Adam went through the information and tried to digest what he had just learned. If I wasn’t stuck in a hole scared for my life I'd probably be celebrating right now. Because this is incredible. These mechanics belong to something out of an RPG or an MMO game. This is every geek’s wet dream.

Adam had been fairly interested in video games during his childhood and this interest persisted through adolescence and into his early 20’s, before he had signed up with the marines and even on deployment he used to play games on his phone during his downtime but that changed when he opted not to renew his contract and decided to leave the service.

He had joined the marines out of a sense of duty as well as having a need to do something beyond himself, he was a guy just out of college with an art degree courtesy of a crippling student loan and a family to take care of. When the recruiters came to his town on one of their roundups, his sense of duty to his family and a lack of employment opportunities led him to sign up. He had stayed on for 5 years and even completed 2 tours which led him into hot zones and he saw plenty of action while on deployment in the middle east. Luckily for Adam he managed to come back home each time in one piece, a blessing few had.

After 5 years in the marines, his siblings had finished their degrees and had started working and that resulted in him no longer having a need to support them and that was when he decided to get out of the corps and look for work back in his home town.

To be fair there were a number of reasons as to why he left but it was mostly because he grew disillusioned about the military and realized the reasons for the conflict didn't align with his own morals and beliefs.

One other reason was that he realised that he had always chafed under authority and he never really fit in with his company, no close friends and a fading sense of belonging coupled with his siblings independence took away his only reason for serving. His mild and quiet nature which used to get him bullied throughout his school life ended up being perceived as cold and aloof as an adult and it was the same in the corps as well.

Really the only thing he felt was happiness and peace when he got discharged from the corps.

Once he went back home he ended up catching a lucky break and ended up getting hired by a mining company close to his family home in Imperial county, CA. The pay wasn't bad and he started out by learning how to help the miners with their rigs and equipment, learning how to operate the rigs and panel boards and absorbed all he could about mining. 6 years later he was promoted to shift manager. Miners made decent pay and managers even more so but after a couple years working like that he had begun to lose the drive he had back when he first started and the work had started to become monotonous and dull.

He had begun to feel the itch to move on and try his hand at something new but he reined in his impulses, all because of Alayna.

Alayna the love of his life.

Adam had first met her when he returned home after getting discharged. He was at Cardenas, grocery shopping for his mom, she had been feeling under the weather so he went shopping in her stead.

He was going through the list on his phone while turning the corner at an aisle and his trolley banged into Alayna’s. Luckily, she didn’t get hurt and when he started apologizing, she laughed it off and had asked him out for lunch as a way to make it up to her.

Adam was 25 and the only experience he had with women was during college. Pre college he was a geek and was ostracised for it by his peers but that all changed in college. He had filled out his lanky frame by then.

Long hours of helping his mom with farm work had helped fill out his 6-foot frame and the hours working under than sun had bronzed his skin. He was a geek but had long since stopped looking like one. He managed to draw attention from the opposite sex during that time but due to his shy personality and and his habit of being quiet most of those interested quickly ended up losing interest, except for Sunny.

Sunny was wild and fun and free and, in his heart, he knew he was never going to be anything more than a college fling to her and he was quickly proven right when she parted ways with him just after graduation.

He hadn’t dated a woman since then. His time home on leave was spent with his family and helping out around the farm and he had never really got into the social media scene. So, when Alayna came into his life, he stood no chance against her.

ENOUGH!! Adam snapped himself out of his thoughts before it took him into a rabbit hole...I can reminisce later, right now I need to focus on what’s in front of me. This will affect my chances of surviving so I need to get my head in the game and make as much sense of this as I can to make the best possible choice ...so FOCUS. Adam snapped himself out of his memories and concentrated on the screen. Ok so this is me distilled down to the attributes that make up sapients in quantified data form. What do these stats represent specifically? What does health, Mana, BODY, MIND, SOUL mean? What does those stats below them mean? Is 10 the average or is it high? What does Level mean and what does a 0 in level mean? and why are all my stats 10 except for the trinity? No sooner had Adam completed asking these questions, the screen changed.

HEALTH: represents the total life energy the user possesses, affected by various attributes and skills. Taking damage will deplete this energy. Losing health will result in lowered performance and efficiency of actions. When health reaches below 10% user has reached a critical state where performance and efficiency of actions are greatly lowered. aids in regeneration of health and wounds over time. User dies once health reaches 0.

MANA: Mana is an energy usable by all manner of organisms and it is accessible by organisms touched by . Mana is present throughout the universe where ether is present, in the living as well as nonliving. The only factor deciding whether Mana is present or not is the presence and density of . Mana can be used in innumerable ways but most commonly used to initiate and actualize spells and abilities by using internal Mana to effect external Mana. Mana is circulated inside users and depletion through usage will cause debilitating mental effects ranging from mild headaches and nausea to loss of consciousness upon total depletion of mana. The total mana which an individual possess is affected by various attributes and skills. The aids in regeneration of mana by passively converting ether in the surroundings

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STAMINA: Represents physical energy used to perform actions, affected by various attributes and skills. Performing actions continuously without sufficient rest and continuously exerting the user’s body will continuously deplete stamina. Stamina is also used to execute skills and abilities and this adds a greater drain on the resource. Depleting stamina will have noticeable effects once stamina goes below 25% of total and will greatly hamper performance and efficiency of actions once it goes below 10%. aids in regeneration of stamina by increasing the efficiency of cells in producing energy.

