I woke up on a beach.

An empty beach that slowly curved out of sight in both directions with not a single person in sight. The ocean looked beautiful, bright, and blue, with noticeably clear water along the shoreline. When I turned around I noted that the vast majority of the island was covered in tall leafy trees. A massive grey stone mountain towered above the trees in the distance. I had never been anywhere like this before, and I certainly didn’t remember having decided to come here in the first place.

I was having trouble remembering a lot of things actually, my name, the names of my friends and family, it was all missing. I could remember what I had been doing last night, but not who I was doing it with.

There was definitely something wrong with my memory, how strange.

I was a rather calm person by nature but considering the situation, I was far more relaxed than I would have expected. I stared up at the clear blue sky, the sun was burning brightly almost directly overhead, nothing strange there.

I sat down on the sand.

What was my priority given the situation I had found myself in? I should attempt to find out where this beach was in relation to something I knew. The city I lived in also had a beach, I remembered that readily enough. I don’t remember a mountain being anywhere nearby or such thick forestry so close to the beach.

I think I could safely assume this wasn’t near my city, whose name continues to escape me.

I had seen several movies and TV shows where people had woken up on a beach, Lost had been one of them. It was strange that I could remember the name of a TV show I had barely watched, but not my own name.

I would need to investigate the island and see if I could find anyone, but if I were somehow stranded on a desert island, somewhere in the middle of the ocean, I would need to do several things if I didn’t want to die.

I needed a place to sleep, sheltered from the weather and any local wildlife, I didn’t know how cold it would get here during the night or what might be in the forest looking for a meal. I would also need a source of freshwater and some sort of food.

Intelligence has increased by 1.

I recognized the floating words that had appeared in the corner of my vision immediately.

It was from that webtoon where the protagonist could level up like a video game, and whose name I couldn’t recall, more due to it being an exceptionally long time since I had read it than my strange amnesia.

It was strange that something from a story had suddenly become real, but the fact that I was in the middle of nowhere on a deserted beach felt more problematic overall, but if this power worked as it had in the story, every day I survived, the easier it should become to survive the next.

Perhaps I could eventually become strong enough to swim back to civilization or something. My planning came to a grinding halt when three people wandered into sight further down the beach, with words floating above their heads. They were dressed strangely, and one of them was tossing a spear between his hands, so I immediately moved back into the trees just in case and watched them as they passed by.

Mato Level 17

Shinta Level 18

Toriko Level 14

Maybe I wasn’t stranded after all.

I was stranded.

Stealth has increased by 1.

If not exactly in the same way as I had initially assumed. There was a large sprawling city on the island, and it was remarkably strange in so many ways that I had trouble reconciling it with what I was used to.

There was a massive metal ship sitting in the large harbor, cranes sat all over the docks and roads, perhaps used to unload cargo from the ship, the streets for some bizarre reason were paved with large rough bricks packed down tightly into the ground, instead of tarmac.

The houses were all multiple stories tall and made from a perfectly cut white stone, the rooves were tiled with an orange material that might have been clay.

Is that what tiles were made out of? I wasn’t sure.

The lines of the building stretched far out of sight due to the size of the city and each one had large panes of precisely cut glass lining all of the windows that were set into the buildings. There was a huge advertisement screen built into the roof of one of the buildings, showing a high definition recording of what I could only imagine was the island I was standing on, from far above it. The island itself was shaped like a large crescent moon, with the city sitting right in the middle of the thickest part of the crescent, stretching from one side of the island to the other.

It actually looked somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t place where I had seen it before.

There was what seemed to be a castle on the opposite side of the city or at least the large round tower parts that stuck out of most castles I had seen in pictures. I had never seen a castle before, and there was definitely no castles anywhere near my city.

The people walking around the city were another element that made it far stranger. There was some wearing metal armor, others wearing leather. Some of them carried swords, while others had spears, almost all of the ones that were armed carried large tower shields strapped to their backs, and each one had a black visor of dark glass covering their faces. I was pretty sure carrying large melee weapons like that in public was illegal back home? They almost looked like riot police, without the signage on their equipment and with fucking spears.

Then there were the people who simply wore cloth shirts and pants that looked like they were made by hand, and their shoes were simple looking sandals, it almost looked like a normal city if everyone was cosplaying as some kind of medieval person.

Stealth has increased by 1.

