We barely had a second to catch our breath before a huge wall of text appeared in our message boxes, and in front of everyone who came to see us run inside the building. I felt the world around me slow down as I absorbed the information, Zahra similarly frozen as we both took it all in.

  Congratulations on surviving your first day of System Integration. As a reward, you have all received the title ‘Earth Applicant’, which you may equip in your menu.

  1,456,765,324 applicants have survived into phase 2, Class Selection. This is slightly higher than expectations, and within the parameters set by the Inner Council. During the Selection, time will be extended to allow applicants to consider all options. All functions will slow down during this period until the Class Selection process concludes.

  Applicants pay heed. Class Selection is the most pivotal aspect of System Integration by a native species. The choices you make here are irreversible, and will impact the rest of your progression. The following information is incredibly important. Do not make any decisions without fully reading and understanding them. After you choose a class, you will reach Level 1, and your innate stats will be upgraded based on your choices.

  There are three different class types you will be able to choose from: Physical, Mental, and Transformation. In general, Physical Classes boost Strength, Dexterity, and Health. Mental classes boost Wisdom and Intelligence. Transformation classes have varied stat increases. Picking a class which matches your highest innate stats will be imperative, as it will be quicker and easier to level those stats up.

  Upon every level-up, you will be able to choose from a list of compatible skills. The rarity of your class, as well as the strength of the creatures you’ve killed at that level, will contribute to the rarity of the skills presented to you by the System.

  You can obtain strong skills upon level-up even if your class has an Uncommon rarity, as long as you have defeated an adequate amount of high-level monsters. Obtaining a strong skill early is the only way to survive further phases, as you will be able to upgrade it upon level up and other special circumstances. You may be offered skills from any class type, however skills outside of your class will be of a lower rarity.

  You can collect many skills, however upgrading them to a high-level requires you to have a corresponding level and certain System requirements met. These requirements change with each skill.

  There are 4 Phases to the System Integration of Earth. Phase 1 starts with massive terraforming and distributing monsters, which is almost complete. Applicants and Graxis S.A.I may earn experience and rewards for combat during this phase, but it won’t be applied until after Class Selection. After one planetary rotation, Class Selection begins.

  After you choose a class and skills, System Integration progresses to Phase 2. System monsters upgrade from their experience absorbing applicants in a similar way, with the S.A.I’s created by Graxis gaining momentous power through leveling-up.

  Once again, only engage combat with S.A.I creatures with extreme caution. This should be obvious, but a higher level creature will be more intelligent, powerful, and deadly.

  To ensure applicants engage with the System Integration, System Domains have been created, confining all applicants into large, invisible bubbles. The size of the bubble depends on the population inside, with larger bubbles containing less surviving Applicants. The only way to leave a Domain is to destroy the Graxis S.A.I. which controls it. We call these creatures Domain Sentinels, and they are incredibly dangerous. If you are fortunate enough to destroy one, the domain barrier will fall and you will be able to travel.

  When a Domain is destroyed however, it will be absorbed by the surrounding Domains, making their Sentinels stronger and increasing the difficulty to remove barriers in the future. Once all Domain Sentinels have been destroyed, System Integration will begin Phase 3. More information on this phase and phase 4 will be communicated if the qualification is met.

  I stood there dumbstruck, trying to take in everything I had read, but my mind had stopped working after the second message.

  There were just under 1.5 billion people left. Holy Shit. Over 6 billion died in just 24 hours. How was that even fucking possible? How long until my luck ran out?

  I tried to open my map and see the Domain boundary around LA, but it was locked until I finished Class Selection. I took a look through the information in the message again and took a large breath in, clicking the stat menu.

  Immediately, my view was filled with a long list of potential classes. There were some familiar-sounding names, like ‘Paladin of Justice’, ‘Creature Tamer’, and ‘Mage of the Frozen Sun’. It reminded me of Skyrim, or something from Dungeons and Dragons. Each class had a unique title and skill, along with a long description of the class’s skills, strengths, and weaknesses. I scrolled a bit before realizing the list was hundreds of items long, containing Uncommon, Rare, and Epic rarity. Luckily, whatever power the System had to show me these different options also enabled processing them extremely quickly. It wasn’t just reading the info either, I could remember the information like I had studied it.

  I took a glance at my stats. I had pretty high health and strength, and my dexterity wasn’t too bad either. So I was probably best suited with a physical or transformation class which focused on those abilities. If I had a guess, I bet Zahra was going to pick something that benefitted her 17 in speed, so I should pick something that was a bit tankier. I tried to glean as much as I could from the description and unique skill, but the descriptions lacked details on how powerful a class or its skills could become. That was something I had to figure out for myself, and it was pretty difficult to compare them.

