Wait, would that work? He wondered seriously mulling over the idea in his head. In the end he decided not to make a big deal out of it, he didn’t know anything about Sal, and it was obvious that while he was asking the questions, Sal was the one steering the conversation and leading Matt to what question he should ask next, which he appreciated since he didn’t know what the fuck was going on. And while he didn’t know whether he should or shouldn’t trust the old man yet, that alone was a good indicator, which also meant that if he could tell him, he would.

  Matt mulled it over for a bit, staring at the wooden ceiling of the cottage house. Well, since they clearly have something against me, it’s the ‘fuck em’ approach. Also, what the fuck did I ever do to an alien race? Is it coz I said aliens don’t exist before? He wondered to himself for a bit before finally asking, “So, what do I do now?”

  “That is completely up to you,” Sal answered. “You will be back on Earth in a few minutes, then your path is your own to forge.”

  Matt gave Sal a quizzical look. “I thought you said Earth won’t be safe until tomorrow?”

  “Oh, I did. It’s been 20 hours already. Time flows at a slightly slower rate here,” Sal smiled as if what he said was the most natural thing.

  “Of course it does,” Matt sighed, leaning his head back onto the couch. “Also, what’s up with this cottage and the old man look? I’m guessing that’s not what you actually look like?” Matt asked, with genuine curiosity.

  “No, it is not,” Sal chuckled slightly. “The setting and look were deemed to be the least threatening and most soothing. It’s a big change, and that was a lot of information, and while humans are very adaptable, they don’t generally deal with change very well,” Sal answered, letting the old man mask slip.

  “Yeah, I figured,” Matt muttered. It wasn’t anything obvious, but even if Sal had the look and mannerisms of an old man, he didn’t act like one. His movements showed a lack of frailty, and his tone had genuine excitement and curiosity to it. Older people generally had a more content or grumpy demeanor. Excitement and curiosity were extremely rare, especially since Matt’s case didn’t seem all that unique or special.

  “So what? I just survive and do my thing for the next 6 months and then things happen to those Kazan guys?” He asked, glancing towards Sal.

  “Kanaz. And yeah, you know the deal, kill beasts and monsters, do dungeons, level up, get stronger, the whole 9 yards,” Sal said nonchalantly

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  Matt instantly got up upon hearing that. “What do you mean kill and do dungeons?” he asked in obvious puzzlement, wondering if he had blacked out and missed a large portion of the conversation.

  “Oh, did I forget to mention this part? Silly me,” Sal responded sheepishly, trying not to meet Matt’s eyes. “Would you look at the time,” he said while looking at a non-existent watch on his wrist. “Wouldn’t want you to be late for your first day of adventuring.” He got up and started doing a circular motion with his hands.

  “Sal, I swear to god, if you kick me out now before telling me what the fuck is going on, you’re gonna be 2nd on my list after the Kazan Empire,” Matt yelled, clearly not in the mood for games.

  “You’re an atheist, so it’s fine,” Sal replied, looking unperturbed by Matt’s hollow, but very real, threats. “Also, you might not wanna call them Kazan, they’re very particular about their name. Well then, off you go,” was the final thing Matt heard before getting pushed back onto the couch…

  Matt didn’t land on the couch, instead, he felt his senses get slightly overloaded, as a fall that should've been no longer than a breath continued for a couple of seconds. It wasn’t as bad as last time but still bad enough to unsettle his stomach. The feeling disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, as Matt then found himself on his ass on the sand.

  He quickly got up and took stock of his surroundings only to find out he was back in the desert. Nothing had changed except there was now a large vulture up in the sky, circling the area. For all the talk about mana and the planet being unstable, he half expected he’d come back to an apocalyptic scene, but everything was where it should be, and nothing looked out of the ordinary.

  He took a deep breath and started shouting all kinds of obscenities and threats at Sal. He had no idea if the old man or system projection or whatever he wanted to call himself couldn’t tell him and chose to deliberately steer the conversation away from the topic, or if he chose not to. He didn’t believe for a second that he had forgotten, because it wasn’t something you simply forgot, it was something you chose to omit, which was the leading theory as of now.

  Matt paced around in the sand, reenacting their conversation from start to finish, until something hit him. There was no reason not to tell him, it sounded like basic knowledge from the looks of it. Maybe he couldn’t go into detail, but at least a summary of what to do and what to expect was very doable.

  “That asshole really did do it on purpose. He wanted me to go in blind,” he muttered to himself before looking at the sky once more, as he began his second salvo of obscenities and threats, or at least had attempted to until a black and blueish hole formed on top of him, and a wooden stick fell from it, hitting him on the head.

  “Ow,” he yelled, rubbing the spot on his head where the stick had landed. While he was still angry, he knew exactly what this was, something to placate him. He then grabbed the stick that had fallen next to him and smiled. This is either a nice item or the stick I needed to follow through with one of my threats, which works either way, he thought to himself, imagining a very different meeting next time he met the conniving old man.

  Deciding not to waste more time, he dusted his clothes and started moving to one of the dune buggies. They looked exactly as he had left them, mana hadn’t transformed them into super buggies or anything.

