Olivia Albright woke up flat on her back. Which was concerning, because hadn't she been standing up last time she remembered? She heard her family calling her name, but it sounded like they were at the deep end of a well. She could hear her own heart thudding in her chest, could feel the earth beneath her back and under her fingers.

"I'm okay," she said, and her voice slurred the words so badly she wasn't sure that she'd even been heard. She was decidedly not opening her eyes. Because she remembered what had happened the last time she had done that. That specific memory was still quite fresh in her bubbling and boiling brain.

She could feel information waiting for her past her eyelids, like a hungry tiger just waiting to pounce on her.

"Liv!" it was Mom's voice, right next to her. Mom must have been on her knees, and Olivia felt her Mom's hand pass across her forehead. "Open your eyes mija."

"Hol' on," she said, and got annoyed when she slurred the word again. She held up one finger, feeling like she was moving through jello. "Gimme minnit."

"Oh thank God she's alive," she heard Dinah breathe from somewhere to her left.

So. She'd been knocked unconscious by whatever the heck that was. And had been out long enough to really worry her family. And now she could feel something right outside her current levels of perception trying to get at her through her eyeballs. Probably because she'd gone and connected herself to the System.

She could literally hear that one line from The Avengers playing in her head right now.

Yes, thank you Tony, I know it wasn't a great plan. But it's done now and I've gotta deal with it.

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She had been connected by her coin to The System. She had assumed that that would mean that she would just get all of the usual stuff; info on her HP and MP, class choices, skill lists, all that stuff. It was how it worked in the books.

Boy had she been wrong.

She wasn't sure if it had been a miscalculation on her part, or if the system was just so broken that it hadn't realized what she was trying to do. But as soon as she'd opened her eyes after that 'click', she'd been assaulted with information. It had slammed into her psyche like a wrecking ball, like a firehose tied to a wrecking ball. It had hit so hard and so fast she hadn't been able to parse a single thing. It was like everything in the world was trying to get into her head all at once right through her eyeballs.

"Are you hurt?" That was Dad, on her other side. He sounded just a little less concerned than Mom, but that's probably because she'd already formed two whole coherent sentences. "What happened?"

"Gimme. Minute." She said, enunciating clearly. "Seriously. Minute."

"Give her space guys," that was Bel. "Let her work out whatever it was."

She could sense the hesitation in the air around her, but no one said anything more. Good. They were giving her a minute. About time.

Okay.

What just happened?

Had it been a trap of some kind? Like an anti-malware program, except designed for the system? Something to keep out intruders? It had certainly done enough damage… maybe it thought she was some kind of virus trying to gain access to the system?

That didn't really make sense. What she had felt when she'd opened her eyes hadn't been something trying to push her away, it had been something trying to draw her in. Almost greedily. Like the current in the family pool back home when Dad got a really good whirlpool going. It had sucked in more ways than one.

Not a trap then. Maybe something like software incompatibility? She'd tried to connect the wrong USB dongle to the wrong input port?

No, that didn't sound right either. Everything else about the system, broken as it was, had no problem interfacing with them. Sure it got the translations wrong a lot, and it clearly didn't have access to whatever power source it should have to make things work right… but it never had any trouble actually connecting.

So incompatibility was out, active malevolence was out… what was left? Best guess, when she'd tried to connect to everything, the system had taken her at her word and connected her to everything. And now it wanted her to process everything.

Which… yeah, no, that wasn't going to work for her. She was quite happy with her brain not turned into a vegan cheeseburger, thank you very much. She'd read enough sci-fi to know that the girl who tries to plug her brain straight into the internet gets flash-fried and has to spend the rest of her life quoting lolcat memes.

Okay… so if that's true, that means I'm still connected. Can I pull back? Disconnect from this thing without stir-frying my noodle?

She… tried. But the problem was, she had no clue what she was doing. She could feel some kind of connection…

No, as she thought about it. Connection was the wrong word. It was like she had unlocked a door, and her hand was on the knob. And she'd cracked open the door just a bit that one time, and whatever was on the other side had smacked her right in the face. And she could still definitely feel all that information scrabbling against her eyelids, desperate to get in. Huh. Weird. Was the system visual-only? Or was her brain protecting her from the deluge somehow? Or something else altogether?

Gah, this was frustrating! Here she was, a legit honest-to-God Isekai protagonist, but the stupid system was so broken it was unusable! And when she thought she found a workaround in those stupid coins, it got even worse! And she knew, she just knew, if she opened her eyes right now without figuring out a way to protect herself, she was going to get fried like an egg on the hood of Mom's jeep back home in summer.

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Okay Liv, think this through.

The connections run instinctively. If you can convince yourself you're doing it, you can do it. You connected to the system with the coin. You pull the scrolls out of thin air just by doing it. Same with the coins. Okay. So intent is important. I wanted to connect to the system, and it connected me to The System.

Oh okay… So what if I just want to connect to a part of it instead? Like, a part that won't sand-blast my gray matter?

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to visualize it. The way she'd first thought of it, it was like she'd unlocked a door. So she tried visualizing a door in her head. And that the entirety of the System was behind it, knocking.

