Chapter 8

Looking over my status screen I saw that since I hit level 13 I now had 12 free perk points as well as 2 skill points. From what I could remember when I initially looked over all my system screens this morning, skills are active abilities that I have to choose to activate while perk points are more of a passive increase in my overall strength. 

Under the perks screen there were five main stats and under each stat was a separate perk tree that was tied to the main stat. There was perception, strength, fortitude, agility, and intellect each with their own weapons and specialty focuses. 

I wasn't sure how but I felt like this was both very familiar to something I once knew before my memory was wiped while also being very different. If you pressed me to better describe what I mean I would liken the feeling to playing your favorite video game but with a bunch of total makeover mods added on. It's the same game that you love but with a bunch of new takes on how to play it I guess.

Perception seemed to deal mostly with the senses and using them to find more information or better outcomes from your actions. It specializes in marksman rifles, like my Winchester, spears, and explosives for weaponry while also having perks that allow me to better find and handle traps safely, track down anything moving in the wild, better find and exploit weak spots on enemies to increase critical damage, find more and better quality loot when using the system loot function, increasing my sixth sense when it comes to finding hidden treasures, and allow me to better salvage parts and components from manufactured items so that I can re-use them for my own needs.

Strength focuses on shotguns and blunt weapons for taking down enemies. It includes perks that deal with using more muscle to better adapt such as making better use of heavy armor, increasing my system inventory slots allowing me to carry more items without affecting my movements, cook better meals needing less ingredients for the same nutrition, becoming faster and more efficient in gathering natural materials from mining and logging, and lastly getting MORE materials while mining and logging.

Fortitude focuses on machine guns and brawling for dealing damage while the perks are all about increasing your survivability and comfort while surviving. Perks include getting more materials from butchering, gaining and increasing your natural resistance to weather and temperature extremes, gaining more materials from foraging and farming, natural pain tolerance increase along with a general toughening of the body that provides passive damage resistance against all types of damage, gaining and increasing your natural healing factor to potentially superhuman levels, a general strengthening of your bodies internal systems that make you need less food and water while also increasing your natural resistance to poisons, sickness, and disease, and all around cardio improvements that increase your ability to regenerate SP and reduce how much SP you use doing strenuous activities.

Agility is focused on pistols, SMGs, edged weapons, bows, and crossbows while it's perks focus on better control over your body. Perks include learning how to free hand fire more accurately and move quickly while reloading, using light armor to protect yourself while still remaining relatively light and stealthy, learning parkour to better move around your environment, dealing more efficient sneak damage, and efficiently sneaking quietly to close the distance between yourself and your targets.

The final "main" perk stat and tree is intellect which focuses on elemental melee weapons and using portable automated turrets to do damage. The perks include getting better at bartering to tilt deals more in your favor, being able to demand more compensation when performing tasks for others, learning how to lead in such a way that those who follow you gain increases to their stats, effectiveness in combat, and healing abilities, learning about medicine to increase the effectiveness of your healing items while also learning how to make more than just basic bandages, learning advanced engineering which unlocks a great deal of schematics and tools that will let you build pretty much anything you can imagine based on this world's current tech level, learn mechanical skills related to vehicles that allows you to repair or build from scratch vehicles from scavenged parts, and lastly learning how to pick advanced locks such as mechanical or electrical vaults.

There are additional perk tree tabs that seem to be locked currently. One of them states that I need to loot the appropriate skill magazine or book in order to unlock the tree while the others are all simply labeled "???" which tends to make me think they either need to be unlocked from rewards, from leveling up to a certain point, or simply by discovering some other method to do so. They might not even be trees I can open in a world like this, I mean will I still be able to use most of these items if I go to a world based on magic rather than science? These other perk trees might simply be unlocked should I go to a world they pertain to.

Looking over my options I started trying to figure out how best to proceed based on what I had learned from today's exploration of this new world as well as figuring out what my next steps should be. I knew that being able to build and reinforce materials was likely to be a big part of my future as well as gathering the materials I would need in order to do so since I would likely need a great deal of wood, stone, metals, and other materials in order to create the many items I could see in my crafting menu.

