- Good morning! Congratulation for your level-up! I can finally be bringer of good, pain free, news!

- Yeah, yeah good morning...

I braced myself for the incoming pain... and fortunately it didn't come.

- Menu!

Level UP!Human => Human INew menu function unlocked!Avatar status (already unlocked)

Map

Skill list

- Lots of news, I see... so now I suppose to se my stats... Avatar status!

NameRaceAverageHuman IHPMP112120AtkDefDexWis11111111Exp0/200

- So you really didn't lie... Even with the increase in health and mana no pain... By the way, what's with the even spreaded +1?

- Judging the situation I suppose I should've expected little trust, but it still hurts me, I never lied to you from the beginning... Never mind, to answer your question it's the standard level up status increase for human.

- Sorry about... Wait a minute! Trying to making me empathize with you will not... Sigh... You're really starting to sound more and more human day after day.

- Thank you! The influence of your matrix are keeping...

- That wasn't a compliment! And if you really are becoming more human by my memories... good luck to you. Would you mind telling me what made you stop talking yesterday?

- Time is a deciding factor for our interaction so bye!

- Hey! ... I know was being a "£&/!@-bag but I really need information. ... Hey! ... Maybe it's time restricted? Mmmmm... That would explain lots of things...

Grumbling about the voice disappearance, a detail of yesterday keeps bugging me. My improved memory seemed foolproof, so why yesterday mana didn't decrease after the "force-barrier" creation? Did it fail? The only way was to try again...

More importantly, the level up being pain free was almost to good to be true, even if I prepared mentally for it, pain is still one of my least appreciated things.

- Definitely one of the least... Let's continue! Map!

UNKNOWN AreaUnable to display map

- Well that at least clarify one doubt, it's not labeled tutorial or starter area but unknown... Skill list!

Skill listCrafting

Intuition I

MagicSkills points: 1

- What can I say, much more interesting than the map section doubtless, but skill point?

Until then this system, even with the intent control parts, seemed to me pretty devoid of choices. 

- It's better to not get my hopes up, let's see how use this opportunity...

The fact that the level-up, and resulting questionable gain, was possible and painless put my original plan back on track. Meaning exploiting as long as I could this UNKNOWN room, cheap I knew, but preparation is akin to salvation.

- Cringe saying apart, let's see what can be done with the single point or if it's better to hoard them and choose something big. Still the thing that keeps bugging me is this system, sometimes it's linear and simple but other times ,the names and interface for example, it seems like a rush job... Better squash the frightening idea I'm having now, for the sake of my mind health.

- Skill list! Mmmmm... even if is seems like a display it's not touch operated... But seeing like the rest of the system goes, the most simple solution may be the right one. 

The new menu that opened confirmed this theory.

- Skills points!

Skills points: 1Available upgradeHp +10

Mp +10

Atk +1

Def +1

Dex +1

Wis +1

Exp +10%

Well for my gamer-self that was sure a no-brain decision, so following my usual game pattern...

- Exp +10%!... ... please?... How I'm supposed to select it now?

No response followed my rhetorical question, so I tried various things with a "I choose you" in between, until I found the right sequence.

- Skills points! Select Exp +10% upgrade!

Skills points: 0Selected: Exp +10%Related bonus skills unlockedMenu HUD

-Wait, what?

In the time I made that "witty" retort my vision of the world changed somehow, making the situation I was in more and more strange. The only way to describe what happened in the blink of an eye, for me, was to say...

- What the @#$% ?!

Cursing apart, my vision changed in a game-like interface that followed all my eye movement. Neat but at the same time frightening. 

- I'm really feeling more and more slipping from reality... I need to focus, breathe in breathe out... 

I had to admit that, as vexing as it was, apart from the starting surprise that HUD-thing was really exciting. Little sensible to the classics, I believed, that "interface" had spheres in the left and right corner of my vision. And, seeing their colours, red and blue, my guess was that they stood for health and mana.

- Well that much is easy to check later.

In the high corner a black globe with "UNKNOWN" written on top was the map, I supposed. Another green one, in the last edge, completed the ensemble. When I started looking around, trying to get used to have four fixed object in the corner of my vision, I found that concentrating on one of the spheres made it more opaque while the opposite was also true. The "funny" thing was that, even with my eyes closed, they were visible.

- It really will take some time to get used... But if the red is health, blue stand for mana and the black is a map what's the green one for? Mmmmm... If concentrating make them more visible maybe that's the key...

I concentrated on the green sphere and, after a few attempts, a menu like the one on the mirror filled my vision.

