Jim's PoV
After almost getting bombed from above, Jim started moving a lot more carefully as he began to exit the city. He was getting really close to the point of exiting the game and making a new version.
Why did real life have to translate into dirty and filthy! Definitely need some changes. Maybe he could just add a 2D bathing house into the original gaming files for each city? Maybe he could add some working plumbing too. This is a game dammit! Why did that stuff even have to exist?
Jim tried to think of a way he could make it so that the creatures in this game would not need to perform that function, but most of his game was created from linking databases together and drawing parallels between that and the world of the game. It would be a real headache to try to weed just that part out.
As Jim was tip-toeing through the street he noticed that there was what seemed like red paint plastered all over his armor. At first he thought that maybe the armor had gone through some kind of evolution because he had killed the final boss, but whoever did the paint job really sucked at it. It wasn't symmetrical at all! And that was when his eyes landed on a small chunk that seemed to be jammed into one of the crevices in his armor.
He hesitantly looked it over, and it didn't take him long to reconsider what that red paint might be. What was now in his gauntleted hand was clearly a tooth. After doing the tongue on teeth dance he quickly came to the conclusion that he still had all his teeth.
Then his mind went back to that brief flash of red when he had cut through First Minister Zed before the credits had started rolling. Dropping the tooth with distaste, Jim picked up the pace and quickly left the city.
Jim sighed and started making his way north. It was weird walking around with no sense of smell. The next major area in the game was a set of caves that needed to be navigated through, but on the way there was a decently large river. That should take care of his stink problem.
He was outside walking on the road through a beautiful field with a light breeze. Feeling the wind on his face but not being able to inhale and smell the outdoors was a real downer. Operation 'dunk in the river' was about to commence. Bumping up his sight slider a bit, his binocular mode could make out the bridge that spanned the river. Sheesh, everything was so far away.
It was taking a long time so Jim got bored. While looking around in his menu it took him a while to realize the number of gil he had increased. Interesting, He must have got it from killing Zed. He was still level one though?
Maybe the final boss in the game didn't give any experience? Normally the game would end after beating the final boss and you could only load in from your older saves. Seemed odd to get gil but no experience. Were there any other changes?
Scanning through his inventory it seemed nothing else had changed. Still the proof that his gil count could go over the original max limit was cool. Theoretically then the next time around he should be able to give himself anything without limit. Not that it would be necessary, but it was still fun to know it was possible. It seemed like he had a lot of bug fixing to do, so it would make doing test runs a lot quicker.
Mind wandering, he thought of drowning a city in gold coins. City of gold! He could make a real one! What would the NPCs do? Images of NPCs lining up scooping gold coins into brown sacks and carrying them over their shoulder passed through his mind. It could be just like that real time strategy game with humans vs orcs!
He started fiddling with the menu options some more and almost forgot that he had a spell! The game was very basic when it came to magic, everything was randomized. The main character started with one random spell. If any new character didn't have a spell, they would get a chance to learn their first spell when winning in combat.
If an NPC didn't already have a spell, their first spell was always one of the five starter spells; Lightning, Fire, Ice, Heal or Sense. After that it was all dice rolls after casting a spell to get a new one. But each spell learned would hiddenly unlock a new potential spell.
For example, in order to learn the magic Water, you first needed to learn Ice. If the character learned every spell but Ice, their next spell would never be Water. So if you wanted that character to learn Water, you needed to keep casting as many spells as possible to try to learn Ice first.
There were also abilities in the game. Abilities didn't consume magic points, or MP. Learning an ability was just as random as spells, but it was based completely on winning random battles. Abilities were like Flee, which allowed you to escape a battle, Double Attack, which did two weaker physical attacks in one turn, and Counter Attack, which gave your character a free attack in return for getting hit.
The higher rank the spell or ability, the lower the chance to get it. It made for very different playthroughs each time and kept the game fresh. One game your main character would be the guy with a massive sword and beefy armor, and the next he would be the party's main healer.
The main character could even grow unlucky enough to be useless and be kicked off the team. It just depended on what spells and abilities he learned. Some games the god RNG, the great random number generator, just didn't want to give your main character anything.