That’s more or less what I guessed minus the debilitating effects part but it does make sense. Sort of.

Note to self don’t let any resource pool go below 50%! Heh! if only younger me could see me right now, he’d be having geek-gasms. Ok so what about the rest.

The screen updated itself again. That’s a really neat trick.

BODY: One of the trinity stats, it is an amalgamation of the physical attributes and at the same time acts as an attribute which affects the EFFICIENCY and effectiveness of all physical statistics. Higher levels of body will increase the strength of skills and abilities which rely on physical attributes as well as ease learning and mastery of skills and physical abilities. Higher levels of body will increase effectiveness stamina and health as well their regeneration.

MIND: Second of the trinity stats, it is an amalgamation of mental attributes and at the same time acts as an attribute which affects EFFICIENCY and effectiveness of all mental statistics. Higher levels of mind will increase the strength of spells and abilities which rely on mental attributes as well as ease the learning and mastery of spells and mental abilities. Higher levels of mind will increase effectiveness of mana and stamina as well as their regeneration.

SOUL: Last of the trinity stats, unlike the other two belonging to the trinity, SOUL is not an amalgamation of any attributes, mental or physical and it remains as a whole. While it remains unaffected by any statistic or attribute, it effects all which fall under BODY and MIND and it does so through the 3 characteristics it displays; Quintessence, Control and Willpower. Higher levels of SOUL result in increased effectiveness of these 3 characteristics. Strengthening these 3 characteristics will allows the SOUL to exhibit greater effect.

LEVEL: lt is the numerical representation of the user’s growth and ultimately a representation of how powerful a user is. Levels use a byproduct of called essence which is used by the to reach saturation point. Once user has reached the interface uses the collected essence to expand the user’s capacity to collect and store greater amounts of essence as well as provide a means to increase attributes in the form of free points and fixed points which are dependent on race and class as well as open up opportunities to learn skills specific to their race and class. Increasing levels provides additional attribute points as well as unlocks new traits, skills, abilities and spells when user has fulfilled the pre-requisite conditions. This process of growth from one level to another is commonly known among sapients as Level Ups. Each level up will reward the user with trinity stat points to assign. User can gain essence through a myriad of means, killing fauna and monsters allows users to absorb the remnant essence left in their bodies, completing Quests and reaching milestones in skill proficiency are some common means of gaining essence.

TIER: It is the means by which categorizes a difference in quality. Higher tier skills, spells, abilities and equipment will always outperform similar counterparts of lower tier. Higher tier quests will exponentially increase in difficulty with each increase in tier but will also provide compensations and rewards to match.

The more he thought about what he had learned in these few hours, the stronger his feeling that some vital information was being omitted.

Most of the information provided was according to the system, basic knowledge. The absolute minimum that its protocols allowed and even most of the information that was displayed had chunks of it missing due to insufficient authority and now even though the user interface which was displaying answers to questions he had, the answers felt overly simplified, like he was being provided a summary.

While it did clear his initial doubts and questions, the answers themselves ended up raising even more questions, questions the interface did not provide probably because he didn’t have sufficient authority. Even with the bare bones explanations he still managed to form a kindling of an idea on how he could use the system. He could not stay inside the burrow till he got rescued and he was sure that there were more monsters like the one that nearly got him.

But before he finalized his plans he needed to draw more conclusions on what he could do. He went to the next notification.

Aptitude: In system terms aptitude is a defining facet of the user that grants users unique abilities while passively applying corrections and enhancing certain characteristics, actions, skills, abilities or spells over others. It is innate and users have a chance of earning more through system quests, earning titles, or naturally through progression of levels. The difference between passive skills and aptitudes is the scope. Aptitude(s) have a much larger scope and can determine which classes, professions and pathways suits users the most, passive skills for the most part are one dimensional in nature compared to aptitude. User can earn an aptitude once they reach level 1.

Class: Classes are a specialization provided by the system to increase the chances of survival for sapients. Classes enhance certain facets of the user and enable user to gain skills of facets which that class embodies. Provides fixed bonuses to attributes every time user reaches along with the racial points. A class can be selected once user achieves level 1 and the options provided depend upon the user.

Professions: System recognized trades which can be learned through various means either through; actualizing intent and through rigorous practise, being taught by a journeyman professional, etc. Most professions grant access to utility skills which may not have a direct effect in combat but will most certainly increase chances of survival through indirect means. Profession levels can only be increased through effort. Professions provide fixed attribute points at each level up.

Traits: System recognized qualities or quirks which can be acquired through various means that offer simultaneous benefits and drawbacks. Unlike aptitude and passive skills, traits are double edged, they can enhance certain aspects while weakening certain others. The greater the benefit provided by the trait, the greater the drawback. Each user can only have 3 traits active at any one time.