The Games We Play

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryugii. This has been pulled from his Spacebattle publishment. Anyway on with the show...errr read.

Tutorial Level

I woke up at six and started working on my homework the moment I rolled out of bed. I'd thought about it last night and had decided for sure—school was going to cut into my time a lot. Not only did I need to spend seven hours a day there when I could be training instead, but there was also stuff like homework I had to do out of class. So, to avoid wasting more time than necessary, I should get this done with as quickly as possible. Hence, waking up early and spending an hour on this week's homework.

Diligent studying caused your INT to increase by 1!

I turned to stare flatly at the notification, wondering why I was even surprised.

I could increase my stats like that, too?

That changed things. If it wasn't just by leveling up—that is, if I could get more than five points per level—then my plans needed to be adjusted accordingly. I'd need to test exactly how it work, experiment to see if how it applied to my other stats and how I could improve each, though I imaged that working out would improve the physical ones. In which case…

From eight to three I was in school. Taking into account breakfast and the time it would take to reach class, I would have an hour of free time in the morning that I couldn't use effectively in any other way, so I could study and work out then. At school, I could study and get ahead and nobody should be able to complain. After school, I could stay out until supper, if I told mom I was going to the library—which I was, so it wasn't even really a lie. I could practice a number of my skills then and after supper I could go into the woods to practice the ones I couldn't use in town. Mom would want me back by dark, though, at which point I could study and work out some more in my room.

No matter how exhausted my body got, I would recover after thirty minutes of rest. My hp and mp returned more slowly, but even they would be fully restored simply by sleeping in my bed for six hours. As such, no matter how hard I pushed myself at night, it was fine. If I could gain additional stat points at a reasonable rate, it was more than worth it—if I could gain even just one INT per level then even assuming I couldn't think of any way to get additional Wisdom, I could focus on it and get it to level fifty by level nine and still have an INT of eighteen or higher. If I switched my focus to it afterwards, I could raise INT to fifty as well by the time I was level fifteen.

I resisted the urge to pump my fist in the air before realizing there was no one around to look at me strangely and doing it anyway.

Then I went downstairs to make breakfast before Mom woke up.

The Breakfast of Champions.

XxXXxX

School was boring, as a rule, and it wasn't made particularly less so by the fact that I spent the whole time studying. My Int didn't go up again while I was there, which didn't particularly surprise me since even a week of school and homework hadn't raised it until this morning. After it let out for the day, I headed towards the library like I'd told mom, Observing everyone and everything that caught my eye on the way there. Most of them were just normal people, but practice was practice, right?

The library, however, turned out to be a treasure trove. Not just because it turned out that, yes, I could Observe every single book and not just because there were plenty of books there that I could use to study after I finished with my textbooks. Those were nice, but they paled in comparison to the true power of the library. I'm not remotely ashamed to admit that I made a beeline for the section about Hunters and such the moment I entered. I started from the top and went through it alphabetically, taking a book out, Observing it, and putting it back. Each use gave me what amounted to a summary of the book, which got more detailed as I leveled it up again. But as I was approaching the end of 'A'…

You obtained the skill book 'Aura: The Light of Our Souls.' Would you like to learn this skill?

It took me a minute to understand what I was look at. When I did…well, if I'd been holding a drink, I would have crushed it right then and I proceeded to press 'Yes' about twenty times in the half a second it took for the message to vanish. The book proceeded to fill with a bright golden light before flaking apart into what seemed almost like glowing petals and vanishing completely. As it did, I could feel the knowledge flowing into me and I knew, knew, exactly what Aura was despite having never even heard of it before.

Aura (Passive & Active) LV1 EXP: 0.00%

The Manifestation of one's soul. Long ago, Man, who was born from dust, learned to wield the light of their being against the soulless Grimm. It's a power that allowed Mankind to reach past their human limits and drive back the darkness, letting them bear their burdens and shielding their hearts. Stat increases depend on the amount of Aura (MP).

Passively increases STR by 30%.

Passively increases DEX by 30%.

Passively increases VIT by 30%.

Passively increases INT by 30%.

Passively increases WIS by 30%.

Additional 30% increase to STR when activated.

Additional 30% increase to DEX when activated.

Additional 30% increase to VIT when activated.

HP regeneration speed increased by 100% when activated.

…Holy crap that's broken and it's only at level one. And all Hunters have this?

I looked at my hands as they—my entire body, really—started glowing bright white. After a few seconds passed, it began to die down, the power drawing closer to my skill. It was active already, I could feel it, and I had no objections to that whatsoever. This skill was one I wanted to level up as quickly as possible.

I tried to fight down the urge to start laughing and cheering like a madman and only succeed because I heard footsteps and they reminded me that I had no way of explaining what just happened and, also, I'd just destroyed one of the library's books which I really didn't want to explain either. Or, uh, pay for. Because my wallet was anemic.

Thinking quickly, I dove to the end of the row with my new found speed and turned around the corner, holding my breath in an instinctive attempt to go unnoticed. Someone—another library-goer or a librarian, I didn't know—stopped near where I'd just been and I silently crept past the thankfully empty row beside the Hunter section and turned down into the one two shelves down, where I spotted another person. I went back to looking at books in a way I hoped was casual, going back to Observing.

Seconds past and nobody came after me and I let out a slow breath.

A skill has been created through a special action! Continuous hiding has created the skill 'Stealth' to avoid notice!

I didn't react as the notice appeared, focusing on the books. Just in case, I should probably avoid looking at the Hunter section again today, though I could still browse through a few shelves of books. I needed to remember that using skill books came with a lightshow and vanishing books and do it somewhere out of the way.

