The Way Ahead

It was a bleary-eyed Edwin who blinked awake the next morning, curled up in the hollow of a tree. It fortunately hadn’t gotten very cold overnight, because his thin jacket and jeans would not have been adequate if it had been fairly cold. Still, as it hadn’t rained, it was hardly the most miserable night spent outdoors he had experienced. It had taken effort to fall asleep last night, what with the highly uncomfortable spot he found himself in and the worry that some giant predator awaited just beyond his limited view of the world. He felt it, too, but the effort had yielded its own surprise benefit.

Level Up! Sleeping

Level Up! Sleeping

Sleeping

A very underrated part of the “not killing people” process.

Sleep to recover and become energized

Increased restfulness per level.

He was starting to wonder what wasn’t a skill, and idly wondered how many skills other people must have, if he had already gotten five skills in less than a day of being on… Jorah? A quick attempt at calling up old messages failed, but he was pretty sure it was something along those lines. Jarah, Jorah, Joriah? Joriah sounded right. Thought right? Eh, no matter. It did bring up the question about how, if at all, you could look back at previous messages, though. Maybe something about the ‘customizability’ of Status? Maybe if he…

He flicked himself on the arm to make sure he didn’t get carried away on that tangent. He wasn’t in his room or in class, he couldn’t afford to daydream right now. This was a literally alien world, and he had no food- his stomach growled at the thought- no water, and no shelter.

Three days without water, three weeks without food, three hours without shelter in extreme weather. At least the last of those doesn’t apply at the moment, but I don’t know how long that will last. Come on, wilderness survival books, don’t fail me now.

As it continued to get brighter in the forest, the wildlife picked up. Today, there seemed to be a lot more birds in the area, and maybe just more activity in general? Did they get less skittish of him? Was there something else in the area yesterday that was scaring them away? Was he just noticing them more today? Maybe-

No. Bad Edwin. Focus. Science later. Just keep walking in the direction you were last night, and oh hey! A shrub with purple leaves! I knew there would have to be a few. Gah!

“Hey system guy, I don’t suppose I could get a skill to help me focus?”

…

…

…

“Please?”

…

“…Fine.” He grumbled, ducking between a fallen log and a tree, stopping suddenly as he felt a spiderweb right in front of his face.

Level Up! Basic Mana Sense

Wait, was that magical? It did look practically invisible. Was the range on his mana sense really that short? Great, now he really didn’t know if an invisible predator was sneaking up behind him. He almost wanted to grab a long stick, to poke the web and see if it was magically strong as well, but not knowing if the spider was supernaturally venomous tempered that desire.

…

So as it turned out, the web was supernaturally strong. And while he didn’t know if the spider was venomous- he absolutely wasn’t testing that without some kind of Poison Resistance skill. Would it be poison resistance, venom resistance, or toxicity resistance? Hmm. Well, maybe- Nope. Not the time- while he didn’t know if the spider’s venom was dangerous to humans, the mere fact it was the size of his hand when it had suddenly popped into visibility at the center of the web and started skittering towards the stick- firmly stuck in the web, though Edwin hadn’t tried too terribly hard to dislodge it- meant that he was absolutely running as fast as he could away from it, trying to get as much distance as he could from that nightmare fuel.

Level Up! Walking

Wait, walking? Was there not a running skill? Why was it called walking if it covered running as well? Did it also cover hiking? Swimming? Flying? This would require a lot of testing.

Soon, he was out of breath from his mad dash away from that horrible creature. Spiders were fine, so long as they weren’t bigger than his hand. He stopped to recover, gasping for air as he leaned against a tree. Fortunately, his magic sense (spider sense?) didn’t tingle this time. He did not want to tangle with another one of those monsters.

You have unlocked the Breathing skill!

Accept Skill? Y/N

He tiredly consented, happy for any kind of reprieve.

Level Up! Breathing

Breathing

You can breathe easy; you got the right skill

Breathe deeply

Increased efficacy per level.

Increased efficacy… does that mean the skill will extract more oxygen from the air for each breath? That could be very useful. Edwin considered it for a moment, I hope I don’t have to give CPR anytime soon. If the skill ever gets me to the point of using 100% of the oxygen in any given lungful of air, CPR would just pretty much straight-up fail. Interesting potential consequence.

“Further testing required,” he murmured. Promising himself he would get around to figuring out the intricacies of magic- and the thought of that tickled his heart- would probably be the only way he could stay focused long enough to survive to the point where he could test out all his skills.

He still needed to find water, now more than ever.

Level Up! Breathing

With his breathing relatively under control, Edwin set off at a relatively brisk pace. The fact no predators had bothered him yet meant one of two things: Either there genuinely was nothing that saw him as potential prey lived in the area, which had its own set of interesting considerations, or he was insanely, absurdly lucky and his crashing through the forests had somehow escaped the attention of all predators in the area. Maybe they were nocturnal? But what could keep predators away?

