The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

Well, what could he say to that?

He wasn’t sure if she’d been pulled away at the drop of a hat, or if she’d had an inkling about the “cataclysmic-level” threat/incident/whatever-it-was. But, and it was a huge but, if she’d regretted it so much, why hadn’t she returned to his prime self? Were there other factors in play that prevented her from returning to him?

Joram shook his head to rid himself of those lines of thought. It hadn’t happened to him-him, so there was no use in worrying over it. His Altaea had already left, which didn’t really surprise him all that much. If the Altaeas had gotten to the point where their memories were being shared, let alone other aspects of herself that had likely been restored, then it was no wonder that she’d been able to leave right away.

Well, after making sure that he’d have a reasonable chance of surviving his new world, anyways.

Joram shook his head and got back to the task at hand. Which was to practice, practice, practice.

By the time the sun was dipping below the horizon, he was beyond worn out. Sure, meditating to restore his psionic reserves had kept him going, but the mental strain of repeatedly manifesting the same Power over and over again was taking its toll.

Sure, the final astral construct that now stood before him was bordering on human-like. Nothing to write home about, for sure. But at least it was close enough for him to be able to squint and say that it looked like a human. A pure silver human but still, it was progress.

At least that wasn’t all that had improved for him. He’d shoved the notifications off to the side while he’d been working, but now that he took the time to review them, he was pretty happy. Then, looking at the many notifications, each on their own screen, he wondered if he could somehow get them to just add lines to the first one or something.

Like, given just how powerful something had to be to govern the entirely of known reality with one unifying System, or whatever…. Wouldn’t this many pop-ups multiplied by however many beings there were at any given time receiving such notifications, be an unnecessary draw on its resources?

“Hey, Avi? Do you think there’s a section for suggestions or maybe a ‘Help’ functi-,” he cut off as another window popped up in front of him.

Help Function engaged…

Analyzing…

Processing…

Retrieving data…

…

Processing…

…

…

…

Executing…

Congratulations!

For assisting the Universal Assistance and Survival System in becoming more efficient, you’ve received the following Title.

- System’s Benefactor

May you continue to thrive.

Joram just about fell over as he read the notification before noticing the other windows/screens winking out of existence until only one of them remained. Upon inspection, he found that it was a condensed version of this many notifications.

Congratulations!

For your hard work, effort, and intent, you’ve gained the following Skill:

- Sculpting

For your hard work, effort, and intent, you’ve leveled the following Skills:

- Concentration 1 -> 3

- Meditation 1 -> 3

- Sculpting 1 -> 2

For your hard work and effort, you’ve gained the following attribute points:

- +2 Spirit

When he finally read the notification, he was both pleasantly surprised and hit with a headrush. He really didn’t know how to describe the feeling, but it was both heady and clarifying at the same time. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Well, maybe that was wrong. It was a bit like a moment of epiphany that didn’t immediately fade.

“Huh,” he grunted, more than pleased with his efforts and what they’d brought him. Though, given that he’d gained two whole points in Spirit, he suddenly wondered if this System had one of those inflated stat-points mechanics. Where, when just starting off, having a handful of points in each attribute was great. But then, four levels later, you’ve have more than double those points already. Then, when you reached the level cap, you’ve have thousands of points in each stat, practically rendering those numbers meaningless.

Given that he’d already gained two attribute points, he wasn’t terribly hopeful for the future….

“Wait, don’t the paths/classes give attribute points as you gain levels?” he asked Avi, but it was mostly rhetorical.

As Avi was nodding, he pulled up his status screen again and quickly navigated to the Path section. Once there, he looked up a “common” Path and skimmed down to the “attribute gains” part.

“Well, maybe I’m wrong…” he mused out loud as his brain registered the number.

One. That particular path/class granted one additional attribute point per four levels. He then found an “uncommon” Path and found that it granted one per three levels.

The “rare” path/class granted one per two levels, while the “epic” ones granted one per level. Then it went up from there, having the “legendary” ones grant two per level, “mythic” granting three per level, and finally the “transcendent” ones granting a whopping five attribute points per level.

From a strictly power-leveling perspective, he’d be stupid to not take one of the transcendent classes that were open to him.

From an objective perspective, he’d also be stupid to not take a transcendent class. But from a realistic perspective, he wondered just how many people were actually wandering around with a transcendent class. Were those the rulers? Some legendary figure that had saved the world at some point? Beings powerful enough to rule a country… or a continent?

His mind raced as he considered the various possibilities and consequences of taking such a class. Would he become a celebrity; someone with no personal space or privacy anymore? Or would he become a national asset, coveted by those in power. Guarded jealously if he fell into their hands, or perhaps the target of assassination by those who felt threatened by his existence.

