Reincarnated in Quality Assurance

Seven days later, Marke felt nearly ready to try Grace again. He woke up early and began working through his scheduled activities. Each activity had been selected according to their Priority List:

Don’t Suffer: Strength training. Stealth training.

Don’t Die: Walking

Self-Care: Tai Chi

Hobbies: Basket Weaving

Break Systems: Artificial Eclipses

The artificial eclipses project was sort of a joke. Marke and Kente had explored every edge case they could think of for the System screens and menus, so the only path currently open for System breaking was to attempt to abuse mechanisms. They made no measurable progress in this approach.

The straw baskets were very fun for Marke and he had attempted to make a straw hat once he had several successful baskets under his belt. Kente got pretty bored during basket weaving. The physical training proved less boring for Kente as he could observe and critique Marke’s practice and also provide motivating pep talks.

Marke took it easy that morning and only did enough physical training to warm up and remain loose. After Tai Chi, Marke ate his breakfast porridge and discussed stats with Kente.

“I want to put the last two stat points in Intelligence and Soul.” He said.

“Why?” asked Kente.

“Two reasons, but the most important reason is because then I will have even numbers for all stats.” Marke said.

Kente laughed. “Yeah? And what’s the less important reason?”

“I guess it could be useful to find out more about what those stats do. I can feel the changes from Strength and Endurance, and we can measure the results with my workouts, but we have no idea what Soul is and we can only guess what Intelligence actually does.” Marke finished his porridge.

“Hmmm.” Kente thought for a few seconds. “Sure. Go for it. A ten percent increase in Strength and Endurance is probably inconsequential for Grace since we will proceed with more cation this time.”

Assign stat points. Marke thought.

Strength: 10 (+)

Agility: 2 (+)

Endurance: 10 (+)

Intelligence: 1 (+)

Soul: 1 (+)

He tapped the plusses for Intelligence and Soul. He closed his eyes and took a breath. He examined his internal state for changes. I don’t feel any-

“WOW! This is amazing! I feel so alive!” Kente shouted in surprise. Marke’s eyes flew open and he looked around by reflex, even though he knew Kente wasn’t visible.

“What is it?” Marke asked.

“I feel good.” Kente answered. “My thinking is clearer and I feel, I guess, stronger or something. Like I’m more real. This is nice. You gotta give me more stats tomorrow.”

“You didn’t feel any changes with my other stat increased though.” Marke rubbed the light beard on his chin. “On the other hand, I didn’t feel anything with this one. The obvious theory is that ‘Second Soul’ splits the stats between us. Do you think it was both of the stats or just one of them that you felt?”

“I can’t tell.” Kente said. “You added them too close together. We’ll get better data tomorrow. Now that I feel amazing, it’s time to make you feel terrible by practicing Grace.”

Marke could tell that Kente had a huge grin and he laughed at the irony of the situation. He set his bowl aside and sat on the cot, hands on knees, feet flat on the floor. “Ok, here we go.” Marke focused his mind on Grace and slowly took a deep breath. He could feel tension rippling across his body, but not anywhere near the level from a week before. He pushed out the breath and felt more ripples. He continued just breathing for one minute before dropping Grace. “Breathing is good.” He said. Kente put a checkmark in the log next to ‘Breathing’. Marke focused back on Grace and slowly turned his head to the left. The ripples in his muscles were stronger this time and twisted oddly around his spine and down his legs. He turned his head back forward. He turned his head back and forth ten times before dropping Grace. “Head turning is good. Feeling a little tired.” He said.

“We can take a break.” Kente said immediately.

“No, diaphragm is fine, I can continue safely.” Marke focused on Grace and slowly lifted his left arm up to shoulder height. The ripples strained his whole body from head to toe. He set the arm back on his lap and breathed for a minute. He lifted his right arm up to shoulder height and felt pain flare in his back, neck, and feet. He tried to maintain Grace but his concentration broke and his arm flopped down on the cot beside him. His breath came fast and shallow and he sagged with fatigue. Arms are not bad. He thought at Kente. I ran out of gas though. Breathing is fine.

“This is so interesting.” Kente said. “Your movements were incredibly smooth and precise. Your arms both reached the exact same height when you raised them. There was no wobble or adjustment or any variance I could see. Like you were in perfect control of your body.” Kente sounded in awe.

Marke did nothing but sit and breathe for five minutes. Muscles complained all over his body. I could really use some ibuprofen. He thought. I feel like I haven’t used a single muscle in my life before today. Should we put more stats in Strength?

“I don’t… think so.” Kente said hesitantly. “And not just because I want more stats for me. Grace seems to give you extreme and instinctive control over your movements, so we need to pick the stat that synergizes with that.”

You mean Agility? Marke asked. What do you think it does? Why would it help?

“If someone is agile, they are flexible, they can dodge and change direction quickly. An agile person is not typically covered with huge muscles, but they can use the muscle that they do have to do all these things. Do your long muscles hurt? Sorry, we don’t know many muscle names. You had to straighten your arms and that used your trapezoid- no, quads? Septs? I mean the back of your arm. The arm straightening muscle. Does that one hurt?” Kente rambled a little and got audibly flustered.

Marke straightened one arm. “No, that muscle feels fine. It’s all the muscles around it that hurt.” Marke held his arm up for a couple seconds while he thought. “Ow. So, Strength is probably making my muscles stronger overall, Endurance helps my body have more effective energy, and Agility… helps balance my muscles for fine control?”

“Probably both your muscles and joints, yes. That sounds very reasonable. The creator of this realm is terrible at descriptions and names, but they have been reasonable so far.” Kente added some notes about stats to one of their logs.

“Very reasonable.” Marke said, then switched to thought speech. You mean, aside from the once-in-a-million-years class we got?

Ha, ha. Yes, aside from that. Kente responded.