Varian's Status.

"...After running thousands of surveys and spending almost ten million zier on research, I conclude that the System remained mysterious in its modus operandi. However, one thing can be claimed with certainty: despite possessing the capacity to, it acted neither for nor against anyone. It is a truly neutral force of nature."

—A Consideration of the System: Its Origins and Operations.

The System in my story wasn't as advanced or mysterious as in others. It was actually just a blessing from a great outer god who one day woke up, thought, "Vague measurements are terrible," and created the Akashic Records. Those records, in turn, generated a System to let everyone quantify their attributes.

Yeah, that's all it did. Quantify their attributes.

It didn't even facilitate leveling up. That happened independently through Existential Points (ExP)—which was a trade so complex it would fry even Varian's brain. It involved a fifth-dimensional exchange between an entity's impact on reality and, well, reality itself…which includes every other entity in reality, and 'entity' included inorganic objects like rocks too, so it's not just the living ones. 

What was unique about the System in this universe, though, was that it behaved more like an individual skill than a natural phenomenon like air. I say that because of one rule: the stronger an individual becomes, the more privileges the System grants them. 

For instance, a level-one could only see their own HP and MP. A level-twenty could see their class information. A level-fifty could not only see nearly all their own material attributes but could also view the statuses of others to a degree. And so on.

I was level 58.

[Varian De Virelune]

—Race: Human (with traces of Elven and Celestial heritage, awakened).

—Level: 58.

—Class: Slayer.

—HP: 10,000. MP: 73,000.

[Skills]

—Acquired: Air, Water, Fire, Earth, Lightning, Aura, Soul Sense, Sharpness and Sorcery, Alchemy, Runecraft.

—Unique: Beast Tongue, Time, Null, Divine Will, Divinity.

My parents were human, but the world's complicated history led to a rather mixed gene pool. I bet Varian, like most people, had some dormant Dwarven or even Lizardman heritage as well; it just hadn't awakened.

My class, the Slayer, was a single-target-centric class focused on huntsmanship and predation instead of simple combat. 

It was considered an Epic-rarity class under the Allied Worlds' classification. The System didn't have its own ranking system… Or so was the popular belief. I knew that it did have its own rarity metric, but most people weren't high-level enough to see it, so the continental alliance made their own. 

By which standards, my class wasn't a common or uncommon or rare, but a solid and respectable Epic, and for good reason.

[Slayer]

—Slayers are neither as robust as knights and warriors, nor as scholarly as alchemists and knowledge-seekers; they are both. They are the apex predators, the exterminators of any society.

—Often acting as specialized assassins, holders of this class master the art of taking down strong individual targets. They study their target, prepare beforehand, and then hunt them down.

—Effects: This class lifts all restrictions to gaining any and all combat, utility, and research skill trees. It negates potential limiters preventing the acquisition of more than one type of skill. It increases the chances of gaining a new skill by 5%.

On paper and in practice, it was a great class. Not that it didn't have flaws. For instance, it was terrible at crowd control, group combat, and spontaneous battles. It was also a resource-dependent class, relying heavily on potions, poisons, and traps.

But these problems were mostly mitigated by Varian's overwhelming raw power, leaving me with a class that could acquire almost any skill without skill restrictions—that was the restrictions one incurs by picking a faction; undead can't use holy magic, that sort of thing.

Speaking of which, let's have an internal monologue about skills to sync the writer's memory with the in-universe character's knowledge over half a chapter, shall we?

Other than reading a skill's System-assigned rarity or trusting the Allied Worlds' metrics, there was another way to tell how high-tier a skill was: by reading its name.

You see, if someone could cast a fireball, they wouldn't get the skill [Fire Magic] or [Pyromancy]. They would get [Fireball]—a highly specialized and restrictive application of a broader art. 

To get [Fire Magic] or [Pyromancy], one would need the foundational knowledge, prerequisite skills aligned with a particular power school (in this case, magic or psychic), and multiple fire-related specialized abilities; they would also need affinity, without which, all is hopeless.

The names also hinted at function. [Fire Magic] implied it was magic i.e. the fire was esoteric and physics-defying. [Pyromancy], on the other hand, was powered by mental strength, allowing for more versatile and intrinsically controlled applications of traditional fire.

The point is, a skill's name described its function very effectively if you know the lingo. The general rule of thumb was that the more specific the name, the lower it sat in the skill hierarchy.

So, a skill simply named [Fire]—which couldn't be any less specific if it tried—was as high as it gets in terms of rarity and power. The only way to take that to the next level was to specialize by acquiring a class like Pyromancer or Arch Fire Mage. 

And, on top of having [Fire], I had four other basic elemental skills of identical potency.

As for [Aura], that's the classic manifestation of life force martial artists use to perform superhuman physical feats.

[Sharpness and Sorcery] was an atypical skill. It was an exception to the naming rule I mentioned. 

You can tell by the two unrelated words and the conjunction. The "Sharpness" part lets me conjure any weapon I'm intimately familiar with, while "Sorcery" lets me apply my other skills through various mediums, like gestures, chants, or complex magic circles.

I mention magic circles specifically because they are incredibly complicated, incorporating seals, pentacles, hexagrams, and—Guhhh—so much more. In fact, Varian had a separate skill just for magic circles: [Runecraft]. Alongside that, he also had [Alchemy], which is just the science of making solutions with various effects.

As for his Unique skills…

[Beast Tongue] was the only skill Varian inherited from his elven heritage—if you don't count his stunning physical sex appeal as a skill. It allowed for verbal communication with any 'Creature of Nature'.

The [Time] skill gave me time powers. Theoretically, I could do anything with it. In the story, at some point, Varian would gain the ability to travel back in time repeatedly until he saved the world. For now, however, I could only affect myself with the skill.

Similarly, I was limited with the [Null] skill. It gave me the power to cancel or negate any existing phenomenon, but again, I could only apply it to myself.

On another note, much like [Beast Tongue], the skills [Divine Will] and [Divinity] were of a lower tier than [Fire] or [Null], but they were still incredibly useful.

[Divine Will] intrinsically gave me the willpower of a divine entity. It functionally made me immune to most, if not all, forms of mind control, illusions, and fear effects. 

This mental fortitude also allowed me to maintain clarity and decisiveness, even in the most dire situations. This was likely the skill working overtime to stop me from having a meltdown at the thought of being forever separated from my friends, family, and world.

[Divinity] is the skill all gods possess. Though its quantity isn't displayed at my level, I knew I had a small amount, the effects of which included accelerated regeneration, immunity to most minor-to-major ailments, and—most importantly—the ability to communicate with other divine beings under the right circumstances. 

Still, it didn't change the fact that I only had a teeny-tiny bit of Divinity, an infinitesimal amount compared to the System's maker.

…And that was it. That was my arsenal. And with these skills, I might have to fight a Demon General soon.

This wouldn't have been a tedious problem for the real Varian. But I wasn't Varian. I was…

Scared.