Wyatt woke suddenly. Springing to his feet as his mind started to catch up. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I can’t believe I just fell asleep like that. I have to do better.” He said to himself through clenched teeth, his fingertips digging into his palm. “That dream was something though,” he whispered. It had been an amazing dream with him fighting while being able to hover slightly off the ground shooting out an energy ball like he was Ryu from Street Fighter. Although it just highlighted a growing concern he was feeling. This world didn’t appear to be supernatural. There was at least so far nothing better about being here than being on earth. It was a thought that kept chipping away at his absolute belief that this world would be better and that better somehow included magic, but he knew that was a rabbit hole he couldn’t go down quite yet. Realizing that the sun was finally close to setting he figured now was probably a good time to explore his thoughts about this place. First thought he was going to move away from his cook site and find a tree to stay in through what promised to be a very long night.
He walked for what he estimated to be a few miles, and seeing a tree that looked perfect for what he wanted he pushed his staff up into a nook where the tree split about 6 or 7 feet up. Then he jumped up grabbing onto a thick branch to pull himself up before moving into the same little nook. He climbed a few feet higher to where part of the trunk branched off again. He could sit there securely without falling off and was high enough in the tree that he felt safe from the hyenas at least.
Taking a deep breath, he tried to center himself, something that had been taught during the mma classes he had taken. He let his mind wander as he tried to relax, and oddly the first thing that came to mind was that he hadn’t really dealt with a lot of the emotional issues in his life. Not something he really wanted to dive into at the moment, but the thoughts were there whether he wanted them or not. He always knew the grief of losing his father, and the anger and guilt he felt about what happened with his mother were bubbling below the surface. He also knew he would eventually have to process those feelings, but he hadn’t been ready at the time. He needed to watch his mother, and then he needed to be functional enough to work multiple jobs. It wasn't like his life had been conducive to dealing with his emotions. Which led to him purposefully minimizing down time. On the rare occasions he did he used books to escape reality, and those unprocessed emotions. This was definitely not the time to deal with them, and yet he was more aware of those feelings than he had been in years. He desperately fought to regain his calm, and eventually he was able to force those feelings back in the box he kept them in.
Rather than think about his past he decided to focus on what he wanted out of his new life in this new world. As he started considering what he really expected this new life to be he realized that somewhere along the way he really, truly believed any world on the other side of the gates would have some sort of magic. He wanted to either be able to throw fireballs, fly, or enhance his muscles with mystical energy; he wasn't picky as long as he got something. He could objectively see that was a bit crazy, but it didn’t change what he expected this world to give him.
Besides working, learning to survive, and sleeping, the one thing Wyatt had done for enjoyment just as much as it had been to avoid reality had been reading. Portal fantasies had blown up in popularity with the arrival of the gates. They were his favorites from the first time he read about a character having an adventure after entering the unknown. He could lose himself for hours in magical worlds if he allowed himself to. It became a part of who he was. He knew he was going through the gate. He wanted the adventure he found with the pages of the books he so thoroughly enjoyed. Which was why this world felt like such a letdown. So far at least his experience was not living up to his expectations. No omniscient system greeted him, no magical powers, no skills, he didn’t seem to be any better than he was on earth. He didn't notice any additional strength or stamina or anything other evidence to support any changes in him. Whether it was levels, cultivation, or something else, not having any of that immediately on arrival was a bit of a letdown. He knew it was crazy, but he felt cheated.
Not to mention Wyatt felt misled by the books he had read. He never expected the fighting to be so overwhelming. The characters in books seemed to struggle when fighting humanoid figures, but even just fighting the hyena had pushed him. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard, was it? Wyatt also wasn’t able to think of a good example where someone had to worry about water right at the start of their adventure either. What kind of lame adventure would his life make so far? The parts of stories that stuck with him were the epic fights, the sometimes-awkward social interactions, and in some cases the loot. He had none of that. Instead, he was alone in a forest without a steady supply of water, had puked his guts out from feeling, and hearing his staff smashing through the skull of a beast, and was fighting off a panic attack at the thought of being left alone with his thoughts that seemed insistent on bringing up his unresolved emotional issues.
