2 The System

After getting his mother settled Sagar made his way back to his room to continue his reading. He left his door completely open in case his mother needed him for something. She wasn't necessarily utterly hopeless that she couldn't do anything on her own she just preferred to conserve some of her already lacking energy. That and well Garris liked to spoil her a bit and didn't like her to do anything she did not need to do.

Continuing to read, Sagar thought back to everything that has happened since he has been reborn. He didn't really know how things came to be they just did. He didn't really remember parts of past life that may have been of relative importance to some others but he see it that way. He couldn't recall anything about his personal life who were his parents, friends, lovers, not even his own name. He could remember everything else besides that but Sagar didn't have a problem with that if anything he was grateful for it as it allowed him adjust to his new life faster.

Whenever he was just born and realized what sort of situation he was in he decided to act like an actual baby. He didn't want anything to happen to him when he was just born so he didn't want others to think there something was wrong or strange about his actions. He continued this act until he was able to speak that was when he decided to stop hiding his intelligence. Really though he was slightly too paranoid because as he found out growing up under his parents that they loved him deeply and even if he did act weirdly when he was born they probably would've loved him all the same.

He only knew English back in his previous life but luckily for him the language here seemed to be using something of Germanic origins and he used that to pick it quickly. Of course there were some words he didn't completely understand or some of the more complicated parts of the language but by now he's got a good handle of it. From there he's learnt to read and write from his mother as she was probably from some sort of background that allowed for her to learn to. Sagar's father hardly knew how to read himself he could read simple things but if it got complex he would be lost.

Since he was able to talk Sagar had been gathering knowledge about the new world that he was in and he's been fascinated with it so far. At first he thought he was just in the past or anything else along those lines based on his observations and his somewhat familiarity with the language but it turns out that he was majorly wrong. He was in a complete fantasy world with magic, different sentient races, and mythical creatures. Sagar used to think his father was merely stronger than most but he's actually insanely stronger to the point that he would be considered a superhero back on Earth.

The people here use different means to strengthen themselves, lets look a Garris for an example. From what Sagar has heard from him he used something similar to Qi in that it was an internal type of energy to not only augment his base power but also many of his attacks. Garris even used it to forge his body and now without using any of his energy he's able to beat anyone of a lower level than him.

So far the only tiers of power he knows of are Novice, Intermediate, Expert, and Master and he only knows of it because Master is the level Garris has reached so far. He didn't know where his mother was at as she has yet to tell him and his father never brought it up either. If he had to guess it would probably be around his father's level at the least.

Most of the things he learned from his mother's books were the geography of the world, history, the different races and there was also a bestiary which his mother herself made. From them he learned that they called this world as a whole Mellem, and it was composed of a few continents. The one he was currently located on was the continent Griffin obviously named after the famed mythical creature and was also the name of the Empire that ruled over the continent. It was a bit confusing to Sagar at first until he learned that the Empire encompassed the entire continent which made it so anybody talking about Griffin were talking about essentially the same thing.

With his father now gone what Sagar wanted to focus on was not only taking care of his mother but also consolidating power of his own. While thinking this he looked at the corner of his retina that seemed to be and initializing something and soon it finished. Since he had been born Sagar had seen the strange occurrence and now finishing it showed the words.

[Welcome User]

It then began to blink a little as if waiting for him to respond. Sagar wasn't sure if he needed to say anything out loud or it would simply read his thoughts. Sagar decided to try the ladder and thought, 'Hello, what are you exactly?'

[I am a system formed for the User to help with whatever he needs, as long as it's within my capabilities]

Nodding to himself Sagar was glad that it could hear his thoughts and he didn't need to speak to it out loud, but he was also pondering on what the so called system said. With another thought he responded 'Exactly what kind of system are you'

Without missing a beat the system told him [SMT system].

'Now that's interesting' , thought Sagar but he wasn't really talking to the system and somehow it seemed to understand that. Sagar remembers that there were games back in his previous life that fell under SMT or Shin Megami Tensei title. He wasn't exactly sure if he was right so he confirmed with the system and it told him that he was correct. He continued to ask it other questions and found out a variety of things.

The system told him that not only did it include the mainline games it also included its spin-offs. It had the different magics and techniques from the series, Sagar can learn them but not automatically. The system will show him how to learn it and that's it everything after that he would be on his own but the system itself may help out every now and then. The moves he had access to were just the basic and low level moves as for anything above that he would have to unlock them.

There were also hidden achievements he can accomplish that would reward him with either a certain items, points, demons, or moves. It didn't really have quests it gave out but doing certain actions such as defeating his foes for example, will reward Sagar with points. With these points he can purchase items or demons from the [Shop] function in the system.

Sagar was curious about the demons and how the whole function would work and the system explained to him that the demons he procures from the [Shop] and any other way won't really be sentient. They would retain some of their previous mentality and that's about it.

