Rev curled near the fire as he held his dinner over it to cook. He had decided to call the mystery vegetables spherecumbers, and had been using one of the metal pens like a marshmallow fork; spearing the spherecumbers on the end of the implement, and holding it as near to the fire as he could tolerate It was a slow process, and he had already been forced to return to the lobby for more wood as the decayed, rotten wood burned quickly. Still, the effort was worth it as tangy juice flowed down his throat from the green spheres, and flooded his system with essence. He didn't know whether it was normal for food to do so in this world, but every spherecumber he ate seemed to be worth approximately one unit of essence; though it was difficult to get more specific information given that his interface didn't show non-whole numbers. Despite his instinctive need to optimize the system, just the fact that he had both a food source and a cultivation time-saver was enough for him.
As the last speherecumber was devoured, Rev laid back, and stared at the sky that could be seen through the walls of his concrete box. The light was starting to wane, taking on the quality of evening twilight, and the crackling fire lulled him into a troubled sleep. He woke in utter darkness, with only the light of the stars providing any semblance of illumination. Orienting himself by the feel of the essence in the dirt beneath him, Rev sighed, and shuddered. He had never been afraid of the dark before, but after his recent experiences, it now felt oppressive to him. Shivering as the terror slowly built until it became crushing, Rev fought for his sanity by retreating more and more into the feeling of essence flowing inside and beneath him.
Soon, he had reached a strange twilight state where the fear sat in his chest like a lump of burning coal even as he floated in a calming meditative trance. As he felt the essence inside him, he watched as it pooled, twirling, and eddying like a stream in various parts of his body. Instinctively, he reached out to a small offshoot that flowed through the front end of his head, just behind his forehead. Rev gently pushed essence at it, and watched in detached fascination as branching tendrils began to expand outward; snaking through the space between neurons, though he couldn’t say how he could see the process occuring on such a small scale. The coal of terror cooled more and more as he watched the hypnotic flow of energy winding its way through his brain matter in a complicated pattern; until a single neuron had been encased in a loose net of flowing essence that connected intangibly to the surrounding neurons. He felt the moment the net locked into place like a small jolt of static inside his head.
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Intelligence Stat +1
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“Well that was trippy.” He said before he could stop himself, breaking his trance as he emerged from it feeling serene; the lump of anxiety a nearly forgotten weight in his stomach. Intrigued, he dove back into watching his essence flows. Experimentally, he poked at a flow of energy pooling in his joints. As the tendrils began to snake through his joints, and into the connected tendons, he felt the moment that he crossed a threshold; a single point of essence being deducted from his core. He frowned the moment he realized that the essence flowing to the tendrils was draining slightly faster than it had before his intelligence boost. Undeterred, he continued, and watched as the tendrils snaked up his ligaments until they completed their weave.
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Dexterity Stat +1
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Pressing on, he explored the pooling energy in his heart next, until finally the essence finished weaving through his cells.
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Stamina Stat +1
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His bones were next, consuming another essence point from his core. He still had three points left, so he was undeterred for the moment.
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Constitution Stat +1
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There was only one confluence of energy left to explore, again located in his head. Trying to remember the brain map he had looked at in high school, Rev compared the location to his half-baked memories. The spirit stat had been located in his hind brain, and his intelligence stat had clearly been located in his pre-frontal cortex. Though he was far from an expert, he thought the remaining energy center seemed to be located in the emotional center of his brain. This time the expansion process consumed an entire unit of essence on its own. Much like the intelligence stat, he could feel the essence weave a net around a single neuron, with the net also connected to the surrounding neurons.
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Charisma Stat +1
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Title Gained!
For achieving the common ranked feat of developing 1 point in each stat, you are awarded the title: Ascensionist
Ascensionist: marginally reduces the essence cost for future stat development, and allows those with a core interface to access stat descriptions.
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Rev obligingly opened his menu, and located the section for stat descriptions.
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Spirit: Represents your connection to the world around you. While it doesn’t inherently affect your physical body, many powers will scale according to this stat.You also gain a heightened sixth sense, and this stat has a much larger effect on the speed of essence generation compared to other stats.
Intelligence: Increases your intellect, and memory. This acts as a multiplier on your natural base intellect, so practical value may vary. Will also help with the complex mental processes necessary for advanced essence formations.
Strength: Enhances the physical force generated by your muscles. Since this acts as a multiplier, the physical status of your musculature is relevant to the practical value.
Dexterity: Enhances your joints, and the connected tissues involved in the acceleration of your limbs. At higher levels, there is also an increase to mental perception speed in order to manage your enhanced speed.
Constitution: Enhances your bones and flesh to be more resilient, and your bone marrow to replace lost blood faster. Increasing this stat will allow you to heal faster, and be harder to damage.
Stamina: Enhances your circulatory system to replace distribution of internal resources with essence. Will allow you to maintain physical activity for a longer period of time. Extra physical resources are not needed for the increased activity levels provided by this stat, and instead will be substituted with essence. Will also have the benefit of reducing your dependence on food and water; eventually replacing these needs altogether with essence. Other stats will cause a marginal increase in the rate of fatigue necessitating at least some investment in stamina to maintain energy levels.
Charisma: Enhances the emotional center of your brain to project your emotions into the world as an invisible aura. This will have different effects depending on your nature and desires, but will primarily manifest by affecting the way others see and feel about you. At high levels, the effect can be outright hypnotic. A higher charisma stat will also allow you to reduce the effect of other charisma auras.
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Closing the window, he considered what he had learned, before nodding. It was useful information, and given his situation, increasing his stamina until he didn’t need to eat seemed very attractive. Letting the information percolate, he shoved himself to his feet, and returned to the lobby. There were still two unexplored doors, and he quickly chose the door to the right. On the other side of the door was an absolutely massive filing room. A quick perusal of one of the nearby cabinets produced aged, yellow documents. There were rows upon rows of similar cabinets stretching far into the distance in every direction, and Rev began to wonder whether there were tardis-style spatial shenanigans at play as the size of the room didn’t make sense with his understanding of the layout of the complex. As he turned around, he confirmed this suspicion when he realized the door he had come in from wasn’t attached to a wall.
He was about to investigate further when he heard a groan in the distance, among the stacks of filing cabinets. Hurriedly, he jumped back through the door, and closed it as quietly as he could. Still spooked by the idea that making noise could attract attention, he tiptoed to the remaining door. Gingerly, he opened it, and winced as it creaked loudly in the tomb-like silence of the lobby. When nothing investigated the noise, he opened it wider. On the other side of the door was another hallway, and he sighed in annoyance as he followed it into the unknown.