“ Of course, the one time I finally decided to go out on a long walk by myself, I’d literally get struck by lightning.” I thought.

  Once the blinding pain lessened enough, I started scrabbling for my phone, hoping it hadn’t been fried. My front pocket was under me, though, and I couldn’t raise myself up enough to reach it. I moaned.

  “Oh, right, that probably hurt. Just a second.” A male voice sounded in my ears, which were miraculously un-popped. And then, the pain was gone. A quick glance at my hand revealed that it was definitely still burnt. “Take it easy, you are still injured. We need to talk and I’d rather you not be distracted by pain. Besides not wanting you to hurt, too.”

  I very carefully rolled myself on to my side to look at the man who’d made the pain go away. I stared. Man was possibly not the right word. Male was probably accurate, but man kind of implied human, and that was not the case. And guy or dude seemed wildly inappropriate.

  “Did I just die?” I asked, looking at the probable angel. The wings and unearthly beauty were making me lean in that direction, but the outfit was throwing me off. “Oh, uh, no. That’s one of your choices for your future, but you are currently not dead.” He tugged nervously on his brown tunic. “Choices?”

  “Right, yes. Here’s the situation. Earth is close to massive apocalyptic disaster, so the Powers That Be have decided to reintroduce Earth humans to the rest of the worlds, and end your magical lockdown.”

  “What kind of disaster?” I decided that was the most important question here.

  “Well, first, a massive solar flare and coronal mass ejection is going to damage all your electronics and destroy a lot of other infrastructure. The radiation itself is going to be a problem, and some areas will see physical damage from the heat in the atmosphere. And the whole planet will be getting a lot of really bad weather.”

  “Crap. Wait, first?”

  “Yes,” he winced. “Then, that “planet killer” asteroid is not going to miss. It won’t be as bad as what wiped out the Saurians, but it’ll be bad.”

  I shuddered. “Is anybody going to survive that?”

  “What, oh, yes. With ten billion of you, yeah. Some people would make it, but you’d be set back to extremely low population numbers. To the point that it’s functional extinction. Not really fair, that.

  But magic and places to evacuate to during the rest of it would help. So The Powers decided to end Earth’s punishment early, given what’s coming. Even with getting all that back, you’ll have paid your dues to the rest of the universe.”

  “Punishment? What did we even do?”

  “Can’t tell you that. Pretend I didn’t say anything about that! So, anyway, magic power and worlds to evacuate to.”

  “Okay.” I agreed, “for now anyway”.

  “Good. Alright, so particularly talented humans are getting early introductions to the worlds, and having their magic unlocked early. You’ve got some choices to make, since not everyone qualifies or has the ability to use everything, and some of the things on offer are gifts, but you have to pick which ones. Get it?”

  “I think so. One of my choices is dying though?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Oh, you’d be transmigrated to a new body in one of the other worlds. That’s been a fairly popular choice. Basically just immigrating, and using up your gift allowance for some extra benefits on top of your unlocked abilities.”

  “I can see how that’d be appealing to loners, but I have family, and a couple of friends, you know?”

  “So probably a no, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Alright then. So this lightning strike should have unlocked a lot of your innate magic, and it left you in a state where you can more easily accept various gift options. Would you like to go the traditional spellbooks, magical focus and studying route, or would you prefer a magical System interface?”

  “Uhh…I don’t know?”

  “Undecided for now is fine. We can even give you a bit of both and then you can drop one if you like the other more, or stay using whatever.”

  “When does everybody’s magic get unlocked?”

  “Same time as the solar flare. Does that matter?”

  “Maybe. What are my innate abilities?”

  “Hmmm, geomancy, divination, and….dimensional magic. That’s a weird combination. Huh.”

  “And those are supposed to help me survive?”

  “Sure, you could build a physical sanctuary here, or a magical bunker, or a door to another world and set up a base for your family to evacuate to. Lots of ways to improve your odds. I can’t guarantee you’ll be successful, or that you’ll learn how to do specific things though. Those are just ideas off the top of my head for geomancy and dimensional magic.”

  “What about divination?”

  “No ideas for you there. I don’t even know which type it is. It should be useful though.”

  “Okay? What about gifts?”

  “Oooh, that’s the fun part.” He pulled a stack of parchment that morphed itself into an old fashioned catalogue and held it out. “Oh, right, you might want to sit up so you can read this.”

