After Leo said his farewells to Kylyhagaard he found himself falling through darkness and before he knew it he was standing in a field of what appeared to be crops. Leo took a moment to stabilize himself after the disorienting travel. When his head finally stopped spinning he thought back to the last thing he saw before he was whisked away. ‘I’m guessing that is a no to that question with how contorted his face was. And I think he was about to say no.’

Unsure of what that information actually meant in the larger context of things it was most likely irrelevant to Leo’s survival. Leo filed the information away for later and took stock of his current situation.

In every direction he looked everything appeared exactly the same as Earth. He stood in what he assumed was a field of crops as there were identical plants evenly spaced planted in numerous rows. Just outside of the field he was standing in was a neatly maintained dirt road, if a dirt road could be called neat. Off on the edge of the horizon he could spot what were probably hills, but no mountains.

This puzzled him as he was told that he should be arriving in a newly created world where the rest of the humans and other races should have gone after the Tutorial. He soon brushed it off as this held no sway over his path to his goals, only a minor distraction. Leo took a moment to gather and center himself by focusing on the wind as it brushed against his skin and the sounds of nature that greeted him.

“Hmmm. It’s feeling a bit breezy.”

As he admired the beauty of nature the motion sickness finally caught up with him and he found himself bent over releasing what little food he had left all over the nearest plant.

“At least it has food now.” he joked to himself, feeling a bit better now that the sickness had faded.

He checked his weapons but froze when he found nothing but the scraps of his clothes. Not even his backpack was with him. Panic began to settle in until he remembered that maybe there was an inventory system.

“Inventory” he spoke aloud and a grid-like screen appeared in his vision, but to his dismay it was empty.

“I guess I lost my gear. Do I still have my magic?” he thought out loud. When he searched for his Mana it was there in his body, but now it was so much more. He summoned a Fireball and shot it into the air to confirm it still felt the same.

Leo looked up at the sky and saw that it was mid day before he noticed a blue box in the corner of his vision, blinking. He commanded it to open and found numerous blue screens waiting for him.

Congratulations for completing The Waves. For your stellar accomplishments here are your rewards.

Title Granted: Survivor of The Waves

As one of the elite few, of newly integrated beings to have survived The Waves you have been given privileged access to the System Shop annually.

Bonus: You gain an additional 50% to experience gained from killing monsters, ???, ???, and an additional 50% to experience earned on Dungeon Worlds.

Condition: You will lose access to this Title until the currently assigned System Quest is completed. You will have until the Quest has expired to complete it otherwise the Title will be lost until you complete the next System Quest assigned.

Status Screen Unlocked.

Name: Leo Flowers Race: Human Class: None Level: 1 (0/100) Health: 134 Regen: 53/hr Mana: 1800 Regen: 155/hr Stamina: 130 Regen: 61/hr Strength: 6 Constitution: 6 Agility: 7 Endurance: 7 Intelligence: 12 Wisdom: 10 Perception: 11 Soul: 15 Titles: Survivor of The Waves

Traits: Mana Lake lvl 1, Soul Split lvl 1

Skills: Mana Manipulation lvl 1, Fireball lvl 1, Flamethrower lvl 1, Kinetic Push lvl 1, Force Field lvl 1 Lines: None

Experience: 2,033,000

Stat Points: 3 Line Points: 0

“I finally got to see my status screen huh. It actually looks quite pathetic compared to what I went through.” he finished with a sigh. “Now let’s see what everything does.” as he read through the help screens for each stat.

Strength: This stat affects how much weight you can lift and how much force your strikes can exert. Minorly affects how much health you have.

Constitution: This stat affects how much health you have and how much damage you take from various attacks. Also affects health regeneration and stamina regeneration.

Endurance: This stat affects how much damage your body can endure and how survivable it is. Also affects health regeneration and stamina regeneration.

Agility: This stat affects how quickly your body can move.

Intelligence: This stat affects how much damage spells do and minorly affects mana pool.

Wisdom: This stat affects how much mana you have. Also affects mana regeneration and mana channeling.

Perception: This stat affects how much you see and your ability to process what you see.

Soul: This stat affects how much mana you have and how fast you can channel mana. Also how much mana you regenerate.

He commanded the screen to show him how much experience it would take to level his Intelligence and the screens before him changed.

Intelligence: 12

1,833 experience to next level.

Would you like to level Intelligence?

Yes/No

He selected ‘Yes’ and waited to see if he felt any different and when he didn’t feel anything he checked how much it would cost for the next level.

Intelligence: 13

2,107 experience to next level.

Would you like to level Intelligence?

Yes/No

He selected ‘Yes’ and checked his status screen for any other noticeable changes.

