Flashes of pain. That was all Alex remembered for the unknown number of hours he was unconscious undergoing the connection procedure. He had to admit he was more than a little pissed off at this. They’d said being unconscious would stop him from feeling any of the pain. He tried to force himself to remain calm, as he knew it wasn’t their fault. They had warned him of this being a possibility, and then done what they could to alleviate it for him. Unbeknown to him, outside the device he was currently entombed in was chaos. The sheer amount of energy being radiated by his body was causing havoc to everything in the vicinity. Arcs shot out from the chamber with increasing frequency, hitting anything nearby. Rain fell and refrozen in sheets across the whole room as the elements themselves seemed to react to the phenomena taking place. The Frigidians were shocked by just how much power was being released by Alex. Yas thanked the Cold that they had thought to insulate their position, otherwise their little hideaway would currently be lit up like a pulsating beacon, bringing with it the eye of the very people they were trying to hide from. As they entered the 20th hour since Alex had gone into the chamber, everything seemed to slow down for a few moments. Reaching a crescendo, the power emanating spiked, then stopped abruptly. The Frigidians all ran back into the room, looking inquiringly at Yas.

“It appears one way or another that the time is upon us. From what I was able to monitor, Alex appeared stable throughout the entire process. I am unsure as to how he will react as he awakens. I would advise taking some form of cover as we have never before witnessed what the Awakening does to someone of his age.” Yas warned, giving a pointed look at Nieve.

“Yas is correct. You should all take refuge. I alone will be here when he reawakens, and I alone will bear the brunt of any issues. This was all my idea, and I will not allow you to risk yourselves any further on my behalf.” Nieve ordered, the tone in their voice brokering no argument.

With that, the others all filed out, each stopping to pat Nieve on the shoulder, or offer a word of luck. Nieve slowly approached the chamber, taking care to monitor the readings still showing on the front of the device. As they drew closer, suddenly Nieve’s every sense told them to duck. Acting on pure instinct Nieve hit the deck just as the device seemed to explode outwards, shrapnel flying through the air where their chest had been not a moment before. Standing in the center of the carnage was Alex, his eyes blazing.

“Nieve, you and I need to haVE WORDS! THAT FUCKING HURT!” His voice raising to an ear splitting bellow that would never have been possible when he first arrived. Nieve was bodily pushed back by the force, which surprised them both. “Oh shit, sorry Nieve. I…”

“Alex, take a deep breath and count to 5. Let the feelings you have settle again before you attempt to talk again. Right now you are potentially lethal to everyone here, including yourself” Nieve hissed in shock. They had expected a power spike after his awakening, but this was far in excess of all their projections.

Alex’s eyes widened a this, and he took a few steps back raising his hands placatingly. Complying with his orders, he closed his eyes and took a deep steadying breath. He immediately felt the power begin to dissipate almost to nothing. Opening his eyes again, he looked to Nieve with an apologetic grimace.

“I have no idea what happened there, I’m so sorry Nieve, I just woke up so angry. The pain was so pervasive whilst I was asleep, it felt like it was never going to end…” He trailed off as flashes and little dancing lights in the corners of his eyes drew his attention. “Erm… what are these lights in my eyes? It's getting so as I can barely see…”

“I remember this sensation myself. It is the connection forging the visual aspects you should have. It should pass shortly, but you may find you get a very bad headache.” Whittaker said as they emerged from the doorway behind Nieve. “Whilst Nieve may be the de facto leader of this little group of us, I…” Whittaker gestured to themself “I am the expert when it comes to what happens next. You and I are gonna become very well acquainted over the next couple of days Alex.”

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all Whittaker, really, like could you have made that sound any creepier?” Alex replied with a grin.

“You have nothing to fear from me apart from copious amounts of pain as I whip you into something passable for our mission my friend.” Whittaker fired back also grinning widely.

Before the little verbal jousting match could continue, Alex grunted as it felt like his head was about to split open. He gripped at the sides of his head so hard the nails on his hands dug into the flesh of his temples and cheeks slightly.

