After looking around blankly Hal noticed that both Gan and Meiyu were being stubborn. For a while his two best friends looked to him and waited. It was uncharacteristic of them to not lead out with lots of thoughts and ideas. They had always been a never ending source of fun.

  Hal finally shrugged.

  "We just need to explore. Right now we are dealing with a lack of information. Any decision we make might result in negative results. Without knowing the rules of the game we will be doomed to mediocrity. However, there is no telling what is out there, so we have to be careful. We can't start planning till we have some idea of what this higher plane really is."

  With some kind of direction Gan was already starting to break out of his frozen state.

  "That is a good idea. Come on."

  Gan said intending to head out to do some exploring with Meiyu.

  However, instead Meiyu dragged Gan over to stand right next to Hal's side and then turned to face away calling out to the surrounding people. This is how Meiyu often was, when she had an idea in her mind and felt that she had the freedom to do what she please, she would just do it and to hell with the consequences.

  "Hey! Hey! Everyone! I found him! This is our Lord! His name is Hal!"

  After shouting a bit Meiyu turned to Hal and winked at him.

  The pressure just soared to the highest point in Hal's young life. He hadn't wanted this and didn't want to be put on the spot now. But Meiyu had set him up and he couldn't betray her. Obviously exploring wasn't the most important thing right this moment to Meiyu. The most important thing was consolidating his people, giving them hope and a purpose.

  Shaking his head Hal firmed his mouth into a hard line.

  "Hello everyone. Yes, my name is Hal, and the system has designated me as a Lord. Welcome everyone."

  At this point Hal stopped. Out of words he didn't know what else to say. But everyone had quieted down and were now looking at him.

  'Can't I be done, now?'

  Sure he could just walk away at this point, but Hal decided he had to treat these people with respect.

  "Listen, I am not the best person for this job. Honestly, I didn't want to be a Lord. But, I don't see any way of backing out now. So, I want to just ask for your help. I will come around and talk to each family one by one. Let me know what you need. I don't have anything, but with what the system will allow, I will work to provide everything, given time."

  His little speech was greeted with more whispers and derision than Hal had been hoping for, but this was nothing new to him. He had always been the people pleaser type and knew that that part of himself would come out now, too.

  Suddenly someone spoke up from the crowd.

  "What is this rock and what are these tokens?"

  Walking over to the person who had been speaking Hal saw a rock about eighteen inches high and eight inches wide and deep. Focusing on it Hal was greeted with a pop up.

  [Awakening Stone

  1. Territory related system actions may be performed here.

  2. All territory members may access this stone to awaken their talent.

  3. Territory members may also be given additional permissions by the Lord depending on their role and responsibilities within the domain.]

  And then looking at the tokens that were arranged on the top of the stone Hal saw another group of prompts. However each stone's prompt said the same thing, all five stones were exact duplicates of each other.

  [Troop Privilege (Special)

  A Lord can call forth a single troop with this token. The first troop summoned will be their designated troop type. Troop types are randomly assigned based on the lord's talent.

  If the Lord doesn't have any talent, this token can be used to forge a connection to the God of Death. Once a successful connection has been made the user will receive the default summon, skeleton warrior.

  (For lord use only)]

  Surprised Hal was immediately interested in passing out role and responsibilities using the awakening stone, but the tokens looked really interesting to Hal as well. Obviously, the troop token was special because it could produce the troop types that could offer needed protection to a fledgling domain. But there was also a bit of information about lords without talents. Evidently some lords had to be offered the ability to forge a connection to the God of Death.

  Thinking that this plane probably preferred Lords, giving them extra luck or privileges Hal kneeled down so that it was easier to place his hand on the stone.

  [Sensing an unawakened human. You would you like to awaken? Y/N]

  Kneeling in this supplicants pose Hal felt pretty awkward in front of his people.

  [Awakening commencing.]

  [Searching ... 1%]

  [Searching ... 2%]

  This looked like it was going to take a long time, but with all his people gathered around Hal stayed focused. Not daring to look away absent mindedly.

  [Searching ... 99%]

  [Searching ... 100%]

  [No talent found. Awakening complete.]

