It wasn’t a creature that eventually drove Jen to leave her introspection and get out of the lake. It wasn’t finishing her self-analysis either; for all the progress she made over the last three hours she knew there was still plenty to be done. It wasn’t even hunger, or thirst, or a pressing need to use the bathroom. It was pruning.

It didn’t take much, just clenching her fist out of irritation at an annoying conclusion. But once her wrinkled fingers made contact with her palm, Jen’s concentration was shot. Even as she valiantly tried to refocus her attention back to establishing her core values, her mind kept wandering. Images of her wrinkled body clashed with thoughts of giant raisins. Eventually Jen gave it up as a bad job. A quick calculation using Chronos’ Heart told her that enough time had elapsed for her clothes to be dry, and Jen reluctantly pulled herself back to the edge of the water before pulling herself out.

Drying off took a while, as Jen only had her hands available to sluice the water off. She gave up on drying her hair, satisfied at reaching a state of very damp after wringing it out three times. As she waited for the last water droplets to either evaporate or run off, Jen turned her thoughts to her Status Screen, looking at it from her introspective state of mind.

She had intentionally been avoiding it, not wanting to fall into the trap of relying on its positive feedback. She felt, no, knew that her skill with Echolocation had improved. She had gone from noticing walls and ceilings to spotting objects at a resolution measured in meters. It was a real, measurable improvement.

But she had no idea how the System would quantify her growth. While unlikely, it was possible that her actions hadn’t earned her any additional skill levels. Even that thought sent a little pang of fear through her mind, which Jen grabbed ahold of. This was what she was worried about. Already she had come to a place where the feedback from the system mattered to her. How much longer would it be before it began to change her? She’d grown up on the internet, had done Club Penguin, Neopets, Facebook, and more. She knew just how wired humans were to seek rewards. She’d read the studies, seen the statistics, heard the arguments. And while the Internet had been a massive part of her old life, the System was even more intertwined with her reality.

There were benefits, some she had already taken advantage of. Discrete quantification of ability made improvement tangible, making it mentally easier to better herself. The rewards from paths as well were incredible. Spend some time learning to sing or dance better, and you can take those points and invest them, getting a prize of a new skill, or higher stats.

It was addictive.

It pulled every mental lever that Jen knew about, and probably even more that she didn’t. Unknown rewards to appeal to the gambling fixation, small quantifiable increases to trigger senses of accomplishment and immediate feedback. A part of Jen wanted nothing to do with the System, but she knew it was too late. She was already hooked, and even if she wasn’t, she needed to use the System to have any hope of surviving.

Instead, Jen made two resolutions. The first was to be aware of what was happening. It wouldn’t stop the reinforcement, but it would diminish the effects and would help her to hopefully find the reason the System was designed as it was.

The second promise Jen made to herself wasn’t so clear cut, based more off a feeling than an actual course of action. She wanted to push the boundaries of a system, to never let herself become complacent with her skills and abilities. She doubted Identify was ever meant to be used to keep notes, and wanted to keep her mind open for more ways to alternatively use her skills, even if it wouldn’t correspond to increased levels. Perhaps echolocation could be used to determine the interior structure of the rock around her. Perhaps Poison Resistance could affect the interaction between her body and the buildup of lactic acid from anaerobic exercise. Jen didn’t know what would work and what would fail, but she wanted to stay the sort of person willing to try, to waste her time on unusual activities without worrying about the payoff at the end.

Satisfied for the moment, Jen fumbled around in the dark for her clothes, putting them on quickly before revelling in the feeling of being mostly clean. Sure, her clothes were on the stiff side, and her damp hair was still clinging to her neck, but she felt refreshed, both in body and in mind.

Checking her progress could wait until Jen returned back to her base. Which brought Jen to the question of whether to return or to continue exploring. While there might be more of the cave system on the other side of the lake, she wasn’t comfortable trying to swim or otherwise make her way through the water to see for herself.

Trying to head back would count as exploration as well. Jen had intentionally not kept track of her progress on her way out from her base, and while she had a rough direction to head in, it was easily possible for her to miss her mark and end up somewhere else. She felt like she had gone far enough for the trip to be worthwhile, and was willing to try and head home, be that an uneventful trip or one that might show her even more of the cavern that she ended up in.

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As she travelled, back through the hole and around the various stone pillars, Jen continued to push the limits of her echolocation skill. Where before she had been focused on optimizing it, trying different pitches and sounds to find the ones that gave the clearest feedback, now she operated in reverse. Soft sounds, drawn out noises, pitches that she sent out close together, all while trying to maintain the same quality of understanding that she had previously achieved.

