The plot armour

Awaken II will be a completely self-run game. The GM (Game Master) will not interfere with anyone in their gameplay.

-Awaken II Manual, Xiacent, 2073 AE

What?

The GM? Yel didn't if he should feel honoured or distressed. Xiacent advertised that no Game Master would ever interact with players, nor control their fate in-game.

Yel counted the number of black boxes. Could Traveller possibly have been censored?

[Yes that.]

Another system message appeared. Yel pondered it for a moment. This time, the message was written in a direct address, which means that the GM is now directly conversing with him.

[Your case is somewhat peculiar. Your talent wasn't even designed. There's no sign in the data bank]

Hmph. Yel smirked. No shit, the talent was too trash to be even designed.

[No, its not that. The talent is under-graded.]

Now he's mocking me. Yel thought. How bored must a GM be-

His thought was cut off by a notification:

[Speed(F)] → [Speed(SS)]

[Figure it out yourself.]

The GM left another message and disappeared.

"Wait wait," Yel called out, but received no response.

If the GM says it, then my talent must have some value to it. Yel thought. 

Yel pondered, if decreased attack meant it affected all attacks, speed increase was also not specified, did that mean that all of his speed increased? Is that why he could even notice this at this moment because his thinking speed increased?

[Through constant use of the brain, Int: 3 → 4]

He was right. Speed increased all aspects of speed, but that wasn't worth the SS rating, so there must be more to it.

Yel called out, "Character Window." and looked down

Skills:

[Sidekick Lv1 (2/1000)]: The most basic kick to exist, deals 8 (5+STR) damage at target.

This was all he had for now. In fact, Yel was surprised to see Sidekick registered as a skill. Start up skills were also determined from the brain scan. For example, a sword fighting martial artist would get something like [Slash Lv1 (47/1000)] as they already hold knowledge of it.

The "experience bar" was called the "Mastery Level". You get 1 Mastery Point for using the skill once. You can also earn hundreds of Mastery Points if you make a significant breakthrough in the skill, develop an alternate technique based upon the skill, or anything else that would boost the skill beyond its initial values.

Mastery Level was significantly important in Awaken II. Not only did it increase the power of the skill, it also brought extra effects and buffs.

Yel went over to a tree and activated Sidekick. His body automatically launched his right leg into a sidekick at the tree.

-4

A single red damage number floated out of the tree. Yel frowned, but it wasn't at the number. When he used his skill, he lost control of his body. The Sidekick was in a fixed position and stance, making it impossible for him to do any extra movement like dodging while kicking.

[Player has met requirements to unlock "Manuality"]

Manuality? Yel opened the Manuality Window.

Manuality: (-) 0% (+)

It was a single setting. Yel understood immediately and clicked it to 100%.

He activated Sidekick again at the tree. But this time, he crouched while kicking and also used the force to kick off the tree after the hit landed.

-5

[System assessing… [Sidekick Lv1 (3/1000)] → [Sidekick Lv1 (6/1000)]…]

Not only had the mobility and damage of that kick increased, he also gained 3 Mastery Points for the skill. Manuality was the only way to increase Mastery by the latter way mentioned before.

Wait. Force…

Something struck Yel hard like a train. This was it. The concept of physics didn't exist, doesn't mean physics itself didn't exist.

Yel thought back to Lee's post: The formula for Physical Attack was always a mystery for everyone, we figured out it had a correlation with your strength stat, but the other value(s) was random, it wasn't a constant.

Of course it wasn't a constant! The formula is simple to Yel; it is simply Physical Attack = STR x Force.

To test this, Yel turned on built-in-game assist and measured his speed. He made sure that his kick accelerated to 60 m/s in one second, giving him an acceleration of 60 m/s2. His left leg weighed about 5 kg.

Yel's final force should be 60 x 5 = 300 N. Yel has a STR of 3, so his final Physical Attack would be 3 x 300 = 900, 900+8 (from the skill) = 908, and even after the debuff, a striking 454.

He kicked the tree again, and as expected:

-454

With a thud, the tree toppled over.

[Achievement Accomplished: First Tree Toppler. Reward: Title: [Tree Killer].]

A devilish laugh rang through the eerie rainforest.