Leaderboard

In an instant, the scenery of the white cubicle changed to that of a lush green meadow. From an air-conditioned room to the warm humidity of the summer's heat, the sudden temperature change caused a chill to run down Vega's spine. 

Currently, he was in winter attire, and while it had been useful for him just a few hours ago, it was due time for a change in outfits. 

Other than the clothes on his body and his memoir which was hidden inside his jacket's hidden compartment he possessed nothing else from his previous world.

He stripped himself to just the bare essentials, wearing only a simple plain white tee and his black cargo pants. 

Although Vega barely played Altera, he wasn't clueless about the system features that were in the game. 

Status screen, the Community tab, Inventory, and lastly Quests. All it took was a single thought for a blue window to appear in his eyes. 

Without a single hesitation, he clicked on Inventory and stored both his jacket and his memoir. 

Strangely enough as soon as he placed them inside he was able to inspect them, the system having already given them an apt description. 

[Advanced climate jacket(Common): A jacket produced by the *** company. It's simple and reliable, not much else to it.] 

[Memoir(??? Class item): A memoir created by the last patron of a world and blessed by the embodiment of ???] 

[Would you like to use the item to activate your class? Y/N]

"Will the memoir disappear if I use it to activate my class?" Vega asked the system. 

[The item will not disappear!] 

"Then I see no reason to refuse." Vega accepted. 

[Class item Memoir is being activated!] 

[You've gained the class Novice Vagabond (Unique)] 

[System Announcement: Congratulations to Player Vega for being the first of humanity to gain a class!] 

 "Wait, what the fuck?" Vega cursed. 

"What do you mean I'm the first person to gain a class?" He asked. 

Despite the system having answered his previous question, it seemed this time around it was going to stay silent. 

It didn't take long for the realization to hit though as the sound of notifications from his community tab began to overwhelm his senses. 

With each second that passed, he gained thousands upon thousands of friend requests from the whole of humanity. 

He ignored them for now, though; he had more important things to handle. Clicking on the community tab, two subtabs open, one being 'Friends' and the other being 'Forum'. 

 The 999+ notification icon in the Friends tab caused him a strange sense of disgust, but he clicked on the Forum to know the situation of his fellow earthlings. 

Looking at the top posts, it was pretty clear that a lot of people have been peeved at the fact that they carried with them only a single item from the tutorial. 

People were also discussing how their starting points not only differed from the game but also how it seemed to be on entirely foreign planets. 

While version 3.0 of Altera did have a level of interplanetary travel, it seemed now that people were separated not by planets but rather by stars. 

While the news was substantial for many, Vega wasn't too concerned. Having been an outcast for most of his life, the little connections that he did have dwindled in the last year on earth. 

What he was searching for instead was the newly trending post titled "First class holder?" 

***

Heavenly_lord: Does anyone know who this Vega person is? I don't think he's a known ranker. 

Logan Lee: How'd you change your name to that??? 

Generic_guy202: Dude, how TF are we supposed to know who he is. 

Hallmark_movie_enjoyer: I just checked the leaderboard, and he's only level 1. He's gotta be a hacker. 

Spear_arts: This isn't a game anymore, dumbass, there aren't any hackers. 

***

Reading the stream of comments and replies, the general community showed mixed feelings about him. 

The thing that caught his attention though was the mention of a leaderboard. Looking around, it didn't take long to find. 

Player leaderboard:

Tier 1

1. Vega

Tier 0

1. Aurelius

2. Heavenly_Demon

3. LM

4. Orion

…

Clearly separated from the rest of the top players, Vega stood in a league separate from the rest of humanity. 

The distinction between Tier 0 (Classless) and Tier 1 was a margin that simply couldn't be imagined. 

When someone acquired a common class they received 2 stat points for every level, with uncommon they received 3 points, and so forth. 

Someone with no class, however, gained only 1 stat point for each level. That meant, without distinction between two people of the same level, the person who had a class was at least twice as powerful as the other. 

That was only if it was the most common of classes, though, Vega on the other hand carried with him a Unique one. 

The general rarity system of Altera consisted of 8 ranks. Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Unique, Legendary, Mythical and lastly Divine. 

Although that was the official rankings, the community had also created its own category of sorts for the ranks. 

From common to epic stood the earthly rarities, it represented a level that was achievable by the majority of players. 

But from Unique and upwards, there stood the heavenly rarities, untouchable for the majority of the population. As it stood, only the rankers of Altera, the absolute cream of the crop of players, held any item, class, or skill in those rarities. 

And it just so happened that the most inexperienced player in the world managed to receive the heavenly class at the perfect level of 1. 

Although Vega was still ignorant of the absolute cheat he had stumbled upon, it wasn't going to take long before he would find out. 

By the time he reached level 10, he'd have already gained stat points equivalent to that of a level 50 common class. 

In the earthly category, each subsequent raise in rarity received 1 more stat points than the previous. But in the heavenly category, each increase in rarity equaled an increase of 5 stat points. 

It was one of the reasons that the earth and heaven categories were coined in the first place. Especially after the massive outrage that erupted when the community first learned about it. 

All things considered, though, Vega learned about as much as he could from the Forum. From that moment forward, he closed out the community tab and looked over at the town on the horizon. 

It was about time he began making his way into town.