Do you want power? [Yes / No]

Everything had gone dark, not if someone turned out the lights kind of dark. But rather, someone threw you in a deep basement kind of dark. He squinted his eyes, he couldn’t make out anything beyond the white prompt in front of his face.

Do you want power? [Yes / No]

That was an odd question to ask? What was power referring to? Political power? Physical power? Influential power? What was it referring to? Was it talking about taking control?

Do you want power? [Yes / No]

The prompt didn’t change. Holding steady in his vision, this wasn’t going to help him. Sitting here in this void wasn’t going to solve his problems, so he did the only thing that could help move him along, he pressed ‘yes’.

Do you know what is about to happen? Have you read the terms and conditions*? [Yes / No]

Selecting the hyperlink, he scrolled down to the end of the page, exited out and chose yes again.

Excellent, prepare to legally die. [Yes or Yes]

Tapping yes again, he wondered how many times this scene was playing out. After all, everyone was coming to this new world. There were like a quadrillion people on earth and not everyone had good relations with President Musk, so what did their nation’s leader have planned for them?

Welcome to Eternium. There is no saved data for your profile. Would you like to make a new character? Selecting ‘no’ will lead to true death. [Yes / No]

Not my problem, just find your family. Everything after that is for future me to handle. Wait, did it just say that I became legally dead? Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it, it will all work out. You’ll find your family, and then you can ponder what happened. Tapping the yes button again, the pitch black void brightened to a dull pencil gray.

Would you like to select an available starting class or undergo tests and trials to see what the right choice is for you? These tests may unlock different or even unique classes based on your ability. But be warned! Taking the tests and showing low aptitudes may reduce the number of available classes! You can exit these tests at any time! Start Game / Take Tests.

Pressing, starting the game, the world shifted from black to white as the message faded, there were hundreds of faces staring at him. Which all promptly flinched, exactly as Marlow did. There were all of him, each wearing a different set of clothes.

Most wore heavy armor and massive weapons. Others have little to no clothing, but were bound with muscle. Some, rarely, had intricate cloaks with all sorts of daggers, clubs, or linen gloves.

As he spun around, trying to figure out where the exit was, one in particular grabbed his attention. Of course, being surrounded by lions, tigers, and bears, was going to grab anyone's eye. Noticing this, the game pulled it forward, with all the other classes becoming a muted gray.

Beast Tamer (Common): The Beast Tamer, a minor subclass of tamer, mainly relies on his or her creatures both in and out of combat. They, unlike their original class, can also choose how they want their creatures to grow. Such as focusing it to grow in one aspect of itself, becoming mounts, local field bosses, or given enough time their creatures can even become raid bosses. So long as they are able to tame them, of course, and keep them alive that long.

A downside is that the Beast tamer can only have ten skills and ten spells at any given time. The Beast Tamer begins with three skills at the novice rank when entering the game, and gains two characteristic points every level and a new class skill every fifth level. Recommended Stats: Strength, Constitution, and Charisma.

Profession unlocks at level five. You have four characteristic points to spend. Please note that your starting characteristic points have been modified due to your: trials, real life capabilities, and class selection. Please allocate your remaining points now.

Marlow looked over his character sheet, which filled his vision. And just to be safe, he read the tooltips on each and every stat, to see what they did.

Strength was the stat that was related to how hard he could hit and lift heavy objects. Dexterity was how nimble and how good he would be at using ranged weapons and sleight of hand tricks. Constitution was how tough he was, which included his stamina and resistance to diseases. It included his appearance and how likely he would be tossed around at higher levels, very good for tanks, warriors, and in his case dealing with beasts.

Intelligence determined his maximum mana he could have and understand complicated concepts. As for Wisdom, it determined how fast mana regenerated, as well as helping him determine if he should do something, it would also help him combine various concepts working in tandem with intelligence to make new and improved methods. Charisma was of course how charismatic he was, such as; how likely he was to get good prices at stores, shops, and taverns, or convincing people to follow or do things for him.

Luck determines everything on an unstated level, along with his chances of finding hidden loot without looking for it. Karmic luck just had a ‘question mark’ by it. Then there was perception, it was how well he could focus and spot detail including sensory input aka how much he would feel pain. After rereading the page for the fifth time, a new pop-up occurred.

Growth in Eternium is difficult when you are doing nothing! Unlike other systems, each day will be a struggle to survive, especially at the start of your journey. Because of the difficulty, the rewards will certainly be worth your effort! Since this system is somewhat unorthodox, please note that a modifier of ‘one’ is considered a normal, healthy adult human. Your real-life capabilities have negatively impacted the constitution to a high degree!

