Chapter 1: Sole Survivor

  It was early afternoon as Tom Everett took his daily walk through the grassland field of his property. He had inherited this seventy-acre forest land from his parents when they passed away. His father was a General Practitioner and his mother was his secretary. His father and mother had a lot of money saved away before they passed away, leaving Tom with a large fortune. Tom treated his wealth with respect and didn't spend needlessly. Still, he would have traded all his wealth to see his parents again.

  Things hadn't improved for Tom by much since their passing. One by one, his lifelong friends moved away from the nearby city to Toronto or other parts of Canada. Eventually, Tom was left by himself. He didn't let that keep him down, though. He kept himself busy with his job doing data entry at a warehouse in the nearby city and his daily walks. He, however, couldn't help but feel like he was just... existing. Tom was a hard worker, but he lacked passion. He could not find that thing in his life that pushed him to be more.

  It was late April and the snow had almost melted away. The air was cold and damp. Tom was glad he could finally do his daily walks again. He had gained some weight during the winter and wanted to get rid of it.

  The wind started to pick up. The nearby trees swayed back and forth as the wind grew in intensity. Tom tried to continue his walk but found it increasingly hard to move forward. Eventually he was leaning forward just to keep standing.

  'What the hell?' he thought. 'The weather report never mentioned the winds were going to be this strong.'

  The wind got stronger and stronger. Soon Tom could hear it wailing. Tom felt his feet slide over the ground as he started to lose against the roaring wind. As suddenly as it appeared, the wind immediately stopped. Tom fell face first into the ground with a thud.

  "Fuck!" he muttered.

  Tom planted his hands on the ground and pushed himself up. He brushed the grass off of his shirt and then looked up. Tom almost immediately fell on his ass when he saw a blue screen suddenly appear right in front of him.

  *Ding*

  The blue window disappeared and was quickly replaced with a new one. This one did not have the ding sound.

  "Oh my god. I think I might being having a stroke."

  'Test?'

  "What monster?" Tom asked the screen.

  "What monster?" Tom yelled. "What the fuck is going on?"

  "Wait, wait, wait!" Tom started to run towards his house, but it was at least ten minutes away, even running.

  "This is bullshit!"

  "You can't do this to people!" Tom huffed as he ran with everything he had. His legs were burning.

  "Please don't," he begged. Tom sounded pathetic and he knew as much. He just didn't want to die like this.

  A bright white light appeared near Tom. So bright, it was blinding. Tom held his hands in front of his eyes, waiting for the light to die down so he could see again. He didn't have to wait long.

  Tom moved his hands out of the way. His skin paled as he saw what stood in front of him. It was a twenty-foot fat cyclops. The creature wore a brown fur loincloth with a thong back and wielded a large crudely made wooden club. The creature looked confused from its sudden teleportation.

  Tom tried to quietly sneak away before the cyclops could see him.

  *Snap*

  A twig snapped as he unknowingly stepped on it. The cyclops turned around and saw Tom.

  "Fuck my life."

  The cyclops roared and started to run after Tom. Tom ran into the forest as fast as his legs could carry him.

  'Fuck, fuck, fuck,' he cursed in his head.

  The cyclops swung his club back and forth as he ran through the forest. The cyclops was able to break the trees apart with his swings.

  Tom felt the adrenaline pulse through his veins. He could finally think again as the pain in his legs disappeared.

  'Need to think. I have to kill this thing. There has to be a way.'

  Tom scanned the area as he ran. He realized where exactly he was.

  'There's a old housing foundation nearby. I might be able to trick him to fall in there.'

  He always called it an old housing foundation, but it was basically a square hole in the ground with the sides stacked with rocks. All Tom knew about it was that it belonged to the previous owners of the land.

  'Almost there, almost there,' he cheered himself. His throat was dry and sore from breathing heavily as he ran.

  The cyclops was getting closer. The trees were slowing him down, but not by much.

  Tom saw the bushes that stood in front of the foundation and ran through them. He jumped down into the seven foot hole and went to the side to avoid being crushed by the cyclops.

  The cyclops ran through the bush and was too late to notice the pit. It fell forward and its head collided with the other side of the pit. Its head bent backwards from the impact and a loud audible crack was heard. Blood smeared the wall as his face was dragged down it.

  "Yes!" Tom screamed as he jumped up. "I did it! I fucking did it!"

