The second day since the System came to Earth dawned with a sickly orange light, the sunlight filtered through the boarded windows. No one in the house slept well—night watch wasn’t a funny business. The family rose with shoulders tight, voices sharper than usual, minds restless with fear and anticipation. The quiet of the morning was deceptive; it held an electric tension, like the world itself was holding its breath.
New creatures had begun to appear overnight.
Alessandro spotted the first one lumbering down the street just before dawn, its silhouette huge and hunched, big as a bull on steroids. It breathed in short, snorting bursts, each exhale sending puffs of vapor into the cool air. Its hide glistened like wet stone, and the claws scraping along the pavement left shallow grooves. The beast did not seem to be hunting so much as patrolling, pacing across driveways and yards as though searching for something familiar in this alien suburbia.
By mid-morning, they got news of smaller scouting packs emerging from the river portal—three to five creatures at a time. They moved with a jerky, twitching motions, mouths snapping at air that seemed to distort around their teeth. Their scales were dark, wet green and blue for the majority, and they hissed to each other in a language that sounded too close to intelligent coordination.
The family did not confront them directly unless forced. But “forced” came sooner than any of them liked.
When a scouting trio broke off from the street and approached the house, Alessandro and Albert braced themselves at the front window. Victor steadied his rifle on the other side of the living room, making for the first floor. Laura pushed herself upright with a wince, still not fully recovered from the injuries she’d taken previously—but refusing to sit by and watch her children risk themselves alone.
Alice followed behind her like a nervous shadow, clutching the spare shotgun with both hands despite having no idea what she was doing.
The creatures tested the fence first—sniffing, clawing, probing with a strange, rattling curiosity. When one managed to wedge its thin snout between the bars, Albert fired first, hitting it in the eye. The other two leapt at the sound, scraping up the driveway, and Alessandro finished them before they could reach the porch.
The carcasses bled on the stones, red blood pooling and hissing.
The smell started bad and became even worse, they decided to take the risk of going out to bury them, for fear of the smell attracting more.
By midday, the house felt like a bunker that shrank a little more each hour.
They all pushed themselves to stay busy, because idleness made thoughts slip toward Raime—and toward the unknown ticking clock of the tutorial.
Marco and Diego came to visit as agreed, and together with Alessandro went out on a quick expedition to scavenge, returning with backpacks full of supplies and tension still clinging to their skin. They found canned food, pasta, oil, and—miraculously—a trove of bottled water behind an abandoned mini-market counter. They also gathered batteries, old but workable radios, and a solar charger that might as well have been a divine gift at this point.
Alice stayed behind with Laura, helping to keep an eye on the twins. Albert and Victor had energy to spare and nowhere to release it, bouncing from room to room like overstimulated pinballs despite the fear etched beneath their jokes. They spent much of the day teasing Alice mercilessly after Laura tried to teach her how to shoot.
Alice wasn’t just bad.
She was spectacularly, catastrophically bad.
She squeezed her eyes shut every time she pulled the trigger. She shrieked at the recoil. She missed the target entirely at a range where even a blind man could hit it. And every time the gun fired, she curled into herself like the shotgun personally offended her.
The twins never let her forget it.
Victor cackled. “Alice, you shot the ground three meters in front of you.”
“That was intentional!” she protested, cheeks red. “Warning shot!”
Albert snorted. “For the worms?”
The laughter died instantly when Laura turned, tired but composed, and fixed them with a stare that could freeze boiling water.
“Enough,” she said, voice soft but carrying. “If you tease her again, the two of you will be cleaning the whole house. Bathrooms included.”
“Sorry, Alice,” they chorused, chastened.
Alice only nodded, even though her smile was tight. She felt helpless more often than not, and the anxiety of being away from her own family, stranded in chaos with her in-laws, without her boyfriend or any sense of control, twisted in her stomach all day. So she took charge of caring for the twins, making sure Laura drank enough water, and organizing everything they had left into neat rows in the pantry—anything to feel useful.
As evening approached, the loss of electricity was driving everyone a bit mad. Cold showers, cold floors, cold rooms. No internet. No lights. Their phones were almost dead, used only to check the time sparingly. The generator remained untouched. No one wanted to admit aloud that they were hoarding it like a lifeline.
