Riley’s POV

I entered into the apartment with Linsday in tow and noticed the studio had changed a wee bit, for starters it had been more L shaped with a small kitchen that you enter into, leading to the living room with an offshoot bathroom and bedroom. Now it was shaped more like a square with the living room in the middle and the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom wrapped around it, also in the middle of the living room was a chest high cylinder. “What do you think that is Linsday?” when she didn’t respond looked over an saw she had already fallen asleep on the couch Guess she was tired, it was a long day as is, you know with the world ending and all whatever I’ll let her sleep while I figure out what's up with this pillar.

I walked over to the pillar and looked all around it for any clue of what it was and why it was here, after looking it from top to bottom, I noticed the hand grove on the top shrugged and placed my hand in it. In my mind, I heard

‘Welcome to Home Arrangement System, or you can call me HAS’ the voice was quite freaky because it was a genderless monotone voice speaking into my head.

Can you hear me? I tried to project my thoughts.

‘I can, discomfort with current voice patterns detected, initiating a mental scan to determine preferable voice module’ I felt an almost wave through my brain not uncomfortable but not pleasant either.

‘There we go, Riley, is this better?’

Oh dear god no why is that the voice it picks? The voice it was using now was Linsday’s and making it worse, It said it in the most alluring way possible.

‘What are you not satisfied with me?’ I swear I could hear it pouting.

No that’s too weird go back to the genderless robot.

‘Well fine then’ it got in one more comment before a jarring change back to an emotionless genderless voice

So what now HAS

‘Now, you say “home menu” to pull up my interface.’

Imma look like a lunatic doing this, aren't I?

‘Most likely yes.’

I realized that I probably already seemed crazy, you know standing in the middle of the room furrowing my brows and making facial expressions, I muttered under my breath “home menu” and another small blue screen popped up in front of me.

Home menu interface:

Home Size.

Mana needed per 10ft.

11,592 ft.

100 MP

Home mana pool:

100/100

Passive Mana Gain:

.1 per minute.

Break Down:

By Cubic Feet:

By Mana:

Living room:

3,200 ft

64,000 MP

Food Palace:

800 ft

16,000 MP

Porcelain Throne:

392 ft

7,840 MP

Gamer’s Den:

7,200 ft

144,000 MP

Home associated skills:

Skill level:

Present till next level:

Cooking:

5

50%

Crafting:

4

3%

Sleeping:

2

-

Cleaning:

1

100%

Show 0 leveled skills?

Defensive rooms:

Room level:

Mana till next level:

Armory:

0

50

Training room:

0

50

Recycling room:

0

50

Well, that would explain why no matter how often I clean it my house is always dirty.

‘Yes it would, the home skills are skills that you can only use at home or in select circumstances, your cleaning skill effects how easy it is to keep your home clean. Have you any other questions?’

I noticed that the voice had slipped into a butler like voice, very prim and proper, what does the dash in my sleeping skill level mean?

‘Ah yes sir, the sleeping skill effects how well you sleep and how much you sleep, it has a dash because the only way to level it up is a proper nights sleep, at the higher levels you may not need to sleep for months.’

Well, it makes sense that I don’t have a very high level of sleeping, I tend to avoid it after all. I'm going to call you Alfred, is that ok home system?

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‘Mh yes excellent choice sir, have you any other questions?’

Yes, how much mana would it take to claim this whole building as my own?

‘Mh, sir depending on your plan of action either nearly 11,592,000 mana or 80 mana.’

Why is there such a huge difference?

‘Well if you use the home system function to claim 10-foot chunks, then it is eleven and a half million mana, but if you go down to the boiler room and claim the building as a residential zone, then it would only be one mana per room. With ten rooms on each of the ten floors, factoring in that you claimed your room already, and that one other room has been claimed it’d be 80 mana.’

Alfred that was the longest sentence you’ve said yet.

