“What does that mean?”, I balked at the old [Scholar].

She rubbed her chin and answered my question with another question, “What were you doing when it happened to you? I will do my best to answer your questions, but understanding how you became a part of this world will help you as you try to live in it.”

I took a moment to recollect what I was doing. It all came back to that yellow blur in the corner of my mind's eye. I asked her about it, “Do you ever see things out of the corner of your eye, but when you try to focus on them they disappear?”

“Interesting. Go on though, tell me more.”, she coaxed me to continue my revelation.

I sighed when it dawned on me that I wasn’t going to get any answers until I satisfied her curiosity, “Well, I finally caught it. It was some kind of illusion. I thought really hard about making it go away. It actually did go away. There were red letters explaining what happened floating in the air.”

Mrs. Hodgins frowned at me, “You didn’t decide that you wanted to be something more. Did you at least experience a calling?”

It was my turn to frown. I matched her expression and added a sigh for good measure, “What’s a calling? I am afraid if you don’t give me any information I am not going to be able to answer too many questions. All I know is that you are a level 2 Scholar when everyone else I’ve come into contact with is level 1.”

“You can see all of that?”, she asked incredulously, her voice lowering so much that I almost couldn’t make out what she was saying.

I asked for information and got handed another question. I put my foot down, “How about this. Tell me what’s going on or I’m not going to answer any more questions.”

She let out a sigh and held out a folder for me. I opened it up as she began to speak, “I am afraid I don’t know too much more than you do. What I do know is that some people on this planet are special. When we are born we all get our very first class. Though the wording can vary, it is usually some version of baby. As we grow that class changes based on how we progress in our lives. The level is a bit trickier. Most people do not level up. Ever. Regardless of what class they happen to be, most people are born and die at level 1.”

“How did you get to level 2?”, I interrupted.

She held up a hand, shaking her head, “Hold it, mister. You asked me to explain. We can play 20 questions later.”

I nodded in agreement and she continued, “The awakening for me was a strong desire. While I had gotten what I considered to be a dream job working in a library, it wasn’t entirely true. I longed to be an explorer or an archeologist. What I didn’t understand at the time was that my calling is to pursue knowledge. I crave learning new things. If it happens to be things that nobody on Earth knows then that’s even better.”

She stopped to see how I would react. I was struggling to keep myself from fidgeting. I wanted to ask questions or take notes or something, but she told me to listen so I was trying to behave. Satisfied that she still had my attention, she continued, “I first saw the menu when I awakened. My original class was librarian. I was able to look at it and it made me sick. It wasn’t enough. I wanted more. The more I pined over my lot in life the more I realized that I needed to change it. I did what I do best and began to research. I scoured books as well as the internet to understand this phenomenon that I was seeing. There was nothing. No handy guidebook or reference manual. Some fictional novels did hold elements of what I was going through, but how did I sort fact from fiction. That was when it dawned on me. I had to piece together the clues that existed out in the world. The very menu that I hoped to understand was going to help me figure out why it existed. I inspected everyone and everything. Everything can be examined. The information it tells you is limited, but when you understand the rules of the world those simple menus can tell you a lot of things.”

She stopped and pressed a hand to my forehead. I jumped at the touch and asked, “What are you doing?”

Mrs. Hodgins had a look of concern on her face, “You are flushed and you’re breathing fast. Are you okay? Are you having some kind of panic attack?”

I touched my cheek tentatively. I was breathing fast and my heart was racing. I wasn’t panicking. I was…excited? I shook my head, “I’m okay. Please continue.”

She withdrew her hand and slowly started again, “The first thing you can tell about a person who has awakened is that they usually have a strange class or a class that you wouldn’t expect them to have. You are still a student, but yours says ‘unlocked’. I have never seen that before, but it’s not normal. Next, normal people never level up. Seeing someone who is level 2 or higher means a lot. The highest level that I have ever seen was a level 5 and let me just tell you that he runs a country. From what I can tell, people who manage to awaken are destined for greatness. Most of the richest people in the world are at least level 2. The same goes for a lot of the world's best athletes. Okay. Now that I have explained the basics, I have some questions for you. To make it fair, you may ask a question first and then we will trade questions until we are both satisfied.”

I knew what I wanted to ask first, “You said you can scan people and objects. What did you mean by objects?”

She let out a breath that turned into a laugh, “Oh! I thought you were going to ask me about my level. Objects are just like people, if you can see my menu, you should be able to focus on this pencil and inspect that too.”

I looked at the pencil she was referring to.

Item:

Pencil #2

Components

Graphite, Wood, Paint

Item Rank:

F

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

Hodgins

That was interesting. I knew that pencils in general probably had more ingredients than that. Was there some hidden context in the specific items listed? The rank and level meant very little to me. Was this pencil alive? Could I level it up by using it? Wouldn’t it wear down with use and break?