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He had done what he could to prepare for the trip, and he was just now realizing that perhaps less fighting, and more survival skills would have been optimal. Over the course of the past few years, he had managed to sneak in around 1000 hours of practice with his staff when he wasn’t working, and yet he never expected the sensation he felt during that fight. Wyatt’s thoughts wandered to how he had decided on the staff. He couldn’t imagine ending up in a world without wood or metal and being able to replace his weapon of choice if needed was a huge boon, and a staff also seemed a lot less threatening if he met people right away. His staff was thicker than what most people trained with, but he really liked the extra weight. It was just a bit over 1 ¾” thick and was an even 6’ against his 6’ 2” height, it was perfect as far Wyatt was concerned. The mma instructor he had found had also won some competitions with a Bo staff in his youth. He didn’t approve of the thickness of the weapon, but he still had helped train him in its use. His training had been broken into about ¾ staff fighting, and ¼ unarmed combat. Some of the time spent staff training was used learning moves that would also be used with a spear in case he transitioned to that. There was some overlap already, so it was good to add to that knowledge as far as Wyatt was concerned.
In contrast to the time spent learning to fight he had spent very little learning about survival. He had made an effort, but that effort included picking up multiple books on edible plants, building a shelter, filtering water, and practicing starting fires, but those had always felt less necessary. He hadn’t committed the plants to memory like he should have. Building a shelter seemed like a backup skill considering he had a tent, so he skimmed over the information, and honestly didn’t retain much. He knew he could boil his water to filter it, and part of him believed there would be magic and so he never imagined a world without people which led to the thought that fire wouldn’t really be that much of an issue either. He had 2 lighters, and some matches so for a while at least he could start fires, but he wasn’t super confident he could start one without those supplies. Why couldn’t he have come through the portal and met a mysterious master of cultivation that trained him to be a badass? Or better yet why wasn’t he offered a super sweet legendary class by a system that granted skills and abilities. Instead, he was rationing his water, alone in the woods, likely to be eaten by hyenas in the near future.
That whole train of thought brought him full circle back to the books he had read that somehow convinced him he was going to end up with magical abilities. Which is why he ended up sitting in the middle of the forest thinking, and saying “menu, status, stats, skills, status sheet, inventory, guide, help,” but despite his thinking and shouting nothing happened. What happens next? What if I am in a world full of beasts, and monsters without people? What if the world isn’t that way, but I am on an island in the middle of nowhere that is? If there really isn’t magic or cultivation here, then being trapped alone with monsters is just going to have me slowly accumulate injuries until I die! Panic started to overtake him as his thoughts kept getting darker. He managed to get his breathing under control, and stave off the panic but even still his heart was beating pretty fast, and he knew he was on the cusp of a full-blown panic attack. So, he did what he always did when that happened, he bottled up those emotions and focused on something else.
He was still a little tired even after his impromptu nap earlier, but he knew he would be stuck in this tree for a long time. That was assuming there wasn’t something more unusual than just a slower rotation going on with the night and day cycle in this new world. He wasn’t quite ready to attempt to sleep just yet, and it wasn’t like he could practice his staff forms. That left him with nothing but the eerie silence, and his thoughts. “Oh joy,” he muttered as he shifted his body to try and get a little more comfortable.
Sitting there in the tree Wyatt let his mind wander making sure not to think too long about anything of importance. He knew he should be working through some of his many issues, but he really wasn’t up for it at the moment. He tried meditating for a while, but it wasn’t something he was particularly good at back on earth in a comfortable room. He was certainly not doing very well with it sitting in a slightly uncomfortable position in a tree in a world he knew nothing about while fighting himself to avoid a panic attack. Like this he let the night pass, switching from thinking about nothing specific, attempting to meditate, and at one point falling asleep again. It was coming out of one these barely successful attempts at meditation that he saw the sun start to peek over the horizon. The sunrise here really accented the purple halo he had seen. He was torn between awe at the beauty of the foreign sunrise and relief that his night trapped with his thoughts was finally over.