When Pavel regained consciousness he found himself strapped to a table. He strained his neck, which was locked in along with his arms and legs with what seemed to him to be leather straps. The few glimpses of the room that he was able to get, other than the stone ceiling, which had moisture dripping from it at all times showed him that apart from one door to his left, there was nothing other than stone. At the edge of his consciousness, he realized that something new had taken form in his body. From the edge of his peripheral vision, he noticed something. Focusing on that brought up a prompt that formed in front of his face.
System Tutorial Initiated…
Welcome to the system User [Pavel], and the beginning of your new life! All enlightened beings of our universe have access to this feature, known as the System, and countless other names throughout the ages. As you have gained access at the age of an adult member of your species, you have full System privileges already unlocked. You will find that you learn things quicker, pick up languages easier, do things that you never could before, and many more features unlocked by this development! Just think STATUS in order to call up your attributes and abilities. That’s all you’ll need, the rest is up to you!
Pavel, never having seen anything like this before in his life, was shocked. “What’s the worst that could happen?” he thought. He attempted to concentrate on thinking the word status, as the text had told him to. Nothing happened. He tried again, this time straining until he felt like he would burst a blood vessel if he continued. Confused, he said the word out loud. Ding, text popped up in his field of view
Status
Name: Pavel
Age: 23
Race: Human
Class: LOCKED (LVL 1)
Profession: LOCKED (LVL 1)
Health: 120/120
Mana: 90/90
Stamina: 160/160
Stats
Strength: 16
Agility: 14
Endurance: 16
Vitality: 12
Intelligence: 9
Wisdom: 11
Perception: 11
Willpower: 17
Charisma: 13
Free Points: 0
Skills
Sword Mastery (Lvl 13)
Language: Common (Lvl Max)
Spells
N/A
Achievements
Godfighter II
Immortality (Cursed)
Pavel studied the wall of text that popped up in front of him. He could understand the name, age, and race sections, but the rest of the text was foreign to him. Sure, he knew what each of the words meant, but without the specific context of the System, he was unsure as to what each item meant. He decided to attempt to focus on the first section of the text that he didn’t understand, his class. Ding.
Class - Your class is your specialty under the System. As advancing through the System is highly predicated on fighting (though there are some exceptions), this class will allow you to expand your fighting style through spells and abilities known as skills. You unlock your class at Level 10 and can evolve it at Level 50, and every hundred levels after that.
Pavel quickly focused on the rest of the items on the list. If he was to survive his current predicament, he would need all the information that he could get his hands on.
Profession - Similar to your class, the profession is designed to give you more options to use as, well, a profession. This can range from singing, to blacksmithing, to even something that directly relates to a job as a warrior. There is no limit as to what a profession might be. If you can do it for a job, it exists. Unlocks when your class does. Advancement opportunities are available at the same points as the class.
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Health - Your health points are your life essence. If these reach zero, you die. No matter the damage to your body. However, if you take catastrophic damage (like losing your head), you still die instantly, even if that blow would otherwise not take away all of your health.
Mana - You have magic now! Or, at least you might in the future. This is used to cast spells. Most have a casting cost of mana. If you run out of mana, that’s fine! It will come back, and the worst effect might be a bad headache.
Stamina - Some skills have an activating cost that is paid in stamina. These usually add an effect to a normal attack or allow you to perform a feat at a higher level than your body could usually achieve. Running out of stamina is not fatal, but after combat ends, you may feel utterly exhausted until you regenerate it.
The point values all made sense to Pavel. You had to expend resources to get something out of your actions. The class and profession were a bit more confusing, though he figured that if he was ever able to reach the unlock point he would find out.
Strength - How much you can lift, how hard you can punch.
Agility - How fast you can move and how easily you can move.
Endurance - Determines how long you can do things for. Endurance multiplied by 10 is your total stamina.
Vitality - How much damage you can take and how tough it is to hurt you. Vitality multiplied by 10 is your total health. Also affects the rate at which you regenerate stamina.
Intelligence - How smart you are. Your problem-solving ability increases. Intelligence multiplied by 10 is your total mana.
