Like with so many things regarding the System, Annabelle wasn’t sure what this whole “Level up” an “Main-Skill” business was about. Though considering the timing, she could only guess that whatever had happened, had kickstarted something in her mind.
To make an analogy, previously, her senses had sent all data written in ancient chinese, but her mind could only understand modern english. But now, whatever that single level up had done, her senses were sending the data still in chinese, but at least written with roman letters. And starting from that single connection, her combined organic and mechanical subconscious were starting their work on translating the languages.
At least that’s how it felt like to Annabelle. Being able to experience the process from a relatively outsider perspective made her feel a little like an outsider inside her own mind.
Determining that at the current rate, it would take quite a while longer before her senses were at all useful, she decided to instead take a look at what this whole “Skill” thing was about. And the best point to start that was from the tutorial she had mostly ignored until now.
Open Status screen she thought, following the tutorials instructions.
100 Stability
-1 Stability per day
945/1000 Mana
+12 (-30) Mana per minute
Mana
10
Regeneration
12
Power
0
Speed
1
Toughness
0
Abilities:
* Dungeon Compass
* Communication
Main-Skill: Summon Tentacle Lv 0
Main-Skill: Golem-bound Lv 1
Right off the bat, Annabelle was confronted with a list of terms and numbers she had no idea what they were supposed to mean.
The very first thing was “Stability”. It reminded her of that whole “destabilization” thing mentioned in one of her quests, as well as the fact that she supposedly gained exactly 100 from the “Be a Transmigrator” quest.
On one hand, there was the fact that, before she had been given that ”Stability”, she would logically have been at zero for at least a while, so it couldn’t be too bad. But the fact that she had been given a whole hundred that would counteract the constant drain was ground for concern about what would happen if she stayed like that for too long. Maybe it had even been the reason for why her Soul had been in such a damaged state. Still, in that regard, at least she should have over three months to find a solution before it becomes a problem. Either by eliminating the drain, or by getting more Stability.
Right underneath it was another value that was in a much more concerning state. Whatever “Mana” was, though the term did sound familiar, it was draining at a rate of one point every three or so seconds. Some quick math that, by all right should have taken her much longer, told her that she had about fifty minutes left before it reached zero. While here too she had no idea what would happen if it reached zero, she had at least an idea on how to solve the problem.
A simple look at the values present, she could tell that the constant drain had only come into effect for a little over three minutes. And there was only one significant thing that had been different within that frame of time. It only took a quick test of turning her senses off again to confirm her suspicion on what was causing the drain. The moment they shut off, her “Mana” started regenerating slowly.
It was at that moment that she dragged up an old memory, realizing why the term “Mana” sounded familiar. It was a memory of a documentary she had watched in school on Polynesian cultures where “Mana” was their name for some kind of spiritual or divine power found in people or objects. Apparently, just like Souls, that too was now a thing.
And while that didn’t tell her any specifics, it was at least enough to know that she could consider “Mana” as a form of energy. Taking another look at her values, she decided that she would have to find a way to increase her [Regeneration] quite significantly. At the current rate, she couldn’t leave her senses active for even an entire hour, while fully recharging would take almost one and a half. She wasn’t sure what she would do if she had to live the rest of her life like that.
As for [Power], [Speed], and [Toughness], while she knew the meaning of the words, she had no idea what they referred to.
So, she looked at another tutorial that had popped up when she opened the first screen.
[Tutorial: Opening Ability/Skill Information
To open your your Information on Abilities/Skills, please say, think, or otherwise communicate the words/concept “Open [Skill/Ability name]”.
Hint: Using “Close” instead of “Open” allows you to close the information.]
Deciding to just start at the top, she called out in her mind. Open Dungeon Compass
Ability: Dungeon Compass
For 100 mana, this Ability shows you the direction of the closest Dungeon entrance.
This Ability is temporary and disappears the first time you leave a Dungeon.
Annie wasn’t quite sure why this System had given her a one-time ability to find a way out of a medieval-torture-prison. (she highly doubted that it was referring to sex-dungeons. Or, at least she hoped that was the case.) However, if she assumed that the System was, in some way at least, benign in what it did, she could make some assumptions. That is, that the term “Dungeon” was used in a way she wasn't familiar with. Also, that she was currently inside a Dungeon and that the System wanted her to be able to leave.