I was also concerned because I had seen quite a few buildings that looked like they had been broken into on my way here. Seeing what comes out I better understand that the things that go bump in the night were likely what had done such damage. I didn't know how much damage undead could really do to buildings or various materials. I knew that on Earth the idea of flesh and bone beating down rock, concrete, or steel walls was laughable but in this world? I didn't really know what was possible or how the physics of the world had been tweaked or even if normal physics applied since my System had warned me that every 30 days or so portals would open all over bringing in new zombies from other worlds.

I had only really been dealing with zombies similar to old school zombie flicks from my world. They were fairly slow moving, fairly easy to trick or guide into situations that better favor my survival, and died fairly easily from any kind of head trauma. Even after dark, from what I had witnessed so far, they only got marginally faster at a slow shuffling jog instead of a slow walk during the day. I didn't know if they got any stronger or how much better their senses are but I was going to air on the side of caution for the moment.

I also didn't know if the zombies I had seen so far, during daylight or nighttime, were the only ones out there. There could very likely be other types of zombies that are around during the day, night, or 24/7 like the normal walkers I have seen so far. Deciding that caution is the better part of valor I would want skills that increase my survivability, crafting/building, and gathering ability first.

I decided I would focus on the Fortitude perk tree first and foremost as I could get by with my current abilities in this area based on what I have seen so far. I would be spending more time farming for raw materials and be a little limited in how high tech my crafting is but… the first rule of any game is "Don't die." so that's what I was going to focus on.

Looking at Fortitude I started getting that feeling of it being familiar but different again, maybe when I get my memories back I can figure out why. I notice that I only need to put one point in the Fortitude stat in order to unlock all the other perks in this tree so I put a point in before getting a system message.

"Ding! Congratulations for putting a point into Fortitude and gaining the following benefits: +10 permanent max HP/SP, HP Regen Rate 1 HP per 15 minutes, 1% Passive Damage Resistance, +10 to maximum food and water meters, and you have unlocked level 1 Fortitude skills!"

Reading over my new benefits I quickly felt that not only was this perk tree the right choice but I was also excited that I would get additional bunched benefits by putting points into Fortitude.

Looking over the perks in the Fortitude tree, still feeling that familiar but different feeling, I focused on the two perks that would most help me survive in the long run and saw they each had five levels of increase. 

Healing Factor was a perk that could make you look like a superhero with a superhuman healing ability. The first level would increase your HP regen to tick every 35 seconds instead of 15 minutes so I assumed that more points of Fort would increase how many HP I get per tick while this perk increased how often the ticks happen. 

Level 5 Healing Factor would change my HP regen to tick every second, so with this and level 10 Fortitude I could possibly be getting 10 HP per second! If I get the maximum Wellness bonus of +100 HP and the +100 HP from Fort level 10 that would give me a 300 HP pool that could fully refill in 30 seconds! Truly broken on paper although it would also depend on how quickly and how much damage I was taking at any given time but still having health regen is good insurance for myself!

I went ahead, trusting my gut, and dropped five points into the Healing Factor perk to max it out and got another system notification.

"Ding! Congratulations on maxing out Perk - Healing Factor! You have unlocked Healing Factor Prestige Perks and Healing Factor focused skills!"

Prestige perks? That definitely sounds fancy and when I checked it out I could see they really were! Prestige perks were apparently special sub-trees under the perks I currently had available that added additional effects to the perk… in exchange for a TON of perk points! Healing Factor had five additional prestige perks I could level.

Healing Factor - Overeaters Anonymous - 10 points

Whenever the user consumes food or drink that would be in excess of their max food and water meters the excess is turned into a slowly decaying HP overshield. For example, your max HP is 100 while your food and water bars are at max amount. You eat a meal and have a drink that would give you 50 excess food and water total. That 50 excess meter will be turned into a bonus +50 HP that is used up before your standard HP bar.

Healing Factor - Superman - 10 points

During daylight hours your HP regen amount doubles per tick.

Healing Factor - 3rd Shift Rocks! - 10 points

During nighttime hours your HP regen ticks twice as fast.

Healing Factor - I Don't Get Sick - 10 points

Your regen effect reduces all disease, sickness, or infections by 1% per tick.

Healing Factor - Real Damage Real Healing - 25 points

Adds the ability for Healing Factor to heal your true body as well, not just the HP bar.

"Wait a minute… Healing Factor can be made to affect my real body?!"