Chapter 1

Randidly Ghosthound was walking back to his dorm, sighing, when it happened.

System initializing…

“...Huh…?” Randidly stopped, looking around with a frown. If he didn’t know better, he would say that a god like entity had just spoken into his mind. Or that he was suddenly in a videogame and received a system announcement. “What was…?”

And then the world warped, walls shifting and changing, and with wide eyes, Randidly turned to find an exit.

It was about that time that Randidly was smashed aside by the 3 Horned Demon Ram that spawned next to him, sending him sprawling into the wall. Luckily, it was only a glancing blow, because the charging ram had spawned practically on top of him, but the glancing touch of the rams powerful flank was enough that Randidly’s head was smashed into the wall, and he quickly fell unconscious.

***

When he woke, it was to a headache and several floating screens.

Welcome to New Earth! Your world has be entered into Nexus, and as such, are now running on a new system to give you the tools and challenges to survive and live a fulfilling life! Good Luck.

Basic Stats Set!

Randidly Ghosthound

Class: ---

Level: N/A

Health(/R per hour): 28 (16.5)

Mana(/R per hour): 17 (6.75)

Stam(/R per min): 16 (9)

Vitality: 4

Endurance: 2

Strength: 2

Agility: 3

Perception: 2

Reaction: 4

Resistance: 4

Willpower: 4

Inteligence: 3

Wisdom: 1

Control: 1

Focus: 2

For more information, you can view your stats anytime by thinking “Menu” and then selecting “Status”.

Congratulations! The “Newbie Path” is open to you!

Congratulations! Due to being the first player in your world on the receiving end of damage, the “P.Def Path” is open to you!

Congratulations! Due to being the first player in your world to be mentally aware of monsters, the “M. Support Path” is open to you!

Congratulations! For reaching 1 health, the “Risk Taker Path” is open to you!

Warning! Your health is extremely low. Due to being under level 10, arrows will be formed on the ground guiding you to the nearest safe zone.

Sitting up, Randidly looked down to find that he appeared to have been passed out in a pool of his own blood. For now, it seemed best to assume that the notifications meant something, and to head to a safe zone.

Cradling his painful head, Randidly stood and looked onto the ground for the red arrow.

There was none.

He blinked several times, then came to a realization. The pool of blood was likely blocking the arrow. He took several steps forward and saw the blinking red arrow. It was pointing directly backward, between his legs. Randidly turned around and looked up.

A slightly glowing blue door was directly above the pool of blood. He had probably cracked his head on it. Feeling slightly foolish, Randidly went into the room.

You have entered a safe zone! +200% to regeneration.

Randidly found himself in a rather large room with a pond and a small tree. Which was slightly off-putting in a small stone room. Randidly had been walking home in the underground pathway on Rawlands University campus, and apparently whatever change had come over the world had changed things, but had worked with what was already there.

Honestly though, the room was about half the size of a football field. How could he possible believe this was natural?

He was 90% sure this used to be a maintenance room not 5 minutes ago.

But then he rubbed his head, and realized that he honestly didn’t know how long he had been down there. Sighing, he sat down and brought up his status screen, waiting for his health to regen.

It took a little less than a half hour to rise from 5 health to Randidly’s max of 28. Feeling somewhat better, Randidly decided to take a peek outside again to see what was going on.

Carefully opening the door, Randidly looked in both directions.  This wall looked relatively normal, but beyond that… they seemed to be in some sort of underground jungle. Thick foliage obscured the far wall. Turning left and right, the tunnel also seemed to extend. Most of the wall he was near was clear, and it extended for quite a long way on either side.

Not really seeing anything around, Randidly started walking, keeping along the wall, trying to see what he could find.

***

About 20 minutes later, Randidly sprinted back to the safe room, two Lvl 24 Howler Monkeys chasing after him, having learned a lot of things.

One, that the area around him was incredibly large, and it wasn’t as uninhabited as he thought.

Two, Randidly’s level of N/A was far from sufficient for fighting Level 24 enemies. Not that he tried. But the way the crossed the distance towards his position before he had even noticed them spoke of their strength.

Luckily, once the monkeys dropped from the tree, their speed dropped to just slightly higher than his own, allowing Randidly to escape by the skin of his teeth.

Third and finally, the system also had skills. Perhaps the real reason that Randidly was able to escape was that he learned the Running skill, as he fled, and leveled it to 3 in the mad dash on the way back. Each time it leveled, from 1 to 2 and then from 2 to 3, he earned a PP.

Still, it had been a close thing. By the time he had made it back to the safe room, his stamina had been at 1, and the thought of continuing to move for even a second longer made his vision go dark.

After sitting by the pond, slurping down some water from the pond and catching his breath, Randidly opened up his menu.

There were four options in the menu: Map, Status, Paths, and Friends List.

Both Maps and Friend List was greyed out, and Randidly already knew what Status was, so he clicked on paths.

A new menu opened up that showed Randidly the 4 paths he had available, as well as numbers next to them. Newbie Path was currently 0/5, while P. Def and M. Supp were 0/10. Risk taker was 0/15. In the top right, there was PP: 2, which made Randidly believe that PP stood for path points or something.

After a slight hesitation, Randidly clicked on the Newbie path, which then switched to 1/5.

Congratulations! You have earned 1 stat point(s).

Sure enough, when Randidly switched over to his status, there was a plus next to all of his stats. Which seemed rather simple… but…

He shook his head. There were just too many stats. Although they seemed self explanatory, there was no real information available to him. He would have to learn through trial and error. Suddenly, he felt a chill in his heart.

Does that mean… he could die…?

Shaking his head, he put that thought to the side. No use worrying over it now. Instead, he considered what to do with a stat point. He was torn between something defensive, like Vit or End, and something more active like Agi, which would let him run faster.

Struck by an idea, he went back to the Path screen and clicked on Newbie again. And sure enough…

Congratulations! You have earned 1 stat point(s).

Now with two, he put 1 into Vit and one into Agi with a clear conscience. Randidly also noticed that when he put the point into Vit, his health went up by 2, while his Health regen per hour went up by 3. Stamina regen increased by 1. Which, he supposed, was pretty small in the grand scheme of things.