  He took a seat and started going through the obvious new addition, the blinking information icon in his far peripheral, begging for his attention. It was an obvious thing to do, but also carried some risk. The vulture was still circling him, but vultures rarely went on the offense, they were scavengers by nature, and he was very much alive and well, which made it unlikely for the bird to attack. Still, he tried to stay aware of the bird and not start anything that could leave him exposed, at least until he was out of the open.

  He tried focusing on the information icon, and, surprisingly, that was all it took, as a status screen popped up in front of him.

  Status

  Name: Matthew Ashfield

  Level: 0 (Tier 10)

  Class: NA

  Race: Human (Tier 10)

  Titles

  Initiated(Unknown)

  Spirited Soul

  The Sole Reject

  Stats

  Strength - 4(17)

  Agility - 4(17)

  Spirit - 10(31)

  Intelligence - 7(20)

  Wisdom - 8(22)

  Willpower - 8(22)

  Vitality - 5(18)

  Endurance - 5(18)

  Skills

  [Universal Tongues](unique)

  [Identify](common)

  There was a lot to unpack there. Matt had never played video games when he was growing up, his family treated them like an illness and a plague that even just mentioning them could get him into trouble, but when he became friends with Jackson and Izzy, they pulled him into their gaming habits. They weren’t hardcore gamers or anything, they just liked to have some gaming sessions during the weekends from time to time, that’s when he discovered that he really enjoyed them, especially Role Playing Games, or RPGs.

  Having everything decided for him since an early age, from his food and clothes, to his friends, and even girlfriend and subsequent fiancée, it was like his life wasn’t his own, but in RPGs, he could be whatever he wanted to be, build his character in whatever dumb way he could imagine. It was cathartic. Freeing.

  All was to say that he at least had an idea of what he was looking at. It didn’t overwhelm him as much as it should’ve. Still, even in games, different ones had different definitions for the same terminology, so he wasn’t gonna take it at face value.

  “Class not applicable? Is it coz I haven’t picked one yet?” he muttered to himself, wondering about the NA in class. He tried to focus in on it, but nothing happened, at which point he started yelling out commands, “Class select! Pick class! School of wizardry, I choose you!” but nothing seemed to work. No screen to pick a class from, no error message, no anything. He didn’t even know what classes were available.

  Guess this is one of the things you learn in the tutorial, he thought to himself, being only slightly grumpy.

  Focusing in on the ‘Tier 10’, it showed him the power tiers that Sal had mentioned.

  Tier 10 - Unknown

  Tier 9 - Initiate

  Tier 8 - Novice

  Tier 7 - Adept

  Tier 6 - Guardian

  Tier 5 - Champion

  Tier 4 - Master

  Tier 3 - Grandmaster

  Tier 2 - Supremacy

  “What about Tier 1? Who the fuck stops at Tier 2? That’s just horrible design,” he muttered, the revelation of no Tier 1 annoying him more than it should’ve.

  Nothing I can do about it as a Tier 10 though, he thought as he decided to move on. His race was also Tier 10, which indicated it was the lowest as well, meaning there were possible upgrades. He didn’t know whether you continued being human or not on higher tiers, but he hoped he would, he liked being human even if it did come with drawbacks compared to other fantasy races. If the races and everything about them are real, is it even fantasy anymore? He mulled it over for a few seconds before sighing and moving on.

  The titles seemed to at least come with descriptions, which was a good sign.

  Initiated(unknown)

  A title given to all the initiated.

  +2 all stats

  (this title is upgraded when your race or level tier is upgraded)

  Simple enough, I guess, and proves that race can be upgraded, he thought.

  Spirited Soul

  Have the highest possible starting amount in Spirit as a human (10).

  +4 spirit

  +10% spirit

  His eyes perked up upon reading that. It looked like he had hit the jackpot. A stat modifier was incredibly powerful since it was akin to a permanent boost. He still had no idea what Spirit was or what it did, but free stats were free stats.

  The sole reject

  Be the only initiated from your entire planet to be rejected by the interim leader.

  +10 all stats

  +10% all stats

  Matt read the prompt. Then, read it again. Then he closed it and opened it, reading it for a third time. Yet it hadn’t changed, it still said that out of 8 billion people, he was the only one to get rejected. That’s when the denial turned to anger.

  Calling him pissed was an understatement. Being denied access to the tutorial, separating him from his friends and forcing him into this position was bad enough. Knowledge was power, especially considering their new reality where they knew absolutely nothing. Having access to people with even just basic knowledge was insanely helpful and extremely advantageous, and could be the difference between making it or dying to some random monster somewhere, so Matt was definitely not pleased when he was told he wasn’t gonna have access to the tutorial. He didn’t know why, and honestly, he thought it was some dumb alien reason, and that many others were in the same boat as him, so he didn’t let it bother him too much. All he had to do was hang around with the other rejects and wait 6 months.

  Now though, after being told he was the only one out of 8 billion people to be rejected. Left for dead on an empty planet with only beasts and monsters to keep him company, no, now he wasn’t pissed, nor angry, not at all.

  Now, he was furious.

  And that was the exact moment the vulture decided to make its move, diving straight for Matt.