Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Before the apocalypse I was a fairly well adjusted young man. I was raised by my Uncle after my parents passed away. Uncle never told me much about my parents or what they did but he always made it clear they loved me and they left me quite a sum of money so that I would want for nothing.
My Uncle ran a store called the Nerd and Geek Emporium and it was exactly what you might assume, if you come from a world with video games, comic books, table top games, anime, and other such hobbies and pursuits. It was a three story building with the street level floor selling all of the products while the second and third floors were all setup for people to enjoy their items together. On any given afternoon you could find cosplayers working on their latest projects, gamers going head to head in the latest video game, and several games of Dungeons and Dragons or various card games being played.
It was a fairly awesome place to grow up in my opinion and it led me to be a fairly social and well adjusted person who just happened to be a massive geek. It's also where I first discovered my passion, which I believe is why the system offered me a unique class. You see I have always had a talent for seeing opportunities around me for buying or creating needed items and then selling them.
It started off when I was hanging out with the cosplay crowd. One of my besties growing up loved anime and was trying to show off to a couple of the cute girls we knew that loved to cosplay at local geek conventions but the character he wanted to do would need some pretty hard to find or create costume pieces. The character was a large cybernetic knight with very futuristic plate armor and weapons that fights demons from another dimension, really it was a great character choice and a great anime, so he came begging me for help.
I agreed and I bought a 3D printer that could do large scale plastic product prints, which when combined with some time spent in a 3d design program, allowed me to create the entire costume in week. I then spent some time shopping around online and found a couple of manufacturers of LED lights that would flesh out the costume and while waiting for those to arrive I spent a few nights carefully painting the entire costume. Once the lights came in I quickly got them installed and had my bestie come over for a photo shoot and also posted a video on various social media platforms to share with the cosplayer crowd and as a low key advertisement for my Uncle's store.
Much to my surprise not only was the project a success but it became a viral hit and within a few days I was being bombarded with people wanting to buy the same costume or asking for quotes on builds of their own. This happened in middle school and by the time I graduated from high school I was already doing projects for high paying enthusiasts all over the world, not to mention I had branched out and was now doing consulting work for movies, plays, and also running several different WeTube channels that were devoted to various methods of crafting and/or selling items online.
My parents had left me enough money that I never had to work a day in my life… and before I was 20 I had already nearly earned the same amount doing things I truly loved. It was the year leading up to the System integration where I really branched out and started a manufacturing company where all we did was custom projects and one off pieces for people. Everything from customized firearms (I got my gunsmith license at 18), real medieval style armors but made from modern materials, to survivalist items that were hard to find because no one else mass produced them, and because we often made videos or sponsored other content creators to do so with our items in them seeing real world use people lined up to buy from us.
Even though I did all of this for a living and had a large building full of tools and people with knowledge deeper than my own I still kept a personal workshop in my home, just outside the city where I was raised and often spent my freetime inside working on personal passion projects while geeking out to my favorite content creators or latest episodes of anime I was enjoying.
All in all it was a very satisfying life for me, I wanted for nothing, was well paid, and well respected in the circles that I ran in. I was actually working from home the day the System introduced itself into our lives, forever changing our realities.
I had been working on a custom design of .22 caliber ammunition that would have various effects when they struck the target. I wanted rounds that could set the target on fire, another set that could explode after hitting the target, and another set that had a homing function that would autocorrect to hit a target painted with a laser. The first two I had managed to figure out and make work with the extremely small bullets, but I was struggling to make the homing bullets work. I had managed to make them before for much large rounds, but miniaturizing them enough to fit a .22 caliber round was proving to be quite challenging.
I wasn't making these for any reason other than I felt they would be fun to take to a range and make a video showing off. I was laying on my couch, decompressing, when the emergency broadcast system began screeching across my smartphone, my TV, and even the city emergency sirens began wailing in the distance and at first I just got annoyed as I thought it was simply another test of the system… until the text to speech voice began speaking.
"Warning, this is not a test, warning, this is not a test, your world will be forcefully integrated into the multiverse System in 30 minutes. Please pull over if you are driving, land or put yourself into autopilot if you are flying, drop anchor if you are on a boat as all life will be unconscious for 5-15 minutes once the process begins. Please make sure you are in a secure location as certain monsters will be let loose upon your world as punishment for your stewardship of it.
All human beings, as the dominant sentient species of this planet, shall receive access to the System which will provide you with a chance at survival by allowing you to grow stronger. More details will be provided by your System at a later time. Your world has been granted a 10 year Tutorial to adapt to and survive the System integration before your world is allowed to be brought into the wider multiverse. Welcome to the System humans and good luck in surviving the trials before you as you all strive for immortality."
This warning repeated every time it ended and jumping online I saw that the major news sites were stating this was a world wide hack and that large glowing orange portals had opened in places all over the world. Governments were urging people to stay calm and pretty much anyone with common sense was rapidly parking cars and locking their doors, pouring into buildings that were being closed and locked, and generally acting like people who were taking this warning seriously, which was strange as usually people just did whatever they wanted. I quickly made my way through my small home and locked down whatever wasn't already, before stopping and grabbing a small 9mm pistol I kept for going to the range and home defense. I had other guns but it would take to long to get them from the safe.
I then sat on the couch in my living room watching the count down timer as I worried about what was going to happen next. On one hand the inner geek in me was cautiously excited as I had experienced these types of situations many times in the books I read, games I played, and anime I watched so I knew that this would likely be one hell of an adventure but… on the other hand this would definitely be the end of life as we know it. There was just no way to really prepare yourself for something like this other than to sit back and let it happen before figuring out the best way to use and abuse the new status quo.
The timer hit the last few seconds remaining and just as it hit zero all of the broadcasts and sirens suddenly cut off. There was no sound but in front of me a screen appeared.
"Ding! Welcome to the Multiversal System!"
Before I could react any further I felt my surroundings going dark as all consciousness faded away.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone