2 Chapter 2: The Place Between Worlds
The existence of system points is rumoured, a mysterious and unknown quantity thought to be rewarded only to those who achieve world renowned feats. Supposedly offering the ability to purchase anything in existence. The truth of these statements will only be ever known to those who stand at the peak, for the rest of us we can but hypothesise.
A Beginners Guide to the System, Germain Fitzgerald.
Jacob felt the floor disappear from under his feet as the world warped, space seeming to stretch and shift. His body felt as if it was pulled apart and put back together again and again, atom by atom; before a sense of normalcy returned again.
Releasing his tightly clenched eyes and looking around in wonder he realised he was surrounded by white, as far as the eye could see. Before panic could set it he received yet another notification.
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Welcome to the space between worlds. Before moving onto the wide world of Pangea you have the opportunity to spin the wheel of fortune, and be gifted with system points. These points can be spent to learn skills or improve your body and mind to enable an easier transition. Please spin the wheel of fortune when you are ready.
Please note your emotions have been forcefully stabilised to ease this process.
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As he finished reading this message a giant wheel popped into existence in front of Jacob, who hesitantly approached it. Feeling surprisingly calm given the situation and absently noting it must be down to the systems influence; something he felt he should be angry at and yet just couldn't workup the desire to be. Instead he decided to just spin the wheel, watching it go round and round before landing on 110,457 points.
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Congratulations you have won 110,457 points this is in the top 0.00001% of points ever won. Status has now been enabled, please view it, and then proceed to the store to spend your system points which will be passed on once you have arrived in Pangea.
Titles: Otherworlder
Name: Jacob Lockerby
Race: Human lvl 1 (0/100)
Class (lvl): n/a (unlocked at race lvl 5)
Second Class* (lvl): n/a/ (unlocked at race lvl 10)
Health: 100% Health Regen: 1%/day
Mana Points: n/a Mana Regen: n/a
Stats:
Strength: 12 Dexterity: 12 Perception: 8 Constitution: 10 Agility: 11 Endurance: 10
Intelligence: 15 Control: 7 Magic Power: n/a
Skills: n/a
Traits: n/a
*As an otherworldly system sleeted individual you have been granted access to a second class. This will be unlocked at race lvl 10. It also hides this second class as well as your title from all but the strongest identification spells.
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Along with this screen an intuitive understanding of what it meant entered Jacob's head. He suddenly knew that the average stat for a human from Earth is 10 in everything other than magic power.
Focussing on each stat in turn a further explanation on each was provided:
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Strength: the ability of your muscles to produce force, the exact nature of this will depend on the main activities undertaken by the individual in question.
Dexterity: a measure of the ease with which one controls their physical limbs, this interacts with the control stat to give an overall physical control measure.
Perception: a measure of an individual's ability to perceive their surroundings, both physical surroundings (sound, sight, smell and touch) and magical (enables easier sensing of mana). As well as improving an individual's emotional awareness.
Constitution: a measure of the toughness and survivability of an individual's body.
Agility: a measure of the speed at which an individual can make sudden abrupt changes to their movement.
Endurance: a measure of the stamina that an individual has and how quickly they recover, this also boosts health regeneration by 0.1% a day per point, and mana regen by 0.1% of total mana per hour.
Intelligence: a measure of an individual's ability to process new information.
Control: relates to the control an individual can exert over their body, mind and magical abilities.
Magic Power: a measure of the level of mana an individual has access to. This is locked due to Earthly origins and the lack of mana, the user also has zero magical talent.
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An explanation for skills and traits was also given:
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Skills: a list of skills the individual has acquired throughout their life, this includes anything from the mundane (walking) to the magical.
Traits: a list of bodily traits of the individual.
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Jacob who was by this time in a relatively stable mood, if somewhat deflated by his lack of access to magic decided he should look at the store, which appeared as soon as the thought crossed his mind.
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Skills
Traits
Stats
Items
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Of the four categories Jacob decided to start by perusing the Traits section in the hope that there was one available to grant him magical talent and as luck would have the following trait existed:
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High Grade mana affinity: the highest level of magical affinity available, providing 2 to magic power per race level with a base of 10 points. Mana regen is set at 10% of total mana per hour. All mana related skills are 200% easier to learn and level. 65,000 points.
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He also spotted a similar physical trait:
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High Grade Physique: the highest level of physical affinity available to humans, this provides 2 stat points per race level to be spent on any of strength, dexterity, agility, constitution and endurance. It also provides base of 3 stat points to each of the above. The host has an innate connection with their body and finds physical related skill 200% easier to learn and level. 65,000 points.
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Gasping at the prices he managed to fight his impulse to immediately purchase one of these traits instead holding off, in the knowledge that how he spends his points will determine his journey in this new world. Widening his search to find other traits more geared to survival three in particular caught his eye:
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Enhanced health regeneration (weak 1/10): provides a boost to health recovery. Costs 11,250 points for a 1% boost to health regeneration per day, each 1% thereafter sees the system point cost double. Can level up as the body heals from wounds.
Enhanced mana regeneration (weak 1/10): provides a boost to mana regeneration. Costs 11,250 points for a 1% boost to mana regeneration, each 1% thereafter sees system point the cost double. Can level up as mana is regenerated.
Tough body (weak 1/10): provides a boost to the efficiency of the constitution stat by 1% per level. Costs 7,500 points.
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Groaning at the cost of these available traits he quickly moved on to skills, deciding he should focus on those that would enable him to survive in the Wilderness and communicate with others. Settling on:
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Forestry Novice: grants the user basic knowledge on most common plants found in woods near the user on entry into Pangea. As well as basic navigation and game trail finding knowledge within a forest. Enabling the identification of edible and poisonous plants. 5,000 points.
Trapmaking Novice: grants the user knowledge on how to make common traps to catch small time game. 2,500 points.
Fighting Proficiency (weak): grants a passive ability which bestows basic instincts towards fighting in order to help the user survive. Enables user to quickly level combat related skills to the Apprentice level. 2,500 points.
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Having looked through most of the sections, Jacob realised that high grade mana affinity was perhaps a superfluous choice as it did not raise his immediate survivability. However, in counter to this he was being brought into a new world, one where magic existed wo on Earth would give up what could be the only chance to access magic. Realising this choice was perhaps to hard for him he decided to question the system as to his arrival point, its response was.
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The user will be placed in an appropriate zone, survival is not given but possible given the users pre-purpose abilities as long as the user works hard.
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This response solved Jacob's dilemma, purchasing high grade mana affinity would not drastically reduce his survival chances, and he was still left with enough points to purchase the other survivability focussed options. He purchased all of those traits and skills that he had found so far, except for the High Grade physique affinity. This left him with 5,457 points to spend on items, outfitting himself with a backpack, tent, a couple of sets of robust clothing as well as two steel daggers, rope and a sword among other basic provisions including enough food for a couple of weeks or longer if he rationed his intake.
These purchases decided, Jacob was very much focussing on his long-term prospects, with many of the traits not providing a significant early boost but instead would become significantly more powerful as he spent more time in Pangea. Furthermore, he committed himself to magic, unable to distance himself from childish dreams of throwing around fireballs and bending the world to his will. Collecting himself he told the system he was ready to be transported to Pangea, following which the world warped once more as Jacob's vision went black.
