[Open Rebellion (Grade A) - When you commit crimes with no attempt to hide your identity this ability gives 0.07 free stat points.]

What kind of explanation is that? “No attempt to hide your identity”, what if I wore a hoodie would that count as hiding my identity or was it about intent? What if I committed the crime while it was dark out or while I was online? I’m sceptical that the system will be able to differentiate intent considering all of my crimes were graded by the highest punishment allowed by the action and not what would likely be the judgment if it went to court.

Harold abandoned me, his family having returned soon after my musing began. I did see him pause at the stake now on his side of the fence. Chomping down on the stake he ripped it from the ground and ran to bark at the back door, leaving a small hole in the turf as the only evidence of my crime. I guess I didn’t wear him out as much as I thought.

Seeing no more reason to suffer from the autumn chill that was no longer being mitigated by the sun as it had already begun its descent and now rested behind the houses I decided to meander back into the house. The warmth of the heating would hopefully help my synapses fire faster because the more I discovered about the system the more questions I had. It was time to come up with a research system.

Settling into my desk I tapped play on some calm beats to help me focus on my brainstorming session. Pulling up a spreadsheet, one I designed specifically for the creative vomit that was my thoughts, my fingers began to skitter across the keyboard.

I had a couple of hypotheses about how the System operated, of course, they couldn’t be considered theories yet. That would involve a heavy amount of experimentation. But with my limited pool of samples I had a couple that I was going to begin to operate under the belief of. Or at least orchestrate experiments for.

1. Its responses were confined by preprogrammed expectations and rules.

2. Because of these limitations rules and Quests are generic and not usually detailed.

3. Loopholes were numerous, exploitable, and in some cases rewarded generously.

4. Grades were applied to crimes and abilities, they hadn’t been applied to the difficulty of quests or to the host.

5. Although crime completion could be divided into grades that did not seem to be the case for my ability any crime would net me a 0.07 increase to my stats. Meaning for every 15 crimes I committed I would get a stat point (plus an excess of 0.05) to distribute as I saw fit.

And these five assumptions pointed to one logical course of action to net the most reward with minimal risk. I had chosen to accept my first alignment because one it fit my ideology and two it seemed. Looking at the web of different tests I could run with various controls and changing variables I felt pure joy, this is what I lived for: the thrill of discovery.

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The hours passed in a blur the only indication being that my vision was beginning to blur as well. Breaks are a necessary part of being human, but thinking about how much time would be wasted if I stepped back from my computer to take said break was unpleasant.

Sighing I decided to make the most of my break and eat my dinner, my stomach rumbled making its agreement known. For some reason, I was craving tomato soup maybe with that day-old bread I had picked up from Francis’ Bakery. Digging through my cupboards didn’t sound appealing, but it was my best shot if I wanted to satisfy my craving, unless by some miracle it was stocked near the front.

I tried to keep my fridge and cupboards fully stocked even though I was just one person alone I felt safer knowing it was there and I always made sure most of the items were either nonperishables or had a long shelf life. I only had to dig through one shelf in my canned goods cupboard before I found some. My prize won I placed it on the stove to heat up while I sliced the bread.

There were a lot of things I needed to test to make sure I was exploiting the System to the fullest extent. But I was human there were only so many tests I could run, I needed breaks like this one.

Pulling the soup off the heat I decided to move it to a bowl instead of consuming it straight from the pot, mostly because it would cool enough for me to eat it quicker rather than any discomfort from the social taboo of eating it without properly plating it.

Sitting at the table with my bread, soup, and cup of tea from my constantly running kettle I got ready to dig in. As much as I loathed my separation from experiment planning the food was good and I enjoyed my break.

Break finished I was ready to tackle the task at hand with a refreshed mind. As I observed my spreadsheet of notes I noticed some tweaks that I could make to improve the code shortcuts so that my chaotic thoughts could be converted into organized chaos smoother.

I had the theoretic know-how to do it, but the specifics escaped me. It had been a while since I was interested in the intricacies of how computers operate. I really needed to brush up on it especially now that I had my alignment. Online crimes would widen my range not to mention the quantity.

Hit me with an apple and call me Fig Newton, because at this point I deserved it for my stupidity. The answer to wasting time was right in front of me. It would take some work and more than just brushing up, but I think I could create programs to commit crimes for me possibly multiple at a time. It would also be a great way to test what counted as a crime committed by me and whether using a computer would be considered hiding my identity.

Speaking of hiding my identity I wonder if I went by an alias or building a virtual machine to commit the crimes on would count as hiding. It’s a possibility that the System only considers the physical covering of my appearance as an act of hiding my identity.

I suppose there is only one way to find out. It was going to be a long night or long day considering the numbers in the corner of my screen indicated early morning.