Matt's first course of action was to make his way to the outskirts of the city and find some monsters.
There had been enough talking and politics and planning and new developments and revelations. It was always the time for action in Matt's world and he intended to get back to that.
Sitting at level thirty because of the Felesterix situation, the System now classified him as a B rank, which didn't come as much of a surprise, but came with the added benefit of being able to access Human facilities that would have denied him access before.
Catching a bus, he hadn't had a chance to purchase a vehicle of his own yet, Matt spent his extra time digging into the nuances of the System update that had allowed him to join the Uplifter population properly.
Among many changes, the way the System ranked Walkers had massive overhauls.
Initially Walker ranking was based primarily off of level, with every ten levels bumping you up a rank, with some minor factors like unusual powers or skill adding to that rank.
Now, the System seemed to have flipped those criteria with level taking the least amount of precedence in ranking and skill, ability, stats, and more holding far more weight.
This felt more realistic to Matt since level didn't matter much if you couldn't do anything with the base power that leveling gave you. That said, there was much to consider when it came to level.
Leveling up gave you basic stats based on class, traits, abilities and a variety of other factors, but ultimately it was the most basic of metrics to go by as far as measuring power.
That's not to say that pure combat ability was what the System was looking for either. There were, before the update, and especially now plenty of people who had relatively high rankings that never saw combat. Improving in a field of study or crafting netted you experience if that was your focus and all of that was also taken into account when ranks were assigned.
For mundane people, or non-Walkers more specifically, these ranks rarely mattered much, but for Walkers it was an excellent metric of how helpful, or useful, a fellow might be in an emergency. Even before the System update, Humanity hadn't had any S rank Walkers, but there had been several thousand A rankers.
That number had dropped to critically low levels as Humanity was forcibly held to the standard that the rest of the universe was. There were currently four A rankers on Earth, but that might change when everyone returned from the Tutorial Towers.
There were so many unknowable factors that even as he dug into metrics, it felt almost pointless to try and parse much of the new information without more concrete information to pivot from.
The System had also had a compendium of classes, abilities, and so on that listed everything Humanity had discovered. Hundreds of classes, sub-classes, specialty classes, rare classes, unique classes and even a few legendary classes had been discovered and listed, but now the System showed tens of thousands of classes, many of them simply listed as question marks.
It was the same for every other category as well, with the potential for growth now being clearly shown in easily quantifiable data to have been tapped by less than a single percent.
For a long time, rumors of incredibly powerful people had bounced around, with little means to see how they measured beyond checking the compendium with the hopes of knowing what you were looking for, but upon seeing a class called Mystic Brush listed as a split combat/artisan class, he knew that there was just so much more than they had ever known was even possible.
Checking his surroundings, he saw that he was getting closer to his destination and decided to check one more thing.
His Status screen.
Name: Matt
Affiliations: The Bureau, New Town (Goblin)
Race: Human (D)
Sub-Race: Nexus (A)
Class: N/A
Traits: Eversoul
Unique Ability: True and False
Level: 30
Vitality: 190
Endurance: 160
Stamina: 160
Strength: 200
Dexterity: 210
Magic: 300
His stats confused him since, as far as he was aware, they should all be the same since he didn't get free stats and they all leveled up equally. There must be something that added to them that he wasn't aware of.
Eversoul had, for some reason, been changed from his class to a trait but still had the same description.
Most confusing was "Sub-Race".
What the hell was a Sub-Race?
For that matter, what kind of race was a Nexus?
These were just a couple of the pressing questions he would pursue at a later date, but felt fairly confident he'd never get proper answers for. The System was notorious for giving extreme detail to the point of being unnavigable, but then excessively vague for other things.
Most had learned by this point to just accept some things, and this fell under that category for Matt.
His perusal of the System kept him occupied until the bus finally came to a stop, abruptly dropping from the air to the ground and the individual seat doors opened to let him out.