  Finally the awakening completed, but the result absolutely shocked Hal. Taking his hand from the stone he back off. Embarrassed and ashamed that he didn't have a talent stiff with confusion all he could say was this.

  "Go ahead, awaken. Everyone, take your turn and awaken your talents."

  Keeping his face a mask, Hal motioned for everyone else to awaken as well. But inside what worried Hal was that he hadn't received a talent from the system.

  'Do I not have talent?'

  Talking to himself, he received a response from the system anyways.

  [That is correct, you have no talent. Please find a way to awaken a talent on your own.]

  Brutal the system didn't spare him any face. Shaking his head Hal cleared his mind.

  'No, problem. I never expected to have any talent in the first place. Thanks, system!'

  Hal said in his head, but then thought to change the subject.

  'Actually, I can't keep calling you "System", do you have a name?'

  [I am specifically known as matrix A'B43!Gamma7787Florenz, but you can just call me Flo for short.]

  'Hey, Flo, it is nice to meet you.'

  Hal said genuinely glad to have the Ai assistant. Unconsciously Hal began to think of Flo as female. He wasn't sure if this fit or not, but he would go with it till the AI told him otherwise or things became weird again.

  [Lord, I will endeavor to make sure sure your connection to the God of Death goes through smoothly.]

  Flo brought the subject back to talents.

  'Really?'

  For a moment Hal didn't understand what concept the system had jumped to, but then remembered that every lord was given those [Troop Privilege (Special)] tokens. Evidently Flo would be helping him summon his first troop. Could Flo be accidentally hinting that during the troop summoning process it was possible to awaken a talent?

  "Boss, was something supposed to happen when you touched that rock?"

  Interrupting his thought, an uncle who had sidled up to Hal as he had been staring off into space when awakening just now. But being called 'Boss' was too much. He still felt like a normal person, not even close to being as accomplished as any of these people had been back on the blue planet.

  "You can just call me Hal, no honorifics, I am just a normal person same as you!"

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  Hal said back immediately.

  "Sure, whatever you say, ... Hal ..."

  And the man casually reached out his hand and touched the awakening rock as if it was just another thing to do in this world with absolutely no significance. Despite Hal encouraging everyone to step up and awaken a talent, no had. Instead they had all looked at each other wondering who would go first. Evidently after seeing Hal awaken, they hadn't been impressed.

  Interestingly enough when this uncle touched the rock it immediately lit up and shining too bright to look directly at another system prompt came up in front of Hal.

  [Servant Henry has awakened a talent:

  Strength]

  'So this is what should have happened when I touched the stone?'

  Hal had to take a step back as Henry jumped for joy rising a fist up to the sky and calling out to everyone his talent.

  "Wahoo! I just gained a talent, Strength! Wow, this is like one of those transmigration light novels! Everyone try it! Just touch the stone, you will find out your talent."

  Backing up even more Hal made room for everyone to come up and touch the stone. Now, everyone was excited and suddenly everyone pushed to have first access to the stone. In the press it was like everyone became greedy pushing away other people's hands so that no one person could keep there hand down on the stone long enough to awaken.

  Eventually Meiyu and Gan stepped up among the throng of people.

  "Hey! Everyone listen up! I said listen!"

  Meiyu shouted.

  When everyone stopped pushing and shoving she went on.

  "Now, there is no hurry. Everyone is going to get their turn. Single file, line up. I said line up in single file!!"

  It took some energy, but Meiyu finally had everyone obeying her and in no time each individual had a chance to touch the stone and see what their talent was. Gan stood right behind Meiyu's shoulder and folding his arms stoically stared anyone down who dared to try to speak over his girlfriend.

  Looking on from the side Hal could only watch in amazement as Meiyu took care of the crowd. He had no idea how she could do something like that. Quickly he was realizing that he was going to have to keep Meiyu close. She was turning out to be invaluable.

  After some time Meiyu reported to Hal.

  "That's it. Everyone is done. It turns out that everyone below 18 years of age can't awaken. But I think this might be a restriction of the system and not because they actually don't have any talent. Besides the kids there was only one person who did not have a talent and ..."