  Tom climbed up the wall and stood at the side of the foundation to look down upon the fiend he had just vanquished. He nearly jumped back when he saw the cyclops' eye turn towards him.

  The window closed as soon as Tom finished reading it. He assumed it could somehow tell if he's read it or not.

  "Ah, jeez," Tom cursed. "God damn it."

  Tom wanted this to be a quick kill, but it seemed like he needed to finish the creature off. He pulled a heavy rock from the wall of the foundation and moved to the side where the cyclops' head was. Tom held the rock up and quickly threw downwards towards its head.

  *Crunch*

  The creature's head crumbled and squished under the heavy rock. Tom wiped away the sweat and his brow and, with a sigh, said, "It's done. Ya happy?"

  The cyclops vanished in the same white light it had appeared in.

  "Did you just call me fat?"

  The screen didn't reply.

  "Sure I guess," Tom replied as he facepalmed.

  "Wait, what?"

  The pain was so intense and quick that Tom immediately passed out. When he woke up, the sun was starting to set over the tree line and the sky was a bright orange colour.

  'How long was I out? Ugh!' Tom winced as he got up. His entire body felt like he was suffering from growing pains. As he got to his feet, new windows appeared in front of him. He walked as he read the windows.

  "What?" Tom yelled.

  Many thoughts ran through Tom's head upon that revelation. His stomach turned as he realized that those people died during the test. The guilt from being the only survivor made him feel like shit.

  'All those people. Why?'

  Tom rubbed his forehead and groaned. He then said, "status".

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  'This is... Kinda cool. What the hell is Xoth? Close Window.'

  Thinking a command worked as well as saying it. Tom noticed he had thirty unallocated points. Until he knew more about how this system worked, he would let the points sit there for the moment.

  "Yes."

  'Strength Information.'

  One after another, Tom went through the windows.

  'What an amazing stat!'

  'Okay that second part is fairly vague.' Tom then remembered the pitfall trap. 'Oh. Oh! Okay, also useful. Close Window. Perception Information.'

  It was getting dark as Tom got back to his house. He subconsciously entered his house while he continued his info dive.

  Tom turned on the kettle to get his tea ready. He felt like it was going to be a long night as he learned about this new way of life.

  "Close window," he said as he scooped the tea leaves from their tin case and poured them into his tea pot. Tom was getting more excited to learn more about what he was capable of. These stats were specific and each of them had great benefits. While he had a lot of unallocated points, he needed to learn more about what he could become before he could use them.

  "Resistances."

  "Holy shit!" Tom was very impressed at his resistances. He knew that he got the bonuses from his three titles, but seeing it was something else. 'Close Window.'

  'Skills.'

  'These are actually good skills. Let's look deeper. Identify Information.' Tom noticed he could only open one window at a time, forcing the previous window to close.

  'And just like that, all those French classes became useless. This is rank B? Just how high do these ranks go? I'll need to check that out after looking at these skills.'

  'Now we're talking! Double S. I've seen this ranking system before in RPGs. I'm guessing Triple S is the final rank. D must be the lowest. I think I'm understanding this now.'

  'Okay. So we have sublevels maxing out at level ten and I see there is a Beginner level and a Master level. This is similar to some games I've played. For now, based on that knowledge and conjecture, I can theorize that levels for skills go from Beginner to Intermediate to Master. Each level has 10 sublevels. That percentage number has to be experience until the next sublevel. Easy to understand.'

  'I have actual magic?'

  Tom wasted no time in running outside. He searched for a target to try his new spell on. Tom's eyes rested upon a rotten log. His right arm came up and he took aim.

  'Lightning Strike?'

  The sudden discharge of energy from his hand sent Tom to the ground. It wasn't the force of the attack that made him fall back. The attack was so loud and sudden it frightened him to fall. He looked up and saw that the log had a scorch mark where the attack landed.

  'Holy shit, I can use magic. Also... Note to self. Practice later.'

  Tom got up and brushed himself off. He got back inside and poured his tea into a cup. Tom took a sip and continued his dive.

  'Lightning Enchant Information.'

  'Hmm. Could be useful.'

  Tom felt his skin crawl after he finished reading this skill's description. 'So this just happened.' He paused for a moment to think on this. The first usage of this skill would be one hundred percent successful. Afterwards, it would be random chance.

  'Fuck it, I'm doing it,' he affirmed himself. He might need this skill to speak with her later, but he needed answers now.

  "Are you there Goddess Kara," he said out loud. "It's me. Tom."