Dante slowly awoke to the sounds of chirping birds and the buzzing of insects. Laying on his back he reflected upon the events of the past few hours. The wall of light, the void, meeting F, failing a trial he didn't remember taking, fighting the hound in the darkness and the Deal he had made with F.

He reflected upon how he handled himself in the fight against the hound, the realisation of how close he came to death caused an involuntary shiver to run through his body. In hindsight, there was another part of his brain that made him think about how exciting the whole ordeal was, how paradoxically alive it made him feel. ‘Is this what I've been looking for in my life?’

Vivid flashbacks of tumbling and scrambling in the darkness, thinking every breath could be his last. He thought about how unpleasant it felt to take the life of a living being, even if it was something trying to eat him. He could still recall the high pitch whining of the animal, the feel of forcing his fingers into its eye socket. ‘No, I didn't enjoy that...did I?’

It was the first time he had ever killed something, the intense fight was dirty and feral. The scrambling in the darkness, the fear… the excitement? How all the chips were on the table and the stakes couldn’t be higher, it brought something out of him that he never knew existed. The feral and ferocious side that wanted to live, that wanted to be strong and make the creature submit. ‘Is this really who I am?’ He wondered to himself.

A disturbing realisation was beginning to manifest as he dwelled upon how thrilling the fight was, he shoved the thought back into the darkest parts of his mind.

He suddenly recalled the strange mental interface and his abysmal stats. When he thought of the word 'status', he suddenly saw several mental prompts he hadn't previously seen or properly paid attention to.

[Weakened rabid ----hound killed]

‘A weakened rabid ‘what’ hound? Why is it blanked out?’ Dante thought about what it could be, then reflected on the fact that the creature was dead so it's something he would think about another time. ‘I survived, that's all that should matter for now.’

He then looked at the two new titles he gained.

[Title gained: First Kill]

[Title gained: Natural born killer]

‘First kill, It sounds fairly straight forward but what does that actually mean as a title?’ As he concentrated on the title, his mind's eye suddenly presented a piece of expanded information for the title

[ Title: First Kill - You are the first human to kill a competing species within the Ascended Universe. Grants 1 additional attribute point for strength, vitality, constitution.]

‘Great, I needed that boost. With my terrible starting attributes, I don't even know how I managed to survive F's trial.' Thinking back to the trial, the events were blurry due to the darkness and fear. In hindsight, things didn't quite add up. 'What is F playing at?'

Slapping his face, shaking his mind and avoiding thinking about things he only had limited information, his thoughts returned to the other title he had acquired.

[Title: Natural born killer - you fought and managed to kill a being more than 10 levels higher than you with no weapons, armour and completely naked. Your 'natural' approach to fighting a superior enemy and triumphing over it has earned you this title. Grants 100% bonus damage modifier when fighting barehanded]

‘10 levels higher?! That doesn’t make sense. The kill notification said it was weakened but 10 levels higher! I shouldn’t take that for granted. Thanks, system, it wasn't like I had much choice. Shame It doesn't provide more attributes, the bonus is nice but barehanded?! I want to use weapons in the future!’

He looked at the next prompt regarding experience, ‘Am I really stuck in a game or something?’

[Gained 1042 Combat experience]

Dante hadn’t noticed any specific notifications regarding level ups or attribute increases besides his title, ‘So what even is experience used for?’

[Combat experience: Combat experience is the quantified knowledge, life experience and remnant energy from the defeated opponent. The experience through the assistance of the system is absorbed by the sentient organism who is the victor in battle.

The accumulated energy can be converted into Ascension points, Used to level up Primary Classes or spent in other ways.]

‘So putting in other terms, killing things allows people to steal their converted lifeforce into a type of system currency? What the actual fuck?’ Dante couldn’t tell whether to be excited by the possibilities or be frightened, less scrupulous people could see him or any weak person as a vulnerable target to steal some easy experience from. Not that he would be worth killing at this point, the experience reward would be pitiful.

His attention shifted to the next notification, it informed him 200 points of his experience were converted into ascension points, then spent on allowing his recovery. The whole process was automatic and didn’t give him a choice. Concentrating on understanding the concept of Ascension points the system dinged and provided information to him.

[Ascension points: The system currency, these points can be spent on improving your attributes, purchasing from the system store, creating skills and abilities.

Supports numerous other system functions such as the safety recovery mechanism for beings under System level 10.

The cost of increasing each attribute increases as your attributes reach different tier thresholds. ]

Dante was suddenly excited after reading the prompt, ‘I can purchase ascension points to spend on improving myself?! Does it improve straight away? How do I spend them?’ His heart rate increased as the thought of becoming more powerful made him feel giddy. He looked to the last prompt which doused some of the excitement.

