Azrael glided past another bit of crystalised soul. It had nearly been a full in-game day since he had started.

It was slow going, but the best thing that changed due to being in control of this reality was the ability to use a clip board in his soul space. Another plus was the ability to simply copy and paste bits of code from both his memory and also from the crystalised mana of his soul, because that’s exactly what they were. They were code; crystalised information.

The mist was some form of mana, or other energy and the crystalised bits were simply information. In the simplest terms they acted as energy passing through a circuit board. Each pattern, each relative angle and form was simply a way of writing code in a geometric form.

It had taken him a while to understand, but once he did all he had to do was write a sub program that translated it for him. It wasn’t cheating per se, but… well it was definitely an unfair advantage. God knows he’d put in the hours during school to deserve it.

Azrael checked his notes. He thought he had most things roughly figured out, however there was something that threw him off. His soul had two nubs that were unlike the others. These were not crystalised, meaning that in themselves they held no real information, however they were more solid than the rest of the soul mist. Their purpose seemed simply to reinforce a part of the soul, influencing how the mist swirled.

Interestingly enough, they were approximately a sixth of the circumference of his soul apart. He wasn’t sure exactly what they were meant to do, but was sure he had a rough guess. Except that if he was right, it meant something far more significant and worrying. He jotted down a quick note onto his clip board and stepped out of his soul space.

Sera had properly transformed his cave. Books lay scattered around a large sofa covered in pillows and stuffed toys, while darts stood impaled on a dartboard on the wall. Sera herself could barely be seen under all stuffed toys.

“I need to go back check something” Azrael said and an arm appeared from underneath all the pillows.

She snapped her fingers and the books, sofa and dart board vanished as he re-entered the cave in game. Truthfully, he’d already been back in and out three or four times to check certain things, which meant he had eaten and drunk from the lake.

His food supply was running low, leaving him one, maybe two days’ worth of food left. He really needed to find another food supply, but that was currently an irrelevant problem for another time.

He hopped down from the cave ledge, used to the drop by now, and walked to the boulder he had destroyed yesterday.

No. He stopped and frowned. He’d been working on this so long that he’d already used up an entire day. Which meant that he’d been in game five and a bit days now. A little over one and a half in the real world. Time dilation really was a lovely thing.

Azrael shook his head clearing it of unnecessary thoughts. He had plenty of time to worry about everything else after he had finished building the system.

Picking up a medium sized rock, which had shattered from the boulder, he started raising it above his head before lowering it. As stupid as he might have looked, it was time to test a hypothesis.

The ‘nubs’ he theorised represented his stats, or at least some visible part of his stats. He didn’t have much proof, however the soul represented the information that made up the game ‘him’. This meant skills, stats and probably levels.

If the crystalised bits were skills, holding the information on their level and effect, then it would stand to reason that the uncrystallised nubs could represent a single point of his stats, a theory further supported by their geometric alignment and the lack of other similar soul structures.

The two stat points that he’d seen in his soul were probably agility and dexterity. He remembered getting incrementally faster after all the running he had done, when the boar had been after him. Similarly, the point in dexterity was representative of all the crafting he had done. His hands had moved more efficient and more fluid and natural ways. It was barely noticeable, but he had still noticed.

His test now was to see if he could gain a point in strength, which was why he was currently weightlifting a rock.

Almost half a day later Azrael was back with Sera, frowning at his notes, but it wasn’t because he’d failed. No, he’d gotten his point in strength. It currently sat opposite his stat for dexterity. The spacing meant that there were at least six main stats. The problem was he’d come across two shocking realisations.

Firstly, he could increase stats without leveling up. This was great in the sense that it meant that he wasn’t reliant on levels for stats, but it also meant that levels and possibly class didn’t guarantee stats, and in that case neither did defeating monsters for experience like in standard rpg games. Not only that, but just like with the skills he wasn’t able confirm any conditions, or perquisites for classes, or leveling.

And secondly and most profoundly, he’d discovered that he could influence his soul.

After practicing with his meagre amount of mana in game to try and gain a point in a magic based stat he’d done a quick experiment with the mist in his soul. While it largely resisted him in the actual game he’d managed to partially bypass the problem under the curious eyes of Sera.

For the briefest of moments, he’d managed to move away the mists of his soul, confirming parts of the inner structure. In game it would have had possibly disastrous consequences, but doing it this way meant that he was able to safely catch a quick glimpse.

What he’d found was this; inside of his soul each of his stats and skills had five ‘hidden’ layers, growing out of a soul core. The energy from the core had knocked him out of his soul space, but it had been enough to gather the information he’d needed.

For skills these five hidden layers prevented you from immediately gaining hundreds of random skills for completing random perquisites and meant that you had to actively be trying to achieve something to gain the skill. Secondly, it meant that all players started off with base stats of 5.

Snapping shut a notebook containing the cumulation of his notes he exited his soul and got Sera to send him back to his cave. It was time to reap the fruits of his labour.