Chapter 1. Disruption of a daily routine

Hi! I am Daniel Hugo Martinez. You might be here expecting a great story. A hero of the fairy tales or just a man who is infinitely strong. Well, I might have to disappoint you by saying this because I don't know what kind of a story this will be. Even when I woke up this morning, I didn't know about the hell that we would be plunged into nor that I would live past the day to tell you this story.

Well, until yesterday I knew what would happen with my life. I had it all planned out for quite some time now and I had a strict daily routine to avoid discrepancies. A wake-up time, a morning routine, a breakfast menu, study and work time till the evening with relaxation breaks and a lunch break. Evening exercises, healthcare routine and a study pattern till dinner. After dinner is the time for miscellaneous work and prep for the next day, including laundry.

But, today screamed WRONG right from the start!

Tring~.... Triing~…. Triiing~…. Triiiiing~

I woke up in the morning, with a severe migraine, to the alarm that sounded louder and clearer by the second. Argh...Did I spend too much time on the screen yesterday?

Today was supposed to be a regular school day with no events planned, at least the same as every other school day in my life till now, but one look at the clock told me otherwise. I slept through the first alarm and that would mean I have to skip a few things in my morning routine. Ahh…What a lousy start to the day!

With a low groan, I took two pills for my migraine before proceeding to check my temperature, weight and height. After that I started to get ready for my school. Picking out today's uniform, which was prepared yesterday, I started to make breakfast. A sandwich, with the bread cut into 4cmx4cm squares, scrambled eggs between the buttered slices, paired with a fruit salad. While eating, I made a note of all the details with attachments on my phone.

As the television turned on, I was greeted with the obituary of the head-priestess of an Aztec temple and several trends in the stock market.

After everything, I made my way out of the apartment to the parking, choosing my bicycle as the transport to compensate the sleep-in.

The way to school was oddly uninterrupted with minimal traffic. I made my way to my class under several hushed conversations concerning me.

"Hey! Isn't he the guy who recently got rich due to an app?"

"Yeah, he transferred to our school at the start of the school year."

"I heard he is in your class, how is he?"

"Well, that's true, but God… is he a condescending asshole? He doesn't even speak to us properly. Even the teachers leave him be."

"Aww…That face makes my day. How can anyone be so handsome!"

"Yeah, he's the complete package. Looks, brains and money, he's got them all. I can't believe he is in his 3rd year of high school like us."

"Hmm…Why doesn't he look happy though? If it was me, I would be dancing on the moon!"

"What do you know? Why would he be unhappy?"

"Maybe he's lonely. I heard that he used to be in the orphanage until he got that money from the app recently. Lost his parents when he was young is what I heard."

I sat in my place and put on my headphones to block the noise. It's not like what they are saying is wrong, maybe a little exaggerated, but a month of these whispers take a toll on you.

Anyways, as I was listening to my usual playlist while gazing out of the window, I felt my headphones being moved from their rightful spot to replace the loud voice of a young man.

"Hey Danny! What's up, bro? Are you listening to anything new or is it the same old?", Benjamin Willis barged into my playlist as if it's the most natural thing to do. He was your regular baseball team ace. Tall, slightly muscular, short hair and blonde. A social bee. And annoyingly nosy!

He is among the only few who try to mingle with me. Well, he is one of the two who do that.

"How many times have I told you not to isolate yourself, man? You should acknowledge those around you and spread those seeds of intellect." He said slightly raising his arms up to the roof like a praying man. Yeah, I know, but he thinks it's cool to enact the details.

"Ain't that right, sis?" He turned toward the second person who associates herself with me. Abigail Willis. Benjamin's twin.

Ms. Willis was the student seated right behind me. A lady of appropriate height and a decent head on the top, unlike her brother, and was said to be the top student until her second year. "Don't bully him, Ben. You can't force him out of his zone." she said, clearly understanding the troubles I was facing.

"Hey, I'm not bullying him! I'm just trying to have a conversation with my best bud. You tell her, Danny." He turned to me with an expectant look.

"Don't declare us friends one-sidedly, Willis. And give them back to me." I said, putting an end to it.

