“Hey! Wake up! Wake up! Hey!”

I slammed my hand down on the alarm box, the only enchanted item that I owned. The sunlight was filtering in between my sheet metal shutters and I knew it was time to be awake. Most days it would have been a battle with the alarm, me demanding ‘5 more minutes’ while the alarm demanded ‘Hey!’. Today, however, was not one of those days. I’d been lying awake in my bed for at least an hour, staring at the roof of my shack in anticipation.

Today, was the coming of age ceremony and I could finally make my own decisions.

As the last vestiges of the alarm faded away from my ears I threw back my tattered sheets and hopped out of my cot, ready to face the day. Were it not for the cold metal of the floor on my bare feet, I would have forgotten to even get dressed.

I snatched up my best set of clothing from where it lie folded on my desk in preparation and dressed myself. I pulled on my thrice patched socks along with a faded red tee and rough woolen trousers. The shirt I wore was not the best quality one I owned, but meant something to me as it was a relic of the past. I decided to wear it because in my mind, it would help me better explain my decision to my parents.

Now that I was dressed and ready, I made my way through the short hallway to the living space my family shared with the Jacksons, careful to avoid any rusting portions of the hallway.

The Jacksons were two brothers who helped work the same farmland as my parents, working hard days and long hours to try and tease some food out of the near-barren soil. It was hard work but without the other farming families, the entire shanty town would have starved long ago.

Right, shanty town. Most of the buildings that were standing, along with all of the magic items, had been destroyed during the nerfing four generations ago.

What exactly the nerfing entailed was constantly debated by scholars and priests. Whether it had been a god saving humanity from their self destruct or a magic experiment on a grand scale gone horribly wrong, nobody could be sure. This was due to the fact that, along with most of their buildings and farms, almost all of humanity's knowledge had been erased from the minds of man. Entire professional schools of magic had been forgotten overnight, banks of knowledge razed to the ground, and words stolen from the tongues of teachers.

That being said, not everything was lost. A large portion of works describing magic and romance were able to be salvaged. Unfortunately the magic systems in these books did not work anything remotely like the Aether based magic of Earth, so they were deemed fictional and passed off as stories of fantasy. That didn’t stop me from reading every story I could get my hands on though, or stop me from dreaming of one day wielding magic of my own.

Humanity had been granted a second chance, but it mandated that they start over from scratch. That worked out best for me anyways. It hadn’t been long after the nerfing when people started experimenting with magic again, harvesting Aether from the nerf-sites and using it to power what little remained of pre-nerf enchanted items.

My alarm box was a good example, as it had been reworked to run off of passive Aether gatherings from the atmosphere. They were cheap to make and practice for most upcoming wizards, therefore widely available in the larger cities and hamlets. Mine had been acquired years back when a merchant passed through town on its way west, and was one of my most valuable possessions as it was one of three in the entirety of Tinyton. That was the town I’d spent my life growing up in thus far.

I cast my eyes around the living room knowing that I would not find my parents or the Jacksons here, as they had long since left to tend the fields. There were several small holes in the patchwork wall of plywood and sheet metal, allowing the sunlight to filter in and light up the room. There was a small cooking fire in the hearth, surrounded by smooth rocks from the river bed, and cotton stuffed blankets scattered around for seating.

The fire had gone out hours ago but there was still a slight warmth from the cooking pot that contained what was left of that morning’s meal. I helped myself to a serving of potato based porridge, with fresh peppers and extra broth. I soaked up the extra broth with a hard wild grain biscuit that had been cooked earlier that week, not allowing any of the food go to waste.

That was another thing that had changed post-nerf, humanity had finally begun revamping their wasteful ways. I’d once read a book about a tiny metal golem left behind as humanity teleported into the sky, slowly cleaning up trash to try and grow life on earth again. The story spoke to me because of the farming struggle of getting anything to grow abundantly, and the fact that today’s humanity would never leave all that scrap lying around. Scrap could build more shacks so that people like the Jacksons weren’t forced to impose on others.

Not that it really an imposition, they helped my parents with a lot of the manual labor required for field upkeep and there was safety in numbers. There had been rumors of monsters who snatched people from their homes at night so you could never be too safe.

