I awoke while it was still dark with an intense need to relieve myself and despite being still half asleep, my brain found enough brain cells to panic due to my situation. “Need to pee…” I muttered under my breath, standing and looking around to make sure I was alone. I was not thrilled about what I was about to have to do. Back home on Earth I’d never seen a guy naked, so for this to be the first time…
I immediately forced myself to think of something else, only to let out a scream of embarrassment as I felt something brush against the back of my leg. I looked down to find that Amy was there; I’d been so distressed about the whole thing I’d not even noticed she’d left my lap at some point during the night. She continued to walk past me, stopping next to the path we’d been walking earlier, her back turned to me.
“Go behind the tree,” she said, not looking at me as she spoke.
“That’s easy for you to say!” I said, my face flush with embarrassment. “There’s no way I can…”
“Well, they don’t have adult diapers here. Not that I think you’d want to wear one, given how they’d likely feel with all that fur on.”
“S-shut up!” I replied, not at all enjoying the topic of this conversation.
“Would it help if I distracted you with more stuff about your menus? We’ve a lot to talk about still from your Character Sheet to the Combat Log,” Amy offered. “Oh, there’s also Personal Space, too.”
“Sure, whatever, just pick something and shut up for a second,” I grumbled, still embarrassed as I moved behind the tree. “And don’t peek!”
“Don’t worry,” Amy replied, causing me to glare back from around the tree at her. “I have no need to look,” she said with a cat shrug. Under normal circumstances I imagined the way she said that would have caused me concern, but the growing urge to urinate allowed me to ignore the implications of her words, for now.
Surprisingly it wasn’t that bad to figure out what to do, though it was extremely embarrassing to pee while standing, even though the concept of it seemed extremely advantageous compared to what I was used to. As I finished, I noticed an icon in the corner of my vision being highlighted. “You have extremely convenient timing,” I muttered under my breath as I awkwardly restored my shorts to their proper place. With that done, I stepped out from behind the tree, opening the indicated menu as I did.
Personal Space: Elaran Thorne
Iron Dagger (x1)
Iron Rapier (x1)
Bronze Rapier (x1)
Bronze Plate Armor Set (x1)
Waterskin (Full)
“So it’s like an inventory?” I asked, confused at what I was looking at. “And I just got all these things because that cat-girl died while these were in her inventory?” I removed the ring from my finger, expecting the menu and the icon associated with it to vanish. To my surprise, the icon only turned gray and the menu itself grayed out. Attempting to interact with it gave no results, but when I put the ring back on and everything returned to color, I found myself able to hover over an item and see an additional pop up appear.
Equip Iron Dagger? Yes / No
Selecting yes, the dagger appeared in my hand and I blinked a few times in surprise. “That’s neat.”
“Yes,” Amy said, her weight suddenly appearing on my shoulders before vanishing. I glanced over to see she was still there, so I guessed she’d made herself weightless for me again or something. “Personal Space is like a Character’s Inventory, if you must use such a simplistic term for it, though it is not technically accurate.”
“What’s the difference between the two?”
Amy sighed before answering. “Someone with the necessary skills can steal from another Character’s Inventory, but your Personal Space is yours, unless you die. Personal Space is generally only unlocked with a magical item, while Characters are granted an inventory upon reaching a Tier 2 Class.”
I considered that for a second before frowning and looking at my icons. “I don’t see an icon for my inventory anywhere. Does it only show up if you have something in it?” I asked, recalling that I was supposedly a Martial Artist which was a Tier 2 Class if I remembered what my menus from earlier had said.
“No, you don’t have access to one right now,” Amy said before pausing. “Why would you think you have access to it?”
“Aren’t I a Martial Artist?” I asked with a frown. Amy just blinked at me in silence so I just sighed and closed my Personal Space menu before attempting to open my Class menu, only to frown deeper at the message that was displayed.
[ERROR]: USER#CLASS_MENU IS LOCKED.
“Amy?” I asked, voice filled with concern.
“Oh, look at that,” she said, not the least bit concerned.
“Amy…” I repeated, this time the tone of my voice was more serious.
Amy sighed and nodded her head slightly. “Fine, you got me. I locked your Class menu because I noticed something wrong about it and needed to submit a report to The System to have it fixed.”
“That sounds like a bad thing,” I said with a frown, glancing at my Class menu with concern.
“We kind of did a rush job on getting you here,” Amy said dismissively. “Things were bound to fall through the cracks.”
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
I was about to say something about that when the error message in my vision vanished and my Class menu appeared. I quickly glanced over it to see what, if anything, had changed from the last time I looked at it.
Primary Class Details: Elaran Thorne
Class: Martial Artist (Modified); Class Tier: 1
Experience: 14,442; Level: 17; Bonus Points Per Level: 0
Bonus Points Earned: 0; Bonus Points Spent: 0; Unspent Bonus Points: 0
“What does it mean that my class is modified?” I asked, before noticing that my Class Tier was lower now, too. “Is that why my Class Tier is now 1?”
“If you look closer, you’ll see that your Bonus Points Spent is also now at 0, too,” Amy pointed out. I glanced down at my stats and sure enough, she was right; I no longer had 4 bonus points listed in Strength.
“What happened?” I asked, confused.
