Mage of Creation

Year 311 Central Calendar, Mars

'I really stayed up too long yesterday, I wanted to stay home today but I can't miss another physics lecture when the exams are coming up soon.'

Trying to stay awake, Ezren looked out of the train window, there old and abandoned buildings were flashing past him. These buildings had to be hundreds of years old, yet they were still in rather good condition.

Looking a bit further towards the horizon, Ezren's gaze landed on the great barrier which separated District 18 - where he was currently - from the abandoned southern regions. The great barrier looked like a semi-translucent blue wall stretching in all directions as far as he could see.

His history teacher had once told him that the barriers had been built by humans hundreds of years ago, and while Ezren did believe his teacher, it was still hard for him to truly accept that fact. For him the barriers were no different from mountains and valleys. Just like mountains, the barriers had been there when he was born, they had been there when his grandfather was born, they had also been there when his grandfather's grandfather had been born. It was just hard for him to fathom how the humans of the past could have possibly built something like that when the current humanity failed to even comprehend how these barriers functioned.

And while he was lost in thoughts, he saw something that disturbed him deeply. He saw ripples spreading across the barrier. At first, they were small and shallow, barely noticeable, yet they grew more and more severe. At some point massive ripples spread across the entire barrier and its blue color started to dim a little as if the barrier was about to disappear.

Then an instant later the barrier returned to normal. Before Ezren could even start to comprehend what was happening, he heard an agonizing scream that made him shiver.

No, it wasn't just a single scream. Most of the people in the train cart had started to scream out in what seemed to be pure agony.

Ezren turned away from the window and instead looked at one of the screaming passengers. He had just enough time to notice thin streams of blood oozing out of the person's orifices when he suddenly felt weightless.

'What the fuck is happening?'

In the next moment Ezren eyes widened, when he realized what was happening.

'The train is fall-'

Before he could even finish the thought the train had already crashed into the ground and Ezren as well as all other passengers, who were still screaming like maniacs, were thrown around crashing into the seats, walls and each other.

He felt himself being thrown around hitting some seats and other people on the way before he suddenly felt a strong impact on the back of his Head and his vision went dark.

_______________

'...ugh. What is going on? Was that all that a dream?'

He wanted to believe just that, that he would wake up in a few moments and find himself at home in his warm and comfy bed. But the strong pain in the back of his head and the fact that the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the metallic floor of the train forced him to accept that everything really happened.

But WHAT had actually happened and more importantly WHY did it happen. He had never heard of an electromagnetically suspended train crashing in such a way. Was it related to the anomaly that had happened to the barrier? Traveling on an electromagnetically suspended train was considered one of the safest and most efficient forms of travel. These trains were relics from the time before recorded history after all. And he most certainly had never heard of a situation where dozens of people started screaming and bleeding simultaneously for no apparent reason.

Ezren finally managed to fully open his eyes and take in the situation around him. The train had derailed after the electromagnetic suspension failed and was now laying sideways beside the tracks.

Looking around himself, he witnessed a scene that he would normally expect to see in a horror movie, dozens of passengers were laying scattered around in the train cart. He was pretty sure that every single one of them was either dead or mortally wounded.

Some of them had an arm or leg completely ripped out of their bodies while most looked like they had multiple fractures all over their body. There were already multiple pools of blood forming beneath the people. 

He was so focused on the scene of horror that he completely forgot to check his own condition. Only after he suddenly felt a growing pain in his left arm did he finally take a good look at himself. And moments later he wished that he hadn't! His left arm had seemingly got stuck between two seats, which was likely the reason he survived the crash, but his arm was a mangled mess. Ezren was sure that his arm had at least 3-4 fractures, maybe even more!

There was also this agonizing pain in the back of his head. He carefully moved his right hand towards the back of his head and winced in pain the moment he touched it. Pulling his hand back in front of him he could see that it was red with blood. 

'Shit, a mangled arm is already bad enough but a serious injury to the head? That could kill me! It already feels like it is becoming harder and harder to concentrate. I need to call for hel-'

*crack crack*

His thoughts were interrupted by a strange sound which sounded way to much like bones breaking for his taste. He stood up slowly using his right hand to pull his left arm out from between the seats.

Until now he had barely noticed because of the adrenaline and the strong pain in the back of his head but his left arm hurt as well. It hurt a lot actually, so much so that he wanted to just leave it stuck where it was, but the ominous noise of breaking bones made him push through the pain. 

Once he had freed his left arm, which was now just hanging down limply at his side he stood up and started to look around for the source of the ominous sounds.

And it didn't take Ezren long to find the source. It was a woman who was staggering towards him almost tripping over something every few steps.

Ezren had no idea how this woman was still able to walk. She was a rather small women barely 1,60 meters tall. And she was covered in blood and injuries. While she had no visible lethal injuries, her right leg was bent sideways under the knee, meaning that she had at least broken the bones in her lower leg. There was also a visible indent in her face. She had most likely broken her nose, jaws and maybe even cracked her skull.

