Then suddenly a bright light shone into his eyes, forcing him to shut them. And when his eyes recovered he was back in the clearing, laying down while staring up at the sky.
A second later a bunch of pinging noises were heard and in front of Jake appeared a bunch of messages one after the other.
System initializing, please hold….
Transportation complete…
Starting synchronization with universe…
Introducing energies…Adjusting atmosphere…
Adjusting nearby solar system…
Synchronization complete…
Starting planetary adaptation process…
Intelligent life detected…
Introducing awakening system…
Locking down solar system…
Congratulations earth! You have met the requirements and have been transported into a new universe. Your planet will now undergo a period of evolution and change as your world adapts to the new universe. You will be locked off from the rest of the universe until Earth has been deemed as sufficiently stabilized, after which you will gain access to the rest of the universe. Good luck.
Jake stared at the list of messages that had played out in front of his eyes in quick succession.
Was he on some sort of messed up prank show that took pranks to the extreme? Because the sky he was currently looking at certainly didn’t look all too different for a supposed different dimension.
Then again the messages floating in front of him weren’t exactly a normal occurrence either.
Weird things just kept happening to him one after the other, first he got attacked by a crazy green lightning panther and then the whole world turned into some sort of abstract painting?
And now he was supposedly in a new dimension with weird floating messages.
“Yeah I'm going insane alright” He laughed nervously. If not for the fact his entire body was still hurting like crazy he might have actually believed he was going crazy too.
Moving aside the thought he was going insane, he moved on to the pressing matter at hand, the weird messages floating in front of him.
He read and re-read the messages a few times to get a better idea of what was going on.
And then just for good measure he read it again for a last time.
He wanted to make sure he wasn’t missing anything important. Because if this was reality and he wasn’t insane, any information would be a big help.
A new reality meant there would be many new things, and new things were unknown things. Unknown things could mean danger, this was also an instinct of humanity, to be wary of the unknown.
Not to mention he totally agreed with the saying knowledge is power, after all without knowledge humanity wouldn’t be humanity but just another type of hairless monkey.
So yeah. He read the messages as many times as it took until he had basically memorized them.
Any bit of info he could get was worth gold in his current situation.
In short, the messages told him Earth had been transported into a new universe and Earth was undergoing a period of isolated adaptation to the new universe.
A new universe…
He hadn’t quite wrapped his head around it yet, but he was intrigued by the mention of the system and by the message that mentioned adjustments to the solar system.
Was that the reason the sky looked the same? and not totally different for example no sun or two suns?
but if only the surrounding solar system was adapted he was sure the starry night would be quite a different sight than the one he was used to.
This only served to further intrigue him, and he would have been lying if he said he wasn’t getting a little excited.
He was getting more questions he wanted to find answers to by the second.
This entire situation was both terrifying and exciting in his opinion.
“Yeah no, not right now” He told himself, he could be excited and start wondering about what caused all this and how this would affect humanity and his life later.
Because at the moment he really didn’t feel like moving, or even thinking for that matter.
He was way too exhausted, both mentally and physically to be able to care right now.
“Before having to deal with everything as i know it changing please give me a little break, please reality?” Maybe in this new reality, saying his request out loud would actually work?
Requirements met…
Starting awakening process…
Error!
Injuries detected - Unable to continue..
Healing injuries…
Continuing awakening process..
Congratulations! You have awakened to the Class: Technomancer!
User may now choose 3 starting skills…
Loading list...
A long list of what looked like descriptions of abilities appeared in front of him.
Jake just stared at the messages for a moment.
“Well talking out loud had an effect alright, maybe just not the one i wanted” Even though it was probably just a coincidence he still felt like reality was mocking him for some reason.
All he could do right now though, was let out a defeated sigh at reality clearly not giving him a break.
“Well, at least my body doesn’t hurt anymore, so i guess its not all bad either” he said to himself as he looked over his formerly wounded arm.
It looked just like it had before his fight, if the rips in his clothes and the messages in front of him hadn’t been there, he might have believed it had all been a strange lucid dream of some sort.
Besides his clothes, the rest of him looked like he hadn’t even been in a life-or-death fight.
He would even go so far as to say that he looked a little better than before, not that he knew for sure. It might just be his eyes playing tricks on him after seeing his newly non-tattered body after having seen a heavily wounded body.
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Somehow his mind felt more refreshed as well, he felt as if he had just woken up after a good night's rest.