“YEeeeaaargh! We seriously need to work on you guys perceptions if this is ‘just’ a headache! This feels like someone just squirted expanding foam into my brain, but also filled it with razor wire and lemon juice. FUCK!”

Seeing that he was still in control this time, Nieve and Whittaker shared a smirking glance, knowing that all the pain would soon be forgotten as the connection finished forging. They were both looking forward to seeing an outsider experience something they had known all their lives. Within a few seconds Alex stood upright again, little rivulets of blood trickling down his face, but the wounds themselves already sealed over and almost gone.

“Welcome to the fold Alex, grab a seat whilst you adjust and allow us to answer anything you need to ask.” Whittaker smiled, pulling a seat over for Alex. Alex blinked. Accepting the seat, but barely paying it a mind as he allowed the new flood of information to wash over him the same way he always did whenever he started a new game back at home. His vision was now augmented with numerous overlapping translucent fields of text, each one pulsating slowly to gain his attention. Knowing he needed to get up to speed as soon as possible, he started to eagerly devour the prompts one after another.

Veil connection complete. Species recognised as Human(Nexus). First member of species to forge connection in over 500 years, new template accepted. Any further Human(Nexus) connections will follow new protocol. Pain reduced hereafter.

Congratulations Alex. Welcome to the Veil. You have our apologies for the discomfort suffered during your connection. Your species should not have been disconnected from Us in the first place, but now that you have been reconnected we can use you as the basis for new connections your Species makes to Us. Your species is roughly 5 centuries behind the other Realms currently. Whilst we are unable to change this fact, we can make it easier for you to catch back up. To this end, every Nexian Human will receive 50 years of increased gain to all aspects of your growth. Try not to make this well known to the other Realms, otherwise they might get slightly upset. We have reset all illnesses and injuries present before connection, or that you sustained during the process. We will do this for any new connections as well, but only once. After that, what happens will need to be fixed by you as individuals. For now, we are going back to trying to figure out who cut you away from Us for so long, just as you were beginning to show true potential. We will be monitoring you especially closely as the first back into the fold Alex. Good luck on solving your upcoming mission. We can offer no direct assistance unfortunately, but please stop the impending collapse. We like existing as we are, the darkness is terribly… mean.

Oh, one last thing. Tell Nieve that her suspicions are corre… Ow, okay, can't even finish that sentence. But We are sure you can tell what it says, right Alex?

As soon as he finished reading the first box, it vanished. His mind reeled at just how much the entities of the Veil had just told him, directly, or indirectly. Firstly, until fairly recently, his universe had been connected to the Veil the same as the Frigidians and all the other realms. Secondly, everything that had been told to him by Nieve and the others was correct. His realm had been forcibly cut off from the Void to put them behind, and leave them more vulnerable. Thirdly, the Veil had been actively aware of this fact and unable to act itself, other than to hunt for the culprit. This confused Alex, as surely the Veil had control of everything? SO who or what had stopped it from helping sooner, and was keeping it from helping more now? The second window was now pulsing slightly more irritatingly, demanding attention.

Name

Alex Colt

Stats

Species

Human(Nexus)

Power

1

Age

27

Vitality

1

Level

1 (Bonus Active)

Finesse

1

XP

1/100

Mentality

1

Judgement

1

Charm

1

He had STATS? This was awesome. He’d always loved RPGs back home, and apparently all life should have been like it from the start. Beaming at this, Alex looked up and saw all of the Fridigians stood staring at him.

“Oh hey guys, sorry, I had a message from the Veil that needed reading, and I have a STAT SHEET NOW!” He shouted in glee.

“Did you just say that the Veil spoke to you directly Alex?” Nieve asked, their face an image of pure wonder.

“Er… Yeah? They explained everything and backed your story of outside influence etc. They also said we are about 500 years behind the rest of the realms. Oh and we are called Nexian Humans, which I guess lines up with what you said about my Universe being the nexus of power from other realms. Oh, also I have been fully healed, and my data will be used in every Nexian Human connection from now to make sure it goes smoothly.” Alex blurted out everything in a rush, still riding high on knowing he could now level up, and had stats and stuff. Luckily he remembered not to say anything about the bonus increase his species gained for being so far behind.

