"Nox."
"Nox! Great name. Very edgy. Chat's already making assumptions about your class. Second question, what'd you get? Warrior? Mage? You've got that Rogue energy but like, the kind that's overcompensating."
"No idea."
"No idea?"
Cassia's eyebrows went up so far they nearly hit her hairline. "What do you mean no idea? Did you not... wait." She leaned in. "Did you not meet one of the Administrators?"
"The what?"
"Oh my god." She looked at her Eye device. "Chat he's completely fresh. Like, day one, no tutorial, nothing. This is incredible." Back to me. "Okay so the Administrators are these like, really pretty people who show up when you first arrive? They usually explain the basics. How to check your status, how the Grand Transporter works, all that newbie stuff."
I thought about the hand that had pulled me through the roof. The voice that had asked me why I climbed. Neither of those things had included a welcome packet.
"Didn't get that," I said.
"Weird." She tapped her chin with one finger. The nail was painted to match her hair. "Well whatever. The important part is you need to know how to read your Akashic Record. That's like, your whole status sheet. Class, stats, skills, everything."
"And I do that how."
"Just think it. Or say it out loud if you want to be dramatic about it." She grinned. "Akashic Record. Or just Status if you're boring. Sometimes that works too. You should see a blue screen pop up with all your info."
Blue screen. Right. Like a video game except the game was my entire life now apparently.
I closed my eyes.
Akashic Record.
The screen appeared behind my eyelids immediately. Not physical. I knew that. But present in the same way that voice had been present, occupying space in my awareness that hadn't existed a second ago.
Blue background. White text. Clean formatting.
I opened my eyes. The screen stayed exactly where it was, floating in my vision about two feet in front of my face. Semi-transparent. I could see through it to Cassia, who was watching me with this expectant look.
"There it is," I said.
"See? Easy. Okay so read it out loud for Chat. They're dying to know what you got."
I focused on the text.
" AKASHIC RECORD "
" Nox Sparrow "
" Title: None "
Normal so far. Then the next line.
" Race: ██████████ "
What.
The race field was there. The label existed. But where the actual information should have been was just... static. Not blank. Not empty. Like someone had taken white correction fluid and painted over it repeatedly until the original text was completely obscured. Ten character spaces of absolute nothing.
" Class: Classless // Affinity: Vein "
Classless.
The word sat there on the screen like it was personally mocking me.
" Ichor Type: Devour "
" Level: 1 "
" STATS "
STR: F-0 | AGI: F-0 | END: F-0
DEX: F-0 | ICH: F-0
All zeros. Every single stat starting at the absolute floor. Great. Fantastic. This was going so well.
" SKILLS "
Plunder
" TALENTS "
Shadow Sovereign
I stared at the screen for three full seconds while my brain tried to process what I was looking at.
What the fuck.
Classless. The system had looked at me and decided I didn't qualify for any of the actual classes. Not Warrior. Not Mage. Not even something basic. Just Classless, written out in clean white text like it was a completely normal thing to see on someone's status screen.
And Vein affinity.
I knew what Vein meant. Everyone knew what Vein meant. Rarest affinity type. The one that didn't fit any other category. The one that produced abilities so unique the Tower Research Institute couldn't predict them or replicate them or explain them to anyone's satisfaction.
Devour.
I ran the word through my head a few times. It didn't get less ominous. Devour sounded like something that required context I definitely didn't have yet.
And the race thing.
The correction fluid. The blocked out text. That wasn't normal. That was extremely not normal. Humans had "Human" in that field. I'd seen screenshots on forums before, back when I thought I'd be Awakened and researching this stuff actually mattered.
"So?" Cassia's voice cut through my internal spiral. "What'd you get? Don't leave Chat hanging."
I looked at her. Purple eyes. Bright smile. Eight thousand people watching through that Eye device on her collar.
The truth was not an option here.
"Rogue," I said.
"Rogue! Called it." Cassia pointed at the Eye. "Chat I told you. The energy was there. What's your affinity?"
"Shift."
Second lie. Easier than the first. Shift was common enough that she wouldn't ask follow-up questions. Flexible enough that I could explain basically any weird thing I ended up doing as "just my Shift acting different."
"Nice. Shift's solid for Rogues. You'll do fine on Floor One." She looked genuinely pleased about this. "Stats?"
"All F-rank. Zeros across the board."
"Oof. Yeah everyone starts there. It's rough. But you'll build up fast once you start hunting." She gestured at my whole situation. "You've got the basic climber gear already?"
I looked down at myself.
Same clothes I'd been wearing at the ceremony. Jacket. Shirt. Jeans. The kind of outfit you wear when you expect to go home after. Not the kind you wear when you get pulled through a roof by a giant hand and deposited in another dimension.
"No," I said.
"Okay so first priority is getting you equipped. You can't do a Floor One run in that. You'll get shredded by the first Thornhide Boar that looks at you funny." She tapped her chin. "The Armorer's Quarter is your best bet for starter gear but it's expensive and you probably don't have any Ash yet."
"Any what?"
"Ash. The currency. Tower currency." She held up her fingers and rubbed them together. "Money. You need it for literally everything."
"How do I get it?"
"Selling Cores. Which you get from killing creatures in the Tower. Which you can't do without gear. Which costs Ash. It's a whole circle of financial hell. Welcome to Veilgate." Her grin was way too cheerful for what she'd just described. "But don't worry. I know a guy in the Ashfields who does gear on credit. Terrible interest rates but you're technically alive when you pay him back so that's a plus."
My head was starting to hurt.
"Hey Cassia?"
"Yeah?"
"The race thing." I gestured vaguely at where my status screen was still floating. "What's that about?"
"Oh that." She waved a hand. "That's because there are different life forms in the Tower. Other species. Apparently this is one of the many realms with access to the system and we just don't get to see the different races types until the second safe zone on Floor Ten." She said it like she was reciting something she'd heard before and hadn't thought about too hard. "Yours should just say Human though."
"Right."
Except it didn't say Human. It didn't say anything. It looked like someone had taken a marker and blacked out classified information on a government document.
I dismissed the status screen with a thought. It vanished immediately.
Cassia was still talking. Something about Core brokers and market prices and which vendors in Ring Two would rip you off versus which ones would only rip you off a little. I let the words wash over me while I tried to organize my thoughts into something resembling a plan.
Facts I had:
One. I was in Veilgate despite failing my Awakening.
Two. The system had given me Classless status and a Vein affinity and something called Devour that I had zero information about.
Three. My race field was corrupted in a way that Cassia apparently thought was normal but definitely wasn't.
Four. I had no gear, no money, and no idea what I was doing.
Five. The girl currently giving me the newbie tutorial was streaming this entire conversation to eight thousand people and I'd just lied to her and all of them about my actual class.
Great foundation. Really solid start to my Tower climbing career.