1 The Tutorial

You know I had always known that this would happen eventually. I mean you don't get reincarnated into a new life without expecting something weird to happen after.

When I reincarnated as a baby name Marcus Fulbright after getting struck by lightning I was suspicious. I mean I met no god or got any cheats. I was also reincarnated into a seemingly completely normal world.

I mean you know as well as I do that just doesn't happen. So like the rational adult, I am trained since I could walk in my second life to become the most dangerous person I could be.

I knew that someday I would need this training, be it for later being summoned to another world or facing some type of apocalypse.

So I trained in hand-to-hand combat learning Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I also learned other basic skills like how to parkour, survive in the wild, or fire a gun.

Thank god I was in the US or the last one probably would have been much harder. Especially since I was basically an orphan.

My father and mother were rich but died leaving my uncle to handle the for me. Unlike most novels, however, he wasn't a complete asshole as while he did probably embezzle some funds he left enough for me to live a comfortable life up until I died of old age.

He didn't care about me however seeing me mostly as a promise he needed to keep to his brother and as soon as I was 13 I was booted out of his house to live on my own.

I mean it worked well for me. As an adult in a child's body, I didn't really crave affection from parental figures. It also left me a lot more time to train and improve myself.

It did pay off, I was now a 6 feet tall lean mean fighting machine. With my black hair and eyes and even with my admittedly average face, I was still on the good-looking side something I was happy to take.

That didn't earn me many friends however as my free time was spent training not socializing. I did have many acquaintances in the class, however, need those connections if we all get isekaied and need to survive together.

But all of that effort of training, not making friends, and memorizing how to survive all became worth it as a screen popped up in front of me.

[Hello Humans of Earth. I am the Multiversal Entertainment & Development System and I have come to inform you that you have been chosen to be the next civilization to be incorporated into our great family.]

[What is the Multiversal Entertainment & Development System you ask? Well we are a benevolent group that just wants to see each of you grow to your maximum potential while having fun doing so.]

[You see we are the Multiversal Entertainment & Development System or MEDS for short, will allow willing volunteers to travel into different worlds in the multiverse to grow stronger and have fun.]

[There you can go on your wildest adventures and live your life how you have always wanted. You don't even have to worry about dying. If you die you are locked out of MEDS but will not die in real life.]

[So what are you waiting for? Are you willing to embark on this quest to new and unseen horizons?]

[Yes / No]

I blinked my eyes looking at my other classmates. I was math so some of them were asleep but they now all seemed to be awake looking at a message I can't see.

I turn to the girl next to me, Emily if I recall correctly, and asked, "Do you see the screen as well?"

She turned to me and nodded her head, "What the hell is going on Marcus?"

"I don't know Emily but let's see what the others know first," I said soothingly trying to reassure her.

Then a bright light flashed in the corner of my vision and when I turned to look at one of my classmates, Dustin had vanished. He must have accepted.

I looked around and asked, "Just to confirm can everyone see the message? And does anybody know if Dustin accepted it?"

Everyone made a sound of affirmation toward the first question but silence occurred and the next one. Until a girl sitting behind Dustin, Mary I think said, "I think I saw he had moved up to tap the yes button."

Confirmation. Ok so everybody has the message and agreeing to it transports your body somewhere. Ok, Ok good information but does that really change my decision?

I mean I have been training my whole life for a scenario like this why haven't I already accepted? So after seeing another one of my classmates, Anthony, vanish into the light I steeled my resolve and pressed Yes.

After a flash of bright light, I could see myself in a hallway filled with many doors leading to god knows where. Then the screen reappeared in front of me.

[Hello Marcus Fulbright, thank you for accepting the MEDS and stepping into a whole new chapter of your life. Firstly, I would like to explain some of the basics, please say status.]

I said, "Status", then a whole screen appeared in front of me.

