Kaori was sure of it now. What was needed was a system interface that the inhabitants below could access. It was the big thing that separated every good videogame from reality as it stood. Knowledge! The ready access to what progress you had made was what made the biggest defining difference.
For a lot of the mundane things in life, there really isn’t a way to say how much progress has been made in learning that thing or perfecting it. How would you rate the abilities of a salesman? Oh sure, depending on how they did on a given sale, the person they were talking to could give them a rating, usually on a scale of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10. A lot of things on earth would get critiqued like that but it wasn’t a good system of measuring their progress, only their current ability.
Kaori considered the problem once again from a standard of total progress made in a given subject. She wondered how to figure out the progress in a given subject when an idea hit her. Instead of a capped progress indicator, she could make an open-ended version.
It would get exponentially harder to mark progress the higher somebody’s progress got but then again, it was meant to be harder for somebody to progress at higher levels. The question remained, how to begin the process of determining levels in things.
The obvious answer, she realized, was that everybody starts at level 0 in every skill. The question wasn’t really a starting point but a leading point. How to gauge the progress as it increases? What constitutes advancement and how to measure it?
Kaori began looking for a way to set a baseline. Where could she find an example that she could set as the standard in all things that would be measured in the world or in any world? She glanced over at the old archmage and wondered if he had an answer.
It was a moment later, when her eyes left the bookshelf full of manga, that she looked back at Foglat and at the book he was reading. All at once, she had an idea. She summoned her deific catalog and strummed through the pages of the powers section that it had dutifully opened to.
Sure enough, there were a set of powers for swordsmanship in any given weapon of certain makes. She checked through them and found that the section detailed a large number of the ones she wanted to find but not all.
Kaori glanced around before leaving her book floating in midair and then clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, I have a good enough direction for where the project needs to go. Get to stopping points in whatever you’re doing in the next thirty minutes and I will save a copy of that game, anime, or book into your quarters for the next time you take a break. We have work to do.”
A little over half an hour later she was busily outlining her plan to the deities in charge of the magic group. For the project, she had brought in the heads of the monster group, the dungeon group, and all the various head gods of each race. It was a rather large group.
Kaori had started off by merging in a new sub-dimension for the work on this project to commence in. There, she 'd created a number of dojos, ranges, and other various training grounds. She considered the setup and added a bunch of random types of buildings to the formerly open area. There were libraries, forges, crafting shops, and most other types of early jobs she could think of. Kaori knew she had only put in a fraction of the places the dimension would need, so the other gods would have to build on the dimension as they went.
“I need for everyone to quickly look at these skills.” Saying that, Kaori summoned a sword and began a training kata against a mannequin made for the purpose. She didn’t try to interject any of her own ideas into the routine and just let the purchased swordsmanship power run itself.
A lot of the deities present looked a little confused because it almost seemed from the fluid grace and skill that Kaori displayed, that she was showing off. They had an image of their boss goddess and a showoff wasn’t part of it. Others were just impressed while a few with skills in swordsmanship gave her performance a critical eye of approval.
When Kaori finished the routine, she turned to focus on the crowd again. “This wasn’t my ability. I come from a world where the ability to use a sword is mostly a form of art or sport. The use of swords in actual battle is something relegated to the past. This power that I used was one purchased from my book of deific authority. I need to know, does anyone feel like there is something better than this ability in swordsmanship?”
As Kaori looked about, She could see many looks of incomprehension so she continued. “What I mean is, does anyone here think that they or someone that they knew could beat me while I’m using this power? Within reason, that is. I am looking for somebody that could beat this power using the same type of sword but it wouldn’t necessarily have to be the same style of swordsmanship.”
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“I need to know what the pinnacle of swordsmanship is using this type of sword or rather, the lot of you do. My plan is to use this power from the catalog as something of a baseline to gauge this type of swordsmanship and figure out how much better it could get. If we have a good read on the general level of aptitude that this power imparts, then we can measure a person’s swordsmanship ability and quantify it. Doing that as a first step, we can make a system that will let any swordsman using this type of sword know their general level in this sword skill.”
“By applying the same method to every martial, magical, academic, physical, job, and spiritual Skill, we can create a system that will allow all the inhabitants of this and every other world to gauge their progress. We will make it an interface-based system that will let them see what abilities they have and where they could go from there at any given level in any given skill or ability.”
