I started by getting what I could universally.

  Before moving on to buying the stuff I couldn’t afford along with the things I wanted to test.

  As well as picking up skills I wanted to have no matter what class I chose.

  Most were for testing purposes, but others were simply useful and worth always having. Even after testing, Telekineses and Steady Hand would be nice to have day-to-day. Identify was a must. I was pretty sure there was a way to include a base skill or two so that everyone would have them starting out. Identify was a candidate for that kind of treatment. It was just that good.

  From there, my mind moved to looking at classes. There were so many it was overwhelming. Just like with skills, there were simply too much choice. I would need to find a way to limit the amount of classes available if I wanted people not to get hung up on choosing which to take. Maybe it would have something to do with Achievements, Quests, or Milestones.

  What I wanted to accomplish was creating a bunch of ecological disasters. My first thought was some way to create massive oil spills in the ocean. Many things would die from lack of oxygen with oil on the surface. There was, of course, a class that could do that—several, in fact. Then I considered starting wildfires or otherwise messing with weather. There, too, were several options.

  When I got right down to it, I knew what I was going to have to do. The more I killed—by whatever means—the more I would get experience. Humans exempted, of course. That led me towards the biggest killer: disease. While I couldn’t target people—and I didn’t want to, either—I could target the plants and animals. If I could get rid of a significant portion of them, I would have more then enough experience to finish the system.

  While the class didn’t come with any skills, it narrowed down the ones available to a group of suggested skills. The group wasn’t small by any means, but it was a tiny fraction of the overall number. I could have bought all of the skills then and there, but I decided against it for the time being. More important—I felt—was to tier up to see what that did to my stats.

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  Name: Eddy Teller

  Level: 9

  Exp Next Level: 51,200

  Blood: 1300/1300

  Faith: 0/1150

  Body: 50

  Mind: 35

  Spirit: 80

  The blood and faith capacities made sense. They were ten times the combined attributes they depended on. What didn’t make sense was that I had no faith. Blood was full—as it should be—but faith was empty and remained so no matter how much I watched it. That made me think it followed some kind of special rules, but I wasn’t aware of what they were. Blood alone would have to do for what I wanted.

  The distribution of stats was interesting. It seemed that whatever I was meant to be doing was best supported by spirit—whatever that meant. I’d chosen it instead of soul without knowing what difference—if any—there was between the two. As per usual, I was flying blind. All I had to go on were my thoughts and guesses—not great. Help was rather unhelpful in this regard.

  I sighed. No matter how much I tested, there were things I would just have to guess with. The system would be imperfect. I simply hoped that I could head off the worst abuses by trying them for myself. After all, it was very difficult—nigh impossible—to fix something I was unaware of.

  With my class picked, I looked at professions. Like classes, there were a breathtaking number of choices. Everything from the mundane cleaner to the magical talisman crafter to the niche 18th century typesetter and everything in between. The number of options would need to be pared down somehow—as would have to be done with classes.

  I spun through the options, glancing at this and that for far too long before eventually deciding against picking a profession for the moment. There wasn’t anything I intended to specialize in that I couldn’t pick up later. The one relating to potions seemed interesting and magical, but I had no use for that yet—especially as there were only mundane materials available. I imagined that mana-infused materials would be required, but I could also have been wrong.

  I went downstairs for dinner feeling like a new man. The levels brought me back to where I had been before I had reset the timeline. I felt strong and nearly invincible. It was a wonderful feeling. Dad was in the kitchen serving our food onto dishes. I sat at the table to wait for him to put the food on the table. He did so soon after. I put the first bite of food in my mouth and swallowed. The pasta was delicious!

  “So,” Dad began, “did you figure out what you needed to?”

  “Huh?”

  “You were outside for a while then ran upstairs. I haven’t seen you since, so I figured you were thinking.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I have my plan.”

  “Great! Is it something you’re going to share?”

  “Well, I’m going to farm,” I lied.

  There was no way I could tell him what my actual plan was. That would be a bad idea.

  “That sounds wonderful. Where’s the money for that coming from?”

  “That’s why I had to email Grandpa Joe,” I explained. “He’s got some seed money that I can use.”

  “I see. Sounds like you have it planned. Is there anything you need from me?”

