After equipping his new outfit, Alex spent time learning the extent of his new abilities, peppering the voice inside his head with questions as he opened more and more tabs with his Network ability.

  Barely ten minutes had passed, but the sheer amount of information left his mind reeling. Feeling overwhelmed, he closed all his Network windows and tried to prioritize his focus on the main things he had learned.

  First; the voice in his head. For all its different functions, it was essentially an AI program equipped with multiple learning functions. She was easily the most advanced AI program he had ever seen in real life, and she was the voice of the Network ability itself. Alex could use her to access pretty much anything concerning the Network - and if he understood correctly, he could program her to operate independently, performing tasks without direct commands.

  He also didn’t need to speak out loud when he talked to her. As long as he focused, he could ask her questions in his head, and she could respond. He wasn’t sure how much of his thoughts she had access to, and he had become deeply unsettled when she told him that she was analyzing his memories to improve her behavioral analysis. He didn’t like the idea of something being able to pour over the events in his life like they were reading a book.

  Oddly, it helped to think of her as a person, rather than some program that could be sending his inner thoughts to someone else like some kind of sultry malware.

  Focus, idiot.

   Alex asked.

   She said in A laconic tone.

  

  Alex scratched his chin, trying to think of a cool name to give her.

  

   She said.

   Alex said, slightly taken aback.

  

  

  For a moment Alex could have sworn she sounded embarrassed.

   He said, then narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

   She said matter-of-factly.

  

  Vi didn’t respond.

  Was that sass, already? What’s more was that it was silent sass. Wait. Silent sass - silent assassin.

  Alex pushed his ridiculous suspicion aside.

  Now that Vi had a name, Alex returned to the rest of his to-do list.

  Second thing on the list– and something probably even more important than the potentially evil genius AI that might or might not be a super assassin – was that he discovered he had more abilities other than the Network. He had five other abilities known as Racial Abilities he barely even looked at. And what’s more, if he understood it correctly, he could potentially learn up to twenty more abilities.

  Alex discovered he had his own equivalent to a character menu from a role playing, or Dungeons and Dragons game, and opened it with a thought. If this whole thing turned out to be a dream, he was really going to miss being able to do this. He wondered if he could access the internet with this ability.

  ~~~~~

  Name: [Alexander Drake]

  Race: [Outworlder]

  [Racial Abilities]:

  [Network: Codex]

  [Survival Specialist]

  [Grace of the Astrals]

  [Elusive Wanderer]

  [Task Manager]

  [Network: Codex]:

  [Effects]:

  

  
• [Polyglottos]: Universal Language translation. Includes all written and spoken languages.


  

  

  
• [Virtual Integration System]: Records your knowledge, translating everything you know into a recognizable medium that can be viewed and managed through the [Artificial Reality Network] or [ARN].


  

  

  
• [Intergration]: You can integrate all [Racial Abilities] and [Essence Abilities] with the [Network]. All abilities can be managed via the [ARN Mainframe], or through the [Virtual Integration System].


  

  [Warning]: Attempting to integrate certain [Racial Abilities] before you reach [Iron Rank] may result in massive magical backlash your body is not strong enough to endure.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  [Survival Specialist]:

  [Effects]:

  

  
• [Hidden Cache]: Dimensional space that stores items.


  

  

  
• [Survival Engineer]: Analyzes things you interact with. You can recreate certain things [*] by combining the various materials stored in the [Hidden Cache].


  

  

  
• [Hunter's Armory]: You can [Ascend] growth items without the use of a ritual after meeting specific requirements.


  

  

  
• [Spoils of War]: Ability to gain loot from bodies and magical repositories.


  

  

  
• [Self-Reliance]: Grants the ability to absorb Essence Stones, Awakening Stones, and skill-books without the use of a ritual.


  

  [*] Most Ritual circles and complex magical items cannot be duplicated until you have acquired the necessary knowledge pertaining to that item. It is easier to recreate items at a rank lower than yourself without the appropriate level of knowledge and recreating most mundane items requires almost none. You will have to manually draw and perform each ritual circle at least once before you are able to properly analyze and duplicate it with this ability. Re-creating rituals does not alter the ambient magic nor guarantee the success of the ritual if the surrounding mana is unstable.

  [Grace of the Astrals]:

  

  
• [Astral Acrobat]: Reduces the cost of dimension and teleportation abilities.


  

  

  
• [Astral Tolerance]: Increased resistance to astral forces and adverse dimensional effects.


  

  

  
• [Divine Strike]: Increases the transcendent and execute damage of abilities.


  

  [Elusive Wanderer]:

  

  
• [Impalpable]: Reduces the accuracy and effectiveness of incoming ranged attacks and target-based spells. Grants Immunity to identification and tracking effects.


  

  [Task Manager]:

  

  
• This ability creates challenges with the intent to make you stronger as you continue down the path you have chosen. You can transfigure magic into physical objects as rewards for meeting challenges.


  

  [Army of One]:

  

  
• [Bottomless Well]: The synergistic properties of your abilities have been increased. All of your base attributes are boosted and increase at a higher rate than normal. This does not affect how fast your abilities advance; it only increases the amount by which your attributes are able to grow as you progress through your rank.


  

  

  
• [Tapped Potential]: Your Health, Mana, and Stamina pools have increased and can be boosted above the normal threshold limit of your rank.


  

  

  
• [Magic Glutton]: Removes the limit of how many Essences, Awakening Stones, you can absorb and the limit for magical tattoos has increased. The time it takes before you can safely consume concentrated magic and potions consecutively has been reduced and the adverse effects of doing so are lessened. [**]


  

  [**] Absorbing additional essences or awakening stones above the normal threshold does not grant any additional abilities once your power set has been completed. Instead, absorbing duplicate essences and awakening Stones add will add an additional [Boosted Effect] to an already existing ability and a small chance to enhance the original effect. At each new rank, any ability with a [Boosted Effect] cannot fully progress until you to absorb another additional Essence or Awakening Stone corresponding with that [Boosted Effect].

