"WOAH! What are you doing!"
A yell broke Morgan's focus as Wren sprinted at him with a look of worry on his face. Confused, Morgan stopped what he was doing and cupped his hand around the cut he'd made in his hand.
"What do you mean? I'm doing the class change ritual."
He gestured down at the sigil by his feet to demonstrate his point.
It'd taken him a while to carve the entire thing into the ground, but it was made quicker by him simply having to recreate the circle the system had given him.
The sigil was two metres in diameter with a crudely drawn hexagram as the base. Surrounding it was a two layered circle that looked like a ring, with runic script written on the band. He wasn't sure what exactly he'd written, but he assumed it would be worth further study at a later time.
In the centre of the large hexagram, was a smaller pentagram drawn entirely from long lines of runic script. Doing as the system's instruction said, he stood in the very centre of the array.
Wren looked down at his work for a few seconds before looking back at him like he was an idiot, pure horror plastered on his face.
"I don't know what you've created, but that's not how you change classes! Get out of there now!"
Dread bloomed through Morgan, this was bad.
Without a second's hesitation, he bent his knees and attempted to leap from the array. Only for his feet to remain rooted in place, stopping his escape attempts.
"I can't move! Break the circle!"
Morgan's face went pale as he reached for the lines etched into the ground, if someone could just break one of them, maybe it would disrupt whatever spell he'd invoked and free him.
Against all his better judgement he'd made the circle, certain that of all the things he'd seen, the system didn't want to harm him. It couldn't be that hard, he figured. So, he'd done what Iskandar suggested, and asked the system how to gain a class.
He should have just asked. This whole disaster was his fault, he hadn't wanted to continuously nag his companions, and he figured the system would give him the same information as everyone else. He was wrong.
Seconds dragged into minutes as he instinctively activated his Overclock skill, trying in vain to reach the carving before it could activate. It was too late.
Blood spilled from his hand like an overflowing chalice, the crimson liquid dripped to the ground, and splattered across the dirt.
His breath caught in his throat as he waited for something, anything to happen. But nothing did. After almost ten seconds of standing as still as a rock, all while Wren stood nervously nearby, he finally let out the breath he'd held.
That was a bad idea.
As if it was waiting for his guard to lower, the circle pulsed to life with a low thrum. His blood, as though magnetised, leaped from his hand and ran along the carved lines, bubbling as it expanded till the entire array was filled with fresh, crimson blood.
A ripple pulsed out through the blood with him as the epicentre. Lapping harmlessly against the outer ring, the wave seemed to hit an invisible barrier and sloshed back in. Again, another ripple formed, and pulsed outwards from him, this time twice as strong.
When it hit the invisible barrier this time, it sprayed into the air, and while most fell back down into the channels, some stuck to the barrier where it rapidly crystalised.
Faster and faster, waves of increasing magnitude pulsed through the crimson liquid, each one leaving more blood behind on the barrier that was quickly blotting out his view of the sun.
He wanted to scream, to call for help, but his voice was stuck in his throat.
Slowly, the last light was blocked out, casting the interior of the blood dome in an unsettling crimson light.
Thick, sticky strands of blood dripped down from the ceiling onto him, and no matter how fast he brushed it off, it continued to build across his body till he was almost fully submerged.
When all seemed lost, a sudden flash of light momentarily dazed him. When his vision returned, he was no longer in the horrific cocoon, slowly drowning beneath a sea of his own blood. Instead, he was in a sparsely furnished apartment building.
His mind reeled as he took in the familiar space. It was one he recognised, not because of any strong memories, but simply because it was his apartment.
He'd first bought this apartment the day he got his job at the lab, and he'd decorated it with everything he needed, a bed, a table, some kitchen ware, and a 50-inch TV that hung at the foot of his bed.
A thin layer of dust hung over everything, just as he'd left it. He never really used this place, preferring to instead sleep in his lab so he could work for longer, but it always held a special place in his heart.
It was his space. No one else ever visited, and on the rare occasion when he just wanted to be alone, it was always there.
What he didn't understand was, how was he here?
'Did I die? Maybe this is my punishment for something I did in life? At least it's not hell. Still, I should at least see if its real.'
He knew it couldn't have been real. This apartment was merely a recreation, no matter how much he wished it wasn't. He passed through the kitchen into the entryway, looking around at the cruel reminder of the life he would never again have.
As he walked slowly through the dusty apartment, he noticed that his body no longer ached with each step, all the bruises, the cuts, and the breaks were gone.
He wore a longer, more stylistic version of a lab coat overtop a simple red t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts, though strangely, his feet were bare.
His hand settled gently on the doorknob as he hesitated. Did he really want to leave? To break free of this illusion and return to a reality where he didn't belong?
'Maybe… five more minutes.'
This might not have been real, but for five minutes he could pretend.
The wooden floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he wandered over to his bedroom and took a seat, TV remote in hand. It was dark out, so he didn't bother closing the curtains as he kicked up his feet and pushed the power button.