The stalls that I could see from my hiding place, in the bushes if you must know, were selling fish and other foods in baskets, with not a piece of plastic wrap to be seen, which seemed rather unhygienic. Some sold vegetables and fruits, while others sold simple but neat hand-woven clothes. Alongside the people were wagons being pulled by horses along the roads, although I only saw two of them over the course of an hour, and not a single car.

It made absolutely no fucking sense.

Nothing looked familiar to me in any way, this was not the city I lived in.

I was hesitant to go in to ask someone where this was because I had no idea if the guys with the black visors and large weapons took kindly to strangers suddenly appearing in their city. My shirt, jeans, and closed shoes obviously didn’t belong here, I would stick out like a sore thumb. If those guys were dangerous I had no way of protecting myself from them if they turned out to be hostile to strangers and I might even find myself captured or something worse.

I was too far away to be able to see the names and levels floating above their heads, but I quickly found a solution with liberal uses of Observe. I used it on every person I could see, reading through their summaries and tried to piece together as much as I could.

“Born in the Land of the Moon,” was a common theme amongst them, although there was one guy who had apparently been “Born in the Land of Demons,” so I made sure to not stare at him for too long just in case.

I couldn’t remember having ever heard of a place with that name, but I was having trouble remembering any of the city names that I was sure I should know. Either way this island did look familiar to me, and the name had almost brought me to the cusp of understanding, but not quite.

Observe has increased by 1.

Another commonality was the names, they were all in a language that I recognized as Japanese, names like Kozuki, Juko, Sayuki, Mino, and a whole lot more. I didn’t speak that language, I spoke English. Which country spoke Japanese? Which country spoke English? I knew there were several, I just couldn’t remember the damn names, it was infuriating.

What was odd about it, was that despite all having names that were clearly in Japanese, every single one that had passed by my hiding place had been speaking perfect English, with no hint of an accent. I kept on trying to remember which country spoke Japanese, but my strange amnesia held.

I would just call them the ‘Japanese Country.’

A lot of the descriptions referenced a ‘King’ which didn’t sound like the ‘Japanese Country’ either, I’m fairly sure they had an Emperor or a prime minister? or something? My own country had a prime minister as well, although I remembered there was a Queen overseas somewhere, and a President somewhere else as well.

Stealth increased by 1.

An island in the ‘Land of the Moon’, massive tv screens with high definition video footage, cranes, and other machinery, but they were pulling horses with carts, every single person had the ‘Japanese Country’ names, but the guards weren’t carrying Katanas. They were ruled by a ‘King’ and everybody here was speaking ‘English.’

It was like some bizarre combination of different cultures that I couldn’t even remember the name of, and it all led me to think that I was very far from home. I Observed them for a long time, but I never found myself any closer to figuring out where I was.

I eventually talked myself into heading back to the beach where I had woken up, still wary of entering the city because of the guys with spears. Despite not remembering the name of where I was from, I think I could safely assume that this wasn’t it.

Either way, it did provide me with something of a direction to push myself towards, which started with meeting my basic needs of survival.

“Status,” I said curiously.

Name – Sora

Title – N/A

Age - 22

Level - 1

Health Points - 100/100

Mana Points - 101/101

Vitality 10 (Total Health, 10 HP per point.)

Strength 10 (Physical Power.)

Speed 10 (Movement speed, Reflexes.)

Perception 10 (Sensory Reception, Accuracy.)

Intelligence 11 (Plasticity, Comprehension, Memory.)

Mana 10 (Total Mana, 10 MP per point.)

Luck 0 (Increases chance of finding loot, Increases quality of item drops.)

Stat points 0

Health Recovery Rate – 0.25

Mana Recovery Rate – 0.25

Stealth Rating – 17

Perception Rating - 10

* () are tooltips that appear when hovered.

I read through it slowly, trying to burn everything into my memory.

My name was Sora, although that wasn’t familiar at all either, and unlike everyone else, I didn’t have a convenient summary of who where I was from either. I started at level one, which wasn’t unusual for a game, with ten points in every attribute except Luck, slightly unusual but not by much, and the point I received earlier had brought my Intelligence up to eleven as well.

‘Mana’ was an interesting piece of information, it was often used interchangeably with ‘Magic’ or ‘Energy’ in games, or some other kind of resource. I wondered why I had one-hundred-and-one Mana though, it looked like it should have been ten MP per point in Mana.

I had observed enough people in the city that I had unlocked the ability to see their attributes and it had taken me almost an hour before I had come up with the idea of seeing if I could work out how their levels change their stats.