  I looked at my burns and then looked at him. I tried raising a probably singed eyebrow. “Do I not get healed?”

  “I mean, that’s in the catalogue, but I don’t know if you want to use your allowance on it without looking at everything else.”

  I sighed. “Can you hold it where I can see then?”

  He blinked at me for a moment, then shrugged and sat crosslegged on the ground, his wings somehow tucking out of the way. He help up the catalogue open to the first page.

  “Magic melee weapon, magic range weapon, magic armor… am I really going to be fighting that much?”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Up to you. It’s a common advancement path. Do you umm….play those movie games?”

  “Video games? Yeah, some.”

  “Are videos and movies not the same thing?”

  I sighed. Whatever this angel thing had done to make the pain go away was starting to fade.

  “Yes, but with the games, English only uses video.”

  “I see. Well, in games you advance in combat, and practicing other skills to make things. So if you use an earth spell to fight, you’ll get better at it. If you use it to build things, you will still get better at the spell. Non magical skills are similar, yes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you don’t have to fight if you don’t want to. Some spells are specialized for combat or utility, and you’ll get better at them using them that way. Now, if you choose some of the things in this catalogue that may change things.”

  “Got anything recommended for my innate magics?”

  He scrunched up his face in thought and flipped a few pages. “A magic focus for geomancy. Costs 1 gift point, unless you want to upgrade it to a higher tier. Keep in mind that you could also try making your own.” The page had a few images of stone or crystal spheres, jewelry and magic wands.

  “ Some divination tools, one point each, but since we don’t know what kind of divination you can use, you might end up with something that’s not very useful. There’s also a morphing tool, which costs 4 points.”

  “How many points do I get?”

  “Ten.”

  “How about dimensional magic?”

  “Oooh, that’s the good stuff.” He flipped through the catalogue excitedly. “Almost anybody can use a magic bag or storage ring that lets you carry and store things inside of them. But dimensional mages can make them work much better. So, if you buy a basic one, it’s going to be automatically upgraded, and will keep upgrading as you get better at magic. If you buy a portal or teleport system, it will be much easier for you to use, or last longer, or take you farther than it would otherwise. So, in effect, an item that would cost someone else 5 or even 10 gift points is going to cost you 2 to 4 points. ”

  “That sounds pretty stinking good. Got any recommendations?”

  He looked at me, thoughtful. “Well, you mentioned family. You can’t buy transportation for them out of this world from your gift options, but you might be able to learn how to later, if you buy the right spellbooks. I think a personal world door might not be very useful to you, with your goals in mind. So physical items with magical effects might not be the best way to spend all your points.

  I’m fairly good at dimensional magic myself, I’d recommend getting a basic storage system, some spells, and either a small demiplane or a personal dungeon door. Assuming you want to focus on dimensional magic. There is some synergy with geomancy and demiplanes or dungeons.”

  “What’s the difference between demiplanes and dungeons?”

  “A demiplane is a dimensional bubble that creates a small realm that’s anchored to at least one other full world. How big it is will depend on how much you upgrade it, with points or improving your skills or completing enhancements. A dungeon remains part of the world it is in and takes up physical space, but is usually smaller on the outside than on the inside. There are some interesting applications to doing the opposite though, if you upgrade to more than one door. You improve them very much like the demiplanes.”

  I thought about it for a second. “Yeah, I can see how that would be useful. Could I do both? Like in sections?”

  “I assume so? It’d probably be harder to do, but I can’t think of any reason why not. I can’t guarantee it though, I specialize in world travel applications.”

  “So if I get a demiplane it’ll be it’s own tiny world connected to Earth, and if I get a dungeon it will still be part of Earth?”

  “Yes, but completely protected from the outside. It’s almost impossible to break dungeon walls from the outside in.”

  “What about an asteroid strike?”

  “Worst case scenario your dungeon door gets buried or left hanging up in the air inside a crater.”

  “How much does a dungeon cost?”

  “Five points, oh wait, geomancers get a discount. 4 points.. Oh…strange. You get a personal discount too, because…the hells?”

  “What?” I asked tiredly, my burns starting to do more than ache a little. “Evidently you own property with a natural dimensional distortion. If you use your door there, with all your discounts, your dungeon would be 2 points. That’s absolutely absurd.”

  I thought about the patch of forest with a cabin, and cave spring I’d inherited from my great-grandma. “Sounds good, lets do that.”

  “What are my healing options, by the way?”

