Adam had rested for just over an hour when he stood, unlocked the door to the bedroom, and made his way back downstairs. Once back on Marine Drive, he continued east to the Tran-Canadian Highway which was only another 1,000 feet down the road. Once on the highway, the walk became easier even with the cars strewn about having either rolled to a stop or in some cases collided with other vehicles. When magic had come back into this Earth, it must have been relatively sudden. Such an obvious disregard for lives, when a SYSTEM was initiated, was beginning to piss him off.

Five miles down the road, as he was coming up on the Cypress Lane Road exit, Adam noticed some movement near a few of the vehicles. He also heard whispering on the night air but couldn’t quite make out what was being said. As he came to a trailer the door burst open and a man with a shotgun stepped out with the weapon pointed at Adam’s chest. Adam also noticed that at least two other people had come into view in other nearby cars pointing their handguns at him.

“Hello there! I’m Bob, and my two friends Rusty and Ed are behind you in the cars. Why is a man like you walking around all alone, don’t you know it’s dangerous these days?” Bob said as he stepped out of the camper.

“Hello Bob, I’m Adam, I noticed that it was a bit more dangerous these days, Yes. What can I do for you?” Adam asked.

“Well, I would say that you could give us all of your stuff, but you don’t seem to be carrying anything, or do you have some stuff in that special storage the SYSTEM gives you?”

Bob aimed his shotgun to the side and pulled the trigger. There was a loud boom and the shotgun went off. When the echo had died down Bob was now pointing the shotgun at Adam’s chest,” I’m the one with the gun…”

Adam started laughing.

Bob looked upset for a moment and then looked around as if looking for something. When he didn’t see anything or anyone moving to help the laughing man in front of him he asked, “What’s so funny?”

Adam stopped laughing suddenly and then said, “You. It’s the middle of the night, and I’ve already run into a pack of wolves which means there are predators in the area and you just let them all know where you are.”

“I let them know where we are, or do you think you’re special. If predators come, they’ll get you too.”

“I think I’ll be fine, Adam said and started walking down the road.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” Bob called.

“If you shoot, I’ll survive, and then I’ll feed you to one of these monsters because make no mistake, whatever is coming, I’m worse,” Adam said as he let a hint of his anger leak into his voice. Bob lifted the gun to point at Adam’s face. While Adam wasn’t as fast as he once had been he was faster than a normal human and stronger. Even with Bob 20 feet away from him, it was nothing for Adam to flash forward 20 feet and disarm Bob before he could react. As Adam disarmed Bob he made sure to move so that Bob was between Adam and the other two shooters.

“What?” Bob sputtered and then froze as the shotgun barrel was leveled at and poking into his back.

“Yeah Bob, you didn’t even have a chance. I will give you some friendly advice. I would suggest you and your friends try to make your way south and find some more people. Then get a group and start hunting the monsters so you can level and get stronger. Then, if we ever meet again and you think I’ve done you wrong we can discuss what I did here.”

“What is it you’re going to do here?” Bob asked in a shaky voice.

“There was a time when I’d just end you but there’s no point. You are going to stay between me and your friends and stop when I say stop. Then you are going to stand there and watch me back away from you. We’re going to make our way east a little bit and you’ll stop. I’ll continue on a little bit further and leave your shotgun on one of the cars. Once I do, grab your gun, reload it, and get the three of you out of here.

“We could come after you?” Bob said in what he tried to make a menacing voice but ended up being a little shaky.

“You could,” Adam said as he summoned his Chaos Blade to his left hand and sliced a portion of the right fender off a Nissan Altima. The blade cut through the metal like it was better and the piece that had been separated fell to the ground with a “Thunk” as the Chaos Blade vanished. “If you do, I’ll end you,” Adam said as he felt Bob go rigid in front of him. Adam nudged him to get them moving again. As they continued moving east Adam continued speaking, “Right now, the world is a bit crazy and everyone is going to need to work together to survive so I’m going to go against my nature and let you live now let’s move. You need your Shotgun back and I need to get out of here.”

Bob looked back at the piece of the car that had been sliced off and stopped resisting Adam’s directions as Adam guided him east along the highway. When they were 50 feet from his friends who were still in the cars they’d tried their ambush on him Adam said, “This is about far enough.”

Bob stopped and Adam backed away until he was near the front of a car he put the shotgun on the car, “After I step away, recover your gun, reload it, and go back to your friends. You all need to try to find a place to defend yourself. I’d stay and help, but you just tried to rob me, so good luck,” Adam said as he turned to the east. 10 seconds later he was 300 feet away from Bob who had picked up his shotgun and was in the process of reloading it.

