CHAPTER 2: Tutorial
“Yup, it's still there,” I said, an exasperated sigh followed after.
STATUS
NAME : Jonathan Frederick Monroe
TITLE : The Gamer
AGE : 18
VOCATION : (+)
LEVEL : 6
HP : 95 (5,4/h)
MP : 110 (30/h)
STR : 18
AGL : 15
END : 19
MGP : 22
MNT : 10
CHR : 15
LBD : 15
PERK
-Gamer’s Body
-Gamer’s Spirit
It was an honest-to-goodness video game window, like, in video games! RPG! It had a slightly transparent blue background, which I realized would be inconvenient if it randomly just showed up when I'm in the middle of something. I had mixed feelings just early this morning when it showed itself to me, right as my 18th birthday came, but if you were in my position, I guaranteed you would have at least freaked out too. I mean, what would be an appropriate reaction to this, really? I woke up this morning, and instead of a deluge of congratulations from my phone notifications, I was awakened by a distinct bell-like sound in my head, which was in itself a weird experience, but even weirder was when I opened my eyes, the aforementioned status screen was waiting for me.
I didn’t pay it much attention in the morning, for one because I was half panicked and excited about the ramification of this status existence(mostly the latter anyway), and the other more likely reason, I told myself at that time, because I thought it was just my imagination, which at first I was half convinced too, because I soon as I willed it away, the screen immediately disappeared. So I just go about my morning routine as usual, and shoved that particular event to the back of my head.
The next weird thing happened when I go out on my daily morning run, I was jogging in the neighborhood of my apartment, trying to get familiar with the new environment so to speak, and I decided to go to the nearby park because why not? It’s not that far, and my new school was headed that way too, so might as well check it, I thought to myself.
As I slowly covered the rest of the distance to the park, and just when I saw the park entrance in the distance, my vision was interrupted, yet again, by another blue status screen. This time however, instead of showing my statistic itself, it was a different kind of status about a skill.
New Skill!
Running I
Increases speed while running.
Slower stamina decreases while running.
“Whoa,” I stumbled because of the sudden appearance of the screen, almost falling, tripping over my own feet, that was dangerous. At this point I really started to consider if this was really just imagination or was it a real thing, cause the status screen was not the only thing that was surprising me, I felt my running speed(well, jogging) was noticeably increased as well, I also(somehow) instinctively adjusted my breathing pattern so I can run without easily tiring my body, that was the second weird thing that happened to me that day. And at that point I began to seriously want to explore this status thing, but I was still on my morning jog, so I decided to continue to go the park, just so I can calmly think this through while not in the middle of the road, and running.
I arrived at the park, saw a vending machine and proceeded to make my way there intending to buy myself a drink first, I greeted the other person there, a guy, looked my age, and imagined my surprise when he answered ‘morning’ in perfect English, I of course instantly gotten curious, I mean, how often would you hear a Japanese speaking fluent English? and I assure you this was not an attempt at mockery! So I decided to make small talk with him at a moment's decision.
“oh, you can speak English? That's awesome, dude!” I said to the guy, maybe a tad too loud, which made me flinch internally. He just raised his eyebrows confusedly like I was asking a weird question.
“No I can’t? what do you mean? English is like, my worse subject,” He looked at me with scrunched eyebrows.
“Hah! that’s a good one! But seriously though, you didn't even have an accent!” I said, and tapped my right hand a few times on top of his shoulder, with a small laugh following it.
"Are you done being an ass hole?" said the guy aggressively and just leave without saying anything more.
I was gobsmacked by his reaction, cause at that point I didn’t realize it yet, that my weird game ‘power’ was giving me auto-translation, not only that, it also worked both ways, which I discovered after a few more conversations that almost ended the same way as the first one, until my big brain connected the dot later that same day. Which did leave me feeling like an asshole thinking about my first conversation with the guy at the park, he probably thought I was mocking him. But that was later on, where were we again? right, I bought a drink.