Name: Leo Flowers Race: Human Class: None Level: 1 (0/100) Health: 134 Regen: 53/hr Mana: 1850 Regen: 155/hr Stamina: 130 Regen: 61/hr Strength: 6 Constitution: 6 Agility: 7 Endurance: 7 Intelligence: 14 Wisdom: 10 Perception: 11 Soul: 15 Titles: Survivor of The Waves

Traits: Mana Lake lvl 1, Soul Split lvl 1

Skills: Mana Manipulation lvl 1, Fireball lvl 1, Flamethrower lvl 1, Kinetic Push lvl 1, Force Field lvl 1 Lines: Starter(0/100), Newly Integrated(0/200), Progenitor of Mana (0/10,000)

Experience: 2,033,000

Stat Points: 3 Line Points: 0

“Only my Mana changed visibly. I wonder if that was all it does or if it influences things that are not so easily observable. I guess only the future holds that answer.”

To confirm that the two Traits he picked up in the System Shop transferred properly he opened up their information screens.

Soul Split:

Grants the ability to sacrifice 50% of your current stats to split your soul in two. All experience, skills, stats, titles, Lines, and quests gained will be shared equally across all souls. Health and Mana will be separate to each soul. When one soul dies stats across all souls will be reduced by 20% and a 1 year cooldown will be placed on Soul Split.

Requires (500 * number of souls) base mana to cast.

Current souls active: 1

Mana Lake:

Grants 5 + (.5 * skill level) maximum mana multiplier applied after all other mana buffs.

“Damn. It just had to use base Mana as the cost point. Well, I guess the System has thought of everything. I actually don’t even want to think of how difficult that would be to have like 20 Leos running around with 100 hp. I’d probably die in an instant.”

Since all his weapons were gone his only option was magic. Leo started to think about what he would need and how he should go about fighting if he was to only use his current magical loadout.

He came to the conclusion that he should get mostly magical stats along with some Agility and Endurance because he was going to be running a lot to keep his distance from his enemies as he did not have a spell for it yet.

As he was looking over his Status Screen again he noticed that the Lines category now contained items. He selected the Starter option but nothing happened. Puzzled, he called out “Lines help” and a help screen appeared.

Lines are special branches of power that offer potentially greater rewards than stats and classes or they could be less. Lines are offered based on someone’s actions and achievements and usually the greater the achievement the greater the power boost. Line points can be acquired through System Quests, and achievements towards the end of a specific Line. Experience points can be used at a 10:1 ratio to complete a Line. Typical Line rewards are stats and skills.

Leo wanted to test the rewards from a completed Line and placed 1000 experience points into [Starter] and he was greeted with surprising returns.

Starter Line completed.

As you start your path through the System a small boon is given to help you through your struggles.

Plus 3 free stat points.

The reward brought a smile to Leo’s face and a fist pump to the air.

He wanted to immediately finish the other Lines, but paused because he realized how inefficient it would be to gain free stat points when the current cost to upgrade a stat was negligible.

First he spent 100xp to level up and he gained 2 stat points.

This confirmed that it didn’t matter when you leveled up as long as you didn’t spend the stats meaninglessly. He finished leveling himself to 9 before stopping.

“I need to gather more information about classes before I level to 10 to make sure I do the most to ensure I have the best chances of getting a good class.”

Next on Leo’s list was getting his stats to the point where he could cast Soul Split once and if everything checked out, twice.

It cost him 114,887 xp to get his Soul to 25 and base mana to 510. After a few breaths he activated Soul Split and waited. He was half expecting his vision to be split between two sets of eyes, but when he opened his eyes he just saw a naked reflection of himself staring back at him.

1.”Hello me?”

2.”Hello, other me.”

Both of them jumped back in shock and stared at each other. After a few seconds and no sense of threat Leo continued his inspection of his other soul.

1.“So can you hear what I’m thinking?”

2.”Nope. Can you feel this?” the second one said before punching himself.

Soon after first Leo saw a blinking red outline of a body. When he clicked on it he got a notification.

Warning: Soul #2 has taken -1 damage.

1.”I just got a notification saying you took one damage.”

2.”That’s helpful. What should we be calling each other and our future selves?”

1.”I was thinking Leo then just which number soul you are. So I’d be Leo-1 and you’d be Leo-2.”

2.”That makes sense. What do you say we level those stats so we aren’t sitting at 70 hp.” he said with a wide grin.

1.”Should we just get the minimum stats required and then split again?”

2.”I don’t see why not, although let’s try and get to 4 souls and see how many points we have left. We don’t know where we are and the extra manpower may be needed.”