I stripped off my clothes and threw them in the trashcan, then made a spirulina smoothie. There was no way I was going to try and launder clothes that had blood and brains on them. It would be difficult to get the stains out at best, and I didn’t want Mrs. Smith at the laundromat thinking I was some sort of serial killer.
After downing the nasty smoothie, I went through my normal meditation routine and hopped in the shower. I wanted to make sure I got all of that zombie off of me before going to bed. I checked my stats as I stepped out of the shower and noticed that I had recovered another point of HP and now had 7 out of 11 MP. “Vera, I’ve been thinking. What if there are other zombies in the city? Could we look for System connected creatures where no one with a full connection is?”
“Not quite. Without a full connection it will be difficult to detect their location. I may be able to check the frequencies that the system uses, however, and triangulate any locations that are putting out signals that are too strong. It will take a long time, however. These signals travel through hyperspace, so they will be more difficult to track than radio signals.”
“Fair enough. I’ll check in on it in the morning.”
I climbed into bed but the days events kept going through my head. After several hours of tossing and turning to try and get over it, I realized something. “Hey Vera. I really should start training. I barely got through a battle with a single zombie today. Against an actual threat I would have lost. Any ideas?”
“Yes, actually.” she responded. “I have been going through some of your memories of various forms of entertainment, trying to adapt to human society, and I believe I have found something that could work for that purpose.”
A window popped up in my vision. “Daily Quest received: One Hit Guy Training Program. 0/100 Pushups, 0/100 Situps, 0/100 Squats, 0/10 Km ran.”
I sighed. “Is that a joke?”
“No, it’s a basic training program.”
“No quest rewards?”
“That would be difficult to do in your situation. The system does use a form of cryptocurrency to facilitate interstellar trade, but as Earth isn’t fully part of the system, you wouldn’t be able to use it. And because XP is learned from doing things, I can’t simply give you experience. I will think about it, however, and see if there is something I can do.”
I groaned. “Fine, I’ll do it. Working out will at least help clear my head and wear me out so that I can get to sleep.” So with that I climbed out of bed and started working out.
Twelve pushups, 3 situps, and 17 squats later it laid on the floor exhausted. “It’s going to be a while before I can complete that quest.” I said.
“I do have an idea for something that can help. I’ll work on it tonight.”
With that, I pulled myself into bed and went to sleep, not even bothering to get under the covers.
The next morning I woke up and climbed out of bed. Surprisingly, I wasn’t sore from my meager bit of exercise last night.
“Check your log and you’ll understand why.” said Vera, so I opened it. “Downloading Basic Resistance Passive Skill package. Poison Resistance: Complete. Disease Resistance: Complete. Electric Resistance: Complete. Physical Pain Resistance: Complete. Mental Pain Resistance: Complete. Downloading Self Recovery Passive Skill Package. HP Recovery: Complete. SP Recovery: Complete. Nexus Energy Recovery: Complete. Nanite Recovery: Complete. Error, Nanite Cultivation Core not found. This skill will be offline until one can be found.”
“Thats...A lot of passive skills.” I said. “Does this mean I can just download all the skills?”
“That would not be advisable. Remember how I told you that the skills needed to adapt to your body?”
“I remember you saying that was why I couldn’t download skills above level one.”
“Well, even the level one skills need to be adapted to you, but aren’t if you download them. The downloadable version is essentially a brute force method of giving you the skill, designed to be usable by all humans. This comes at the cost of earning less experience for its use until it adapts to you. So if you download a skill, it will be level 3 or 4 before you stop receiving less experience than normal from its use. The exact level depends on your talent for the skill, though.”
“So, all of the skills you downloaded will develop slower than normal?”
“Yes. You can see this with your Dodge skill. It was downloaded, but your Martial Arts skill wasn’t, so, even though they should be near the same level, the Dodge skill is lagging behind.”
“So, shouldn’t I have learned those new skills the old fashioned way?”
“All of those skills are difficult, dangerous, painful, or some combination of those things to learn. HP Recovery, for example, requires that you get to below 30% of your max HP for 3 days in a row. SP and Nexus Recovery requires that you reach 0 SP or 0 stored energy, respectively, for three days in a row. So it would be difficult, dangerous, and painful for you to learn those skills. For that reason, I assumed you would choose the download option.”