  “Win your lottery, I guess. You don’t need to do anything else besides getting me access to the internet—and maybe getting me out of school. It’s rather pointless, you know?”

  “I’ll see what I can do. For now, you may have to go back.”

  “Ugh.”

  “It is what it is,” he shrugged.

  We ate in silence for a minute before Dad had something more to say.

  “Oh, so I was reading the news earlier, and I saw an article about something strange going on in the skies.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, apparently scientists are up in arms over the fact that the planets look like they’re in different places than they should be. Sunspots suddenly changed, too. And the Voyager probes are much farther away than they should be.”

  “That’s weird,” I commented.

  “Did you know about any of this?”

  “No,” I shrugged. “This never came up before.”

  “Strange. What do you make of it?”

  “I have no idea. I’ve gone back in time thrice already, so why would the planets and stuff be in the wrong place? That doesn’t make any sense!”

  Dad laughed.

  “And here I thought you might know everything after so much time in the future!”

  I gave him a blank stare.

  “I’ve been trying to save the world, so whatever this… stuff… is, I’ve no idea. Haven’t really paid much attention to that kind of thing, you know?”

  “I bet.”

  “Well, anyway, I’ll file that under ‘interesting’ and leave it at that.”

  “Mhm.”

  “Food’s good, though.”

  Dad smiled.

  The next day, Grandpa Joe came over instead of Mom. I had specifically requested he do so in person rather than through her. Firstly, I wanted to talk to him. Secondly, I didn’t really want to deal with Mom after what her past-future had done. Money had a way of revealing who someone was. And now that I knew, it was hard to go back to not knowing.

  As it was a nice day, I decided to sit with him on the steps of the front porch. Although I knew he would die in under ten years, he looked a lot younger and more in shape than I remembered. After all, I had spent the entirety of my previous life on the far and away from him. I would need to rely on him heavily in the future, but that time wasn’t now.

  “Hey, Grandpa Joe,” I said. “It’s been far too long.”

  “Has it now?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Maybe not to you, but to me, it’s been well over a decade since I last hung out with you.”

  “Well, let’s enjoy our time together then!”

  “Yes. Let’s”

  I smiled, and he did too.

  “I brought you the laptop and book like you asked,” he told me. “They’re in the bag next to me.”

  “Thanks. That’ll make a huge difference for me. It did last time, as well.”

  “Good. Good. I can’t have my grandson struggling now can I?”

  “I should hope not!” I exclaimed, covering my mouth with a hand.

  Grandpa Joe cracked a smile.

  “You said you wanted to talk when you emailed me, what is it about?”

  “Well, I wanted to get your opinion on some government things.”

  “You know I can’t talk about that,” he frowned.

  “Well, there’s magic,” I said.

  “Magic?”

  “Well, besides the whole time travel thing. Magic is—or will be—real. Look, I’ll show you.”

  I cast Spark in my hand to create a small shower of sparks. The way I used blood to cast it felt strange. It was different than both chi and mana. It used my own circulatory system—which was freaky as I could feel the blood flowing while casting. A little of my blood disappeared in the process, only to be immediately replaced with fresh—yet dull—blood. The dull blood I felt would no longer be able to empower any skills until it had a chance to energize somehow.

  Grandpa’s mouth hung open upon seeing the sparks dancing in my hand.

  “Magic,” I stated.

  “What else can you do?” he asked.

  “Just about anything you can imagine,” I said.

  I didn’t want to get into how skills worked for the moment. It would take too long and wasn’t really what I needed from him, anyway.

  “So, I can cloak us in a field where no one can hear what we are saying,” I continued.

  “That might work,” he told me. “Well, as long as any electronics are excluded. That includes the computer next to me.”

  “Right.”

  I purchased Soundproof for a thousand experience and cast it. There was a shimmer as the field settled down around us. The skill said it had a duration of approximately a minute, after which I would need to recast it to keep the effect going.

  “There,” I said.

  “Strange,” Grandpa Joe said, looking at the field around us.

  He poked at it. His hand went through to the other side, but the field remained intact. When he retracted his hand, the area where his arm had been went back to how it war prior to his actions.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” I asked.

  “Definitely. Wish we had this kind of thing back in the day.”

  He paused and looked at me.

  “So what did you want to ask me? Keep in mind that there are things I simply can’t tell you, even in here.”

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