POV - TAD

[Advanced Meditation] was the best. I paused, considering why I thought this. I had Skills which were graded higher. Both [Dream] and [Basic Cultivation] were rarer and probably a lot more powerful. The thing was, they hadn’t really impacted my journey so far. Not yet anyway. [Advanced Meditation] on the other hand had been massive. In fact getting [Basic Cultivation] had really been a direct result of [Advanced Meditation] coming through.

With [Advanced Meditation] now at [Apprentice] proficiency I realised I could interact with the System even while meditating. This was fantastic. Now I could pull up notifications and dive deep into how my psyche understood them and get a much better feel, for the want of a better word, on how they impacted me.

I admit when I first got the [Meditation] Skill I had a vague notion that it would involve a sort of emptying of my mind. Of removing all distractions and contaminations that cluttered up my mind and then somehow becoming one with the universe. Or the System as it is now.

I had previously struggled with this concept. Emptying my mind was a battle in futility. Every time I came close, I fell asleep. And most times I never even got close with some distraction or errant thought rushing in to fill the void I was painstakingly trying to form. No, enlightenment was no closer with an empty mind.

In fact it was even further away as the emptier I managed to make it, the more numb and disconnected I became. But no sense of enlightenment. No, I had spent hours in hospital beds trying to meditate myself out of them. And rather than enlightenment it generally had ended up darker and more hopeless.

But [Meditation] and [Advanced Meditation] had proved to be quite different. Not clearing one's mind but rather it was the opposite. It was filling one's mind and then diving in and delving into what it meant. Taking ownership and extracting meaning and substance. Making it real. Making it mine.

I turned my attention to focus on the challenge before me. I was capped. I was trapped. The odds against me seemed insurmountable. Somehow I either needed to find a safe place so I could level up and increase my Stats or find an exit to this high level zone where my insta death was not but a single step away. Both these options would involve traversing miles and miles of hostile and extremely dangerous nerve racking wasteland. I needed another option.

The System had referred to the Trial. The validation of uplift. Through adversity. Well this was a pretty adverse situation I found myself in. And it was one that was well outside what would be normally expected. This was very clear to me. I was shafted. Capped and gimped. And yet my spirit rebelled from simply giving up. That was not an option. When the going gets tough, that's when the tough get going. I didn’t know who coined that saying, but I thought it pretty silly. Especially since I wasn’t tough. Trying to tough this out would be an exercise in terminal futility. I would rephrase. When the going gets tough, go at it a different way. I would reframe the challenge. Forget finding a safe place. Even finding an exit. That was not my priority. My priority was breaking these Stat caps that were imposed. Glitching the System. I would break it. I would own it. I would exceed my own limits.

Hmmmm.

How?

Easy. The same way you eat an elephant. One mouthful at a time. Well, easy to say. Harder to do. Even harder when you don’t take that first bite though.

Now to get chewing.

I pulled up some recent stat notifications I had been ignoring.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Well Nige had been right. The System was not going to grant me the Aspected Stat points I had earned while I was at my level cap. But I was right too. If I had already reached the individual Stat cap, like my Soul Stats, then I still earned Bonus Stats. Bonus Stats which did not count towards the Level cap. Bonus stats that proved that the Level cap was not a hard one. It was one that could be stretched. One where exemplary efforts were recognised and rewarded. I allocated them to SPI.

I looked at my SPI. Nice. I could see that my Atelophobia Award was also kicking in doubling up the Stat points allocated. For some reason I had thought I would achieve them twice as fast with increased frequency rather than with double Stat points. I shrugged to myself. Either way this was powerful. It was a pity that two thirds were currently being wasted. But I would rectify that. My determination sharpened. My Spirit was indomitable. I briefly wondered how Dom was getting on. Was his infatuation unrequited? Or had he met his soulmate? I chuckled at the thought of it. She was a scary lady indeed. He was a braver man than I, that was for sure.

I focused. I remembered my earlier epiphany. Clarity begetting ever more clarity. I felt I was on the cusp of unlocking something. A concept. An understanding of my place within the universe. Within the System. No, not my place. I would not be pigeonholed. I was not confined. I was not constrained. Limits would not bind me. My concept clicked into place.