That right there, more than anything, gave him pause. He had absolutely no knowledge of this world, its politics, nor its power structures. Point in fact: just how many people had those classes that were listed as higher rarities? Were they listed as such because of the number of people who’d ever managed to attain them? Or were they listed as such because of how difficult they were to qualify for?

So many questions, so few answers.

Given how few attribute points were given out for having a class, he wondered just where he sat in terms of personal power. In every RPG he’d ever played that dealt with attribute points, each character started off at a certain base. The popular one was ten. That was common for a crapload of games.

But if the base here was ten, then was he considered extremely weak in comparison to others? His lowest attributes were Speed and Charisma, both sitting at seven. In Pathfinder, he’d be a clumsy, leather-tongued guy. Pretty much the comic relief.

But here? Did everyone start at one, then move up from there? Or was it something else?

‘It’s getting late,’ Avi said from his side. ‘We should head in and lock up.’

“Ah, right,” he said, coming out of his musings to see that the sun had slipped below the horizon at some point, leaving fantastic colours to be seen where the canopy didn’t completely block out the sky.

Joram took his time looking around again, making sure that no goblins had wandered over, or anything else for that matter. After a few minutes of careful observation, he made his way to the edge of the roof and looked down. It was a good four metres to the forest floor, making him wonder if sliding down the tree would be a better idea for getting himself down.

Then he shrugged. With his ability to heal himself in the case of an accident, the real-life consequences of doing something stupid was greatly reduced. But the possibility of extreme pain wasn’t. So, he got down on his butt, swung his legs over the edge, then slowly lowered himself until he was hanging from his fingertips.

Extended like that, he was less than two metres from the ground now. But, just dropping would be boring. So, he got his feet up onto the wall under him, took a few breaths, then pushed off the wall with his legs while letting go of the lip of the roof.

With his mighty (?) push, he tried to twist in the air so that he could hit the ground in a roll. He got the sudden feeling that he’d done something similar before as his body reacted and moved almost on its own. When he landed, then rolled, he grunted in pain. He hadn’t quite “landed” the landing.

Staring up at the canopy from the forest floor, he started laughing. Laughing at the absurdity of what he’d done, laughing more as the pain fueled his mild hysterics until he was out of breath and gasping. He had managed to bruise his left shoulder and twist his right ankle a bit. Sure, he’d have taken a few days off work had that happened back on Earth. But here?

Joram could see Avi shaking her head at him from the rooftop, which sparked another laughing fit as he tried to access [Natural Healing]. It took him another minute to calm down enough to manifest the Power, but when he did, relief flooded through him.

‘That wasn’t a wise thing to do,’ Avi said from beside once he’d gotten back to his feet.

“Yeah, well, it was fun,” he said as he made his way back into his house before locking the door behind him.

‘And what would have happened if you’d somehow managed to break your neck?’ she asked, looking a bit cross.

“I’d imagine lots of pain,” he said with a shrug, not wanting to play the “what if” game. “I’m sure that I’ll encounter much more hazardous stuff in the future.”

Avi, it seemed, couldn’t argue with that. And before she could say anything else, he continued.

“I imagine that I’ll need lots more training, and getting a couple of bruises will be the least of my worries when that time comes. In the meantime, I’ll just have to train myself up to be able to handle whatever I’ll come across in the future,” he finished with a shake of his head.

If what he knew of Altaea was accurate, then he was certain that she’d put his other self through hell while training him. And since he was effectively alone here, he’d have to rely on himself to get any training done that he could. No “safety net”, as it were. It was all on him.

‘Good,’ Avi said, now looking pleased. ‘Given the unknown environment that you find yourself in, training will certainly be your highest priority if you wish to survive.’

Joram gave Avi the side-eye. Had she just played him?

“You’re not just a VI, are you?” he asked, finally giving voice to the doubts that had popped up in his head over the last day or so.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just a simple VI,’ Avi replied, giving him the blankest look he’d ever seen on someone.

“Sure,” Joram murmured with a shake of his head.

He then turned back to the door and considered the deadbolt and the door frame. That door wouldn’t hold up to a good boot stomping. Well, the door frame, anyways. The door itself was reasonably solid. It was just that the cheap’ish materials that had been used for the frame weren’t the best.

Joram looked that the whole thing and pondered ways of reinforcing it. When he’d been in France, he’d noticed that many doors had three points where it “locked”. When you turned the key to the lock, it not only released the standard deadbolt, but also moved two other rods that secured the door. One up top where it went into the top of the door frame, while the other went down into the floor.

