A second passed. Maybe. He honestly couldn’t tell.
Kaizer flexed his claws once. They responded. His core still turned, slow and steady, essence moving through channels that had been carved by pain, hunger, and stubborn repetition. The familiar weight of his own body anchored him against the void’s attempt to make him drift. He steadied his breathing and waited, because rushing into the unknown had killed more people than monsters ever could.
The white around him rippled.
Something small slid into existence a few metres away. A silhouette first, then a swelling blob, then an amoeba-shaped mass that consistently shifted in shape and size. It wobbled, stretched, and settled into a shapes that made Kaizer blink.
A desk formed with a soft thump, clean and wooden, completely out of place. A chair appeared behind it. The amoeba oozed into the chair as if it had been practising the motion for years, then formed two crude arms and rested them on the desk with exaggerated patience. A pair of round glasses popped into existence on its face area, sat crooked for half a second, then straightened themselves as if offended.
Kaizer stared.
The amoeba stared back, posture perfectly bureaucratic.
“Alright,” it said, voice casual and human, as if they were in an office and Kaizer had just walked in late. “Welcome to your evaluation.”
Kaizer’s eyes narrowed. “Are you the System?”
“In a sense… I’m an Embodiment,” the amoeba stated, tapping the desk once. “The System doesn’t do customer service. I do.” It leaned forward slightly, as if sharing a secret. “I also do paperwork, which is tragic, because I don’t have bones.”
Kaizer didn’t move. He let the silence hang until the amoeba’s glasses twitched, then he spoke. “Why am I here.”
“Because you finished the tutorial,” the amoeba said. “Because you did something that makes my job annoying.” It waved a hand and a thin pane of light appeared in the air beside it, filled with tiny lines of text that scrolled too fast to read. “And because you are about to be given rewards, and you will try to game them. So I’m here to make sure you at least pretend to be polite first.”
Kaizer’s mouth tightened. “I completed the objective.”
“Yes,” the amoeba said, and the humour in its tone thinned by a fraction. “You did, you did something you weren’t supposed to.”
The white void shifted again. Behind the amoeba, a second surface unfolded, not a screen, not a wall, more a slice of memory pinned into the air. Kaizer’s vision caught movement, a sequence of moments flashing past with a strange clarity. His own hands dragging a spear free. Blood on leaves. His breath pulling hard through pain. The timer hovering. The horde pressing. The camp chaos. The dungeon mouth. The final push that had left his muscles shaking and his mind sharp enough to cut.
It wasn’t a replay for pride. It was a ledger.
The amoeba watched Kaizer’s face as the visions moved. “Survival,” it said, tone shifting into something that sounded almost clinical. “Combat. Adaptation. Cultivation under pressure. Behavioural response to human threats. Behavioural response to non-human threats. Risk tolerance. Growth curve.”
Kaizer kept his eyes forward. He didn’t flinch away from the images. He didn’t lean into them either.
The visions reached a point that made the air feel heavier even in the void. The moment of divine presence. The sensation of being measured by something older than mortality. The taste of essence that carried intent. The moment a bond had been forced into place, and the world had accepted it.
The amoeba sighed, long-suffering. “Divine Blessings.”
Kaizer’s claws flexed again, slow. “They’re mine.”
“They are,” the amoeba agreed. “Which is why they count.” It lifted one hand and snapped its fingers, then paused as if remembering it didn’t have fingers, then snapped anyway and looked pleased when the sound still happened. “You want to know what matters most in the rankings. It isn’t raw strength. It isn’t even level. It’s growth.”
Kaizer’s gaze sharpened. “Rankings.”
“Global,” the amoeba said, and leaned back in its chair. “Across Earth. Across every tutorial instance. Different scenarios. Different densities. Different advantages. Same ledger.”
Kaizer held still, but something cold settled behind his ribs. “Show me.”
The amoeba lifted its hand and the white space in front of Kaizer unfolded into a large window.