[ 2 ascension points automatically spent for the preservation of life - only used outside of combat]

‘I suppose I should be thankful, that explains my sudden recovery but I've lost 2 whole points to spend. Can I disable the automatic function built into the system?’

Upon the last thought, a further prompt popped into his mind.

[ Disable automatic recovery expenditure (Yes / No) - WARNING! Disabling this function increases the risk of death if incapacitated and made unconscious. The system will be unable to assist recovery through Ascension points]

‘Oh shit, no, no!’ Dante panicked, he wasn't willing to take off the training wheels just yet, not when he barely survived his first encounter with a wild animal. ‘You know what system, thank you. Please look after me in the future.’

Dante shuddered at the thought of being unconscious without anyone around to help, a greedier version of himself probably would have disabled the ability to recover. With thoughts only on the desire for short term gains.

After clearing all the prompts, Dante looked at his status sheet with the mild improvements his 'first kill' title had given him already applied. He started to think about the purpose of the attributes. ‘What are the attributes anyway? What do they improve?’

[ Name: Dante]

[Species: Human]

[ System Level: 0]

[Title’s: Reject of Earth, First Kill, Natural Born Killer]

[???: ? / ? (max)]

[Strength: 1]

[Agility: < 1]

[Intelligence: 2]

[Perception: 1]

[Vitality: 1]

[Constitution: 2]

[Total System attributes : 7]

[Combat experience: 842]

[Ascension points: 0]

[Skills: Hand to hand combat - T1 - 1%]

Upon looking at all the single points in his attributes apart from intelligence and constitution even they were only 2 points. ‘What determines what 1 point of anything, and why is my level 0?!’ Dante Focussed on Level within his Status.

[System Level - This is a cumulative threshold that is only incremented when total achieved attributes exceed 10, this does not include equipment, buffs or other temporary bonuses. Level is purely on the merit of physical/metaphysical transformation based on permanently obtained attributes through training or system enhancements. ]

He read and re-read the explanation, his level made a lot more sense, he thought about how he didn’t even meet the bare minimum to be level 1 in this universe.

Improving himself would be one of his first objectives, he intended to increase his attributes as soon as he knew how to.

In order for him to make informed decisions, he had to know what the attributes were and their actual impact on his development.

Something else was peculiar in the notification, ‘Metaphysical? How can I change myself in that way?’ Dante began to contemplate what it could mean, then looked toward the hidden attribute, the system wasn’t forthcoming with an explanation. ‘I guess I need to unlock it somehow.'

Dante thought more about attributes, the general purpose of them and was excited when an information prompt explaining attributes popped up.

[The Attributes reflect fixed thresholds that pertain to the attribute in question.

When a being's attribute exceeds the predetermined threshold as a multiple, the system will acknowledge this and increment the respective attribute to the appropriate value.

All attributes you perceive across the ascended universe reflect these variables.

Please beware, your understanding of the Attribute may vary across species and how they utilize them.]

Mulling this over in his head, he thought about what the threshold for each respective attribute could be. ‘Ok, so what is strength then?’

[Strength – The determination for strength is not limited to but reflective of the species ability to exert their physical force in the world. In the case of Humans, it is reflective of their average ability to lift, push and pull a multiple of 100kg of dead weight for one repetition without failure.]

‘That’s straightforward, wait...this is bullshit, Is there a system rounding error? I seem to recall I could easily lift over 100kg… uh when I was exercising, I suppose it’s been a while.’ Dante initially thought that the systems reflection of his attributes must have been a lie.

He came to terms with his poor starting attributes when he reminded himself that he had arrived in the Ascended universe as skin and bones, naked as the day he was born and no hair all over his body. Recalling that something happened between the Wall of Light and him arriving in the cave. He resigned himself to the fate of being weak for the moment, thinking about how Strength should be one of the first things he improved. Then he thought about the next Attribute on the status sheet.

[Agility – The determination for agility is a measure of the species movement speed, balance, coordination, acceleration and physical skills. All these factors combined reflect your overall agility rating.

An example of 1 point in agility, would be your species ability to run a multiple of 10 kilometres per hour. ]

‘I suppose that’s about right, I need to increase this to survive. I don’t know where I am or what’s out there, I need to be able to outrun it. But can I not even run faster than 10km/hour?'

Feeling dispirited at his poor attributes and how badly the system rated his ability he then moved on.