Apparently he was the only person on the bus today since only his door opened, but that did make a certain amount of sense since most of the people left in the city were either in Guilds or noncombatants who had managed to fall outside of the criteria for going to a Tutorial Tower.
There weren't many people around right now with any interest in going out into the wilderness to fight unknown dangers.
If he hadn't known this would be the case, it wouldn't be hard to tell since as of right now, the edge of the city was actually several blocks away from leaving the city.
The forest had begun encroaching on NYC from the west, simultaneously widening the river and creating a dense undergrowth that flowed miles above the water.
Growing up in the Initiative without the ability to level up meant that Matt never got a chance to leave either the city or Bureau properties, so it wasn't entirely clear how much the area had changed, but he figured that the apparent sixty mile wide river hadn't been quite so…robust prior to the expansion.
Crows the size of horses flew overhead, squawking so loudly that even miles above him in the trees he could hear them clearly.
"Slightly bigger," he muttered, disgruntled.
The plantlife underfoot writhed and twisted as he walked along it, eventually reaching the actual edge of the city and felt his heart catch in his chest. Trying not to look down, he stepped forward to find that the new root groundwork was solid and stable.
Matt wasn't afraid of heights.
He just didn't want to fall.
How could an Uplifter be afraid of heights? The very idea was ludicrous and not even worth considering.
Eyes set forward, he tested every step before taking it, making completely sure not to look down at the crashing river water miles below.
It didn't matter how intensely fast the newly enhanced river was if he never fell several miles in freefall down to its undoubtedly hidden sharp rocks just waiting to rip him to pieces as he landed. He didn't think the distance was quite far enough for terminal velocity, but as he checked another footstep he suddenly found himself wondering if he'd ever learned what that velocity was or if he'd just heard the term and assumed he knew what he meant. Ultimately it didn't matter, because he wasn't going to fall so why would knowing if he was thinking of the term accurately matter? It didn't, obviously. Feeling the razor sharp wind rushing past his face as gravity took hold of him and slammed him down into the rapids to test if his new stats could withstand a collision at that speed and distance, which of course they could. What was the point of leveling up and getting stronger if something stupid like falling could kill him so easily?
Getting up the courage at that thought he finally looked down only to see solid ground under the undergrowth.
What?
He realized he couldn't hear the sound of water at all and after much more extensive examination, discovered that he was actually a long way from the river.
Sixty miles.
The river, by his guess at least, was currently sixty miles wide.
By his estimate and the soreness in his legs, he'd somehow covered over a hundred.
Clearing his throat in mild embarrassment, he looked around to make sure nobody was close by and said with conviction, "I am not afraid of heights."
He chuckled weakly to himself and started walking only to yelp in fear when a small woman popped out of the ground in front of him and said, "You got the look of it!"
Heart slamming in his chest and cheeks burning in embarrassment, he forced himself to say, "What the hell!"
She giggled, an adorable little sound marred by what she said next, "Never terror seen that like!"
Matt's expression dropped to one of irritation and he tried to walk away, grumbling to himself.
"Where going?"
"Why are you talking like that?"
She sped up ahead of him and turned, smiling brightly beneath her blonde bangs and dirty cheeks as she said, "Always talking right, wrong talk you!"
Taking a deep, stabilizing breath, Matt gently moved her to the side and tried to walk away, again, as she puffed up her cheeks in annoyance.
This time, instead of trying to stop him, she just followed behind him by a few feet and ignored his increasingly frustrated looks as he looked back at her.
She stood at 5'6 with a petite figure, a pretty face with emerald green eyes and seemed to have a tendency to puff those adorable cheeks out when she got annoyed, which seemed to be more often then you'd think. Then, she had chosen to follow someone who wanted to be alone, so it wasn't all that surprising when he ignored her, hence the frequent annoyance.
Frankly she was an enigma Matt didn't want to spend even a minute trying to figure out.
Walkers tended to be more than a little eccentric and she seemed like she had found the word in the dictionary and was determined to get her picture next to the definition.