Edwin broke himself out of his musing as he came across a fairly steep slope. Peering over the edge, it didn’t look too tall, but definitely marked the start of a long descent. Given his goal of trying to survey the area, he wasn’t convinced he should head down, but at least following it along the top would likely make sure that he wasn’t going in circles. Staying a few feet from the edge to ensure he didn’t fall, he began navigating to the… left. Worked as well as going to the right. After some time, he had a bit of a routine down, and ducking around the bushes in his way started becoming almost second nature. He barely even needed to consciously make sure that he wasn’t going to start sliding down the slope anymore.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than he felt the ground underneath his foot crumble. Time seemed to freeze as the sudden lurch made his stomach drop. He had never been good with falling, and being literally dropped from the sky yesterday hardly helped in that regard. Though Edwin would have loved to say he managed to come up with some ingenious plan in between two heart-stopping moments, all he was really able to clear his head enough to think about was a single, simple thought:

Shoot.

As he was fortunately sliding down the hillside feet-first at the moment, Edwin was desperate to maintain that status quo, and when frantic handfuls of dirt failed to yield anything save a couple of thin roots which broke off in his grip, tried to dig his heels into the hillside, an action which was nowhere near as effective as he would have liked, as it just freed more soil to join him in what was apparently turning into a miniature landslide. His next chance to try and stop himself arrived quite abruptly, a tree that almost seemed to come out of nowhere, impacting his outstretched legs. Edwin tried to scramble into a half-sitting position, aiming to bear hug the tree, but the sudden motion, instead resulted in his head catapulting past his ankles and tossing up even more loose soil as he fell into a tumble.

Tucking his head in and managing to lift his arms to protect his neck in a half-aware daze of adrenaline and terror, all he could do was hope that he didn’t hit anything too hard. Even as he felt what seemed like every sharp rock and twig within a mile dig into his back and hands, he felt locked up from terror and was only barely suppressing a scream which was surely resounding in his head. Then his memories jumbled together and he lost awareness of what was happening.

The next thing he could remember, once his memories started straightening out, he was half-buried in a bush, covered with the detritus he had knocked loose in his descent, and with his ankle far too close to his ear to be comfortable for any reasonable person.

You have unlocked the Flexibility skill!

Accept Skill? Y/N

He could have sworn the message was mocking him. Groaning, he extricated himself from the bush- Ow! Was that a thorn?- and propped himself up on the slope he had just come down, accepting the skill.

Level Up! Flexibility

Flexibility

Useful for a variety of situations, especially in a tight spot.

Enhanced ability to stretch.

Improved range of motion per level.

It felt nice to just lay down for a little bit. His clothes were filthy, he had a hole in his jacket, and was desperate for a drink, but at the very least, he wasn’t dead and wasn’t hurt beyond some scrapes and bruises. It could be far worse. Far, far worse. Still, it would be so nice to just lay here and take a nap, despite it only being about noontime by his reckoning. Even his internal monologue seemed too exhausted by the fall to pipe in and get his mind off just how sore his lower back was.

No chance I could get that Focus skill now, or something like Willpower, is there?

...

Figures.

As he raised himself from his seat- though he had started off more or less fully leaning against the slope, he had quickly slid down until his legs were relieved of all their burden- he couldn’t stop another groan from escaping, but found his footing well enough, regardless of the protest his legs were trying to put up.

At least, he supposed, I didn’t fall the entire way down.

Edwin was on a bit of a flat stretch about halfway down the slope he fell down. Still what had to have been several hundred feet of tumbling though. On the other side, the slope continued beyond what he could see. Really, he should go back to the top or finish going down, but his legs would never allow him to climb back up. He would almost certainly fall back to where he was after his legs collapsed, or tumble even further down. Going down of his own volition might have been possible, but would most likely just result in his legs giving out and he’d go for another tumble, which he really wanted to avoid.

You’re just trying to justify not climbing back up that thing, Edwin accused himself, continuing a pained walk to the left of the base of the cliff, But fair enough.

Level Up! Walking

He trekked onwards, legs burning but unwilling to stop his aggressive limp.

Level Up! Walking

It was several hours later that he finally came across something noteworthy. Namely, the sound of water crashing down. The slopes on either side of him he had been following had long since steepened and turned into rock faces, so the only logical situation was a waterfall of some sort coming up. And that meant water. His slow, painful walk quickened into a bit of a limping run, as his salvation was finally more or less in sight.

Well. He hadn’t been expecting that.

Turns out, he had first woken up on the top of a mountain or something, which… wait, how did that work? He had been walking for ages, surely there was no way that was all on the top of a mountain. Was he walking in circles that much? No, surely not. But if he wasn’t, then how-

Oi, knock it off. No questioning the fantasy world’s geography while you should be figuring out how to get water from that, he mentally scolded himself.

Level Up! Visualization

Oh, nice.

He really should have just bitten the bullet and went back up the slope when he first fell down it. Now, Edwin was faced with a fifty-foot rocky cliff on one side and a two hundred-foot drop at least on the other, and a massive waterfall in front of him. Very, very mindful of the drop and how the water had washed away any traces of dirt from the edge and left the stone very slippery, he carefully- carefully maneuvered to the edge and looked down. He couldn’t even see the bottom, the waterfall churning enough mist into the air to make it a fool’s errand to even imagine how high he must be and felt his stomach drop.

