"Ack! Damn this shitty weather." Aaron cursed while pulling his foot from the mud, somehow he's regretting taking the shortcut home today.
*Rumble*
As if the pouring rain wasn't enough, blinding lightning shortly followed by deafening thunder startled the sixteen years old.
He tried his best to quicken his steps but the wind stubbornly refused to give way.
Once he saw his house, this young man was certain than he never felt such excitement ever before.
Now all he has to do is cross the bridge.
'Oh no!' Aaron thought to himself before muttering : "Will this old thing hold?"
*Rumble*
The sound of another wave of thunder seemed like the grim reaper breathing on his neck and the young man tightened his grip on the straps of his backpack then fearlessly ran towards the other side, oddly enough his eyes were closed most of the short journey.
*Beeb*
"What the Fuc..." The sharp horn startled Aaron who opened his eyes and found himself in the middle of the road facing the headlights of some sort of vehicle which slammed into his chest a split second later.
Besides the crushing pain from his midsection, all he could think of while spinning in the air was : 'Damn it truck-kun, it threw me over the bridge anyway.' Aaron found his previous fear both shameful and laughable in the same time.
Soon darkness took over his vision and thoughts once his body took a comical plunge into the cold water.
*****
*Thud*
Aaron felt like a sledgehammer with the weight of a few tons just slammed into the crown of his head without a warning!
Afterwards the rest of his body splashed some water before submerging into it, instinctively he flailed his arms in a desperate attempt to hang into anything.
'It's over if I lose consciousness, I don't want to die, I don't ever want to die!' Somehow his thoughts became clear and the headache abated, 'Wait a minute... that's not my hand!'
Aaron quickly put that confusing fact to the side, at least until his head reaches the surface of this dark and heavy body of water.
A dozen seconds or so later which felt like a year's worth of intense workout for the poor fellow, he opened his mouth to inhale air.
"Yuck. It smells like ass in here! Where the fuck is this place?" Soon it downed on him when he noticed the depth of the green color around him, "Blurgh... Get me out of here, get me out of here right now! I'm better off being dead than spend another second in this shithole."
His stomach was emptied in a split second and nausea perfectly fused with the migraine, Aaron lost all control of his body and it seemed like he exhausted whatever strength he had just to reach the surface.
Unfortunately for him after reaching the surface his head happened to rest on a small piece of rotten wood, now all he can do is inhale the revolting and obnoxious odors while hoping for a swift death... especially when the throbbing pain on the crown of his head is escalating at a promising rate.
"Is this some kind of abandoned well?" Aaron was gradually able to see his surroundings better once the moonlight infiltrated the thick curtain-like clouds.
The walls of this thirty meters deep hole are made from dark-blue cobblestone, on the most part they're covered with a thick layer of mold.
System : Initiating synchronizing sequence.
"Huh!" Aaron blinked once he heard this robotic and feminine voice ring clearly within his head.
Some sort of hologram window appeared in front of his eyes, on it was the current percentage of said synchronization.
He couldn't make heads or tails of what's going on but he couldn't move anyway so he waited.
System : Current synchronization is 3%
Seconds trickled by and the numbers increased while Aaron helplessly watched the hologram image.
System : Current synchronization is 99%
Finally after about ten minutes or so, the synchronization process was almost over.
This scenario is something that Aaron has read about it and watched many times growing up, matter of fact he always felt annoyed whenever his eyes spotted any of these "masterpieces".
Yet he still couldn't believe that he's really suffering from being placed into such a cringe-worthy piece of literature made by some fat fuck who's eating, sleeping, drinking, and doing whatever he likes like some kind of happy pig! Meanwhile here he's smelling the worst smell of farts, covered in the all kinds of dirty filth, and hanging by a thread from death yet unable to attain this twisted satisfaction.
System : Synchronization complete.
'Hooray me- Ouch! For fuck sake stop torturing me, just kill me already you psycho!' Aaron's cynical thoughts were interrupted by a sudden surge of pain that left him delirious and raving.
System : New host acquired.
'Dear lord... get off of me you parasite! You're not welcome in my body, piss off... scram.'
System : Unlocking basic functions.
'Great! Just great, I guess I'm a zombie from now on.'
System : Host's simulated avatar complete.
Aaron saw the hologram window change into the image of a kid who's five or six years old, he immediately felt despair afterwards.
Clearly there's no way for his small, weak, injured, and clearly malnourished body to be able to climb the distance of more than thirty meters especially when the stones on these walls are both slippery and obviously worn-out by the elements.
Above his avatar was two bright choices and another two dim choices, clearly the pair of bright options were available for him to access and so he did.
Aaron's first choice was Equipment, thankfully he could access that option just by thinking otherwise it would've been hilarious because he still can't move his body.
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'Heh. I really do pity that kid yet envy him all the same, at least he doesn't get to live through this embarrassment like I do.' The avatar in front of him is showing that it's possible for him to wear 21 different items and simultaneously benefit from another item which he gets to keep in his pocket, yet he's currently wearing a torn piece of linen to cover his chest and half his legs plus a piece of dirty fabric which covers his groin area.
