“So… You been here before?” Percy asked after a second, making me look over to him as he looked around. “Yes, I come here a lot actually. It's a nice place.” I responded automatically, then wincing a bit to myself as I realized that I slipped up.

“So, you work out here?” Percy asked curiously as he looked around the clearing one more time before looking back at me. “Yeah. It's out of the way.” I said appreciatively before smiling to myself, “Plus going and working out in a forest every morning sounded cool when I found it.”

Percy laughed a bit with a nod. “Got to admit, it does sound cool.” He commented, though there was an odd edge to his voice when he said that. Before I could do more than glance over at him however, he stood up. “Let's go.” He offered me his hand, “Sitting on a log is getting a bit old.” I took his hand and let him help me up, before giving a sigh. “Ok, sounds good to me.” I chuckled and started to let my thoughts wander.

I had a notification from the system to take a look at, though it was probably the rewards for the quest for getting on the basketball team. I really wanted another Passive Ability. They are turning out to be overpowered, though in an odd way. It was like I had trained my mind and body to be great at some things, and on the way I figured out how to harness my sixth sense and instincts to an insane degree. Though when I thought about it, everything that my pasives give me… is at least theoretically possible for a human to do.

Perfect Recollection, Speed Reading, Builder, Architect, Blacksmithing, Dagger skills, Deflection, Evasion, Tracking, Stealth, every part of those skills are humanly possible. If the sixth sense is taken as fact of course, but now that I have experienced the heightened version the system abilities give me I am pretty sure that I have experienced something similar before.

The only thing that most people would think doesn't quite fit that description is the Ring Maker ability, but it uses the natural energies of the soul to work so unless you couldn't learn to use your souls energy’s anyone could theoretically do it with enough training. It was difficult, but so was learning quantum physics or harnessing the sixth sense apparently.

So… is the entirety of the system just aiding the learning process of abilities and skills? Instinct, knowledge, muscle memory… That is the sum of what the system did so far as far as I could tell.

That puts into question how the skills and knowledge were developed in the system, but when I had started learning about ring enchanting I had gotten flashes of memory from the perspective of a student. Is that what the system is doing? It chooses hosts, collects their skills and knowledge before moving onto the next host and letting them develop? It's an interesting idea. The better the host, the better the system will be for that host and the better the host will be for the system.

Of course I could be reading into things too much and there were a lot of guesses in that idea, but it doesn't make a bad working theory.

Maybe some entity wants the skills and knowledge of the multiverse somewhere, and this system is the collection device?

I was brought back to reality as I entered the dormitory building and noticed I was alone again. I looked around for a second in confusion, wasn't Percy beside me a moment ago? I didn't see him around however, so I just shrugged and headed up to the stairs and into my dorm room. The dorm room was the same as ever, and I went to my bed and sat down to relax with a sigh. I looked up at the ceiling and pulled up the system notification that I had gotten in the forest.

The blue screen blinked into my vision and I started reading the text that was scrawled across it. “Quest completion requirements met for quest: The Long Game. Rewards available for choice: One Passive Ability or 100 Ring Gold along with one free level in a Passive Ability of your choice.” The system notification read out and stayed in my vision, blinking the choice of rewards at me. ‘Right! I was right about the notification. I seem to be a pretty good guesser lately.’ I thought to myself before taking another look at the screen.

“Ok, this choice is a no brainer.” I admitted to myself without hesitation. I had already chosen what I would choose when I received the quest. The system screen blinked as I directed the system to select the Passive Ability from the rewards. “You have received the Passive Ability: The Long Game.” The new screen read out, and my head tilted to the side. “The Long Game? That's the Passive’s name? That's weird…” I commented in confusion. The other Passive Ability’s names were much more straightforward and were named the ability it improved. But The Long Game was different in the way it wasn't an ability, but more like a title. In fact it was also the name of the quest.

I opened up my status screen to take a look at the description of the weird Passive.

Statistics

Passive Abilities

Skills

Active Quests

Name: Ardika Ekia

Physical age: 12 years old

Birthdate: August 12

Gender: Male

Race: Human/God hybrid

Adaptation

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Adaptive system

Perfect Recollection

Ring Maker Lv10

Speed Reading Lv4

Builder Lv4

Architect Lv1

Blacksmithing Lv1

Dagger Skills Lv10

Deflection Lv4

Evasion Lv3

Tracking Lv2

Stealth Lv1

Throwing Skills Lv1

The Long Game Lv1:

Increases recognition of when a person is unconvinced by an act or lie of your construction and increases the ability to recognize possible ways to convince people of a long term lie or act.

Appraisal

Soul Forge Lv1

(No active quests)

‘So it looks like I got a few levels here and there that I didn't notice immediately, namely Deflection and Evasion. That made sense though, I think my training at basketball using the skills leveled them up.’ I thought to myself as I did a quick scan of the long status screen before I turned my eyes to my new skill.

