My mind ran red with rage as I swiped the System prompt away. I’d felt the domineering power of the System and knew it wasn’t fucking around. Three bosses before I could leave? I thought back to when I had free time to play video games and grimaced. Flashes in my mind of Game Over screens, villains laughing in the background, laid a deadly premonition.
There was no continue option in real life. For all the casual wording, the System had just told me to kill three others. Not just that, it would reward me for it. Even if I considered myself an objectively good person, I felt the immediate draw. The feeling of placing my free points into my attributes was like a drug, and the idea of not completing this quest made me feel weak and clammy. Withdrawal symptoms.
I felt frustration pile onto my already beleaguered mind. There were so many questions. So much I had no way of figuring out. So much blood. A waft of metallic tang caught my nose and I heaved into the bushes next to Clive’s café. A shockingly crimson flood of stale blood escaped my lips, acid mixed with blood burned my throat, even with my newly upgraded fortitude.
“Absolutely disgusting,” I lamented, rubbing my mouth pointlessly. My clothes were drenched in blood, too. Looking back at the door to Clive’s, I set my jaw. Something unexplainable had happened inside, but the more time passed, the more I knew I had no control over the horrific events. Even knowing that, the scene I had just witnessed - just been a part of - was burned into my mind.
I knew I would obsess over the events in there… but did I have to? If my thoughts were a case of an uncontrolled mind, couldn’t I give myself more control?
Casting my eyes around, the park seemed unchanged. Wasn’t it supposed to be a dungeon now? I wasn’t complaining, but seeing the brisk Spring afternoon was just as jarring as anything else right now. It was impossible to tell whether my vomiting had alerted something waiting in the treeline, but for now I seemed alone. If what the System said was true, no one would be joining me until they were level 18 themselves. How long would that take?
I flexed my fingers, the numbness of shock thankfully gone. My fingers felt strong. Turning to the other side of Clive’s door, I wrapped my hand around a symmetrically placed bush to the one I had just ruined. I planted my feet near the base and gave it a solid heave. I yelped as the ground gave way underneath me, the roots of the shrub dislodging with my pull. I ended up on my back.
“What the fu- “ I started sputtering as dirt fell into my mouth. That was way too easy. I stood slowly, suddenly scared of my own strength. Was that really just double my previous strength? I had placed points in Fortitude, bringing me from five to ten, but two of me shouldn’t have been enough to dislodge the deeply rooted bush. A big smile came to my face.
It was tempting to shove every free point I had into Fortitude right there, but ignoring the three other options would be foolish. My smile grew as I looked at my attributes again. I guess this would be my character page? The 63 free points were basically screaming at me to spend them. Going even another step further into the unknown without doing so would be crazy. With a shrug, I threw the last of my caution to the wind and started experimenting.
First, Speed. Boosting it to ten, I tried to pay attention to the changes I underwent. The process still felt like being given pure, undiluted delight. Upgrading Fortitude had felt like my blood became a flame which eclipsed and seared away the pain I felt. Speed was a different beast.
My veins became completely frigid for a moment, all of my muscles locking in the worst cramps I had ever felt. Before my bunched muscles could scream out in pain, the sensation passed and I was once again left with the intoxicating feeling of power.
If Fortitude could be described as strength and constitution rolled into one, then Speed was dexterity and perception. The world noticeably slowed down for a few moments before time resumed its standard march. I immediately saw a danger I had been close to tripping. While upgrading Fortitude would make me faster, I would need to keep Speed relative or I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my own movements.
Four points into Speed and then four more split between Mental and Will. Placing points into Mental gave me a quick brain freeze, while Will made my chest burn like acid reflux. Both sensations were fleeting, and replacing them was a level of comfort I honestly felt bad for feeling. Unlike Fortitude and Speed, the advantages to these attributes were a little more esoteric.
My mind felt clearer, though. It wasn’t as though I had changed as a person immediately, but there was a strength of conviction behind my thoughts which pushed away lingering doubts. Quicker decision making from Mind and bravery from Will… That was a part of it. With each free point placed into each, something else stirred within me. What the hell is that?
While my attribute points were limited, there wasn’t necessarily a right choice on what to upgrade. I still had fifty five points to allot, so I decided to take a gamble. With confidence, I slapped 10 points straight into Mental at once. My newly forged brain told me this was a bad idea even before the whiplash hit.
Stolen novel; please report.
An icepick drove through my brain and out my eye. I clasped my face, but there was no actual damage and the pain disappeared quickly. Compared to the brain freeze which two points gave me, this was many magnitudes worse. Okay, noted. One attribute point at a time. Despite the distraction of pain, due to my strengthened faculties, I was more than able to focus on the other sensation within.
Just like my heartbeat, there was another process unconsciously occurring inside my body. With each point into the Mental attribute, the automatic sensation became clearer and clearer. I mean, there’s no way… but… The existence of a Mental attribute, or intelligence, suggested something I was scared to get my hopes up for.