“Alex… The Veil doesn’t just speak to people like that normally. It takes years of devotion and growth to get noticed normally. Did the Veil say anything else to you?” Yas piped up.

“Yeah, They started saying something about Nieve’s suspicions being correct? I guess that means that the council are to blame. The Veil said that they were in pain for trying to tell me that, that’s weird right?” Alex responded, voicing his question to the group.

“The Veil actually tried to directly intervene? This is bad. It means we need to get you trained up and for our mission to succeed. If the Veil is willing to risk breaking its own rules, things must be worse than even we know.” Nieve breathed, wringing their hands.

“Nieve, nothing has changed.” Whittaker said, placing a hand on Nieves shoulder. “We just know that we have been correct this entire time. That's good, now we can focus fully on completing what we set out to do.” Turning to Alex, they continued “Tomorrow, your training with me will start. I am trained in multiple forms of melee and ranged combat, and even if you have no affinity with the Frigid, I can teach you much.”

“So you’re saying tomorrow will be my training montage scene? Hah, Awesome!” Alex laughed.

With that, Alex was shown where his bed was at the back of the room, and the others filed out to let him rest and recover. Unable to sleep, Alex bought his stats page back up again to stare at. He noticed that each of the stats would expand into an info box when he thought about them.

Power:- A measure of a person's overall strength. It affects their athleticism and how much damage they are able to inflict.

Vitality:- A measure of a person’s innate resistance to damage. It affects their HP and ability to withstand spells and attacks.

Finesse:- A measure of a person’s overall speed and accuracy. It affects both run speed and attack speed, how accurate attacks and abilities are, and how often critical hits occur.

Mentality:- A measure of a person’s overall mental fortitude. It affects intelligence, information retention and recollection.

Judgement:- A measure of a person’s overall awareness. It affects wisdom, sanity and insight.

Charm:- A measure of a person’s overall charisma. It affects a person’s leadership ability, their persuasiveness and eloquence.

Now armed with a little more information, Alex found his mind drifting through exactly who he wanted to be in this new world. He wanted to be able to protect everyone he cared about, and anyone who was unable to care for themselves. He could only imagine what would happen if everyone on his Earth suddenly gained access to the Veil. Criminals with the ability to become supervillains? Hell, even normal people would happily give in to their darker instincts given half a chance. He knew that just a few years ago he would likely have gone somewhat that way himself. Steering himself away from such thoughts for now, he went back to the small stat window, determined to learn all it had to offer before tomorrow. After another reread of the stat descriptions so that they remained embedded in his mind, he realised that there was a little expand icon at the bottom. Thinking about it caused the window to immediately expand to cover his entire vision in a translucent screen. His stats stayed where they were towards the top left, but now there were more windows visible, but unavailable for further examination currently. He could see the headers; Affinities, Class and Skills. He bounced with a little joy at this sight, as he could easily infer what they could mean based on his prior knowledge. It looked like Whittaker was going to have some serious explaining to do during their training tomorrow, as Alex wanted to take full advantage of what was now available to him.

After fully exhausting all of the available options on his new interface, Alex rose from his bed and decided to put a theory to the test. He had been mildly interested in fitness and health, but now that he had a number to grow, he wanted to see if his previous experience was worth anything. He dropped down into a pushup position and began to work out, quickly realising he was actually weaker now than before his transition. What had happened to that power he had shown when he came out of the chamber?? Confused, but even more determined to see what he could do, he kept at it. For the first hour or so he just rotated through his old bodyweight circuit. Pushups, situps, dips, squats and pullups were his old staple routine. He realised that all of his numbers were lower than before, but his recovery seemed to be increasing rapidly. It used to take him 20-30 seconds between sets, but by the end of that first hour he was back to full stamina within 20 seconds. He sat back on his bed, now suitably tired when a notification pinged up in the stat screen:

+1 Power

+1 Vitality

“Oh FUCK yes! I hoped it was going to be that easy. Ohhh Whittaker won't know what hit them!” Alex laughed to himself as he willed the notification away and turned in to sleep ready and waiting for whatever would come tomorrow.