Your Paradox class is sure to give you godlike abilities, but it will take a substantial amount of mana, mental acuity, and creativity to turn it into something that can be used for sustained combat, at least in the short run. Mana Sharpening—and its derivatives—may be your only chance to obtain a skill that can be used for prolonged combat this year—perhaps ever.

  “Damn…” I muttered, turning my gaze to the hall’s popcorn-textured ceiling. “I’m glad that I didn’t rush in…” I wiped my lips with my thumb. “Do I get any clarification questions?”

  Making determination…

  Due to the abnormal difficulty of your first tutorial, the council has approved three additional questions per information request (so long as they are relevant to your original question) for the remainder of this tutorial. It will be your one and only concession.

  “Excellent…” I chose my question carefully. “You said that I won’t get any combat skills. Does that mean that I’ll only get… magic… that relates to my class? That seems obvious, but can you elaborate on classes?”

  Classes are born from a Chosen’s deepest wish. Once a class is obtained, Chosens may wish for more skills in the Wishes tab, using AP (which is earned through proving you’re adapting to the challenges of the New World), so long as the skill the Chosen wishes for matches the intent of their class. In your case, you’ll be able to wish for any skill that has apparent contradictions but is indeed true. In the case of Time Ghost, the “ghost” shows the reality that’s likely to occur—given all the information available—allowing the present to resolve, and then slowing time to allow you to change it. In essence, the present resolves but doesn’t play out. Grand Lock locks everything into place with mana, effectively freezing time while it flows normally for you. These are the types of paradoxes you’ll be able to wish for—among countless other possibilities.

  That said, conceptual classes of your variety are notoriously difficult to translate into direct combat capabilities, and skills like Time Ghost and Grand Lock are not geared for extended combat. Obtaining simple yet useful magic like Mana Sharpening can turn your conceptual class into a terrifying weapon.

  That’s probably the reason it’s been offered to you. Historically speaking, the World Screen has only offered Chosens skills outside their class during times of abnormal change, and those skills have statistically improved Chosens’ survival rates until their class matured.

  “I don’t like the word ‘abnormal’…” I muttered. “Okay, question number 2: what are the limitations of Mana Sharpening?”

  Aside from the costs, Mana Sharpening only sharpens objects. You can turn a pencil into a blade, but it will be the same size, shape, and weight as a pencil. As a skill, you’ll be able to fuse it with Paradox or wish for derivatives that are directly related to the skill itself. More than that is outside the purview of your question.

  “I see… last question: can it sharpen bullets?”

  ***

  Ten minutes later, I was back in my original suite, carefully unplugging and setting aside the computer screens on a work desk. I then flipped the table, exposing its legs. They were dinky legs, the type made of an L-shaped piece of bent metal. Awkward to hold, useless in combat—I didn’t even consider using one as a weapon: until now.

  (“Doctor. Make the incision.”)

  (“Beginning now.”)

  I sliced downward on the bent part of the metal, shearing right through it, like a hot blade through butter. I laughed maniacally as I reached the bottom. I then cut it at the base. In one fell swoop, I managed to turn an IKEA, build-it-yourself trash desk’s leg into a three-foot katana.

  It was just a thin piece of metal, but with Mana Sharpening…

  I lifted the blade, wrapped it in Mana Sharpening, and swung it into the kitchen’s island. It sheared right through the granite and deep into the wood.

  (“Doctor, you’re a genius.”)

  (“Always my dear, always.”)

  I placed the ten Free points I got into Perception. My stats now read:

  STR: 60

  AGL: 65

  END: 60

  PER: 100

  INT: 110 (2)

  It was time to move.

  ***

  There was indeed a barricade on the forty-seventh floor. A bunch of office geeks had heaved a dozen desks into the stairwell to stop the horde. They did a damn good job, too. There were about twenty co-op desks packed in there, glued down by almost forty multicolored armchairs from various floors. It was a messy heap, but somehow, the constant slap and push of zombies had jangled all the pieces into a bona fide wall.

  Well, shit, I thought. Should I destroy it?

  I climbed the barricade and looked down the staircase. Through a crack created by a loose desk, I could see about fifty zombies—and there was surely more spiraling downward, pushing to the front like a violent amusement park line.

  Well… better start killing ‘em, I thought.

  I thrust my sword through the crack, and it skewered a rotting woman in the eye. She died without resistance—and that kind of horrified me. Stabbing her was as easy as stabbing a square of cantaloupe with a toothpick. Shaking off that grim thought, I kept stabbing them, thankful that there was always a zombie willing to replace the last.

  ***

  I had killed about forty when it arrived. “It” was a beast stalking the staircase—and it was mean. The beast let out a mangled growl—a noise you’d expect to hear from a panther with half its throat ripped out.

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  My skin developed a leathery hide of gooseflesh as it walked up the stairs. I climbed to get a better vantage point. Through a peephole between two desks, I saw the illusive creature, which was shorter than the shortest human, push aside zombies as it climbed. Yet at some point, there were so many zombies against the barricade that it was impossible to move. So it suddenly stopped, leaving the area still.

  There was a spell of contemplative silence after that. I prayed it would leave. It didn’t.

  Suddenly, the hallway exploded with blood. Even though my high perception slowed time to a crawl, I barely saw the three silver streaks blast through the stairwell, tearing forty zombies into thirds before cutting my barricade in half. I was lucky to be at the top—the silver sickles cleaved right through armchairs and tables below me, moving on to leave three thick gashes in the concrete walls.

  The barricade collapsed, revealing my attacker as I stumbled backward. It was a cat the size of a tiger, and it had matted fur that looked like obsidian arrowheads.