So with my drink in hand, I turned around, just trying to appreciate the park for the first time. It was a nice place, there was a big fountain at the center, circled for a few meters by stone floor tiles, 4 roads in each cardinal direction, surrounded by lush greenery. There’s also a collection of benches near each direction entrench, it was early in the morning so there were only a few people here and there at the park, so I picked an empty bench and sat there, finally relaxing, and a curious energy at the back of my mind about this supposedly new power of mine.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Like last time, I tried to will the status to the front of my mind, and it easily once again showed me my statistic, I focused on each word in it,
STATUS
NAME : Jonathan Frederick Monroe
TITLE : The Gamer
AGE : 18
VOCATION : (+)
LEVEL : 6
HP : 100 (5,4/h)
MP : 110 (30/h)
STR : 18
AGL : 15
END : 20
MGP : 22
MNT : 10
CHR : 15
LBD : 15
PERK
-Gamer’s Body
-Gamer’s Spirit
The first thing I noticed was the increase on my END, which I’m pretty sure was short for Endurance, increased by 1 since this morning, seemed too easy in my opinion if just a 20 minutes run can increase it by 1 point, considering I’ve been running daily in the morning since I was 15, but maybe the appearance of this status of mine make it easier to increase? I didn’t know, need more concrete info.
While I thoroughly checked each of my stats, I also noticed a question mark icon on the top right corner, I mentally selected it, but nothing happened at first, but then when I got my gaze back to the statistic again, it showed the individual description of each of them, “useful,” I murmured to myself in thought.
It was like this,
HP
Health Points, pretty self-explanatory, right?
The Gamer’s Health Points are calculated by END * 5
I frowned at the weird way the system message explained the HP part, but didn’t think much of it.
MP
Mana Points, again, self-explanatory.
The Gamer’s Mana Points are calculated by MGP * 5
STR
Strength determines The Gamer’s bodily capabilities, such as how much weight can The Gamer lift, or how hard can The Gamer hit something with their body. Also help in calculating melee damage on some weapon.
Strength also determines HP Regeneration calculation by (STR * 0,005)/minute
18 hours, that’s all it will took to bring me back from the brink of death, technically, according to the system, I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing, in a way it was fast if we consider real life standard, but for a game? 18 hours to full health? That’s too long, but I guess this was real life, huh. So, it’s great? Kind of?
AGL
Agility determines how swift and nimble The Gamer is. Also help in a matter of precision and hand coordination. Agility also affects stealth-based approach, gives increased awareness to the surrounding area, which will help in detecting traps and general alertness of The Gamer.
END
Endurance directly translates to how much punishment the Gamer can take physically, also affect stamina for increased & prolonged physical activity. Used in calculating total HP.
MGP
Magical Power, self-explanatory, affect general spell effect & power. Used in calculating total MP.
MNT
Mental Fortitude, affect control & finesse over spells, also help in resisting mind-altering effects, such magic based fear, compel, etc.
Mental Fortitude also determines MP Regeneration calculation by (MNT * 0,05)/minute
CHR
Charisma helps in ease of communication, such as in the case of persuasion, intimidation, and negotiation. Charisma gives The Gamer certain aura that helps toward giving a good or bad impression depending on how the user presented. Charisma doesn’t directly translate to The Gamer’s looks.
LBD
Libido represents how easily The Gamer enters a state of horniness, also increases sensitivity.
High libido helps reduce refractory period.
That last one was.. unexpected to say the least, didn’t realize my system include some kind of eroge mechanism behind it. Also, did it just use ‘horniness’? was that even a real word?
It was at this point that I noticed that I could mentally select the plus sign next to Vocation, but I decided to hold it cause the park was getting crowded that morning, and I didn’t want people thinking about some weird guy sitting in the park alone while zoning staring into space. So I got up and left for home, and continue with my day, which brought us to now.