"Girl found helpless alone, man advantage take?"
Sighing in exasperation, Matt stopped walking and said, "Are you kidding me? First, I'm not going to 'take advantage' of you. Second, helpless? Even a child could see you're not even close."
She rolled her eyes and said, "No advantage, fine. Tanya, you?"
Seeing that this wasn't going to end any time soon, Matt said, "I'm Matt. Is there any particular reason you're following me?"
Waggling her eyebrows playfully she replied, "Bored."
"Of course you are."
Starting to walk again, he felt something inside twitch.
A strange sensation to say the least, especially since it didn't seem to come from his body, but somewhere deeper down…his soul, maybe?
Either way, he decided to follow that feeling as it began pulsing as he walked away from the path.
Concern bloomed in Tanya's voice as she shouted, "Danger way that!"
Unfazed, he kept walking, pushing through the plants and pulled his sword from his inventory to cut branches away. At least 'Tanya' might stop following him if he went this way.
There was no such luck as he felt her shadowing him again, apprehension apparent in the way she walked. She somehow managed to keep up with him perfectly while moving slowly at the same time.
A glance back at her showed eyes wide with fear and Matt started to feel bad about subjecting her to this.
No.
Tanya was not going to guilt him into going another way.
She was following him, without his permission to boot, so he wasn't going to sway from his decisions just because a random cute girl started getting huffy.
"Dang it man," he muttered aloud.
He'd admitted she was cute, in his mind at least, and that admission made him feel like he should listen to her at least. Matt, a man of firm resolve and unshakable conviction, ignored that impulse as he kept walking and asked, "Why don't you want to go this way."
Unshakable conviction indeed.
"Gate."
Well, that settled it, didn't it?
In her efforts to get him to turn around, Tanya had uttered the single word that interested Matt the most and sealed the deal that he would be heading there as fast as his legs could walk. He most certainly wasn't going to run in this intense forest, but speed walking was definitely on the table.
As he made his way through the underbrush, the ambient mana began to shift and swirl, almost manifesting visibly until he reached a gate nestled in a wide clearing.
A roiling vortex of power greeted him as he stepped inside and shot off a quick Identify.
Gate: Wooded Worm Habitat
Level: 65
Matt whistled as he read the level.
Level sixty five wasn't crazy strong, but it was certainly impressive considering he hadn't seen any animals or monsters up till this point. Given the name of the Gate, he made the assumption it had something to do with worms, obviously, though it wasn't incredibly clear what it would consist of.
It wasn't often, but from time to time a Gate would appear that simply ignored its naming convention and threw massive curveballs at a Walker heading in.
Turning to check as he walked deeper in, half expecting her to have ignored her own warnings, he saw Tanya standing at the edge of the clearing with tears pouring down her cheeks. What was she crying about, Matt wondered.
Her mouth shuddered and twitched open, a low sobbing gasp racking her entire body as she looked at the Gate. She fell backwards and tried pushing herself backwards, as though the clearing was reaching out to her.
Pure terror.
Tanya was shaking and crying in abject, crippling terror of this Gate, and Matt couldn't for the life of him understand why.
Looking back at the Gate, Matt tried to see whatever it was that was impacting her so deeply.
Devoting several minutes to his effort, he felt the world shift slightly as something inside of him clicked into place.
The energy of the Gate shifted colors as a golden pedestal began forming beneath it, with ornate stairs and a small shrine formed around it.
Ominous energy radiated off of the newly forming structure and a crimson haze began to form throughout the clearing.
Maybe it had already been there?
Tanya seemed to have some kind of instinctual reaction to it, and while he couldn't be sure of what she saw, it was clear that there was something deeply wrong about it.
All of this left Matt at a loss in regards to what to do here.
It was generally considered a wise practice to report new Gates, especially unique or strange ones. That course of action would net him a tidy bounty and possibly even first entry rights, but those usually went to the highest paying Guild.