====================================
GLOBAL LEADERBOARDS: EARTH
Category: Combat and Growth
- Kaizer Harth (1,069)
- Edgar Wallis (532)
- Jackson R. Mercer (44,118)
- Li Weihao (218,904)
- Ethan Caldwell (310,776)
- Zhang Ruichen (97,443)
- Madison K. Hartwell (602,015)
- Chen Yutong (155,067)
- Noah Grayson (511,308)
- Wang Zhenyu (12,889)
--------------------
Category: Social and Leadership
- Edgar Wallis (532)
- Grant Wexler (408,221)
- Helena Stroud (91,507)
- Victor Halden (633,910)
- Cassandra Vane (275,044)
- Julian Markham (18,620)
- Evelyn Carrick (509,116)
- Roman Kessler (142,389)
- Marianne Calder (346,552)
- Sebastian Crowe (67,903)
--------------------
Category: Crafting & Ingenuity
- Samira Al-Farouqi (221,771)
- Omar Al-Khatib (97,520)
- Hassan Al-Masri (544,009)
- Keiko Tanaka (311,008)
- Luca Bianchi (15,442)
- Ana?s Moreau (403,119)
- Priya Nair (178,660)
- Diego Serrano (629,407)
- Marek Nowak (82,316)
- Cain Morello (1,069)
--------------------
Category: Cosmic Fortune & Dao
- Kaizer Harth (1,069)
- Tenzin Dorje (44,118)
- Pema Rinchen (218,904)
- Sonam Gyatso (97,443)
- Mingyur Lobsang (155,067)
- Karma Thinley (12,889)
- Ananda Wijesinghe (310,776)
- Mateo Alvarez (511,308)
- Amara Okoye (602,015)
- Yuki Sato (275,044)
====================================
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Kaizer’s eyes locked on the first line. Then the second category. Edgar. The name sat there like a stone, heavy with implication.
The amoeba watched him catch it. “Yes,” it said, as if answering an unasked question. “Leadership is not about personal power. It’s about how well you control the people around you. Your score in that category is… how do I put this politely.”
Kaizer didn’t look away. “Don’t.”
The amoeba’s glasses adjusted themselves again. “Non-existent.”
Kaizer exhaled through his nose. He didn’t argue. He hadn’t led at all, not really. He had also left. He had chosen his own survival, his own growth, his own path. People had followed him at times, but he hadn’t built a structure. He hadn’t kept a thousand alive with discipline and logistics. He had killed.
His eyes shifted down to the fourth category.
Cosmic Fortune & Dao.
The amoeba noticed. It grinned, or at least its surface wrinkled into something that carried the same meaning. “Providence is a word people use when they want to feel safe. Fortune is the truth. You can be talented and still die face down in mud. You can be strong and still be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fortune is what decides whether the universe gives you a knife or gives your enemy a spear.”
Kaizer’s voice stayed even. “And you’re saying mine is high.”
“I’m saying it is obscene,” the amoeba said, and tapped the desk twice. “Two Divine Blessings. A Legendary skill with predatory compatibility mechanics. Dao development far ahead of baseline. You have every reason to be dead. You are not. That’s Cosmic Fortune.”
Kaizer’s jaw tightened. “You make it sound accidental.”
The amoeba shrugged. “Some of it is. Some of it is you. Your Fortune score isn’t a compliment. It’s a warning. Where Fortune spikes, attention follows… Some would also call it Karma.”
Kaizer held the thought, filed it away, and pointed his focus somewhere that mattered. “Rewards.”
“Finally,” the amoeba said, relieved. “A man who respects bureaucracy.”
Kaizer didn’t smile.
The amoeba lifted its hand and the leaderboard window folded away. The white void brightened by a fraction, then the space in front of Kaizer filled with three objects.
A chest. A pile of coin that wasn’t coin, metal stamped into neat shapes that carried a faint hum. A third object that looked like a thin plaque of glass, blank until Kaizer’s eyes touched it.
