Coop sat underneath the most normal sized palm tree in the vicinity while his leg throbbed with pain. He decided this palm tree was his new favorite. He felt some kinship with the tree that hadn’t grown with mana, like they both weren’t Chosen and were stuck being normal. Leveling up had proven normal people weren’t doomed after all. He hadn’t even realized he was worried in the first place, but the relief he felt was evident.
Jones had bandaged Coop’s wound using one of their first aid kits and was now sitting and resting as well. The wound in Coop’s calf was probably the worst injury he had received in his life, but Jones wasn’t overly concerned thanks to his belief in mana.
“I couldn’t clean your wound much, but I don’t think you have to worry about infection. I don’t think infection even exists anymore unless it’s applied as a status effect.” Jones mused. “If we weren’t fighting that machine in the sand we would have noticed it had spikes on the ends of its appendages.” He shook his head like he was disappointed at his inability to prepare for every possibility.
“We won in the end.” Coop stated.
“They told me the first level would be the most difficult.” Jones added.
“If that was the hardest, then I think we’ll be okay after all.” Coop doubted it though. That seemed like something a person would say to encourage a bunch of scared scholars. “I’m just glad it didn’t shoot any lasers.” Coop declared. They both nodded at that, imagining a much more difficult fight.
“So, what do we do about this level up?” Coop pondered.
Jones recounted what he was told about accessing the menus, and it turned out to be perfectly intuitive. With a quick thought Coop observed his status for the first time.
[Status]
HP - 36/50
MP - 50/50
Class - None (Requires Level 5) (Level 1)
Profession - None (Requires Civilization Shard) (Level 0)
Affinity - None (Requires Level 5)
Race - Human (Rank 1)
Faction - None
Strength - 5
Agility - 5
Body - 5
Mind - 5
Intelligence - 5
Acumen - 5
Unallocated - 5
Titles - None
Skills (Active) - Identify
Skills (Passive) - Common Language
Quests - Defeat Ancient Defenders I (1/5)
Coop took his time examining each line. There wasn’t much to look at. He told Jones he had more “Nones” than a convent, earning a mere chuckle from Jones. Coop shrugged off the underwhelming response and continued reading.
It was just so video gamey, he couldn’t take it completely seriously. Despite being injured and bleeding his real blood onto the sand, reading a status screen with HP totals and attribute points in real life was too uncanny. He felt like the only reasonable way to handle these circumstances would be to treat it as the most high stakes video game imaginable, one with life or death consequences, where survival would be determined on how well he played the game. With that perspective, he reviewed his status with a bit more seriousness.
He was surprised that he only lost 14 HP. He thought it hurt more than 14 HP, but he guessed a wound to a limb was just less lethal and, therefore, dealt less damage. He considered whether he had weak spots, or if they could deal critical hits on attacks.
He noted that he had received five attribute points after his level up. Would it be five points every level? He wasn’t sure, and without a class he wasn’t sure where he would place them anyway. He inspected each attribute, revealing some more information when he focused. Unfortunately, they only gave the most simplistic description he could imagine.
Strength increases Physical Power.
Agility increases Physical Speed.
Body increases Physical Defense and HP.
Mind increases Magic Defense and MP.
Intelligence increases Magic Power.
Acumen increases Magic Speed.
The simple descriptions weren’t enough information. The only bit he could glean was that Body would probably increase his HP by 10 per point and Mind would increase his MP by 10 per point. Even that was only a guess based on some quick math. He had five points to spend which could effectively double any of his stats, but Coop was even more convinced to save his points until he had a class.
Comparing attributes to each other wasn’t particularly helpful since they were so distinct in purpose. Obviously, specific classes would value each one differently. His only thought was that ‘Body’ was overpowered. He would have expected Defense and HP to be two separate resources, but in this case, combining them allowed Tanks to double dip. Maybe even triple dip if HP regen was percentage based.
He asked Jones about his opinion, and Jones told him that he had already put all five of his points into Strength. Coop hadn’t expected physical changes to come from attributes, but he thought Jones had more muscle mass now that he looked at him. He wondered if, in the future, it would be possible to glean someone’s specialization on sight.
When asked, Jones revealed that he intended to try for a class that focused on ranged abilities, as he claimed he was too old to get in the thick of it. Coop was surprised he added points to Strength with that goal in mind. When Coop raised his concerns about wasting points, Jones stated he wasn’t worried. He believed there was no limit to their level, so he could make up for it later. But Coop was doubtful. There was no telling how difficult it would become to continue leveling indefinitely.
They debated back and forth but it was clear they were coming from different perspectives. Coop’s position was that they shouldn’t spend any points yet, but if they spent any at all, it should be in ‘Body’ since no matter what direction they took, it would probably be useful. Jones just didn’t think it mattered how they spent points and anticipated the skills having the final say over their capabilities, and therefore, the points would simply fill gaps. In the end, Jones was at least convinced to spend his points on attributes that would be more universally useful.
