Degritone looks over the information before nodding his nonexistent head. Ohhh, man, a custom skill~~ Old Yorick E? Or maybe Shaco boxes? Yorick E is the reason I love sustain builds, but Shaco boxes seem so much more versatile. He lets his brain go on autopilot for a while. Ah, you're right, I could just get Pink Ward to show me Shaco boxes. There's no way he won't choose that as his skill. I'd like to make my skill now.

He's met with a text box with the default text, "Write the description of your skill," and a blank, black window. He imagines lifting his sword before a red, floating upper half of a creature with sharp teeth and long, spindly arms that end in sharp claws appears behind a target dummy, the ghoul attacking three times, and then disappearing. A similar image appears and infinitely loops on the screen.

In the text box, he writes, "Deals force damage to target area or creature within range, summoning a ghoul that attacks three times before disappearing. Heals the caster for 40% of the cast damage and 100% of the damage the ghoul does.

Scales with physical, but counts toward magic.

High mana cost," before going over it once and mentally accepting it.

Processing...

12 seconds pass.

Skill acceptable. Skill granted:

Omen of Famine lv1

Immediately after that notification, he finds himself in a similarly white void, but with a visibly gray floor and many people inside it. He can see a few people fighting, but most are staring at monitors floating about two feet out from their chest. He looks down and finds he has a body again as he gets a new notification.

You will wait here until all participants are finished.

You are the 380487th person to succeed your introduction dungeon.

You are the 2859130809th person to complete your introduction dungeon.

See your monitor for your current overall ranking.

You can see a breakdown of anyone's points by clicking their name.

You cannot die here, but your resources will regenerate at their normal speed, even if your health reaches zero.

Once all participants have finished their dungeon, you will be granted additional SP equal to the difference between your skill total and the highest skill total.

He looks down at his monitor and sees he's ranked 52nd. He scrolls up to first place and sees they have over 3200 points, which is currently increasing. "Number one hasn't completed his dungeon yet!" He realizes. He clicks their name and finds the only metrics they currently have are skill total at 205, adaptation rating at 149, and kills at over 2900. He looks around and sees some people watching other people on their monitors.

He clicks the first place person with the intent of opening a video feed of them, and finds them surrounded by the bodies of thousands of decaying humanoids laying on the ground, and even more attempting to attack him. He's covered in army gear and wielding a combat knife. "Ah, some sort of military man. Makes sense." He nods before going back to the scoreboard. He searches for his family, finding them much, much lower than him, but still increasing.

He breathes a sigh of relief before searching for his old friend, Curtis. He finds him ranked 27th and completed. He checks his friends and sees he is, in fact, on it now, while Beltag still isn't. He clicks his name, The One, and it opens a chat box.

Degritone: Hey, once we're out of here, find my house. It's south of town, past the school. If you stay on the highway, you'll be able to see a horse pen. That's me.

The One: Nah dude, I have other people to find first, and I'm nowhere near home right now.

Degritone: Dang. Alright.

He closes the chat and tests out his new skill, Omen of Famine, on himself. As he casts it, he feels something inside his body try to expand and he loses 11.2 health, before a massive, red ghoul appears above and behind him. He turns around and says, "Interesting... Bite my head off then slash at me three times." The ghoul complies and the world goes black for an unknown amount of time.

When he reawakens, he's laying beside his headless body. "So it'll regrow entire bodies to restore you to full health. Cool." He checks his new skill and sees it went up two levels from just that. He puts his 2 PP into Greatsword Mastery I. "Now, I have 100 SP and 10 stats to spend. I should probably save some for higher levels of skills and also because I might get more skills I want to level here."

He fast claps, looking up. "Though, I will definitely be using Omen of Famine always in the future. I could skip past the first few levels, but whatever, skipping higher levels would be better. I need to find Pink Ward and have him show me Jack in the Box so I can mimic it." He looks around, seeing a few nearby people looking at him. He shrugs and sends a friend request to Pink Ward.

"As for my stats..." he sits down, crossing his arms and legs. "Strength would, obviously, increase basically every skill's strength. Though, I'm pretty terrible at surviving right now. Maybe endurance again? I hate having no regen, though, though I doubt anyone who saw my regen would think it's 'no regen,' at least when compared to my max health. I'm also sure Agility would be good to increase."

He lays back, keeping his arms and legs crossed. "Increasing Stamina regen would also allow me to stay in a fight much longer, since Stamina will be my primary resource. If I make Vitality 8, S regen 4, which is effectively doubled to 8, H regen 6, which is effectively increased to 8, endurance 8, and health 8, that would be 1, 3, 1, 3, and 3, or 11 total, of my 10." He uncrosses his arms and gently slaps his belly like it's bongos a couple times.

"I don't really require that Vitality increase. Sure, I'll do that." He makes his endurance 8, his stamina regeneration vitality multiplier 4, his health regeneration vitality multiplier 6, and maximum health endurance multiplier 8. Just like last time, he feels his head cool down further, his chest heat up further, and his skin tighten, only for that tightening to fade over time.

"Now to check on..." he says, searching for lolianon on the scoreboard, which brings up Cibian. He's currently ranked 43rd and currently still in his dungeon. He goes to open his video feed, but he jumps to 32nd and the video feed doesn't come up. "Ah, he must have just completed his." A few seconds later, he appears on his friends list, and he brings up his chat.

Degritone: What was your dungeon? I was going to spectate you, but you finished just as I did.

Cibian: Rocky and hilly. I went around to some pools of water and saw a silver deer run from each of them. It was running toward a temple I couldn't see, but found after following it. Fought some ghosts and found some people around a broken object. I still don't know what it was, but fixing it summoned a level 9 demon, which I killed with the help of the other people.