Mrs. Hodgins was looking at me curiously, “What do you see?”

“Was that your question?”, I asked laughing.

I didn’t mean to trap her, but she had used her first question on something trivial. She answered, “Sure, we can count that as my question. Open your folder. I drew a diagram of what I see when I look at a pencil.

Item:

Pencil #2

Item Owner:

Hodgins

She was lacking a lot of detail. I was confused. Then I looked at the next drawing in the folder.

Name

Vanessa Hodgins

Class

Scholar

Level

2

Her personal data was missing a lot of the statistics that I got when I looked at myself. I pointed it out to her, “A lot is missing from these drawings. Are you sure you got it all?”

“Both of them?”, she asked me excitedly.

I quickly made her two rough sketches of what I saw. She marveled at them both, “Well I’ll be…”

I waited patiently while she compared notes and muttered questions silently to herself, “Affection huh? I guess that makes sense? Why can he see it when I can’t? This is going to require some serious research. You see even more when you examine yourself?”

I nodded affirmatively. Mrs. Hodgins finally composed herself enough to continue our conversation, “Okay, that can count as my question. What do you want to know next?”

I was back on track finally, “How did you get to level 2?”

She smiled, “It is not an easy process. Remember when I told you that the highest leveled person was level 5? I should probably mention that he is also 90 years old. It’s taken me 5 years to just get to level 2. I seem to get experience points when I go out of my way to learn something new. On rare occasions just learning something new to me is enough, but mostly I have to come up with some greater truth about the world to make any significant progress. I also get a tiny amount for teaching you the ways of the world.”

“How do I gain…”, I started to ask.

She stopped me with a tut, “My turn honey. Sorry. Those are the rules. How about you tell me what skills you got or what you can do so far?”

I blinked in silence as I tried to figure that out. What could I do? Nothing really? So far all I had done since the great awakening was to go home, get bullied, and hide in the library. I still had no clue what this would change about my life. I did intend to find out though. I was very careful not to ask any questions in my answer, “I am not sure what I can do yet. I came here to try to figure out what these menus are that keep popping up in my face. So far as I know I’m just a student still, so perhaps study skills?”

She laughed and said, “Yes, that is very odd. Usually, when you awaken it comes with a job change. What do you suppose unlocked means?”

I laughed, “Nope, my turn now. You can ask that next if you like. Are there any other awakened kids or teachers here in school?”

Smiling at me, she replied, “Nope. You are the first one here in school that I’ve noticed. There are quite a few here in town though. You will need to do your best to remain inconspicuous when you go places. They won’t notice you unless they inspect you and I fear some people in this world use these powers for no good. So far nobody has noticed me. At least nobody has said or done anything to bring it to my attention. Now, what do you know about your class being unlocked?”

I shrugged, “Your guess is as good as mine. I was so caught up inspecting people I ran into that I didn’t bother to try anything else.”

She thought about that for a moment. Suddenly she held a finger up, “Why don’t you try to change your class.”

“How do I do that?”, I asked, completely confused by the request.

She rubbed her chin for a moment before suggesting, “Why don’t you open your menu and then, I don’t know, try thinking hard about being something else.”

I pulled it up. [Student (Unlocked)]. I thought about it. It wasn’t locked. That meant I could change it, right? Change it to what though? [Janitor (Unlocked)]. No! [Plumber (Unlocked)]. Ew! I finally settled on the only hidden class I could think of: [Scholar (Unlocked)].

Mrs. Hodgins chuckled at me, “Is that what you truly want to do with your life? By the way, I saw you switch through all of those other classes. If you can change your class on a whim then you might just be special. I mean even more special than anyone else I’ve seen. None of them have that unlocked message on their class. That is also why you don’t want to be noticed. You are going to stick out like a sore thumb to anyone who can see your class.”

I wasn’t sure if Scholar was the path I wanted to take. I did know that I didn’t want to decide with the school librarian standing there staring at me. It felt like something personal that I needed to decide in privacy. She seemed to get the hint and didn’t press the matter. She asked, “Do you have any more questions for me?”

I nodded, “Why do you think this exists? Is there a reason for it?”

She shrugged as she stood up, “That is the million-dollar question. Or perhaps the million experience point question for me. I have a feeling that I will gain quite a few levels if I ever figure that one out. Do me a favor. Let me observe your growth as you get used to this new world. In exchange, I will share any new information I find with you. I know I am supposed to be the teacher here, but it is kind of a relief to have another person that I can talk to about this.”

My initial reaction had been to reject her offer, but she seemed so relieved to be able to share this with me that I just said, “Sure. Let me know how I can help.”