Once she had left the densely packed stalagmites behind, Jen pushed herself even further. She began to sing, a continuous outpouring of constantly changing noise. She knew what she sounded like, and she pushed her Listen skill to the limits trying to determine what sound was her echo. Even if it was incidental, Jen was hopeful that her singing skill would gain a level or two as well, but for the most part she focused her efforts on pushing the limits of her core skills, the ones that had truly proven beneficial.

While Jen never came close enough to her pond to hear its familiar dripping, her echolocation was able to identify the massive isolated pillar that dominated this section of the cave. Jen immediately adjusted her course towards it. Assuming this was the pillar she had aimed for originally and not a suspiciously similar lookalike, then her constructed pathway would still be in place, serving as an easy method to guide her the rest of the way back.

She tripped several times on her way over, before she finally admitted that her current level of Echolocation didn’t provide enough detail for her to navigate around the many small rocks that littered the ground. After falling for the third time, she took a moment to pick up a handful of the stones, before reverting back to earlier behavior, fully sweeping the ground with her leg before moving forwards. It was frustratingly slow compared to her pace when she was freely walking, but Jen felt her hands had been scraped up enough for one day.

Following her markers once she reached them was child’s play. Her use of a straightedge kept them remarkable straight, and Jen could quickly correct for any course deviations. She was pleased to note that she was able to make out the sound from her pool earlier than she had while building a path, as it took her another twenty steps before she reached the point where her path had changed course.

With her ears to guide her, Jen ignored the course change, preferring to simply head straight home.

After dropping her collected rocks off into a pile, she finally allowed herself to pull up a light and her Status Screen and see just how successful her trip had been.

Judging by the visible thickness of waiting information boxes, it had been a most valuable experience. Jen read through them, tallying up her rewards as she went.

Echolocation is now Lvl 14.

That seemed much higher than she thought it was last time she checked, but the old level slipped her mind for the moment. Figuring it wouldn’t hurt to try, Jen decided to make up a command.

“System, show skills’ previous level.”

Echolocation is now Lvl 14, was Lvl 7.

She was pleasantly surprised when the box shimmered and changed in front of her, and added testing System flexibility to her to-do list, before moving onwards.

Listen is now Lvl 17, was Lvl 12.

Meditation is now Lvl 12, was Lvl 9.

Chronos’ Heart is now Lvl 7, was Lvl 6.

Singing is now Lvl 6, was Lvl 5.

Low Light Vision is now Lvl 5, was Lvl 4.

Navigation is now Lvl 5, was Lvl 4.

Patience is now Lvl 4, was Lvl 3.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill Swimming Lvl 1.

In total it came to 21 skill points for Jen to spend, as well as a sense of accomplishment at how much her skills had grown.

Eager to see what rewards the Novice Spellcaster path might give with this new investment, Jen quickly pulled up the relevant screen.

The path gave her nothing until Level 10, frustrating Jen’s hope for increased mental stats.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill Mana Bolt Lvl 1.

A quick check showed that her mana pool was mostly full, and Jen eagerly put it to use, holding her hand away from herself, pointed out into the darkness, she eagerly intoned, “Mana bolt!”

She had intended to use her Mana Manipulation to study how the bolt was formed, but the sheer speed at which it occurred surprised her. Plant Growth had built up over a few seconds, complex structures being formed in her body before being expelled out into the target of her spell.

The short glimpse she managed showed Mana Bolt to undergo a similar process, but Jen barely felt the change in her magic before it was gone. At the same time, a brilliant bolt of light erupted from her hand, before majestically heading out into the dark before vanishing completely and instantly two seconds later.

Jen blinked her eyes several times, trying to get rid of the afterimages still imposed on her retina. Her Status Screen was somehow still legible, and Jen read just how much mana that spell had cost her. For a single bolt of light that lasted two measly seconds, 20 mana had been deducted from her pool. Clearly this wasn’t going to be a spell she could practice with willy nilly.

Promising to study her new spell in a bit, Jen returned her attention to the Path Screen, where she invested 9 more points with no reward. Fully expecting another spell, Jen eagerly spent her 20th point into the path, only to be stopped by the entirely new message that appeared before her.

Branching Path

Choose a single school of elemental magic to further your education in

Fire Air Light Earth Water Dark