I refuse to become afraid of heights. Falling is more than enough of a fear, thank you very much.

With shaking hands and weak knees, he crawled away from the edge and collapsed the moment he felt halfway safe. It took a moment, but his limbs eventually regained enough strength to push himself up to standing once more. Even still, his fingers stubbornly refused to stop trembling as he tried to think of what to do.

Okay. So on the bright side I found water. On the downside, I’m going to have to scale a 50-foot cliff to get to the top and hope I can get water there or figure out some way to get the mist from the air.

…Climbing it is. Not where it’s this wet, though.

Backing up a ways away from the precipitous drop, Edwin evaluated his options. The rock face was decently craggy, though of debatable strength, and there was the odd tree which clung stubbornly to the narrow strip of soil he found himself on. It could help him clamber up the rock face, and all he would need to do is not look down. He would just need to start there…and move over there… and probably try to end up over there. Piece of cake.

Level Up! Visualization

With luck, it would be as easy as leveling Visualization. As natural as breathing, he hoped, taking a deep breath to calm himself.

Level Up! Breathing

Was the System mocking him? He felt like it was mocking him. After a quickly aborted attempt at climbing- his legs simply wouldn’t cooperate to push him up- Edwin gave himself a bit of a break, laying on the ground until his legs felt somewhat more normal.

Edwin wedged himself between a rock and a hard place. Well, the hard place was really just a tree that did not feel sturdy enough for him to be comfortable (though still quite sturdy, all things considered), and the rock was a jut of stone sticking out at a convenient height. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, he noted, but it was better than any of the alternatives. Shimmying his way up the cliffside, Edwin found himself exceptionally glad he hadn’t completely neglected his fitness even as he spent more and more time in the lab as college went on. It was somewhat neglected, yes-

Level Up! Breathing

- but he could at least still manage to pull himself up to one rock, steady himself against the tree, and prepare for the next step. It sure would be nice to get a skill for this, he couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t already gotten one-

You have unlocked the Athletics skill!

Accept Skill? Y/N

Athletics? Why not climbing? Was this not close enough to true climbing for the System to be happy? Just ‘athletics’? Wasn’t that part of walking? Was there not a more specific skill for climb-

His foot slipped half an inch, and Edwin froze. No more getting distracted. He accepted the skill but didn’t look at it. In fact, he switched entirely to doing his best to ignore all System notifications so he could just focus entirely on not dying.

Reach up. Grab a protrusion. Haul himself up. Brace against the trunk. Panic as the tree swayed slightly. Look for the next spot. Set his footing. Reach up. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Don’t look down. Just keep looking up. Stop imagining falling down. Stop it. Look for the next spot to grab. Make sure your foot is secure. Keep three points in solid contact with the wall at all times. Leave the tree behind, it’s too thin at this point. How much farther could it be? This has to have been hundreds of feet, surely. Wedge hand into crevice, hope there aren’t spiders. Maneuver left foot onto previous handhold. Sprawl out across a pair of handholds absolutely too far apart for comfort. Hug the wall. Reposition right foot to avoid doing the splits while on a cliff face. Test to make sure that rock is solid. Freeze as a small bit of dirt falls from where his hand was placed. Reach up. Grab a protrusion. Haul himself up. Set footing. Look for the next handhold. Reach up. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Re- WHERE’S THE HANDHOLD. Oh.

He had… made it? He made it! Hooray! And with no real incident beyond what felt like a half-dozen heart attacks. His limbs were like jelly and his hands and arms thoroughly scraped up (hopefully bacteria weren’t also magically potent in this world). He felt like he had run a marathon, but he was alive and he had made it. He felt so triumphant, even as his body refused to cooperate, far too comfortable where it was to consider moving at the moment. It was kind of amusing. Before today he would have never thought of a forest floor as being ‘comfortable,’ but it felt as soft as a feather bed when he was this Exhausted. He looked back at his notifications.

Level Up! Athletics

Level Up! Breathing

Level Up! Athletics

Level Up! Visualization

Level Up! Athletics

Level Up! Flexibility

Level Up! Breathing

Level Up! Athletics

Level Up! Flexibility

Level Up! Athletics

Level Up! Status

Level Up! Athletics

Athletics

Who even needs steroids, anyway?

Improved athleticism

Increased muscle efficiency per level.

Why had his status leveled up? Hm. What was it, increased customizability per level? Did it level up by him ignoring his notifications somehow? Could he level it by not using it, however that might work? He’d have to experiment. But first, water. He so very much needed water. His mouth was like sandpaper, and tasted like dirt. There had probably been a lot of that in his mouth lately. Too much, really, not that any amount of dirt inside his mouth wasn’t too much.

First, though, he was going to lay here for a minute. Maybe five. Yeah, just five minutes. Just five… more… minutes. This was fine. This… was… totally… fine…

…

Level Up! Sleeping