With all that said, there were no hard rules with this kind of thing since the primary purpose of reporting new Gates was to ensure that they didn't crash and fill the surrounding area with monsters. That wasn't a problem since this Gate was so far off the beaten path and miles away from the nearest town or city, but the Gate did feel…off somehow.
Beyond the fact that the structure was an entirely new phenomenon, the Gate felt like it was almost alive.
The ominous energy it put off had slowly mutated into an oppressive blood lust, as though the thing could reach out and consume him.
Now, Matt was not a stranger to danger in the slightest and had spent the last few weeks since Eversoul woke up and let him start leveling, pushing into every Gate he could find in a mad pursuit to catch up to his peers.
Those efforts were, of course, of minimal effectiveness at best.
It has been said, time and again, how powerful Uplifters are in comparison to normal Walkers, but without context its nearly impossible to properly grasp why catching up to them is so radically infeasible.
Putting aside the rather complex matter of Ranking, despite its incredible importance in the wider System managed universe, it is fairly easy to rank Walkers by level to get an understanding of Matt's situation.
Gate Walking is dangerous.
It's pretty obvious to say that, considering that on a good day a Walker might be doing anything from gathering materials inside a Gate or fighting creatures that are a clear mockery of their more mundane comparisons, if they even have any.
Mundane people, or civilians, almost entirely sit between level one to level five. With level one as the baseline for humanity, the levels in those ranges barely put a person above that baseline.
Of course there are exceptions to that rule, but generally a person in that range is just a person.
After level five, however, most people will begin to see an increase in capability depending on several factors that impact how your natural stats increase and how you place the few free stats you get per level.
Its difficult to get to level five because, for the most part, people don't generally find themselves fighting monsters or entering Gates unless they are directly trying to level up or in a situation that requires them to kill to survive.
Once a person reaches level ten, they are generally considered by the people around them to be a Walker. Not quite superhuman, but far enough from baseline to make a noticeable difference in what they're capable of.
The vast majority of Walkers live between level ten and twenty, and in fact most never really strive for more than that.
Stats increase a wide variety of aspects to one's life, from longevity to intellect, and even being level fifteen will go a long way to almost every impact a higher level will have on a person.
Above level twenty, you start to see the emergence of elite Walkers, people strong enough to save entire towns from Gate crashes on their own.
At level fifty, the standard expectations become murky because their strength is almost always above the normal capacity for any person or organization to gather an accurate reading of their power and capabilities.
Many of the Uplifters Matt had been raised alongside were now pushing into level seventy, a milestone that would most likely radically alter their daily lives, let alone the way they see the world or fight in it.
He would always keep pushing forward and getting stronger, but on some fundamental level he knew he'd always be lagging behind by a pretty decent margin.
This, of course, brings us to the strange discrepancy with monsters and mutated animals.
It was currently a total mystery how the System determined their levels, how they got stronger, or much of anything 'under the hood', if you will.
Fighting upwards was almost the only way to make decent progress with your own levels, and monsters simply didn't seem to have that limitation.
All of this is to say that what happened in the next few minutes was not a conflict born of hubris or greed.
Sometimes terrible things happen because the world is simply unfair, and horrible things happen to people who would never deserve it because of the poor choices of someone with too much ambition and not enough power.
In a simple direct chain of events, several things happened that would cascade into nightmarish conflicts for people worldwide.
Matt felt the energy of the Gate and knew he had to do something, so he put his hand in to enter.
A hand thrust out of the Gate and hurled him to the side while a massive sharpened spear of crystal shot forward where Matt would have been nanoseconds prior.
The Gate shut almost instantaneously as an entity flickered outward and removed Tanya's head from her shoulders, her hands still radiating energy from the spell she'd cast in an attempt to kill Matt…or the Gate, he wasn't sure and figured the chances of ever properly finding out were pretty slim.
It was hard to interrogate a head after all.