Out of the way…

I spent a minute browsing the shelf I was on, just for show, before minding another empty row. After a few minutes of searching and Observing, as well as some basic thought, I found what I was looking for. A Driver's Manual—or rather, to me, a driving skill book. I could use this with the push of a button and instantly learn how to drive and all it would take is a destroyed book. And…it may have been selfish of me or said something about me, but the destruction of a book in return for skills like this just didn't bother me. If anything did, it was simply that I would be taking the book from the library permanently in doing so and maybe a minor fear of being caught. But…

I took a deep breath and spoke.

"Inventory," I said and the window appeared before me. I pushed the book into it and it disappeared into a ripple in space, stored neatly into one of the top slots. And then, I went back to the shelf and started looking for other skill books.

I'll pay you back someday, I promised the library as I left a few hours later. As I passed through the threshold, a notification appeared.

A skill has been created through a special action! Continuous theft has created the skill 'Theft' to take things that belong to others!

Mastery of the skill Theft increases! Theft's level goes up by one! Theft's level goes up by one! Theft's level goes up by one! Theft's level goes up by one! Theft's level goes up by one!

Damn it.

After I left the library, I went home and started sorting through the skill books I'd taken. A number were of…questionable utility, but several actually seemed pretty useful, if odd. I'd gotten a Craft skill, for instance…from an art book, but it seemed to apply to making stuff in general, since I'd been able to add blueprints using several cookbooks, art books, and a number of other things. When I had a chance—and the money and the materials—I'd try leveling it up. There were a few others in the small section of the library I'd cleared, but they were mainly stuff like how to drive specific vehicles—leading to my Drive skill—and stuff. It'd take a long time to clear the entire library, I knew, but I was also excited to see what I'd find in doing so.

My ability is so cheap…

Once I was done with supper and my training in the woods, I went to my room, put my textbook on the floor, and did pushups until I thought I would die. I did my best to read as I did, though only covered about a fifth of what I normally would have in that time and then I rolled over onto my back gasping for air. When I caught my breath enough, I picked up my book and read for a while. After thirty minutes passed, I was completely recovered, as always.

I proceeded to do squats until I thought I was gonna die, placing my book on the table in front of me. Afterwards, I read until I recovered and did crunches until I thought I was gonna die, read some more, and did lunges until I thought I was gonna die. Then I went to sleep and woke up six hours later, completely refreshed.

Repeated effort caused your STR to increase by 1!

Repeated struggles caused your VIT to increase by 1!

I smiled brightly. That was about a week of effort to get a level in STR, VIT, and INT, without focused effort? If I stuck to my schedule, I should be able to do it in half that time or less. Though it should get harder to level up as my stats improved…but the stronger I got, the more I could train and the smart I got, the more complex the things I could study. At least for now, I could probably aim for half a week to a week of heavy effort, per point—maybe faster for INT, given that I spent most of my time at school studying. I'd need to think of something for DEX, however. Acrobatics? Running? I could do the latter as I moved through the city, but I'd need to think of something to attempt the former. I might want to look into weights, too, though I could probably borrow my dad's.

I looked at my clock and nodded to myself in satisfaction. I still had an hour before I needed to get going. Should I work out here some more? Study? Train my skills?

It was both exhilarating and intimidating. Not just my power but even simply knowing that I had stats and skills, that they were numerical values I could watch increase. With a word, I could bring up proof that my every action, every choice, was defining my life. Choosing to spend my time one way was taking away from my time to train something else, but at the same time I could literally see any improvements. But what should I use this free hour in the morning for?

I could try working on my DEX, but it would take a while to bear fruit, even assuming I picked the right way to train it—and any time I wasted doing that was time I wasn't spending improving known qualities. The question, then, was if I valued DEX enough to bother, instead of one of the alternatives. And, if not, what did I value and what was most efficient? I spent about three hours working out and studying in the evening, though most of that was breaks to recover. Call it one hour of hard work to two hours of studying, though that was free time I could use for either. I spent seven hours at school and I spent all the time I could studying, so call it five to six hours accounting for various interruptions, but that was time I could only spent studying, because most of my teachers would probably object to me doing backflips in class. I had this one hour in the morning that I could also spend either way, studying or working out.

Except it wouldn't really be the same, would it? If I worked out, I would get at most half an hour in before I needed to rest, whereas I could spend the whole time studying. When my body was stronger, I'd probably be able to train for the whole hour—and I'd get that strong eventually, I knew that for sure—but right now…

I had the weekends off, I thought. I can literally train my body from dusk 'til dawn, then. And once I'd raised my Intelligence and Wisdom to fifty, I could decide how to handle everything else.

So I studied at home and I studied at school and by the time it let out I'd literally finished reading one of my textbooks and it was every bit as awful as it sounds. Maybe, hopefully, it would get easier once I'd gotten smarter—but I doubted it. It wasn't really the contents that were hard, since that had gotten easier to understand and I'd spent two days studying what felt like constantly. It was the fact that what I read was a text book and as dry as the paper it had been written on.

But once school let out, I finally had a break from studying, at least until tonight. I thought about heading back to the Library and searching for treasure; using Observe on even just one bookshelf took forever so I'd only gone through a small section of it. However…there was something I wanted to check out first. The library had been, would be, a treasure trove, but there were limits to what I could find there. I wanted to know I had options, other places to get skill books if needed—and, perhaps, books I couldn't get in a public library. I wasn't in a rush or anything, since I still had all the time in the world to get stronger, but it didn't hurt to look and I might even get lucky.

Which was how I found myself straying off my usual route home, towards a store I'd walked past a hundred times but never gone into.

I started thinking maybe it wasn't the greatest idea I'd ever had the moment I walked into the store and saw the shopkeeper. Or rather, saw what was floating above his head.

White Fang Member

LV11

Tukson