He asked Jones about the ‘Affinity’ line in the status, but Jones had only been told that it was normal to start with a single affinity. It had a hand in determining what classes would be offered, which in turn determined which skills they could select. Rarely additional affinities were acquired during class or race evolutions, but it was not the norm. Coop hoped he would get a good one to start with.
Despite appearances, Coop had been a long time gamer. In fact, Coop wasn’t even really his name, it was a childhood nickname that he earned by not knowing how to properly pronounce co-op with the neighborhood kids. It had stuck to the point that not even his parents called him anything else. At this point, ‘Coop’ was completely his identity, and his gaming habits only grew as he got older. His habits really became unhealthy after both of his parents died. Coop earned the reputation of a grinder. He grinded out his classes in school, he grinded out his workouts at the gym, and he grinded out levels in video games.
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In the back of his mind he recognized that he was avoiding confrontation with his own grief, but he continued anyway. He dabbled in all sorts of genres, depending on what his friend group were interested in at the time, but his favorite type were ARPG’s; the type that had both a softcore and a hardcore mode. He knew strategies for both, he knew pitfalls to avoid, and he judged that he should try to capitalize on that experience. After all, this whole system seemed more and more like a real life hardcore RPG. It wasn’t something school had prepared him for, anyway.
Coop couldn’t help but start theorycrafting. With his life on the line, he refused to stumble along without a plan. He thought it would be important to grab every advantage he could to try and ensure his survival, and that meant trying not to waste any resources. He doubted there would be the option to respec in real life, and he obviously couldn’t reroll his character. The idea of roleplaying as himself made his head spin.
He would follow a familiar hardcore gaming strategy; focus on survivability first and high damage second. He wanted defensive layers and sustain, but he figured, even with the overpowered Body stat, a pure tank would be a mistake. In most cases, killing things quickly is just as important as being durable for surviving. It was possible he would encounter DPS checks or enrage timers that a tank would fail. Not to mention just absorbing damage would be a literal pain in real life.
Sometimes the best way to not die is to kill everything first, but in a hardcore game, surviving as a glass cannon was often too much of a gamble. In real life? Forget about it. For now his plan would be simple, grind to level five without spending any points. Once he hit level five he would weigh his options while aiming for some type of tanky skirmisher class. He wasn’t worried about saving for a few levels because he and Jones had already defeated the first Ancient Defender. They had done it even when they went in blind without any levels at all. If necessary, he would specifically hunt Ancient Defenders until he hit level five.
Jones finally interrupted Coop’s train of thought when he suggested Coop go claim the civilization shard. Jones was wondering about the profession line in the status menu.
As Coop got up he noted that his leg had already healed a bit. His HP had increased by two and it had only been around one hour since he had first checked. He figured he was regenerating a point about every 30 minutes. He wondered if that was a static amount or if it was percentage based. At this rate it would take a bit more than a full day to heal 100% from 0. That actually seemed really generous, it was possible to passively regenerate devastating injuries in a single day. He wondered if people in hospitals right now were finding themselves fully healed. That was a nice thought.
As he limped to the shard he remembered to try his only active skill, Identify, on Jones. The result floated above his head like a nameplate before it slowly faded.
[Human (Level 1)]
That was it. Coop hoped the skill would improve in the future. If this new reality was going to be so game-like he wanted some dang nameplates with health bars. He read the description of Identify which indicated that it would display basic information of a ‘souled’ target. He tried it on his new favorite tree but it didn’t work. He tried it on the shard and it also didn’t work.
Coop finally activated the shard by placing his hand against the gently glowing red surface and received a prompt. The prompt asked whether he wanted to claim this civilization shard which Coop confirmed.
[Congratulations! You have claimed a civilization shard. You are the 373rd to claim a shard.]
[Settlement events will initialize on Day 30.]
[You have acquired a new title!]
[You have a new quest!]
[You have a new quest!]
Coop was shocked that 373 civilization shards had been claimed. It had only been two days! He had fully expected to be among the first. Surely, most of the Chosen would still be in their boot camps receiving whatever bonuses their factions were providing. That would leave the random people who survived the chaos and had no idea what the hell was going on to claim them. And what kind of lunatic would randomly walk up to a six foot glowing red crystal from outer space? Especially when they attracted mechanical monsters! Coop would have kept his distance forever if Jones hadn’t come out of his orientation with the knowledge of what they were.
All he could do was shake his head at the way people are. He filed the importance of Day 30 to the back of his mind, it was too early to worry about that far in the future. Instead, he accessed the shard to check out the menus. There were two tabs. The first tab was ‘Settlement’ and the second was ‘Personal’. He mentally selected ‘Settlement’ to start with. It had three options.
The first option was ‘Status’ which Coop selected. It revealed a top down view of the current settlement in his vision with various stats on the side. The population was 3, surprising Coop. It must be counting himself, Jones, as well as Jett, their kitty comrade. The settlement territory covered most of the northwestern portion of the island centered where the shard had landed. It didn’t reach the mangrove forest to the east and northeast nor was the lighthouse to the south included. It did encompass the fort on the north end and if there was any way to expand it, the lighthouse wasn’t that far. It also had a place to list all the services of the settlement, but there were none. The settlement was also missing a name but needed to be upgraded before it could receive one. He would need to investigate how to get upgrades.