If he could rig something like that, then he wouldn’t worry as much about someone kicking in his door. He was in the process of planning it all out when Avi spoke up.

‘Why don’t you just put a bar across the door?’

Ah, there was that, he thought ruefully. Considering how good he wasn’t when it came to using [Modify Matter], going for something simple would be the wisest course of action.

Twenty minutes later, Joram was starting at the basic “bar” that he’d installed. The pivot point was on the wall between the door frame and the connecting, adjacent wall. It could be raised or lowered into position, which involved two cradles he’d installed into the door to catch the “bar” on its way down, and one cradle on the wall that the frame was set into.

The “bar”, as he kept calling it, was closer to a post. It was a good ten by fifteen centimetres wide and tall, and a good metre-twenty long. Er, one point two metres long, that is. At any rate, it was a solid barrier that should hold up for a while under duress.

With that done, and Avi looking smug for a VI, he wandered to the bathroom and stripped down to take a shower. Sure, he didn’t sweat or anything, and he’d used [Cleanse] more than a few times throughout the day to take care of the gore that he’d been covered in more than once. But, there was just something about taking a shower that refreshed a person.

Once done, he wandered back to his bedroom and found a change of clothing. This time, he chose a pair of cargo shorts and a simple t-shirt… with a Star Wars logo on the front. Simple enough.

He wasn’t sure how much sleep he now needed… or he supposed it was meditation now. But he also didn’t want to be caught naked if more goblins or something showed up in the night. That said, he was ready for some good… meditation.

“Can High Elans even sleep?” he asked Avi as she took a seat beside him on his bed.

‘Not in the way that you’re used to,’ she said, then explained when she saw his raised eyebrow. ‘It’s more of a deep meditative state. You don’t dream or anything like that. But your body does regenerate itself and replenishes your psionic power all at once.’

“No dreams, huh,” he mused, not quite sure how much he liked that thought. Or reality, in this case.

Sure, he’d suffered his fair share of nightmares and unpleasant dreams over the course of his life with everything that had happened to both him and his family. But, there was something that he would miss about dreaming. Almost every night of his life, he could remember dreaming. Sure, most vanished like smoke in a breeze upon waking, but remembering that he’d dreamt, remember what he’d felt in those dreams, had been… nice.

Heck, he’d even gotten to the point where lucid dreaming was more common than regular dreaming for him. He could even fall asleep whenever, wherever, he wanted. And even then, he could enter a state that he’d called “half-sleep” where he was still aware of what was going on around him, like in class, but also have a dream superimposed over what his eyes could see.

Now, he supposed that meditation would replace all that. But, at the same time, would he be able to enter a dream-like state while meditating? It was something to consider.

For now? Meditation.

He listened to Avi as she guided him through “sleeping” meditation. It was a bit different than the technique used to restore himself, but similar enough that he grasped it within a few minutes. From there, he concentrated, as directed, on rejuvenating his body, section by section, organ by organ- the which he found that he was missing a few!!- system by system, and even down to the cellular level when it came to anything that hadn’t quite been healed by [Natural Healing]. Like his shoulder.

Well, not just his shoulder. Due to everything being connected, landing on his shoulder hadn’t just bruised it, but had also subtly shifted his shoulder, ribcage, and just about everything else out of proper alignment. Sure, it wasn’t much, but given time and repeated injuries and he was sure that they’d add up to problems down the line like those he’d suffered from before… coming to his new world.

So, little by little, bit by bit, he directed the psionic energy through his body to correct the miniscule problems that he found. Once done, he opened his eyes again and glanced over at his clock and found that almost four hours had passed. And he felt great. Like he’d spent the night in the best bed after having a full-body massage.

He stretched a bit, even yawning while doing so, then paused. Not a single snap, crackle, or pop had interrupted his stretch. How many years had it been since that had happened, he wondered, a bemused smile tugging at his lips.

He turned and saw Avi sitting at the foot of his bed and wondered if she’d just sat there the entire time. He shrugged. It wasn’t like he could do anything about that, so he didn’t let it bother him too much.

“Back to training?” he asked, a slight smile still on his face.

‘Back to training,’ Avi confirmed as she stood up and stepped out of the room.

Joram nodded, then stood up and stretched again. It just felt so good!

But then, five minutes later, that wonderful feeling had been replaced by the poignant sting of over a dozen bruised scattered across his body because he’d failed to dodge Avi’s balls in time.

Given the smirk on her face, he was one hundred percent sure that she was an AI, not a VI.