There was one last thing the system showed to and it was his stats which were strength, agility, magic, and vitality. Sagar thought it was weird that there was no luck stat but he didn't pay it much mind. Strength was pretty self explanatory it helped with his base attacks and boosted any kind of physical attack he used. Agility was how fast he can move and also affected his attacking speed. Magic changed how much mana he had, boost his magic attacks, and reduced the cost of using them. Vitality changed how much life force he had, reduced the cost of physical skills, increased his bodily defenses and what kind of damage he could survive against.

All his stats started at one and the system told him that to increase his stats he needed to either train them himself, use items or get hidden achievements. This kind of confused Sagar as usually you would get stat points when you leveled up and asked the system why he didn't. The system simply told him that it doesn't have any sort of leveling functionality so Sagar himself didn't have levels.

This didn't disappoint Sagar too much he just thought it was weird that out of all the things to be included in the system it was leveling that was excluded. Sagar had been immersed in talking with the system and finding out new sorts of information that he lost track of time and few hours had already passed.

Beatrice had been sitting at the table still reading her book when she noticed that it was starting to get a bit late and called out to Sagar waking him from his stupor. He got up and went to the dining room to see what his mother needed.

"Sagar I know you were probably busy with reading and you didn't notice the time but we need to start prepping for bed.", his mother reminded her son.

Sagar rubbed the back of his head and nodded. Sometimes he forgets that he's only five and still needed to go to sleep at a reasonable time. He then got his mother and both grabbed some clothes from their respective rooms so they could go bath.

All of their water needs were satisfied in this big shed they had outside. Sagar found out that this world wasn't just stumped in the technology department even though they had magic and other sorts of things. The people built any sort of quality of life object using magic as a basis and in the shed Sagar's parents had such a thing inside of it. It was a blue crystal like object that had a rune sketched into it. You just stuck the crystal into a socket and then it uses whatever function was put onto it. In this case the crystal's function was to produce water for whatever it's put into. Eventually the crystal will run out of juice but they had a stockpile in the house along with the other crystals that had different functions on them.

They kept one water crystal out here for convenience and weren't really worried about that as nobody but the family can get in the shed at least without using force. They also kept most of the objects that use water in this shed because most people who deal with pipes or anything to help move the water refused to come out to these parts, but if you went to a city they'll have them there at least that's what his parents told him.

After getting their clothes and some towels Sagar also grabbed a red crystal out of the kitchen and headed outside with his mother. Once in the shed Sagar went to the tub and put in both the red and blue crystal in two sockets that were on it. You could control the crystals once they were in the socket by putting your hand upon it and simply think what you wanted it to do.

Right away warm water filled the tub so Sagar got some shampoo and soap that his parents managed to stockpile before coming to Mountain Village. Done with that he went to his mother to help her unclothe. Sagar felt slightly embarrassed about it but knew his mother would have trouble with it otherwise and quickly got over it. Luckily he was five so his hormones weren't really a factor in things and helped him if anything. Next comes the tricky part which is helping his mother into the tub and considering that he was five he was going to have trouble with it.

Seeing her son's face Beatrice smiled and asked him to bring her near the tub to which he complied. Getting close Beatrice simply put her hands on the tub and carried herself with a sudden bout of power. The force of her falling into the tub splashed some water out but it wasn't too big of a deal.

Picking her head out of the water Beatrice looked at her son and told him, "It's a little trick I managed to pick up as sometimes your father was busy and I wanted to bath." She chuckled at the thought and continued, "But he didn't like me doing it and insisted on putting me in himself."

Seeing that his mother was in Sagar got undressed and joined her in the tub and they quickly finished bathing. He then dried his mother, got her dressed and took her back inside while he went back outside to the shed. He removed the two crystals and put the blue one on a counter nearby and put the red one into his pocket so he could return it to the kitchen. One downside to these crystals is that you couldn't put back anything ejected from it, it's fine when it's something like light or most cases dealing with fire but water was different. Sagar had to manually remove the water with a bucket and dump it outside and his age hindered him greatly, fortunately he managed to finish in thirty minutes.

Going back inside he saw his mother back at the dining table but she wasn't reading she was just waiting for her son to return. On the table in front of the seat next to her was a bowl of soup and upon seeing this Sagar realized that he had not eaten dinner yet so he quickly ate. After finishing he put the red crystal back in the kitchen then his mother and him finally went to go lay down. Even though he had his own bed Sagar was going to be sleeping with his mom as she usually slept with dad and he thought she might be lonely sleeping on her own.

Beatrice looked at her son climbing on the bed and getting comfortable she then patted his head and gave him a kiss after which she said softly to him, "Goodnight sweetie, I love you."

Sagar looked at her and gave her a toothy smile and replied, "Goodnight mom, I love you too."