Slowly my mind began to clear and I woke from my deep slumber. I shot straight up into a sitting position on my bed. Fanatically looking around me I soon realised that I am at home in my bed and not in that weird cave with its game function. Fortunately, it was only a dream. A bad dream but luckily only a dream.
It was really terrifying there. It was like I was really with my physical body in this cave. It was simple to real. I sighed and stared at the clock on my bedside table. It looks like I had overslept for work. I let my body fall wearily back into my bed and decided that I should not cry over spilt milk.
I just called in sick and ignored everything which had to do with my job. Now breakfast and then I can play video games all day long. As I prepared breakfast I thought about the dream. It felt so extremely realistic but at the same, it could not possibly be real. To extinguish the remaining doubts I decided to simply check my Status like I had in the dream. I concentrated and attempted to will it into existence.
To my horror, I heard a ping. The ping that I had started to associate with the notifications of the system.
Title: None
Name: Nico Moore
Age: 21
Race: Human
Health Points: 92/92 (Health Points Regeneration: 1.15 per Hour)
Mana Points: 104/104 (Mana Points Regeneration: 1.25 per Minute)
Stamina Points: 94/94 (Stamina Points Regeneration: 1.2 per Minute)
Strength: 7
Vitality: 8
Dexterity: 8
Perception: (10+0.15+0.25) = 10.4
Intelligence: (9+0.25) =9.25
Wisdom: 8
There it was. Hovering in front of my face as vividly as I remembered it.
Slowly the horror began to bloom in my mind. It was real. But not only had the horror begun to bloom but also questions over questions. Would I appear again in this cave? Does it happen while I am asleep? How was it possible?
There were not only questions and fear in my mind but also excitement. It was real. I could go there again and it was not boring like in real life. It was dangerous and mind breaking but also an adventure. Something I had wanted forever. I real way out and into something that felt real besides the games.
Also, different questions began to overwhelm the others. Could I level up skills here in the real world? If my Status screen was here did that mean that the skills and the stats upgrades also changed my real body?
Ok, I have to do this slowly and sort the things out that I could test here. The first thing I tested was the skills. Dark Vision was the easiest to test so I started with it. I darkened my apartment through the curtains and looked around. I think I can see better in the dark.
That means that the upgrades through my skills were real. Unfortunately, I could not test if stat upgrades were also real because no stat of mine was graded up by even one point. Next, I waited a few minutes in the dark and looked at the progress bar for my Dark Vision skill. It went up slowly and I mean really slow. It looks like one point of experience per minute.
I concluded I could train and use my skills in the real world and they influenced me in the real world. If skills could influence me in the real world than my stats should influence me here in the real world also. In this dungeon, my body felt real and if the dungeon allotted me stats points through my real capabilities than that would mean that if I train my body in the real world it would also upgrade my body in the dungeon.
No, I crossed that option out because it would be to slow going but skills upgraded my statistic as well. So I should discover what the dungeon considers as a skill. With skills, I could upgrade my stats relative fast. Would it consider language and math as a skill and what about physics and biology? The two skills I head were mental skills. Would there also be physical skills in this game like running?
I know that I had to use this skill for the game to consider it as a skill. So I used everything I knew and came up with some skills but sadly I did not get any new pop-ups. I would try them again in the cave. Hopefully, it would work there. How did I get there anyway? I just went to sleep and then I was there. Did this mean I would get there again if I sleep? Does the transportation only work on certain days and only in the night or does it also work during the day?
I was in my pyjama as I went to sleep and the pyjama was transported with me into this dungeon. Did that mean that everything I have on my person would also be transported with me or would only my clothes be transported with me into the dungeon? Also, does a watch count as clothing.
There was something else also. I could have sworn that I heard something yesterday as I went to sleep. Yeah, Rise or Fall in the dungeon. Was that the cave? A dungeon?
Sigh, so many questions. I need a list to keep up with them. I took paper and a pen and sat down at my desk.
My first priority was survival. I needed to survive everything that could possibly happen in this dungeon. To survive I would need to get stronger and the fastest method of getting stronger I know of was skills. Not only could I use the skills but they also added points to my statistics.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
So I would need to create more skills the next time I went into the dungeon and I would also have to level them up. But that is something I also could do in the real world.
Then there was the problem with food and water. I did not even know if I need to drink and eat anything in the dungeon?
There was also the time aspect of the dungeon I had to look into. How long did I stay in the dungeon?
My Heath Points were important too. It looked like they would heal after I left the dungeon because I could not feel any pain on my face and there was no wound visible. But I think I was a really long time in the dungeon. It was nevertheless strange that the wound healed so much. As I thought about it my mind called my health point regeneration up.
Health Points: 92/92 (Health Points Regeneration: 1.15 per Hour)
Now that I think about it my regeneration is way to fast for a human being. I normal cut needs about a week to heal and here it looked like I could heal it in hours.
I abandoned that thought process because I could not come up with a logical answer and put that thought in a bag with other questions I had. I soon began to think again about my survival in the dungeon.