Turning his attention away from his freshly healed body and towards the newly appeared list with a few rows of descriptions of what at first glance seemed to be supernatural powers, or as the system said skills?
“Is the system adapting our lingo into its messages? Seeing as it used a term from games and is appearing in english”
He took a minute to calm down and think about the situation.
With all the information he currently had he drew a few conclusions.
First of all, his earth would start adapting, adapting meant evolving. And an evolving earth would surely mean a-lot more danger.
Who was to say if the weird panther he had encountered wasn’t somehow because of all this as well, or somehow related.
Because that wasn’t a normal panther, that he knew for sure.
He had never heard of a big three-eyed lightning panther with two tails and green fur.
But an adapting earth, would that mean creatures living on it would start adapting and evolving too? And why was he and probably other humans getting some kind of system that granted them powers?
Maybe the system wanted to keep humans alive throughout this period of adaptation for whatever reason? And was thus giving them a tool for self defense?
He was making wild guesses at this point since he had no idea of why this was happening.
But what he did know was if everything would start getting more dangerous and god knows what other changes might start happening because of all this. He would need to prioritize his survival
And what better way to survive than with superpowers, and as luck had it, in front of him right now was a list with just that.
Slowly he scrolled through the list, marking down any options he deemed useful or something that seemed like it had potential.
In total he was given about 57 options with a bunch of them being limited in terms of growth if he said so himself. Stuff like lightning strike.
- Lightning strike - Level 1
In exchange for mana allows to user to strike a target with lightning, as the skill level rises control and power may increase.
Good for combat sure, but these sort of abilities seemed more like one-trick pony skills. I mean what else would lightning strike give you in the future besides a stronger and more controllable way to attack.
Plus according to the skill if he ever ran out of mana he would be unable to use it?
Yeah he,d rather not die because he ran out of so called ‘mana’ while in the middle of a fight or any other situation requiring the skill’s use. At first glance these types of skills might look good but in the long run it wouldn’t be that useful.
Luckily for him there were also some better skills out there such as; Tech barrier which had more versatile uses.
- Tech barrier - Level 1
In exchange for mana allows the user to throw up a barrier. The barrier can be reinforced further if powered by electricity. As the level rises control and strength increase and extra defensive effects may be added such as: thorns or camouflage.
The tech barrier skill for example was a lot better, but even though it was more versatile and in the long run seemed like a better skill with more potential than lightning strike. Jake still didn’t feel like it suited him or his tastes.
I mean what if he ever got into a situation where his mana ran out? What then? And even though it had more potential than lightning strike, it was very lineair in its prospective development.
Not to mention the unknown part of how strong the barrier would be and how much of a role electricity played in the skill.
I mean his class was techomancer which sounded like a tech-based class. So surely tech and stuff related to it would play a part in his skills. Thus resulting in the unknown factor of how much electricity played a role in the barrier skill.
The lightning strike skill fit according to this logic, because what was technology without electricity?
Nevertheless, he noted the skill down, it wouldn’t hurt to have a defensive measure even if there were some unknowns. Plus he hadn’t seen a better defensive measure as of yet.
He kept reading through the list and marking down anything he deemed as a possible choice, this went on for a while until he had reached the end of the list.
He had found four skills that he felt had both good enough potential and use. Now he would just need to pick three out of those four skills to acquire.
The first of his options was the skill; Create drone .
- create drone - Level 1
At an initial cost of mana, this skill allows you to summon and control drones, as the skill levels up you will get access to a larger selection of drones and earlier versions will receive upgrades. Drones can be used for a wide variety of purposes including; Combat, scouting & automation.
A pretty obvious choice; major potential, wide variety and tons of use with minimal risk. Imagine a combat drone he could control from afar, this would both give him combat capability and safety from a distance.
Not to mention all the miscellaneous uses it would give him such as scouting capability and automation of tasks? In his mind the choice was basically already made on taking the Create drone skill.
He already saw himself commanding an army of drones, swarmes of drones protecting him from anything that might try to harm him. Or just using a drone to annoy somebody that deserved it.
Like his former neighbor; Josh who always let his dog ‘do its business’ in his yard even though he had asked Josh many times to stop the dog from doing that.
He was already grinning at the thought of having a drone fly over and drop his own dog,s waste in his yard! And then see how he liked it!
Plus the growth potential was insane! Not only would it give him a wide variety of uses, but the drones would also receive additional upgrades? This meant both variety and growth! What else could he ask for?