‘Indeed’

Well, I’m off to the boiler room then to claim the building. Don’t let anyone in that's not me. I looked over at the sleeping figure of Linsday is there any way for you to communicate with Linsday once she wakes up?

‘Yes, there is sir.’

Ok once she wakes then could you explain what’s going on and where I am also, treat her orders as my own

‘Are you sure.’

Yes, I'm sure, I’ll be back in a flash. With this thought, I left the room and started making my way to the boiler room, I should get my laundry while I’m there I put it in the machine before I left in the morning, I did lone my best sweatshirt to Linsday, and you know once you give a girl your sweater you never get it back… and following that line of thought, I realized I had arrived at the utility room that led to the boiler room that seemed quick I guess my apartment is on the first floor. Wait is it technically a house now? Because I can make it as big as I want, urgh I’m getting distracted again, I need to figure out a way to stop my increased intellect from running all the time.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and tried to pull open the door, of course, its locked well I guess it’s a good time as any to try my creation power. I thought about different ways I could use this power to get past the door well I could try to create acid above the door and melt the door, create another stone key, or even use my power to create brass gears and the such to try and create a clockwork golem, oh or even more fun would be a bomb I shook my head to stop that line of thinking before it got any worse like a hydrogen bomb really brain to break down a simple wooden door. Oh it’s plywood wood I can just create water in the between the grains of the wood and that will soften it and I can break it down, also I think my increased intellect is functioning as a separate conscious that’s giving me ideas. Does that mean that all people with split personality syndrome are actually at the limit of natural born human intellect? Ugh, I need to find a way to deal with those pesky thoughts, either way, that’s a great idea, thanks to me.

I placed my hands on the door and felt the ruff grain under my hands, I visualized water filling the spaces between the wooden surfaces and spacers, I imagined the water softening the door and going past the natural absorption rate of the wood and paper, I then uttered “create” and I heard a small woosh as a puddle appeared at my feet, my blue bar plummeted, and the little black diamond started blinking again.

I placed my hand against the door and could feel the moistness of the wood now. I reared back and attempted to kick down the door, making sure to kick near the knob of the door, and to my surprise, the door basically splintered and gave me the surprise of soaking my leg with water that hadn’t been absorbed by the door. Oh, of course, that soaks my leg, I should have just used acid.

Anyway, I entered into the utility room and decided against grabbing my laundry before claiming the building, maybe I’ll get it later, or figure out how to create my own clothes and destroy them instead of washing, or maybe find a cleanse spell those are always a thing in these situations. It’s this type of thing that maybe my luck will kick in and I’ll find one after killing a slime, granted I don’t even know if enemy drops are a thing yet, any slimes that I’ve killed have been crushed by a block of stone. Well, now I'm just going insane as I’m having a conversation with myself.

Noticing I was just standing in the middle of the utility room staring off into the distance I decided to start acting only on instinct not thought because dam that was inefficient, I’ve spent around 12 minutes thinking not acting… there it is again. Before I could get onto another track of thinking, I rapidly moved towards the boiler room door to find it locked again, this time with a solid as hell old iron sliding door. I think you can find your own way past this yourself we’ll now I know I’m developing a second personality or guess that wouldn’t be another personality because they don’t take over my body. Whatever I’ll name him George.

I took another look at the door, it was rather old but in good condition with basically just the rivets being rusted. Any ideas George? Nope, none. Well, that’s a confirmation of my insanity. I began thinking of different ways to get past the door some of my thoughts including another idea of creating a golem of sorts, I don’t quite know how yet, creating a kaboom of sorts, can't the doors too thick to safely blow up, and lastly trying to create water at a high enough pressure to cut through the mortar around the door, no that wouldn’t work, my mana bar read out at 134, this is after about 12 minutes of standing around and thinking, meaning that when I did the door trick it used 90 mana. The door was about 2 meters tall, a tenth of a meter thick, and a meter and a half wide, but with all absorption of the wood, I created about a cubic meter of water. To create enough water to slice through the mortar would take far too much mana. Correct so what other option do you have to get past the door. Ah ha good old acid, hydrochloric acid to be specific, water and key so far I imagined a small amount of hydrochloric acid pouring over the brackets anchoring the door to the wall.

