5:5 Interlude: Introducing the [System]

The [System] was introduced slowly to the One World. Over generations — some areas receiving it faster as designated beta testers, before the full rollout happened — which meant, of course, that very few people actually noticed the changes. Historians and archaeologists and the like constantly argued over the facts of how the [System] had formed, by whom, for what purpose, and who discovered what. By the time the final rollout began to happen, things like titles, skills, and achievements were widely believed to have been discovered by later generations, and completely missed by the older.

Only the oldest remembered that the only thing the system had once done was show your relative titles, such as Herald, or Priest of the Heavens, and provide some minor guidance and updates to the world around them. These were the ones who argued that new versions of the system were rolling out, that the known world was changing. Elves, for example, who remembered it. And Dwarves, who held tradition close, and still remembered how the Rot drove them to madness.

Regardless, none were quite ready for the full deployment, and the introduction of [Classes.]

It began in a small town. Not a city. Not some great unsung battlefield. Not some forgotten backwater village, so the person who achieved the first would become a Hero from nowhere important. No, the first person to unlock their [Class] was a young boy. A woodworker, learning the trade from his father, trying to grind some achievements, make his skills go up, and potentially surpass his father. Yet what he worked on was not the sturdy furniture his father preferred.

Instead, he whittled away at a little figurine, tongue sticking out of his mouth despite being nearly fifteen years old, as he worked the carving knife into the soft wood with the care of someone who cared about how it came out in the end. Little grooves were being slit, creating the appearance of fur on a canid figure. It was his imagination’s construction of something he had heard about from the local priest. A legend about some great wolf that stalked the shadows and protected that which was holy, while damning that which was sinful.

This was the kind of work he preferred. Creating something that looked good, not something purely functional.

His father moved to sit beside him, laying a meaty hand upon his shoulder. The scent of fresh wood shavings filling the air of their small workshop always, but even still, his father seemed to be a next of it, the boy nearly sneezing as sawdust fell from his father’s arms to tickle his nose.

“That is good,” he said, almost begrudgingly, his own projects momentarily stalled so he could observe his son’s more artistic hand.

The son looked up and smiled at him. “I thought we could start to add some little designs and things to your furniture,” he admitted. “They’re a little plain, right now. Featureless. They could use a bit of décor.”

The father grunted. “These are fine, simple folk in this town. They don’t care for the flair of luxury goods and such — decoration. They like functional. They like beds that don’t break. They like chairs that don’t squeak,” he said. The son resisted a sigh – he, like many others, still resisted the arts. Priests and shrine maidens both claimed the arts were paths to damnation and obsession, despite adorning themselves in finery.

The boy did not care for such things. He just liked whittling, and making things look pretty.

He set the little wolf down and gestured to where his older brother, across the workshop, was carefully trimming a joint on a bed frame. “Alexei will take over the main business,” he said freely. “He has your eye for space and such. We both know I don’t.”

“Now, don’t say that,” the father said, clapping him on the back. “You’re plenty good at it. A bit more practice and you’ll be just as good as I am. These things just take time.”

“Maybe, but I just thought we could add this stuff to the designs, to the furniture, and—”

“Hush. You are still too young to be fretting over this,” the father said, not unkindly. “When your wood-carving skill gets to thirty, we can think about it.” That was the thing about his father. He never outright rejected ideas. He just…pushed them off, until you came around to his point of view.

The son huffed and turned back to his little carving, finishing the last little bit as he chewed on the words he wanted to say, trying to decide how to present it to his father. If they added designs, carvings, to even just a few pieces, chair legs shaped to look like claws or table legs with vine motifs on them or anything like that, they could start peddling them as luxury goods when merchants came to town. They might even attract the attention of more wealthy patrons, and his dad could afford to hire apprentices and, well…maybe have more time to do things other than stay in this dusty workshop all the time.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t appreciate all his father had done. The man had learned his skills from the ground up, hardly a master to teach him, and the son respected that. But he didn’t have any of the other skills to truly elevate his craft, and no time to really work on them as the town’s most well-respected carpenter.

The carving knife bit into the wood for the last time, and he smiled, blowing a bit of dust and shavings off of the figurine as he admired the little creature. Just a mangy little mutt, not the great beast of legend, but the details were there, and it looked fairly good, if he did say so himself. Probably the best one he had made so far — but far from perfect. Still, as was expected, this was but a distraction for now. He still had some work to do, once his father and elder brother were done with their stuff.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He looked up, half expecting them to already be done, and stilled. There, flashing in front of his face, was a [System] message, but not like any he had seen before.

“Um, are either of you seeing this?” he asked. Both his father and brother were busy fitting a drawer into a small table, however, and the boy turned back to the little box floating in front of him.

He’d seen [System] messages before, of course. Everybody had. He, himself, was quite proud that his coordination stat was higher than his brother’s, despite being younger. The boy attributed this, of course, to his attention to fine detail as compared to his family’s more…straightforward methods.

