System
[You slept in the ground. HP, MP and STR are restored by 80%]
Natsu blinked and looked at the semi-transparent floating square hovering in front of his face. For a moment, he was so completely stunned by this strange event that his first thought was not that of Lisanna, whose funeral took place a week ago. He shook his head and held back the swollen tears.
What good is it to cry?
He looked back at the message box, looking at it with suspicion, looking around for the source of this strange appearance, but was only greeted by the sight of the forest.
Being a mage himself, Natsu knew that there were many strange and supernatural things in the world. However, the vast majority of them were fatal in nature and were unlikely to occur spontaneously.
Distrustful, he rose from the ground but whatever, the floating square was always before his eyes. Even when it was facing the ground halfway, it hovered precisely in the same relative position and the same distance from its face, even when this distance was farther than the ground itself.
Hell, he could even see him with his eyes closed.
This thing, he realized, was not really in front of him, but rather in his vision. After an excruciatingly long minute watching him without anything happening, Natsu seized the chance to touch where he seemed to be.
With a thud, it collapsed on itself and disappeared.
"What's going on?" he asked in the empty forest, waving his hand in vain in front of his face. "Great, I'm hallucinating."
Sighing, he got up, taking another careful look into the forest. Finding nothing in his place, he shrugged and went to town to claim his reward, putting this event behind him as a product of his imagination. The result of sleeping only a few hours after being awake for a week.
Unexpectedly, he hadn't been able to sleep right after Lisanna's death. Sleep had been the farthest thing from his mind for a while.
With his payment received, he headed for the station while staring at the craft with absolute hatred. Why did people invent this anyway? Why didn't he learn teleport magic?
"Might as well finish it." he mumbled before getting on the train and to his surprise he was not ill with transportation.
He was suddenly taken out of his thoughts to know why he did not have motion sickness when he sat on a seat next to the window, where he could only stare at his reflection ... or rather above.
[NATSU DRAGNEEL]
[THE GAMER]
[LV 25 - 0/9000]
"What." he said stupidly. He immediately looked over his head where the writing was supposed to be from the glass, but found nothing at all. He looked at his reflection again, finding that the appearance was unchanged. He tried to run his hand over his head and looked in the glass as they scanned the writing without resistance and without dissipating it either. He tried to rub his eyes and wipe the mirror, but nothing worked. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger in his mind.
He has surrounded Mana through his body to get rid of any spirit-altering spell that may have been cast on him.
"Trigger yourself," he exhaled, closing the connection to his magic and opening his eyes.
NATSU DRAGNEEL]
[THE GAMER]
[LV 25 - 0/9000]
"Okay, I lost it." he decided. "I'm crazy, that's how it is."
Seeing no way out, he shook his head, trying to sleep as the train left the station. Fifteen minutes later, he tried to understand the strange event, ostensibly ignoring the window next to him.
[NEW QUEST: a player's experience]
"What!" Natsu exclaimed, almost falling from the seat he was standing on as a few passengers looked at him. Noticing the looks, Natsu gestures that everything is fine so they turn away from him.
Again, he was faced with a strange appearance. "What is this thing?"
[NEW QUEST: a player's experience]
[OBJECTIVE: to understand the system]
[Reward for success: 300 XP]
[Failure reward: repeat QUEST]
[I accept?]
[O / N]
Natsu looked at him and stared at him, until he resigned himself to the fact that this thing would not go away on its own, no matter how long he ignored it. Taking a deep breath, he reached the Y button, hesitating one last time. What if this thing, whatever it was, worked like a trap? What if it got stuck on him permanently after he pressed that button?
Instead, he pressed the [N] button.
[NEW QUEST: a player's experience]
[OBJECTIVE: to understand the system]
[Reward for success: 300 XP]
[Failure reward: repeat QUEST]
[THE QUEST IS MANDATORY!]
[OKAY]
This time there was only one button he had to press. Sighing, he resigned himself to understanding whether he was mad or not in terms that were not his.
[CONGRATULATIONS]
[For a strange oddity of FATE, genetic lottery, Word of God or countless other possible reasons, you have the system. From here, you will experience your life and the world around you like a game.]
"..." There was nothing he could say about that so he kept reading.
[For more information and options, go to the main menu. The main menu can be accessed by calling it.]
"Uh ... Main menu?"Natsu muttered hesitantly.
