Flashes of light. So bright you needed to shut your eyes. Memories of those lost. So painful you needed to shut your mind. The nostrils filled with the smell of burned wood. And the hard ground you passed out on, so damn hard it made your bones ache.

The very first thing Mat did once he realized he was alive was to check if his connection was functional. He did not open his eyes to see in what strange world he found himself. He did not wonder if he was locked up in a dungeon or if he was hugging a bail of hay in some horse manure-reeking stable. He did not even hope he landed in the fields of grass, or that by some strange miracle, he woke up in a clean tavern’s room. A cold, hard stone of the floor or not, that would have been nice.

All of that had happened before, the jump always carrying the possibility of a mind twister, a memory interference, sometimes creating a mind fog during which he was not quite himself and did things that later took weeks to figure out.

No. For a ten-year veteran like himself, as soon as he realized that he went through the jump, his first thought was directed toward only one thing. He asked, not even opening his mouth, a single deep thought, “Pia, can my current diagnosis be displayed, please?”

Only when the blue screen popped somewhere in his mind displaying his status, he took a deep breath and felt a bit more relaxed.

Too soon. Because the numbers he stared at were not good at all, certainly not the ones he expected to see.

They read:

Physical Diagnosis:

Health 80 percent

Stamina 95 percent

Energy 25 percent

Mana 0 percent

So, his arrival did not go smoothly at all. Someone fucked up. Royally. All his numbers should have been at or very near a hundred percent. Oh well, he had it worse before. As long as they have not screwed up his rankings…? The warning thought ran through his mind, and he instantly gave an order,

“Pia, display my updated rankings please, and now that I know you are operational, make it verbal, voice activation enabled. Kill that blue shit-screen, please, pretty please.”

He knew his personal intelligence assistant well. For some reason not fully comprehensible by him, she liked the ‘pretty please’ command and would always answer it in a jovial tone. He needed some jovial tone.

So good to see you back to yourself, Master Blaster, a familiar sweet voice of a young woman whispered into his mind.

Master Blaster? What? Since when…?

Since we talked last, your Fighting Class is now Category 7, Intelligence has been improved to 9 and your Wisdom has been increased to 14. Congratulations.

“Wow, that is unexpected… And my Social Ranking?”

Your Social Ranking is now Class 10. Your Summa Summarrum is now 93rd percentile.

“Impressive. We are climbing up, Pia, aren’t we?”

Yes, Master Blaster.

He was going to say something else, but the smell of charcoaled earth filling his nostrils and overpowering all his other senses was just too alarming and annoying to ignore. So, he sighed, opened his eyes, and lifted himself up on his elbows.

“Now where are we and what do we have here?”

Planet Zandria, Quadrant 34X3Z2000-A, thirty million inhabitants divided among 5 different races and over 50 different ethnic groups with the largest being-

“I’ve been briefed on most of that already. So, hold on with the stats now, Pia. Let me look at this,” Mat said as he rubbed his eyes and looked around.

Everywhere he looked he saw the scene of an outmost armageddon. All around, leafless trees were snapped in half, and most had burned down completely, some still smoldering here and there, still flickering with half-hidden embers in ashes of burned-out fires. And the all-around smoke, raising high up and obscuring the sun that was supposed to be there someplace.

What kind of explosion could create such mayhem? To snap tree trunks in halves as if they were nothing more than a toothpick in his fingers. And for him to live, mostly unharmed? Could it be atomic?

“Pia, back to health status, any poisoning there? Radiation?”

Foreign Substance Dangerous to the Health is 0.

Radiation Poisoning is 0.

Maybe, maybe I landed after all of this had already happened?

He continued to look around, the grass a few feet around himself still green, untouched by fire. No. He was here, but something had shielded him. Something or someone. Did he use all his mana for protection?

Or maybe… Could he have done this?

He never knew his arrival could produce an atomic-bomb-like explosion. So, something else must have been at work here.

