And after seeing the first few options of new list that had appeared in front of him, this time seemed to be no different.
He immediately got to work on selecting which traits would be good candidates to choose from.
Eventually he settled on quite a few good options.
- Intuition - Level 1
Feel the unknown, gain the ability to guide yourself towards the right path.
- Adaptable - Level 1
The body adapts easier to its surroundings, live even in the harshest of conditions and environments.
- Quick thinking - Level 1
Think faster, react faster, act faster. Be able to do more in less time.
- Reliable builder - Level 1
Your creations are able to endure more and are harder to destroy.
There were other amazing traits, but Jake felt like these four were the best for him. And if he were to be honest, he was having a really hard time deciding which trait he would choose.
So he would just start with picking his least wanted skill and work up from there.
Out of the four Quick thinking felt like the skill he needed the least, sure it was amazing and being able to do more in less time was great, but in the situation where he couldn’t guarantee his life he opted to go for a more survival-oriented trait for now.
Next was Reliable builder, even though it would be an amazing fit for his class, right now he just didn’t have much use for it.
If he got the chance though, he would surely pick it in the future.
Now he was stuck between Adaptable and Intuition.
Both were amazing right now, Adaptable would let him survive out here in the wild and adapt to harsher conditions, which was perfect for an evolving earth, especially so when earth could be getting less habitable by the second for all he knew.
And Intuition was amazing too, an ability that let you feel the unknown and that helped guide you towards the right answer? In simpler terms, it was the ability to be led down the right path, and feel danger and opportunity.
Which meant he would be able to choose the best option in any situation and even feel unknown dangers.
To be honest even if intuition still felt a little vague, he just felt attracted towards it.
But even though the Intuition skill gave him a wider range of benefits than Adaptable would, he was still having a hard time deciding.
And that was for one good reason, if for some reason earth adapted or evolved to become uninhabitable for humans, Adaptability would allow him to survive.
Not taking the adaptability skill was a risk, the risk would be small, probably less than one percent. But was even taking such a tiny risk okay when he could avoid it?
He let out a sigh, lately he had been overthinking everything, maybe he was influenced by his near-death experience more than expected.
In the end, both skills were the right choice, both not better than the other in his current situation.
So in the end he decided the choice in both cases would be the right one. So instead of making the choice himself, why not leave it up to a coin flip, since in the end both options were okay.
When he had been younger, he had always flipped a coin when he couldn’t decide.
Not because he believed in fate or chance, but if you didn’t know what to pick or do and flipped a coin, you would either be sad or happy with the result. Even if you didn’t know you would be before flipping it.
Thus, he used it as a way to determine which choice he would be happiest with.
He grabbed a coin from his pocket.
If it landed on heads, he would choose Intuition. And if it landed on tails, he would choose adaptability.
He placed the coin on his thumb, and then flicked it the best he could.
The coin went tumbling through the air, Jake keeping a close eye while it spun around.
When the coin hit the ground, it turned around for one last time.
The result of the coin being tails. Jake looked at the result, but didn’t feel happy. In fact he felt the tiniest hint of disappointment.
So he knew what to do..
Flip the coin two more times to make sure!
In the end it landed on Tails twice and once on heads.
Thus the decision had been made, he selected Intuition as his trait.
In the end he just felt better about intuition, even if the coinflip said he should choose adaptation, he did the coin flip to test which option he felt better about. Not to let fate or just luck decide for him.
Trait selected…
Error!..
?????????????????????????? Detected…
Requirements not met…
Rerouting…
?????????????????????????? Will be unlocked at Level ??...
Engraving basic system info..
Finalizing awakening…
With the last two messages, he felt a bunch of information enter his brain, when the process ended his brain felt stuffed.
It kind of felt like when you had been studying for hours on end and then you just felt tired and unable to focus.
But along with this feeling came new knowledge as well, basic knowledge, but knowledge nonetheless.
He would take a look at the functions later though, since he was more interested in the error message.
What was the ??? that looked kind of glitchy? And what did the system mean by qualifications? Was it something unique to him, or was it something all humans had?