"You're hurting my feelings, Danny." He said while extending his arms to return my headphones and as I was about to take them from him, a severe migraine assaulted me for the second time today. The pain was gradually increasing by the second and I clutched my head with my hands hoping to prevent it from exploding and I could hear worrying voices from the twins slowly fading into the background. Just as I thought I couldn't take any more, the pain gradually subsided but a slight tremor replaced it. Only this time, it was felt by everyone in the building and not just me.

Right after the tremor, was a hallucination! Man, what is going on today? Did I hit my head hard yesterday?

A transparent panel filled with strings of words appeared right in front of my eyes.

LVL. 0

Daniel H Martinez

HP: 100%

MP: 100%

Stats +

Skills +

Equipment +

Inventory +

I looked at it for a few seconds to let the concept sink in. This was a very familiar concept in the present web novel trend, a system. I looked around to verify the possibility of brain damage.

"What the hell? Is everyone seeing this?" Several such exclamations confirmed the sudden intrusion of a system into our lives, and the status of my brain.

So, with the system's existence confirmed, it was time to check the details it presented. One look at it showed that all the information it could provide was organised into a very simple format, grouped and condensed.

I clearly had no skills, equipment and nothing stored in the inventory. However, there was no further explanation whatsoever. I guess that's for me to figure out.

I next went on to check my stats and to be honest, they looked pretty good except for that little blip at the end.

Strength (STR) – 18

Agility (AGI) – 23

Intelligence (INT) – 83

Mana – 4

The abysmal scale of my mana reserves dealt the final blow to this day's craziness. After moments of internal rage, I turned to the twins to confirm the damage.

"Hey, Willis, what's the value of your mana reserve?"

"17" – Mr. Willis replied.

"28" – Ms. Willis replied.

"What? Why's yours so high?" Mr. Willis complained.

Ms. Willis shrugged before turning to me and asking, "What's yours?"

"I'd rather not say, it's embarrassingly low." I said, seeing no point in hiding the quality of my mana reserves, to which she just nodded, but DAMN. It seems I really did have disgracefully low mana reserves.

Another fit of rage later, I was forced to move on to the more urgent matters, postponing the matter of evaluating and understanding my stats to a later, relaxed time. I opened my phone to check for information online but there was no receptionand, in a situation needing real-time updates, we couldn't make do with the old downloads. After encountering the same problem in the twins' phones, I started to make my way out of the classroom with the twins at my tail.

"Hey, where are you going? Don't you think it's better to stay with the others in this situation?" asked Mr. Willis.

"Confirming the situation comes first. You didn't have to follow me."

"So, where are we going? I think we won't be able to find reception for our phones anywhere in our school and I am not sure if it's safe outside. Besides, with the usual pattern after the appearance of a system would be abnormalities like monsters or dungeons and the sort, don't you think it's better for at least the three of us to stick together?" Though the last line seemed to be pointed towards me, I didn't feel the need to answer it as they were going to follow either way. Well, it seemed that Ms. Willis is far better at analysing the situation than her brother, so it wouldn't be a trouble to entertain the two for a while, I guess.

"To the Principal's office, I have access to it. There's a Tv there that might work. We might also need some rations. So, we will have to raid his office a little." I winked at the twins at the end of the sentence before continuing to make my way to the end of the hallway.

There was quite a bit of time left for the first period of the day, so it was unlikely that we would be graced with the presence of the adults except for the janitor, the security and the occasional teaching enthusiasts.

Hence, we quickly made our way to the door of the principal's office.

"Damn! It's locked." Ms. Willis said after trying the knob.

"And sturdy." Came Mr. Willis' appraisal after he tried to force the door open by slamming into it.

I took a quick look around to find something to help us and there it was resting silently against the pillar, bored from the lack of work. I went to grab this bored extinguisher and handed it over to Mr. Willis to break the glass and open the door.

The tool made the work a lot simpler. After entering the office, Mr. Willis turned towards me and asked, "You look strong enough to break the glass. Don't you, Danny?"

"Well, you obviously are better at breaking in, aren't you Willis?" I said, trying to sound as sincere as possible. Honestly, I didn't like the odds of me breaking the glass not that I didn't want to do it myself. So, I just delegated the task to the one with the best likelihood of success.

Well, there was one thing I usually don't break but I guess the appearance of this system is going to cause disruptions to my daily routine. The intrusion of these alien concepts does demand massive restructuring, don't they?