I got manipulation skills for earth, water, fire, and air, as well as some Avatar-like skills, being Martial of those four elements. What about you?

Degritone: I landed in a decently flat, wooded area, fought these things called Tree Walkers (basically slow moving tree sharks,) found some magic berries that kept me full for hours, found a river I couldn't cross, met a giant named Beltag, got him to get me across the river, nearly died to these green cougars called Ambush Grimalkin, went back, trained near him for like an hour, went back, found a loli being used in some ritual, stopped the ritual by murdering all five of the guys doing it, and took her back to Beltag.

I was planning on him keeping her safe while I went and did whatever my quest was, but getting her to touch him or trust him or something was my mission, so I got surprise ejected.

Also, I made a skill called Soul Grasp using Visualization, which I'm assuming you already know about. Imagine a small, yellow orb in your chest and then imagine a yellow hand grabbing it, keeping it still, or moving it. It's a decently powerful CC ability, though it is very costly.

Nearly dying got me the Survivor path. 15 PP for a ton of regen. I really recommend getting it if you can. You need to get under 5 HP during an actual fight and survive. I doubt it counts spars. And then there's Hoarder. Get 25 unallocated stats and then spend 50 PP on the path for a 25% reduction on all object carry weight.

You almost definitely have Novice and definitely have Imagineer already, as well as Intro Conq. I found that if you get some skills to 25, you get a path. I specifically got Greatsword Mastery to 25. They have both PP rewards and (probably) skills at the end. I have 35 PP in it right now.

Also, I recommend not spending your SP until after we you get a very high level in a skill that takes forever to level up. Oh, I also got old Yorick's E. It summons a ghoul to fight for me and heals me on-cast and when it attacks. Once Pink Ward gets out, who plays Shaco, I plan on having him show me Jack in the Box, Shaco's boxes, since that's another champ I like a lot, and he's THE Shaco. No way he won't get that ability as his custom skill.

Degritone: I can't think of anything else that happened at the moment. What did you use your custom skill on?

Cibian: cool. a loli? =o

I got flight. I've always wanted to fly. Freedom is super important to me, and flying just seems like the ultimate freedom.

I remember you talking about liking regeneration a lot. Did you find a regeneration skill?

Degritone: Ye. Victoria was super cute. Silver hair and eyes.

No, sadly, though I haven't tried too hard yet. Oh, right, you know that arm thing I talked about? That got me to level 15 Visualization just getting it to 58% complete. It needs more specificity, though, and I don't know what to give it. You said you had element manipulations? How'd you get those? Did it use Visualization, or is it like Mana Manip, where you're intended to get it by just playing with the element?

Cibian: I just imagined it moving how I wanted, without visualization. You got it for mana? Give me a second.

Degritone: Sure. Just don't get your total skill level too high. Get all the juicy SP you can from having lower skill total than other people.

Degritone: Oh, right, I also saw the panties of the loli I saved. They were blue and she was really, really cute, though shy and probably traumatized from being captured and used in a ritual. Beltag said blue is expensive, so she's probably royalty.

A few seconds later, Cibian responds, and they talk about general stuff and all the assumptions they've made about the system, though they aligned with each other on every point they both thought about, before eventually switch to talking about whatever. A few hours later, Degritone notices that Pink Ward has completed his dungeon.

Degritone: Hey, Pink Ward completed his dungeon. Think you could help me find him? He's a big guy, beard, glasses, don't know how tall he is, hair about down to the top of his glasses.

Cibian: sure

They search for a long while, but they eventually realize that there's a lot more people than just the amount of people the announcement said had succeeded.

Degritone: People who failed are also here. It'll take us hundreds of hours to find him. We might as well stop. I would say to train your skills, but that would result in less SP gained. I'll interview Beltag once we get out of here for information on the system and relay it to you.

Degritone sits down and watches random people, trying to find something interesting. After multiple hours of watching random people, talking with Cibian, and lazing around, Degritone notices that his sister and dad got out of their dungeons. He tells Cibian he'll talk later, and opens the chats for his sister and dad.

After a short conversation with both, he finds out that his sister succeeded her dungeon, placing 893rd, and got an invisibility skill. His dad failed his, though without dying, and got the Introduction Failure path with 500 PP requirement and PP rewards, but no completion rewards, as well as not getting the completion PP or free stats.

He investigates their current builds, and suggests to his sister to invest heavily in Strength and Agility, with a few points every so often to endurance and health, while telling his dad to focus on strength and health.

"I hope Bo's okay," he says to himself after dealing with everything he needed with the two that got out. Hours pass and his mom is still in her dungeon. 30 hours after they first entered the dungeon, everyone gets an announcement.

Time's up. All still inside their dungeons will be forced out.

Finalizing rewards and rankings...

"I'm surprised Bo lasted 30 hours. Maybe she had a town in hers and just sat comfortably to avoid danger as much as possible." He shrugs. "I hope I get something good." He is returned to the bodiless, pure white void.

You placed 18th in adaptation rating.

You placed 89th overall.

No other notable rankings.

For placing in the top 25 in adaptation rating, you get:

50 SP

10 free stats

10 SP

5 free stats

1 free stat.

Adapter 0/100

For placing in the top 100 in overall ranking, you get:

Rising Star 0/1000

20 SP

10 free stats

2 free stats

The highest skill total was 482. Yours was 124. 358 bonus SP granted.

Grand total:

438 SP

28 free stats

Adapter 0/100

Rising Star 0/1000