Skim. Time to test it out. Alright, what’s a good question? Or, I guess, topic, he added, remembering the skill’s wording.

Looking around the room, empty but for his unconscious party member and his own things, he didn’t find much inspiration. Then he remembered that he had quite a few system screens full of text that would serve as a good baseline for figuring out the skill. Also, maybe he could glean some extra, hidden information from the system?

Opening all of his screens, he made a mental list of things to try:

-How do I become extremely powerful?

-Adventuring supplies

-How do I upgrade my class?

-How can I adapt my class for combat?

-What skills should I pick?

-How can I become a mage?

-What is the best fusion I can make?

-Find keyword: mana

The first question was a moonshot, the second was to verify that he could use the skill on non-text items, and the last one was in case everything failed and the skill was really just a boring word search program. He had fifteen seconds and eight queries, so if he kept them to less than two seconds apiece he could get away with only spending a single mana here. He took off the adventuring gear the system had given him and placed it next to his other bags so he could see it for query number two.

Focusing on finding a method to grow extremely powerful, Milo activated Skim and glanced around at all his menus rapidly. Nothing. That was pretty much expected. Either it was impossible, his query was badly worded, or the system wanted him to figure it out for himself. Had to at least try. He quickly moved on to the adventuring supplies, and was pleased to see all of his stuff light up. Not pausing to revel in his success, he moved to focusing on upgrading his class. Nothing. How can I adapt my class for combat? Nothing. What skills should I pick? Nada. How can I become a mage? To his shock and delight, his screens suddenly lit up all over the place. He hadn’t honestly expected that to work.

The first thing he noticed was that not everything that was highlighted was emphasized equally. Some things glowed faintly, while others shone much brighter. Conscious of his limited time, he quickly zeroed in on the brightest text in view. Two of the three skills he’d chosen were tied for brightness with several other skills he hadn’t picked. Perhaps due to Improved Cognition, Milo immediately made the connection that only the passives, which didn’t spend mana, were excluded.

He quickly moved on to the next-brightest text, which referred to his modifier points. After a mental nudge, out popped another screen:

-

Pause For Thought:

-Increase perceived duration of skill by 100%. Costs 1 modifier point

-Skill lasts up to 2 seconds per mana spent. Costs 1 modifier point

-Your eyes move normally while all else slows. Costs 1 modifier point

Improved Cognition:

-Add an active component to skill which greatly enhances cognition at a cost of 1 mana/10 seconds. Costs 1 modifier point.

-Mana and thought are intrinsically linked. Gain 50% increased mana regeneration. Costs 2 modifier points.

Skim:

-Skill lasts 10 seconds longer per mana spent. Costs 1 modifier point

-You glean more nuanced information from Skimming. Costs 1 modifier point

-

Both of the modifiers under Improved Cognition were highlighted, but the mana regeneration modifier was blazing like the sun. Nothing else on the screen was lit up. Milo spent a full two seconds analyzing this information before he remembered he needed to move on. He scrambled for his next question. Oh yeah—what is the best fusion I can make?

Nothing from that.

He skipped over the final question, having confirmed the skill was far better than a simple search function. He had a little time left, so he went back to the mage question to double check and make sure he hadn’t missed anything. To his surprise, he found he had; there was a notification for unspent stat points that was lit up. He selected it.

-

Allocate status enhancements (3):

Constitution (Unmodified) +10%

Strength (Unmodified) +10%

Health Regen (Unmodified) +10%

Perception (Unmodified) +10%

Mana Reservoir (8/10) +10

Mana Regen (1 MP/HR) +1 MP/HR

-

Seeing this screen mostly confirmed Milo’s suspicions regarding what the system was in theory trying to tell him about the requirements for a mage class. He’d guessed that it had something to do with spending mana. Obviously the more mana a person regenerated over time, the more they would have to spend. On the screen before him, the mana regen stat was lit up just as much as the skill modifier for Improved Cognition had been. The reservoir stat glowed as well, but much less brightly.

Skim’s time ran out, but Milo had already accomplished what he’d set out to. The only wild card was whether the system had misinterpreted what he wanted, but he really doubted that. He eyed the stat boost options in front of him, noting that both of the mana options were proportionally much better deals than all of the other stats. Of course, if he stuck it out for 10 levels in strength he could be twice as strong as a normal man, which sounded pretty awesome. Still, Milo knew what he wanted—awesome magic powers—and he would not be dissuaded.

Not seeing a reason to dally further, he allocated his first three status points into mana regen and spent two of his modifier points on the mana regen bonus from Improved Cognition. Now, checking his status screen, he saw that he was sitting at 6 MP/HR. Nice. Starting from only one mana per hour, he’d gotten an enormous 6x boost.

He still wasn’t exactly pleased that he only generated a single mana every ten minutes, but this was far better than before, at least. He’d be able to use his skills way more frequently this way. Enhancing his mana reservoir would probably need to happen soon, but as it stood none of skills demanded enough mana that he’d need to use up all 10 at one time.

Feeling good about his choices for now, Milo closed all of his screens. He still had an open skill slot and 3 unspent modifier points, but none of the skills were an obvious next pick and he wasn’t sure how precious his modifier points were. He wanted to save them for the time being.

Milo glanced at the man on the floor, confirming him to be still unconscious. Something would have to be done about that before long. Not sure what else to do, he reached for his system-gifted pack to see what was inside.

The first item was a middlish-sized pot stuffed with a cloth sack of pellets that reminded Milo of dog food. Rations? A tentative sniff provided no additional information. He nearly used Skim to see if it would confirm, but decided to conserve his mana for now.

He also found a length of sturdy rope perhaps twenty feet long, a canteen filled with water, a wool blanket, knife, second pouch full of probably-food pellets, a bundle of strips of cloth Milo assumed were meant to be used as bandages, and a random rock. The rock was flat on both sides, sooo…it would be ideal for skipping across a pond. Milo nodded sagely. Good, good. He’d clearly figured it out.

He stuffed everything back inside, including the mysterious rock, and put it next to the man. This pack would be his, Milo had decided. He had plenty of his own crap to carry already.

On second thought, he dug through the pack until he found the knife and took it for himself. The man was a stranger, after all, and somebody had disliked him badly enough to put a bunch of holes in him. Best not to giftwrap him a stabby weapon for now.

The dog food pellets had reminded Milo that food existed and that he wanted some, so he cracked open a bottle of Soylent and quickly downed it before choosing another to sip on while he considered a certain rock.

He sat down cross-legged, drew the shiny turquoise mana stone from his pocket, and considered it carefully. It was…shiny and turquoise. It looked special, but he felt nothing from it. Maybe if I spend mana while holding it? He had an hour here in this room, which meant that at 6 mana regenerated per hour he could afford to spend at least 4 more before he left.

His choices for spending mana were either Skim or Pause For Thought. He could probably do with more practice moving while using the latter.

Standing up in preparation, he went ahead and activated it, still holding the stone.

The world slowed, but Milo felt nothing from the stone. Hm. Okay…guess I’ll practice doing stuff then.

Milo decided to try dropping the stone and catching it before it reached the ground. It took a few moments for him to flip and unclench his hand. When he did, the stone moved toward the ground at a glacial pace, rotating slightly. He waited impatiently for it to reach halfway before he went after it.

It was a weird sensation. Everything felt off; had he been at normal speed, the movement would have been quick and almost reflexive. At this speed, however, he was hyperaware of each muscle as it fired. Forcing his hand downward, flexing his hips and knees…all of it felt like he was pushing through honey instead of air as he strained for the falling stone.

He caught up with it in plenty of time, but, having misjudged the trajectory slightly, he had to make a correction in order to get his hand in a good position to snatch it from the air. It was difficult. He felt an uncomfortable sensation in his muscles as he tried to redirect the momentum of his arm. The sensation grew until he let off slightly, then subsided as he settled on the proper amount of force to apply. He was still able to make contact with the stone, but he’d made a mistake.

While focusing on correcting his aim, he’d neglected to start closing his fingers as he approached the stone. When his open palm hit it, his hand was going faster than the stone by a good margin. The stone opted to obey the laws of physics and bounced off of him at an increased speed.

He tried to close his hand before it could escape, but he was too late. It slipped past his grasping fingers and accelerated toward the ground, treating Milo to a brief light show as it impacted the hard floor. To his great dismay, it cracked in half with a flash of blue light, the two pieces spinning away in graceful slow motion.

“Shhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttt.”

Milo rode out the short remainder of his dilated time looking in silent dejection at his busted magical artifact.

This is why I can’t have nice things.

Milo’s perception of time returned to normal. He glumly gathered the two pieces, not sure what to do next. He assumed they were just useless bits of rock at this point but had no way of verifying that, given he hadn’t used it for its intended purpose even once. Ugh.

Though he knew it would be silly of him to expect to go through a transition to an alternate reality and a whole new way of living without a hitch, it was pretty demoralizing to know he had squandered an opportunity that could have given him a big advantage. He didn’t quite know what that would have been, but still. Ugh. Blerg.

Milo was once more keenly feeling the accumulated stress and exhaustion of the last couple of days, along with the fact that he was technically due to be asleep right about now. With a glance at his unconscious, nameless companion, Milo decided it was time for a nap. He turned on his phone first so he could set its alarm. The battery was getting worryingly low, but it would last for now and this was worth the expenditure—probably. He unrolled his sleeping bag and did his best to turn off his brain.

In a turn of events that would have surprised him had he been conscious, Milo was able to conk out almost immediately. He was usually terrible at napping; it typically took forever to fall asleep, and then he would remain asleep for hours, wake up in time for bed, and be up all night. It was a problem.

He awoke to an earthquake.

Well, it was a dream about an earthquake. In reality, the lord-man was shaking him roughly by the shoulder. It took a few moments for Milo to process, eyes blinking rapidly as he adjusted to conscious reality. In another couple of moments, he realized with alarm that the guy had a knife in hand and wore a dead-serious expression. He said something.

Something that was completely unintelligible.

Apparently, this wasn’t one of those convenient worlds where everyone magically spoke the same language.

This is so lame.