Basically, every piece of gear, monster or Skill fell into one of 7 categories.

Inferior grade for gear meant that it technically could achieve the purpose it had been made for, but the durability and effectiveness were laughable.

For monsters, it signified a very modest amount of stats and a complete lack of both the ability to learn Skills and cognitive thinking. A lot of the animals Robin knew on Earth would be part of this group, from rodents to fish, to small reptiles and mammals.

For skills, it meant that their effects were minor and the cost for using them was very high. Most often than not their cost being a percentage of the maximum amount the user had in a resource - Stamina or Mana - and frequently causing some kind of damage or negative status effect on the caster.

Common grade represented a level that was most common on Earth as well.

Gear of this grade was made to be fairly sturdy and didn't have any glaring flaws. As its name suggests, it was also the most frequently seen quality of goods on the market.

For monsters, it meant they were stronger in some ways than the Inferiors. They usually either had a higher average across all of their stats or had similar stats but were able of either cognitive thinking or learning skills, though they struggled to do either - like goblins. There were also some creatures that were more specialized; pretty weak, either very cunning and unable to learn skills, or relied only on instinct, and were more predisposed to skills. Robin was starting to get an idea of how this worked. But the voice kept explaining.

Common Skills were similar in their effects to the ones one grade lower, but usually had both a mildly more potent effect and a much smaller cost. They were basically cheaper Inferior Skills that rarely ever caused caster backlash.

Uncommon grade was the peak of what could be found on Earth.

The gear was perfectly shaped, balanced and could fulfill its purpose for months of constant use. They were on the level of Stradivarius violins from Earth, and creating one was proof that its creator was a true Craftsman.

Monsters of this grade were much more varied. They could be mildly capable in every field, they could possess strong physiques but lack either intelligence or magical ability, be apt in magic but extremely vulnerable to attacks and so on. Some Uncommon monsters could also be Forsaken counterparts - cursed to be unable of using the System - of higher graded species. "If I'm getting this right, the grading system seems to take every trait that makes something dangerous into account, reduce them down to an average, and based on that average it slaps a grade on them."

Skills of this grade could virtually influence anything. They could boost specific senses, enhance penetrating power or add elemental effects to attacks, enable Craftsmen to multiply a material when turning them into components, tools and weapons, so on and so forth.

Then there were Superior, Exotic, Legendary and Ascendant, and Nydros didn't go into detail with them, only punctuating to Robin that anything higher than Uncommon grade could kill him with minor effort. Anything above Superior could do it without Robin ever knowing what happened.

That earned a shiver out of Robin. "So in Earth equivalents, the power level of the grades are basically housecat, adult human, rhinoceros - for the weakest three. I don't like that jump in power."

After that came the story of how the human kingdom - Drallion - came to be and a brief and general geography lesson.

Written history began about 1000 years ago. It states that the supposed strongest human in history had allied with a Legendary beast - a dragon - and together they began uniting the human tribes and clearing their territories of dangerous creatures. After months of effort succeeded, and the united humans crowned their champion as their king and named their new country after their king's draconic companion. With the human race now united and stable, Drallion left and flew North, never to be seen again.

The story seemed odd in this compressed form, but Robin figured dragons could just do whatever they wanted in this world so creating civilizations may as well have been one of their pastimes.

"Legendary... that's 3 categories above something that can kill me pretty easily. Dragons were pretty strong in Earth lore, but considering the increases in power between grades... Was Drallion as strong as a nuke? An entire developed country's military assets? And there's supposedly a whole category of things stronger than even that?" It was partially horrifying, sure, but that wasn't the only reason Robin's hairs were currently standing perfectly straight.

Drallion Kingdom had no direct neighbors. The Southern and Western borders ended in The Wild Sea, with only the South having easy access to it; in the West the land ended abruptly, far above sea level.

"So similar to the Australian Bunda Cliffs, but double the drop." thought Robin.

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In the East, the human territory is delimited by a huge wall, hundreds of kilometers long, named Hope's End. Very little is known about the other side of the wall aside from there being a permanent, thick fog and intermittent distant screaming. Expeditions had been sent a number of times in order to investigate, but none have returned.

The Northern border was vague, somewhere in the Draconic Mountains.

The name of the landform came from the Wyverns, Drakes, Wyrms and Dragons that populate it, who act as a natural deterrent within the already unfriendly terrain, which causes everyone but the most desperate to find alternate routes to reaching the other side of the mountains.