  I had two Epic classes which stood out to me instantly: Magma Knight and Reptilian Slasher

  Magma Knight was a tanky, armoured physical class which used fire elemental skills to boost physical ability or blast foes with fireballs. It was a unique class, costing health to cast spells. That was pretty good, even if the spells were still based on my Intelligence. I bet I could probably raise both stats, along with Strength, to become a frightening mid-range tank. The idea of wearing armor was comforting too, anything to keep me away from monsters. My 3D avatar was adorned in bright red armor which burned with a light orange flame.

  Its unique skill was Magma Shift, which allowed the user to temporarily turn into a magma ooze while maintaining physical stats. It was an incredibly versatile class, and had to admit, the flames licking around the armor looked badass.

  Wait. I got a skill from killing the Urisflay. I should check to see if it is compatible.

  I switched screens over to my available skills, which contained Force Resonance and Hellish Procession. The latter skill was still locked, and I couldn't read its description. It was a good thing I looked however, as there was an update to the skill page.

  There were a few more skills under a tab called Ardolon Symbiote. Unlike Hellish Procession, I couldn’t read their names or how many of them there were, just that they were locked behind this menu. Hopefully they would unlock after I picked a class.

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  I went back to Class Selection and clicked a search bar while Magma Knight’s available skills were pulled up. I could see if the skill was compatible with the class based on the tooltip that appeared. It looked like Hellish Procession was compatible with Magma Knight, which was an extra benefit at the least.

  The other class, Reptilian Slasher, was a Transformation class where the user grew scales around the forearms, and a long reptilian tail. It boosted Strength, Dexterity, and Health, but it lowered Intelligence by 3 which I wasn't happy about. My avatar looked a bit like Spinner from My Hero Academia, like a lizard-guy wearing a trenchcoat with long, sharp claws.

  It had the unique skill Whirlwind Dash which allowed the user to make a spinning claw attack as they charged forward, leaving a bleed effect dealing small amounts of damage to anyone hit with it. It was also compatible with Hellish Procession, which was great. It was a powerful class, but it had so many unknowns. Would transforming change more than just my body? What about the drop to Intelligence? I didn’t want to lose the ability to read or something important like that.

  I had already lost parts of my body, and I didn't want to lose my personality, too. For some reason, Intelligence and Spirit frightened me. Not knowing what they could mean at the high/low ends of the spectrum was concerning. Don't even get me started on Luck, what a stupid stat to include. Is everything not random chance?

  Then again, did any of that matter if I was dead? I couldn’t just choose a nice option, I had to choose the one that would give us the best chance for survival. For some reason, I was hesitant to change this body, especially so aggressively.

  I could feel my body getting hot and pressure on my chest, so I took a small break.

  I noticed a tab under the stats screen reading “Party”. Zahra was the only one named there, and I could see she was working her way through all the options too.

  As I focused, there was a button beside her name. I clicked it, and the textbox came back up, but I could ‘text’ using my mind to send a message. While my body was still moving in slow motion, it appeared that I could type basically as quickly as I could think. Neat.

  Levi: Guess who figured out how to message you lol, looks like anyone in a party can.

  Zahra: Oh perfect, so we can contact each other even though phones don’t work. That's really convenient! I’m still looking through the options and comparing things, but I think I’m leaning towards this class called the ‘General of Hades’. It's a physical class but it’s legendary rarity, and matches all my stats. I also saw this little… asterisk? At the bottom of the description. It said the class was 76.4% compatible with that symbiote item thing I got from you, and I think it's probably a good idea to lean into that. If you haven’t decided on a class yet, take a look if any of your classes have the asterisk.

  Levi: Oh, didn’t even notice that. I haven’t decided yet, there’s so many options, and I have a few Epic rarity classes to choose from too. Good to know about the asterisk, maybe that’ll help narrow it down.

  Zahra: Sounds good! I’m going to go with this class then. I’m just gonna think up some meals we could make while I wait for this timestop to end. You don’t think we have to wait for every person on Earth to pick a class, right? If so, that’s going to take literally forever. Well whatever, I hope those aliens are bored watching us read through these riveting descriptions. ‘Knick-Knack Master’ shouldn’t even be here, you get proficiency with attacks made with hobby weapons. I don’t remember Master Oogway using a pair of Yo-Yo’s.