Kaizan!

Well, that was something! I had taken the first step and a lot earlier than anyone else. I was ahead of the curve for once. I reread the notification. Any being. Not just any human being. Any being. And apparently I was a statistical impossibility. Not just an improbability. But so improbable it wasn’t even on the charts on improbabilities. Well mum always told me I was special. And everyone knows that mums are always right but I doubt even she realised just how special I was. I smiled as I remembered the lavious care and affection I had been blessed with. Good old mum. I wished I could tell her how right she was.

I was not too concerned about the warning that interrupted the notification. Nige could have hardly have given me any advantage seeing he had bailed before it all went down. And there was no one else who could have helped. Dom? He was well meaning but essentially clueless. TSB and RBF? Ha! Only if helping me involved stamping on me like an ant and then kicking me while I was down. Nope. This was all me.

I refocused.

My concept was vague. Still nascent. It would flesh out as I grew. As I made it more real. More true. As I cultivated and developed it. As I improved so would my understanding of my Concept. I felt this resonate within me. This was fabulous. I had capitalised it. It was now a System recognised proper noun. Even better, my Concept was giving me clear direction on how to surpass my limits. And not just the limits the System had imposed. I paused, no the System limits were but the least of the restrictions that I would need to confront. In fact they were but a pale reflection of my underlying reality. A quantifiable expression of a deliberately obtuse perception of reality. My perception. My obtuseness. They were a lens if you like, that had allowed me to see an expression of my limits, but not my actual limits. Yes, clarity leading unto deeper clarity. There was resonation as I realised the limits the System had imposed were but reflections of my own perceived limits.

And that was just it. They were perceived. And that made them real. And the System quantified them and reported them. So they must be true. My perception of reality shaped my reality.

The System had uplifted me out of the dust. It had revitalised my body and made me compatible with itself. It had provided a way to interrogate and interpret my place, my position with itself. It made it possible for me to improve myself through my own actions. And it quantified those improvements. It judged and measured and rewarded. And it had set limits. Limits that I needed to break.

The limits were there for a reason. Nige had outlined how there had been massive failure when there were no limits, when the System had allowed new participants complete freedom in developing their builds. The seductive temptation of min-maxing leading to suboptimal builds with insufficient robustness unable to cope with the increasing demands that they were put under. I would not min max. No, I would max max. I would glitch the System and my intuition was telling me that understanding, developing and utilising my Concept was crucial to this.

It was not just a matter of wishing to exceed these limits though. No, if wishes were fishes we'd all be kings. There would be resistance. But I was in a unique position. I was only Level 1. Yet I was in an unranked area and I had jump started my Soul, unlocking my Karma well ahead of all projections. In fact I intuited that even just to reach Level 100, the minimum recommended level for this zone, there were prerequisites. Like unlocking a Stat grouping and developing a Concept. And as Level 1 I didn't have massive Stat imbalances to overcome. I didn't have to slog gaining hundreds, if not thousands of Base Stats to unlock a Stat category. I had an advantage. I could leverage my disadvantages. My freshness. And I could optimise my build from the ground up.

And what else was my intuition telling me? For it was surely going gangbusters. And it was all pointing to my Gold ranked Skill. To [Basic Cultivation]. This was my key. [Basic Cultivation] would unlock my build. Rather than being dependent on the System for assessing and acknowledging my achievements I would claim them myself. Take them. Bhahwahahaha!! I would not be denied.

And [Basic Cultivation] was the means of making the future mine. And Essence, my Essence, that measure of my Soul, was central to the task. Yes this strongly resonated. I had the means. I had the motivation. I had the Will.

I frowned.

Why wasn’t Will one of the Stats? Surely it was critical for growth. For success. For power. Maybe it was a hidden Stat? Like Recovery? Yes, I would need to explore this and leverage my understanding to the fullest extent. Now that I was on the path to glitching the System, there was no way I would be satisfied with simply following out the normal path. The path of least resistance. No, that was not for me. And no, it would not be easy. But I would take full advantage of the situation I found myself in. And I would prosper. And thrive. And advance. And then… then?

Then I would see.

Let the System tremble. For behold; I break it and make it anew!