~
It was evening and I once again contemplated the ramification of my power and the general weirdness of my day so far. Because of how my status was presented, I could not help but think that there was something to fight out there, that the supernatural was real. That was a big revelation even for me, hell, especially for me, cause I knew and was convinced now that my power was real. It was kind of a scary thought, how strong were those in the supernatural world, really? And if they did exist, how could they hide from the masses? I’ve never even seen any solid evidence of the supernatural, until now, which was only myself, and not that great right now with how it looked like. But the point still stands, they existed, somehow, somewhere out there, and I didn’t know jackshit about them, I’m also late to the party, so to speak.
Now that I thought about it, that girl I met before was also acting kind of weird, who acts that friendly to a random guy? well maybe she was just a friendly girl, but, it was one that was staring at you creepily(yes I admitted I was a bit creepy). Let me thought back a bit, what was weird about her again? First her friendliness, not really a problem but deserve a mention at least. Second, oh yeah, when I introduced my freakin full name to her when I never even said it to anyone else unless it was necessary, was that some kind of magical compulsion? It could be, considering how the system worded the explanation for Mental Fortitude, but was that some magical compulsion effect though?
How about that tingling I felt when she touched my hand? I didn’t know, I’m grasping at straw right now, the fear of the unknown was beginning to invade my mind at this point.
I almost broke into a cold sweat just thinking about all of this, I’m.. stressed, helpless. Or am I thinking this too much? I didn’t know anymore. For now best just to move forward, and just did what I could.
Besides, I haven’t checked the perks and my vocation, maybe that’ll help ease my situation.
Gamer’s Body
Your body acts like a video game character, which means any damage done to you will directly translate into reducing your HP, rather than wounding you.
Effect only active inside Barriers(Natural Barrier, Illusion Barrier, Protected Space, or Kingdoms)
Barriers? What’s a Barrier? was that how the supernatural operates? But what was it though, how did they work? Was barrier something that was made so you could go to some kind of pocket dimension? Or maybe really was just a barrier over some area? I didn’t know, can I use the help function with this?
Barriers
Barriers are the shadow of the real world. A place of conduct for the supernatural, magical containers which house all manners of Abyssal creatures, away from the real world, separating the mundane and the magical, as the supreme deity’s will.
There are 3 kinds of Barriers,
-Natural Barriers as its name suggest, occur naturally, are usually the birthplace of abyssal creatures, and contain various valuable materials in the Abyss.
-Illusion Barriers which are barriers made by Abyssals, used for various purposes, close themselves if there’s no abyssal inside it.
-Protected Space, is a barrier made permanent, by some kind of anchor, used for dwellings by many Abyssals.
It was too much, too much new information. But at least I’m that slightly more prepared if anything comes for me. So Barriers, huh, That was how they hide from the real world, or the ‘mundane’ as they call it, a bit rude. But what could I do about it.
Okay, next perk.
Gamer’s Spirit
A perk that was jump-started by The Supreme Deity.
Every action The Gamer does will be translated into an equivalent of video game mechanics.
Such as skills, which can be improved, upgraded, and even evolved whether through practice or achieving some kind of requirements, like a game!
Hm. So I guess Gamer’s Spirit was kind of the core of my power, huh? Good to know.
And there it was again, who was this supreme deity, twice now they were in my system explanation, and also earlier why they wanted the mundane and magical to separate? Hmm, certainly some food for thought.
One-time Hint!
The Supreme Deity is a SHE. And her name is Gaia.
I involuntarily shivered,
Well, that’s not creep- I mean, thank you Supreme Deity. I bowed my head slightly. Best not to anger the boss lady.
Achievement Unlocked!
Now you can earn achievement.
Achievement!
!Boss Lady Approves!
Gain Boss Lady approval.
+2 free stats
Achievement!
!Tutorial!
Get Familiar with your new power within a day.
Now go pick that Vocation already!
+2 to all stats
“Oh wow,” I couldn’t help but said my thought out loud, I didn’t even know I could get achievement! And that thought got me thinking if I had more game power available, like.. “Oh, do I have inventory, then?” I said to the ceiling excitedly, knowing the supreme deity still watching me. Or maybe not, cause there was no answer at all after I waited at least 5 minutes, oh well.
“Vocation, let’s see,”