Wisdom - Just because you are smart doesn’t mean you know how to apply that knowledge. This increases your application of facts and knowledge. Also affects the rate at which you regenerate mana.
Perception - Your ability to see hidden details, observe body language, and many other applications.
Willpower - A more abstract concept, this affects your ability to fight through adversity. Also increases your resistance to mental status effects.
Charisma - How physically attractive you are. Can be a help in situations where you need to leverage social skills.
All of the attributes made sense to Pavel. One of his previous questions was even answered; how the point values were calculated for his mana, stamina, and health. Again, to Pavel, all information was good information, and he was sure that he would put this information to use in the future.
Sword Mastery - Level 13
This ability denotes your capability with the sword. As you reach milestones in this skill, effects will be unlocked.
Tier 1 - A successful parry or deflection will restore a minor amount of stamina.
Tier 2-? - LOCKED
Language: Common - Level MAX
Your ability to read and write in the common tongue. At max proficiency, you can converse and write on a native level.
The skills made sense to Pavel. He hadn’t done many meaningful things in his life other than fight and talk, so the lack of variety made sense. He moved on to the achievements section of his status and the part that confused him the most.
Achievements - Achievements are unlocked through great feats, whether accomplished by your own devices, or through the machinations of others. Each achievement provides a great bonus, but some can come with downsides.
Godfighter II - You have fought a god one on one and survived. That is a massive feat in it of itself. Not only that, but you managed to land a strike that did damage.
Tier I - Resistance to divine auras is amplified
Tier II - Damage dealt to divine beings is mildly increased
Immortality (Cursed) - Congratulations, you have achieved immortality. At least, in so far as you cannot die of old age. You also regenerate health at an extreme rate when outside of combat, allowing you to survive almost anything as long as the fight is over. However, to go along with this, a God of Light, Lenus, has cursed you to feel pain to an extreme degree greater than you would otherwise. Good luck with the rest of your (possibly) eternal life!
The achievements that Pavel read were, interesting. Godfighter was the most intriguing one to him, as it seemingly could be upgraded. How he would do that, he couldn’t be sure, but most likely it would be to fight more gods; something Pavel did not plan on doing again any time soon. The last time he attempted that, he ended up in his current position.
However, the second achievement both excited and worried Pavel. On one hand, he was now immortal, incapable of dying of old age, and had the benefit of regenerating faster outside of combat. But, the details of the curse worried him. It would not make sense for Lenus to bestow him with immortality, as that obviously could not be a cheap thing to do if the god didn’t have some ulterior motive alongside it. These worries were compounded by the cursed tag, especially with the content of the curse.
Pavel sat back as much as he could, and started to think. “What could be in store for me? What use does that fiend have for me?”
Before Pavel was able to reach any concrete conclusions he heard keys jingling outside of the door to his cell. He quickly dismissed all of the screens that he had pulled up, as he was not sure if they were visible to people other than him. He felt a surge of anger well up in his heart. This could be the person who was holding him captive, and if so, he would do all he could to spite them. As he heard the lock turn over, and the door swung open, he prepared for what, or who was to come.
The door swung open to reveal the most horrific sight that Pavel had seen. He had been raised from birth to follow the church, though looking back at recent events, Pavel thought that his faith may have been misplaced, and one of the main ideas that the church preached was to fear demons. And now, standing in front of him was the same thing that had been drilled into his head to fear and revile for his whole life.
It looked like a typical demon, with red skin, black horns, and the classic tail. Almost as if one of the stories that the priests would tell to scare the children of the village when he was younger. Seeing the demon, Pavel realized that the expectations of his treatment were about to be greatly upended. Even if it was naive, he figured that a god would operate on some level of decency. Especially being that his captor was a god of light, it seemed irreconcilable to Pavel that such a god would consort with demons.
The demon said something in a guttural-sounding language, his voice sounding as if metal and stone were being ground together. The demon continued to speak in whatever passed for a language for their kind. As it continued, Pavel was only able to make out one word, “Suffer.” Ding.
Skill unlocked!
Language: Low Abyssal - Level 1
Experience gained!