The total increase which he stands to benefit from these two items is [Physical-Defense+1]
Aaron sighed and choose to close the Equipment window before choosing to open the other one, the Statistics window.
Thankfully this one had some interesting areas for the helpless fellow to check.
Name Aaron Pratt Race [Half-Blood] Age 4-Y/11-m/27-d Class None Title None Profession None
'Hot damn. This kid is actually a lot younger than I thought he would! Still, this half-blood thing was unexpected.' After failing to guess what type of "Race!" this kid belongs to, Aaron's eye fell on the next window.
Strength 1 Agility 1 Vitality 1 Intelligence 4 Wisdom 3
'That doesn't look good. No sir, not at all.' He thought before looking at the next window, worry began to creep into his thoughts.
Honestly Aaron found it nonsensical in the beginning yet a foreign sense of excitement tickled his senses once this gaming interface was introduced by that system, he doesn't want it to end before it even started.
Ability Points : 6
He sighed inwardly once he discovered that he's able to allocate these points however he likes between these five options, immediately he added one point each between strength, agility, and vitality.
Aaron immediately felt his critical condition instantly improve by a lot, the improvement decreased after about ten seconds. Thankfully both the dizziness and migraine left him, now he could move his body with some difficulty.
Once he checked the next window, Aaron hissed and a layer of sweat covered his forehead.
Health Points 14/126 Mana Points 142/142 Physical Condition Cracked skull, 12 broken ribs, Twisted ankle, Dislocated right-shoulder, Bruised and damaged arms and leg muscles, Severely malnourished, Severely weakened, Extremely exhausted, Poisoned. Mental Condition Angry, Confused, On the brink of despair
"Fuck! I'm doomed, I'm doomed, I'm doomed." Aaron spoke for the first time and felt his hot tears once his vision became fuzzy and blurred.
A while later his tears ran dry and the boy was staring at the sky in the deathly silence of this filthy hole.
His eyes fell on the next window and he rolled his eyes while thinking : 'Give me something useful or give me nothing at all.'
Physical Attack 10 Physical Defense [Average]+0.4% Stamina [Average]+0.2% HP Regeneration-Speed [Average]+0.6 Stamina Regeneration-Speed [Average]+0.1%
'What the fuck is average supposed to mean? I'm super awesome and always reign supreme!' Aaron felt like he's being insulted.
Magical Attack 20 Magical Defense [Average]+0.6% Concentration [Average]+0.3% MP Regeneration-Speed [Average]+0.9% Concentration Regeneration-Speed [Average]+0.1.5%
'Hmmm... there's a pattern!'
Movement Speed [Average]+1% Attack Speed [Average]+0.6% Reaction Speed [Average]+0.4% Luck [Average]+0.2%
"If I were to guess, then the five main stats of this system is separated into three parts." Aaron muttered to himself, "One attribute is special, which is Agility. Because it kind of connect the other four attributes in some way... I guess!" The more he spoke the more certain he felt.
"Clearly There's a connection between that "Luck" and the number of points I have on Agility, which means... that percentage increase is probably related to it too!" Aaron immediately began to calculate the amount of increase he's getting from the different attributes, "If I'm not mistaken then each point of Strength gives me 5 points on Physical-Attack, I'm not sure if there's more to it though... but I'm certain that I'm going to get all figured out later anyway. Too bad I don't have that many points to experiment with right now.
"A point of Vitality gives me an increase of 0.3% to HP Regeneration-Speed, 0.2% to Physical-Defense, 0.1% to Stamina, and 0.05% to Stamina's Regeneration-speed. What confuses me is the exact amount of Health-Points I stand to gain from adding to that attribute! If the "Average" amount of Health-Points is 100, then if a point of Vitality gives me 10 HP. I seem to have 6 HP that I can't point their source.
"How silly of me to miss it!" Aaron suddenly looked back to the window were the attributes of his Health-Points and Physical-Condition is displayed before looking at the other window where his Strength and Vitality share a window then nodded to himself after figuring out the source of these 6 points on his health, "That explains it. Currently I have only 14 HP, if before I allocated a point on the three attributes I had only 1 HP left, then the added point of Strength gave me 3 HP while the point of Vitality gave me 10 HP."
He felt slightly tempted to add the remaining three Ability-Points to Vitality since his Physical-Condition is more than worrisome.
Afterwards Aaron shook his head and decided to only do so if his HP fell beyond 5 points.
"A point of Intelligence gives me 5 points on Magical-Attack, and 3 MP.
"A point of Wisdom gives me an increase of 0.3% to MP Regeneration-Speed, 0.2% to Magical-Defense, 0.1% to Concentration, and 0.05% to Concentration's Regeneration-speed.
"A point of Agility gives me an increase of 0.5% to Movement-Speed, 0.3% to Attack-Speed, and 0.2% to Reaction-Speed plus 0.1% to Luck." Aaron felt a sense of achievement in figuring this system out.
System : Quest Available.