Power. The hypnotizing word echoed, silently at first but it grew louder untill it caused thunder within its head. Power. Power. You must attain power at any costs.

Reader, might we take a second to notice that this doesn't happen very often. Sure, there's been stories of newborns seeing images or feeling something they shouldn't have felt, but to hear a voice was exceptionally strange. Which might have been the first sign that its life was going to be special. Ahem, let us continue.

Something made the scarecrow wake up. There was a tingling sensation in the spot between its eyes, two black buttons, one a bit larger than the other. It was as if the finishing cog wheel was put into a watch.

It wasn't dizzy or tired, nor energetic or happy. It was stilll, it's body, which it felt very comfortable within, was still as if it was just an ordinary scarecrow. There was no sign it had woken up.

Looking around, it noticed many things. There were small, black, moving creatures on its arms and slightly in front of it. The ones on its arms, stood still staring at the ones on the ground that jumped forward, and pecked the ground.

In the distance there was some sort of structure. It had a roof made out of tatch, and its walls made out of wood with some holes in them.

All around it there was plowed dirt with many different green plants growing out of it in a pattern.

The scarecrow didn’t care about any of this however. There was nothing it cared about, except power. The ability to stand taller, be stronger, fiercer than other creatures.

It had awoken with this desire within it, its heart beating only to fulfill this desire.

It was ordinary. It had four limbs. Two legs, and two arms, and a head, and a chest, just like a regular human. Originally it had only been made out of straw, but after it woke up, the straw lived, and organs developed within its body.

It could die now. If it’s heart was pierced it would die. That was of course the only way it would die. A loss of its head would render it deaf, blind, tasteless, and many more things. A loss of its arms would render it without a working limb.

It couldn’t bleed. It didn’t need air. It didn’t need to eat. It didn't need to drink. There was however a giant weakness here and that is its weakness to the sun. There was nights where the only moments when it could move.

It stood there in the sun, trying to move, trying to flinch, but being completely unable to. It couldn’t even scare the crows around it away. Not that it wanted too, it couldn’t care less about the crows.

The whole day was too much time to waste. It needed to get stronger, and find a path to get stronger, but without much knowledge on the world or the planet, it couldn’t do that at all, and that was what really bothered it.

A window popped up.

Welcome to the world of Agari.

Would you like a short tutorial?

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Yes

No

A tutorial, interesting. It chose yes with its mind, because the tutorial might present some way to gain more power.

It received a quick tutorial on how the system operated. That was more than enough for it to realize how to train itself during the day. If it repeated a special type of skill enough times then it would gain a power in that ability which could be used later as a way of gaining power.

In its mind it began doing something arduous, in a hope to train the mind. It did math. 1+1=2, 2+2 = 4, 4+4 = 8. This continued until it reached 256 on which a notification popped up which made the scarecrows' hearts jolt. It was a window that showed that its strength was increasing.

The skill, Mathematics, has been learnt.

Mathematics

An affinity towards numbers and logic.

Math lvl 1/100

It began all over again, starting at one. When it reached 2048, the task no longer seemed trivial and easy to do. Its head felt slower, and the numbers much heavier than before. It felt no pain, as it could not feel pain, but mental fatigue.

It carried on.

The skill, Mathematics, has levelled up.

Math lvl 2/100

It restarted, and it noticed, if just slightly, that the whole act became smoother. The numbers almost floated into its mind naturally. That was, until it reached 2048, where the task once again became not trivial.

The mental fatigue didn’t feel like its mind on fire, but more akin to its mind being dragged against rough stone, over and over, becoming flatter on each pull. That statement was completely metaphorical as it didn't have a brain, its mind was completely spiritual. Perhaps, reader, you might gain better understanding from this.

Before it could level up once again, it passed out. And then, it woke up again, and the scarecrow didn’t know that it had passed out except for the fact that the sun had moved a bit lower in the sky. About 30 minutes had passed.

It began once again. 1+1. 2+2…

This activity was disrupted as a figure, one of the same shape of the scarecrow, but with slightly pink skin, and two large eyes with brown pupils came running around. It was a child, roughly the age of eight, and in its hands it held a wooden sword.

The child lifted the wooden sword up into the air, right in front of the scarecrow, and swung it down with all its might, very little, on the scarecrow's shoulder. The scarecrow didn’t feel pain, but instead a subtle sensation that its shoulder had been touched.

“Take that foul beast!” The kid said, jumping back a few times. “Prepare for my ultimate move! Swordinus Attackus!”

The kid charged forward this time with the sword aimed straight ahead, like a spear, and it went straight through the scarecrow's chest, a few centimeters below the scarecrow's heart.

That made the scarecrow reassess the child as a threat. This was a problem that had to be dealt with. If it died now, then it wouldn’t be able to get strong.

When night came, the scarecrow planned to kill the child.

With this plan put into place, the scarecrow returned to counting. The kid continued slashing and striking into the scarecrow, potentially killing it with every strike. This would of course have put any other monster through an unhealthy amount of stress and worry, but because the scarecrow couldn’t do anything, it didn’t worry.

Afterall, worrying didn’t do anything.