  Meiyu explained what they had learned from everyone who had awoken a talent. Only part way through Hal interrupted her.

  "Me?"

  Startled she looked at him, and then hurried to correct what she had been going to say.

  "You? ... No! I mean the only person who doesn't have a talent is James and he is over ninety. Practically at death's door."

  "Oh."

  Confused for a second, Hal had to process the fact that he was the only one who wasn't too young or too old to have a talent.

  "Wait, you don't have a talent?"

  She asked surprised.

  "Yes, well, no. Actually, the truth is that I don't have a talent, but the system says that I can still awaken on my own. Not sure if that is because I am a lord or not."

  There was an awkward pause after Hal explained and then Meiyu just went on.

  "Oh, that is good then. Lucky you and lucky everyone here! You should go awaken a talent as soon as you can."

  She beamed at him as if there was nothing wrong with having a talentless Lord. Obviously she was looking on the bright side.

  Swallowing hard Hal decided to leave it.

  "Alright, will you talk to Gan to make sure he is still good with exploring around a bit?"

  Wanting to get the interaction done with he asked her for what he felt like was a favor, but she responded as if it was a command.

  "Yes, I will get right on that. Both Gan and I awakened perception talents. He has [Far Sight] and I have something called [God's Eye]. Not sure what that means yet."

  She beamed at him, both proud to have such a strong talent and happy to do what he asked.

  "Oh! That sounds like a powerful talent. I am sure it is going to be a good for the territory! And I am a bit jealous!"

  Honestly Hal was more than a bit jealous, but he buttoned down his feelings and went on talking to Meiyu.

  "And, I just want you to know, that wasn't a a command or anything. You don't have to ask Gan go explore if you don't want to. I just thought that... Uhmm, I am going to go around and talk to everyone. ... Thanks!"

  Striding away Hal left Meiyu staring after him with an amused smile. Without looking back he went about the business he felt was most important right now. He didn't want to look weak in front of her, but knew that he was failing terrifically.

  Slowly he went around and talked with everyone. It was easier than he thought to do this, because everyone began to group up. As he went around he found that the people who had become his servants were not random.

  The instantiated people were easy to pick out because their names appeared over their heads in dark green, much like non player characters in games. It was rather awkward and led to them being left out of the Blue planet people's conversations. It wasn't because the blue planet people were snobs, it was just that they weren't sure yet if the instantiated people were real people or just robot like with preprogrammed lines and actions. It didn't help that the there were so many more children than adults in the instantiated group. The adults could only look after their kids who didn't yet have games or jobs to distract their attention. Further, there were only two instantiated adult males and both of them were over sixty. The rest of the adults were female and most of these adults were young women just barely adults in their twenties. However there were four older women who had already found each other and were calmly talking in a circle by themselves. It was like there was a big gap in the population between the ages of 30 and 50.

  Interestingly enough Hal realized quickly that the younger women, the kids, and the top old men were being very careful not to go near this group of four older women in the very center of their wider group. At the same time, whether it was programming or some kind of social order they didn't stray to far from them either. Mystified all Hal could do was watch and wait, when he had introduced himself to the older women they had been extremely polite and welcoming, but they hadn't encouraged him to stick around either.

  After going around to talk to everyone Hal broken down the different groups of people in his head. Of the fifty adults ten of them were older people. Six of them were in the instantiated group and four in the Blue planet group.

  When he talked to the blue planet people a little shocked to find that they were all people that had some sort of connection to him. For instance he had volunteered at an old folks home regularly just down the street from the Anderson INC company. It was easy to stop there after work and visit people. Three little old grannies in their eighties and one bent over and wheezing old man, James, in his nineties were here from that old folks home.

  Then there were five girls from the programming floor at Anderson INC, they somehow made it into Harumi's group. Swelling that group to eight.

  Gan was already in conference with three friends from the programming team. These were guys that Hal had hanged out with during lunch and breaks.

  Then it turned out that all of Meiyu's immediate family followed her here. Her mother, father, older sister, and younger brother.