In the end, I had a list of five points that were critical for my survival and thousands of more questions that I needed to check and investigate.
1. Create and level skills to improve the body. Examples of skills were math, language, physics, biology, chemistry, running and a breathing technique I had looked up on the internet.
I did not believe that the breathing technique would work myself but it is worth a try. It was also hard to do physics, biology and chemistry in a dungeon with nothing but stone but I had to try everything. I did not put combat on the list because I hoped that I did not need it and also because I did not know any combat techniques. The dungeon had only made skills from things I know or got right on the first try. I did not believe that I would simply get a combat-related skill through punching and kicking the air in the wrong way.
2. Checking my Health Points.
With that, I meant to injure myself I in any way than looking at my Health Points after I left the dungeon. It was to confirm if I was really healed after I left the dungeon.
3. Counting time.
Here I would look to prove that everything I wear will get transported to me. I will wear a watch and check if it gets transported with me into the dungeon. I would also sleep with a knife in my hand to further theory.
Counting time was important because I want to know how long I am in the dungeon.
4. Food and water.
I need to check if I get hungry or thirsty in the dungeon. This point also interacts with the third point of the list.
5. Learn more about the dungeon and the game mechanics.
Learning more about the dungeon will help me understand it better and through this will help me to survive. The game mechanics were also important for my survival. I could check some of it in the real world but I needed more skills to analyse my stats better.
I know the general meaning of all statistics but not the in-depth description. So far I had discovered that perception reflects on my senses and my awareness of my environment.
I knew that because my two skills added points to perception. One skill did improve my vision in the dark and the other let me remember my environment better through mapping it.
Intelligence had something to do with memorization because it helps in the Mind Mapping skill to remember the map better.
After I made my list and concluded a bit of the meaning of my stats I used the rest of the time here in the real world to make further preparations. I looked through my wardrobe for proper clothing for my trip into the dungeon.
I picked jeans and pullover for my clothing and added thick boots. I also packed a backpack with food, water, a knife, medical supplies and a book to help with creating new skills. I wore the watch on my left hand to be sure that I would be transported with me into the dungeon.
Now was the time to train my skills but first I had to look at them again. I knew that the Dark Vision skill had made some progress because as I had thought about my survival list in the dark and noticed my vision getting better. So called up my skill window.
Skills (Active&Passive)
Active:
Mind Mapping. Level 5(126/500)
Passive:
Dark Vision: Level 3 (213/300)
As soon as I saw the huge progress I checked the skills. The Dark Vision skill had not changed much. It only said that I could see to 15% in low light environment and 3% in absolute darkness. The Mind Mapping skill had changed very much.
Mind Mapping: Level 5(176/500) (Active)
Mind Mapping is the ability to map the surroundings with your mind. It saves the map of your environment in your mind.
Cost: 16 Stamina per Minute
Bonus for the Level of this Skill: The higher the Level of this skill the more can you remember of your surroundings and the more accurate the map of your surroundings in your mind will get.
Adds 0.05 Points of Perception per Level of the Skill. (0.25 Perception)
Adds 0.05 Points of Intelligence per Level of the Skill. (0.25 Intelligence)
The best thing that could happen had happened. The cost got down by one point per level over 1. That was something extremely good because I could keep it up longer and train more through this. Dark Vision was a passive skill and was always on. That was also the reason why I kept my flat dark. To train it.
I had troubled myself because of the Mind Mapping skill. I had thought that I could not train very much with it because of its huge cost but the problem had solved itself.
Now the only thing to do was the training. I could keep the mind Mapping skill active for about six minutes and in the first six minutes of my training, I mapped my flat. It was horrifying to feel the energy of your body leaving so fast but soon I got used to it. In the first five and a half minutes I had mapped my entire apartment and I noticed that I got less experience from mapping something I had already a map in my mind. The difference was not huge but I could notice it.
Something I also noticed was the clarity and detail of the map. It was much better now that the skill was level five. Soon I was out of Stamina and sat heaving on my couch. I could view the first results of my training because Mind Mapping had levelled up.
Unfortunately, I had to wait now about one and a half hour to regenerate my lost Stamina. I used the time to think about more skills I could create.
At the end of the day, I laid prepared and fully clothed in my bed. Ready for the dungeon.
But I had one major problem. I could not sleep. I was too nervous and excited. So I had a look at my skills again to see the training results for myself.
Skills (Active&Passive)
Active:
Mind Mapping. Level 10(378/1000)
Passive:
Dark Vision: Level 4 (319/400)
The Dark Vision skill got not as much experience as I wanted because after a while I had to leave the apartment to get experience for my Mind Mapping skill. But I also came back after my Stamina was used up to be in the dark for the skill.
The Mind Mapping skill had made a massive jump. It now only cost eleven points of Stamina per minute to keep it active. It also raised my Perception and Intelligence by 0.5 Points. I could not feel anything from the upgrade and just hoped that I could feel a difference after it crossed the full point mark.
After turning around for hours on end in my bed I noticed that I was slowly getting sleepy.
As I drifted away into sleep I heard the voice again.
Rise or Fall in the dungeon