First Night in the Woods

Ben puts on the leather armor and hangs the short sword on his hip. Equipped, he strides north into the forest. Arriving at the first tree, he makes a cut and continues walking. After about 30 meters he makes another cut. This continues for an hour until he finds a fallen tree. The root system of the tree torn out of the earth, the giant of a tree lies on the ground. Having reached the end of its life, though, it offers Ben shelter from 2 sides and with a little work this could become a good shelter for Ben.

`I should find some branches and pile them up, it should keep the wind out and possibly keep the rain out as well. In any case, it's better than the clearing without shelter.`

He begins to gather dead branches and lay them against the roots. Over and over again he has to take a break because his body is too exhausted. For hours Ben is busy as he puts the last pine branch on his hut. On the ground lies moss, which he has collected.

This should serve as a good substitute for a mattress, Ben thinks as he lies down on it. As soon as his head hits the moss, he falls asleep. In the middle of the night Ben awakens when he hears sounds. Quick-witted, he pulls out his deck of cards. In one hand the chain lightning and in the other the sword. But the howling fades and Ben calms down again. It continues like this the whole night.

Ben goes to sleep, but some animal screams or wanders around and wakes him up. Exhausted, he watches the sky slowly turn orange. A new day begins and in the middle of the forest is an exhausted boy lying on his moss mattress. He has survived the night and decides to sleep longer. Later he would make a campfire to keep the animals away.

The sun is at its zenith as Ben stretches. His stomach grumbles with hunger so he decides to get it over with the horrible meal. He calls out the meal from the card and eats it quietly. In his other hand he has Maxwell's book in front of him.

"I hope you enjoyed your ration and made it through the night." As Ben reads this, his right eye twitches and he feels the urge to punch the priest, but decides to continue reading.

"Now I'll tell you more truths. The first and probably most important truth is that your heart card set is extremely rare. In the illusion you were told that Jack of all Trades cards are often available, but that was a lie. They are among the rarest cards when it comes to heart cards. There are also normal variants and they are in such demand that no one would sell them.

The kingdoms try to get their hands on every single owner of such a card. Either a good agreement between both parties or an assassination to steal the cards. This should show you that your heart cards are dangerous.

For your own protection, you should trust no one and I mean absolutely no one. Claim that you have only one heart card active and it is a space card, which slightly improves your skills in it. That would explain why you have 2 space cards.

You are not safe until you bind yourself to an entity. Because after that, no one can force you to do anything and any faction you join would defend you to the death as you are too valuable.

Next comes another shock, and that is every being has a level and can increase it. The principle is the same as that of your hero system, but let's continue before coming to any decisions. The purification ritual was necessary because, as I told you, your soul and body were not one.

I don't know why, but normally this is the case with every living being. I suspect that experiments or years of potion abuse have left traces on you, but these are only guesses. I am not an expert in this field. Well, back to the levels.

Any creature can absorb life energy and become stronger, but these levels are not a boundary. A level 40 assassin can defeat a level 60 adventurer. The adventurer has a higher level and is stronger than the assassin but a knife through the heart or brain still means death.

You can think of levels more as an indicator of your opponent's strength. This brings us to the next point. Now that you are outside the illusion.

You can learn the skill "Analysis", which allows you to see the level of an opponent or learn properties of objects. Next, focus on an object and study it very long and hard. Look at it from all sides and pay special attention to peculiarities. After a while you should have learned the skill, but I repeat myself please do not look at your interface."

Ben closes the book and thinks about what he has read `More lies, but somehow I have the feeling Maxwell still doesn't tell me everything and why does he first say my heart card exists often and now it is supposed to be super rare. None of this makes any sense.

I also have a hard time with the levels. What is so special about the hero system? It's not the levels, but maybe it's the quests it generates? That would be a possibility, but these quests alone would not explain why they wanted to enslave me. Well my heart cards would be a point but why so inconvenient with the illusion and all that? Ben sighs, that much pondering doesn't help him and only depresses him.

His thoughts keep wandering to his family, which was only a lie. Still not over it he decides, it is better if he distracts himself somehow. Ben picks up the book and begins to study it. It is a plain book made of brown cover and it looks quite new. The top right corner of the cover is slightly rounded. After 10 minutes an interface appears in front of Ben

Maxwell's book

The author Maxwell wrote this book to protect and support a young man. This man was unexpectedly thrown into the world not ready yet to enter it. This book contains basic knowledge about the world and some secrets about the protégé.

PS: Good job Ben I knew you could handle the analysis Skill. Maxwell

Ben groans as he reads this. `Maxwell, next time I see you I'll punch you in the face, I swear to God.` Ben spends the rest of the day examining all the items to increase his skill. Meanwhile he notices that this goes faster and faster and only takes a minute per object and the more background knowledge he has about an object the more detailed the description.

As the sun begins to set, Ben decides to start a fire, but he doesn't know how. He doesn't have a fire starter and he doesn't have anything in his inventory. When suddenly an idea comes to him. He could use the chain lightning and aim it at the wood. That should work, right? What could go wrong.

Ben draws his card and looks at the branches and dry lichen he has collected. He aims the card at the pile and activates it with a very small amount of mana. A white lightning bolt shoots out and hits the wood, but it doesn't stop and hits the next branch and keeps jumping.

After 2 jumps, the lightning dissipates. What remains is a smoking pile of branches. Ben moves closer and sees some embers. Carefully, he blows into it and the embers start to crackle until a small flame appears. Ben adds more lichen to the small flame and it grows into a fire. Relieved, Ben stands up and stares into the fire. He has made it. `Hopefully the fire will keep the forest animals away from me. I should be getting ready for bed.`