Too many questions and no way of getting answers, if only he was able to access the internet and see how the rest of the world was dealing with all of this.
Sadly this far out from civilization and so deep in the forest there was no reception. He wasn’t even able to call anyone.
Not that he could anyway, his phone had broken in the fight with the tiger.
He felt a little sad at the thought, he had gotten pretty attached to his phone, he had even done some custom work on it as an engineer.
Moving on from the depressing thought of his broken phone, he would have to think about what to do now.
Eventually deciding to check out the status screen the system had just informed him about.
Name: Jake Miller
Age: 26
Class: Technomancer
Level: 1
Mana: 100/100
XP: 0/100
?????????????????????????? - Locked
Skills:
Create drone - level 1
Construction - level 1
Weaponry creation - level 1
Traits:
Intuition - level 1
A nice looking status if he said so himself, it was pretty satisfying to see his abilities displayed in such a neat and orderly manner.
Now then, looking at the sky it was about four or five hours until night. I,ll have to set up camp for the night before that.
Jake looked in the distance at the huge rock, still sitting at thirty meters wide and fifty meters tall. Before he got attacked and earth got thrown into a new dimension his plan had been to camp near the rock.
Even now that seemed like a pretty good idea, the rock would serve as some cover for the elements. And he had a good idea to survive the night without being attacked in his sleep by some monster.
He could only act on his idea once he arrived at the rock though, and he was getting more uncomfortable by the second standing out here in the open, easy to see for anything that might want to eat him.
“Well, no use waiting around and i dont have that much time before night falls”
So he grabbed his bag and started making his way towards the big rock, the rock was easy enough to see even from far away because of its huge size.
While walking he didn’t really have something better to do so he decided to start checking out some of his skills.
Create drone [Info]
- Scout - 100Mp
He took a quick look at his mana which was still sitting at 100Mp. Seemed like just activating his skill didn’t take any mana.
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Then Jake noticed the info option. Im being given even more info? Well that’s nice of them.
He quickly selected the info option and a little window appeared in front of him.
Types of drones:
- Scout [Info}
Then he selected the info option for the scout drone and a second window appeared in front of him.
Type of drone: Scout - 100Mp
Maximum speed: 100 Km/h (60Mph)
Drone amount: 1/10
Connection range: 100 M
Recording time: 5 minutes
The scout drone is a semi intelligent drone suitable for spying and the gathering of information. Within its connection range it can send a live feed directly into the user's mind. It is also able to record up to 5 minutes of video which if within connection range can be shown to the user.
He was a little surprised at the amount and detail of the information. If he were to be honest he had been expecting needing to figure out everything for himself.
Then again whatever this system was, clearly wasn’t against humanity. And if you thought about it, it made sense to give info about your own skills after acquiring them. Since the user would figure it out eventually anyway it seemed pointless to hide the information unless you were just trying to make life harder for the user.
After finishing reading the information he felt choosing this skill had been an amazing decision more than ever.
The scout drone had a nice maximum speed and it could send a live feed straight into his mind as long as it was within 100 Meters of him. It had a recording feature as well for when it would scout things outside of his range. Overall it seemed like what you’d expect from a good scout drone.
Semi intelligent was also a pretty good bonus, since it meant the drone would understand even complex orders and wouldn’t need micro managing.
“Now then, lets see what this drone looks like shall we?”
Jake mentally activated the skill, immediately he felt some sort of energy leaving him.
In front of him in the air, a small ball like metal structure started appearing, then it slowly started filling in.
Jake stared in fascination at the sight playing out in front of him.
He watched as a camera lens started appearing and metal hid the internal structure away from view.
About a minute later when construction finished, Jake was looking at a floating metal ball with a camera lens. The drone being just a little larger than a tennis ball, about the size of a hand.
Immediately he felt a connection with the drone, leaning into the connection he tried giving an order to the scout.
“Fly in a circle around me”
The floating metal ball immediately set off to do a lap around his body at a high speed.
As Jake was looking at the drone though, he was getting an idea.
This is a flying metal ball, if it can fly fast enough wont it be able to do some good damage?