  ~~~~~

  With the assistance of Vi and the built-in help function from the Codex, he slowly pieced together how his new abilities were supposed to work. Many of his abilities seemed to interact or even require magical items that he did not have yet, so he would be missing a lot of context until he could get gather the materials, he needed to experiment. His overall power was ostensibly split into four different categories that the network labeled as ‘attributes’. Each attribute could be bonded to a single item – something called an Essence Stone – that would grant him five additional abilities per attribute. He had no idea how to get his hands on these stones, but he knew he would need them if he wanted to gain any more powers.

  The grass below him was radiating enough heat that he was actually sweating now that he had clothes on. He knew it was freezing outside of his magical space heater, but he couldn't stay here forever. He needed food and shelter. The heat coming off the ground might be magic, but for all he knew, the snow that fell might be as well, eventually obliterating the magic was causing the heat.

  He didn't want to risk getting lost in the forest, so he would explore in short trips, looping his way back to the clearing in case it got too cold. With a bunch of survival abilities, he thought he would be able to scavenge some kind of food from the local wildlife if needed. The problem was that he was not a hunter. He knew how to aim a bow, but even if he had one, he had no idea if he could actually hit anything.

  Shooting stationary targets at an archery range within thirty meters was a far cry from being considered skilled with a bow – let alone capable of hitting a moving target in the woods.

  “Might as well get started.” Alex stood up and turned to his left. “This is as good a direction as any. Vi? Is there some kind of map or GPS feature that tracks where I have been?”

  

  With a mental thought, Alex opened the map screen.

  “Guess it really is limited.” Alex said with disappointment, his fingers passing through the screen as the map image turned into television static.

  The only thing visible on the map was the clearing. He dismissed the map for now and stepped outside of his magically insulated circle. The frigid cold air hit him like a slap in the face. He gasped and pulled his hood up, protecting his bald head and ears from the biting air. Alex was no stranger to snowy winters, but it was jarring going from what felt like summer in Hawaii one second, to winter in Illinois the next. The temperature wasn’t below freezing, but it was still fucking cold. Alex had always hated winter and had planned to never live in another state that had snow again.

  “Let’s get this over with.” He said grimly. “it’s only a hike through the woods. What could possibly go wrong?”