But for a Slime

* * *

Joe awoke with a start with a deep glow filtering through the vines and bushes splattering the undercut in shadow and light. The status floated before his eyes, the glow light blinding him from easily seeing the undercut. He took a deep breath and then once again settled into a loose lotus pose to return to his calm meditation. He considered his options and decided to continue in his hiding out. He had originally planned to hide here for several days, even a week. But given the need to level up and hopefully increase his stats, he felt an urgency he had not felt yesterday. His focus yesterday had been cautious exploration to prepare for his new life here. Today, he felt a panicky need to simply rush his development.

He still had more to explore about in regards to the popup system and he didn’t need to worry too much about survival needs except water, which ironically, was surprisingly too close. He had hoped to boil the water carefully before drinking it, but now felt he would be forced to use the small filter bottle that had been included in his survival pack. He was fairly certain of its purpose, but pictograms, while easy to read, were not always correctly interpreted. He dug through his backpack and retrieved the water bottle once again before opening it up to unfold the compact directions and read them once more. Once again, the best he could understand from the pictograms was that it was a self-contained water filtration system with a life time of approximately ten years. That last bit of information he gleaned from what looked like a planet orbiting a sun with the Arabic number ‘10’ placed next to the arrow that was representing the orbit of the planet. Ten orbits around the sun? But I’m around a gas giant. Does that mean ten orbits around the gas giant? Or ten orbits of the gas giant around the sun? Joe stretched and dropped the instructions and everything back into the backpack as he decided to prepare the water bottle for service in accordance with the instructions. Once finished, he filled it up and left it to the side to do its business. He considered eating some of his field rations, but a single day without food would not harm him significantly, and he would easily be able to find food when he choose to exit his cave. This was not a true emergency for food. Food was literally a step away. He would have more than enough energy to hunt and prepare food, even if he chose to continue his hide out for a week. But, can I afford the time?

Joe sighed and then took a cautious sip from the water bottle before humming softly in pleasure at the cool clean feeling of the water. He smacked his lips and clucked his tongue, checking the taste before taking another gulp. Capping the bottle once more, he returned to his exploration of the menu system.

Nothing had changed since the night before, but he remembered seeing what appeared to be tabs at the top of the screen. Nothing about them pointed to any useful information unless he could actually tab to them. If the ‘current job’ was actually functioning, it should show his current job, but it was suspiciously blank instead. He could only assume pressing it would show something a little different. His finger reached for the tab as he had done when pressing the accept button, and he saw the screen flash to a slightly different screen which seemed to show what was basically identical information. The only difference to the screen was the addition of a Job name in the middle of the screen with the number “1” next to it and a black line under it. The stats were all essentially identical but did not show his ‘old earth’ stats; basically, the parenthesis were all gone.

It was essentially identical. Why two screens that show the same information? It… Is this the screen specific to the job? And my status is applicable to me? Then can I change my stats in other ways? Joe considered the screen for a few moments before shrugging and moving on. There was little to learn here and little information to make any useful deductions. He quickly clicked over to the Available Jobs tab but only found a single entry listing Commoner with the number ONE next to it. Hmm… same as the other page. Is this a job level? Joe quickly flipped back to his status screen and found no entry anywhere for a level, as he would expect for this kind of situation. He did find it, possibly, linked to the job. So… my abilities increase as I level my job. Can I change jobs then? I hope I can…

Continuing his exploration on to current skills and available skills revealed nothing of use. Both tabs were completely empty. Hmm… need to level up my jobs then? The details tab turned out to be less useful than he had hoped. It was simply a log entry recording all popups he had received from the system, as well as any time he had opened his popup manually, as the last entry showed as “Status Opened.” Under it, indented to show that it was all part of the same action, other subentries showed how he had manipulated his status screen, showing which tabs he had explored. Clicking on a message entry opened that message once again. Click on a status entry opened up the status window to the tab that the log had recorded. Huh. So it’s basically a log. His eyes opened in a bit of surprise as even as he thought this, he saw the status window update, the tab labeled ‘details’ was quickly changed to “Log.”