I mean the size seems big enough to do damage, and if it flies into something at a speed of 100 kilometres an hour (60 Mph) wont that be enough to do a good amount of damage?
He decided to try it out, he ordered the drone to fly into a nearby tree at high speed and then return to him.
Jake watched on as the scout drone accelerated quickly and smashed into a nearby tree, and then seemingly without a scratch returned to him.
When he went to observe the damage to the tree, he could see a generous dent was left in the tree.
The drone seemingly had enough force to do some good damage, not enough force to destroy a tree or go through concrete or something, but more than enough to break a bone or two.
“Seems like even if it's not a combat drone i might be able to use it for fighting anyways” Jake mumbled to himself as he continued making his way towards the big rock.
While walking he kept doing little experiments with his drone, occasionally sending it out ahead of him to see if the path was safe.
After it had been about an hour he decided to check up on his mana, if he could find out how fast it regenerated he could make plans for the coming days on how he would spend it.
Mana: 22/100
22? Since it's been about an hour, I can probably say it's about 20Mp per hour regenerated.
Wait, could i use my drone as a timer? If I give it a command to do a little lap around my head when an hour has passed, would it be able to do so? Since it's semi intelligent it should be able to fulfil complex commands, question is if it can keep track of time.
Lets just try it out then, he gave the command when his mana hit 30/100, just to double up on seeing if he really regenerated 20Mp per hour, and of course see if his drone was able to be used as a timer.
As he walked there was the occasional rustle or animal sound, it was really getting on his nerves after the attack he had experienced earlier. Because more monsters could be wandering around the forest, and the more noises he heard the more paranoid he got about being attacked again.
Nevertheless he kept going, because standing still here in the forest was basically asking to be eaten. Not to mention not moving meant stagnating, and stagnating eventually meant death.
As he walked he also kept track of any creeks or little ponds of water he passed, he might have to find a new source of water if he wasn’t able to get to civilisation in time after all.
Not to mention food, he had passed a few groups of mushrooms but whenever he got closer to inspect them this nagging feeling in the back of his mind started appearing, the feeling somehow telling him those mushrooms were bad news.
He had guessed that it was probably intuition telling him they were bad mushrooms. Probably uneditable or just outright poisonous.
He still checked every batch of mushrooms he passed though, maybe one of them would turn out to be edible and could serve as a food source when he ran out of rations.
He hadn’t found any fruit trees around here, not that that was weird I mean it wasn’t like he was in a rainforest here.
But he had at least expected some berry bushes or something, but nope, nothing.
After a little bit more of walking his drone suddenly returned to him from scouting ahead and did a little lap around his head.
Huh, so it can keep track of time? Since i also counted this to be around when the hour was over.
He immediately checked his mana, and sure enough it was sitting at 50/100.
So I really do regenerate 20Mp per hour?
That was good to know, now he could ration and manage his mana with his maximum daily output in mind.
If he assumed that he would sleep for 8 hours a day, he would have 16 hours for mana to spend every 24 hours.
Since he would need 5 hours for every 100Mp he regenerated that meant he had about 400Mp to spend a-day. 100 from a full capacity when waking up after sleeping, and 300 from everything he regenerated until he went to sleep.
400Mp seemed like a pretty good amount, at least until he figured out how to get a bigger mana capacity or better Mana regeneration rate. And something told him, (mostly his gaming experience) that all he would need to do was level up.
I can figure out how to level up later though, since for tonight i,ll just have to focus on surviving and maybe setting up a shelter or something.
After two more hours of walking he finally reached the rock, it was sitting in the middle of piece of elevated ground in a big clearing.
The piece of elevated ground itself sitting at about two meters above the ground.
After a little bit of struggling and some climbing up the elevation, he finally reached the big rock.
“Now then, lets see what my construction skill can do”
Jake had a plan, his mana currently sitting at 100/100. He would just see how far this got him in making his plan work.
He mentally activated the skill and a window appeared in front of him.
Construction [Build mode]
Level of technology: Earth 1800-1900
Categories;
- Structures
- Terrain
- Materials
- Defences
- Utilities
- Decorations & Furniture
A neat little window appeared in front of him with a bunch of options, unlike his drone skill though there was no info button. Then again most of what he saw was self-explanatory or just really easy to figure out.
