Gods…Dammit, Why Did You Screw up My Integration?

  John opened his eyes. He felt weak. His skin was tingling. Must be a pretty high essence location. That's good. He was laying on a raised platform in a rock walled room. Something was wrong. He wasn’t wearing the superior quality leather armor he had on when he initialized the integration. He had the rough spun pajamas of a low leveled villager or farm worker. He quickly checked his inventory and it was empty. He didn’t even have the staff he had bought for integration. Trying to sit up, John realized he was even weaker then he should have been.

  Pulling up his stats, everything was set at 5. Half of what the average of adults with no training and no levels would have. What are the meddling gods up to now? What have I ever done to you? Finally, after a few tries he was able to sit up. He swung his legs over the edge of the platform and glanced around. There was a fountain in the corner with water spilling out of the basin into a drain in the floor. On the opposite wall was a plaque over top of a pedestal with a small round object. The room was small. Maybe two meters wide from the platform to the opposite wall and only about five meters deep. It was lit by glowing crystals embedded at regular intervals in the ceiling. He had alerts flashing. He pulled up the first one.

  System Alert

  Your body has absorbed enough ambient essence to evolve. Do you wish to improve your:

  Core

  Delivery System

  Distribution System

  Cells

  The first three were greyed out so he chose cells. Need to survive first and foremost. John chose to improve his vitality, agility, and awareness. They each improved by 1. John’s next alert was a class quest.

  Class Quest

  Raise your Strength and Agility to 20

  Reward: Emperor’s Armory

  That would have been nice to know a few seconds earlier. Emperor’s Armory? What class did I get? Pulling up his class menu he saw his class was “The One Great Emperor” and it was a tier 7 class. He had never heard of a tier 7 class. The mythical classes of the great heroes were only tier 6. Does that mean…yes it does. I can have 7 active subclasses. At least there is one small diamond in this lump of coal integration. John continued reading and discovered his new class gave him +2 to all stats and 4 unassigned stats. John opened the next alert.

  Celestial Achievement:

  Receive a tier 7 class

  Reward: 100% to all stats

  That was nice. Merely makes me a normal adult right now, but that will be one heck of a title after I gain some more stats. John continued to read through his alerts.

  Class Quest

  Raise your Strength and Vitality to 20

  Reward: Emperors Wardrobe

  Ok. If I survive long enough, I’ll have a choice of weapons and some fancy clothes to put on at least. Not that they’ll do me any good. Every want to be warlord, king, or bandit that sees my class will not hesitate to chop my head off. And they’ll probably get a title for it.

  Integration Notification:

  This planet has been blessed by the old gods. Sapient races will be able to train their affinities while on this planet. Sapient races will also be able to choose to add one of the following affinities when they first arrive on the planet:

  Nature

  Fire

  Earth

  Wind

  Lightning

  Water

  John had never had an affinity before. He had adapted over the centuries to become quite skilled at using essence for shields, healing, regeneration, and shaping essence blades on weapons that allowed it like his staff on his last planet. However, he had never cast spells to deal damage or gotten much benefit from imbued spells because of their high cost and low damage without an affinity. John thought about his choices and went with lightning. It was useful for both damage and control.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  After choosing Lightning, he was given the spell “Lightning Bolt” and a class quest to raise the spell to level 5 to receive the subclass “Electromancer”. Looking at the room and platform, John noticed it was made out of the dense stone that looked suspiciously like indestructible dungeon stone. Deciding digging his way out wasn’t in his future, he stood and slowly walked over to the plaque.

  Tired of seeing her seeds destroyed by the corruption of the system, Destiny with a Legion of helpers created a seed that would grow back stronger if destroyed.

  Not sure what that meant, John looked down at the pedestal. On it was a single perfectly round crystal similar in size to a marble that children would play with. Picking it up he received another alert:

  Dungeon Completion

  You have conquered “Unnamed Juvenile Dungeon” do you wish to:

  Destroy it and absorb its essence.

  Become the dungeon master.

  Do nothing

  John had never become a dungeon master before, so with images of having unlimited hordes of dungeon creatures to fight, he chose to give it a try. Couldn’t make his odds of survival any worse. His class alone would probably lead to many resets. Assuming the gods hadn’t messed up that little trump card of his. He then received an alert that he would not be able to make changes to the dungeon until it reached level 1 and instructed him to place the dungeon in a high essence location to accelerate its growth. .

