Now, shifting back to what you originally came here for, what do you want to be?" Tom asked curiously as he tried to ignore the larger implications of his discovery.

  "Um, what?" Sam asked, confused.

  Tom let out a sigh. He expected this was going to be a recurring problem.

  "What do you want to be? Do you want to be a sniper hidden in the trees? A hunter roaming the world. Do you want to be an assassin striking from the shadows? Or maybe you want some magic? Be a healer like your dad here. Maybe you want to be a pure crafter? It doesn't matter if you change your mind later. But having a proper idea to build yourself around is helpful."

  Tom watched as Samtha rolled the idea over in her head as he copied down her status. He was pretty sure steam was pouring out of her head as he tried to wait patiently for her answer.

  "Right now, I'm more concerned about being alive. So what can you do to improve that?"

  "Do you have any preference for a build?" Tom asked.

  "Not really," Samatha admitted.

  Tom wanted to roll his eyes. Min Maxing wasn't nearly as useful if the person didn't want to grind out the skill levels.

  "How about you tell me what your favorite games are, and we can go from there." Tom cut in.

  She listed them off: "Assassin's Creed, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, The Legend of Zelda."

  Tom nodded. He could work with that.

  "I can help you unlock the [Monster Hunter], [Bounty Hunter], or [Treasure Hunter] classes. Each one would be an improvement over your current build. I would recommend [Treasure Hunter]."

  "Theo said the same thing," Sam muttered, "but Why [Treasure Hunter]?"

  "It's mostly a class about finding valuable stuff. Detection abilities, personal storage skill, tracking, and stealth. It's about avoiding trouble, not getting into it."

  "Wouldn't [Monster Hunter] be more useful?" she asked, confused.

  "For fighting monsters, sure," Tom admitted. "but there are two problems with your logic. First off, there are only two ways to get a class. The first is to meet the qualifications and directly grab the class from your menu. The second option is to fuse two classes of a lower rarity in order to unlock that class. As long as you keep fighting monsters, you'll eventually get the [Monster Hunter] class because we're battling monsters. But for, say, [Bounty Hunter], you would need to hunt down actual people, and for [Treasure Hunter], you would need to find real treasure. I don't really see you doing either of those things, so now is a great time to get a class you might not normally be able to pick up."

  "You aren't taking [Bounty Hunter]," Chester cut in.

  "Why not?" Sam asked

  "I don't want you to go around hunting other people. I understand taking classes to protect yourself, hunt animals, or look for treasure, even if I would prefer you to stay here and be safe. But you are not going to take a class based around hunting and killing people," Chester said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  "Ok, Dad. Ok," Sam said, surrendering to her father's judgment.

  Tom patiently waited for Sam to make her decision as more people started to line up behind her.

  "Alright, then I think I'll pick up [Treasure Hunter]," Sam said.

  "Great, now do you want to wait until you unlock [Meditation] to fuse them yourself? Or can I use my [Soul Forge] skill to fuse them myself right now? " Tom asked.

  "You can do it now?' she asked.

  "Yes. Would you like me to?" Tom asked.

  "Sure," Sam said nervously.

  "Hand, please," Tom asked as he fired up his [Soul Forge].

  The moment he touched her hand, he entered her soul space. He had never used this part of his bloodline on someone else, and he was understandably nervous.

  Samatha's soul space was almost identical to his in some ways and completely different in others. The black void of space with nebulas and stars was the same. Instead of his nebulas and stars, there were only two nebulas, one of black and the other of dark green. With his bloodline skills, he could see the beginnings of the constellation.

  He could see how he could put them together in different ways to achieve different results. All of that potential was just sitting there, calling him to be used. He carefully angled them to combine them to unlock the treasure hunter class.

  Tom exited the soul space bombarded by notifications as Samatha staggered at the sudden change.

  <[Soul Forge] has Reached Level 20>

  "Wow," Samatha breathed as she looked at her new skills. "That's new. Are these better or worse?"

  "Better," Tom said with a shit-eating grin. "Way better, [Magpie Eye for Treasure] and [Silent Explorer] are straight-up improvements. [Deadly Aim] is brutally basic, but it makes you aim better. It can be upgraded to a form of aimbot, but it's good enough for now. Anyway, you have an affinity for Dark and Fire, with the subelements of Ash. Ask Alex for those spells. If you want to learn other spells, you can come back later." Tom said.

  "Magic, like I'm going to learn real magic?" she asked in awe.

  "Yep, you can practice on the field outside and avoid needlessly blasting the building. NEXT!!" Tom called out to the person behind her.

  "Um, Thanks," Sam said. She looked like she was going to say something, but then she moved on to Alex without saying anything.

  Tom just shrugged. Her shit was her shit. He moved on to the next person as the notification popped up.

  <[Soul Forge] has Reached Level 21>

  <[Soul Forge] has Reached Level 22>

  <...>

  <[Soul Forge] has Reached Level 25>

  <[Library of Akashic Records] has Reached Level 20>

  <[Vision of Akashic Records] has Reached Level 11>

  <[Thirst for Knowledge] has Reached Level 10>

  <[Thirst for Knowledge] has Reached Level 11>

  <...>

  <[Thirst for Knowledge] has Reached Level 13>

  <[My Mind is My Temple, My Soul the Altar] has Reached Level 25>

  <[My Mind is My Temple, My Soul the Altar] has Reached Level 26>

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  <...>

  <[My Mind is My Temple, My Soul the Altar] has Reached Level 30>

  <[Logistics Ⅲ] has Reached Level 7>

  <[Logistics Ⅲ] has Reached Level 8>

  <...>

  <[Logistics Ⅲ] has Reached Level 12>

  DING!!!