  “Oh, you can get a set of 20 full healing potions for one point, an accelerated healing item for one point, or a perfection cleanse for 2 points.”

  “I think I understand the first two, but perfection cleanse?”

  “It will purify your body, cure any diseases, and fix any genetic issues you have. It doesn’t cure most kinds of neurodivergence though. It’d probably help with things like depression, but not do much for autism. It will ensure you’re optimized for the maximum healthy lifespan, and fix any issues with your growth, like if you didn’t get as tall or whatever due to illness or malnutrition.”

  He looked at the back cover of the catalogue. “Umm, I highly recommend you use that.”

  “Why?” He looked at me. “Oh, it’s just definitely the best, right? Everybody should use it, not just you. Unless they don’t want to die an untimely death from a disease they don’t know about.” The way he stressed certain words made me feel like he was trying to tell me I personally needed this.

  “Sure, living a long healthy life sounds good. Let’s put it on my short list. Can I get a summary actually?”

  “Sure!” He pulled a sheet of parchment out of the air.

  “Preliminary order:

  Magical Awakening Event (applied) cost: 0

  Hybrid traditional magic, Automated System cost: 0

  Tier 1 (effective Tier 3) Magic Bag or Ring cost: 1

  Tier 1 Geomancy focus: 1

  Dungeon door cost: 2

  Perfection cleanse: 2

  Morphing divination focus cost: 4”

  “That won’t leave you anything for auto-learned spells, books or other incidentals. You’d have to learn by experimentation”

  “I dunno about the divination focus. It’s almost half the budget, right?”

  “Yes. Hmm….how do you feel about a crystal ball or wand as a geomancy focus?”

  “Well, I was thinking about jewelry, but why do you ask?”

  “Because a focus can multi purpose for some affinities. Wands with gems and crystal balls both work for divination as well, as well as being decent for magic in general. We can special order ones that aren’t specialized to one or the other. It doesn’t even really cost much extra. It’s a half point extra each. I do actually have some other options in here that cost less than a point. So it’s a thought.”

  “Okay, a wand that divines and does geomancy. Can I make or find my own crystal ball later by any chance?”

  “Certainly. You just won’t start out with one.”

  “Okay, lets add a magic wand that is good for both. Can I do spells that aren’t geomancy?”

  “Only if you buy them, or a related spell. Your magic is already as varied as it can really get with your talents.”

  Magical Awakening Event (applied) cost: 0

  Hybrid traditional magic, Automated System cost: 0

  Tier 1 (effective Tier 3) Magic Bag or Ring cost: 1

  Tier 1 Geomancy/Divination focus: 1.5

  Dungeon door cost: 2

  Perfection cleanse: 2

  Balance: 3.5 gift points

  “Tell me about spell books and automatically learned spells.” I shuddered, starting to struggle with the pain.

  “Spell books are like texts books on magic. You can get generic primers that teach you a lot about a specific magic type, and that have instructions for a few beginning spells, for one point. You can use that knowledge as a jumping off point for creating spells on your own. You can also get the same basic spells for half a point each. You won’t need to study or practice to have proficiency in them, but they are VERY basic.”

  “Well obviously I need primers for my affinities.”

  “It’s probably your most efficient option, just not the fastest route to power.”

  “Well, the asteroid is supposed to miss us about two years from now, and I can probably handle the solar flare just knowing it’s coming. Can I get a timeline on that?”

  “At least a year from today. I can’t be more specific. Even if it wasn’t against the rules, I don’t know. All I know is that everybody gets their magic at least a year early, and we’ve been awakening people for a couple of months now. At least my people have, I don’t know what the other Powers may have planned and how They are handling it.”

  “That’s actually a lot of time to prep for the sun blowing up at us,” I mused, “at least, for the number of people I need to protect, I think. I guess I can always aim for a higher number if things go well.”

  “That leaves you half a point.”

  “Are there any healing items I can get for that?” I was starting to be overwhelmed by the pain.

  “Oh hells, it’s wearing off. Yes. You can get ten healing potions, or a weak ring of regeneration. You’ll heal faster than normal, but it will be what’s peak possibility for you, not obviously magical.”

  “How long does it last?”

  “It will be bound to your magic, so unless you run out, it will always be working. You will heal completely, but will be over time, not instant.”

  “Yeah, lets do that, unless these burns are gonna kill me.”

  “With the ring, they definitely won’t.”

  “Cool, sounds good.” And then I passed out.