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“Yeah, I probably would.” I checked the clock. 7:53 AM. I didn’t need to be into work until 11 AM, so I put on some old clothes and decided to once again try and complete my Daily Quest.
I did much better this time. Not only did I manage over 20 pushups, 10 situps, 30 squats, and a 3 Km run, but by the time I got out of the shower I had completely recovered my SP and the pain in my limbs were almost completely gone.
Nothing notable happened at work, and as I drove home around 7:30 PM Vera started talking. “I found a few suspicious System hotspots in the city, if you want to check them out. Three in total. One of them is only a few blocks from where you ran into the zombie.”
“That sounds promising.” I responded. “Tell me where.” I suddenly thought of an alley in the city three blocks from where I fought the zombie as Vera dumped the image into my head, and decided to go there.
After pulling into a parking spot nearby, I paid the meter and realized that there was a bar across the street. Even out here you could hear the music and speech from inside. Several motorcycles were parked out front, though there were plenty of other cars and several trucks, so it didn’t seem to be a biker bar.
I started walking towards the alley when I heard someone scream in pain. I ran into the alley and saw a homeless man laying there covered in an old dirty blanket. A pained look was on his face and I could see his body spasming. I pulled out my cell phone and called an ambulance as I ran over to him. He didn’t respond to my presence but when I touched him he felt like he was burning up. “Vera, can you tell me how high his fever is?”
“Try this.” she said, and my log updated. ‘Downloading Active Skill: Thermometer. Complete.’ I briefly got a dull headache, but ignored it. “Now, touch his forehead and try to read his temperature.
I touched it and the text “107.3 F” was displayed above my hand. “That’s dangerously high.” Seeing a bottle of cheap vodka nearby I poured some on a rag and laid it on his head. Hopefully the evaporation would help bring his fever down.
I watched him, unable to do anything else, and he started shaking violently. Assuming he was having a seizure, I folded my jacket, put it under his head and turned him onto his side. By the time his seizure had stopped the ambulance had arrived, and I called them to me.
The driver happened to be the one from yesterday. “Weren’t you the guy who beat up that violent tweaker yesterday?” he asked. “Wasn’t expecting to see you again.”
“Yeah, well, I….” I tried to think up an excuse to be at the scene of another medical emergency, then remembered the bar across the street. “I was just going to get a drink before heading home, and I heard him screaming. So I called.”
“No need to be so guarded, I’m not going to judge you for your ‘drinking’ habits.” he said, as his partner rolled over the stretcher.
“So, how’s that other guy doing?” I said, trying to change the subject as they moved the man onto the stretcher.
“Better.” he said with a grunt as they lifted the man. “He had to get stitches, but luckily the guy missed his carotid, otherwise I doubt I could have saved him. He’ll be out for a few weeks as it heals.” They rolled the stretcher to the ambulance and put him inside, with the second paramedic hooking him up to various devices to check his vital signs. “So, mind telling me what happened here?”
I explained how I heard the guy scream, checked on him, then did what I could to help with his symptoms. “No idea what is causing it, though. I doubt the vodka I found would cause that no matter how much he drank.”
“Could be a drug overdose, or a reaction between two or more drugs. I’ll have to check once we get back.” With that he waved goodbye, and left.
I stood there for the next few minutes thinking about the situation. ‘Are you sure that was the guy with the weird System connection?’ I asked Vera.
“Yes, that was them. I’ve never seen system integration cause those effects before. The worst that happens is extreme tiredness and a migraine when it is forced.”
“Very unusual.” I said. Across the road I noticed two men leaving the bar together, arm in arm. One of them was a hairy man over six feet tall with a bushy beard, and the other was a fairly effeminate smaller man. The comment of the ambulance driver came into my head. “So that’s why he ‘didn’t judge me’. It’s a gay bar.” I wasn’t judging either, but that definitely wasn’t an interest of mine.
Figuring that it would look weird for me to just be standing there watching them, I got back in my car and, after waiting for the two guys in the huge truck to pull out in front of me, drove back home.