It was southward of the Draconic Mountains that Robin would be starting off - the Northern Hills.

His story of being brought from another world would probably get him in trouble, so Nydros suggested he told others something along the lines of 'while I was out hunting, my small village - The Greystone Tribe - had been obliterated. Everyone died and I barely found anything salvageable in the debris, and decided to travel South to find a place where I felt safe again. Some of my people told stories of how they would sometimes travel downhill to trade, so that's where I went.'

After that, Nydros announced that they were out of time, granted him a "Boon", and the world blinked out like an old TV screen turning off.

Next time he blinked, Robin found himself wearing the last things he had been wearing on Earth; a shabby white shirt, linty camo leggings, white socks and green crocs. Thankfully, he had been transported to a low enough altitude part of the highlands that he wouldn't have to worry about hypothermia with only what he was wearing. Well, at least not while the sun was still out.

The next 15 minutes passed with him figuring out how to open his status screen. He'd probably gone through every possible combination of 'character' and 'personal' with 'sheet', 'data' 'information' and so on, and then he tried simply saying "Status".

And it belatedly worked.

Status

Name: Robin Greystone

Race: Human (Uncommon)

Age: 20

Resources:

Health: 50/50

Stamina: 20/20

Mana: 40/40

Attributes:

Agility: 2

Endurance: 2

Intelligence: 4

Perception: 3

Resistance: 1

Strength: 2

Vitality: 4

Willpower: 4

Skills:

Identify* (C)

Elemental Affinity* (S)

"Well, its good to know I can do that, but right now it basically tells me fuck-all..." he said, sighed, and closed his screen.

"Shouldn't you have told me how to use this as well? Or was the idea that if I can't figure this out myself, I wouldn't be able to survive anyway?"

He waited for a bit. A bird flew out of a nearby tree, but all else was quiet. He was on his own.

"OK, no use getting depressed now. Focus on the positive - I'm in a world that has actual magic! And I even got spells! Well... 'Skills', whatev-" then he remembered.

"...which I don't even know how to use..." he clenched his fist.

"Fuck. No. Positive!" he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled, and shook his head.

"Okay." he relaxed his hand. "Now, I had no clue how to view my stats either just a while back. I'll just figure more shit out as I go."

He looked at the bush in front of him.

"Identify." he said.

A screen appeared like the one showing his stats did.

"Really glad this is idiot-proof."

Fisher's Dream

Plant

Poisonous

"A man must have made this skill."

"They could've added a bit more details... But then again I probably would just forget most of the other information anyway. Do plants have health bars?"

He would've wanted to check, but touching a new species of plant that he had been told was poisonous was a great way to die like an idiot.

He then tried using his other Skill in a bunch of different ways, but after some 15 minutes of failed attempts he gave up and focused on what he could do.

His objective right now was just to survive. And the first three priorities in every survival guide were always 'a clean water source, food and shelter', so he started searching.

If Nydros was to be believed, the higher he got, the smaller his chances of finding humans, so his trip was as directly downhill as he could manage. Other people were his best shot at understanding more of this world, faster, and with less danger involved.

"Hopefully, less danger involved. I really hope my first human interaction isn't with some magic cannibal tribe."

He kept on scanning everything he could on his trek downhill, with little success in finding anything he needed.

Every bush, flower and tree that he identified was one of three things - 'Poisonous', 'Dangerous' or 'Not Edible'. This kept up for quite a while, a few hours from how much the sun had moved. It was starting to get dark when he finally saw something he liked after using his Skill.

Thu'heah tree

Plant

Edible

"Finally!" he said, hungry, thirsty and tired. The tree seemed pretty young, maybe 3-4 meters tall, and its branches were suspiciously full of fruit. However, Robin thought there was no reason to not trust his Skill, so he just picked some.

"Not a great plan to settle down near a source of water or food in the wilderness. I'd probably just become the dessert of the next thing that comes for its fill."

He fit 2 Thu'heahs in each of his front pockets, and with another in his hand he walked away, deciding to settle down somewhere close.

He the weirdly named fruit while walking. It looked like a pear, but its skin was a dark purple and reminded him of a citrus fruit.

"Looks as weird as it sounds." he thought and bit into it.

"Fucking hell!"

It all made sense now. Its name had been pretty inspired - it sounded exactly like his reaction after biting into it. He reflexively spit it out and gagged.