  <[Teacher] has Reached Level 2>

  <[Teacher] has Reached Level 3>

  <...>

  <[Teacher] has Reached Level 9>

  Tom let out a sigh. He had spent over three hours talking with nearly two hundred prospective new guild members, going over what they wanted to be and what was available to them. Some of these ideas were plausible, and a few were even interesting. He had only been able to upgrade a few of their classes, as most of them had just [Sunder] their classes due to bad stat placement.

  But he had been able to give everyone advice on where to go with their builds and how to achieve their dreams, and Alex had taught them some low-level magic, so the general mood was looking pretty good, considering most of Hopkins could now blast people with magic.

  He was sure people would be annoyed when they realized that you needed intelligence to use magic. Most of them had not bothered to add any to that stat and would end up having to wait until level 10.

  When they had gone through everyone in the room, Alex turned to him.

  “Alright, Tom, how are we looking in terms of recruits?" Alex asked.

  "We have two dozen potential cooks, twenty people with some kind of pet class, fifteen potential hunters, thirty-seven potential scavengers, thirteen life mages, fourteen people with experience in construction, five people with technical experience, at least thirty menial laborers, seventeen people interested in pure crafting, maybe a dozen guards, twenty fighters, forty mages, ten rouges, five clerics, And maybe twenty people with misalliance classes like lawyer or scientist." Tom rattled off his list.

  "Well, that's disappointing," Alex said. "We were hoping for more bloodlines. Maybe some proper gamers. By the way, we need to recruit more admins."

  Tom looked at her. "Why?"

  "He asks why?" Alex rolls her eyes. "Tom, this school and its one thousand residents are currently administered by the two of us. Even if we could manage that, you and I won't be here full-time. And let me make this clear: I would rather burn this place to the ground than end up stuck doing admin every day. We will have adventures, and we will have fun. Understand?"

  "Understood," Tom said, holding up his hands in surrender.

  "So what do we need to do first?" Alex asked, looking at him expectantly.

  "Umm," Tom fumbled at the sudden change in topic.

  "You don't know what to do? Do you?" she asked exasperated.

  "I do, I do. Just give me a second," Tom said as he took a proper moment to consider what they needed to do next.

  "We need to start getting people out there today. According to the 'How to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse' book, cities will only have enough food for three days. We don't know what state the planet's supply lines are in, so we have to assume they're all busted. We need to buy, scavenge and steal everything today. We need to become self-sustaining as fast as possible."

  "What about food?" Alex asked. "We should start with food. Thanks to the dungeon, we'll have plenty of meat. We should get someone to head up both the hunters and scavengers first. Fed people are happy people." Alex reminded him.

  "And starving people are angry mobs," Tom said. "Yeah, we all played civ."

  "Exactly," she said. That being said, who should we put in charge of the hunters? I was thinking of Samatha. She won those archery trophies, and supposedly, she went hunting regularly before the system, and she was popular, so they'll listen to her."

  "I would have thought the scavenger class with her Treasure Hunter class," Tom said.

  "Perhaps, but we have a lot of people who are willing to and able to scavenge from stores. The same can't be said of our hunters." Alex pointed out.

  "Fair enough. Besides, she's friends with Luke." Tom said.

  "Why does that matter?" Alex asked, confused.

  "Luke has access to two legendary classes and a Legendary bloodline. Unfortunately, if we remove the beta-testers, he's probably the strongest person here. If we can get him some more levels, all the better." Tom said.

  "Hmmm, ha, do you think Luke would lead a rebellion against us?" Alex asked.

  Tom looked up at her in confusion.

  "That's a dark thought," Tom said.

  Alex rolled her eyes. "Come on, Tom, intergroup issues are a staple of apocalypse stories. Just look at The Walking Dead."

  "I mean, we have issues, but I don't see how that's going to be a problem, not violently anyway. He's not that kind of person," Tom said.

  "People change," Alex pointed out. "This could go very Lord of the Flies"

  "I doubt that will be a problem," Tom said as he shook his head.

  "Why's that?" Alex asked curiously.

  "Do we remember what we saw when the apocalypse started?" Tom asked.

  "The big fucking Wyvern," Alex said with a snap of her figures. "That thing's strong enough to take us all out if it can be bothered to."

  "Yeah, monsters like that will keep people focused on the fact that the world is full of monsters now, and they will treat us like heroes." Tom said, "We'll give them food, safety and levels, and they will love us for it."

  "Alright, but how are we going to do that?" Alex asked.

  Tom rolled his eyes.

  "First, we need to get some staff—people we can trust to dump some of the organizational and management things onto so we can focus on the big picture. We should start with [Lawyers], [Administrators], etc." Tom said.

  Alex stared at him, her head cocked in confusion.

  "What?" Tom asked.

  "I just, I wasn't expecting you to be that smart," Alex admitted.

  "Well, that's rude," Tom stated.

  "You're not paying me to be polite." she countered.

  "I'm not paying you at all," Tom pointed out.

  "Exactly," she said as she elbowed him.

  Further conversation was cut off as Sgt. Thorn showed up.

  "Hey, kid. Time to put your money where your mouth is," she said.

  "What?" Tom asked

  "I think she wants you to bring a bunch of people back from the dead," Alex said

  "Oh, right. Let's get on with it." Tom said, rising to his feet.

  You may skip to the next chapter.

  Base

  Personal: +4 PER +4 WILL +3 INT +3 CHA

  Racial: +3 WILL +2 CON +2 CHA +1 SPIRIT

  Bloodline: +5 PER +5 INT

  Level Bonus: +1 to all Stats

  Mini-Character List

  Tom: Our Protagonist, the party healer

  Alex: Tom's best friend and the group's wizard

  Sam: Luke's friend and an archer

  Chester: Sams Dad is a firefighter and a paramedic who works with Major Adams.

  AN: