《The Glyphmaster's Revolution》 0 - Work, work, work Keith was pretty pissed. First of all, his boss didn''t give him a lunch break, so he had to eat his lunch at his cubicle while working. Second, his boss said he had to work overtime. "Making up for lost time," he said. Be real, this ''lost time'' his boss was talking about was all the other employee''s time. He was pretty sure he was the only person in this company who had enough motivation to do any kind of real work at all. Well, he and Sam. At least he had someone to chat with while working his butt off. Sam was one of his friends. Well, his only friend. He was probably the only other person in this entire company building who did any kind of work besides him. He was a good way to pass the time while working in this god-forsaken place. Also, he was pretty sure his knuckles shouldn''t crack while typing on a keyboard. He and Sam were trading positions every hour. Currently, he was doing the document, and Sam was trying to find a good job that doesn''t pay them peanuts for working overtime.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. "Hey Keith, I found a good one!" Said Sam, staring at the computer with glee. "Don''t get your hopes up too fast," Keith grumbled. That had always been his life motto. Sam shook his head. "No, seriously, come look!" Keith stood up slowly and glanced at the computer screen. It listed a writing job for a book company. He quickly skinned over the details, started, and skinned them over again to be sure. "200k annually!?" Sam cracked a smile "Yep!" "This must be rigged... what are the job requirements?" "Just a high school education," Sam said. "Would you like me to sign you up?" Keith couldn''t believe this was happening. After all these years of slaving away in corporate hell, it finally paid off. "You bet," said Keith before walking back to his computer. All the while Keith was working, he thought that his life was finally turning around. Maybe he might even get a girlfriend! He quickly reprimanded himself for that, reminding himself of his life motto. Suddenly, a wave of fatigue washed over him. "Sam, can I trust you to finish the document?" "Yeah sure," Sam said, rolling his eyes. Keith thanked him and fell asleep smiling at how lucky he was. 1 - Hello World! [System Initiating...] [System Initiated!] [Transmigrating Consciousness...] [Consciousness Transmigrated!] Keith woke up in a bed. It was strange because he did not remember going to bed or even leaving work, for that matter. He tiredly sat up in the bed... and promptly fell down again. His muscles felt very weak. This was when he realized something was very wrong. He warily glanced around the room. The room that he was in- His? No, not his. This couldn''t be his room. Still, a nagging feeling told him otherwise. The room was a standard, yet slightly old styled, bedroom with an elegant bed that he was in, a bookshelf with many different books and titles that he could not read, and a polished mirror with a table and chair underneath. A masculine figure opened the door and walked into the room. He was about 5''7 with a goatee and some kind of noble clothes with colors of blue and red. He walked up to me and positively beamed at my face. "Honey, Come look! Our child''s awake!" The sound of rustling fabric came from the doorway before an absolutely gorgeous woman entered the room. She wore the same kind of noble clothes with a frilly dress and the same colors of red and blue. She walked up to me before gasping.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. She turned to the man. "Is it normal for him to be not crying?" That was when it struck him. That he had died from exhaustion and been turned into a baby, his long dreams of getting a good job that pays well and enjoying myself for once gone, and the revelation that these people were his parents. That was what made him cry. However, it was not like any normal baby cry. He just sat there in complete silence while a stream of tears fell from his eyes and drenched the bedsheets. This was a cry you made when you were so close to achieving the thing you thought you would never get, never have, and always see wherever you went, yet weren''t able to grasp. His (new) Dad put his hand over his mouth at this sight while his (still new) Mom swept him up in her arms and rocked him a bit before setting him down on the bed and tucking him in. They both did a little wave before walking out of the room. As he relaxed a bit at the comfy pillows and the not-so-comfy mattress, a blue box appeared at the edge of his vision. Name: Kael Forgewright Race: Human Class: [???] Magic: [???] Level 1 Hp: 4/4 Mp: ?/?
Stats: STR: 1 AGI: 1 DEX: 0 CON: 1 WIL: 12 INT: 15 WIS: 9
Skills: [None] Titles: [None] Keith looked at the stats- HIS stats, in wonder. He would have been surprised, but after all this, he just accepted it as a part of his world now. This is kind of like those lit.. lit-something books. They were apparently like video games. Another joy that Keith never got time to experience. With that thought, Kael went to sleep. 2 - The Unveiling Kael sat in a backroom collecting himself. This was the biggest event of the year, heck, probably the biggest event of his entire childhood. He brought up his status screen. Name: Kael Forgewright Race: Human Class: [???] Magic: [???] Level 7 Hp: 52/52 Mp: ?/?
Stats: STR: 13 AGI: 15 DEX: 12 CON: 11 WIL: 16 INT: 23 WIS: 17
Skills: [Basic Combat Mastery (C) (Lvl 13)], [Basic Sword Mastery (C) (Lvl 14)], [Identify (U) (Lvl 14)] Titles: [None] He was about ten years old now, and this event was called the Unveiling. The Unveiling was an event that happened yearly all over the countryside where when you turned ten, you went to a special place where you unveiled your Magic Type and Mana score. He was currently waiting in one of the many backrooms for that. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. He glanced through the peephole that every room had that showed what was happening. Currently, one of the kids was in front of this transparent Mana crystal ball. The kid was standing on a stage while the audience watched as the kid tentatively put his hand on the ball and closed his eyes in concentration. The ball did nothing at first, then slowly began to light up with an aquamarine hue, until the ball was dazzling. This showed that the kid had a moderately large affinity for [Water Magic]. Kael wondered what kind of magic he would get. Maybe I could get [Ice Magic]! What if I got [Steel Magic]? As Kael was pondering that thought, Sarah walked up onto the stage. Kael almost spat at the sight of her. She was probably the worst noble kid he had met in his entire life. She was the type that acted all innocent around grown-ups but a devil when alone. She walked to the magic crystal ball and put her hands on the ball. As Kael watched, a deafening roar came from the ball, along with a flash of light. All the spectators leaned in to see what the ball looked like. The Mana ball was still transparent, and inside, there was a rotating purple star surrounded by a powerful ring of purple fire with darker purple dots inside. The star seemed to be perpetually collapsing and expanding. "Sh- She has [Gravity Magic]!" Someone from the crowd shouted. At once, the crowd erupted in clapping and cheers while Sarah''s parents grinned smugly from the back of the seats. Sarah''s parents were extremely rich nobles who didn''t expect anything less of their daughter to Unveil a Mythical-rarity Magic. They would probably kick her out otherwise. Luckily, his parents weren''t like that. Hopefully. A butler entered the room. "It is your turn, sir." Kael stood up nervously and stiffly walked out of the room onto the stage. The audience clapped, and he stood in front of the crystal ball. He slowly placed his hands on the ball and waited for something to happen. Nothing happened. Before anybody reacted, the System did. [Mana Score Unveiled!] [Magic Unveiled!] There was more, but Kael was too busy running away from the angry mob.
After Kael had calmed himself down in his bedroom about his past life and now current life being ruined because of chance, He heard a hushed conversation in the hall. He tiptoed to the door and listened in. "-Then they would think it was an accident!" His mom said. His dad shook his head. "I can''t believe you are suggesting this. He''s only ten!" His mom laughed bitterly. "And if this gets out? The neighbors will come with pitchforks! You know that people without magic are thought to be devils." "Why is this world like this?" My dad sighed. Kael slipped away from the door and back into the bed. He had already heard enough to know what they were going to do from what their conversation was about. Kael would prove that people without Magic were sorely misunderstood people and not devils. [+2 WIL] But first he had to get the heck out of here. 3 - Preparation After the sound of his parents talking died out, Kael went back to his notifications. They were giving off a light humming sound, inaudible to everyone but himself. They usually only did that when they were very important to his character or were holding a lot of system energy at bay. Usually both. The humming increased an octave, so he quickly clicked on it. [Magic Type: ERROR] [ERROR_MAGIC_NOT_FOUND] [Compensating...] [Class Given!] [Compens¨C] [ERROR_NOT_COMPENSATED] [Upgrading Class!] [Compens¨C] [ERROR_NOT_COMPENSATED] [Upgrading Class!] [Compen¨C] [ERROR_NOT_COMPENSATED] [Upgrading Class!] [Compens¨C] [ERROR_NOT_COMPENSATED]The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. [Upgrading Class!] [Compens¨C] [ERROR_NOT_COMPENSATED] [Upgrading Class!] [Compens¨C] [ERROR_NOT_COMPENSATED] ... Kael looked in awe as thousands of these messages went across the window. It took an entire 5 minutes for them to stop pinging. Quickly, Kael looked at his status. Name: Kael Forgewright Race: Human Class: [Glyphmaster] Magic: [None] Level 7 Hp: 52/52 Mp: 0/0
Stats: STR: 13 AGI: 15 DEX: 12 CON: 11 WIL: 18 INT: 23 WIS: 17
Skills: [Basic Combat Mastery (C), (Lvl 13)], [Basic Sword Mastery (C), (Lvl 14)] Titles: [System Blessed (M)] He read through his status. The System made him instinctually know that his class was about inscribing sigils and runes onto objects to give them effects, and the potential was staggering if you had the right ideas, but first, he had to get out of his house. He had also read his new title but other than it being mythic rarity, it did not have any features or a description. Kael slipped out of bed and grabbed his pack on his bedside before going to the bookshelf and scanning the bookshelf. There were many books of different varieties on the shelf, most of them were history about the world because this world''s history was much more interesting than his last world''s. Which is more interesting? Some president with a wig or a [Grand Magus] who stopped a meteor from blowing up the planet? Kael thought with a snort. After some searching, Kael eventually found what he needed. ''Sigils And Glyphs: The Complete Trilogy'' After placing the books in his bag, Kael clicked his pack shut and tiptoed downstairs. His door leads out into an open hall way, with a grand staircase in the middle leading to the main hall. The house was silent at this time of night, only interrupted by the occasional footfalls of Kael tiptoeing towards the front door. He reached the front door and walked into the night. After ''borrowing'' a sword from the barracks and getting some buying some clay, Kael walked into the forest. 4 - Self Preservation As Kael trekked through the Everdark, the sun began to set. He knew that the worst monsters came out at night due to stories from travelers and caravans passing through the forest. They also said it got very dark at night due to the canopy of trees covering the sky, which is likely why it got its name. As he walked, he found a dense spot of trees. Curiously, he looked and found that it was a ring of trees surrounded by a single, huge tree. The tree was covered with neon blue veins that pulsed in time to the crickets chirping in the background. In the center of the tree, there was a large hole that looked as if a creature had ripped out of it. Curiously, he inspected the tree with his racial skill. Racial Skills were, to his knowledge, specific skills that every race had, such as elves racial skills, would be [Magic Proficiency]. Human''s Racial Skill was [Identify] It was a basic skill that allowed one to gain information on a certain entity. [Arcanium Evercent], (Epic) A special tree that only spawns in Mana-dense environments. This tree adsorbs ambient Mana from the air and the ground and channels the Mana throughout its body to grow and adsorb more mana in a feedback cycle. If Mana is condensed enough, the tree will evolve. In this evolution, the tree will gain a following of trees in a circle of the tree that acts like conduits of mana to provide to the tree, and in turn, the tree provides them with nutrients.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Properties: Mana-rich, alchemical use, very hard bark. Kael skimmed through the info and decided that this would be a good hideout for the night. Now, in the tree, Kael opened his pack and brought out the first in the series of Glyphwork. He cracked open the book and started reading. ''Hello, young apprentice! If you are reading this, then you want to learn about sigils. The path to mastery in your craft might be hard, but never give up." "Chapter one: the basics. There are two types of sigils: Glyphs and Runes. Glyphs are the basic foundation to creating any type of sigaldry. Unlike words and characters, glyphs are written and read by using your Intent. Glyphs can look like anything, really, they just need to have your intent of what the glyph is meant to do. However, there are some restrictions to what glyphs can do. As your sigaldry Skill levels up, the more effects it can have. You can make only a few glyphs at level one of most sigaldry Skills. These Glyphs include fire, water, air, and earth. Runes are combined Glyphs. Runes can be made of only two glyphs (Such as the "Smoke" Glyph (fire + water)) to over a million Glyphs! (Such as the "Mana Coalescence" Glyph.) Kael closed his book and reclined in the tree, thinking what he would do tomorrow. 5 - Discovery Kael opened his eyes. Sunlight streamed through the forest, tinted slightly blue around the tree he was resting in. He groggily sat up and checked his notifications. Class Level Up! (x2) Next Class Skill in (3) Levels! Next Class Subsystem in (8) Levels! Next Class Evolution in (48) Levels! You Have Gained (2) New Glyphs! (Smoke, Wind) Glyph Gained! Kael sat up. He then paused and lay down again. What... what am I supposed to do? He honestly had not planned this far. After a bout of thinking, he set up a mental checklist. 1. Find a town. 2. Experiment with my class. 3. Fight monsters to level up. 4. Make a magic computer. The number four should be number one, but he shouldn''t spend all his life making a computer, even if it was a very good thing that he should do. He climbed out of the tree and walked. He had decided that the Evercent tree would be his hideout for as long as he was in this forest. After a few minutes, he found a stick. Yes, you heard that correctly. A stick. He was planning to use the Glyphs he had gotten to try and experiment on the stick. He picked up the stick while putting the satchel that he had brought with him down. He opened the satchel and withdrew his stylus. He carefully wrote a symbol for wind on the stick with his stylus. He picked it up and waved it around a few times. Nothing. Maybe it''s because I need to equip it? Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. [Wooden Stick (Basic)] Has been equipped! +3 ATK, +2 AGI Instantly, the stick felt like it fit his hand perfectly. He walked up to a tree and whacked it with the stick. Nothing. Why isn''t it working? Stumped, he sat crosslegged and pulled out his book. Flipping through the pages, he found what he needed. " Chapter 3: Energy. Of course, Sigils don''t work on their own. They need sources of Mana to power them, or else you or I could just write an explosion Glyph in the ground and blow up the planet. They all need energy to fuel them. Over the years, I''ve tried many sources of Mana to power these Arrays, and I''ve found the best source to be Monster Cores. Not only because of their easiness to be able to be channeled into any source, but their potency and variation of how much Mana can be in a Monster Core." Of course! Kael thought, slapping his forehead. Wait... but that means I need to hunt monsters. He hesitated at that thought. He had never killed a living being in his entire life and his past life. Well, except for bugs. But the fact that he really hesitated on was the fact that he could die doing this. He had read books like the situation he was in now, but they didn''t get it right. It''s like bidding your life on a 50/50 chance to get a soda. Sure, the soda tastes really nice, but you can die. The only thing the books got right was the part that MC''s did it anyway because if you didn''t, you would stagnate, and then you would fall prey to the powerful. As a kid, he hadn''t really been exposed to the world that much. But the power dynamics of this world already set it in stone. Kael sighed and stood up, stick in hand. He picked up his stylus and got to work. Might as well prepare, Kael thought while sharpening the stick with his stylus. After about an hour of sharpening, Kael picked up the stick and Inspected it, admiring his craft. [Sharpened Wooden Stick, (Common)] This Regular Stick From A Oakwood Tree Has Been Sharpened By A Fledgling Glyphmaster By The Name Of Kael Forgewright. It is sharp and durable for a starter weapon. Stats: +5 Atk, +6 Agi, +2 Con. Effects: Blood-Drawing, Slash Damage, Pierce Damage, Stab Damage. The Wind Sigil had been sharpened off, so he rewrote it again. He stretched, sat up, and equipped his stick. Item Equipped! Bonuses Applied! Time to go stab some monsters. 6 - Battle of The Squirrels As Kael walked with his [Sharpened Wooden Stick], he heard a rustling from above. He immediately dodged out of the way as a sharp but small pair of claws slashed just where his head was. The slash was so powerful that an airwave resembling the slash rocketed to the ground before creating a set of ridges in the ground resembling claws. H-holy shit. That slash would have diced my head into pieces. He dodged again as the same set of claws came for him again. He couldn''t see what was attacking him from overhead because of the dense leaves of the canopy. The only warning he had was the fast rustling of leaves as the monster tried to dice his head into sushi. He needed a way for him to reveal the animal to him. He could attack the monster while it was attacking him, but that sounded way too risky, and he was pretty sure the animal could attack way faster than he could swing his stick. Suddenly, the answer came to him in a memory of his old life. When he was about 11, he went to a summer camp with his older brother. They had been eating some marshmallows with other campmates by the fire when his brother suddenly launched into a scary story about a monster that ate people and wore their skin. He didn''t spare details either. After a while of his brother telling the story, He had gotten sick of hearing it and had tugged the branches a few times. He had expected a stick or something to drop on his brother''s head, but instead, an entire squirrel did. The squirrel landed belly-up. It quickly righted itself and looked around, only to find that there was no way to get off of his head. So the squirrel did what any animal would do when they had no way to escape: freak out. The squirrel screeched and desperately clawed at his brother''s head. His brother, who didn''t have any time to react, reached up, grabbed the squirrel, and threw it in a random direction. Unfortunately for the squirrel, it was the campfire. The campfire didn''t use any wood; instead, it used gas. That meant that the campfire had a much hotter temperature than a normal wood campfire, meaning that when the squirrel got flung into it, the squirrel burst into smoldering flames.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Obviously, he couldn''t throw the monster into a campfire, but he could shake the branches of the tree to hopefully get the monster off it. After a few good shakes, the branches parted, and, ironically, a squirrel fell out of it. Kael took the chance to analyze it while it was dazed while also charging at it with his stabby stick. He was calling it a stabby stick now, no objections. [Alpha Oakwood Squirrel], (Uncommon) A Particular Type Of Squirrel That Only Lives In Oakwood Trees. Usually, These Types Of Squirrels Work In Groups And Colonies Foraging For Nuts To Survive The Winter, But This Particular Squirrel Has Gone Through A Variant Evolution And Has Gained The [Alpha] Type, Giving It A Taste For Meat. Stats: 60/60 HP 5/20 MP Skills: [???} Titles: [???] After glancing at the info, he did what the stick was named for. Stabbing. Kael only got in about one or two stabs before the squirrel screeched and blocked his stick. It started scurrying around his feet while delivering slashes to his legs. They weren''t as severe as they had been when it was trying to sneak attack him, so it was clear it was a kind of skill. Still, his heels started bleeding from the scratches, and the squirrel was getting pretty tired. Up to this point, Kael hadn''t been able to stab the squirrel after it started dodging, but now it was tiring. Kael stopped dodging to steady his feet, taking the scratches directly, and lunged. His stick pierced through the squirrel''s hide with some resistance, and he felt it penetrate something important. The squirrel screeched for a while, uselessly clawing at the stick, and then fell silent. You Have Killed [Alpha Oakwood Squirrel]! XP Bonus For Killing Variant! Level Up! (x5) Stats Increase +20! 15 Unused Skill Points! Ohh yeah. Time to upgrade. 7 - Upgrades! Kael pulled up his status menu, eager to see the changes that had happened to it, or more accurately, him. Name: Kael Forgewright Race: Human Class: [Glyphmaster (Lvl 2) ] Magic: [None] Level 12 Hp: 52/52 Mp: 0/0
Stats: STR: 33 AGI: 35 (41) DEX: 32 CON: 31 (33) WIL: 36 INT: 43 WIS: 37 Unused Stat Points: 15Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
Skills: [Basic Combat Mastery (C), (Lvl 13)], [Basic Sword Mastery (C), (Lvl 14)] Titles: [None] My power is growing... overflowing! Kael snickered and wondered where to put his stat points. I''m pretty sure that my class is based on Intelligence and Wisdom, as they seem like things that would influence my class the most... but I also need the physical stats, too, to be able to get the energy to fuel my creations in the first place. Stumped, He just spread the points around evenly and put the one uneven point into Intelligence. Stat Points Applied! He felt the energy fusing with his being, making him a little bit... more. He slowly sat up, expecting at least a single ache from expending so much energy, but none came. System supremacy, baby! The system window he still had open seemed to fluctuate in brightness, but only for a moment. Kael raised an eyebrow and dismissed it as a trick of the light. He walked over to the squirrel''s body and kneeled. I''m guessing the core of it is inside its body? Eugh. Am I really going to have to dig through a squirrel''s body to get the equivalent of a magic battery? I was fine digging through my couch to get a tv one. He noticed his stick was getting a little dull, so he sharpened it. He created an incision where he assumed the heart would be in a squirrel. He widened the incision a bit before finding what looked to be a glowing crystal, though it seemed to be dimming by the minute. Jackpot! ...Jackpot? [Mana Core, (Rare)] A Mana Core Belonging To A Monster. Mana Cores Are Formed When A Monster (Or Person) Contains Enough Mana For It To Condense Into A Liquid. Because Of The External Forces Putting Pressure On The Liquified Mana, It Forcefully Crystalizes, Forming A Mana Core Where The Heart Used To Be. This Mana Core Belonged To A [Oakwood Squirrel] With the [Alpha] Variant. Mana Contained: 20/20 Jackpot!!! The Mana Core was perfectly symmetrical and smooth. The Core was tinted gray, while inside, there was green and blue Mana faintly swirling around. He stored it in his satchel and walked back to his camp. 8 - Experimentation Kael returned to his hideout with speed. Once he had nestled himself in his hideout, he took out the Core, his stick, and his book. ''Chapter 6: Connections.'' ''Just beyond what we can see with the naked eye lies connections. Connections are ethereal bonds that flow throughout the universe that bond us to objects or entities. These bonds are created when we develop significance for a thing. Our will forms a connection between us and that thing. These connections have a purpose beyond our understanding that only the gods would know. While we cannot understand its original purpose, these bonds can be used for many things. One of these things is making Arrays.'' ''Turning a bunch of Runes and Glyphs into arrays requires all of those Sigils to work in tandem to achieve a certain purpose. How do we make them work together? Connections. Just like if you want people to work together, they need to be somewhat connected to each other. Sigils are the same. To link Sigils together, you have to be able to wield connections to Bond and Transfer. ''There are two ways to learn how to wield these connections. The first is that you can learn it by gaining a skill that allows you to sense and weave these connections. The second is learning the skill by practicing it naturally. There are many ways to be able to train skills for them to get better, but the most effective one in this scenario would be visualization. Try to visualize the connections between people and things or people and people that you think would have an emotional or physical connection to that thing. Visualization is most often the most effective when the mind has been cleared.'' Kael folded the page corner and closed the book. He assumed a basic meditative stance and focused on clearing his mind, clearing all of his current thoughts while maintaining clarity. He tried imagining a void stretching all around him into infinity. Already, he could see imperfections in the void. There were some small splotches of white in the void, and the void''s color wasn''t that black. In fact, it kind of reminded him of a certain white-haired sorcerer''s domain.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. He stopped focusing on the Infinite Voi... the void, and tried visualizing the world. He opened his eyes for a few moments, trying to memorize his immediate surroundings before closing them again and trying to implement them into his mindscape. Already, the increased stats were beginning to show on his mind and body because he could remember a lot more than what he would''ve in his old body, and it lasted a lot longer than they would''ve. He remembered the time when he was training with his dad. He was training with his dad because it was his first expedition that he was allowed to go on with his dad. They were going to a place called the Crystal Cavern, where locals reported seeing a monster nest of slimes there. While he was training, his dad had been guiding him through it. He was only nine at that time, but he was pretty sure that he was stronger than an average person back in his original world. When he had been doing his speed and endurance training, his training had been running around this horse race track they had that had been used by his ancestors to gain money from betting. He had been challenged to run around the entire racetrack 20 times in 10 minutes. And on top of that, he had to compete with an actual horse. At the start of his training, he was only able to keep up with the horse at the start, before it started gaining speed and then left him in the dust. But over time, his agility stat increased, and he was able to keep up with the horse for about 10 laps before his endurance ran out. He had gotten a little cocky and challenged his dad to a race on the track. He accepted with a grin. He was preparing for the race at the track when his dad came, fully prepared. "What are those things on your legs, Dad?" He had said, pointing at the purple rings fastened to his ankles. "Orichalcum leg weights." Is he serious? Orichalcum weighs as much as a house. He shouldn''t be able to move. Kael pondered this before grinning. Oh well, at least I''ll be able to win. They both got ready to run. His mom was sitting in the wooden bleachers that were used for audiences for the horse races, but now they were empty except for her. On his Dad''s signal, his mom started counting down. "5, 4, 3, 2, 1!" He grinned at his dad... who wasn''t there. He barely had a moment to look around before the entire track exploded.