Plus running out of mana wasn’t a problem with this skill, as the drones would only need an initial mana cost.
Meaning as long as he summoned the drones beforehand he wouldn’t have to worry about being defenseless when having a lack of mana.
Yep Create drone was definitely a must-have with all the growth potential and the amazing uses it could have.
The second of his choices was; Construction
- Construction - level 1
In exchange for mana, the user can build and create structures, terrain and technology related / limited to buildings. As the level rises you can build more advanced technology and structures.
Again he felt like it was an obvious choice. The ability to create buildings and technology for the buildings was amazing! He could already see himself creating a flying fortress or a hidden base filled with all kinds of advanced gadgets and amazing defenses.
Not to mention if earth really got more dangerous, and he was out here in the wild, he would need some good shelter to protect himself from any possible danger.
Dont wanna freeze to death or be killed in my sleep after all.
Not to mention the potential was great, If he could get access to futuristic defenses and tech he would be golden!
He already saw himself sipping coffee from a super-advanced coffee machine, taking a heavenly shower under a futuristic douche! Or just defending his garden from Josh and his dog with a turret.
The only downside was that it would only let him build technology-related and limited to buildings. So he wouldn’t be able to create a car, but he would be able to create a robot arm attached to the building or just a remote for a tv.
So not a detrimental downside, still he couldn’t help but feel a little sad about not being able to create a car with it or maybe just having a landmine field.
He was very excited about Construction, every engineer had dreamed about creating their own house or base with all sorts of cool gadgets and technology after all. Scrap that, every man ever had.
This skill was a must-have just like the Create drone skill. If only because of the survival potential being able to create your own housing and defenses got you.
But really it was because he wanted futuristic bases and technology and their uses.
Had he mentioned the amazing growth potential yet?
Even when he was younger and played games he always went for builds and set ups with the best growth potential, better to be strong in long term than in short term after all.
Now that he had already made the choice on two of the skills he would take, he would need to make his third choice from his last two options.
- Tech barrier - Level 1
In exchange for mana allows the user to throw up a barrier. The barrier can be reinforced further if powered by electricity. As the level rises control and strength increase and extra defensive effects may be added such as: thorns or camouflage.
- Weaponry creation - Level 1
In exchange for an initial cost in mana the user can summon ‘Anything’ classified as weaponry. As the level rises the selections of weaponry and types of weaponry will grow.
He had already taken two skills with both short-term and even more so long-term potential.
But what he needed right now besides his already chosen two skills, was a more direct method of defending himself. Who knew how long it would take to get combat drones or a safe base set up.
What if he would be attacked again in an hour? He would need a method of defense for the now instead of the future.
Sure the future played a major factor in the picking of his skills, but he also had to consider surviving the now. The future wouldn’t matter if he wouldn’t reach it after all.
If he died because he didn’t have some direct method of defense right now then it would just be useless to have skills that had future potential.
With that reasoning, he had made his decision to choose one of these two skills as his third option.
Tech barrier would be a shield, but weapon creation would give him a more direct method of defending himself. And a good attack was the best defense as the famous saying went.
Yet he still felt unsure, he really didn’t feel like getting into another direct face-to-face fight after all. He was already so hurt and tired from a fight against a panther and he definitely wouldn’t want to go against anything stronger.
He had gotten lucky that this system healed him when awakening him otherwise he might have bled to death before reaching a settlement that could help him.
Picking the Weapon creation skill meant he would need to get into more face-to-face fights, whereas with the barrier he just needed to shield himself and escape.
But what if he ran out of mana for the shield while escaping? And who said he couldn’t just use guns or landmines or something with Weaponry creation?
Plus futuristic weaponry sounded pretty awesome, he already saw himself holding a laser gun, just blasting through possible enemies while throwing out plasma grenades and stuff.
It is a man,s romance after all. Plus it seemed like less of a risk than just having a barrier. If I got attacked by another panther which is faster and stronger than me right now, I wouldn’t be able to run and I’d be stuck waiting for my mana to deplete.
A shield is only useful for temporary protection after all, no matter how strong, it won't be able to defend you forever. So you'd always lose unless you had a way to return fire.
With that reasoning, in the end he picked Weaponry creation. When he had finalized his decision another message popped up.
Skills chosen…
You may now pick one trait which will grant you a passive benefit..
Loading trait list…