  System Alert

  Your body has absorbed enough ambient essence to evolve. Do you wish to improve your:

  Core

  Delivery System

  Distribution System

  Cells

  Again. Just how high is the essence on this planet? Once again John’s only choice available was to improve his cells. So he chose Strength, Agility, and Vitality. This time he was rewarded with 2 points in agility and vitality and 1 point in strength. Not bad. Two evolutions in 10 minutes. These newly integrated planets do have their benefits. Holding the dungeon core in his left hand, John cautiously walked to the door. Kneeling, he looked in both directions. He saw a hallway that appeared to be filled with rooms similar to the one he had awoken in. To the right the hallway went for about 20 rooms and ended in a heavy metal doorway. To the left he saw many more rooms and an open door to a room with the green glow of essence crystals.

  Jackpot! John thought he had found an essence vein that he could hopefully mine before it was claimed by a powerful beast. He started walking towards the glowing room, but after passing a couple rooms, his skin began to burn. Essence burn. This is an even higher essence area than I thought. He had begun to slowly take damage due to the essence levels being higher than his weakened body could handle. Turning around, John debated rolling the core closer to the essence vein, but he wasn’t sure how fragile a juvenile core was. He decided to explore in the opposite direction.

  After a few steps, John heard a series of wet splatting sounds like someone beating a slab of meat. Curious John proceeded forward. He sensed movement just before he reached the next doorway. A tentacle reached into the hallway and a slime pulled itself out of the room and began threatening him with waving tentacles.

  John quickly stepped back. He had never had an affinity before, so slimes were always his most hated foe. He avoided them if at all possible. A smile came to John’s face as he realized slimes were no longer a problem. He pointed his finger at the slime and cast a lightning bolt. The slime tried to move back into the room it came out of, but John was able to hit it.

  Cautiously John entered the room, but the slime was nowhere to be seen. Realizing it could only be one place, he jumped back and examined the ceiling. No slime there, either. Looking around, John saw no means of escape for the slime, but decided to keep moving in case his lightning bolt had attracted attention.

  John exited the room and continued down the hall towards the door. He searched the door and could find no evidence of either mechanical or magical booby traps. No time like the present to find out if I can die this integration. John took a deep breath and opened the door. Nothing happened. Stepping into an enormous room with a ceiling at least 10 meters high lit up and the size of several coliseums. John received a new alert.

  Legendary Achievement

  Be the first to find a world wonder.

  Reward: +10% to all stats

  Nice. I’ll take back some of those thoughts I had about meddling gods. John looked around the massive room. The only thing he could see was a glowing crystal in the wall next to the door he had entered. He placed his hand on the crystal and his interface opened up.

  Welcome to Destiny’s Amphitheater

  What would you like to train today?

  Stats

  Spells

  Skills

  John felt like he had integrated into his dreamworld. He chose stats and then selected strength, vitality, and agility. A weighted vest and two moderately heavy metal bars appeared on the floor. John placed his dungeon core on the ground, put on the vest, and grabbed the metal bars. A green arrow appeared on the floor. The arrow changed from yellow to red and another arrow appeared in front of it. Getting the idea, John began jogging in the direction the arrow pointed. After a few steps a bar flew out of the wall causing John to duck. A few steps later an obstacle appeared that John had to step over. This continued for several minutes before John received an alert.

  System Alert

  Your body has absorbed enough ambient essence to evolve. To you wish to improve your:

  Core

  Delivery System

  Distribution System

  Cells

  It had been 30 minutes since his last evolution. John chose cells and selected strength, vitality, and agility. This time he received +2 to all three. John continued training. When John felt himself running out of stamina, the arrows actually paused and restarted after a few minutes. After a few rest breaks, he received the notification that his vitality had increased by +1.

  After about an hour John was exhausted, he ended his training session by placing his hand on the crystal on the wall. The vest and weights disappeared. He picked up his dungeon core and left the training area. He entered the first room and dipped the tip of his finger just barely into the water. He felt a tingling of essence from the water, but after a few minutes he felt no side effects. So he dipped the back of his hand in the water and waited. He then put some water on his lips and waited. Next he put a small handful of water into his mouth before spitting it into the drain. Finally he took a small sip of water and swallowed. He felt his cells convert the essence enriched water into stamina as he waited a few minutes. Deciding the water was safe to drink, he drank several handfuls and in another ten minutes, he went back into the training area to continue.