If she combined that with the deadline the drain on her Stability was giving her, she could reasonably assume that leaving this “Dungeon” would in some way help her to counteract the drain.
[Tutorial: Abilities
Abilities can only be gained via System quests, or redeemed with Stability through a God.
Abilities do not have levels and thus can not grow or change.]
While her thoughts were wandering, another message appeared in her mind.
There were three very interesting implications in this one tutorial. Firstly, she didn’t just need Stability to counteract the drain, but it was also a form of currency within this System. Immediately her opinion of this “System” worsened even more. It was basically making her pay money just for the right to stay alive. Probably.
Second was the fact that it had to be specifically said that Abilities could only be bought from the System, and that they couldn’t grow or change. In a way, the very statement implied that she could gain capabilities similar to these Abilities, likely those “Main-Skills”, that these rules didn’t apply too. That they could be gained all on her own, at no cost, and that they could improve and change.
Last but no least, was the mention of gods. Annabelle had always been an atheist since she could understand the concept. Though it wasn’t because she believed that gods didn’t exist. Rather, it was because she couldn’t accept that there were supposed to be those impossibly powerful beings that could make life better for everyone, but decided to not do anything.
Besides, she knew enough about ancient greek mythology to know that she would rather not live in a world where gods were a thing.
She especially recalled the fact that in in murals depicting greek mythology, the acts of a man asking for a woman’s hand in marriage and a man kidnapping a woman were depicted in exactly the same way. They basically didn’t see a difference between those two things.
But now, here she was. Souls, spiritual powers, and now even gods were revealed to exist in this place, and all Annie could do was hope that they were just powerful, not all-powerful.
Instead of further bothering with that question, Annabelle decided to continue on. After all, as long as she did her best not to draw the gods attention, she would probably be fine. It was something she had planned to do either way, considering the “A body of potential” quest.
Open Communication
Ability: Communication
Communicate freely with all other System bound beings within range for [Regeneration]+[Mana] mana per minute.
Annabelle could only feel relieved. This Ability conveniently solved one of the problems she hadn’t even considered yet. Not just in a different language, but people might be communicating in entirely different ways from what she was used to. For all she knew, everyone here used hand signs or telepathy. Still, it was far from perfect. With the way its Mana-cost worked, she would never be able to use this Ability for more than a hundred minutes before she had to turn it off to regenerate Mana. And even then, that was only if she used her Mana for nothing else at the time. If she wanted to keep her senses active at the same time, she would run out of Mana only even faster. Sooner or later, she would have to find a more mundane solution to this particular problem.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
And finally, it was time to get to the “Main-Skills”. Now that she thought about it, calling them “Main-Skills” implied that there would also be “Sub-Skills” of some sort… Well, all she could do now was to take a look at it and figure it out herself. Or hope the tutorial would give her more insight.
Open Summon Tentacle
Main-Skill: Summon Tentacle Lv 0
Effect:
Summon Tentacles for up to 100+(100*Level) Mana.
The Tentacles size depends on the Amount of Mana used for the summoning.
Maintaining a tentacle costs 1% of the summoning cost per second.
The physical strength of a tentacle increases by 5% for each point of [Power].
Stats per Level:
[Regeneration] +1
[Mana] +1
[Power] +1
The first thing she noticed was that, compared to Abilities, this Skill had a much longer description and the effect was a lot less narrow in its application. If Abilities were specialized tools to solve specific problems, all she could see this Skill as, was some kind of superpower.
But of course, it wasn’t like she could have gotten a cool power like superspeed, or flight, or teleportation, or anything like that. No, for some reason, this asshole of a System had to give her Hentai powers… She could only hope that the tentacles wouldn’t be dark purple.
Then again, depending on how strong they would be, she couldn’t deny that growing tentacles could potentially push her parkour skills to the next level.
the second thing she noticed was that, just as she had assumed, Skills could grow in strength. And not just with the Skills own level, but also with the values of her Stats.
And that, was the most important thing. She had been hoping to find a way to increase her [Regeneration] to counteract the constant mana-drain of just having her senses active. And apparently, all she needed to do for that was to increase the levels of her Skills.
[Tutorial: Skills
There are four things true for all Skills.
First, using a Skill costs Mana. If you don’t have enough Mana for a Skill, you can’t use it.
