Chapter 36

Inside the apartment our heroes were staying in, there was a momentary pause in almost everything the children were doing. The one exception was the stowaway kid who was immersed in a book and completely ignored his surroundings.

They were puzzled by the unexpected message. Not because of what it meant, they understood how things worked enough by that point, but because of its existence in the first place.

Their best guess was that it had something to do with what Anthony was doing, since the name Ruler's Blessing implied some connection to a king or someone with a similar title, and with them being on an island in the middle of the ocean there were barely any people around, let alone kings.

After a brief discussion about what to do, which concluded with a firm "let's think about it later", they went back to doing their own things. Sarah raided the fridge for leftover crab from the day prior and Peter got ready for an expected, but similarly important, event.

Their new friend was about to finish his book and when he did he was greeted by a translucent screen that was all too familiar for the others, but he was purposefully left in the dark about it.

[Achievement unlocked: Learn to read.]

[Reward: INT +0.1, Access to interface authorized]

Before he could voice his confusion, he was confronted by the next step in the routine.

{Never thought this day would come. I can't speak for long so we should get started with the procedure.}

"Please, could you explain what's going on?"

Unfortunately for him, his plea for answers fell on deaf ears as the ethereal voice continued with the script.

{Since I know for a fact that you don't have a name, it's the perfect opportunity for you to choose one yourself.}

Acknowledging that he'll be left in the dark no matter what, the kid decided to just go with it. He was excited about finally having a name all for himself so he said out loud the first one that came to mind.

"If possible, I want to be called Drake!"

Now that he wasn't restricted by the script, the voice reacted to the boy with a resigned tone.

{It's from that cartoon isn't it?}

Awkward silence followed as Drake was too embarrassed to admit it and the voice took some time to figure out why the boy was silent.

{Fine, but don't come to me if you change your mind. We have some time left so is there anything you want to ask?}

"If there's just one then I'll ask, what should I do now?"

This was the most important question he could think of. He spent most of his short life traveling on various ships or trains and trying to avoid inspectors without any real purpose.

{You can do whatever you want, I won't give you instructions. But if it's advice you want, then I say you should stick with the emo kids.

Looks like my time's over. Take care and try to stay alive.}

While Drake was left on the couch more confused than ever, Peter was having fun with some new functions to his interface.

[Achievement unlocked: Help a fellow user.]

[Reward: INT +0.05, Access to Drake's interface]

[Name: Drake]

[Health: 100%]

[Stamina: 92%]

[Level: 0]

[Experience: 50/100]

[Strength: 0.35]

[Agility: 0.40]

[Endurance: 0.30]

[Stamina: 0.45]

[Intelligence: 0.65]

[Magic: 0.05]

[Abilities: Flight Feathers LV1, Metal Digestion]

[Patron: Alicanto]

[Affected by the Ruler's Blessing]

[Flight Feathers: The user can grow wings which can be used for flight or for speeding up land travel. Stamina consumption is inversely proportional to the difference between AGI and END. In case the user's END exceeds their AGI flight becomes impossible.]

[Metal Digestion: The user can consume and digest any kind of metal without the negative effects of doing so regularly. The user may gain some of the consumed metal's properties if taken in large enough quantities. Endurance increases body weight.]

As Peter was looking at his friend's attributes, the one thing that became clear immediately was that there were significant differences in quality when it came to their abilities. So far him, Sarah and Manda were quite similar when it came to their powers. Drake was the only one whose abilities came with a very clear downside. Even Sarah, who was becoming more and more corpse like every day, received mostly benefits from it.

It also didn't help that his primary method of becoming stronger was not the easiest to do. The rest of them only needed to look for the right opportunities to get stronger, or in Manda's case just simply working hard, while Drake had to find metals to eat which he had to either buy or find somewhere.

At this point, Peter's thought process was interrupted by a meek question coming from the couch.

"Could I stay with you guys a little longer?"

It was a request they had been expecting for a while now. The twins obviously didn't have a problem with it and judging from Anthony's attitude so far, he wouldn't be that hard to convince either.

Just as Peter was about to explain that, the front door of the apartment swung open and the man of the house stepped through. He was a lot more energetic than usual and was holding a nice souvenir.

"Kids, I have big news!"

"So do we. But before that, could you give us that chalice?"