The house creaked in the dark like an old ship at sea, and every shadow seemed left behind by something watching. Yet somehow… they managed.
Together.
Night fell without incident, though they shot many more monsters and heard things moving in the streets—heavy footsteps, strange clicks, and some of the beasts fighting each-others made sleep even harder than before. They took shifts again, keeping watch. They whispered to each other in darkness. And eventually, morning arrived again.
The third day since the start of the tutorial.
And with it, the knowledge that Phase I would end a bit after midday.
Awakening and Classes would come. And everything would change again, they just hope it will be for the better.
The morning passed in a limbo. No scavenging, no plans, just the occasional monster coming around and waiting.
It was unbearable.
The air itself felt coiled, thick with possibility and dread, like a string wound too tight. Alessandro cleaned all their rifles. Laura sat quietly with tea she didn’t drink. Alice wrung her fingers until the knuckles turned white. The twins whispered excitedly about shooting fireballs.
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Everyone was lost in their thoughts when noon finally drew near.
The family sat around the lunch table, the plates nearly empty. The tension hung so densely it felt physical, like a pressure sitting on all their shoulders.
The twins were vibrating in their seats.
Victor tapped his foot endlessly.
Albert kept checking the windows, even though they had fortified them tightly.
Alice stared at her fork like it held the answer to world peace.
Laura tried to maintain some semblance of calm, though her hands trembled faintly around her mug.
And Alessandro…
He sat with his jaw clenched, eyes shifting toward his open status every few seconds. The room felt like the air before a thunderstorm—charged, prickling, ready to shatter into action.
The twins broke the silence first, as always.
“Do you think we’ll get magic?” Victor asked, wide-eyed.
“Of course we will,” Albert insisted. “I bet I’ll shoot lasers.”
“With your shaky hands you will end up just drawing lines on a monster instead of making it go straight” Victor scoffed.
“My hands aren’t shaky!”
“They totally are!”
“You—!”
“Both of you, breathe,” Laura cut in sharply, but even she couldn’t entirely hide the tremor in her voice.
Alice exhaled shakily. “What if… what if my class is something useless? Like… I don’t know. Performer. Or caretaker.”
“Honey,” Laura said gently, “with all due respect, even a caretaker could probably be vital these days.”
“That’s not comforting!” Alice squeaked.
Albert chuckled under his breath, though it lacked real humour. “A class is a class. Even if it's weird, in games there is always a way to make it work.”
Victor nodded, trying to look confident. “Yeah. In Age of the Gods there was a way to make the gardener class even more powerful than a druid!”
“But! I… I didn’t kill even one of the monsters!” Alice voice was cracking.
Laura took her hands, softly. “Whatever happens… we face it together. And it doesn’t matter what class you end up with, we are together without them, we will stay together when we’ll have them too.”
Alessandro looked at them and added. “You are part of the family Alice, and family stay together, especially during hard times, things will be…”
His words stopped abruptly, while the twins froze mid-chew.
Victor’s fork slipped from his fingers.
Alice let out a small startled sound.
Because the air around them suddenly shifted.
A faint vibration rippled through the house, like a pulse from the world itself. A faint, crystalline chime rang through their mind, echoing in their bones, in the marrow of their being.
And a system message flickered into existence in front of them, in front of everybody.
[SYSTEM NOTICE – GLOBAL BROADCAST]
Attention: All sapient entities of Earth.
Tutorial Phase I – Initiation has concluded.
Planetary survival rate: 34.27% of participating sapient population.
Mana density threshold achieved: 20%.
Integration Protocol proceeds.
Objective Issued to: All Awakened Sapient within this District
Protocol Type: Community Stabilization
Create a Mana-Stable territory free of hostile entities and active Rift influence.
Requirements:
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Eradicate all hostile entities within a designated perimeter.
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Identify and secure Rifts portals.
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Maintain territorial control for 10 continuous Earth days.
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Prevent the ingress of hostile entities during the stabilization period.
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Safe Zone radius will dynamically scale based on local population density and total awakened count.
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Hostile entities eliminated within the perimeter will contribute to future Zone mana saturation bonuses.
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Failure to maintain control will reset the stabilization timer.