Second, all skills increase in power with their level.
Third, all Skills scale with at least one out of [Power], [Speed], and/or [Toughness].
Fourth, all Skills award 3 Stat points per level, at least one of which is either [Mana] or [Regeneration].]
The tutorial for Skills was much more informative than the one for Abilities, but at the same time, it was much less useful. Sure, they were all interesting things to know, but none of them really changed anything. The most important things, like how to use them, how to increase their levels, or even how to get more were missing completely.
As such, her last Skill was her only hope to gain more information.
Open Golem-bound
Main-Skill: Golem-bound Lv 1
Effect:
Allows you to activate your various bodily functions at Low, Normal, or High power mode, each costing increasing amounts of mana.
The degree and precision of control increases with the level of this Skill.
Your capability to process your body's feedback increases by 5% for each point of [Speed].
Current bodily functions:
Perception [30/80/200] Mana per minute
Basic Mobility [60/200/500] Mana per minute
Stats per Level:
Regeneration +2
Speed +1
The moment she finished reading the description, Annabelle couldn’t help but think that this Skill was unusual. No matter how she looked at it, without this Skill she would be a conscious Soul trapped in a dead body. It would only be with this Skill that she can move her body, or even perceive her surroundings. Sure, she didn’t have enough information to say for sure, but somehow, she didn’t think that every single person needed a Skill just to keep functioning. It just didn’t seem natural to her.
She also reconfirmed the reason for her mana-drain. Though she wasn’t quite sure what to think of the fact that her senses were active at the lowest possible setting, but even that was far from sustainable. And that was without considering that becoming capable of actually moving would triple the mana drain. if she wanted to move and see at the same time, she wouldn’t be able to sustain it for even thirteen minutes. And then, it would take her an hour and a half to regenerate.
She would have to get the Skill all the way to level forty just to be able to sustain herself permanently. Without actually knowing how to even do that.
Another thing she realized was how this Skill had kickstarted her subconscious translation of her senses. It could only have been the increase in [Speed], and the part of the Skill that scaled with it. She wasn’t sure how exactly it would have worked, but she could only imagine that this had given her subconscious a push in the right direction from where it then started its “translation”.
Annabelle took a quick look at her Mana, immediately realizing that over fifteen minutes had passed while she checked all this System stuff.
664/1000 Mana
+12 (-30) Mana per minute
Now she had to seriously consider what to do next. She only really saw two options. Waiting for her mind to finish adjusting to her vision and hearing, or use what mana she had to try and get her Skills to work.
Without having received any related information, she didn’t have the least clue on how to use her Skills, though having activated [Golem-bound] without even knowing about it implied that it was in some way instinctual. Of course, there was the possibility that the specifics were different depending on the Skill. She only hoped that none of them would require her to chant some kind of spell or something like that.
Then again, she decided to wait first to finish adjusting. Even if she was a little excited to experiment with real superpowers, if she couldn’t actually see what she was doing, there was little point in trying.
As such, she settled in for what was possibly the most boring two hours of her life as her mana slowly ticked down, and then returned at even less speed, the only thing to keep her busy being her own, slightly depressing, philosophical thoughts.
— — — — —
When the time finally came that her Mana was fully restored, she wasn’t quite sure whether she was surprised or not when it turned out that using Skills was very instinctual.
So at this very moment, she had a tentacle growing out of her head. About twenty centimeters long and two thick, the tentacle had purple (because of course it was purple) leathery skin that was glistening just a little, giving it a slightly slimy look.
As for the reason it was growing out of her head, from right between her eyes, to be exact, there were two reasons.
The first was that, while it wasn’t mentioned in the Skills description, she apparently could only summon tentacles on her own body. Maybe that would change in the future, but for now, this was how it would be.
The other reason was that there simply was no other place she could currently summon it.
It had only been a few minutes before her mana would have completely run out when her vision and hearing became clear enough that she could make out her surroundings. Thanks to that, she had learned two things. Firstly, that she was currently inside a forest. Secondly, for some reason, from the neck down she was completely buried in the ground.
And so, she had now a tentacle growing from her forehead which she used to, clumsily, dig herself out. The appendage being uniformly thick and perfectly round even at the very tip didn’t mean it was the best tool for the job, or even remotely good, but it was the only one she had.
