The next day, after lunch, Thomas went out to buy a nice water bottle, deciding that yes, he did want to be a regular at the gym. He was honestly kinda sick of being out of shape. Plus, more tasks, right? Maybe at least. Though he still wasn't sure what the ‘reward’ he'd gotten actually did. It was as if it was just sitting there, waiting. Thomas couldn't figure it out though, so he just ignored it. Maybe once he'd completed a few more tasks and gathered some more of it, it'd reach some sort of critical mass and something would happen? One could only hope.
Since it was the weekend, Thomas didn't really have much to do, so he decided to head to the gym to try running again. Equipped with his new water bottle, he found a treadmill and began his long, stationary trek. Much like yesterday, the notification tracked his progress, and just like yesterday, Thomas was in shambles before he'd even gotten ten percent of the way there. *I wish I was in better shape.* Thomas grumbled internally as he ran, when he felt the substance inside him disappear, and suddenly, the exercise wasn't so bad. It was as if from one second to the next, he'd gone from the laziest of couch potatoes, to… well, an average person on a jog. He even felt comfortable increasing his speed a bit.
Thomas was astounded by the progress, but then he noticed something… odd. The task's progress had stopped increasing, and as he watched it, it even went down! *What the- Why?!?* Thomas wondered incredulously. He was running, wasn't he!?! The only difference was- Thomas froze, his eyes widening. The only difference was that it was easier… Did- did the task need him to struggle? He frowned, increasing the speed of the treadmill until he started to struggle again, and… The progress slowly began to tick up again, only giving him his reward once he was back in the same utterly wrecked state he'd been in yesterday. If anything, he felt worse than he had yesterday. Thomas grimaced as he dragged himself to the locker room and got cleaned up before heading back to his dorm room. As soon as he got back, he got out a notebook and started writing down what he knew so far.
First - Tasks appear in the upper right corner of vision. Once completed, a reward is given. Related questions: What creates a task? What determines the amount of reward? Are there different amounts of reward? Why do the tasks require you to push yourself so hard?
Second - The reward can be consumed to enhance fitness. Can it enhance more than fitness? How much does the reward enhance something? How is the reward quantified?
Thomas pondered these questions seriously, tapping the end of his pencil on the notebook. "If I'm getting video game style tasks, why don't I have a status page, with my strength, or fitness, or something, along with the amount of whatever that stuff is?" Thomas wondered. Suddenly, a screen appeared in his vision, which had four entries: Strength, Fitness, Something, and Whatever That Stuff Is. Each entry had a value of one. "I think I sense sarcasm…" Thomas muttered as he stared at the nonsensical screen with a frown. "What am I supposed to do with this? It doesn't mean anything! None of this is defined! Fuck, this is like…" Suddenly Thomas's face fell and he buried his face in his arms. "Like a fucking computer." He finished with a groan.
He then sat up with a sigh. "Okay then, if it's like a computer, then we just need to define things. Let's start with fitness." He muttered as he turned back to the notebook. "Alright, how do we define fitness… Strength, stamina, and agility? Strength would be the amount of force you can exert, stamina is how long you can keep using that force, and agility is how much control you have over that force… Yeah that makes sense." Thomas nodded to himself as he scribbled in his notebook.
"Now for intelligence… Well, there's memory, problem solving, comprehension, creativity, willpower… Hell, agility might be a part of intelligence too. Anyway, memory controls how well you can retain information, obviously. Problem solving would be… logic, right? The ability to form the most appropriate conclusion using a collection of facts. Comprehension would be the ability to understand information and how it relates to other things. Creativity is… induction? Using disparate facts to come to a unique conclusion? Kinda just seems like problem solving… let's forget that for now. Willpower would be the ability to control yourself and resist outside influence. Of course, that could just be stubbornness too… Actually, let's forget anything that might alter personality. That seems… dangerous. Just focus on pure function, so… Memory, problem solving, and comprehension?” Thomas continued.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
"Then… it's just like senses, right? The ability to take in information from your surroundings and make sense of it. Lets see… perception will be the ability to take in information from your surroundings, while observation would be the ability to com- wait, why would I separate these? Just make it all one big awareness stat." Thomas finished, shaking his head.
The status screen now had eight entries: Strength, Stamina, Agility, Memory, Problem Solving, Comprehension, Awareness, and Whatever That Stuff Is. However, all the values were still one. Thomas looked over the screen, somewhat satisfied. "Alright then, let's define these values then… okay, let's set my current strength as ten, then, the amount of… okay, let's call it points. The amount of points needed to raise my current strength by ten percent is equal to one point, then the value of each stat is equal to the amount of points needed to double their current effect." The changes took effect and the status page currently looked like this.
Strength: 10
Stamina: 11.28
Agility: 7.83
Memory: 11.1
Problem Solving: 12.45
Comprehension: 14.62
Awareness: 17.03
Points: 4.44
"Oh, god, decimal points." Thomas groaned in geek born frustration. "Okay, round everything to the nearest whole number. Except for points… just keep points like that." He ordered and the status page quickly rearranged itself.
Strength: 10
Stamina: 11
Agility: 8
Memory: 11
Problem Solving: 12
Comprehension: 15
Awareness: 17
Points: 4.44
Thomas breathed a sigh of relief. "Much better. Now, why is my Awareness so high?" He pretty much understood all the other values, but… he was oblivious as hell. It wasn't even funny. "Wait. Right, it's doing both sensitivity and processing, that explains it. Plus there are a lot of senses…" Thomas paused, thinking about it for a moment. "In all honesty, the stat value is probably less of an evaluation of ability, and more of an evaluation of the complexity of the different stats."
Thomas then went back to the notebook, looking over his questions. "The reward is pretty much figured out, so the main question now is where do these tasks actually come from? Based on the two tasks I've received so far, it should be related to self improvement, but… who would care enough about me to give me something like this? And if that's really the case, shouldn't there be tasks related to push-ups, or studying, or something? Running is like the bare minimum I can do to improve myself." Thomas pondered all this with a frown. "Also, if this came from someone else, why was none of this set up? No points, no stats, no nothing besides the task window. It's like someone just threw it at me and said figure it out your-"
Thomas paused, as an idea occurred to him. The task to run was created when he decided he should do so to improve his health, wasn't it? And his experience with the status page made it clear that whatever was happening responded to his will, even if that will was an idle comment made out of frustration… Did he just need to decide he wanted another task? Thomas stared at the task window thoughtfully. "I should do push-ups.” He suddenly declared. And then…
[Push-ups: 0%]