Welcome to the MainFrame

Hello Patrons! Don't worry, the first advanced chapter of immortal retirement is coming soon. But I've found myself suffering from writer's block as of late, so here's a story I've somewhat started writing on the side. It's a system-apocalypse litRPG story and something I've had stewing in my brain for a long time now. 

Don't worry, there will be more Immort Retirement chapters to come, but I need some time to plan this arc ahead and I plan to improve the pacing and push things along

Chapter 1 Welcome to the Mainframe

Have you ever shat so fast you thought it was a fart? Yeah, that’s what happened to me when the world ended. I was on the toilet taking a midnight drop and losing a game of Clash Royal on my phone, and then the message appeared.

[Mainframe Integration 3%]

I blinked.

“What?”

[Mainframe Integration 54%]

I cleaned up at phenomenal speed, folding the one-ply toilet paper into large clumps before wiping. There was a part of me, the sane and rational part that screamed for me to calm down.

This can’t be happening! It screamed. You must be dreaming.

It was probably right, but I ignored it. I had learned to do that throughout the years. My life hadn’t been a great one, but it had been dangerous at times, and I had learned to shut off that reasonable part of my brain during those times. Shock, disbelief, analysis, those could all wait until I was ready, just in case.

I went and got my bug-out bag. It had a lot of essentials in it. Some food, a water filter, a few knives, and a first aid kit, and then I rushed to get dressed. I hurriedly put on long johns and added thick and durable pants on top of that. My little trailer home shook a little as I ran around, frantically grabbing whatever it was that I might need before I actually needed it. I think I broke a world record for getting dressed that day because five minutes later, I was ready.

I had my rifle in my hands and my nine-millimeter pistol on my waist, with all the ammo I could shove in my bag and an extra fanny pack.

And then I waited. Nothing. I waited some more, still nothing. I let out a hearty laugh.

“I must be losing my shit-”

[Mainframe Integration 100%]

“Fuck…”

[Biology assessed.]

[Physical laws assessed.]

[Mana Integration Underway.]

[Universal Boundaries Drawn.]

{Error Intruders Detected.}

[Reestablishing Boundaries.]

[Welcome denizens of Earth. Your world has been integrated into the larger Mainframe of Reality. The sentience of Earth’s humans has met the required concentration of consciousness to be adopted into the Mainframe, along with meeting a few other thresholds for integration. May your new society be fruitful and eternal.]

A bright blue light overwhelmed my vision, blinding me. I felt the ground beneath my feet disappear and my body felt weightless. I tried to move, to grab, to flinch or feel for anything, but there was nothing there, not even my own body. It felt like falling in a dream, except this time no matter how much I jerked or moved I kept falling.

I tried to scream, but nothing came out.

Then, the world turned. I was suddenly on my feet, standing in the middle of a bright green jungle. There was no disorientation and my eyes didn’t blur as they readjusted to the light. I was falling into a blue void one second, and then I was standing here, completely oriented the next.

“What the fuck..” I mumbled.

The panic, the horror, the craziness of it all was peaking above the horizon of my consciousness. I refused, punching it all down. I could process this later. Right now, right now I had only one goal. I had to survive.

I felt around my body, searching to see if everything was where I’d left it. My gun, my shotgun, my bag, I went through it all.

“Good, good,” I mumbled.

Then, I looked around, studying the place. I was in a jungle, and not a real jungle either. It was more like a jungle you’d see in a Disney movie, like Tarzan or the Jungle Book. There were thick long green vines draping from the forest roof, and it was a roof. The canopy blocked out almost all of the sunlight, and the trees more resembled redwoods then actual jungle trees.

I looked up at the grassy ceiling, and strangely enough, I couldn’t see anything. There were some parts where light peaked through and illuminated my surroundings, but those were more like bright spotlights, they would light up the ground but not the ceiling.

I looked back down. This time my eyes took a moment to readjust to the darkness. That was bad. If there were things that could kill me out here, it was probably best for me to avoid looking up then. Up meant light and light meant my eyes would take time to readjust to the darkness.

And I couldn’t have that, not when there would be dangerous things out here. A lot of the System based apocalypse books I’ve read had something like this, a tutorial. A tutorial, like we were in a video game or something.

This is insane. This is ridiculous. I was just home, there’s no way that I could be-

I stopped myself. Nope. Not going down that route.

“Uh, inventory,” I mumbled.

And a great big blue screen popped up before me. On top were numerous tabs and a bunch of small little icons, and on the right side of the screen was a filter option and a search bar. I lifted my gun and brought it close to the floating blue table, and then I hesitated.

I didn’t know what this was. I thought I did, but assuming this place, this tutorial works the same way as the ones in the books I’d read would be idiotic. What if weapons weren’t allowed here? What if this place was some sort of assessment zone and my preparation gave me some kind of unearned lead? It’d be stupid if I got punished for it.