With anticipation Jim opened up the correct menu to find that his spell was Sense. What a useless piece of crap. If it had been a normal game this would have been an immediate reset. It was the absolute worst out of all of the first spells which were Lightning, Fire, Ice, Heal or Sense. Out of the five, three could do damage at range, one could heal, and one was utter garbage. After all, who needed sense when you had the officially licensed strategy guide memorized?
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Just to be sure he examined the spell description:
Sense: Level 1 - Cost 2 MP Allows the user to see the Class, Level and Stats of the target. Chance to learn of an enemy's strengths and weaknesses.
Nope. Nothing changed. Same useless spell.
Mentally he tried to console himself that Heal would have lackluster results as well, but then he realized his mana pool was massive. Even if the heal didn't restore a lot of health, he could have cast it over a hundred times in one go easily. Which meant he could have quickly learned a new spell. Damned sense spell. But it could only be cast on each target once.
Which meant if he wanted a new spell he would have to keep casting it over and over on every target he could find. Harnessing the powers of fire and lightning would have to wait. Eventually he would learn a new spell that was actually good. Glumly Jim looked over the Sense spell. Best to start using it so he can learn something new and leave this in the dustbin of history.
Using the Sense spell on himself he found the same information that he could have gotten in his nice blue boxes on his party menu.
Warrior Level 1 HP: 25,250 / 25,250 MP: 2,518 / 2,518 Strength: 1010 Agility: 1008 Stamina: 1010 Magic: 1007
Seeing the massively overpowered numbers listed, he tried to imagine why the hell he would ever need to use this piece of garbage spell. Unfortunately if he wanted better magical powers he would have to use it. He couldn't exactly fire himself if he got better party members.
As Jim was glaring at the readout he could hear something clank against his armored thigh. Jim excitedly looked around and found two wolves attacking him! Finally a chance to try out combat! He really wanted another spell besides sense so he took his time to cast it on the two wolves.
Starving Wolf Male Level 2 HP: 122 / 300 MP: 0 / 0 Strength: 6
Agility: 10
Stamina: 12 Magic: 0
Starving Wolf Female Level 1 HP: 102 / 250 MP: 0 / 0 Strength: 5 Agility: 9 Stamina: 10 Magic: 0
Their stats were basically nothing compared to what he had. He even noticed that their health wasn't even at max, for some reason they were both at like half life already. Their pathetic stats were further emphasized by their emaciated bodies.
He could clearly see the outline of their rib cages, as well as patches of fur that were missing. The pair looked worse than any stray dog he had ever seen. Ugly creatures. With the chore of casting Sense completed, he eagerly lifted his massive sword and brought it down heavily on one of the wolves.
Jim lost his focus for a bit because the wolf exploded in a red mist. Lifting his visor so that he could wipe his eyes, he could see that the other was trying to run away. What was it with this world and things running away? He started running and easily caught up to the creature in seconds. With all that agility he was really damn quick. Soon he was bringing his overly large sword down a second time.
The weapon was already in motion when he realized the wolf was on its back with his belly up and whining. In the last fraction of a second he saw that the wolf was actually urinating on itself when the sword met the creature.
A familiar red mist enveloped him again. As the events caught up with him, in his mind he was confused. Why was a game creature rolling over in fear and submission like that? Why was there so much blood and gore?
Lost in his confusion, he started to hear a low pitched whining not too far away. Around the first red spot in the grass he saw two small figures. He hesitantly used sense and read the dialog box next to them.
Starving Wolf Cub Male Level 1 HP: 22 / 75 MP: 0 / 0 Strength: 2 Agility: 1 Stamina: 3 Magic: 0
Starving Wolf Cub Female Level 1 HP: 8 / 50 MP: 0 / 0 Strength: 1 Agility: 2
Stamina: 2 Magic: 0
The sight of the cute computerized cubs mourning their lost parents made the taste of bile fill the back of his throat. As he was gazing at them a prompt appeared exclaiming "Congratulations, you have learned a new spell!"
He felt sick. Jim didn't want to play this game anymore.