Yet all that wasn't the part that made Ezren freeze in fear and disgust. It was her muscles, which were twitching and bulging as if she was having a seizure. Her skin even started to be ripped apart and her bones started to be crushed by her own muscles.

Ezren was frozen since his cloudy mind just couldn't process what was happening. He just watched as the woman slowly approached him. Then when she was just half a meter away from him, she suddenly leaned forward and tried to bite him.

Out of pure reflex Ezren punched her in the face as strong as he could. Once his fist connected with her face, for a moment, he could feel a bit of resistance. After that his fist broke through the apparently already fractures skull of the women and embedded itself in her head.

The woman went limp, and a blue light flashed before Ezren's eyes.

That was the final push needed, Ezren fell to the grounds and started throwing up everything inside his stomach.

After there was nothing left to throw up Ezren started to focus on the blue screen that had appeared before his eyes the moment he killed the women.

[You've killed a Lv. 0 'Unstable Mutation']

[You've leveled up]

[You reached Level 1]

[You can now choose your first 'Class']

[You've gained a 'Minor achievement' by being in the first 1% of humans to reach Level 1]

[You can now open your 'Status']

Ezren was overwhelmed by the amount of information and by the implications this information held. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and just sat there for a minute trying to calm down, while still staying vigilant in case another of those 'Unstable Mutations' would show up.

After having calmed down he thought about opening his 'Status' and just as he expected another blue window appeared before his eyes

[Status

Name: Ezren

Last Name: None

Race: Gene-enhanced Human

Age: 19 Years

Rank: 1

Level: 1

Class: None

Health: 40%

Mana: 110 (110)

Vitality: 7

Constitution: 9

Strength: 8

Agility: 9

Stamina: 8

Intelligence: 12

Magic: 11

Innate Skills: None

Acquired Skills: None

Achievements:

<1x Minor achievement>]

[You may choose your first 'Class']

The 'Status' seemed to show Ezren his basic information. While reading through his status Ezren noticed something weird.

'Why does it say I have no Last Name? My last name is Evans. It also displays that I am 19 Years old, but I have only turned 10 recently. I also don't understand why my race is listed as Gene-enhanced Human? As far as I know, Gene-enhancements are science fiction stuff and are not possible with our current technology.

Well, there is no way to answer those questions right now, but I will keep them in mind. Should I get to choosing a class now? If it works similar to video games, then a class should determine what kind of special abilities I will be able to gain in the future?!'

[Do you want to choose your first class? Y/N]

'Yes'

[Your class choices are:

Mage of Creation (Rank: Unique)

Scientist (Rank: 1)

Apprentice Wizard (Rank: 1)

Doctor (Rank: 1)

Warning: Unique classes often come with heavy drawbacks and weaknesses. There is no guarantee for the quality of a unique class since they exist outside the 'normal' class ranks]

[You may use <1x Minor achievement> to elevate the Rank of your 'normal' class choices and compensate for the worst drawback of your Unique class. Y/N]

'Since I have no idea what else I could do with my achievement…. Yes'

[Mage of Creation (Rank: Unique)

Arcane-Engineer (Rank: 2)

Wizard (Rank: 2)

Healer (Rank: 2)]

'Is that all the information I get? Just the name of the classes?

Well at least the names give a rough idea of how the classes will work. 'Mage of Creation', 'Healer' and 'Wizard' are pretty much self-explanatory. 'Arcane-Engineer' on the other hand sounds like a class without any combat ability, well 'Mage of Creation' might also lack in combat ability depending if it focuses more on the Mage or the Creation part.

I have to make my choice taking both the long-term viability as well as the immediate future into consideration. I am currently stranded in the middle of nowhere and weird monsters who are trying to eat me are running around. So, my class should have at least some combat abilities.

That means that 'Arcane-Engineer' is out of question. I also won't choose 'Healer' since a healer needs allies to heal to be useful and I can't be sure if anyone else survived the crash.'

While thinking about this Ezren couldn't help but imagine what might have happened to him if he had been a bit less lucky during the crash. He could've died instantly, slowly bleed to death or have been eaten by the weird abomination. That last option was a truly horrific thought.

Then the stinging pain in his head and arm brought him back out of his dark thoughts.

'Stop thinking about useless stuff! Focus on the current issue! ….my head hurts.'

It was getting harder and harder for Ezren to form any coherent thoughts. And his vision started to blur more and more.

'Focus! It's just a choice between 'Wizard' and 'Mage of Creation' now. 'Wizard' seems to be the better short-term choice since I assume that there will be no major drawbacks to it, but it sounds like a class made primarily for combat. 'Mage of Creation' on the other hand might have some drawbacks but it would allow me to work a stable non-combat job once I escape from here.

Being a one-man construction team does sounds rather nice. At least it is better than running around and trying to kill monsters for a living.'

After a few more seconds of consideration the growing pain in Ezren's head forced him to make a decision.

"I choose 'Mage of Creation'"