Morgan expected to only get the harsh noise of static grating against his ears, but was pleasantly surprised.
On the screen was a cartoon that repeated every five seconds. In it, an 16-bit man continuously punched a smaller greener man, his fist coming away bloodier with each hit before the clip reset. A fast melody played in the background, causing his heart to beat a slight bit faster and his fists to itch.
"Curious. Does this cartoon have something to with why I'm here? I can tell that one is meant to be a goblin, so is the larger one me?"
His finger pressed down on the channel button as he decided to see what else was available. All the channels showed some variation of the first, sometimes set in a forest, other times a village, or a fortress. Yet one thing was constant in all the clips – the 16-bit man.
In some he was bent over mixing chemicals, in others he was throwing flasks at people, or using them as medicine. In some, he wielded a variety of weapons, while others even had him drawing designs on paper before assembling them into machines.
But the one that interested him the most, was unique. While all the other channels had some form of variation, it did not. In the clip, the 16-bit man spoke something aloud, causing a ball of fire to materialise in his hand, a second later it would be water, or earth.
What mattered, was he conjured materials out of seemingly nothing, and that was what intrigued Morgan.
There was also another distinguishing feature he'd noticed, which was each cartoon had a different border colour. The most common of which was grey, followed by green, then blue, and he'd seen two purple ones.
But this one… This one had a golden border that screamed prestige.
'Hmm… what if this is the class change?"
The idea struck him like a hammer and stuck. Afterall, it made sense, he was trying to get a class change before he ended up here, and the system didn't seem malicious. So maybe it simply gave him a ritual that was easier for him to perform instead of one that was faulty?
It made sense in his mind.
This meant these cartoons he was watching, weren't cartoons, but were instead the classes he had available. Each showcased something he'd done somewhere before, fighting a goblin, mixing chemicals in a lab, and creating new machines.
All of them except one. He'd never conjured something from thin air.
"A mage perhaps? I've seen Iskandar use magic, and they've used it on me once, so maybe that's why I have this option."
It was too tempting of a premise, and compared to everything else offered, it was the only one that would give him something new, something he'd never seen before.
His choice was made. Lifting the remote he pointed it at the tv and clicked the centre button.
The screen blinked a few times before releasing a successful ding and blacking out. Expecting that to be the end, he lowered the remote and made to stand, only for something to catch his eye.
Cracks travelled along the screen and purple light seeped into the room as it turned back on. Yet instead of the class selection, he saw a silhouette of a person through the cracks. A blue light pulsed from outside the window, then the purple one from within the screen as the room shook around him.
Whatever was going on, he didn't want any part of it. Turning, he sprinted for the bedroom door, only for it to slam shut in front of him. Space rippled around him as he found himself running out of the door, back into the room.
'Shit, seems I can't leave.'
With nothing better to do, he made his way back to the foot of the bed to watch.
From the window, the blue light continued to pulse in quick, neat bursts. The purple light though, seemed to wait for the blue to finish before pulsing slowly. For some strange reason, Morgan got the same feeling he had when looking out over the ocean, it was like watching the current ebb and flow.
No current inherently went against another, they all just mashed together in the water, sometimes forming a stronger current, sometimes cancelling each other out.
The light debate continued for a few more minutes before the purple light seemed happy and retreated. The cracks faded from the screen leaving it pristine again.
'Huh… that was odd. Oh! Door's open, I guess I'm allowed to go now. But… where have I seen that purple light before? It seems so familiar?'
Sure enough, the door swung open gently, letting him leave the room. Yet, he hesitated, caught between leaving immediately and chasing the feeling of familiarity to its source.
Eventually, he relented and walked over to the door. But he didn't leave, and instead stood in the doorway staring at the TV.
He could feel it, the answer was on the tip of his tongue, he just needed something to push it out. His mind wandered to the class change ritual, and then to the system as he tried to find any form of connection.
Suddenly, it clicked. If the blue light was representative of the system, then perhaps the purple light was also connected to it?
Following the thought, he tried to recall every instance involving the system. There had been a few, but one stood out in particular, the first one. There had been the exact same purple tint to one of the panels when he first tried to view his status.
'Didn't it say something about resistance detected? Could that be what the purple light is, something that interferes with the system? No… that's not quite right either.'
There was something he wasn't remembering, and it was right there at the edge of his grasp, he just couldn't get it to form a proper thought.
A sudden, short pulse of pain shot out from his heart, snapping his concentration just as he was about to remember. He tried to recall what it was he was grasping at, but whatever it was, it sunk back down into the recesses of his mind.
"Ah! Stupid pain, I was so close to the answer! *Sigh* I suppose I can try again later."
His shoulders slumped slightly as he strode slowly through the kitchen and into the entranceway, where he stopped by the door.
His eyes darted around, taking in each and every detail as if it was the last time he'd see it, because it might very well be.
'Maybe one day.'
After a final look, he opened the door and stepped through.