  A chime popped into my mind.

  You have received a new sub-tutorial:

  Sub-Tutorial: Survive

  Description: You have encountered an evolved beast. Run!

  Reward: Information Request

  Penalty: Elimination

  I didn’t know what “evolved beast” meant, but I was smart enough to translate the tutorial as saying: “You’ve encountered an enemy that’s impossible to beat—run for your life!”

  So that’s what I did. I flew up the stairs in two bounds, opened the nearest door, and flew inside. The moment I turned the hall to the northwest suite, I found myself staring down a Shiki bug.

  You gotta be kidding me!

  Three blades cut through the door behind me, cutting it to pieces. The Shiki bug let out a cry at the same time, preparing to jump at me.

  Adrenaline pounding through my heart, I charged the bug.

  It blasted toward me—prepared to latch onto my throat. To my shock, my 100 Perception stat made the creature as fast as a softball pitch with a foam ball—slow and extremely easy to hit.

  Mana Sharpening! I wrapped my trusty desk leg in a blue film, dodged to the left, and swung it like a baseball bat. The blade sliced right through the creature as if it were a zombie. The two parts of its body separated in a gruesome display of blood and geometry, hitting the ground in a double plop.

  You have killed Level 13 Shiki bug.

  I laughed. Just like that, a creature that required Time Ghost to kill died—and I didn’t even use a perception skill!

  Mana Sharpening rules! I thought.

  Then the door blasted open, and I lost all excitement. The tiger blasted into the room, prepared to kill me while I ran for the nearest suite. It was a space with a “Tiamori Industries” logo on its huge glass walls, so the whole space was visible. It would be easy to get through—but I was too slow, and the cat was lifting its paw.

  Fuck! Time Ghost!

  I barely made it. The second Time Ghost activated, my ghost separated into three pieces, spraying blood everywhere.

  I immediately jumped to the ground, and sure enough, three blades flew right above me, cutting the glass walls of Tiamori Industries in three parts.

  Jumping to my feet, I slashed at the wall vertically. It was already separated in three places, so the vertical slash allowed the glass to bend inward like a hinged door as I jumped through it, ripping my arm open from the cut glass.

  More claws immediately followed, tearing apart my ghost again. I made a vertical dive to avoid the blades again.

  This is ridiculous! I cried, head aching.

  I had four real-time seconds of Time Ghost; in three of those, I had been killed twice by those claws!

  I scrambled up and ran as the beast gave chase. This task was impossible!

  No. There was always a way. Always!

  The floor had full plate-glass walls, and one of them had been broken through by a flying beast. The entire wall had crashed onto the floor—webbed, cracked, and terrible—and it gave me an idea. It was the epitome of a long shot, but—

  (“There are massive flying beasts nested throughout the Columbia Center Tower. If you tried to fly away, you’d be swarmed and eaten immediately.”)

  —there was a chance I could attract one.

  Just as my Time Ghost ran out, I jumped in front of the window and screamed, “Free food!” I then lunged for dear life. Sure enough, more blades sheared past me, destroying the glass wall in a spectacular chain reaction.

  The cat didn’t waste time. It pounced toward me, but—

  A pterodactyl-sized bird crashed through the window. It was blue and majestic, a blue jay injected with a firehose worth of Chemical X. The bird immediately clamped down on the cat with its beak as it flew into the room, sending both crashing into a wall.

  I was feeling the onset of mana deprivation. I had 110 mana, and while I had paid for my Mana Sharpening with my natural recovery rate, I just burned through the rest. With that in mind, I unloaded my spare points into intelligence.

  Nine points to mana! I cried. I felt power well in me as I got my last nine points' worth of mana and searched for an escape.

  But was there an escape?

  There wasn’t! There was a barricade going down—and an evolved beast protecting it. I needed to make it to the Seattle Public Library in something between fourteen and fifteen hours—and there was only one way down. If I wanted to survive—I needed to escape that cat’s tyranny!

  I turned to watch the fight between evolved beasts. The cat was clearly stronger. The bird’s beak had only broken through the first layer of the cat’s obsidian skin, and it wasn’t even bleeding. So, unsurprisingly, there was a terrible reversal. The cat ripped free, dug its claws into the bird, and clamped down on it with its jaws.

  Three seconds. That bird would be dead in three seconds—and then I’d be a meal.

  Or—

  My mind moved on its own. I don’t know why it did. Perhaps it was a survival instinct—perhaps it was because I had some type of primal enjoyment for battle—but I rushed the two of them. There was no hesitation—I wrapped my blade in Mana Sharpening.

  The cat saw the danger and turned its full attention to me. “Grand Lock!” I screamed.

  The world stopped as I lifted my blade like a spear. All or nothing. I threw it—and then the skill broke, time rapidly speeding up. My mind and core exploded from using Grand Lock without any mana or perception to handle it—and I immediately blacked out.

  I half expected that darkness to remain forever—I really did. There was no way that I had the dexterity to throw a hunk of metal at a beast and land a bullseye—but sure as shit, I woke up to a screen that made me laugh in pure delight despite the migraine.

  You have massively contributed to the death of Level 37 Obsidian Prowler.

  I got another notification that made me laugh in confusion.

  You have contributed minorly to the death of Level 26 Alico Bird.

  You are evolving.

  You have evolved.

  “What the hell?” I tried to sit up, but a red notification stopped me.

  Warning! Your body and core are on the verge of cracking due to excessive perception and core use. Moving can permanently damage your mind and/or body. Using mana can permanently damage your core.

  Yeah… that sounds bad. I drifted back into sleep.