Adam knew that as soon as he had been further than 10 feet from Bob the three men had lost sight of him. It was a moonless night and while the pavement did make it easier to see someone, it would be hard to track him while he kept the cars between them and him. He on the other hand could see just fine.

Also, Adam wasn’t a moron and kept an eye on the three men as he moved further away. He was proved right when he heard a howl off to the north which was answered by at least 5 other howls off to the Northwest and southwest of the highway. If those were more Vacnee Dire Wolves, Bob, Rusty, and Ed weren’t long for this world.

Adam put the three men out of his mind. They would survive or they wouldn’t. They’d made their choice on how far Adam would be willing to help them when they tried to rob him. The fact that he’d left them alive was the only bit of good luck Adam was willing to give them. Perhaps fate would be kind, perhaps not. Adam wasn’t going to wait around to find out.

Adam continued making his way east along the highway. He attempted to keep his noise generation to a minimum while he moved rapidly. Hopefully, he wouldn’t run into any more highway robbers or if he did he’d pass them by before they could react.

One thing he noticed was that Stamina loss while traveling worked differently than when he was in combat. Instead of a flat Stamina cost each turn his Stamina was charged each minute and it kept increasing. Then again, maybe there was a stamina cost during combat if you continued moving for longer than a minute. Adam pulled up the logs to his fight with the wolves and sure enough, the few times he’d gone over a minute without taking a break he’d begun to lose Stamina. Adam closed the log and continued making his way east.

Eight minutes later when he turned south onto Highway 99 he was up to 8 Stamina per minute. Of course, he was regenerating 17 Stamina a minute so he wouldn’t see a net loss until he’d been traveling for 18 minutes. That meant that at 21 miles per hour, he could run 5.9 miles in 17 minutes before he started to feel the drain on his stamina. Shoot, he could run for another 25 minutes after that first 17 minutes before he’d reduce his stamina to 10 of 335 points and need to take a break. 14.7 miles in 42 minutes wasn’t too shabby though.

As Adam came to the bridge that crossed the point where Vancouver Harbor met the Burrard Inlet he saw that a blockade had been created at the other end. There even looked to be torches and lookouts on top of some buses that were placed across the lanes. Also, it looked like a few people had figured out that guns and ammunition might be scarce, so they were armed with bows and crossbows.

Adam slowed down and started looking around the bridge for signs of traps or any other kind of bombs and came to a stop at an area that just didn’t feel right. After he concentrated for a moment he pierced an illusion and noticed that the bridge in front of him was littered with holes that he would have fallen through if he hadn’t noticed the illusion. Nifty.

A male voice called out, “You might want to stop!”

Adam looked toward the man, modulated his voice, and called back, “Why is that, I just need to go around the holes correct?”

“What holes?” the male voice called back.

“Let’s save some time, I can see through the illusion. What kind of assurances do I need to give to be able to visit the SYSTEM Shop,” Adam called back.”

“Come on over and we’ll talk,” The voice called.

“Sounds good,” Adam said as he started to walk forward. Adam picked his way past the larger holes until he came to a place that only had a three-foot stretch and looked like it could have been on a hinge. Adam stopped before he stepped into the obvious trap and called out, “Just so we’re clear. If I step onto this trap door and it swings out from under me two things are going to happen. One, you will get the surprise of your life before two, you die.”

“That trap’s for people we don’t trust,” the man called out.

Adam nodded and said, “You’ve heard my terms,” before he stepped into the obvious trap and took two steps before the door swung out below him. As Adam dropped through the hole he activated his Dragon Form and flew up and around the bridge until he was hovering over the people standing on the barricade looking at him.

“Kill it!” the same male voice called out which allowed Adam to zero in on him. As everyone was raising their weapons to fire, Adam swooped down and hit the man with a Mind Bolt as soon as he was within range. There was a red-headed woman beside him who looked like she was trying to concentrate, the illusionist maybe? Adam felt something touch his mind but he was below the bridge and banking away before contact could be established. As he turned south and continued toward Vancouver he heard a scream and saw that he had another Notification. He hadn’t leveled so Adam ignored it.