[Name: Marcus Fulbright

Title/Alias: None

Rank: Uninitiated

Strength: 15

Agility: 15

Vitality: 15

Perception: 14

Intelligence: 13

Willpower: 14

Energy: 15

Skills: None

Traits: None

Equipment: None]

[This is your Status it tells you all your characteristics, what skills or traits you have earned from the system, and where the system ranks you]

[Name: It tells you what your given birth name is

Title/Alias: Other names that people call you other than your Name

Rank: How the system values you going from Novice, the lowest, to Administrator, the highest

Strength: How physically strong you are, how much you can lift and apply force

Agility: How fast or acrobatic you are

Vitality: How tough you are and how fast you can regenerate

Perception: How much you can notice from the world around you

Intelligence: Your ability to process information and store data

Willpower: Your ability to persevere through the hardest of times

Energy: How much energy your body has, be it stamina, mana, or ki

Skills: Skills that you have learned due to the system

Traits: Inborn abilities gain from the system, can be passed down genetically

Equipment: Special equipment gained from the system, does not include common trinkets.]

Damn, that was a pretty comprehensive overview I do notice I am missing a couple of key things from my screen, however. "Hey, the system isn't there some kind of HP or MP type bar?"

[The used to be but due to unreliability of such a measure, it was removed. Many players felt too trusting towards their HP bar and felt so long as it was above 0 they were fine leading to many deaths.]

Huh, ok so apparently some jackasses were dumb with the HP and MP bars so now they fucked it up for the rest of us, typical. Next, I asked, "How good are my stats exactly I don't have anything to compare them to."

[A stat of 5 is that of an average 10-year-old child. A stat of 10 is from an average 25-year-old man. A stat of 15 is the beginning of where professionals start. And a stat of 20 is the peak of the human race currently.]

So that was pretty good. At just 17 years old I am professional level strong in Strength, Agility, Vitality, and Energy. Must be from all the martial arts I do.

That is a good need to try and increase my Intelligence, Willpower, and Perception, however. I admit I didn't study much in this life so yeah.

I then asked, "What about levels?"

[For the same reason, levels can't truly encapsulate the danger of a potential opponent so many of our players rushed to kill people lower level than them and died. So we got rid of it.]

Made sense I guess happy with the answers. After a few moments of silence, the system popped up to ask.

[Do you wish to start the tutorial?]

[Yes / No]

I guess I have no more questions so I clicked Yes.

[That is great. As MEDS tries its best to be as accommodating as possible we have devised multiple ways for you to go through the tutorial. Not the brutish type? Instead of fighting goblins, you can instead test your knowledge in mechanics or any other field of mastery.]

[Just go down the hallway and read the plaques on the door, each leads to a different test where we will then access you to see which skills fit you best.]

[Remember we are grading you and the skills you show not if you pass or fail the trial so do your best to show us what separates you from the pack.]

Ok, so the doors in the hallway lead to different types of trials. I read the one closest and as expected I was a combat trial. This trial is a staple in every apocalypse-type story I have read.

Although considering how nice the system seems to be can it even be considered an apocalypse? Who knows?

Either way, I am probably going to do the combat trial, that was what I had trained my entire second life to do so it made sense. I had no other skill that I had honed as much even from my past life.

So I walked open the door and walked in. The first thing I noticed was that I was in an armory filled with weapons from the modern-day, future, and from places I couldn't even wonder at. The system appeared in front of me again.

[Welcome to the combat to begin all you have to choose is the armor and weapons you shall be using. Remember the skills you get are going to be from the skills you show so choose a weapon that you would like to gain skills for.]

I looked around the armory and thought what weapon do I want? I mean I can't use most of these except for the guns on the wall. It was hard to find places where I could train to fight using a sword in the modern-day after all. Especially if you are in a small city.

I thought of getting a gun but in most fiction, those do tend to fall off pretty quickly after the beginning. I looked down at my fist and had a crazy idea, should I just go down there unarmed?

I mean it was about demonstrating skill and I was ready good at punching and kicking people nowadays. Plus hand-to-hand nearly always scaled well into the late game in fiction.

Well, I had made my choice, it might be crazy but I was I had decided upon so I said, "I would like to go to the trial unarmed."

[An interesting choice, well good luck. You will be teleported in 3, 2, 1.]

Then the world turn white and I could feel myself warp to a different place.