“Wow… that is one hell of an ability, but damn it makes me guilty…” I mutter to myself as I read it over.

First off, it allows me to see if a lie I made convinced someone or not which would probably be useful when things got started for real. Then it also gave the extra ability to figure out how I could convince them. Though interestingly, the second part says it applies to ‘a long term lie or act’ rather than an ‘act or lie of your construction’ which means the two parts would activate in different situations. If I made up a lie that I was a double agent, then both abilities would activate, but if I was lying to the police and I told them I was not involved with something then only the first ability would work. Similarly if someone made up a story to lie to someone then only only the second ability would work. It’s weird that it isn't more general, like other abilities.

But honestly the description and type of ability it is, is making me guilty about how I got the ability. Technically… I could say I didn't lie. I did get on the basketball team because of my training, but that wasn't why I was training to begin with. It was just lucky my training seemed to be good for getting onto the team. I would have some explaining to do as soon as Percy knew about who he was… I would tell Percy then. I couldn't do it before or it would mess everything up, but I would be able to do it after. Maybe at camp. Oh, and I guess I will apologize to Grover then too.

But really, only good things came from the little lie so… It sort of evens out? Then again, Percy wasn't the one who got the benefits so it doesn't really excuse anything. Maybe ice cream can balance out those ‘karmic scales’ the psychics like to talk about.

I sigh, closing the status menu without a word and blinking at the ceiling. Wait, the ice cream… Wasn't I supposed to be doing something? Oh, I was supposed to be looking for Grover. Wait, where did Percy go?

I had been completely in my own little world of thoughts… Seriously, I needed to learn to control that. It's turning into a problem. I groaned to myself and tried to focus, reviewing my memories to figure out what I had missed when I wasn't paying attention. Perfect Recollection proved its worth once again as I noticed that Percy quietly walked away, saying “I am going to check the school for Grover.” and heading across the field into the school building. Ok, that makes sense.

I got to my feet and changed out of my sweaty clothes and into some fresh ones before walking with a frown out of my room and towards Grovers dorm room at the end of the brightly lit hallway. I had a reputation of doing things like this in my first life and it sucked.

Seriously I needed to put some kind of effort in to avoid things like that. This is a world of monsters, though not exactly wild it was still dangerous for demigods like myself. Especially if said demigod was so absorbed in their thoughts that they couldn't notice that someone that was with them left.

I reached the end of the hallway and I knocked on Grovers dorm room, bouncing on my heels a bit as I waited to see if Grover was here. The door opened with a dull squeak almost as soon as I had knocked, though to my surprise I didn't see Grover and instead saw a casually dressed Dev.

“Oh, hey Dev. I was looking for Grover, he in there?” I asked, blinking in surprise as Dev stood in the door frame, looking confused for a second before my words wiped away his expression and replacing it with an understanding expression before he shook his head. “No, he went out for an early supper I think. He is probably still there.” He explained and causing me to smile a bit as I heard where he was. Percy would have found him by now then. “Thanks for telling me.” I thanked him before taking a step backwards to meet with Grover and Percy. “No problem, see you at the party tomorrow I suppose.” Dev said casually before shutting the door as I gave him a thumbs up and started walking down the hallway to the stairs.

I found Percy soon enough, but he was alone as he walked across the field with a look of mild concern. “Hey, I just met Grovers roommate and he said that Grover went to eat early? I didn't know you could do that, but did you find him?” I asked Percy as I walked along the grassy yard towards him.

“No, I didn't find him anywhere.” Percy said, looking concerned now as he took a look around the yard. I frowned at that, taking a look around. “Well… you saw him last, did he say anything to you after I left for practice?” I asked inquisitively, a little concerned now.

“I mean… He said his stomach was hurting before he left I guess, but he said he just wanted to lie down for a bit.” Percy said after thinking for a moment. “He probably went to the nurse then.” I reasoned and exhaled in relief as we started heading to our next target.

----------------------------------------

“He went home for the day. He was feeling pretty sick so he got picked up.” The nurse broke the news, making me blink. “You can do that?” I asked out loud to myself, really surprised by that. The nurse did not respond however, and so Percy and I walked out with a look of confusion and a little bit of worry. Wait a minute, he went home? Grover went home. Home. Grovers home was Camp Half-blood. What was he doing, heading back to camp? Why?

I stopped myself from thinking too hard about it though as I looked over to a concerned Percy. “He’ll be fine.” I reassured Percy quickly, with a smile as we walked to our dorm. “And hey, more ice cream for later right? Or less pressure on my wallet, but whatever.” I quipped naturally, bringing a laugh from Percy as we walked and causing Percy to stop worrying about Grover.

Grover won't know what he is missing.