He'd given the man fair warning. He’d tried to be polite, and the idiot had lied to him twice and tried to kill him. If he’d let Adam cross the bridge and then locked him up for a bit, Adam could have allowed that. But killing someone you just met, yeah those were the kind of people this world wasn’t going to need going forward and while he wasn’t going to go out of his way to kill everyone that crossed him Adam knew that men like that one probably bullied their way into power and were being absolute assess to everyone under them as well as anyone they came across. It had only been two days. Adam wondered how many people that prick had already killed.

Adam rose into the night sky and used the updrafts to get above the city. When he wasn’t actively flying there was no stamina cost. If he could find a thermal updraft he’d be able to remain aloft for a while. Adam rose above the city and looked down as he made his way toward Vancouver City Hall. As he suspected there were barricades set up in shrinking circles with City Hall at the center. Right at the front of the building was a silver Orb, just like every other SYSTEM Orb he’d ever come across. Additionally, he could see another orb just inside City Hall which was probably the City Orb.

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Adam remained above the city and watched the orbs. On this moonless night, it was easy for him to remain unnoticed by those below him. As Adam watched, People would walk up to the orb outside of City Hall, place their hands on it, and vanish. That is after they waited in line to do so. Right before they were allowed to touch the orb they had to pass by a table where a woman sat and jotted something down in a notebook like they were keeping track of something

Something fishy was going on. If this world had just received its first mana saturation event, how had the city been brought into a defensible configuration so quickly? Unless… Unless someone knew what was going to happen and had everything prepared ahead of time.

Adam watched for a bit until the line had died down completely and then dove for the orb. It was a simple thing to fly in, flare above the orb, shape change and touch the orb as he dropped to the ground next to it. Simple for him anyway. Adam smiled at the one guard who had seen him and then vanished as his hand touched the orb.

As he materialized in the SYSTEM Shop he found himself standing in a fully decked out market with multiple patrons of multiple races who were walking around and browsing at the counters. Adam noted a dark elf, Orc, or was that a half-orc? When he turned toward one corner he saw an Illithid. There was no way Mind Flayers were real was there? They could be, he guessed. Besides, who was he to argue with the possible existence of a creature type? He was an Adamantium Dragon now after all.

Adam looked around and noted that he could visit a kiosk or talk with a merchant behind the counter. There was a small female standing on a box over behind the counter that kind of looked like a halfling. Adam decided that the best way to get answers was to ask questions and to ask questions he needed someone to ask so he turned toward the small woman and walked toward her.

As Adam walked up to the counter she looked up and asked, “Welcome to the Vancouver SYSTEM Shop, How can I help you, Sir?”

“I need to purchase some information and I have a few questions?” Adam said.

“We do sell information and I can answer questions and tell you when I cannot. Also, please know that we do accept tips,” she said with a smile.

“Okay then. First question, what is your name?” Adam asked.

“I am Alerna Light-Touch.”

“I am Adam. It’s nice to meet you Alerna Light-Touch. My first business-related question is do you sell SYSTEM-based information, specifically a breakdown of what Attributes do, how regeneration rates are detailed out, how combat works, perks, skills, how they level, spells, how they are leveled, and the basic Political Structure of the SYSTEM?” Adam asked.

“Not asking for much, are you,” the small woman said with a laugh. “Let’s see what we can find for you,” she said as her eyes became unfocused and she looked through lists only she could see. As she finished Alerna said, “To answer your question, Yes, the SYSTEM has that information but it's not all in one document. You would need to buy at least six that will cover everything except the political information. There is a lot of information on that topic and I suggest we come back to it after you review these first,” Alerna said as a holographic display appeared in front of Adam that listed six different titles.

Making the most out of your Attributes – by Xertze

How to Use What You Have, A Guide to Increasing Your Attribute Regeneration Rates – by Alistar

A Comprehensive List of Skills and the Cost of Improvement – by Hersche

Magic, Spells, and You – by Merl

The Importance of Perks and What They Do To, and For, You – by Jax

Combat in The SYSTEM – by Shenul

Adam looked over the list of books. The titles indicated that they might have the information he was looking for. He turned to Alerna, “That sounds good, How much for all six?”

“Well, it depends on the format you want them in. If you want actual books they’re 500 credits apiece. If you want them as a digital readout, they’re only 200 credits each but you’ll need to purchase the reader which is 5,000 credits. Finally, you can download the information directly into your mind, which will cost 2,000 credits each, so 12,000 for all six. If you buy all six for download, I’ll give you a 10% discount so 10,800,” Alerna explained.

“Sounds good, I’ll take all six as a download. Can I do them all at once or do I need to space them out?” Adam asked.