Back home I did my normal smoothie/meditation routine as well as some more exercises before looking over my skills. “You know, Vera. Now that I’m up to 15 million extra nanites I could try learning some magic.”
“Yes, you could. You do, however, need to ensure that your use of magic remains stealthy. Most spells are rather obvious when used, which will mean that you can only use them when alone. Any for use in public will need to be the type whose use isn’t obvious.”
A list of introductory spells appeared in front of me. There were the standard Fire Bolt, Ice Bolt, Electric Bolt, and Force Bolt, each of which used 1-5 points of mana to do 1d4 damage for each point of mana you put into it. There were also a few healing spells which essentially gave the target HP recovery or a known resistance skill temporarily using your nanites instead of theirs. Then there were ones to enhance the physical body. They would use nanites to reinforce your body in set ways, essentially boosting your stats or defenses. Some even temporarily gave you passive skills like Eagle Eyes.
With those options being in order from least stealthy to most, I considered just getting all of the Boost skills. Then I remembered that my last two nights had included medical emergencies. That meant that the medical spells would probably get a lot of use.
“In that case, how about a healing spell. Something subtle like treating diseases?”
That sounded like a useful ability, so I touched the ‘yes’ button. A headache began building in my head, as if I had eaten icecream too quickly, then started to fade ten seconds later. Once it was gone I reopened my eyes. “Vera, what was that?” I asked.
“That was a headache, cause by having too many poorly synchronized skills in your head. You should train some of the skills you have so that that doesn’t happen.”
“Fine, then. I might as well.” So I spent the next few hours doing exercises. Any time I got too tired I laid on the ground until I recovered, then started over. Though my SP Recovery went up to level 2, I didn’t stop until my stomach started growling.
This time, after I recovered, I made a sandwich and another nasty smoothie, grabbed a large bag of potato chips, and sat down on the couch to eat it. ‘Hey, Vera,’ I thought, not wanting to speak while I was eating. ‘You mentioned forced connection to the system. How does that happen? Is that how others connect for the first time?’
‘No, it is far too wasteful to bring in people that way.’ A screen popped up with details of a spell. “Forced System Connection: Uses nanites to construct a node in the target’s brain, defaulting them to the paradigm of the caster. Cost: 1000 mana”. ‘It is much more useful to just make them drink smoothies or gather nanites some other way, then use this on them.’ A second window opened. “Align Nanites: The nanites used in this spell become beneficial nanites to the target, and reprogram the nanites near them to behave the same way, converting neutral and harmful nanites into beneficial nanites. Cost: 10 Mana”
‘That sounds way more efficient,’ I thought.
‘And, as an added bonus, it might help your headache problem.’ Vera responded.
‘How so?’
‘The level of the pain is directly proportional to the percentage of nanites in your body that are not beneficial. If you cast ‘Align Nanites’ on yourself the percentage of beneficial nanites would increase, making the pain lessen.’
‘Sounds good.’ I said, ‘let’s do it when...’
A download notification appeared and my head started feeling like it was about to explode. The pain waned slightly when I got a notification that “Physical Pain Resistance” had went up to level 2, but by that point it had only bought me a few seconds of additional pain.
When I opened my eyes my head dully throbbed as I heard Vera’s voice come into focus. ‘Are you ok? I didn’t expect it to knock you out.’ I rubbed my face and saw blood on my hand.
‘You almost killed me.’ I said, more out of exasperation than anger. I was too tired to be angry. ‘Why did you download it?’
‘You told me to.’
‘When I leveled up a few more skills. You didn’t even let me finish speaking.’ I checked my status to see that after the download was finished “Physical Pain Resistance” went up to level 3 and “HP Recovery” went up to 2. ‘Just doublecheck in the future. I don’t need to get brain damage because I tried to learn a new language.’
‘Very well. I also suggest we hold off on downloading any new skills until all of the ones we downloaded are at least level three, preferably four, and only download two or three at a time in the future. That way we should avoid the pain the overload causes.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, pulling myself up onto the couch, not caring about the potato chip crumbs that were all over it and the carpet. ‘Let’s do that. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to sleep.’