He considered for a few moments, then dismissed his status window and sat in thought. Might as well practice a bit. Joe spent the next several moments opening and closing his status window, realizing that the trigger seemed to be the mental idea of opening his status window, even if he spoke the words, it didn’t do anything unless he added the mental command to it. After flipping the status on and off several times, he remember the second command on the list and tried to bring up the help system. As he did yesterday, trying to get the help system seemed to elude him. Why can’t I get it up? I just think ‘Status’ and it… Joe stopped and blinked when he realized his status window didn’t show up.

Status.

Again. Nothing happened and Joe settled his mind to try to remember what he had done the last several times. Ah! Right! I want to see my status. Immediately after thinking this, the status window popped up once again. Huh. I have to think in complete sentences then? I wonder if I could encapsulate the sentence as a single idea and have the whole thing pop up with just an idea instead of having to think a sentence. Joe’s eyes slit slightly in concentration for a bit as he considered. Full sentences. Umm… I need some help.

Once again, a popup rose again in his view and he saw a list of commands, a dozen or so of them. Most of them were a strange garbled mess of incomprehensible symbols. Only two words were comprehensible, both of which he had already known: Status and Help. He clicked on the status and received a popup explaining the function of the status command. It turned out exactly as he expected, and he was actually happy to find out that his supposition about the ‘current job’ tab was correct. It showed the stats that were gained specifically because of the current job. The stats he had as an individual through other gains were shown in the main status tab. But other than the basic generic description, the help was anything but.

Status

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Details

Joe McConnell

Status

Physical Resistances

Resistances

HP

1

Physical:

Wind

.1

MP

1

Piercing

0

Water

.1

Attack

1

Crushing

0

Ice

.1

Defense

1

Slashing

0

Magic

1

Magic Defense

1

Strength

1

Dexterity

1

Agility

1

Commoner

1

IQ

1

Wisdom

1

Learning

1

Luck

0

Clicking on the help file was one of the most unhelpful and ridiculous informative files he had ever read: “Help will offer you help with the system.” Despite the foolishness of this line, he did learn something useful. “Asking for help on a specific command or status will give detailed information about said command.” Hmm. That seems useful. Umm… I need help with status.

Another popup came up showing his status window with other popups explaining each element of the window as he looked at each one. As interesting as the effect was, the information that came up was not useful for most of it since he had already assumed the answers and had actually been right for all of it. The only useful pieces of information was the first explanation about the current job status in contrast with his personal status, and three new pieces of information. The first but quite obvious one was that there were other jobs available which he could change to at will. The available jobs tab gave him the jobs he was currently able to take. The next was the explanation of luck. It appeared that luck was simply a statistic that would bend reality to his benefit by, quite literally, an infinitesimal amount. Zero luck literally meant that what happened would literally be as chance would normally have happened. Basically, zero luck was natural chaos theory. Any nonzero value would skew chaotic results towards his benefit. The last useful piece of information was in regard to the learning stat, although it was quite sparse. The learning stat was directly related to how quickly he could level his jobs.

Joe considered the data but there was little more he could derive from it. What he needed to do next was to begin working on his commoner job and try to see how quickly or well he could develop it. As an extension, understanding the effect that the learning stat had on his job growth would also be vital.

By this time, the day was already coming to an end and full dusk had quickly fallen on the forest around him. While he had relaxed and made sure to sit in as comfortable pose as possible, an hours-long meditative pose stiffened his body and he had little room to stand. Lengthening his body in a reposed position by using the log to keep himself out of the mud, he was able to stretch out to a full length and to several modified laying stretches under the undercut. Returning to his relaxed lotus pose, which allowed him to keep all but his feet out of the mud, Joe leaned his head down on his knees to once again sleep for the night. Tomorrow would begin his intensive effort to develop his current job.