I had counted a lot of peoples stats up to a total and tried to figure out what was going on, I assumed that everyone started with the same stats that I had at level one, so I added the sixty starting base stats on top of it. Eventually, I thought I stumbled on the idea to divide the total stats by the number of levels, and it had given me a common number for each person that seemed roughly appropriate for all of them.

Five points per level up, distributed somehow amongst their attributes.

I would find out if I was correct when I received my first level up, but I was fine with assuming that everyone got five stat points per level for now. I was also assuming that they didn’t get to choose as I might.

Perhaps they did after a fashion.

I supposed if you did a lot of physical labor your stats would probably be weighted towards strength and vitality while a lot of academic stuff would probably net you more intelligence. So life choices determined stats somewhat, so if you choose to be a bricklayer you would end up with higher physicals, that was kind of a choice right?

At least once dictated on several factors, like society, your immediate environment, and your education. I probably shouldn’t be trying to convert other people’s experiences to fit with my abnormal situation in the first place.

I had a look at the passive skills next, and there were quite a few, some of which I remembered from the source, others I didn’t.

Gamer Body (MAX)

Grants a body that allows for the user to live the real world like a game. (He receives no physical damage from attacks only pain for a few seconds and a loss of HP). Eating, drinking, and sleeping are optional. After sleeping in a bed, it restores HP, MP and cures all status effects. Users body is treated like that of an RPG character.

Gamer Mind (MAX)

It allows the user to think through things calmly and logically. It allows a peaceful state of mind. Immunity to all psychological status effects.

Mana Core (Level 1) - Allows the user to store mana.

Increases total mana by 1 (+1 per level). Using Mana grants EXP towards this skill.

Health Recovery (Level 1) – Allows the user to regenerate health passively.

Increases Health regenerated per second by 0.25(+0.25 per level). Regenerating Health grants EXP towards this skill.

Mana Recovery (Level 1) – Allows the user to regenerate Mana passively.

Increases the Mana generated per second by 0.25(+0.25 per level). Regenerating Mana grants EXP towards this skill.

Mana Mastery (Level 1) – Increases efficiency of Mana use.

Reduces Mana Cost of skills by 0.25(+0.25 per level). A skill’s cost cannot be reduced below 1 Mana. Using skills with Mana Mastery in effect grants EXP towards this skill.

The two gamer skills were normal, at least as far as any of this was normal.

The Health Recovery and Mana Recovery was much more notable, it didn’t seem to be tied to any of the attributes in a way I could identify, it also wasn’t a percentage of my maximum respective pools like one would assume.

I was never a math guy, not really, but I’m pretty sure that sucked, what if ended up with a lot of Mana or Health, 0.25 per second, when you have thousands of mana, would take a lifetime to regenerate.

Hopefully, it leveled up quickly.

Mana Core was interesting as well, the Mana Attribute already gave 10 Mana per point, but this skill could increase it independently, although the amount was really small. Mana Mastery was also new, reducing the cost of spells by a tiny flat amount.

I didn’t need to eat, drink, or sleep anymore according to the description, and sleeping in a bed would return me to perfect health, along with healing any status effects. If that was all actually true, then all I would need to ensure my immediate survival needs were met in the short-term was somewhere safe to sleep, so I didn’t get ganked while I was asleep.

It had been several hours since I had first woken up and the temperature hadn’t really changed significantly since then, despite the sun slowly vanishing. It was still rather hot all things considered, I hope it stayed that way because I wasn’t looking forward to sleeping out in the cold.

I had exactly two active skills, Observe and Stealth.

Observe (Level 9) – Allows the user to gain information on the target.

The higher the level, the more detailed the information becomes. Using Observe grants EXP towards this skill.

Stealth (Level 7) - Allows the user to sneak around.

Type – Toggle.

Cast time – Instant.

Target – Self, Other.

Cost – N/A.

Increased Stealth Rating by 7(+1 per level) Reduces sound made while in Stealth by 7(+1 per level) Stealth Rating is checked by enemy Perception Rating. Must leave enemies line of sight to use. Performing actions while Stealth is active grants EXP towards this skill.

Stealth was the only real conflict option I had at the moment, I was weaker physically than everyone I had observed in the city, so I wasn’t exactly feeling very safe right now. The biggest thing for me to consider was that I had could use Mana.

Mana was a pretty common resource that you used to cast spells in games, I had played a lot of games over the years, and the names of those seemed to still be intact at least. I also vaguely remembered the guy from the source material creating his skills.

So the real question of the day became, what exactly can I do with this?