The amoeba nodded at them. “Currency. Standard. You’ll be wealthy by early tutorial standards. You’ll still spend it faster than you think once you discover what real equipment costs in the cosmos. You won’t see it after reintegrating.”
Kaizer’s gaze remained on the third object.
The amoeba followed his focus and smiled again. “Yes. That’s the important one.”
The glass plaque lit up and unfolded into a rotating globe of Earth, hovering between them. Not a satellite image. Something cleaner, sharper, the planet rendered with lines of force and faint glowing zones that marked density, danger, resources, and something deeper that Kaizer’s instincts recognised without being able to name.
Kaizer took a slow step forward. The globe rotated on its own, responding to the angle of his head, shifting as if it wanted to be chosen.
The amoeba leaned forward. “Land ownership is not free power. Don’t get excited. It’s a claim, a starting anchor. A place where you will start your growth. Where the System recognises you as a local authority once you establish it. You will still have to construct, defend and bleed for it… but it’s a start towards global authority.”
“What if I don’t want authority,” Kaizer said in frustration. “I’d rather find what remains of my family. I have no use for power.”
The amoeba smiled. “Well… tough. Authority naturally comes to those with power. You can renounce it if you like but it would make more sense to have somewhere to come back to.”
Kaizer stared at the coastlines. Australia was there, familiar in shape… though it seemed like a much larger land mass than before. Unfamiliar zones seemed to glow. Some areas were dim, scattered. Others burned bright enough to make his eyes itch.
He lifted a hand and hovered it over the east coast. The globe reacted, zooming in until the coastline filled his vision. Faint overlays appeared, minimal and clean.
Resource markers. Water. Timber. Stone. Game density. Ruins. A thin line that suggested a dungeon node further inland. Coastal presence that pulsed heavier than anything nearby.
The amoeba spoke softly, watching him choose. “You want survivors.”
Kaizer didn’t answer straight away. The thought of his parents had been pushed down for so long it had become a pressure rather than a sentence. The tutorial didn’t let him be human. It didn’t let anyone be human. Every moment had been teeth and timer and blood.
He forced the thought back into words. “If they’re alive, they’ll try to gather near water. Near cover. Near somewhere people can fish and hide and still move.”
The amoeba tilted its head. “You have an area in mind.”
Kaizer’s eyes tracked along the coast, stopping on a curve of land he recognised without needing a label. “Somewhere around Jervis Bay. It’s an approximation. It’s not perfect. My family used to have a holiday house there. They’ll naturally make their way… If they are alive. We were always told. If something ever happened, go there.”
The globe pulsed and the overlays sharpened.
A bay. Sheltered water. Forested land. Fresh water sources marked inland. Old roads, faintly visible. Small settlement clusters that suggested structures that could be reclaimed, if they hadn’t already been claimed by something else.
The danger markers flared too.
Beast density higher than average. Stronger signatures near the water. Predators marked along the tree line. A deeper pulse out in the bay, something heavy that moved slowly as if the ocean itself was cultivating. There was even a dungeon somewhere in the area.
Kaizer’s instincts rose, hungry and wary at the same time. This would be a good place to claim.
This would be a terrible place to claim.
He looked at the amoeba. “This.”
The amoeba didn’t argue. It nodded once, as if pleased Kaizer had chosen something that could break him. “Solid choice. Resources are strong. Access is strong. Growth potential is strong. Threat curve is high, which means you will either become dangerous quickly, or you will die quickly.”
Kaizer didn’t blink. “Good.”
The amoeba leaned back in its chair, satisfied. “Alright then.”
The globe folded into the glass plaque again, shrinking until it became a simple token that floated toward Kaizer and stopped a hand’s breadth from his chest.
[Territory Claim Token Acquired: Coastal Zone Anchor]
Kaizer watched the message appear and vanish. He kept his face still.
The amoeba tapped the desk again. “Now, titles.”
Kaizer’s gaze sharpened. Titles mattered. Titles had weight. Titles changed how the System spoke to the world.
