The text faded away and a color-filled circle appeared at the top left edge of his vision. The colors of the rainbow danced inside it, but it was transparent enough to not hinder his vision unless he focused on it, when it turned opaque.

Next appeared a grid line on the bottom left of his vision and last, a text box.

Interactive Tutorial: Presentation

Welcome, Ricardo Black, to the Interactive Tutorial!

Trivia #1: only 0.02% of species choose the Interactive Tutorial rather than the Dedicated Tutorial!

Trivia #2: on average, the rewards on the Dedicated Tutorial are at least a hundred times better than the Interactive Tutorial!

Trivia #3: using the Interactive Tutorial on you is a waste, but the Omniheaven is merciful. Bask in its glory!

He hated it already. To be honest, all that demeaning of his species and elevation of the system was getting old real quick. If the system wanted him to hate it, it was doing a damn great job.

Feedback Module

Your feedback has been received. The system appreciates your input.

Our initial analysis determined your species to be at ease when being told of your inability to do things yourselves and having to rely on a higher power.

Further analysis and feedback show us this is not true for all individuals.

An option to turn down demeaning messages has been added to the Options Menu of all individuals of your species.

An option to turn down praises to the Omniheaven has been added to your Options Menu of all individuals of your species.

Both options have been automatically toggled for you.

His jaw opened wide. He didn't even know where to begin.

Feedback was actually appreciated, and the system used it to make things better for him if it agreed? That was... weird.

The system had thought everyone was religious fanatics at first sight? That was... fair, actually. There had been a lot of wars because of religion in the world's history, and most of those warmongering religions, at least the popular ones that he knew, told that humans were inferior and had to either rely on a higher power or work towards bettering themselves.

There were different options for different species? It almost made it look like the system gave a damn about them, as if the coming of the system was inevitable, but it didn't want to be more of an invader than needed.

It would be cute if it wasn't an invader and kidnapper that no one wanted in the first place!

Ricardo let out a scream of furious frustration in his mind at the absurdity of it all. He didn't dare do it aloud because tens of rats were now getting to the water and he didn't want to attract even more of them, especially not when his vision was filled with system stuff.

Speaking of which, the message changed.

Interactive Tutorial: Presentation

The overlay is a part of the system interface that can add things to your senses, mostly vision and hearing, by using overlay modules.

Overlay modules contain specific functions. Once added to the overlay, modules can't be removed, but they can be disabled. Most modules can be bought, as can their upgrades.

Like system messages, the content of your overlay cannot be seen or interacted with by anyone other than yourself.

This Interactive Tutorial, the Feedback Module, and the two visual modules you are seeing are now part of your overlay. They are default modules given to G-species undergoing the Directive Crucible of Valor or similar.

Ricardo skimmed it while doing his best to look in between the text to check on the rats that were already swimming to get to his bridge. He clutched his wrench firmly, prepared to attack them. He'd be damned if he let some rats expel him from his bridge.

A few seconds later, the text window disappeared and a new one appeared.

This time, the text wasn't in a box, but more naturally applied to his vision and linked to a circle that highlighted the rainbow circle on the top-left edge of his vision.

Gauge Module

Interactive Tutorial: Presentation

The Gauge Module is used to give you a visual representation of your health, stamina, and/or Qi.

Unlike most modules, multiple instances of this module can be installed, up to three.

The health gauge is a qualitative and statistical representation of how distant from death you are, as health can't be quantified. It's color-coded.

The stamina and Qi gauges are quantitative representations; filled gauges mean full. The emptier they are, the less stamina or Qi you have remaining.

Most individuals throughout the Omniverse consider the Gauge Module and its upgrades a waste of money, as one's health, stamina and Qi can be accurately felt with some training, but others appreciate the exactness that comes with it.

As a G-species who never had contact with Qi before, this system recommends you either set the gauge to show your health or Qi. The former might help you stay alive while the latter might help you unlock your potential in the future, when you might start feeling and using Qi without noticing it.

To choose, think of the gauge and what you want it to show.

Once picked, you cannot change your choice, only install a new Gauge Module.

Choose wisely.

This wasn't a choice at all. Unlocking his potential in the future would only be useful if he survived the present, and anything that might help with that was welcome. Also, if he could feel his Qi with training anyway, he didn't need the gauge. In fact, he purposefully ignored the Qi thing for now; it had many implications that might distract him from the issue at hand: the rats.

He couldn't see them from his vantage point, but he guessed they had just got to the bridge's support pillars and would start climbing them now.

But as much as he wanted to focus on the rats, the text was intrusive enough that it might interfere with his fight, and it didn't fade away when he wasn't paying attention to it, unlike the other stuff on his vision.

"Hello? System? Feedback for you: don't fill my vision with useless text messages while I'm busy!" he said.

The answer this time was much harsher.

Feedback Module

Your feedback has been received.

This system reminds you to check your Options Menu before providing further useless feedback.

This is your first and only warning. Next time you provide useless feedback, you'll be punished.

That's what he got for believing the system cared. It hadn't taught him how to access the Options Menu. How did it expect him to do it?