But this, unlike what he may have expected, was not any sort of achievement for finishing some finely detailed sculpture, nor was it a notification of a stat increase. This was a simple little box that said:

[Would you like to begin [Class] selection? {Yes} or {no?}]

His brow furrowed. “Um… Dad, what’s a [Class]?” he asked.

“Sorry, what? Hold on a second,” his dad muttered distractedly, glancing over his shoulder once, then back at the drawer as he carefully fitted it into place — rolling it out and back in, then out again, it catching on something and him pulling it free with a grumble.

The boy hesitated for only a moment, instinct warring with the natural curiosity and trust of a young boy. If the [System] was willing to give you something, you took it. And rarely, no, actually, he’d never heard of the [System] giving anything for free. So this had to be something to do with his wood carving, right? So he reached out and touched: {Yes.}

The world went gray, everything shifting slightly into muted colors and fuzziness.

He did not panic.

Some part of his mind knew that he should — that having everything suddenly slow down and gray out before his eyes, his mind still running a mile a minute while his body sat frozen in place, should panic him, that he should fight it with all his might. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t muster up the emotion. Instead, he watched with borderline fascination as, through the gray fog, three stone statues appeared before him, rising up from the ground with a rumble that shook him to his very soul. Each was slightly different from the others, all made of a common gray stone, yet each depicting a figure that was unmistakably him.

The first was him with a little beard, leaning over a workbench with a hammer and a tiny little chisel, mid-strike on a figurine that was very clearly meant to be wood. The details were lifelike, to the point where it almost seemed that if he tried to reach out and touch it, it would come alive, or jump at him. He did not look at the other statues yet, fascinated as he was by the first, and slowly tried to rise so he could get a better look. To his surprise, he did, looking down to see his body below him, some essence of himself now standing translucent and blue in this grey world. But that did not alarm him either. Instead, he accepted it with a calm fascination as he looked back at the statue and reached out — only for the statue’s head to twitch and turn to look at him.

He flinched, leaping backward as survival instincts took over, the statue freezing in place once more, and his heart hammering in his chest.

He swallowed thickly, watching the statue warily until he was certain it would not move again. Then, slowly, cautiously, he looked at the other statues with wide eyes, afraid they would move as well. The second was another depiction of himself, standing tall, a ledger in one hand, a backpack full of goods on his back, pointing forward with his free hand as if heading somewhere. His breath caught in his throat, because some part of him knew what that was. The merchant. The part of him that wanted to grow and expand his father’s business in ways the man himself was not willing to do.

His gaze shifted.

Then there was the third. It looked somewhat different from the others, in that his shoulders were broader, his hands more calloused and gnarled, like his father’s, as he carefully fit together a beautiful chair with just slightly more ornamentation than what his father usually made. That was him, if he chose to follow in his father’s footsteps.

The boy let out a long, slow breath and carefully approached the statues, not just one, but all three. None moved.

He eyed what he could only call the carpenter. He looked at the merchant. But it was the version of him leaning over the table, carefully carving, that he approached, giving his full attention to. Now that he was expecting it to move, it did not startle him nearly as much, despite his animal mind screaming danger at him. With each inch he neared, its head turned fractionally more toward him, setting down the chisel and hammer and reaching out a hand, unblinking in stone. Images flashed through the boy’s mind; of himself sitting in a dusty workshop, magic dancing at his fingertips as he whittled away. The very thought of it sent a tingle of desire down his spine. And he reached out and took the statue’s hand, the stone surprisingly warm and soft.

[Do you choose the common class Woodcarver? It will replace your {Title}.] It was not a message this time, but someone speaking to him. The voice was nearly his own, subtly different. More focused, more intense. He swallowed again, not knowing what any of that meant, but nodding anyway. And that was enough.

The world came crashing back into focus. He was staring at the ceiling, his father and elder brother staring down at him with worry as he lay spread-eagled on the hard ground, his figurine clutched tightly in one hand.

“Son, are you okay? You’re—” His father’s eyes flicked up, to over the boy’s head, brows furrowing in confusion as he laid one massive hand over his son’s chest. “Are you okay? Your [Title] changed,” he said. “It says ‘the Woodcarver’ now. Did the [System] do something? Did you get a… new title?” His father asked it in a way that could not hide his worry about his son’s health.

And the boy cocked his head to the side, smiling a little as he looked at his status sheet. A [Skill.] He had a [Skill!] This one not the lowercase skills he was used to, but a capitalized [Skill] — those rumored things that came with serious achievements, or title skills, things that only legendary warriors got. And this one was his. It was colored gray, and it was called [Shape Wood].

In the times to come, not too long after this moment, as a matter of fact, the news of classes would spread across the One World, an entire universe, like wildfire. People figuring it out as if it were some great discovery, disconnected by one another by distance, but united by the [System]. Many would claim to be first, and more would research it thoroughly, people understanding, coming to learn, making adjustments to how they lived and approached skills and [Skills], all to earn a better [Class]. Archmages and high priests and kings and queens and nobility would all rush to it — no matter the race, no matter the location, no matter what. But no one would remember, save for the gods, the [System], and the Heavens themselves, that it all started with a common woodcarver.