I pulled back my gun and pulled out my knife. It was a small little pocket knife, and I put it into the blue box. A small icon immediately appeared in the first box at the top left corner, and its description flashed before me.

[Small rusted pocket knife. Z-grade weapon. X-grade tool.]

Z-grade weapon huh? I wondered what that could’ve meant. A weapon grading system maybe? And if that grading system put a pocket knife at Z what was up at A? And the tool rating, how exactly did that work?

I reached in and pulled out the knife. It looked the same. The smudges, the rust marks. All of it.

Interesting.

This time, I closed up the knife and threw it into the blue box. I pulled the knife out a few seconds later, half expecting it to slam back into my fist, but no. The momentum wasn’t conserved, and that was also interesting.

This must be a dream.

This time, I kicked that voice in the balls and shoved it into the deepest recesses of my brain. Time to load up.

I shoved everything I carried into the blue box, including the backpack. I expected the backpack’s items to scatter throughout the blue box, but apparently the backpack counted as one item. I could click over it and it would show me a separate chart of blue boxes, each of them listing everything within the pack itself. Which was a good thing, because I only had about fifty inventory slots left. There was even a small box labeled, ‘miscellaneous crumbs.’

I wondered if I could somehow game the inventory system with backpacks. I’d have to try that at some point, when I had more backpacks.

Within about a minute, most of my stuff was in my inventory, leaving me with my handgun, my shotgun, a machete, and an old pack of bear mace. I wore a thick long sleeve button-up shirt and faded blue jeans, along with a muddy pair of steel-toed shoes. On my head was a helmet, one that I had gotten from my two-week stint as a construction worker.

“Okay. Status.”

Then the world blinked open to me.

Name: Marcus Brint

Race: Human

Class: NONE

Sub-Class: NONE, NONE

Auxiliary Class: NONE, NONE, NONE

Current Status

Intelligence: 11

Wisdom: 12

Charisma: 7

Strength: 9

Agility: 15

Constitution: 11

Skills: NONE

Traits: Stealthy

Titles: Avenger

The stats grabbed my interest for a second, and then I saw that title. How did it know? No one knew what happened, not even the cops. I’d gotten questioned by the cops after the fire, but they had ruled it an accident from the start. The only reason they had wanted to talk to me was to find out what I knew about the old man. And as much as I hated cops, I hated him even more, so I cooperated, and let them close a few open cases, but nothing beyond that.

I pushed the thought away. Hopefully, there was a way to hide my status from other people or something. I didn’t need the title of Avenger to be on display. I looked at the trait next. Stealthy. I snorted at that one.

Then I looked at the stats. A seven in charisma was to be expected. But it was that fifteen in intelligence that really got me. A fifteen huh? I mean, I was pretty agile. I’d had to run away from a lot of asswhoopings over the years, and I had fast hands. But it was one thing to know your strengths and another to see them written out like that.

I tried clicking around the status, playing around with the screen for a few moments. Unfortunately there was nothing else available besides that and the inventory, and after a few moments of prodding and pressing against the intangible screen, I decided to get going.

I kept the glock in my hand, clutched and ready. And then, I walked. The jungle was strange. The trees seemed to climb up a few hundred feet, and there seemed to be as much life above me as there was below. Chirps, screams, roars, and unidentifiable noises came from beyond the trees.

The scary part was that I couldn’t avoid them. I’d turn from one direction, and towards another after hearing a sound, only to hear another sound coming from my newly chosen path. The jungle floor itself was horrifying. Dead branches the size of elephants blocked whatever direction I chose to go in and the leafy floors would sometimes hide holes that were a few inches deep.

The place was dangerous, but after walking for about half an hour, I still hadn’t met with anything yet.

“Why is that?” I mumbled out loud.

This was a jungle. I should have at least seen birds or monkeys, or even ants, but there was nothing there. No mosquitoes or lizards, or even fish.

Maybe this place was so big that the chances of me meeting something that could actually kill me was super low? Nah, that was a shit theory. If this jungle was truly that large and spread out, I wouldn’t be hearing all those noises from beyond the trees.

Maybe the animals were small and I just hadn’t seen them yet? Nope. That made no sense either. I had only wandered a few hundred yards or so, but still nothing.

I kept on walking, getting more suspicious as time went on. The noises were there. The screams were there, but for some reason. For some damn reason, there were no animals.

And then, something tickled my neck and I looked up.

New Skill Gained: Keen Perception (Lv 1)

Up in the heights of the trees were hordes of apes. Big, golden-furred, grinning apes.

Well, technically, I think they were called a troop. A troop of big, golden-furred, grinning apes.