  Having come this far Hal had already met all the male members of his territory. Hal himself, the two older instantiated men, James, Gan, the three programmers, Meiyu's little brother, and finally Meiyu's father. This was the ten men of his territory, Hal included. However, Hal didn't get a chance to talk with any of them before Gan took the physically fit men with him to explore around the area. Without Hal, the three old men this was a six member exploration squad.

  Then there were seven women with kids who were either divorced or just never married. Hal had known these women either on the programming floor at Anderson INC or in other departments there. Since all of these women had kids they didn't fit completely with Harumi's group. Assuming that this separation was just a matter of priorities around raising kids, Hal encouraged them to connect with others.

  Fortunately they fit right in with Meiyu's family. Meiyu, Meiyu's mother, and sister mixed in right away with the family group. Hal would have thought that Harumi's older sister would have gone to Harumi's group, but there seemed to be a bit of animosity between Harumi and Meiyu. Meiyu's sister picked up on this and stuck with her mother.

  Harumi was very aggressively finding and including all the single women into her mini sisterhood. It seemed that Harumi was not going to allow any unaffiliated females to roam around. It was very clear that she was already really worried about Meiyu and Meiyu's sister. However, both stayed away from Harumi's clutches.

  Fortunately for Meiyu, Harumi couldn't force Meiyu into her crowd. This allowed Meiyu to act with a little more freedom making it possible for her to go around to all the elderly individuals, children whether they were from the blue planet or were instantiated.

  The number one requested item was food. Everyone wanted food. After that it was video games. All the younger kids who didn't understand the situation were already nagging and nagging him to get them some screens that they could play their favorite games on and talk with their friends through.

  It amused Hal, it was the hardest thing he had done so far to face these kids and tell them that there would be no more games, internet, or shows to watch. The younger ones just didn't get it. To have to stand firm in the face of these kid's constant anxiety from being deprived now that they couldn't play their favorite games, post, or chat. Fortunately the kids from the instantiated group had no idea what these games were that the Blue planet kids were craving and just thought they wanted to play ball or hopscotch.

  So when instantiated kids started to play 'old fashioned' games the Blue planet kids slowly and awkwardly tried to play, too. Of course at real world games they were beaten at every turn. Which of course caused a whole other problem.

  Frazzled and frustrated with the sheer inability of these kids to understand what was going on, Hal came away as the sun was going down to talk to Gan. Even the adults were irritated and confused with all the changes. It was understandable, but also there was nothing that Hal could do about any of it.

  Only one fortunate thing happened. At Meiyu's insistence the Blue planet people and the instance people combined. This resulted in three main groups. First was the family group who naturally strangely enough became controlled and commanded by the 10 old people over sixty. Which technically meant the four instantiated grandmas. However the three blue planet grannies over eighty were surprisingly given places of honorary authority among the chaos. Their was one of the four instantiated sixty year old women who lead out organizing everyone to do the necessary tasks among this group. Jane was her name and Hal was grateful and felt fortunate that there was someone in this new plane that seemed to know exactly what to do and how to do it to survive.

  This only made sense to Hal and he got out of her way. Of course he was only too glad to have them handle all the kids. Jane and her "Cronies" as she called them had those kids either off and playing or for the older kids carrying and fetching after Hal finally walked away.

  This family group was the largest group by far.

  The second group was Harumi's crowd of young women. Nominally lead by Harumi there didn't seem to be anyone among these girls who wanted to contest Harumi's power. That or they just didn't seem to want the attention.

  Finally the last group was the male group which was led out by Gan. Meiyu's father was closely supporting Gan, but let the younger man take the lead. Hal was surprised by Meiyu's father Ping's calm demeanor and patience with everything that was happening.

  Servants had a 30% survival rate! There were 125 human souls in his charge if only 30% of them survived he would only have less than forty left. And so many of these people were just kids. Perhaps that was why the instantiated people were so interested in having kids. The system had programmed them to know what it took to survive.

  Talking to Gan Hal fingered the troop tokens in his hand. He had been carrying them around since first finding them at the awakening stone.

  [Would you like to summon a troop? Y/N]

  [Detecting no talent, would you like to make a covenant with the god of death? Y/N]

  Flo automatically prompted Hal with his options.