Aren had stopped trying to refresh the news,
The phone still worked, technically it did. Signal bars flickered in and out, switching between weak reception and nothing at all.
Videos loaded halfway, froze, then jumped forward without sound.
Posts duplicated. Comments contradicted each other. Every platform looked like it was being held together by habit more than infrastructure.
Governments were still talking.
Nigeria's official channels had released three statements in under an hour. None of them said much, Words like temporary investigation ongoing, no confirmed threat. The president appeared briefly on a recorded address that looked pre-made, his tone steady, his background suspiciously clean. He urged calm. Asked citizens to remain indoors. Promised coordinated response with international partners.
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Foreign broadcasts weren't much better. The United States talked about "unidentified global atmospheric anomalies." Europe framed it as a solar phenomenon. China said almost nothing, which somehow felt worse.
Brazil's feeds were chaotic clips of the same man lifting a car from different angles, reposted so many times the footage degraded into noise.
No one agreed on what was happening as everyone was afraid to say the truth.
But everyone agreed something had already gone wrong.
Aren sat on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, phone hanging from his fingers,
The apartment lights were still on. Power hadn't failed here yet.
Outside, the city felt tense but not destroyed. Sirens passed occasionally voices echoed from neighboring buildings.
Somewhere far off, something heavy crashed, followed by shouting.
As he didn't know what was that he just dulled it in his mind he also was thinking about his siblings who should have been home.
That thought came back again and again, unwanted but persistent.
School had been put on "temporary hold" after the first global thunder. Students were told to remain inside campus grounds, Parents were advised not to rush in. The message had sounded reasonable at the time as Schools were considered controlled environments.
Safe zones.
That was before the second thunder and before the tremor that followed it...
The air itself seemed to settle wrong, like it was heavier than it should have been.
Aren checked his messages again.
Nothing from his younger brother and Nothing from either of his sisters.
Their last texts were normal complaints about boredom, a picture of a half-eaten snack, a voice note complaining about a teacher who'd locked the classroom door "just in case."
His mother's message was still there too Short and a little blunt from the way he saw it.
"I'm stuck at work. Don't go outside. Lock the door."
Sent hours ago.
He hadn't replied. Not because he didn't want to but because every time he typed something, it felt like lying. He couldn't just tell her he was safe.
He couldn't tell her he understood what was happening. All he could do was sit still and wait.
But oh well the system didn't.
A notification popped in his side of vision, it didn't come with sound he could hear but he was getting kind of used to it.
A translucent panel slid into his vision, hovering just above eye level.
It didn't block his sight, didn't glow unnaturally bright. It was almost polite in how little space it took.
[Framework Online]
Aren exhaled slowly.
It was still there at least he thought it wasn't.
He'd half-hoped it would disappear once reality reasserted itself.
That someone would explain it away. That it would turn out to be stress, or mass hysteria, or some elaborate global experiment.
But the panel stayed.
Another line appeared beneath it.
[Phase One Active]
[User Compatibility: Confirmed]
[Growth-Type Framework Detected]
He frowned.
Growth-type?????
The word stuck with him In his mind as he contemplated it trying to reason it's meaning.
He was trying to compare if it was what he knew about it based on games he played and genres he heard.
Does it follow the same mechanism of a power-type,combat-type or his Growth type. It felt like something unfinished something he couldn't place his finger on.
His gaze shifted, and the panel responded instantly, expanding slightly.
[Available Action: First Slot Initialization]
Aren didn't move.
He stared at these words, then glanced around the apartment as if expecting someone else to see them too. The walls were the same. The clock ticked normally. The distant noise outside hadn't changed.
Only this had.
"First slot," he muttered quietly. "That's it?"
No response.
The system didn't react to his tone it was giving the type of those based kind of AI with no emotions or did it even have an AI…..
Another panel opened beside the first. This one was wider, structured differently.
Not a list, More like… categories.
[Selectable Frameworks – Preliminary Access]
[Note: All selections are incomplete forms]
That line alone made his chest tighten.
Incomplete?????
He scrolled by instinct more than instruction and the categories shifted.
It showed some pics of beings he haven't even seen before.
Some were familiar. Some weren't.
Trickster-Type (Low Stability, High Survival)
Warrior-Type (High Output, Limited Growth)
Wanderer-Type (Mobility-Based Scaling)
Bound Entities (Restricted Power, Severe Risk)
Aren swallowed.
This wasn't a game menu that he thought it was, There were no stats, no numbers to min-max. It was Just implications.
His phone buzzed suddenly, making him flinch.
A video loaded barely. Someone had stitched together clips from different countries with Shaky footage and No narrations.
A street in India buckling as the ground split.
A coastal town in South America flooding too fast for sirens to matter.
Somewhere in Eastern Europe, a forest line shifting unnaturally, trees bending inward like they were being pulled.
Then he saw something else in these clips.
A clip shot from a distance, grainy and zoomed too far...A figure standing on a highway divider, unmoving while traffic lay overturned around it. The person filming whispered something under their breath before cutting the feed.
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Aren locked his phone and looked back at the system.
"that person was staring blankly was he like me a system user?" he said quietly, though no one answered him as he wasn't close to anyone.
Another panel responded.
[Global Selection Rate: Minimal]
[Luck-Based Qualification: Rare]
Luck????
He'd seen it mentioned online before the feeds collapsed rumors of some people reacting faster, surviving incidents that should've killed them.
Others didn't get that chance. Mutations. Sudden strength. Sudden loss of control. Evolution without direction.
The system hadn't mentioned any of that...
Which probably meant it didn't consider it relevant.
His eyes moved back to the categories.
One name lingered at the edge of his thoughts, unlisted but impossible to ignore. A figure he'd grown up hearing about from stories, from random clips, from half-remembered myths passed between cultures.
*Sun Wukong*
"Monkey King."
He didn't appear in his options… and why is this thing giving him options in the first place, I thought we could choose by ourselves based on what I saw online. Aren said grumbly.
But Aren could feel it. Like a shadow behind the Trickster-Type category. Something unfinished, Something not meant to be handed out cleanly.
A note flickered briefly beneath the list, appearing and disappearing so fast he almost missed it.
[Advanced Mythic Entities: Locked]
Of course.
He leaned back against the couch, running a hand through his hair.
If he chose wrong, there was no reset button , This wasn't a trial run. Whatever he picked would grow with him or drag him down with it.
Outside, a scream cut through the air.
Aren stood up immediately and moved toward the window, pulling the curtain aside just enough to see the street below.
People were running now.
In crowds Not organized and individuals reacting late, scattering in different directions.
Smoke rose from somewhere near the intersection. A car door hung open, engine still running.
He didn't see what they were running from.
That felt worse.
The system didn't comment.
It didn't urge him to hurry. Didn't warn him of danger it didn't even offer advice.
Then a red text showed in his vision, it felt as if it was urging him since it changed color.
[First Slot Pending]
Aren stepped back from the window.
His siblings' faces flashed through his mind. His brother's stubbornness. His sisters' constant arguing over nothing. His mother's tired voice whenever she came home late.
If he died here, alone in the apartment, none of this would matter.
If he chose badly, it might matter in the worst way possible.
He looked at the categories again.
Trickster. Wanderer. Warrior. Bound.
He just stared at those words as that was what he could categorize them in his own understanding.
Outside, something heavy struck the ground hard enough to rattle the windows.
Aren exhaled slowly, steadying himself.
Whatever he chose wouldn't save the world.
It would just decide whether he survived it.
And with that thought pressing down on him, the system remained open, as he contemplated…