“You can do all six at once if you think your mind can take it. The worst that will happen is that the information will overload your mind and you’ll be knocked out.”

Adam smiled, “I think I can handle it.”

Adam made his purchase, transferred his credits, and was led to a door that opened into a small room with a chair in it, “Please sit down. The download is automatic. We provide the chair and the privacy free of charge,” Alerna explained with a smile.

Adam sat, closed his eyes, and felt the information enter his mind. The information transfer went smoothly, there was no strain at all. In a moment he was done and stood up as his mind processed everything he’d just learned.

The first set of information he reviewed was from “Making the most out of your Attributes.” It seemed that attributes revolved around a system where a 10 in an attribute offered no bonus or negative while every two points above offered a +1 and every two points below gave a -1, though the penalty didn’t seem to ever go below -5. Also, after extensive testing each point equated to about a 5% increase or decrease in the chance that whatever task they were trying to do which involved an attribute might succeed or fail. Luck played a factor but no one could figure out exactly how yet. Constitution directly affected Hit Points, Endurance affected Stamina, and Willpower affected Mana. Psychic Energy was listed as coming from the sum of mentality and spirituality in some form, which meant that the writer, Xertze, didn’t know. But the information that was provided was helpful so his credits had been well spent.

The next bit of information he reviewed was “How to Use What You Have, A Guide to Increasing Your Attribute Regeneration Rates.” The information in that document detailed how each attribute could be increased by the skills appropriately named Health Regeneration, Stamina Regeneration, Mana Regeneration, and Psychic Regeneration. Health Regeneration required that the person have at least 100 in their Endurance and Constitution attributes. Stamina Regeneration required at least a 100 in the Endurance and Willpower attributes. Mana Regeneration required 100s in both Intelligence and Willpower attributes. Finally, Psychic Energy had the most prerequisites with at least 100 points in the Perception, Intelligence, Wisdom, Willpower, and Charisma attributes. Once each skill was acquired they could be increased to level 10 which brought Adam to the next bit of information he reviewed “A Comprehensive List of Skills and the Cost of Improvement.”

Adam skipped the comprehensive lists and went right to the cost of improvement. First, Skills could only be improved to level 10 which would cost a total of 55 Skill points. 1 Skill Point for level 1, 2 Skill Points for level 2, 3 for level 3, and so on. What increasing a skill level did was dependent on the skills. Some skills reduced the mana, stamina, or psychic energy cost as the skill level went up. Other skills had their damage increase and sometimes as skills increased in level the cost to use the skill went down while the damage, range, or area of effect increased. What leveling a skill did for each skill was unique to that skill. It also seemed like the rarity of a skill played into how powerful it was.

As Adam continued his review he realized that there could be a Common Health Regeneration Skill and a Legendary Health Regeneration Skill. The Legendary version of the skill would do a lot more than the Common version. Both rarities could be increased to level 10. Also, the cost was prohibitive. A common Level 1 Skill would cost 100 credits while a Level 1 Legendary Skill could cost 1 billion credits if the SYSTEM Shop had it, which it most likely would not. Legendary Skills were extremely rare.

Next, Adam reviewed how to level up skills. Skills had rarities, just like classes. In each Rarity, a skill could be levels 1 – 10. That’s where the simplicity stopped. Skills could only be acquired from a Class, Perk, Skill Trainer, or the SYSTEM Shop. Once acquired from a Class, Perk, or Skill Trainer the skill could be leveled through use, or Skill Points had to be spent to level it. Skills purchased from the SYSTEM Shop could not be leveled with Skill Points unless a special type of Skill was purchased that acted as if it had been learned from a Skill Trainer.

To get a better handle on what the differences in rarity and level meant Adam reviewed the examples provided. A Common Skill, Power Strike, cost 10 Stamina at level 1. It increased the damage of any physical blow by 6 if the attack hit. The skills base cost at the shop was 100 credits. It was a common generic skill that most fighter types picked up. If Adam wanted to get the skill at level 10 it would cost 5,500 credits. The level 10 version of Power Strike would inflict 60 extra points of damage for 100 stamina if the attack hit.

Some common classes picked up the skill for free in which case the Skill could be leveled through use or increased with Skill Points. How much XP a skill earned through use wasn’t detailed but for a Common Level 1 skill to increase to level 2 required approximately 3,000 XP but the XP for skills was not tracked the same way XP for classes was tracked. Skills that were constantly used seemed to level at the same rate as the individual class, at least for levels 1 through 10. That wasn’t always true though. If the class had a higher rarity the skill could level faster than the class.