With my hunger sated I scooped up my worn boots from beside the front door and set off. Tinyton was, as it sounded, a very small town located in what used to be known as northern Florida. It had been cobbled together on the remains of a town whose name was lost to time. Nearly every building was cobbled together from the ruins of what had been left behind during the nerf. Most of the stone that had been used to build became too pliable, and the steel reinforcements had melted down into puddles. The townspeople who decided to rebuild took these puddles of various metals and whatever pieces of wood and lumber they could and slapdashed them together.

It gave the town a very poor look, buildings that leaned a bit precariously this way and that, ready to fall over at a moments notice. Of course the buildings were a lot more stable than they looked. The town only held about 200 people, all of whom did their best to provide for everyone else.

There was also the nicer district, the one that was constantly under construction. There you could find a couple log cabins fastened together from felled trees. The issue was a lot of the insects around here enjoyed chewing through the logs as they rotted, so the homes were constantly being repaired. Most prefered the ragbag trailers as they had far less upkeep.

The coming of age ceremony was set to take place soon so I made my way toward town center. It was clearing between several of the tradesmen’s shops and the mayors shack that had served as a gathering place for the people of old. There was still a plinth in the center, where the bell was fastened. Because the bell wasn’t a magical item pre-nerf it had been spared during the nerfing and still stood there. The smell of food wafted out of the square and made me wonder if I had actually been sated by breakfast.

There was already a collection of people gathering of people there, those whose work had not yet begun or who were taking a break to observe the ceremony. The other two who had come of age this season were already there and the mayor was looking at me expectantly.

“Now that Lucas is here, we can begin,” began the Mayor, “As has been our tradition since the nerfing years ago, we gather here today to unlock the potential of these three young adults. They have survived on this newly harsh Earth for 18 years, and are finally ready to have their skill screens unlocked.

“Marsha, please step forward.” I’d always thought it was stupid that they waited until we were 18 to unlock our interface. If I was old enough to farm or hunt by 12, then why was I not old enough to have access to my skill interface? It was a very antiquated way of thinking, and one of the reasons I was looking forward to getting away from here.

Marsha, the baker’s daughter, stepped up to the Mayor and got down on her knees. The Mayor removed the Key from the breast pocket of his jacket and there was a hush that spread throughout everyone collected. From what I’d heard, the feeling of having your interface was something you never forgot.

The Mayor closed his eyes and pressed the Key to Marsha’s forehead. It began to glow brightly, even in the glaring daylight, and Masha’s cheeks became flushed. After about 20 seconds the light began to dim and the mayor pulled his hand away from the young girl’s face before helping her to her feet. She bowed her thank you and stepped back beside Dillon, the other boy who had come of age.

Dillon stepped forward and the same process happened again, but at this point I was watching Marsha. Her face was still heated and her eyes were darting back and forth, looking at a interface that only she could see. Finally, my turn came and the Mayor called my name.

“Lucas, please step forward.”

I knelt before the Mayor and greeted him. He began talking to the crowd again but I wasn’t listening. My eyes were locked onto the Key in his hand, waiting for it to approach me, and then it did.

As the Key made contact with my forehead, I lost myself. The world was engulfed in blue light and I felt like my entire life had finally come to a climax. My heart began beating faster than it ever had, and sweat poured out of every one of my pores as the cold wind blew across my face to cool me back down. It was an overwhelming sensation, but not one I was ever going to forget. Then just like that, my interface appeared.

Name:

Lucas Cob

Level

1

Class:

N/A

Profession:

N/A

Status

Healthy

Stamina

105/105

Mana

10/10

Aether Saturation

.03%

Strength

11

Perception

11

Endurance

11

Charisma

8

Intellect

10

Agility

10

Skills: Farming (Peppers, Potatoes, Minor Herbs), Reading, Basic Spear

Spells: Weak Growth

The Mayor began thanking the crowd for coming and thanked Marsha’s parents for bringing freshly baked bread for everyone to enjoy. I through the semi transparent blue screen in front of me toward the crowd and saw that my parents hadn’t made it. I didn’t really expect them to, they were far too busy trying to reap in one last bounty before winter finished setting in.

I walked up to the table set to the side and collected a few fresh buns in my arms before breaking out of the crowd. I still had to finish preparing my things.