MenuAvatar StatusMapSkill list*Locked*

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

While the locked one was suspicious, all the other voices listed seemed identical to the one displayed before. Opening  them one by one confirmed my guess. The status, map and skill menu that opened before my eyes where the same, the best thing was that I could check them without talking.

- An improvement yes, but I don't know if this is more or less crazy...

To test the other part of the interface was pretty straight forward, a small cut confirmed that when health decreased the red globe flashed and shrunk a little. 

- Not really precise but I suppose consulting the status can overcome this flaw.

Just like for the health, making a little flame shortly appear made the blue sphere flash and shrunk.

While waiting to see how fast they returned to their beginning sizes, similar to a tennis ball, I noticed a disturbing fact. While previously the cut on my hand took a while to close and scar, this time the cut was closing much faster.

- Supposing there's a sense in this system, the only explanations could be the "Human I" change, or the increased health...

I shook my head thinking at the increasing list of things to test and doubts to clarify, and so I did one of the things that always freed my mind for overthinking, manual labour.

Two tube-like parts of the bed frame, and four square connector, remained still untouched from my previous experiments so I started to think what to do with them. Previously I had already made a blade, big like a kitchen knife, from a metal strip. So it was time for defensive equipment. Combining, with some difficulties, part of the sheets with the others metal strips, and bending the tubes, gave me forearms, shins and torso armour.

- The whole thing make me look like a poor man that made poor life choices, and that's being nice...

Anyway, looks apart, the armour seemed functional from the few swings I made at it with the blade. 

So going in the same direction as before I continued my crafting session. Leaving one of the square alone to use like a, albeit blunt, file I first started cutting long strips from the remaining sheet. Remembering the few information I knew about braiding ropes I started working to see if I could make one.

I have to be honest and say it was a mind-boggling boring task, but it gave me time to calm down, settle my mind and sift trough my thoughts. Also the end result was rustic but functional, and gave me some ideas how to improve my previous crafts.

Previously I simply coiled the metal strips and stopped them with fabric's wrapping, obtaining a really basilar shins and forearms protector. But with the new braided rope I could secure the metal more firmly in a crisscrossed fashion. The chest armour had undergone similar overhaul.

- It sure made them look like a life saving vest pieces...

Ignoring my own remark, I putted them on and checked the result, focusing on the menu sphere and than on the status.

NameRaceAverageHuman IHPMP112120AtkDefDexWis11+211+111111Exp30/180

The results were more than encouraging, and some were really surprising. I expected an increased defensive capability but to double my initial def value and even add some attack... 

- Maybe the increased hardness when hitting with arms and legs?

Well talking to myself was not going to help so, happy with the result, I continued the preparation for an eventual attacker. To be honest it served to satisfy my inner desire to forget the situation, and drown my doubts in manual labour.

Next I tried to sharpen more the knife, and also to create a better grip. Slowly and firmly rubbing the edge, with one of the metal cubic connector, solved tolerably the first problem. Hitting the grip into a better shape and then wrapping it with the rope solved the second.

Checking the knife value with the status gave me a satisfying +5 in atk, but that made me thought... If a really simple knife had almost half of my attack value... Were my stats really that low? Having nothing to compare my stats with was really frustrating but, for good measure, I was going to consider my starting values low or medium.

Anyway, the rope made from the sheet's fabric revealed to be much more useful than predicted so I started working to braid the last intact fabric into ropes. While I worked on it I started to think of more useful items. One of the last pipes could, maybe, become a spear for mid range fighting, I had never used one but I had read that even a non trained person could fight with less fear if the weapon had longer reach.

- Maybe the last pipe can be coiled to form a small shield? The connector's bolas idea is full of holes...

While muttering I ended making the rope, and started working to flatten an end of a pipe by hitting it with the bigger piece of metal. Folding the flattened end on itself was harder, but gave me a pretty pointy spearhead.

Coiling the last part of the bed frame revealed impossible with my actual means, so instead I folded it in four part and secured the obtained zig-zag pipe with the new rope. The string-handle was wobbly but better than nothing.

Like I grumbled before, the idea to tie up the three square connector with ropes to make bolas, was not realistically exploitable. Not only because I wanted the remaining length of rope to be free to use, but also because the last pieces of metal could be used in probable future project.

Also I wasn't sure of the effectiveness of my rope to restrain someone or if I was really going to be able to hit anything.

So equipped with everything I created until then, and feeling like a post-apocalyptic/steampunk poor adventurer, I invoked the avatar status "hud".

NameRaceAverageHuman IHPMP112120AtkDefDexWis11+1211+111111Exp50/180

Being prepared at the best that I could I thought it was time to finally go forward.