[Intelligence – Intelligence is determined by the species ability for Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual Reasoning, Working memory, and processing speed. In the case of humans, the stats will reflect every 10 points of IQ exceeding the average human with an IQ of 100. Therefore, a human with 5 intelligence will have an IQ Exceeding 150 but less than 160.]

‘In your face F! And he called me a dumbass, I had at least 120 IQ by default, that’s good... right?’ Dante looked around for some acknowledgement, he was only met with a cold breeze to remind him of his precarious situation.

Back to his thoughts about intelligence, he was curious about what impact improving his intelligence might have on his mental faculties, a moment of existential dread passed through him when he considered how it might change his personality, making him a different person. ‘Well, it’s not like I remember who I was or my life before all this shit started happening anyway, best not dwell on that, what’s next?’

[Perception – The determination for perception is measured by the species openness to their surroundings.

How sensitive their Sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch and other locked senses are and how well they can control and utilise them.

For the baseline of a human, an example of 1 unit of perception is a human with 20/20 vision. Someone who can clearly observe their surroundings at 20 feet of distance.

A human with 2 perception points will have a vision of 20/10. The ability to see the detail of an object in detail from 20 feet away that the average human would need to be 10 feet away from.]

He thought about how the explanation for perception was still somewhat ambiguous. It didn’t really elaborate on all the senses, what did it mean by other locked senses? He also began to recognise a theme, based on the prior attribute definitions it seemed to be that every single attribute reflected the baseline of an average human, sort of. He supposed it made sense at a basic level. Still making his way down the list of attributes...

[Vitality – The determination for vitality is based on the average human and their ability to recover from trauma.

It also assists in recovering from sickness, and fatigue. Improves total Lifespan, energy, and ability to grow and develop.

An example metric is the speed at which a human can recover a broken bone, cuts, contusions or any other damage received to the physical body.

The recovery rate is divided by the average human who may take around 8 weeks to recover from a broken bone. Therefore, with a vitality of 8, it will take the average human 1 week to recover from a broken bone.

Note: As a human begins to ascend and evolve into a higher life form, the time required to recover from certain injuries may no longer reflect an average human. As cell structure within organs, bones, muscles, arteries, nerves and blood vessels become more complex, the required time to recover will also increase.]

‘Does this mean I can live longer if I improve my vitality? Also, I may evolve into a higher life form, what does that even mean?’ Dante got excited at the thought of pouring all his points into vitality but then backpedalled.

‘No good, having a long lifespan. It would be useless if I die to the first creature that decides I look like lunch.’ Dante Shuddered at the thought, he knew he would need to be able to survive his future encounters in this new world. ‘Speaking of…’

[Constitution – The determination for Constitution is (but not limited to) the species ability to resist trauma, sickness, fatigue, pain, oxygen deprivation.

An example metric is the human’s ability to resist gravitational forces exceeding a multiple of 5 earth atmospheres without injury or loss of consciousness.

A species with 10 constitution could survive and feel comfortable at 50 earth atmospheres.]

‘Woah, wait, I can potentially survive in greater than 10 times earth’s gravity? I think I seem to recall that fighter pilots had to endure anywhere up to 8 or 9g’s while wearing suits that helped with blood circulation.’ Being able to casually endure something that most humans couldn't, made him feel like he could take on anything.

‘Also why give the metric as resistance to gravity, shouldn’t it make more sense to be something more like x kinetic damage to the body or something? The system is strange in how it conveys information sometimes. I wonder If I can get it to provide the information differently?’

Finally, Dante looked at the skills section, there was one skill, hand to hand combat. ‘I recall that notification appeared during the fight with the hound’, He then started focussing on obtaining further information regarding the skill.

[Hand to hand combat - Tier 1 - You have begun your journey to master the art of hand to hand combat. This skill will improve your physical accuracy and the power of your strikes by the total combat modifier.

Hand to hand Combat modifier: 1%]

‘So this will improve if I continue to fight hand to hand? 1% is nothing at the moment but this combined with the title will possibly make me powerful. I have to seriously consider the prospect that I'll be fighting hand to hand more often. As I make progress it will greatly improve my chances of survival.’ He also noticed that it was tier 1, ‘What are tiers in relation to skills?’

[Tiers: Tiers determine skill proficiency and can affect skill modifiers, how the skill behaves and what advantages it applies to your abilities. Higher tiers can be obtained when reaching thresholds to upgrade the skill.]

The prospect of being able to upgrade skills that would improve his natural abilities were appealing, it gave him goals to aim for. ‘I wonder what other skills can be obtained’

Recalling that he still had ascension points to spend, hopefully, he could figure out how to improve his natural attributes.

‘Right, time to figure out how to improve my attributes.’