“By having the abilities quantified, we should be able to impart them to anyone as well. We will have to find out from one of the deities who created the powers for weapons or magic how they created them. If one of them will tell us, then we are all set. We will then begin to find baselines for every type of weapon that isn’t in the catalog. After that, it’s on to the other types of skills and abilities.”
“It’s going to be a whole lot of work, maybe centuries worth. However, each of you will be the ones to list the skill you work on. I will simply be the backer and get a fraction of the proceeds from the sale of those skills… I mean powers, yeah. When we get every kind of ability, style, magic system, profession, and everything else that everybody already knows, we will keep going with branching styles and more bizarre weapons and esoteric magic systems. I don’t see any reason to quit making these powers. Just so long as we can find one deity to show us how.”
Kaori was prepared to keep outlining her plan for a bit longer. She was going to explain what they might try if they couldn’t find a deity to show them how to turn skills into a power listing for the catalog. Suddenly, she was interrupted by a long bout of tongue-clicking and turned to look at Lethris, who was making the noise. She bowed her head and proceeded. “Kaori-sama, I actually already know how to do that. If it’s not overstepping my bounds as a lesser goddess, I would be happy to show you.”
Kaori couldn’t help the expression on her face and Lethris actually flinched back. “Kaori-sama, I apologize profusely! I swear I didn’t mean to overstep. I should have waited till you were done and none were present to…
Kaori cut her off quickly with a look of apology on her face. “No no no, That is quite fine. I was looking for someone and it seems I have found them! I was mostly curious why you were clicking your tongue at me?”
Lethris’ ears and face turned a deep shade of scarlet as she looked down and whispered. “I… well. In my homeland, that’s the way you are supposed to politely get someone’s attention while they’re talking. I hope I didn’t offend you.”
Suddenly, Kaori was the one blushing. She had been so focused on the job that she forgot that the people around her were of different races and from different cultures. If anyone could have heard over the laughter, they would have heard Kaori mumble. “Maybe the suits were a bad idea after all.”
The next three months were spent with most of the same team coming and going from the side dimension and working on the universe’s first Leveling System. Shortly after the start of the third month, Kaori got a panicked notification from her alter ego.
Down on the planet below
She had almost no will to go on. Things had proceeded from bad to worse. The hairy treecuttters were just the first people that she ran into. There were three more kinds of creatures that seemed to speak. However, she had learned her lesson the first time. Trust your instincts and don’t approach too close to anything!
The problem was, she had meant to settle in and build a cache of nuts for the winter. However, as soon as she would spend a few days too long in one place, the nightmares began again. Once that happened, she was assured to not get any sleep.
She had resolved at one point to just wait it out but the events of the nightmare came very close to fruition. There was something stalking her and it had almost caught her.
In her dream, she saw the thing trying to get at her from its eyes. It had walked up to her tree and sniffed about before using some kind of stick to jab at the branch above it. The stick had a sharp end and scored the branch but the thing couldn’t get what it wanted to fall from the tree. Eventually, it turned and walked away. Suddenly, it turned and lept up onto the branch and bared its teeth and claws at the terrified orange and white furry girl on the branch before the perspective shifted and she was looking down the throat of the monster with rows of teeth in its mouth!
When she awoke the next morning, gasping for breath, there was a slash on the branch below where she was sleeping and she saw that her tail had draped over the edge. She was so terrified that she ran till she collapsed from exhaustion. When she finally caught her breath, she got up and ran some more. Only when her muscles screamed at her to stop and she wasn’t sure if she would even have the strength to climb anymore, did she stop running.
The nightmares were oddly all different. Sometimes, it would be something right on her heels and practically breathing down her neck. Other times, the thing was in the skies above and death would come raining down on her from on high. There were even nightmares about some group of things she had heard in the distance cornering her and eating the tree out from under her, and then her too!
She had been running for so many days without stopping any longer than it took to find food and tend to necessities. The days had grown shorter and colder too. One day, there was this white stuff everywhere when she awoke and she was in such a panic that she slipped and fell. Her only thought as she fell was oddly. “Wow, the tree is pretty like that.” Then, blackness took her.