He finally got up to his feet, stretching his stiffened muscles, staring at the desolated slope, trying to make out shapes through the smoke. One thing became apparent right away. He could not have produced that explosion. The explosion must have happened somewhere down the hill as all the trees were snapped in the upslope direction.

Something big. Can’t see any crater, so it did not come from high up. And with all the fire around, it was highly flammable.

Maybe that’s why they worked on upgrading my fighting class at the last minute. Maybe the latest info introduced some additional risk factors. Maybe they expected even more trouble than they told me. But why wasn’t I told? So typical of administrators.

Oh, well. Let’s look at my fighting class. The last I knew I was class 5.

“Pia, let’s examine my fighting class a bit more. Just list stats that have changed and just go slow, please.”

Strength: Mark Five-Nine

That’s a bump up. That’s almost as strong as a Tarrian Bear. I do feel muscled up now that I think about it.

Speed: Mark Seven-Zero

Mat whistled. Never thought I would ever go over six, five-nine at most. How much did that cost?

Agility: Mark Six-Five

Mat instinctively bent over and, even with stiff and sore muscles, touched the ground with the palm of his hand. He was impressed, not even during his teen cross-country days did it feel so effortless.

Reflexes: Mark Seven-Five

Endurance: Mark Twenty-Five

"I guess added muscles had to come at the cost. Still…"

Mat rubbed his forehead, and thought about it for a second. "With all the improved stats, no wonder my Fighting Class has been bumped up. This planet must be important to them. This is awesome! After I’m finished here, all the new jobs I’d be able to get now. That might be why my energy and other stats are so low now. Please continue."

Primary Weapon: Sword

Secondary Weapon: Hand Combat

Auxiliary Weapon: Knives

Other skills:

Climbing, Jumping

So, the bottom line is, if they bumped me up in a physical aspect and sword fighting, might be that they got the information at the last minute of the threats I may be facing here. And, if no hand combat was upgraded, obviously fighting with a sword. Monsters, physically dominant ones, yet not too big since they would have given me a spear, something to fight from the distance then.

Would you like to see the full list of other attributes?

“No, not at this time.”

How about your Psychological Diagnosis or Social Standings?

“No, not right now. Not even if there is something alarming right now because I need to think-”

You know, Master Blaster, if there was something alarming I would need to inform you regardless if you wanted to know or not.

“Oh, I know, it’s just… Since when are you calling me Master Blaster?” he asked her the question that lingered in his mind.

I guess your memory has been impacted dramatically during the last battle.

“The battle?”

Yes, Master Blaster. Isn't it obvious?

First of all, can you please just stop calling me that? It’s very…It's so juvenile, so irritating. I must have been drunk when I told you to refer to me with that name, do you know what I mean?”

What would you like me to call you now?

“Mat is good. Mat is very good. I mean, that is my name, isn’t it?”

Yes, Mat. that is your name.

“So, what battle are we talking about?”

The twig snapped behind him, slightly louder than the crackling of the flamed wood. He instinctively turned his head around, not really expecting anything other than an ember flickering a few feet away, not really expecting anything since his eyes went over that area just a few seconds ago.

A pale shape of a being as tall as him emerged through smoke, his dark small eyes the first thing Mat fixated on. Completely hairless, a humanoid, naked to the waist with slightly broader shoulders, skin the color of the silver ash. He could not recognize the species and wasted no time to try to recollect his instructions as he saw a crude sword in one of the being’s hands, hard to miss it now as he lifted it up and waived around in a gesture Mat could only interpret as hostile.

He looked down at his hands, lower body. Not a weapon in sight. Wrong! There was a handle of a sword almost completely obscured by the grass where he lay just a minute ago. It was his sword. He was sure.

He could forget his name but not the engraving that decorated the blade next to the handle.

The pale humanoid made a few steps toward him, opened his mouth to reveal the teeth of a shark, not a man.

