Everyone who was on the bus is now scattered throughout a glowing circle carved into a stone floor. An elderly man dressed in white robes is standing in the forefront, a bejeweled staff in his hands.

“Welcome to Clegirus, heroes.”

He obviously isn’t speaking English, but I understand him all the same. Throughout the class, confused voices start to sound.

“How did we get here?”

“What language did he speak?”

“Did he just call us heroes?”

“Where’s the bus?”

Miss Walton is one of the first to recover. “Quiet! I don’t know what’s going on, but I'm sure these people will explain if you just shut the hell up!”

It's good to notice that Miss Walton always maintains a professional attitude in front of us, so the fact that she was yelling and swearing at us showed how stressful this change was.

“Thank you. I am Archbishop Amon, leader of the Church of Liden. We summoned you here as you were about to die, to aid us in this time of need.”

Archbishop Amon, huh? I've read enough fantasy novels to know the church is not 100% innocent. Ever. Hopefully this doesn’t follow in the same direction.

A lengthy explanation follows. Apparently, the goddess grants skills to the people of this world. Once a year, everyone who has come of age goes to the temple and receives one or two skills based on aptitude and background. Some skills are wanted by everyone, and others are considered trash. If you’re lucky, you will get two skills that synergize very well, but if you’re unlucky you could get a skill that is useless for you, like poison resistance. It's not a bad skill, but it’s very niche.

“Since the goddess brought your souls here from your world, you have new bodies almost identical to your old ones. The only difference is the skills she has bestowed upon you. You have no need to worry about receiving useless skills.” He turns to the side and motions a nun carrying a large box over. “Fernandela, hand out the acquisition stones and status plates.”

The acquisition stones looked like cement marbles, just large enough to fit in two cupped hands. Status plates, on the other hand, just looked like copper sheets. As they were being passed out, I whispered to Sam, “Bet you there’s a demon lord just waiting to be beaten.”

“Why does it have to be a demon lord? It could be a succubus, gueheheh.”

Emmy just glances at us and shakes her head. “Sometimes I question why I hang out with you two.”

“And yet you do it anyways.” I give her a little elbow nudge.

“Against my better judgement, yes.”

“Do I need to get you guys a room?”

“Fuck off, Fatty!”

The nun gets over to our little group and hands each of us a stone and plate.

I put the question that we’re all wondering out into the air, “What skills do you guys think we’ll get?”

“We don’t even know what skills are available, so how can we know what to hope for?”

“I’m personally hoping for x-ray vision.”

“You know Sam, some things are better left in your head.”

Finally, the last person receives their items. Amon clears his throat and all attention turns towards him. As for me, I'm still trying to figure out where I heard the name Liden before. Was it in a book I read? I don’t think so, but it could be? Something doesn’t feel right about that. Every time I feel like I’m getting close to remembering, it just slips away from me. Eh, if it’s important, I'm sure I'll remember it.

“There are countless worlds out there, with countless people on those worlds.” Amon starts to launch another exposition. “We pulled you to our world from a lower plane with no mana. As a part of the transfer process, you were exposed to high amounts of mana, changing your souls and allowing you to access the mana in the world. However, because we can bring others over to our dimension, that means it’s also possible to force your way through. About a month ago we received a warning from the goddess, saying that another life form was tearing holes in the space between the worlds. We thought we could handle the interdimensional threat by ourselves, but we sorely underestimated them. They only sent their weakest foot soldiers through the breach, and we were almost annihilated. Thankfully, the breach will slowly widen over the course of a week until the beings can fit into the gap, so we can prepare for the next one.”

“Now, these acquisition stones will unlock the skills you have been given by the goddess, all you have to do is inject your mana into the stone. The status plate also reacts to your unique mana signature, and will update itself whenever you want.”

Eager to try, we all concentrated on the stone in our hands. Most of us had a bit of trouble manipulating the mana, and I almost couldn’t sense it at all, let alone move it. in our group, Sam was the first one to succeed.

“Heh, this suits me perfectly.”

“Come on, show us.”

He pulls out his status plate and turns it towards us.

Gluttony: Consume items to convert into mana. There is no limit for mana stored with Gluttony, and will be treated as separate from personal mana.

Metal skin: Consumes mana to make skin as hard as metal, while still keeping normal functions. Duration and toughness of metal skin depends on the amount of mana spent.

“Damn, these two skills complement each other perfectly. If this is just for fatty, I wonder what mine would be.”

Emmy succeeds next. After seeing what her skill was, her eyes lit up the same way as Sam’s.

Scan: Allows the user to see detailed stats and skills of target. Mana cost: 100 Cooldown: 30 Seconds

Skill storage: Store any active skill the user has knowledge of in a slot. After the skill is used, it will be removed from the slot and free up room for another spell Number of slots available is equal to level*5, and the owner of the skill must be within eyesight of user to store.

Skill storage seems a bit overpowered when paired with scan. For instance, you can’t store the skill if you don’t know the name of it, but with scan, that issue becomes easily fixed. The only thing you have to worry about is having enough mana to cast the spell.

Half an hour later, everyone has their skills except for me. The thing that really pissed me of was the fact that Patrick got the skill Latent Talent. Any time he leveled up, he would get double the stats and double the skill proficiency. That jackass was now strutting like a peacock, his lackeys praising him to high heavens. I finally felt a thread of mana find its way into the stone and held my breath in anticipation. Everyone had two skills that synergized with each other very well, as well as fitting them as a person.

Ding

You have unlocked the skill Linguist

Linguist: Able to read and speak all languages.

What the fuck is wrong with this system? One skill, and a non-combat skill at that? Why am I the only one to be singled out like this?