“You shouldn’t have had negative points unspent. If that had gone unchecked you’d have likely generated an error log or two upon your first time leveling up, and that wouldn’t have been good for any of us,” Amy said, causing my frown to deepen. Before I could ask what she meant, though, she highlighted my Character sheet. “Here, this might explain things better.”
I opened my character sheet and instead of looking it all over, Amy helpfully highlighted a tab at the top labeled ‘Racial Details’ I’d not clicked on last time, so I clicked on that and immediately was bombarded by a bunch of details.
Racial Details: Elaran Thorne
Race: Morvian Tribe
Experience: 14,442; Level: 31; Bonus Points Per Level: 1
Bonus Points Earned: 31; Bonus Points Spent: 31; Unspent Bonus Points: 0
“Why does this one say that I’m level 31, but my Class says I’m only 17?” I asked, while skimming over the rest of the details on the tab. Like the Class Base Stats, there were entries for Constitution, Dexterity, Endurance, Strength, Affinity, Willpower, Aura, Technique, Luck, and Perception, but there were also entries for HP, Stamina, and Mana. It also looked like I got a racial Luck Modifier, which was different from Classes, which I filed away to ask more about later.
New note(s) have been created.
I blinked as I saw the pop-up appear, then noticed that the little notebook icon in the corner of my vision had a flashing number 1 above it. I clicked on it to see what had changed.
Newly created note:
Ask about Hit Point, Stamina, Mana, and Luck Modifiers - Why do Races provide them, but Classes do not?
“I have notes?” I asked aloud, to which Amy grunted in the affirmative. “That’s handy,” I said with a smile before turning my attention back to the cat on my shoulders. “Can you see my notes?” I asked, suddenly reminded by my lack of mental privacy.
“Duh,” Amy said with a swish of her tail, which quickly turned my smile into a frown. “How else would I be able to interact with your menus?” As much as I hated to admit that it made sense, even I had to admit that, in retrospect, that was a pretty dumb question to have asked. “Not really,” Amy said in a surprising moment of reassurance despite the invasion of privacy. “Very few, if any, Characters possess the power to see other people’s menus like I can. In fact, I might be the only one on ;Algion right now who possesses the ability.”
“Huh.”
“Anyway,” Amy said, continuing as if I hadn’t even acknowledged her, “back to your original question; it seems that The System has opted to grant you the points you should have despite the rush job we did on getting you in this body. That’s actually hugely in your favor. I was afraid we were going to have to redistribute points, but it looks like that’s not the case.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, feeling a headache forming as I tried to make sense of what I was being told.
“Well, essentially when Thorne died a large portion of his experience points were lost. You only retained about a tenth of what he had, originally.”
I nodded my head as she spoke. “Yeah, you mentioned that yesterday.”
“Right, well, as you pointed out yourself, Thorne was originally level 31,” Amy said, which caused me to nod again. “Normally when a body is repurposed like Thorne’s was, the body is properly reset before the refactoring process begins, that way the new User is able to adjust things to their liking. However, we didn’t have that luxury with you, so we kept what Thorne had and just shoved you in his corpse.”
“Who is this 'we' that you keep talking about?” I asked, eyebrows raised. “And what do you mean by ‘refactoring process?’”
“If you look below your Racial Base Stats, you’ll see a section for your Racial Traits.” Amy continued as if I hadn’t even asked a question. “I already told you a little bit about your Anger Boost trait, but it looks like The System gave you one to offset the bonus points you lost from your Class being modified, too.
Racial Traits: Elaran Thorne
Beast Form (Locked)
Anger Boost (0.00%)
Tier 2 Class Refactored Strength Bonus
Before I’d had a chance to even ask what any of those meant, Amy hijacked my menu and highlighted the Tier 2 Class trait for me.
Racial Trait Details: Tier 2 Class Refactored Strength Bonus
Description: Unique System generated Racial Trait for Elaran Thorne. Grants 10% bonus to Strength. Can evolve.
“Holy shit…!” Amy muttered under her breath as I read the description of the trait. Confused, I decided to look at the Anger Boost trait and see if that helped explain anything before asking any questions.
Racial Trait Details: Anger Boost
Description: Anger fuels Physical Stats, at the cost of increased impulsivity.
“Uh, I don’t think I get it…” I said, frowning as I looked between the two traits.
Amy didn’t reply right away and I thought she might not have heard me, but before I could ask a second time she started to explain. “I’ve never seen a trait like this before,” she said, muttering a few other things under her breath that – despite my increased hearing – I didn’t understand; the only thing I did understand was something about it being locked to me.
“What does that mean?” I asked, curious if Amy would even explain it given how little she’d been forthcoming with so far.
To my surprise, she answered me. “It’s sometimes possible for others to copy the traits of other Characters, or for them to be passed down genetically upon reproduction. That’s how you got the Anger Boost trait, actually; it was passed down to Thorne from his father.”
“Right, genetics 101,” I said, still not sure as to why Amy had reacted the way she did.
“Well, this trait appears to be locked to you. If someone else gets it, it won’t work for them.”
“So if I were to have any kids, they wouldn’t be able to get the trait from me?” I asked, before considering what I’d just said and feeling my cheeks heat up at the thought of having sex in this body. I’d never even had sex back on Earth, how was I supposed to figure out how to do things–
My thoughts were interrupted as Amy answered, “Yes, but it’s more than just that. This is locked to your User. I’ve never seen a trait that is User locked before.”
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