  Levi: It's Grand Master Oogway, actually. Anyway, I’ll focus and see if I can find a class with an asterisk. I certainly hope we don’t have to wait, I chugged so much rockstar at Ralph’s.

  I went back to the list, scrolling to the bottom of every class’s description to see if the symbol existed. I looked through the highest rarity classes first, but they had no mention of the symbiotes. I kept going, trying to find something that would help my decision. Finally, I found the asterisk in the description of an Uncommon class called Force Brawler. It had the Unique Skill Density Shift, which allowed the user to briefly change the density of their body. It seemed like an okay skill, but nothing compared to the Epic classes I had access to. I stared blankly as the Symbiote compatibility percentage flashed along the bottom of the screen.

  100% Compatibility.

  Holy Shit.

  That was crazy high, but I still didn’t know what compatibility translated to. Maybe it had something to do with the skills locked behind the menu? Or it could have something to do with how the skills from the class and symbiote interacted with each other? I didn’t know, and the menu was basically useless in figuring it out. The information was probably locked behind Class Selection, or some other stupid reason. It was a big unknown, more so than the other class choices. The risk was high, and the class's uncommon rarity was the lowest possible on the list. That would mean the skills offered to me at level-up would be of lower rarity, unless I went out of my way to try and hunt some high-level creatures.

  Immediately, I had to push the terrifying screams of that flesh-cube thing out of my mind. It had only been level 2, which was terrifying. How were we supposed to get stronger when there were eldritch horrors rolling down the streets?

  Damn it all. I had no idea what to do.

  On one hand, the Ardalon Symbiote had given me one skill already, one that had already saved my ass once. Going all-in on Force Brawler would probably give me access to all the Symbiote’s skills, but I had no idea what they could be, or how strong.

  I checked again for Hellish Procession, but of course the two weren’t compatible.

  If Graxis really wanted us to get stronger, they should’ve made more information available to us in this shitty experiment. I still didn’t know if the System was made by Graxis, or where any of this stuff came from, but it didn’t matter. I just had to make a choice.

  I took a look at the class list again, searching for Zahra’s class. If I knew what she was picking, then hopefully I’d be able to pick something a bit different. General of Hades showed up, but I couldn’t see its unique skill as it hadn’t been offered to me. It was a physical class that focused on Dexterity and Health, eventually allowing the user to dive into swarms of enemies at superhuman speeds. The final line of the description stood out to me.

  Alone, the final general of Hades fell, the souls of the damned becoming a typhoon which rained upon the House of the Gods.

  None of the other classes had this kind of flavour text in the description, but this was also the only legendary class I could search for, probably because Zahra was in my party and it had been offered to her. Maybe it was something specific to the rarity, I wasn't sure.

  Legendary seemed to be the highest rarity for classes and skills, but I had no more information than that. It was like the System was in a different language, where I could assume the meaning of words from how familiar they were, but I couldn't be sure that I wasn't messing something up, or misinterpreting it.

  Then again, the symbiote I had paired with was Legendary rarity so maybe the skills it had were good? It was worth considering. I was stuck between Magma Knight and Force Brawler, and the decision was getting more complicated as I thought about it. The symbiote had reformed my body and made it stronger than before. It was also… intelligent from how it spoke to me right before I lost consciousness. I wasn’t sure if that had really happened though, the whole event was still fuzzy in my memory. It also made no sense for a red blob to speak into my mind, but given everything else that had happened, the weirdness from that event didn’t really hit the same.

  The symbiote had called me a ‘compatible creature’, and that it was trying to help me. It had certainly done that, giving me the power to survive and destroy the Urisflay. But choosing Magma Knight would put me on comparable power to Zahra, increasing our chances of survival right off the hop. It would also be easier to get stronger skills.

  I took a deep breath in, all the possibilities flying through my head, one last time. The butterflies in my stomach finaled settled. I knew which option to pick, and I followed that feeling in my gut and picked my class.

  System Update.

  You have chosen the Force Brawler Class. Checking for available skills.

  You have learned Density Shift from Force Brawler.

  You already know Force Resonance from Ardolon Symbiote.

  You have learned Greater Observation (Epic) from Ardolon Symbiote.

  You have learned Leader of the Many within the Few (Legendary) from Ardolon Symbiote.

  You have learned Greater Regeneration (Legendary) from Ardolon Symbiote.

  Class Selection Complete. You have leveled-up to Level 1.

  Continue to grow, applicant. The fate of the Universe depends on it.