For that matter, she had already tried activating her “basic mobility” in High-power mode, but it hadn’t been enough to get herself out, only wasting a whole bunch of Mana. At the very least, it had increased her her [Golem-bound] Skill to level 2, increasing her [Regeneration] to 14.
Still, between that and summoning and maintaining that single tentacle, only about three minutes had passed and she was already down to less than 600 Mana. All she could do now was to continue scraping at the ground with her new appendage while hoping to gain a few more Skill levels to further increase her [Regeneration], because the more she had, the longer she would be able to operate until she had to recharge, and the faster the recharging would go. Alas, the days of not getting trapped for an hour and a half after just a few minutes were still a distant dream. It was a great motivator to work on leveling her Skills though.
[Level up: Main-Skill: Summon Tentacle Lv 1]
It was then, finally, that she gained her first level in [Summon tentacle]. A little excited, she took a quick look at her Status.
100 Stability
-1 Stability per day
582/1100 Mana
+15 (-31) Mana per minute
Mana
11
Regeneration
15
Power
1
Speed
2
Toughness
0
Abilities:
* Dungeon Compass
* Communication
Main-Skill: Summon Tentacle Lv 1
Main-Skill: Golem-bound Lv 2
It was coming along nicely. Some quick math told her that at the current pace, she would still have a little over thirty six minutes, and it would only take an hour and fifteen minutes before she was ready to go again. And she could go even longer now with her slightly higher Mana value. Her good mood quickly dropped, however, at the thought of how she would spend those next thirty six minutes.
Bored out of her mind, she continued scraping away at the dirt in front of herself.
Even when she realized that Stability was some form of currency for the System, the 100 day deadline due to the daily drain had seemed like far more than she would ever need. Now, she wasn’t quite as sure anymore. Who knew how much longer she would be stuck here after all?
— — — — —
One more cycle had passed in the meantime, and Annie was fully charged for her third round of digging. Thankfully, levels had come relatively quickly, putting her at level three in [Golem-bound], and level four in [Summon tentacle]. Thanks to that it had only taken an hour and seventeen minutes to fully recharge, but her maximum Mana was now forty percent higher than what she had started with. It would have been even shorter, but she had decided to just keep her now two tentacles summoned instead of dismissing them and summoning them again later, the math having confirmed that it would be cheaper for her.
And she might even have worked out a theory on how leveling worked. Just using a Skill seemed to be one factor, but from her observation, doing new things or getting more skilled at using the Skill also seemed to help with leveling. At least that had been her observation after she got two levels in [Summon tentacle] quickly the more her coordination with those appendages grew, and then a third while she was recharging and doing nothing, her tentacles just lying around limply.
At least, between her increasing coordination, and her now four points of [Power], Annabelle had noticed a rather sizable increase in digging speed.
However, not all was good. Somewhere along the way, her Stability had decreased, possibly marking that she had now spent her first entire day in the End. Or Dungeon. Or wherever she actually was.
She reactivated her perception, and took another quick look at her Status.
99 Stability
-1 Stability per day
1399/1400 Mana
+20 (-32) Mana per minute
Mana
14
Regeneration
20
Power
4
Speed
3
Toughness
0
Abilities:
* Dungeon Compass
* Communication
Main-Skill: Summon Tentacle Lv 4
Main-Skill: Golem-bound Lv 3
She was quite happy to see that she could now spend almost an entire two hours digging before she would run out of Mana again. It was quite the progress indeed.
Not that it changed anything about the jobs absolutely mind-numbing nature, but at least she had developed a rather zen state of mind by now. Otherwise, she would have probably gone insane quite a while ago already. What didn’t help at all was that she could feel dizzy or loose her focus if she overtaxed her mind, but she had noticed that she couldn’t feel any physical strain, tiredness, or exhaustion. Not even from the tentacles. By now, she was reasonably sure that she was either capable of sleeping without losing consciousness, or didn’t even need any sleep at all.
It was about half an hour later that her Zen state of mind was finally broken by a reality she could no longer deny. The reality of bones. Sure, they were dark blue, looked like metal, and were inlaid with tiny golden runes she had no clue what they meant, but they were unmistakably bones. Bones that were unmistakably forming a pair of shoulders, which were unmistakably attached to the bottom of her own head.
In other words, those were her bones.