The first person to see it thought they were hallucinating.
A hunter, alone at dawn, pausing mid-step as the forest went quiet. He'd felt tired—bone-deep tired—after a long night tracking prey. Out of habit more than thought, he wondered how much strength he had left.
And something answered.
A translucent sheet of text hovered in front of his eyes.
Not glowing.Not divine.Just there.
He staggered back, heart hammering, swiping at the air.
The screen didn't move.
It didn't react.
It didn't acknowledge him at all.
It simply existed.
By nightfall, the hunter was no longer alone.
He had shown the others.
Some screamed.Some laughed.One elder fell to their knees and whispered a prayer to a god that did not yet exist.
When they focused—when they intended—they saw it too.
Numbers.
Words.
Cold, unforgiving clarity.
Mortals
The reaction spread faster than fire.
People discovered the screen the same way:
Through curiosity
Through desperation
Through exhaustion
Through comparison
A farmer checked their strength after a long harvest and felt pride for the first time in years.
A soldier saw his HP dip too low and survived a battle he would have otherwise fought to the death.
A child saw their Luck stat and was quietly told by their parents that it meant something.
No one knew where the screen came from.
But everyone agreed on one thing:
It did not lie.
Within days, villages changed.
Arguments ended faster.Challenges became formal.Work was assigned not by age or birth, but by visible capability.
Resentment bloomed where numbers disagreed with tradition.
Hope bloomed where numbers contradicted expectation.
People stopped saying:
"I feel stronger."
And started saying:
"I am stronger."
Leaders and Elders
Chieftains were the first to panic.
Not outwardly.
Never outwardly.
But when a ruler opened their screen and saw their Level compared to the warrior standing behind them—
—authority wavered.
Some responded by banning discussion of numbers.
Others leaned into it, declaring that strength proved worthiness.
A few clever ones learned to hide their screens, pretending ignorance while quietly monitoring everyone else.
Power did not disappear.
It became quantified.
Those Who Thought Themselves Special
Shamans were shaken.
They had always spoken of spirits, of unseen forces, of intuition and dreams.
Now, magic had a number.
Mana had a value.
And worse—
—people could check it themselves.
Some shamans adapted.
They became teachers of control, explaining how to raise stats without calling it training.
Others doubled down, insisting the screen was merely a reflection of spiritual truth.
A few declared it heresy.
None of them could make it go away.
Scholars (The First Ones)
The scholars were late.
Not because they were slow—but because they were cautious.
They did not trust what everyone could see.
They tested.
They measured.
They compared.
And slowly, horrifyingly, they realized:
The numbers were consistent.
Two people checking the same stat saw the same value.
Repeated actions produced predictable growth.
Skill acquisition followed patterns.
Luck resisted explanation.
They began writing.
Not theology.
Not myth.
Tables.
Charts.
The first system theory was born without anyone realizing how dangerous that was.
Demons
In Hell, the reaction was… different.
Demons did not question the screen.
They understood it instinctively.
Power had always been something they felt.
Now it was visible.
Measurable.
Competitive.
Hierarchy solidified overnight.
Lesser demons stopped challenging blindly.
Greater demons tracked growth obsessively.
And the first Demon Lord—though no one called them that yet—noticed something strange.
Their Demonic Mana surged when others feared them.
And now fear could be measured.
They smiled.
The Absence
There was one reaction that did not happen.
No gods spoke.
No voices descended.
No divine explanations arrived.
People prayed anyway.
They always did.
They would later decide that the screen was a gift.
Or a test.
Or the first sign that gods were watching.
In truth, nothing answered.
Because nothing was there yet.
The Quiet Shift
No disasters occurred.
No wars broke out immediately.
No miracles announced themselves.
But the world had changed.
Forever.
Because once reality could be opened like a menu—
—no one could ever go back to believing blindly.
Somewhere outside the world, unaware of the ripples spreading outward, a dead otaku administrator moved on to the next problem.
And far below, in villages, forests, and infernal plains alike, people stared at their screens and began asking the same question in different words:
"If this tells me what I am…then what could I become?"
The system did not answer.
But the world had already started trying to find out.