Chapter 1

I was born 23 years before the end of my world. Our world, like so many others, I found out later, reached the point where it was integrated into the multiverse and like what often happens the System judged humanity and found us… lacking. You see when a world is integrated into the System, and the multiverse at large, it examines your history since the formation of your world and since your species gained sentience. Our species was found to be decidedly aggressive, greedy, and self serving so we were integrated and then punished. 

Worlds that are punished face varying degrees of challenges that make surviving the first ten years of integration more difficult. Let me be clear though, all worlds being integrated face challenges, it's just that usually they are facing challenges outside their own world. Punished worlds, known as apocalypse worlds, are often turned into hellish landscapes by various means. Any apocalypse you have ever heard of is a possibility from nuclear wastelands, to the world going into a global ice age, or like what happened to my world a zombie apocalypse.

The worlds that are integrated but not punished typically get a more "normal" game-like experience where their world is protected during the tutorial period following System integration. For community hubs, as these safe worlds are often referred to, the people can still live relatively normal lives while diving into specially curated danger zones commonly referred to as dungeons. These danger zones provide loot, technology, and experience to allow your race to grow stronger. For those of us in an apocalypse world… nowhere is safe unless you band together and create a place but even then it's not guaranteed you will wake up from day to day. We don't have carefully curated dungeons with level recommendations, quick escape stones, or resurrection blessings that bring us back from the dead if we fail. Apoc worlds turn INTO one big dungeon that you live in 24/7.

Luckily our world turned into a zombie apoc world and a relatively tame one at that. We got the classic walking dead zombies that can only be killed by heavy brain trauma and while there were several types of undead they evolved slowly over time and still remained fairly slow. Their bites could turn you, unless you gained a status immunity from your class or found/bought a zombie virus immunity booster, but they were not an absolute death sentence. The biggest issues we had were the portals that would randomly pop up every 20-30 days and spawn more zombies but from other apoc worlds that had already been lost. The System, as part of our punishment, would transport the dead from other worlds to ours so that we could work off our debt while maintaining the pressure of our imposed punishment.

The System was fair at least since the bigger risks the better the rewards we could earn. I know quite a few people who survived the entire ten years not ever having reached level ten, which to put things in perspective the average survivor level was about 57 after our Tutorial period ended. I know a fair number of people who never so much as leveled to level 2 but they aren't generally treated very well, in our world or any other, as the System bringing us a game like system also brought a new hierarchy in the form of levels, class rarity, and the almighty credit. 

Levels are pretty obvious since the stronger you are the more power you have over anything and anyone around you. The multiverse is very much a "might makes right" reality and even though there are a number of Empires and super worlds that have laws and governments in place that provide a certain standard of rights to their citizens… it's high levels that keep those Empires safe and allow the governmental system to do so. You either join an Empire, clan, or superworld to survive within a known framework or you create your own to try and instill your own will on the worlds. You CAN go solo or join one of the raider groups, but it's not recommended as it definitely makes it difficult to ever go straight.

Class rarity is another hierarchy that different peoples use to divide and categorize their people. Common classes are… common. These are your bread and butter every day grunt work force no matter if you have a combat, crafting, or support class if it's common you are going to struggle to do more than live comfortably. Most of our world's population were offered, and accepted these classes.

Uncommon classes are your low level management types in the new worlds. These are your squad leaders, your shift managers, you are just a step above the commoners but still near the bottom of the heap. About 1 in 100 people were offered this rarity level of classes.

Rare classes are where things start to get interesting as these classes can have wildcard abilities or talents that let you move up higher in the standings if you get enough levels. These are your store managers, your platoon sergeants, your head crafters with apprentices under him learning their crafts. Only 1 in 500 people were offered this rarity level of class.

Epic classes are generally the top of the heap in most worlds as these classes tend to have "game breaking" skills, abilities, and talents that can greatly change the world around you. These are your CEOs, your governmental leaders, and your battalion commanders. Generally epic are the highest classes that many worlds ever see as higher classes are often heavily sought after and recruited by much more powerful groups. 1 in 50,000 people in my world were offered epic classes.

Legendary classes are the rarest of the rare that any apoc world can hope to see. We are talking 1 in 100 billion odds of being offered and these classes are often either heavily recruited or heavily hunted down depending on the class and what large power groups hear about it. Not to mention these classes are so insanely overpowered at all levels that often the person's own species will often hunt them down to kill or try to control them. My world was lucky when we got two different legendary classes, even more so when both classes survived until the Tutorial ended. One of the classes was recruited by a high end Apoc Hunting clan, these clans often reclaim apoc worlds for huge rewards by either claiming the worlds for themselves or selling them to the highest bidders. The other player joined the Empire of Light, the Empire that bought our world, when they added our world to their super planet.

The last level of classes, and the rarest, are the Unique classes. These are often a 1 in 500 trillion chance class that has the ability to bring sweeping changes to the multiverse. Each Unique is a class that is only ever offered once to players and even if the class is declined or the player permanently dies that class is forever removed from the class offerings of the System. There are 5 known surviving Unique classers in the multiverse and they are all high level untouchable existences that can do whatever they want. Surprisingly they all seem pretty focused on following their path to immortality, which all System players can follow, but for Unique classers we don't just become immortal we truly become inducted by the System as Gods among the multiverse. There are 9 known Unique gods, 92 Legendary gods, hundreds of minor Epic gods, and an uncountable number of all rarity of immortals Rare and lower.

I was offered the first Unique class in the last 10 millenia and luckily I was paranoid enough to keep that shit to myself! I had assumed, correctly, that higher rarity meant more eyes watching and more potential trouble so I disguised myself as a rare or epic class depending on the situation I found myself in and it has saved my ass many times over the last ten years.

It's not all downsides though as when you are integrated into the System you get various benefits as well such as a gamelike interface that allows you to grow stronger and walk the path to immortality… if you are lucky enough to survive that long. You also get all kinds of loot, adventures, and new places to explore, again if you can survive long enough. Our world was given a ten year Tutorial and we just finished it. I am writing this journal or book or whatever as I am relaxing after visiting another safer world before figuring out what comes next.

My name is Emil Mercator and I am the first Unique class holder to survive my species System integration Tutorial in the last 10,000 years and this is my story. My class is the Merchant Manufacturing class and it's both exactly what you imagine while also being broken beyond belief in all the best ways.