Adam woke without cramp. Maybe I am getting better at this. He thought sarcastically. Person shook their head; pretending to pass out next to him. Either way; he was still alive and got through the night unscathed. A check of his watch showed it was 6am. He wanted to stick his head under the blanket and pretend he was back in bed in his flat in London. Preferably having woken up at the weekend with no fixed plans for the day so he could go straight back to sleep. Unfortunately the hard earth floor beneath him wasn't very conducive to this daydream. Instead he pulled himself up and out the tent resolving to be positive come what may today.

He inspected the fence around his tent and found it had only lent over rather than fallen down fully in the night. With a few rocks and a little adjustment it was standing firm again; probably more so than the day before. Feeling more upbeat that his fence had probably helped and nothing had obviously ventured inside it overnight Adam moved the branches covering the opening and went for a look around camp.

The fruit he had left outside the fence had been eaten along with the nuts. He could see a pile of cast off shells from the nuts leading out of camp. Bingo. Thought Adam. A trail left by the vermite heading towards the foothills. He still needed to find where they came from. This thought prompted him to look at his quest list.

Quests Complete? Exp

Work out where I am

-continue exploring area

25% 40 Survive the night 100% 10* Find a way to bring water to camp 0% 20 Find out where the vermite come from 0% 25 Make camp more secure 0% 10 Get supplies for the day 0% 5 Start a fire 0% 15 Survive tonight 0% 5 Don't pass out in the night 0% 10 Collect Y/N 10

He updated the list with new quests for the day. He hoped that surviving was becoming easier as the experience given was reducing; but who knew. A glance at Person confirmed that they didn't. He collected the experience from the completed quests. This prompted him to check his skill list to see what had changed when he spent twenty exp on stealth last night.

Skill List Level Level up (exp) Cost Description Inspect 2 40 0.05 mps

Allows [Inspection] of objects (including plant life) and system.

Increasing level gives additional information where available.

Discern 1 20 1 m

Allows [Inspection] of beings and animals.

Increasing level gives additional information where available.

stealth 2

40

4 sp (activate)

2 sp/hr

Allows user to hide from simple detection methods.

Increasing level improves chance to avoid detection.

He used Inspect on the entry for Discern as well; not that it gave much extra help but held off on using his 20 exp remaining on making the skill level 2. Quests and skills checked he decided to check his status window next to find the reward for levelling Scout Class. That might help him decide if Discern was the best choice for his exp or to hold out for something else.

Adam God Class (Hidden) - Level 1 (Secondary Classes not shown) Attribute Value Characteristic Value Health 100/100 Vitality 10 Health Regen 5/hour Recovery 10 Stamina 100/100 Vigor 10 Stamina Regen 10/hour Fortitude 10 Mana 14.4/15 Intellect 15 Mana Regen 2/hour Clarity 15 Skill Points 0/10 Perseverence 10 Skill Point Regen 1/hour Willpower 10 God Power {locked} God Power Regen {locked} Unallocated Points *once changes applied Accept changes? Y/N

One measly attribute point for levelling. He would hold off on Discern for now then. Knowing stamina was his weakness Adam quickly narrowed down his options to Vigor or Fortitude. With his running in mind he chose Fortitude and allocated the point. Confident for once that he had made the right choice he checked the map to try and clear some more areas on his morning run before breakfast.

He altered the route from the day before to map the area that needed exploring between the foothills and the orchard and then heading out from the orchard nearer the mountains than before. He aimed for a stamina regen of -10/hour yet was sure he was running faster than yesterday disproportionally to the increase in fortitude. Another mystery to add to his list. He actually reached the base of the mountains; aiming slightly higher than where the river emerged down a steep cliffside to create a waterfall and pool before widening and starting its journey across the land. Inspect said the area was still orchard and then riverside as Adam briefly stopped to check before heading downstream to his favourite stopping point.

Adam was learning it was true that running emptied the mind and gave you time to think and order your thoughts. By the time he had reached the sandy bank he was pretty sure he had teased out the mystery of his night time stamina loss. At midnight it seemed his stamina regen started dropping dramatically with the figure increasing every fifteen minutes until it he ran out of stamina. His better understanding of the system with level 2 Inspect allowed him, with Person's help, to review information about the day before. With this he was able to confirm his theory. He also found out that stealth had continued to run until 7:30am without him even noticing; that once activated it was continued in hour long bouts as long as skill points were available. It seemed you couldn't spend parts of skill points like you could mana and stamina. On reviewing the class details he found that there were some tertiary factors that a class could improve. For example, Scout Class meant his vision and recall was a bit better with each level. It was also clear that his primary class of God was viewed as totally different by the system than the secondary class of Scout.

He also delved in to the characteristics and attributes again. They didn't show the things that had existed on Earth before he arrived but instead seemed to stack on top. They also did more than just affect the raw number they improved. While using his first points in intellect had given him a larger mana pool he could now tell it had affected his actual intellectual abilities. It hadn't really made him cleverer but more like increased his ability or potential to become cleverer. It was his playing with the system and testing his mind working out what to do next as mental challenges that were actually helping. In the same way his running practice was making him a bit better at running. He looked down at his belly - the product of a mid-thirties diet of fast food; lazy lifestyle and convenience. Swapped to a fruit and stress diet he could already tell he was losing weight. This was probably helping as well. Or was this an extra effect of recovery while at full health.