[STATUS]
[INVENTORY]
[EQUIPMENT]
[SHOP]
[SKILLS]
[QUESTS]
Natsu viciously pinched her cheek, feeling no pain. Well, that explained everything. He was still sleeping and dreaming. Feeling much more relaxed, he decided to play and press the [STATUS] button. A window opened with his image, identical to his clothes, and a series of values outside and below.
[STATUS]
Name: Natsu Dragneel
Title: [THE PLAYER]
[LV. 25 - 0/9000 EXP]
[HP: 1750] (7 per minute)
[MP: 1500] (4 per minute) [
STR: 400]
[DEX: 45]
[INT: 22]
[WIS: 33]
[CHR: 26]
[SP: 0]
[System points: 0]
[HP] Health points. How much life you have left. You will die if it reaches 0.
[MP] Mana Points. How many Mana you have at your disposal. If the magic is performed with 0 MP, the HP are used instead. If both MP and HP are 0 you will die.
[STR] Endurance Points. Your physical prowess. This value represents your strength as well as your attack power and how much you can go without resting. If it reaches 0, you suffer a penalty. STR naturally decreases by 1 each hour of standby.
[DEX] DEXTERITY. This value represents your agility and speed.
[INT] INTELLIGENCE. This value represents your knowledge and your logical ability.
[WIS] WISDOM. This value represents your awareness, both of yourself and of the world around you.
[CHR] Charisma. This value represents your will and your presence.
[SP] Statistics Points. You can use these points to improve other statistics as you wish. They are rewarded at the higher level and by completing the quotient quests.
[System points]. You can use these points to buy weapons and skills from the shop at your leisure. They are rewarded by fighting against another living being and completing quests.
"Okay, so these are my stats, uh? It must be the most detailed dream ever," he chuckled. It didn't sound like a dream at all. "Let's see more details."
The more he looked at it, the less it looked like a product of his imagination. He was no stranger to living dreams, but it was far too far from his experience. He dreamed of fire.
There was a small arrow button to the left and right of these statistics. He assumed they were used to apply [SP] if there were any available. He didn't have one, so he returned to the main menu and entered the Shop.
[SHOP]
Skills
Weapons
Looking on the choices, he chooses skills.
[Skills]
Shadow Dragon Slayer: 40 000 points
Demon King Bloodline: 50 000 point
Black Trigger -Speiraskia: 30 000 points
Djinn - Barbatos: 40 000 points
...
...
Natsu could only look back with the eyes widening the price of the list of skills which seemed infinite.
After shaking his head, he chooses the weapons.
[Weapons]
Enuma Elish: 1 500 000 000
Tensa zangetsu: 360 000
Rebellion: 60 000
Kusanagi: 40 000
Excalibur: 460 000
...
...
Decide to move on, he closed the shop and entered [SKILLS]
[SKILLS]
[Player Spirit (passive) Lvl Max]: Allow to think calmly and logically. allows a peaceful state of mind. Immunity to psychological or status effects.
[GAMER BODY (passive) Lvl Max]: Discovering the world like a game has profoundly changed you. You now have the body of a game character. Sleeping in a bed restores 100% HP, MP. Sleeping on the floor restores 80% and sleeping in the cold restores only 25%.
"So that should be the reason why I see this stuff?" A feeling of dread crept over him. Although the player's mind and the body of a game character looked good at first glance, he wasn't sure how much he had been changed. What if there was something else irrelevant that he hadn't noticed?
[FIRE DRAGON SLAYER MAGIC - LV49: 36%]: Lost magic that allows you to kill dragons. Can transform his body with dragon and elemental sound characteristics, using both offensive and defensive styles. You can produce and consume fire, a use of fire that can spring from any part of the body
[FLAME OF SAVAGE EMOTION - LV2: 24%]: living flame which incorporates the mental and magical aspects of their emotions, generally exposed during periods of great emotion. Unlike ordinary flames produced by magic, emotional flames have a level of sensitivity that makes them a living, breathing force of nature, which is not easily dowsed compared to their weaker counterparts in the traditional sense.
It sounded right. Until now.
Each skill, he noted, had a bar next to it that supposedly indicated how much experience he needed to upgrade it.
[F03e 8 £th1r1ou $ - LV1: 0%] :? ERROR: [?] Is not enough.
"Huh? A little problem? A locked capacity?"
[MENTAL THRESHOLD / PAIN - LV: MAX]: You have suffered for years, which is as painful as stabbing a burning iron rod in your spine. However, that gave you just as insane resistance to the pain. No matter how much your body is injured, you do not suffer any penalty. LV MAX unlocked [DIE HARD]
[PHYSICAL / DYING HARD] People die when they are killed. But not you. Allows continuous action even when HP has reached 0 as long as you have ST or MP. ST and MP drop by 1 every minute even if no action is taken when HP is at 0. "Too bad, we're cool."