He found it immediately because the second option was the very ‘Upgrade’ category that he was looking for. The settlement was a camp and could be upgraded into an outpost if certain requirements were met. He would need to purchase a permanent building from the ‘Construct’ option, pay 1,000 basic credits, and hold the settlement for at least 11 days. A challenge to the settlement’s ownership would interrupt the timer and a transfer would restart it. Fair enough Coop supposed. It could also be relocated by the Champion to another location within the settlement territory, or it could be transferred to a different person making them the new Champion. He’d ask Jones if they should move it into the fort’s courtyard.
The third settlement option was the aforementioned ‘Construct’. It was an extremely long list of grayed out buildings with prices in basic credits organized from low to high. The cheapest were 100 Basic Credits. Coop had zero. The cheaper buildings were mostly basic service buildings like ‘Swordsmith’ or ‘Bowyer’. Each building came with an alien manager as well. He guessed they would be beamed in with the building somehow. He could see how these would be useful, but he thought the options were oddly medieval given their alien nature. Out of curiosity he did a quick scroll to see some of the more expensive options. Emperor’s Palace, Magic University, Wyvern Chamber, and they all had different variants. But once he looked at the prices he regretted his wandering eyes. The costs soared far beyond millions of credits.
Returning to the main menu he selected the second tab, ‘Personal’, which had two options. The first was ‘Evolution’ which just said ‘Requirements Not Met’ when he mentally selected it. The next was ‘Profession’ which revealed another list. This list was not super long and he began browsing. After reading through the list of 20 or so professions he realized they were mostly basic gathering professions. He guessed more advanced professions were hidden somehow.
He asked Jones if he had the same list. He did not. His list had been much shorter and more specialized, mostly listing things that he had already done in life. He had already selected Archaeologist. Coop reviewed his list again. It was mostly seemingly generic things like Basic Gardening, Basic Mining, Basic Foraging, Basic Woodcutting, Basic Fishing. He figured he hadn’t met the qualifications to reveal other hidden professions. The ones that were available were too limiting. He would need to be pretty self-sufficient being on a remote island so he was hesitant to select anything without knowing what his class would be. Would it be worth it to try and unlock a specific profession that could support his class? He felt himself worrying about making a decision prematurely.
Before he added yet another choice to delay he looked one more time and found one that he thought would be worth taking regardless of how his class choice went. Basic Scavenging. It would allow him to obtain special loot from defeated enemies. He fully intended to defeat tons of enemies and this profession would synergize nicely. It didn’t matter what his class was, he knew he would be grinding. So before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled the trigger and selected Basic Scavenging.
[You have a new quest!]
He checked his status screen again just to see the profession field update and confirmed that he was now a ‘Basic Scavenger (Level 1)’. He also needed to see what title he got and what it did. In games he had played, titles were usually a cosmetic thing to affix to your display name. He hoped it was more than that. He viewed his title.
Champion - Owner of a civilization shard.
Adds +5 to all stats. Scales with settlement.
Coop was happy about that! It doubled all of his stats and he didn’t even need to assign his points yet. And it would scale with the level of their development. He wondered how much it would increase when he leveled the camp to an outpost.
He checked his quests, since he had received three since claiming the civilization shard. The first quest wanted him to defeat five Ancient Defenders, the second quest was to upgrade his Camp to an Outpost, and the third quest was a profession quest to scavenge the bodies of 10 defeated enemies. None of them specified rewards. He asked Jones if he had gotten any quests and he had also received one to defeat Ancient Defenders as well as a profession quest related to archaeology that he could easily complete in the fort.
He asked Jones about relocating the shard and he thought that would be a good idea. Coop mentally pressed the relocation button and confirmed. He expected it to teleport where he wanted it but instead it just kind of hovered off the ground letting Coop push it. He pushed it over the wooden bridge and had to wait for Jones to crank the main iron gate since the shard wouldn’t fit through the human sized one. Once they were inside the courtyard Coop wasn’t sure where to put it. He wanted it far away from the entrance, but there was an open canal down the middle of their fort. An amphibious assault was also possible, right?
After a brief discussion, they ended up leaving it as close to the halfway point between the entrance and the canal as possible. They could just move it again later if they wanted to.
Deciding on the location had Jones thinking about what to do about the new water feature in the fort. It could be both a liability or an asset. It could expose the interior of the fort to enemies on ships but also provide shelter within the fort for allied vessels.
Coop wasn’t really thinking that far ahead, but the shard was priming them to upgrade the settlement and they would need to expand to do so. Coop suggested one large bridge in the middle and docks along the canal on either side. They were still protected by the shallow reefs, but they could also fortify the open cross sections of the walls with defenses to protect against water borne enemies. Then the interior of the courtyard could be designed so that both ends of the bridge were major hubs with spokes spreading to the inner walls.
Jones loved it and started drawing pictures in his notes. When he asked Coop about zoning various districts Coop had to remind him that they couldn’t build a single building yet. Jones was undeterred.