The XP requirement could be bypassed if Skill Points were used instead. There was a huge Warning that any earned XP was lost and the XP for Skill Progression was reset to zero for the next level but if you needed to increase the skill you could with Skill Points. The Academics noted this as a bonus from the Class when skills were leveled in this way.

Also, there were two ways to buy a skill. The first way award the skill at whatever level it was purchased at. This had a flat cost and could only be increased by purchasing the next level. A second way to buy a skill was to purchase the Level 1 version of the skill at a specific rarity and then learn it as if a Skill Trainer were helping you. The cost seemed to be about 10 times the listed cost. Level 1 common skills were almost always available. Some Scarce and Rare skills as well. Above Rare though, not very many of them were for sale at the SYSTEM Shop.

As Adam read this break down he wondered what the strengths and weaknesses of purchasing skills versus purchasing skills that acted like skill trainers. What he found didn’t surprise him. The only other thing about skills and the reason Skills shouldn’t be bought cheaply was it was impossible to level them and it was expensive if you purchased each level one at a time. If someone wanted to purchase a level 5 skill and then increase the skill to level 6 skill they would need to pay the level 5 cost and then the level 5 cost again plus the difference. Unless someone was purchasing the level 10 version of a skill the first time, they would just be throwing credits away. Also, If someone was lucky enough to find a skill trainer at a higher rarity level they could use their skill points to learn the skill they’d previously purchased. But, all the credits spent previously would, of course, be wasted.

The reason some wouldn’t want to do this was because the cost was so prohibitive for so little gain until the skill reached Epic, Mythic, or Legendary. Power Strike was used as an example to show this concept in action. The Common Level 10 version of Power Strike received a 60-point damage bonus for 100 stamina. At Scarce Level 1 it received a bonus of 7 for 11 stamina though at Scarce Level 10 it would give a bonus of 66 for 110 stamina. The level 1 Master version of the same skill would give a bonus of 14 damage for 24 Stamina. At Master Level 10 Power Strike could add an incredible 130 points of damage to a blow for 216 Stamina.

Going from an additional 60 points of damage at Common Level 10, to 11 extra points of damage at Scarce Level 1 up to a maximum of 66 more points of damage at Scarce Level 10 didn’t seem worth it. If the Skill could be found at Master Level 1 though. While there would be an initial drop in damage output, eventually the person with the Master version of that skill would be doing some serious damage when they needed to. Shoot someone using that strike on him could one-shot him. He’d needed to know that.

Simple lesson, try to get all skills at Legendary. Yeah, right.

It seemed complicated but Adam could see how it would allow individuals to get the skills they wanted or needed from various sources. It seemed the best way to get skills was to find a skill trainer, or purchase the skill as if it were from a skill trainer from the SYSTEM Shop and then use Skill Points or level the skill by using it.

There was the one thing he didn’t see detailed. If he tried to continue leveling a skill with Skill Points, did it cost 1 Skill Point to increase from Common Level 10 to Scare Level 1 or did it cost 11 Skill Points? Or could the rarity of a skill be increased with XP? Sure he could purchase the upgrade from the SYSTEM or find a Skill Trainer but could he do it himself? Adam guessed there was only one way to find out.

Adam put skills out of his mind and started reviewing “Magic, Spells, and You”. This information package detailed that spells worked the same way as Skills did, almost exactly. “The Importance of Perks and What They Do To, and For, You” on the other hand had a tidbit of information that Adam hadn’t been expecting. Most Perks could be augmented by Skills and Spells. Skills added permanent bonuses while spells offered temporary ones. Finding the skills and spells that supplemented a specific perk was the hard part.

The Last package of information Adam had purchased, “Combat in The SYSTEM,” detailed what he’d already figured out. Combat was broken down into 10-second turns. There were 6 turns in a minute. Details of a combat could be found in the Combat log and bonus to hit or defense equated to about +/-5% per point of the bonus or penalty that was modifying a chance to hit or be hit.

Adam then started going through the comprehensive list of skills he had access to while he smiled and looked at Alera, “I need to see what skills are available for purchase, both styles. For now, just Common Level 1 skills if you please?”

“As you wish, if you would step up to the counter, a holographic display will appear that you’ll be able to search through,” Alerna said.

Adam smiled as he sat down and started going through both skill lists. He had an idea of how to proceed and was pretty sure about what skills and spells he was going to need.