Trial preps

Lyle slammed his tray of food on the table, making most of its contents fly up in the air. Thankfully with Lyle's quick reflects he was able to catch them all on his tray as they started to fall. Lyle gave off a victorious grin at his success and glanced carefully at Charlie who was shaking his head as he watched Lyle basically "play" with his food.

Charlie sat down on the table, along with Ethan, Mark, and Colby, who Jason hadn't see in a while. Jason briefly glanced at all of them, but the way they ate caught Jason's eye for some reason.

It was like the way the ate reflected their personalities in some way. Lyle was rash and bold and literally destroyed his food along with the tray. Ethan and Mark, both strategically found the part of the food that looked the best. In this case, the potato that had the best seasoning and they then worked around it, to save the best for last. While talking amount themselves and just having a random banter with Lyle. Whatever that meant for their personalities Jason really didn't know.

Colby on the other hand was just silently eating the food, he wasted no time in talking or socializing, instead, he just took his fork and stabbed it into the salad as hard as he could, to get the most amount of food in one go.

Jason did want to ask why didn't Colby just shove the entire thing into his mouth, but he was kinda scared that he might actually give him some ideas.

Last but not least was Charlie, who was actually making sure that the rest of the team members had enough food. Lyle said that he didn't have enough and Charlie promptly gave him a potato. Of course, Jason was just judging them from the way they ate their food, but he started to believe he had a good grasp of their characters.

Lyle was the brash one. Colby was the silent efficient one, the twins were... well he didn't know that one, but Charlie was probably the "mom" of the group, the one taking care of everybody.

And finally, Jason was the... uhhh, ummm what was Jason? Jason peered down at his hands that were stabbing into a salad with a fork and observed himself eating since it seemed like the new thing to determine personalities. He held the fork and gripped it with moderate pressure and plunged it in again and put it back into his mouth.

Jason dropped the fork and held his head in his hands.

Everything he did, every movement everything down to the last detail was generic and normal. Jason tried to calm himself down and look at the facts, he wasn't that generic right?

Jason pulled up the generic list that was universally agreed on in Jason's old world

Black haired? check

human? check

swordsman? check

has an OP system? okay, maybe not that one, Boops and the system were awsome but definitely not OP.

harem? that was the one thing Jason wanted to be checked off, but alas he could not.

was transported to another world? check, Jason realized suddenly realized that he was living in an isekai, that was the first time Jason thought about that, and it probably would be the last time he thought about it.

bland personality? Oh frick, Jason tried his best to remember what things he did that could show he had an actual personality. He tried his best, Maybe when he tamed the wolves? nope generic.

Uhhhh, super awesome VR game where everything is like reality, so much so that you could be trapped in it by a crazy professor and forced to beat the game to get out? wait, what?

In short, Jason had an identity crisis from watching people eat food. That is the reason why Jason's weakness is his vivid imagination.

*crunch* *crunch* *slurping* A voice in Jason's head softly muttered to himself

'frick, popcorns pretty loud huh'

"you know whispering in my head won't make me unable to hear you right?"

'shoot'

Jason in an annoyed tone to Boops

"uh huh, and WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I HAD AN IDENTITY CRISIS?"

Boops tried to dodge the question

'what do you mean by had?'

Jason lifted his head, in confusion, then widened them in amazement.

"holy frick I'm out of it"

'holy frick he's out of it'

Boops and Jason both looked at each other in Jason's headspace. Their gaze had a weird emotion in it. It was an emotion of comradery, happiness, and a tint of "what the frick just happened" mixed in. Overall it was a pretty good emotion.

Boops was the first one to break the silence. He made the sound when you clap your hands together even though he didn't have hands.

'Okay, whatever the heck that was, I'm glad you got out of your little crisis. *snicker*'

Jason stepped up about to chuck Boops's orb around the place, but before he could do so Boops stopped him.

"wait, wait hold your horses. But seriously. even though we weren't with you for that mini-crisis you had there, no, almost nonexistent one I mean... wait, wait, wait don't get a bat from your inventory, ill actually speak seriously."

Jason sighed and lowed the thick stick, that he took out of his inventory and had swung like a bat in front of Boops. He looked at Boops's floating orb and waited.

Boops gave off a sigh and started to talk

'haaa this isn't my style, but I just wanted you to know, that me and the system. We will always be there for you. Through all of your crisis, your trials, when you are suffering emotionally, physically, or spiritually. We will be there, sometimes we will laugh at you when you fail, but trust me when I say that, we mean it in a nice way, and that we will always try our best to help you get back up.'

Boops stopped for a bit, and shook himself a bit like he was getting embarrassed. To Jason, it looked like Boops was spinning around furiously. Boops forced himself to start talking again

'umm, what I'm trying to say is that we got your back, always'

Jason watched as Boops floated around the room, he was glowing a pinkish red, which looked weird in any other context, but now was like the color of friendship for Jason. Jason's heart felt like it was being warmed as he watched Boop's float around the room like a shy balloon, he smiled and said to Boops

"Boops and System, I promise from the bottom of my heart, that I have your guy's back, As the host for you two, I promise to do everything in my power to give you lives and adventures that you will never forget."

Silence permeated the room, but Jason noticed Boop's return from the rose-colored floating balloon, to the bright yellow orb, that hovered and zoomed everywhere around the room. Boops chuckled

'aww shucks, now I feel really happy. By the way, the system is pretty happy too but probably because you basically just promised to get it a crap ton of upgrades and stuff.'

"What? when did I say that?"

'uhhhh the system isn't contacting me anymore, idk man"

Jason laughed and started to whisper to Boops in a secretly like fashion

"pfft I can't believe the systems that cowardly, guess it doesn't need any upgrades"

Boops quickly caught on and joined Jason

'hehehe I can't believe the system is that weak'

The two waited for a bit, and then a notification went to both of them that made them both laugh and giggle like maniacs.

[note: System isn't weak, System is stwong]

[.....]

[error, spelling mistake...]

[as the system can't change the notification, please erase that from your memory or system will have to do it by force]

Boops and Jason just kept on giggling and laughing while the system kept on sending them notifications to erase it from their memories.

So this was the moment where the trio's relationship started to really grow. Yes, it was in a cafeteria, and it was pretty late in their journey. And it also started with Jason observing people eat food. Perhaps the event on that day was destined by the heavens themselves, or maybe it was a complete coincidence.

There was probably going to be some power of friendship bullcrap later, but really, it was much better to have a life full of friends, then a life full of solitude, power, and money. Well, power and money could come with the life of friends and Jason was going to prove that.

With the power of friendship, he was going to uhhhh, kick butt, take names, and eat grass.

Jason and Boops were still laughing over the system's mistake while the system frantically tried to make them stop, Jason wiped the tear that came out of his eye from laughing so hard, he remembered something when he was going through the list. It was a distinct trait that most of the generic people had.

crappy backstory? check

It was something that he had buried deep inside his heart after things got better, but he had a faint inkling that somehow it would be uncovered sooner or later. But once again. That's a story for later.