Each point allocated will increase your modifier by one one hundredth of a point. An exception to this is when you gain your first ten points in any category. At this point, your score will increase to ‘one point one’ in that category. Moving forward, each time a category increases to the next multiple of fifty, the base score will increase by ‘one’. At fifty points, your modifier will be plus ‘two’. At one hundred points, the modifier will be plus ‘three’. For example, a character with forty-nine points in a category will have a modifier of 1.49, which is forty-nine percent stronger than an average human! Then, if they reach fifty points in the category, they will jump to a modifier of 2.0!

The discrepancy in strength is intended to push you to develop as fast as possible. Skill in the areas you focus on will quickly allow you to reach higher than others of the same level, even if you have similar stats! You can earn skill points and characteristic points through your actions, so work hard! You will need to be as powerful as possible when the first major update comes into effect. That is… if you want to survive!

“Well, then that explains the confusing point system.” Glancing back and forth between his character sheet, it then suddenly clicked for Marlow. Oh! That explains so much! Finally, being able to understand what his character sheet is saying.

Strength- 12 modifier (1.02)

Dexterity- 8 modifier (0.80)

Constitution- 14 modifier (1.04)

Intelligence- 6 modifier (0.60)

Wisdom- 12 modifier (1.02)

Charisma- 8 modifier (0.80)

Perception- 10 modifier (1.00)

Luck- 18 modifier (1.08)

Karmic luck- 0

Upon looking at his character sheet with greater understanding, Marlow of course became very worried.

“AHHH! But I got out of the way when the boulder was rolling. That has to count for something! No wonder I have such a hard time understanding things, my intelligence was put at a whopping six!!!”

Long forgotten wheels began to turn in Marlow’s head. Mainly old phrases that he heard in passing such as; ‘It’s not all bad, you’ll make it someday’, ‘Just think of all the fun things you can do in summer school’, or ‘It's ok, that’s just a number it doesn’t mean anything’. Well no longer would that be the case, if he could do something about it, he would. He dumped his four remaining points into intelligence. As he did so, he felt as though a great burden was lifted from his head.

After assigning his last point, the game politely asked him to input a name. Since he was going to be in this game until humanity was able to reclaim the world, might as well go with something he was used to, Marlow. It was accepted. Apparently it wasn’t taken yet, with everybody joining the game it wasn’t chosen, sweet!

Name: Marlow

Class: Beast Tamer

Profession: Locked

Character Level: 1

Experience: 0

Points until next level: 1,000

Hit Points: 90 (50+Constitution*10 for every point over ten)

Mana: Locked

Mana reg: Locked

Stamina: 50 (50+Strength*5 for every point over ten+Dexterity*5 for every point over ten)

Strength- 12 modifier (1.02)

Dexterity- 8 modifier (0.08)

Constitution- 14 modifier (1.04)

Intelligence- 10 modifier (1.00)

Wisdom- 12 modifier (1.02)

Charisma- 8 modifier (0.08)

Perception- 10 modifier (1.00)

Luck- 18 modifier (1.08)

Karmic luck- 0

Current class skills:

Tame (Novice I): Who’s a good boy, yes you are! Now fetch! When trying to tame a creature into joining your cause, you gain 1n%+.5n, where n = skill level. So get out there and make some friends!

Ping (Novice I): Peekaboo, I see you! Mental holding the image of one of your companions in mind, you can generate a beacon of light above them. Helping you find that missing cow on a dark and stormy night. You gain 1n=r, where n = skill level and r = radius of beacon beam above target creature. Cool down 5 minutes between uses.

Caretaker (Novice I): Come on, girl, let's go for a walk. Attending to your companion's basic needs, such as bathing, feeding, exercise, and providing shelter. Will drastically improve your odds of them listening to you, this skill only amplifies that! You gain 1n% chance, when asking a companion to follow out a new task or command, where n = skill level.

Please Note! General skills such as: Bartering, Scan, Jogging, etc. can not be learned while you have class. You can still use general skills to some degree, but you personally will never be as good as someone with that particular skill.

He did have one skill point to spend, but could delay that until the second level, when he would know better what it could do. Then a popup informed him that most skills and spells could be leveled up, but would almost always start at novice and get progressively better as they used.

When the level past nine, it would upgrade to zero of the next rank. From lowest to highest the ranks of skills were; Novice, Beginner, Apprentice, Student, Journeyman, Expert, Master Grandmaster, and Sage. He rolled his eyes, he decided to get this ball rolling, so he could finally move on from this agonizing tutorial.

He needed, no, going to find his family. Who knows how long they’ve been in this new world. After he’d done that, there would be time to mess around in this new reality.

Taking one last look at the avatar that represented his new class, he pressed the ‘yes’ button. As he did so, the world faded into motes of light, before appearing in a mob of flesh.