âFirst, we will take care of class choiceâ
âOh, we have classes as well? This is becoming more and more like an RPG game. An MMORPG actually, I guessâ
Mike's mind drifted back to his college days, hunched over his laptop at 3 AM, grinding levels in World of Warcraft with his roommate. The familiar rush of anticipation before a boss fight, the satisfaction of finally getting that rare drop after weeks of attempts. He was always a casual gamer, but in those days he could play for hours on end. And he met some great friends online, but these days he hardly had any time left for that. Well, he could hope that his experience might come in somewhat handy.
âYou have five classes which have been randomly selected to choose from. These Are your options:
1. Pattern Weaver
2. Void Shepherd
3. Chromatic Harbinger
4. Entropy Dancer
5. Axiom Breaker
Well, so much for any resemblance to familiar RPG games, Mike thought. What did any of these even mean? He never heard of anything remotely close to these class names. Pattern Weaver sounded almost crafty, like someone who worked with threads or fabric, or even painting? Void Shepherd made him think of someone herding nothingness, which hurt his brain to contemplate. The others were equally cryptic. âCan you tell me about these classes? â
âI am afraid not. Other contestants will be able to learn about possible classes during the competition and make their choices at level 10. Since you are entering at level 100, you do not have that option. You will need to make your choice based on the information you haveâ
âWhich is zero, basicallyâ
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The voice paused, as if calculating. "That is mathematically imprecise but close."
Mike stared at the floating text, each class name pulsing with a different color of light. Was he supposed to pick based on his Favorite color? That seemed foolish. There was one word that got his attention though. Pattern.
Mike had always been good at seeing patterns. It's what made him decent at his job - spotting trends in sales data, recognizing when employees were about to burn out, knowing which projects would fail before they even started. It allowed him to coast through the day relatively easy, which was fine by him.
In games, he'd never been the guy who was hell bent on clearing dungeons as fast or as efficiently as possible. He always looked for chill people to play with, people who were up for some good time, even if that meant 10 wipes on the second boss of the raid (hey, you had to draw the line somewhere, there was no excuse to wiping more than twice on the first boss) . He did enjoy figuring out fights though. That was half the fun and he always liked going in with a blank slate, but he could also understand people who wanted to prep. Well, as long as they didnât ask him to watch 50-minute video guides before logging on.
Pattern Weaver didn't sound like a combat class. No "Warrior" or "Mage" or "Assassin" in the name. On the other hand, none of the rest had that. Well, dancer could imply some intense physical effort, which didnât sound great. Breaker and Harbinger sounded a bit ominous, Pattern weaver, on the other hand, sounded like someone who might work with information, with connections, with the underlying structure of things. In a competition where he was already at a massive disadvantage, at least in terms of his natural abilities, maybe playing to his actual strengths was better than pretending to be something he wasn't. At worst, heâll end up with a crafting class, what can go wrong? Heâll make cool shit and sell it to other players.
"I choose Pattern Weaver," Mike said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
Suddenly, a small golden light appeared in mid air. The golden light expanded, rushing toward him like a wave. As it enveloped him, Mike's last coherent thought was that he hoped recognizing patterns would be more useful than swinging a sword when humanity's survival was on the line.