CHAPTER 6 (REDUX)
“I often wonder if I would have turned out differently if I did not have my Core Skill. I know the mere suggestion could ignite a dozen different philosophical debates, but please do try to restrain yourselves. You should know by now I get ponderous when I’m drunk.”
~Unknown
Core Skill Selection
Please choose a Core Skill.
Friendly Reminder: Your Core Skill will be the foundation of your Advancement within The System.
If you fail to make a choice then a Core Skill will be randomly assigned to you.
0:00:03:00
The System screen updated without fanfare or pageantry. There were no explanations. There were no insights. What was System Advancement? Who knows. What separates a Core Skill from a regular Skill? No idea. All I got was a poorly explained instruction and an oddly worded warning, the latter of which was both vindicating, terrifying and - frankly - perplexing.
Had I given in to my desires for sleep, I would have awoken with a randomly assigned Skill and been forced to surrender what felt like the only real advantage I was going to get given my unique circumstances. Presumably, this was how it worked for every other 6-month old baby which made the inclusion of such a short timer confusing as all fuck.
Why even bother including a timer if- No. Moron. Focus. Three minutes! Fuck!
Steroid-guzzling panic bulldozed over my exhaustion, returning me to a semblance of clarity as I watched the first seconds tick down, forever lost. Fortunately, pondering the syntax of the System screen wasn’t at all helpful to my new predicament. Hooray for stress-induced sarcasm.
Timer! Pause! Please!? Fuck! It didn’t work. Precious seconds, gone. I had plans, I really did. I would poke and prod at the System, taking my time to devise the perfect Core Skill choice. I thought I’d have time, but the cautious approach was no longer a viable option. There wasn’t even a list of options presented to me, which would have helped reduce the wave of choice paralysis I felt loom over me.
0:00:02:42
Keeping the System window open wouldn’t ease my nerves. Even so, I dared not dismiss it. I needed to prioritize my time and work through as many options as I could.
Deep breaths. You can do this. Deep breaths. You can do this, I repeated the mantra myself a few times in an effort to calm down. First, the long shot.
More than anything else, I wanted to return home. Without a list of Skills to choose from, I could only assume I had to ask for one, so I did.
I want a Skill that will take me back to Earth. I pictured the planet as I remembered it from satellite images. From so far away, it looked like a blue and green marble. No, not just to Earth - to her. I mentally zoomed in, rushing my mind’s eye through the atmosphere and amongst the clouds. I moved so fast that the details blurred until everything came into sharp focus. I was back in my apartment. I was back to my old self. I was back with my fiancée, pulling her into a fierce hug and telling her a million times over how much I loved her. I’d said it so much before, but especially now it never felt like I said it enough.
That is where I am meant to be, I begged the System. That is what I want. Is that a Skill? For a long moment, there was no response. I watched the counter tick down another second.
… Please. My bloodshots eyes snapped open, illuminated by the light of a new System screen that only I could see.
…
…
…
There are no records of the chosen Skill.
…
…
…
The chosen Skill is theoretically possible.
Would you like to choose Unnamed Skill as your Core Skill?
WARNING: Without prerequisite Skills, Unnamed Skill cannot be properly utilized.
I wanted to accept the Skill. I wanted so badly to accept the Skill. Despite the warning that should have immediately condemned it as an option, I almost said yes. I asked what the prerequisite Skills were. No response.
I considered taking the Skill so that I might share its secrets with someone else. It was the desperate logic of a grieving man, but I still had to entertain the possibility. It was a waste of time I didn’t have, but I had to let myself consider the Unnamed Skill as an option. Except…
There was no way of knowing if Skills could be taught or passed on, especially when they were functionally useless in the hands of the teacher.
Even if I could, why would anyone believe my story and want to help me? There was no realistic scenario in which ranting about ‘traveling to another world’ would earn me anything but contempt or perhaps pity. That was assuming I could find anyone with the Skill prerequisites to begin with. Can I really risk everything on such a long shot?
The answer was no. I reread the first System notification. The Core Skill I chose would be the foundation of my Advancement within the System. If I were to bet everything on an unusable Skill and lost, it would cripple any future attempts. I’d be stuck forever. It was like a knife wound to the heart. I felt so close to a solution, and yet so infinitely far away.
0:00:02:16
I was also wasting time. I mentally declined the Unnamed Skill, causing its window to vanish. It was gone, but not forgotten. The Skill was possible. All I had to do was Advance until I uncovered its secrets, but that was a problem for later.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
A Skill to traverse time and space or both was theoretically possible. It was either a product of magic or science so advanced it might as well be magic.
Is ‘Magic’ a Skill?
…
…
…
There are no records of the chosen Skill.
Well, shit, I thought, but I wasn’t done yet. It might have been a language issue. Imagining Earth helped before, so I tried something similar. When I thought of magic, a traditional wizard came to mind. I imagined an old man with a bushy beard and conical hat. He was reading through magical tomes and reciting words of power to bend the world to his-
Would you like to choose Spellscript as your Core Skill?
WARNING: Without prerequisite Skills, Spellscript cannot be properly utilized.