Upon successful stabilization, a Community Obelisk will be generated at the center of the secured area.
Functions of the Obelisk (Tier I):
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Access to Local Status Ledger (monitoring population, threat levels, and resource stability).
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Assign Roles and Community Titles and establish command hierarchies.
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Access to Local Market Interface once established.
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Territory anchoring: reduces Rift emergence probability within the Safe Zone proximity.
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Allows construction of future Structures aligned with System functions.
? Conquer 3 Minor Rifts within the district.
? Eliminate a Tier-2 Champion associated with this zone’s Rift.
? Achieve level 25.
Completion of optional objectives provides personal rewards and improves future Class evolutions.
? Rift expansion is accelerating. New portals may open in areas of great mana density.
? Non-sapient entities will evolve, adapt, and mutate based on environmental mana conditions.
Awakening begins in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
Prepare for Ascension.
The final chime of the countdown had barely faded when the world lurched.
They didn’t even have the chance to speak—no time to argue about objectives, or question survival rates, or wonder why Phase II demanded the creation of a Safe Zone. One heartbeat they were staring at the broadcast, breath held tight in their throats. The next, strength simply left them.
Their bodies toppled. Every one of them went down like puppets with their strings cut, some fell to the floor and some face down on the table, Victor had his into a half finished plate.
The room blurred into shadow.
And then they saw themselves.
Not their physical bodies sprawled on the floor, but something deeper—truer. A silhouette shaped like their own forms, woven from drifting light and shifting nebulae, colours blooming and folding over one another with the slow grace of a living cosmos. Their astral bodies, suspended in a vast dark without weight or breath.
Within each of them, something stirred.
Energy—raw, bright, impatient—began to pool at their centres, pulled by an unseen gravity. The nebula around it tightened, curling inward. For Alessandro and Alice, the forming sphere settled low in their abdomen, glowing like a newborn star. For Laura and Victor, the energy was drawn upward, collecting just behind their foreheads until it pulsed in their heads. Albert’s gathered at the heart, radiant and unyielding.
A sphere. A seed. A Core.
And when it finally solidified—when the System recognized it, claimed it, ignited it—warmth burst outward.
Light threaded through their astral forms in branching lines, roots spreading from the core and unfurling through limbs, spine, skull. A network of pure mana, flowing like living rivers, filling them with a sensation so overwhelming they could barely hold onto their thoughts.
It was like being born again with full awareness. Like waking into a world where their bodies no longer ended at their skin. Like remembering a sense they never knew they’d lost.
Warmth. Expansion. Limitless possibility.
The glow softened. Their senses dimmed, then steadied, and the world of walls and tables pulsed back into being.
One by one they began to stir.
At first it felt like waking from a dream, heavy and slow. But the difference became clear immediately: the energy didn’t pulse through muscles or veins. It flowed inside something else—another layer of themselves—responding like a living tide to every breath, every thought.
Laura let out a trembling exhale, brushing a hand against her wounds, the pain having subsides drastically.
Albert blinked rapidly, the afterimage of his own glowing heart still burning behind his eyes.
Alice whispered, half in awe, “I can…feel it. Still there. Inside of me.”
Victor was the first to shake off the sluggish haze. He pushed himself up, a piece of steak stuck to his cheek, and flexed his fingers as if testing whether they still obeyed him.
Then he frowned—then widened his eyes.
“Status,” he murmured, and the pane snapped into being before him. Whatever he saw made him straighten. “Guys—check yours. It’s there!”
Alessandro followed, eyes unfocusing as the System overlay appeared. His breath caught.
The others joined him, each panel reflecting pale light across their astonished faces.
Their stats were there—new, defined, unmistakable. Clear proof that they were no longer baseline humans but Tier I beings. Strengths and weaknesses laid bare with clinical precision.
Yet that wasn’t what pulled their attention.
A new section glowed beneath their names.
Class Selection
Pending.
A quiet shiver ran through the room, not of fear but something close to wonder.
The System had seen them. Judged them. And now it was ready to offer a path—its path, shaped by whatever it believed they deserved.
No one spoke at first.
They simply stood there, warm with new power, caught between the weight of what they’d survived and the possibilities waiting just beyond a single choice.
The Awakening had only just finished, but now it was time to choose their path.