After taking a look at the remaining submenus of his player ability. [Equipment], as the name suggests, explained the buffs granted by its worn item. [Quests] listed all the quests in progress and explained that the people who distributed them would have an exclamation mark on their names.
[QUEST: a player experience completed]
[Reward for success: 300 XP]
When the train finally arrived in Magnolia, it went to the guild hall for Happy but not before buying some fish as an apology that it put in the inventory. Because the train ride only lasted an hour and a half, it was just late in the city.
(Change of scene)
In the guild hall, Master Makarov watched the guild members prepare to go home for the day. 'I wonder how Natsu is. He had to come back a few hours ago. '
At that time, the doors were opened by the person Makarov had thought. Everyone's eyes were on Natsu. Many were surprised at his return so late; they had heard that they had left on a mission in the morning for a Vulcain extermination mission.
He did not stop to take stock of the situation within the Guild or even greet any of the members. Instead, he walked over to Happy, ignoring everything else.
"Hey Happy" He spoke to the little blue cat on the table, receiving an almost dead "hm" in response, he spoke once more. "You know, I'm sorry ... to ignore you, not to have taken into account what you might be feeling." Natsu apologized when everyone was shocked.
Happy thought about what her best friend and surrogate father had said.
"Very good, but you owe me a lot of fish!" Exclaimed Happy. Natsu laughed at the antics of his adopted son. "Of course." And with that, Natsu and Happy headed for the doors leaving the guild behind them to pick up their marks.
As they headed home, Natsu gave Happy a basket full of fish in the air that had earned him a question from Happy about how he was doing this.
'Should I ... tell him?' At first, Natsu chose never to reveal the system to anyone. In no case would he ever say it, even if it was an absolute emergency. And yet he was there, planning to give to Happy.
Her voice was serious. "Happy." Should he really do this?
He noticed his serious tone "O-Yes?" He asked hesitantly.
"If you swear to me right now that you won't tell anyone, I'll tell you." Could he really do this?
"No, no, it's okay. You really don't need to tell me ... me ..." His voice died out as Happy looked him in the eye. They were dark. He was not kidding. It was as if he was looking at his soul, waiting. He felt cold sweat fall from his eyebrows.
He was starting to scare her.
"Happy." He said, this time louder. "You have to swear. You won't tell any soul." Is this the right decision to make? "I'm serious." Is he trustworthy?
Now he was really scared. Whatever it is, it must be important. Happy took an audible sip and nodded. "II swear. I won't tell anyone." Her voice was trembling.
He looked at his frightened expression and sighed, calming down. He still freaked him out. His face fell back into his usual and apathetic appearance. "Sorry, that's right, telling people is a big deal to me. I didn't mean to scare you."
Happy let out a breath he couldn't hold back, glad he was back to normal. "You really scared me, you know? I didn't know how serious it was."
Natsu ponders an explanation in his head. "This is one reason why I didn't say anything to anyone."
"Really?" His eyebrows rose in surprise. "Will I be the first to know?"
"Yes." He coughed to clear his throat, giving him another smile. "So, are you ready to know?"
"As ready as possible." He said, now excited to discover his big secret.
He expired. "I hope it was a good decision." He thought, finally deciding to trust someone. "Well, it's ..."
It was extremely calm towards the forest towards which they were as they advanced towards the house, the wind did not blow any more, as if the whole world stopped. He explained the system. After the explanation, things started to move again when the wind returned, almost as if it had never stopped in the first place.
"Natsu is that right?" He nodded.
"Yeah well, just make sure you never say it. Never. Okay?"
"You have it. I promise I won't." Hearing him make that promise made him feel joy. Now all he had to do was keep it.
As soon as he returned home, Natsu went to prepare his dinner. With practical ease, he juggled with knives and forks, pots and pans. His behind the counter skills were decent for someone his age, but they had been a necessary survival skill in this house.
Curiously, he hadn't burnt anything, which shouldn't have been possible under normal circumstances. A gamer's weirdness? Was it possible that he did not fail an action that was sufficiently below his skill level? Natsu still couldn't focus on this thing.
During the dinner, they talked a lot about things, carefully avoiding any mention of Lisanna for the good of the other, but always dancing around the subject to make sure they were doing well.
After dinner, he put the dishes in the sink, said good night and fell asleep.
...