Okay. So one door containing everything, that's too much. What if…

The visualization changed. Suddenly she saw a room with thousands of doors, stretching off up and down and to the sides off into infinity. And behind each one was something. A connection waiting to be made.

Hah! Thank you fantasy books! Magic visualization techniques to the rescue!

"Liv," Mom's voice was quiet. "It's been a minute. Are you–"

"Shhh," Olivia made a shushing sound. "I'm working on something. Almost there. One more minute."

So behind each door is an aspect of the System. But I have no way of knowing what aspect, and I won't without connecting. Which is great, but I don't have enough coins I don't think. And even if I did… What if I connect to a busted aspect, and it flash-fries my pot noodle? No, I need…

She needed information. She needed to know.

And as soon as the thought entered her brain, she felt a tug on a corner of her mind. In her mind's eye, she turned, and there was a door right in front of her. And while she could still feel something behind it, it wasn't the vast all-consuming pressure that she had felt behind the first door.

Information. I need information beyond all else.

She reached out with her mind and with a mental hand, and she would have sworn on a stack of bibles she actually felt the doorknob against the palm of her hand. There was an almost electric tingle that raced up her arm and stopped at her shoulder.

She knew what was behind that door. She knew it as well as she knew her own breath and body. Information. Understanding. The manual was right there, ready to connect to her.

Shyeah, like she was going to walk away from this. She took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Click.

Power rushed into her and through her. Her eyes flew open and she sucked in a startled breath, but this time she didn't black out or get hit in the head with the mental equivalent of a sledgehammer.

"Oh wow," she breathed. Her eyes opened and she stared up at the concerned faces around her, and saw.

She saw Dad, and his partially-complete Calling. She knew his strength–though it was not given to her in the expected form of numbers but instead more of a general impression. And she saw, if she concentrated, connecting lines from him to everyone else and the bracelets they still wore that he had given them.

Mathew Albright: Tier 1 Warden Of the Hearth.

Threat level: Low.

Relative Strength: Overwhelming

She saw Mom, and got the sense of her health. She was still hurting, but not badly injured. She knew, at the current rate of healing, she'd be back to full capacity within a day and a half.

Alejandra Albright: No Tiers Unlocked

Threat Level: Low

Relative Strength: Underwhelming

Condition: Lightly Wounded

She saw Luc and his profession–and she even knew instinctively how to pronounce Chirurgeon. That was neat! And she saw that he was out of mana–no, that he wasn't even connected to mana–and out of coins as well.

It wasn't detailed information, just quick impressions. But she knew that

She lifted her eyes, carefully, away from her family and looked out at the world. And she could feel the information out there, waiting for her to reach for it. She looked over at a fresh grave, and immediately knew that it had been dug last night, and that it contained the body of a Thrakkah. And if she concentrated on Thrakkah, she immediately got a mental image of the croco-kitties. She instinctively reached out, and after a few moments a small scroll was deposited in her hand by a passing bird-analogue. A scroll that she knew would be filled with information about the monster.

"Yes!" She let out a whoop that made everyone hovering over her flinch in surprise. She struggled up to a sitting position, feeling like the grin stretching across face was going to split her head in half, and let out a laugh of sheer joy.

"I did it! Guys, I've connected to the system!" She laughed again, and in response to their questioning looks quickly elaborated on what she'd managed to do. The glow of pride in her chest only increased at the looks of shock and understanding on their faces.

Hell yeah, this is better than Christmas morning! She kept grinning and stood up, brushing off her pants, then planted her hands on her hips and looked around.

Okay. First order of business, figure out which parts of the system I should connect to next, now that I know how. And then we gotta get the rest of the family connected, so we can start doing cool Isekai things. One world-conquering family coming up! Let's see now…

She visualized the doors again, and again they appeared, rolling out before her. And this time, as she approached them, she was able to discern more about what hid behind them. This one was tied to weather control somehow. This one to experience gain and loss. And this one was–

Locked?

She gave a mental blink at the padlock on the door. And blinked again as she realized that the other doors all had the same lock on them. Weird. Those hadn't been here before. Did she need more coins before more options were unlocked? That would make sense–

She reached out and her mental fingers brushed against the lock. And with the touch came information.

Connection Denied.

Olivia stared. Denied? What? What the heck was this?

She tried again, and got the same result.

Connection Denied.

Why was her connection denied? She tried to push that question out into the ether, down her new connection to the system. For a moment, it felt like she wouldn't get an answer. And then…

No, she couldn't be feeling that correctly.

She tried again. Same result, only firmer this time. And again, tugging at the closed door in increasing agitation.

Same result.

Sub-System control engaged. Consul status confirmed. Consuls are granted authority in (1) area of system responsibility. Consul Olivia Albright has been granted the title of Quaestor. All glory to the Emperor. Please consult the menu if you have any questions.

So… To break it down… in choosing to connect herself to the system the way she had, she had locked herself out of other options. She could either have chosen a full connection and gotten stir-fried… Or a single connection.

It was, it seemed, very much a one-and-done operation.

Huh.

Olivia considered that for a long second. She took in a deep breath.

Her scream of frustration caused every avian within a half-mile radius to burst into startled flight.

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