All in all; encouraging information. He could build his body up between levelling at the moment just by doing things. How novel, like he had to for all his life so far. Weird that putting a levelling system on top was the thing he obviously needed as motivation.

Armed with this new knowledge and throwing caution to the wind; Adam levelled Discern.

God Class has reached level 2

He felt a little empowered by this. It seemed the right thing to do. He checked his unallocated points again.

Unallocated Characteristic Points 10

He was instantly vindicated in his choice. Now it seemed a pity to waste exp on Scout Class at all. He checked his watch and it was now 8:30am. Unlike a single characteristic point to allocate this was going to take a bit more consideration. He ran as he thought things through; heading in the direction of the forest but further away from the river than he had explored already.

Adam first tried to define the characteristics in his head with the new information Inspect had revealed. Vitality not only increased his health but added to his wellbeing; his healthiness and ability for his body and mind to withstand more. Recovery then meant that any damage taken would be shorter lasting. Including illnesses and injuries. It wouldn't fix a broken bone; but he would recover better and faster the higher the value was. Adam considered how much he would normally be aching after a few days of physical activity on limited food and recognised that recovery was already having a positive effect. He hadn't directly tested vitality but reflected that he had shrugged off scrapes and scratches while collecting wood without really thinking about it. While vital, he chuckled at himself and Person rolled their eyes, he would leave vitality for now. With no lingering aches and pains from a hard day he felt recovery was adequate too.

Vigor was the 'doing' characteristic. While some systems, Adam was thinking like in computer games again, had things like strength; speed and dexterity he had vigor. It would allow him to improve any of the other things through practice and allow him to practice more. Then fortitude would allow recovery from this practice and slow down how the practice affected him and made him tired. These were going to be key to making himself better; stronger and therefore safer. The more he ran; the better he got at running and the easier it became; then he could run more and so on. Adam liked the thought that there was a hidden internal multiplier here somewhere. A point in vigor or fortitude would have more benefit the earlier he used it.

Intellect actually made him cleverer. This combined with clarity which made things more obvious and helped with decision making. Even with the new, reduced cost Inspect Adam had run down his mana to a level that it would take most the day to recover from. Plus, he was sure it was his increased stats that were helping him work out the system and survive. Maybe not priority number one; but not an area to ignore either.

That left perseverence and willpower. These left the most vague impression on Adam out of the bunch. As well as their effect on his skill points and regen they didn't really affect him so much as his resolve. Perseverence would help him get on with something once he had decided to do it while willpower would allow him to make more difficult decisions and prioritise things around what was important to him. The motivation of staying alive was working well for him up until now; so maybe not a priority right now.

This was more like it. Adam was definitely one of those people who would sit and read stat books and character info before making choices. He would even deliberate over the menu in the local cafe; ideally wanting to see the food as well as read the descriptions before picking his meal. He now felt he was actually able to decide based on information rather than just guessing. If this system was anything like those in the games he had played - he didn't want to spread himself too thin. It was easy to spread your stats in the beginning only to find you needed more focus later on; but this relied on having other people to help add strength in areas you were weak. Adam was alone right now. This meant a balance between spreading stats to survive while keeping a focus so he could specialise as well.

Reaching the forest edge Adam stopped running and used the system to do some working out. He was pretty sure where to put his stats but wanted to do a little more complex maths first. His stamina had dropped off significantly after midnight with the regen decreasing further and further the longer he was awake. He didn't know whether this was a fixed amount of an extra -10 every fifteen minutes or would be less if he increased fortitude. Either way; if he hit midnight with current max stamina and there was no change he would run out at approximately 2am. Couple this with stealth and the fact that he was safe, or at least he thought he was safe, through the night with this active. He didn't want to go down the paranoid route of considering stealth didn't keep him safe, so just shut down this line of thinking for now. Come on, he was level 2 now, camp was a level 1 area. That meant he was safe. Surely.

A nod from Person encouraged Adam back to his original line of thought. At current stats; he was safe at night. He just needed to activate stealth and then he had six to seven hours in which he could rest. The system seemed to think he should rest from 0:00 to 6:00am but if he saved stamina he could actually stay awake until 2:00am. Relieved that he didn't need any stamina to manage the night; just for day he pulled up his status.

Adam God Class (Hidden) - Level 2 (Secondary Classes not shown) Attribute Value Characteristic Value Health 100/100 Vitality 10 Health Regen 5/hour Recovery 10 Stamina 82/120* Vigor 12* Stamina Regen 2/hour (12)* Fortitude 12* Mana 10.7/20* Intellect 20* Mana Regen 2.2/hour* Clarity 16* Skill Points 4/10 Perseverence 10 Skill Point Regen 1/hour Willpower 10 God Power {locked} God Power Regen {locked} Unallocated Points 0 *once changes applied Accept changes? Y/N

He had struck a balance between allowing him to improve his body and his mind while keeping the focus he had chosen with his first level. Who needed more willpower? Not Adam, well, not yet. Accept changes - yes.