The first thing he did was wake up early in the morning and take Happy and go to the library to learn to read and write. It was something he always hated to make fun of and a weakness he wanted to cover immediately.
[You entered a special area]
[LIBRARY]
[In this area, your INT earnings are doubled.]
[Warning: excessive use of special areas may result in negative statuses]
"Good," he thought. "So if I study here, I get double the statistics. I wonder what other places I could go for boosters. "
As he thought, he took the books off the shelf and quickly turned to the page he was looking for.
Not surprisingly, it didn't take him very long to understand. His fantastic system capacity made him reach his goal in less than eleven hours. He could now read and write decently, which he needed if he wanted to improve his magic. Being a mental discipline, Natsu had always neglected the more intellectual aspects of magic, focusing more on the physical applications that were not.
He left the library and went home to play a little more with his playing skills.
...
Either way, the only thing he could do was wait and see how things went. Besides, his concerns were elsewhere. Natsu was not a genius by any degree of imagination, but the Gamer system was simple enough for anyone to understand.
If his experience this morning was true in all areas, his statistics would increase by performing actions related to them. If his INT increased while studying, it was logical that the other statistics act accordingly. Physical training would increase his STR and agility-oriented activities would increase his DEX.
That left the question of his WIS and CHR. Wisdom, as far as he understood, was the awareness that came from life experience, while charisma was the way it appeared to others. A higher value would make it more convincing and make it more reliable. If he was right, he needed STR, DEX and INT to see the quests completed, but it was likely that some quests would not be available until he had enough CHR to convince anyone that he could succeed there.
Seeing how he didn't have a clue how to increase his CHR, apart from assigning points to him, he decided that he would rectify his other stats on a regular basis while preventing points from leveling up for CHR and WIS.
[+1 WIS to think about things]
"Interesting" he said to himself.
There was something else he quickly realized. This ability was broken in a good way. The early stats were life-influencing, except for those influenced by experiences most people didn't have, such as being raised by a dragon.
One point signified one year of development in each statistic.
Well, he couldn't prove it yet. He still had to study the things he needed to know to test if this theory was right. Increasing your INT didn't magically download the knowledge to your brain. However, he could still try everything else.
Interrupting his thoughts, he went out to jog.
...
[+1 DEX executed continuously]
[+1 DEX executed continuously]
[+1 DEX executed continuously]
Natsu couldn't contain his vertigo. He had run for almost three hours and his DEX had increased three times. Most importantly, he was never out of breath. He was in good health like anyone his age, but before that day he should finally stop and catch his breath. Now he was not at all tired and could have continued running for a long time. Looking at his stats, he saw that his stamina had dropped by around 30 points. At this rate, it meant that he could have continued for fifteen hours with energy to spare.
It was beyond madness.
He would have left for another race, but Happy was tired of watching and he should have dinner very soon. After a quick shower, he was back in the stove and the smell of food was quickly floating around the house.
That night, after dinner, Natsu lay down on his hammock, planning his day tomorrow.
Fortunately, with Gamer's ability, he didn't need to sleep or rest as long as he had the stamina to spare, so he could prepare for the day without feeling tired at all, restoring endurance while eating.
...
"This time there was no INT bonus," observed Natsu as he left the library. As disappointing as it was, it was not very surprising. As in most things, progression is easier in the early stages. The next INT increase would like to come back very soon, but the intervals between increments would only increase with each step. Well, he had acquired experience again just by going to the library, so he was not about to complain.
...
[+1 DEX executed continuously]
[+1 DEX executed continuously]
[+1 DEX executed continuously]
[+1 DEX executed continuously]
[+1 DEX executed continuously]
This time, he kept up the pace for six hours straight, but only got five DEX points. The curve was starting to get steeper. His endurance was also starting to drop dangerously. He hadn't slept at all the night before and was consuming a lot of energy while exercising. He regained some stamina when he ate, but he should get some sleep. He did not know what the consequences would be for reaching 0 endurance, and he preferred not to know if he could help him.
A whole week passed during which Natsu tried to develop his player skills by taking quest by quest, bringing both system points, his DEX had gone to 58 and STR to a darling of 411. His INT stopped at 28 but he wasted no effort in trying to grind it up, since he would be spending his morning at the library anyway. Investing even more time would be redundant, granting him an additional SP to assign as he pleases. He kept it there for the time being, intending to spend it when it hit a wall in its growth.
Now convinced that his player power was the real deal, Natsu decided that looking for possible quests in Magnolia would be a good way to spend the weekend.