“So, mind if you tell me about the System? I wanna know how it works.”

After having some food, it was about time to move on from the psychotic old woman’s house. Everyone was just happy to be away from the place where five of the people present were captive and tortured for a week. And additionally they were more than happy to get away from the blood worm corpse, which wasn’t pleasant to look at.

Sata glanced around. “You guys cool with me taking my eyes off ya?”

Kalia shook her head. “No, now we’re going to get poisoned by an old woman who worships pain gods!” She grinned expectantly, not as if she were expecting praise, but rather as if she were expecting ridicule, which would amuse her.

Sata scoffed, thankfully more frustrated than saddened, as Kalia intended. But still a little sad. “Ha, ha, very funny Kalia.” Ajak shook his head. “I disagree.”

Sata shrugged, turning back to Jamie. “Well, I guess we have nothing better to do. First of all, the System is everywhere. See these trees? All the System.”

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Jamie stopped. “Wait, so this is a simulation?” Well, nothing was real in his new reality. He didn’t really care. Sata begged to differ though, because that wasn’t actually true.

“No, actually. The system is made up of particles, like Mana, or air.”

“So, if we step in an area where there isn’t System particles, do we lose our experience and stuff?”

“Nope. That stuff is tethered to your soul.”

That felt oddly uncomfortable to hear. Well, at least if he could find a way home he could freak out some of the people he knew.

“Alright. So, how does Mana work? Can I do spells?” Probably not with the level of Mana he has.

Sata thought for a moment. He was a… strange case, for sure. “Yeah I think so? But certainly nothing even remotely powerful, except maybe mind, body, earth, or whatever the hell ??? means. Spells cost Mana, and if you use all of it then you pass out. If you have an affinity for a certain Mana type, then that will lower the cost. Mana recovery rate varies from person to person. Sometimes a person’s Mana charges, say, one point per minute. Sometimes you recharge twenty points per day.” So it takes an hour to recharge Jamie’s Mana score of three? How inconvenient. Well, beggars can’t be choosers. At least he had magic.

———————————————————

Walking was rather boring, so Jamie decided to disassociate entirely, not caring for the conversation of his company. In his head, he was mulling over his entire situation, because it was weird. Very weird. How were the others doing? He hoped they were doing well… especially the ones that he liked. Danna… Wallace… He also vaguely remembered a nice interaction with the temp, David. Generic guy, but over all friendly. The assistant manager, William, was kinda standoffish, but overall as reasonable as his superior. Oh, but he hoped that Kevin was in moderate pain. Wow, this is probably the first time he has ever wanted to talk to his coworkers. What a bizarre situation he was in. Well, it was interesting. And at the end of the day, he managed to make a difference. The people who were currently near him likely would have died. He had no way of knowing- wait, what just happened?