Do I have time to reach for it? Mat thought, but as the pale humanoid made another step, he thought no longer.

He crouched down, grabbed the sword with his right hand, flipped around over the ground, and landed a step away from the monster, then swung the sword swiftly to sever the monster in half. Except…

His sword’s blade tip ended a whole two feet shorter than where it should be, so his iron only crapped the skin of the pale monster instead of cutting him through.

Mat dumbfoundedly stared at his broken sword, not able to understand how its blade could have been cracked in the middle. The pale monster stared dumbfounded at Mat, maybe not understanding why would anyone with only half a sword try to fight him.

Time to see what that new strength and speed, the new fighting class could do.

He jumped up before the pale monster could bring the raised sword on top of him, and stuck his broken blade inside his half-opened mouth.

“Carnivorous”, Mat muttered to himself looking at those sharp teeth. “He saw me, and probably thought, there’s dinner. Well, eat this,” Mat said and shoved the blade deeper inside the creature’s mouth till the handle met his teeth, the broken side of his blade coming out from the other side of the monster’s neck.

The dying sound seemed to have choked somewhere from deep inside the beast’s throat. When it came out, Mat was not sure if it said, “Why, Farlander… Why?” Whatever it was, Mat did not care but shoved the sword through the three-nostrils nose and into where the brain was, shutting the life-light out of the beast’s pig-like eyes.

Mat, what are you doing? Pia's voice almost brought him to a stop. Are you sure you want to do that? I recommend-

"Not now, Pia! Disconnect, now!” he screamed. He was in the middle of a fight, did not need any distractions. Two more of those pail humanoids were already coming down at him.

He ran up to meet them, closing the distance in a second. He plunged the broken sword inside the first monster’s belly, opening up his abdominals, then as the monster floundered to his feet, he pulled the sword out and met the third attacker whose dark-iron sword cracked over Mat’s blocking silver blade.

The impact was so severe that it shattered the attacker’s sword. Luckily to Mat, whatever was left of his own blade held, and he used it to jump up and bury it inside the monster’s neck, ripping it wide open as he twisted around.

More shapes were emerging through the fog, yelling and calling. Could he meet them all with a broken sword? Maybe time to conceal himself?

He did not let that thought linger too long inside his head, but instinctively hugged the ground and rolled around, rubbing in places against the burned-out wood that was still warm to his touch and smeared the dark ground and ashes over his face and hands, his bald head. Shit? What happened to his beautiful long dark hair???

He could not remember ever cutting it. More calling voices reached his ears, all around. Forms of beasts here and there took shape in the fog before being lost inside the next second as they moved around.

He looked around, more than two dozen dead white-ash bodies of the monsters lying scattered around.

Shit, what have I done? How many did I kill? And did I really need to kill them all? I should have at least let one live! Damn, I should have woken up earlier. I’m slipping. His mind right away went to another worry. How is my karma?

“Why, Farlander, Why?” the dying noise of a monster seemed to have taken form in his head, together with the image of the surprise in the monster’s eyes.

The troubling thought instantly made him twitch. What the hell is going on? Maybe I should have not killed these monsters… “Pia, tell me, what is my karma?

Unable to comply, was the cold answer that reached his ears.

She’s pissed.

“Please, explain. Pretty please.”

Unable to comply.

“Please. I need to know what the hell is going on.”

Unable to comply on account that the connection with the Core has been severed.

Of course, the Core was the one that would determine his karma ranking. It wasn’t like the stamina or strength that his AI could track and update. And they told him the planet would be off line.

“But… What was my karma the last time you accessed the Core?”

One hundred and fifty.

“Good, that is what I remember too.”

I detect a huge relief in your voice, Mat. May I suggest that I cannot guarantee your karma is nowhere close to that level now.

“And why is that?”

On two accounts. The first being that the last connection with the Core was two hundred and eighty five standard days ago. The second one, you’ve just killed three warriors of our planetary allies.