The white void shifted and a new set of lines appeared, one by one, clean and final.
[Title Acquired: Progenitor]
[Title Acquired: Tutorial Completionist]
Kaizer held his breath for half a second, then let it out slow.
The amoeba raised a hand. “Progenitor is for the top ten of any list. No calibration between you. The System doesn’t care about your ego that much. It is a recognition that you stepped into a category of growth that the majority will never touch.”
Kaizer’s eyes stayed on the second title.
The amoeba’s tone shifted into something that carried genuine amusement. “Tutorial Completionist is yours alone. You killed your tutorial boss. Everyone else either didn’t find theirs, didn’t understand what they were looking at, died, or made the smarter choice and survived instead.”
Kaizer’s voice came rougher than he expected. “Smarter.”
The amoeba shrugged. “Maybe. Yet here you are. Alive. Ranked first in Overall Growth. Ranked first in Cosmic Fortune. If you want the honest truth, you are the worst sort of example. In the wider cosmos, you’ll always have a target on your back.”
Kaizer didn’t respond. He knew what it had cost. He knew what it would cost again.
The amoeba’s glasses dissolved and reformed into a different style, square frames now, as if it was changing mood through stationery. “Rewards package, confirmed. Currency and chest, now.”
The pile of stamped metal rose into the air and flowed toward Kaizer, dissolving into his inventory with a faint hum.
[System Currency Awarded: 50,000 Credits]
Kaizer didn’t flinch at the number. He didn’t know what it bought yet. He only knew it was leverage.
The chest followed. It was plain wood reinforced with bands of dark metal, heavy enough that the air around it seemed to resist. It hovered in front of Kaizer, then vanished into his holding space.
[Reward Chest Acquired: Phase Completion Cache]
Kaizer’s eyes stayed fixed on the place it had been, as if expecting the System to take it back.
The amoeba watched him and smiled again. “You’re allowed to be relieved, you know. You did well.”
Kaizer’s gaze lifted. “You’re too human.”
The amoeba spread its arms on the desk, pleased with itself. “Not human. I have spent eons watching different races. I will continue to do so… adapt and change.” It leaned forward. “One more thing before I send you back.”
Kaizer didn’t move.
The white void thinned and another window opened, smaller, more personal, and Kaizer felt something in it settle into his bones.
====================================
EVALUATION SUMMARY: KAIZER HARTH
Primary Strengths:
- Dao Development: High
- Combat Adaptation: High
- Instinct Cultivation: Extreme
- Threat Response: High
Primary Liabilities:
- Group Leadership: Low
- Social Stability: Low
- Cooperative Risk Management: Low
Notable Factors:
- Divine Blessing (2): Extremely rare
- High-grade skill acquisition: Confirmed
- Cosmic Fortune: Abnormally high
====================================
Kaizer read it once. He didn’t argue with it. He didn’t deny it.
The amoeba’s voice softened, the humour thinning into something quieter. “You’re about to step into a world that is still sealed, still protected in ways you do not understand, and still bleeding in ways you do. There will be survivors. There will be people who did what you did. There will be people who have already established plans for rebuilding and survival. There will be people who were blessed without knowing what it meant. It’s only a matter of time before leaders change… It always happens.”
Kaizer’s throat tightened at the word survivors.
The amoeba tapped the desk one last time. “You picked a coast. You picked danger. You picked hope.”
Kaizer’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I picked a direction. A path for my family to follow.”
“That’ll do,” the amoeba said, then it made a shooing motion with one arm as if sending Kaizer out of an office after a meeting. “Go on. The void is for paperwork. The world is growth.”
Kaizer’s body didn’t dissolve this time. The white simply folded, and the sensation of space returned all at once, dense and real. Sound slammed into him. Scent. Wind. The distant cry of something alive.
As the world snapped back into place, one last message appeared, brief and clean.
[Reintegration Imminent: 3… 2… 1…]