He clicked on one of the categories and a bunch of little pictures with tiny descriptions appeared.
The mana costs were shown and effects were also shown.
In Utilities for example he found the option to build a Hand water pump that cost 60Mp.
Water pump (Hand) - 60Mp
When built it can pump water from far underground, needs manual operation.
Or in defences he found barbed wire for 5Mp per two and a half meter.
Barbed wire - 5Mp / 2,5 Meter (8ft)
A string of spiked iron wire meant to hinder people or animals from passing through.
It was certainly all neatly done, and it seemed to be pretty easy to use, both in terms of building and also getting inspiration for building since options were just laid out in front of him in the form of a catalogue of some sort.
Now that he had checked out some of the categories he decided to take a look at the Build mode function.
He selected build mode and immediately something interesting happened, the entire world became covered in grids. The ground, the rock the trees it all had grids now.
And in his left corner was now a window with all of the categories and tools to help with building.
After a few minutes of looking at everything and figuring everything out, it was time to start on his plan for the night.
I mean what better way to set up shelter than use Construction, and what safer place is there to be than high up inside a rock?
His plan was to make stairs and a room inside the rock about four or five meters above ground, this way he could get a good view of the forest, and beasts on the ground would find it hard to get to him.
Flying monsters might still pose some risk, but if he just kept out of sight by leaving up a wall it wouldn’t pose as much risk as sleeping near the ground did.
So he got to work, first he made rough little rectangle indents in the mountain with the terrain tool. He could use the rectangle indents as a ladder to get up and down relatively safely as long as he kept a good grip.
He had left the rectangles a little rough on purpose, if he had made them smooth it would be harder to keep his grip after all, and unless he wanted to risk falling he would need to keep his grip.
When he had made the indent ladder to about four meters above ground he still had 80Mp left, he then got to work on making a rectangle room in the rock.
The room itself was about 2 meters tall, 3 meters wide and 5 meters long and the rocky walls were flat but not smooth, otherwise it would probably become a slip and sliding show when he tried to walk around.
He kept the outside wall though, it would block him from both wind and flying animals after all. Then he made the doorway that would let him exit and enter.
He waited with adding a door of some sort for now though, since he only had 4Mp left, he would add a door when he had more Mp.
When he finished he checked everything over and then finalized his construction.
The grids immediately went away and a timer appeared in a little window in the corner of his vision.
27:32
27:31
27:30
So it needs some time to actually construct, just like the drone did. It’s nice i get a timer to see when it finishes.
With his drone patrolling the area around him for any danger he kept an eye on construction as the timer ticked away.
It was kind of fun to see how it happened, as the rock slowly disappeared and took on the form he had finalized in Build mode.
When the timer finally hit 0, he grabbed his backpack, and started climbing his ladder.
When he reached the room sitting 4 meters above ground he threw his backpack in the corner and sat down for a moment, looking out over the forest and at the sunset currently taking place, just taking a moment to rest and enjoy the view after a really eventful day.
After five minutes of watching, he stood back up and started taking things from his backpack.
His sleeping bag, his sun powered heater, and a flashlight.
He would sort the rest of the stuff from his backpack tomorrow, right now he was just so tired he wanted to just turn on his heater and go to sleep.
He put the sleeping bag in the corner, put his heater next to it, recalled his scout drone and went to sleep.
—
The next morning Jake got woken up by this nagging feeling in the back of his mind, he immediately recognized the feeling as his Intuition trait, it felt the same as with the mushrooms except this time it felt a little stronger.
Fuelled by fear of getting killed by something, he shot up and looked around, confused about where he was for a moment until he remembered the day before.
“Right, Panther attack, new dimension and me stranded in a forest sleeping in a stone room, now I remember”
He looked around the room but just saw an empty stone room besides the things from his backpack.
Then what was causing this feeling of danger he was getting?
He stood up and walked towards the doorway to take a look outside.
“Well.. This certainly explains why intuition is acting up, it seems to be quite the predicament im in”
Which passive trait would you all pick?