NOVEL WEB Chapter 4: Making Progress
“Deis! Are you there?” Jack shouted into the white void, spinning slowly as he did. Being able to focus on a screen in front of him had helped him ignore how empty this place was. It was truly staggering how vast this place seemed to be. Jack was very glad when Deis once again materialized before him.
What
Not a great start. Deis sounded annoyed, even though it had been several hours since his blowup.
“I uh…I accidentally got rid of the status page.” Jack looked down sheepishly. He felt like a child who had just broken a brand-new toy. Except his punishment might be obliteration instead of a timeout.
You…got rid of it? The hood that was Deis’ head turned as if looking around. However, when it turned to face the keyboard Jack had made, he stopped. What is that?
“Oh, that's the keyboard I made. I needed to type things in.” Jack explained. “I had to break off pieces of the status screen to make it."
You broke it? That shouldn’t be possible. Let me see
The status screen popped back up in front of Jack, and all the information was still displayed on it. Well, at least it saved all the information.
Deis examined the status screen’s edges and didn't seem to find any damage. Show me what you did
Jack took out his pick and cut a tiny square out of the bottom corner of the screen, then broke it off. He handed the tiny piece of screen to Deis, who caused it to hover in front of him. Jack waited patiently as Deis spun the small fragment around until it disappeared.
I see. You were able to affect the screen because you are infused by my power in this place. Others would not be able to do such a thing
“Probably for the best. I would hate for them to be able to mess with all our hard work.” Jack mused before turning to Deis. “So we need to talk about some stuff. I don’t really want to bother you if I need the status screen back. We need to make it openable.”
A fair point, the less time I spend with you the better. Fortunately, in my infinite wisdom, I have constructed a spell to serve as the medium for viewing the screen. I will add it to your status
“You can add things already? That’s awesome!” Despite his words, Jack wasn’t optimistic. He fully believed the god could grant powers, even adapting them to the system. But he had no confidence that Deis would give him anything actually helpful.
However, despite his worries, something appeared on Jack's status screen. He had expected it to go into lifestyle skills, but instead, the spell appeared below the age section. Well, it was a problem for later, for now, Jack examined the spell.
Similar to his expectations, having the spell in his status granted him some faint knowledge in his mind of how to use it. Actual Magic! It seemed that the spell was very simple in nature. It required nothing more than a tiny bit of magic, and a keyword. The keyword was ‘status’ which was easy enough, but the tiny bit of magic could be a problem. The skill itself was simply called [Status].
“Deis, I can’t use magic. My world doesn’t have magical power as far as I know.”
Deis seemed to radiate annoyance. I have already told you, you are infused with my power here. You will be able to cast the spell
“Oh, cool.” Jack hadn’t really known what that had entailed, but apparently, he could cast magic! Without delay, he closed the status screen and then spoke the keyword, sweeping his hand out dramatically. “Status!”
His status screen appeared in front of him, the same as it had been before. “That’s perfect! That will make things really simple and easy to use.”
Naturally. Everything I do is perfect
Deis seemed very pleased with himself at Jack’s approval. The god was getting easier to understand from a motivation standpoint. He seemed to hate Jack but wanted his creations to be happy. He didn’t want to look bad but took pride in doing things the right way. Jack figured he might be able to convince the god into giving him more wiggle room.
“So,” Jack began carefully, “I need to talk to you about stats and skills. I don’t know anything about what the people of your world are capable of. I have no knowledge of magic or martial arts or anything like that, but we need to categorize that stuff and figure out how much power you can bestow in all those areas.”
I have thought of this. I compiled a list of everything every individual is capable of and made status pages for all of them
Deis swept his cloak and floating blue boxes appeared. Not ten or twenty, but thousands upon thousands of blue boxes. Stretching back further than Jack could see, there was box after box. Stunned, it took Jack a moment to notice a more impactful detail. The boxes were all different sizes, some stretching down or up, filled to the brim with text.
Jack moved closer to one of the first ones and began reading. It was a human named Gerard, and he had hundreds of skills listed. Some of them were what Jack had expected, things like [Town Guard Spearmanship] and [Potato Planting]. But Jack also spotted some things he hadn’t expected. The [Winking] skill as an example. When questioned, Deis informed Jack that winking was an acquired talent, and that practice was required to make it appear more natural.
The list was full of things that were technically learnable skills, but it was an insane amount of information. Gerard didn’t even have a particularly long set of skills when compared to some others.
Jack pointedly ignored Deis as the god rambled on about how Gerard had been practicing his winking to try and charm Bella down the road. He stopped to think. Suddenly giving everyone in the world this much random information, unorganized and untested, then applying god's power to all of this…It would be disastrous. He needed a way to slowly introduce the process while controlling how much the status screen could affect the world at a time. Perhaps installing the system in patches? Releasing new versions as the kinks got worked out? Honestly, even doing that much, Jack still wouldn’t be able to learn much about the people or the effects of these skills, he needed to meet and talk with residents of the world.
He doesn’t even realize that Bella has been seeing someone else this whole time, but his efforts inspire confidence in him, I’m so proud
“Deis?” Jack interrupted.
Hmm? Oh yes, what is it?
“I think I need to meet some people from your world. Even with this, it’s too much information without the context. Besides that, it’s honestly starting to hurt my eyes, can you put those away?” The glare from so many glowing blue screens was very bright indeed. Jack was getting spots in his vision from the light of it.
Deis made the screens vanish. I thought I told you that I would not allow you to step one foot into my world. I will not allow you to taint my beautiful creation
“Yes, I know that. I promise that I have no intention of tainting anything. But to help you the most, I need to meet and interact with people. Giving everyone the ability to do everything better could lead to a lot of unintended consequences. I want to make sure that your gift to the world is as nice and polished as possible.”
This was a bit of a gamble on Jack's part. As with most interactions with the god, he had to walk a fine line between placation and request. Jack figured that Deis would be more likely to give Jack some allowance than potentially letting his world come to harm.
Your words are…unfortunately accurate. I shall prepare a medium for you to use, a way to keep your influence to a minimum, and a way to safely spread the gift I have concocted for my people. You will continue to construct and perfect the system. Your duties will change in the coming days, but for now, I must go prepare
Say what you want about Deis, but once he was into an idea, he committed to them. Jack was very pleased with the result, it would give him more opportunities for ways out of his situation.
“Oh, if you’re going to be busy, can you leave a couple of those status screens behind? I want to take a look at some of the skills you have compiled and start categorizing.” Jack asked, almost as an afterthought.
Very well
Deis materialized ten screens and then turned away, vanishing into the white void. Jack started to read the first one before realizing he had never managed to take a nap. He turned away from the status in front of him, an animalus named Jeler (whatever that was), and lay down to try and sleep.