As much as I wanted to dwell on the possibilities of magic, I quickly dismissed the Skill and bookmarked it for later in life. Magic had prerequisites. I lacked the context - and more importantly, the time - necessary to figure out what they were. I also had no idea exactly what Spellscript was so it made for a poor frame of reference.
Something physical then, I decided. I imagined myself fighting and drew on half-remembered memories of action movies to inject the scene with an outlandish display of martial prowess. I was punching, kicking and dishing out the occasional headbutt to a host of phantom opponents.
Would you like to choose Weapons [Unarmed] as your Core Skill?
I found it interesting that unarmed combat fell under the umbrella of a Weapons Skill, but Spellscript didn’t have a similar connection to a broader ‘Magic’ Skill. I wasn’t sure if that was at all significant, but I noted it all the same. Perhaps more importantly, it meant Skills could be specialized.
I took an opportunity to quickly test the limits, running through a rapid gambit of superficially conjured and summarily dismissed offers for Core Skills. Imagining an endless variety of fighting styles and equipment granted Weapons [All], while fighting unarmed but exclusively with my fists granted Weapons [Punch]. I spent a handful of seconds on the exercise, reaching for increasingly absurd Skills, until a familiar screen stopped me in my tracks.
…
No records of chosen Skill.
…
Skill is theoretically possible.
Would you like to choose Weapons [Punch, Right-Handed, Wet Weather] as your Core Skill?
From my experiments I was able to draw several hastily constructed conclusions. Evidently, the System believed that becoming well versed in literally all forms of weaponry would be more attainable than learning Spellscript or returning home. It was also able to conceive of a fucking name for certain Skills it didn’t already have a record for, but the Unnamed Skill was beyond its capacity in that regard. It was not an encouraging revelation.
I still didn’t know if choosing a Skill would have magically imbued me with knowledge, or if there were any benefits in taking a more specifically worded Skill. I checked the timer.
0:00:01:20
I’d gained some insights about The System and the herculean task before me, but still wasn’t sure what Core Skill to select for myself. I had to refocus. What was my goal? My goal was the Unnamed Skill, something so beyond my grasp that the System believed I’d have better odds of gaining universal weapon proficiency than comprehending it. Magic. Science. I was getting ahead of myself. The Skill was possible, and I had told myself that was enough, but I had to be realistic.
I wasn’t anything special.
Being reincarnated didn’t change that. Something special happened to me, but I was still the guy who barely passed his junior year of physics. I was the guy with a blackbelt in procrastination who’d get hyper fixated on a hobby only to abandon it a few weeks later. Objectively, there was no realistic way that I was the guy who would unlock the secrets of time and space. I needed something to give me an edge.
Time was running out, so in my panic I compared myself to fictional protagonists. Desperation had driven the more sensible parts of mind into submission, otherwise I might have reflected on the folly of seeking life advice from fantasy novels. We work with what we have, however, so I continued unabated. What did they have that I didn’t? What made them heroes capable of overcoming insurmountable odds? The first thing to come to mind was luck, reality-defying, author-bestowed luck.
Fuck it. I prodded at my System Screen and asked for luck.
Would you like to choose Luck as your Core Skill?
Being lucky didn’t seem like it should be a Skill. However, I had no choice but to accept the System’s word on the matter. It meant Skills could be even more esoteric than I initially anticipated.
I considered taking Luck as my Core Skill. Visions of casinos and unlikely chance encounters briefly tickled the borders of my imagination, but I wasn’t ready to commit to them. I could definitely see the appeal, but unless the Skill immediately infused me with reality defying good fortune it would be a long while before I could reliably depend upon it. The window remained open alongside the timer, now entering its final minute. If I couldn’t decide on something less uncertain, I’d - appropriately - take the gamble.
What else is there? Some ideas held more merit than others, and I tried not to dwell on them if my immediate reaction was to dismiss them. I doubted I could find a Skill that conjured a legendary mentor or suddenly made me the prophesied ‘chosen one’.
The power of friendship? That might work. Even if I couldn’t learn the Skill myself, perhaps I could convince a person, or persons to do so on my behalf. I’d just need to find someone capable of doing so and convince them to devote their lives to me for little-to-no compensation. Simply entertaining the thought felt slimy, but it was enough for The System.
Would you like to choose Manipulation [Social] as your Core Skill?
Yeah. No. I dismissed the offer. I wanted to get home, but not like that. It was a terrifying Skill. Were there people who could sway the minds of humans like Tina commanded her dogs? I’d have to look into ways to protect myself from such a-
FUCK! Later! Core Skill! Choose! Now! I was almost out of time. The irritation I felt at my wandering mind brought a final Skill to its attention. It was the thing that made heroes rise above the masses. It was what separated the exceptional from the mundane. It even went beyond the realms of fiction.
Some of the greatest men and women of history achieved success after countless failures, setbacks, and hardship. It was their ability to keep trying, no matter the difficulty or delay, that set them apart. It was something I knew I lacked in my first life. It was something I craved for my second.
Would you like to choose Perseverance as your Core Skill?
There it was. Perseverance. Getting home was going to be arduous at best. My track record suggested I didn’t have what it took to endure the challenges ahead. I needed perseverance if I was going to do this. I needed perseverance if I was ever going to hold my fiancée again.
All I had to do was say yes… so I did.