"Options Menu," he said, and it worked. A menu popped up in the middle of his vision, with two buttons, Overlay and Modules. He went with Overlay, which he said aloud, and a new window appeared showing multiple tabs: General Display, Audio, Gauge Module, Skills Module, Status Module, and Experience Module. He spoke, "General Display," and many options appeared.

He had the option to change windows sizes, move them around, determine how long they appeared, whether they appeared already expanded or minimized, and more. That was enough to tell him he could minimize the damn text, but the most important thing he found was an "Interaction Mode," that was set to "Voice Command (Default)." He ordered it to change to "Thought Command (Recommended)." The other options were "Touch (Not Recommended)," and all kinds of combinations between the three.

That done, he thought in his mind that he wanted the menus to disappear and they obeyed. He also willed the text window to disappear, and it minimized, becoming a small gauge icon below the grid on the bottom of his vision.

Now he could focus on his enemies. Right on time too, as the first rat appeared on the edge of the bridge. In what seemed to be the apocalypse theme, it had ridiculously sharp claws and long teeth. It also had red eyes all over its body, creepy as hell.

Ricardo swung his wrench hard at it, but it dodged with ease. After the first came, three followed, and then tens. Soon, forty or so mutated rats were on his bridge, moving at high speed towards his shelter.

They had come for his food, he realized. He kept swinging his wrench the best he could. He hit some pests, but they were just too many and reached his stash despite his attacks. They were strong and could push the concrete and metal parts covering the food with some effort, but thankfully he had covered it well enough that they couldn't just grab it and run.

You've killed a Mutated Rat — G-1

+5 XP — 2,597 total

As he killed some rats, he saw white text appear on the edge of his vision, but he couldn't focus on it now. A small part of his mind told him it had numbers and was related to XP, but the larger part just refused to believe there were experience points in his new personal hell.

When he killed the tenth rat, the thirty remaining ones let out a loud shrill, and half of them turned towards him. Then they attacked.

They moved fast. Ricardo kept moving back while swinging his wrench, but they were hard to hit when actively dodging. Not impossible, he still hit some here and there, but he still found himself retreating more and more to avoid being overwhelmed.

His retreat was to no avail. He only killed five of them before the other ten surrounded him. From then on, he had a choice to make, give up on his food and run, or fight for it.

Yet again, it was no choice at all. If monsters like these rats were all around the city, and it looked like it, he had no chance of finding any more food unless he was willing to eat rat meat. He wasn't. Part of him called himself a fool for putting his pride in front of survival, but he had three more arguments.

First, who knows which other animals might appear to fight against him for the rat meat. Second, if he would have to fight for food, it was better to do so for food that wasn't as repulsive as rat meat. Not that the canned food was that far from it. Third, if he had to fight for food eventually, what better moment to do so than against some weak rats?

In fact, this was as good an opportunity as any he would get to fight in a controlled environment against a limited number of enemies. He simply couldn't pass this chance. And if he died like this, it only meant he would have died later anyway.

Ricardo steeled himself. Instead of stepping back, he stepped forward, swinging the wrench on a rat, breaking half its bones and leaving it to die on the ground. Breaking free from the encirclement, he ran to his shelter. By then, the rats there were a couple of pieces of concrete away from the food. He swung his weapon at them with abandon, glad for the current lack of ceiling, jumped at the pile of barely covered food, and let out a primal roar of pure rage.

It was his! His food! His lifeline!

He would fight for it to death!

Like a wild man in the stone age, he protected his territory and made his resolve clear through the uncontrolled vocal sound. Something came to him then, and he raised his wrench, holding it with both hands, letting out yet another roar.

Immediately after, he swung the wrench down, taking down two rats with it.

That was enough. The other rats retreated, making a half-circle around him. He held the wrench two-handedly again, this time in front of himself, and yelled. The rats stepped back, then turned tails and ran away.

Skill received: (Common) Intimidation 1

The system text appeared on the bottom left edge of his vision, white transparent text that was already fading away as he read it, just like the XP messages had. Ricardo read the message but ignored it for now, instead watching the rats with impassive eyes, adrenaline pumping yet again. When they disappeared at the edge of the bridge, he let out a painful grunt because of the pain on his foot, quickly repaired his food stash, then worked on finishing his shelter.

Meanwhile, new animals appeared on the streets, river, and skies, sometimes roaming by themselves, sometimes fighting against each other. A few came to the gap between street and bridge multiple times, kind of threatening to cross the gap somehow, but he defaulted to intimidation mode, roaring and making himself large, and they all left. Fortunately, the flying ones didn't approach after the butterflies.

After finishing the shelter, he had enough materials remaining to increase the edges of the bridge by one foot. And with that, he was finally done. His new shelter was ready.

That done, he opened his food stash and started going through each thing in there, looking for tears in the packages that might've let out any smell the rats had used to detect it. He had been a fool before when he just put everything in there without checking.

He found two with micro-tears, a can of tuna and a snack pack. He opened them, ate as fast as he could as to not attract new monsters, then threw the packages on the river.

Finally, he turned to the icon still on the bottom edge of his vision and focused on it, willing it to expand so he could go through the damned tutorial.

The "choose wisely" line was still there, mocking him. And that's the moment he realized the system was a liar.