I decided to try something different this time and just imagined the act of pushing mana into my mental image, I felt a rather large tug from my body as I began to hear a sizzle from the top of the door. I opened my eyes to see the acid quickly working through the brackets well elegant solution my friend, but maybe you should actually use the several chemistry classes you took, do tell what’s one of the byproducts of hydrochloric acid and iron? That's right extremely flammable hydrogen gas.

I thought about it for a second “so, that doesn't matter I'll just not breathe it in” I responded to myself God I’m daft, what's in a boiler room that’s right a boiler. How do boilers heat up the water except with the right a flame… George trailed off as it hit me, and also the door fell off its hinges and it the ground. Well seeing as we aren't dead yet it means that the gasses haven't gotten thick enough to push down to the flame, but don’t let me deceive you that door is still being melted through and will keep creating gasses... I swatted away the train of thought “yeah yeah I got it from here, I need to create a base to neutralize the acid.”

I thought about the many different bases after filtering out the one that wouldn’t be strong enough to neutralize the acid I decided simpler was better and settled on good old sodium hydroxide. I pictured the solution dousing everywhere the acid was remaining and pushed my little remaining mana into the mental picture, I saw my mana plummet down from 49 to 4. Yeah that checks out, it would seem that a cubic meter of material costs about 90 mana and I created about half a cubic meter of sodium hydroxide. While on this train of thought I was hit with one of the worst headaches of my life shit mana deprivation is no joke.

“Shut it, George, at least I got the door open” yes but I also don't have enough mana to claim the building now. “43 minutes” that's till manas at 90 just enough to claim the building and have a little extra to spare. Better yet you could only wait 38 minutes and use all your mana to claim the building, but also deplete your mana fully. “What would happen if I ran out of mana.” Do you know? “What no that's why I asked you” well then I wouldn’t know, I am you after all. I weighed the pros and cons then realized that I’d been away from my room for almost a full half hour.

Sweet Jesus what if Linsday woke up and is in the process of girlifying my room, oh no “welp looks like I'm only waiting 38 minutes.” I got up from the ground where I had apparently fallen during my headache which was now more of a dull throb, and stumbled past the fallen door into the boiler room then sat down in front of the white pillar that was identical to the one in my room.

I assumed the lotus position in front of the pillar, because well what else do you do when trying to regain mana I seemed to enter into a trance I was woken from it much sooner than I expected Granted time seems to pass differently when I’m in a trance that’s true of a pre-game system world though, right George? George? Uh, I guess that George isn’t talking right now. Anyway, I glanced up at my mana bar and was surprised it was full well ok then, I saw that my little black diamond was blinking again. I should check that out at some point… But not right now and with that, I slammed my hand into the palm-shaped indent.

‘Welcome to the building arrangement system, or BAS for short.’ the mechanical voice was back.

Oh, it’s you Alfred?

‘If that’s what you name me sir. Then yes’ They had slipped into the butler's voice again.

So how does this work?

‘You give me 80 mana to claim this building as your own and then it works similarly to your room, but with making rooms instead of expanding them.’ Then, of course, a prompt appears.

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Would you like to claim this building as your own?

Y*/N

*claiming the building will cause you to gain the subclass Building manager

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Well ok, I guess having one probably bad subclass I can always change it out later With that I affirmatively clicked yes.

There was a flash of light and another prompt popped up.

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You have gained a subclass, subclasses are utility classes different from the main class you can only have one subclass and if you are prompted for another they will not combine, they will replace each other.

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The little black diamond was flashing vigorously now, finally deciding to get it out of the way I mentally clicked it and a rather long list of notifications scrolled past my eyes, apparently one was more important than all the others because it stopped scrolling at this box that was updating as I watched.