Punching stuff really hard, or being too quick to touch, seemed like cool superpowers for sure. Fifty points into Fortitude might make me into an absolute monster. I might even grow, turn green and rip all my clothes but the purple boxers underneath.
It wasn’t my ideal.
The world had shattered, at least for myself. If, by some miracle, I was the only person affected and given these strange powers, then maybe things would be fine. I could let myself get locked up and experimented on, or just disappear into the wilderness. In the more likely circumstance that I was just one of many suddenly shoved into a world where killing could magically make you stronger…
Maybe being locked in a System-made dungeon wasn’t the worst thing which could have happened.
Having godlike strength would be the standard, for certain. Even as I decided to risk it all on another path, I knew it was the sensible choice. Even without any further information, suddenly being able to lift a car over your head would always be helpful. Becoming so fast and dextrous I could escape any bad situation was tempting, too.
Da-dump
“Nope.” I rejected those two paths, at least for now. Maybe at ten points of Mental, I could have ignored the feeling, but at twenty, I was certain. Underneath my heartbeat was a slightly weaker thumping. It had been almost silent before but I could tell it had been there since I awoke. Why was I even surprised? Its existence had been proven a dozen times over.
Magic.
Even knowing it was going to feel like swallowing burning coals, I still threw ten points into Will at once. If Fortitude and Speed were linked, each one needed to make full use of the other, then the same was likely true for Mental and Will. I was right on both counts. I burped as the heartburn came back, then screamed as it intensified into magma in my throat. My heart had turned into a small sun and I needed to claw it from my chest.
My raised Mental attribute helped me keep my mind in check during this pain. I focused instead on the sensation of magic in my veins. If adding points to Mental had raised the volume of the beating, adding points to Will upped the tempo. Still, it wasn’t enough. The sun winked out. I now knew with certainty there was something I was still missing.
It was agonisingly frustrating.
I had just told myself not to do this, but I was so close to understanding the strange feeling inside that I probably overdid it. Thirty points of my remaining thirty five went directly into Mental, and I placed the last five into Will. Then I braced.
“Oh sh-” I probably did swear, but I couldn’t hear my own screaming. The immediate glacier that appeared where my brain had shut out everything but the pain in my head and chest. If my mind had frozen, my heart had ignited. The miniature sun came back and tripled in size.
I wouldn’t let this be a mistake. Pain was just a message from the body to the brain that something was wrong, so I focused on where the pain came from. Logically I knew I would be fine, as I had been each other time I added to my attributes. This helped me sequester the pain to one side and grab a hold of the river of flame and ice within.
I wrested control away from the automatic flow it had followed and forced the strange feeling to work for me. My fifty points in Mental weren’t for show. I could feel the synapses in my mind becoming sharper as the icy pain receded. All my new brain power and control was focused on understanding this new sixth sense.
Da-DUMP
There you are. I pinpointed the source of my new “heartbeat”. Directly at the base of the sternum bone, a second heart was beating. This heart wasn’t physical, but it was still cycling something through my body. Unknown pathways were highlighted by the sensation and I mapped them all without interfering with the river of power within. Once I felt confident I understood the strange flow within, I took action.
The moment I became involved, the cycle ground to a painful halt. I started gasping, the process already as important to me as breathing. My new strength and speed disappeared and I almost fell to the floor. With a mental struggle and heave, I dragged the energy inside through the pathways I had just memorised. After a few revolutions, my new attribute baseline returned to normal. Then, curious, I pushed the river to go faster and faster. My muscles started to vibrate with energy.
Skill Unlocked - Mana Control
The foundation of any and all magical ability. Children born into the System are capable of this from a young age.
With a ding, a new prompt appeared and caused me to lose concentration. Reading it wasn’t strictly needed as a surge of information appeared right in my memory. Still, I was affronted.
“Wow, okay. That was unnecessary.” I didn’t have anywhere to aim a middle finger, but I carried one in my heart. Fuck you, System. Actually, it was an interesting piece of information, but it felt like the System was telling me that my accomplishments weren’t that impressive.
The new understanding gained made controlling the mana within as natural as doing simple mathematics, even if the subject was completely new. I consciously repeated the important information to myself aloud.
“Mana exists everywhere. Actually controlling it isn’t strictly necessary, but there is a clear advantage. If two people had the exact same attributes, the one with even rudimentary Mana Control would perform better than the one relying on their automatic mana. The river within was called mana. Mana Control was the conscious manipulation of the river within.
“And with Mana Control, I can do… This.” Punctuating my last word, I surged my mana into my fist and swiped my hand at its trunk. It may have been a thin birch, but I was still shocked when my hand simply passed through the wood like butter. I leapt back, physically powerful even without using my mana to make me stronger. The tree fell slowly and with a loud slam.
A dark shadow fell from the tree before it hit the ground. I froze, unprepared in a moment of pure exhilaration turning to terror. Before I could even think, the shape launched itself at me. I flew back into the wall of the café, thankfully hitting brick rather than flying through the glass to my left. My breath was knocked out of me but I got a look at my assailant before it was on me again.
Is that a goddamn ninja turtle?