13. System Experimentation

The rest of the afternoon was spent impressing Shiloh with water manipulation. From complex bending to just splashing him with water, Shiloh never seemed to lose his eagerness to see Ardan perform magic. Ardan had only seen Shiloh do earth magic once, when he lifted a small chunk of dirt. Apart from that, he had leveled up twice from completing his daily quest, and now had twelve ATP and three SKP spare.

Sunday’s daily quest was actually simple, for once. Ardan was asked to rest for an hour, which he did easily. It was evening and Ardan was home, changing into a fresh set of clothes just after he’d showered.

“Ardan? Do you want to talk? Pat’s out somewhere.” Sandria’s voice called from the hallway.

“Sure, just give me a minute.” He replied, slipping a shirt on.

Ardan scanned the room, looking for anything out of place.mRight. he thought. I don’t need to hide anymore.

This was a bad habit he’d picked up during his time in the orphanage. Ann, his caretaker, was a neat freak, and would often lecture him about the importance of tidiness. Thankfully, she’d never seen his clothes drawer before.

Pushing the thought aside, Ardan opened the bedroom door and smiled. Today, Sandria wore cute, pink, unicorn-print pajamas, holding the health potion.

“What do you want to talk about?” He asked, beckoning her inside.

She immediately crossed over to his bed and snuggled into the covers.

“I’ve figured out some stuff.” Sandria declared boldly.

Ardan raised an eyebrow. “What stuff?”

“Your game. League of… whatever it’s called.” She answered, cuddling Ploopy, the little bunny in her arms. “I know how this health potion works.”

Frowning in confusion, Ardan shook his head. “What do you mean? The health potion works by restoring my health.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong. These,” she held out the tip of the bottle to him, exposing the intricate carvings on the glass. “Are runes.”

“Y-you can’t be serious.” Ardan said, taken aback by her statement. “That’s impossible! Those ‘runes’ are drawn way too small. No elf would ever be able to do that.”

“Somehow, something must have created this potion and imprinted the runes onto it. If you want evidence, there is a miniature version of the ‘preserve’ rune on the bottom here.” Sandria pointed towards the base of the vial.

Ardan took a step forward and inspected the glass. He didn’t know how runes looked, apart from the three on his bandaged arm. However, though he trusted Sandria, he didn’t believe she had figured out the system before him.

“So can you explain how it appeared out of thin air? And the level ups? And my stats? And more importantly, the screens?”

“Jeez Ardan, calm down! I haven’t figured out everything. Yet. Although I have a hunch that this system relies on magic to operate.” She said. “For now, let’s do some experimentation. I need to know everything you know about the system, which doesn’t seem like a whole lot.”

Ardan rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.”

Truthfully, he had been wanting to find out more about the system for a while now, and couldn’t wait to play around with it. He pulled up the menu screen, only to be stopped by Sandria.

“Wait.”

“What is it now?”

“Can you do a quick sketch of your status window? The floating screen that shows your HP, you know?” Sandria asked.

“Uh, sure.” He agreed hesitantly.

A few minutes later, Ardan finished a crude drawing of the table and showed it to Sandria, wondering what she would need it for. The status window only showed a few things. His health, mana, fatigue, progression rate and… What were those numbers on the top left?

“That’s what I thought.” Sandria declared.

“What’s what you thought?” Ardan sighed, frustrated with her speaking in riddles.

“You’re not the only one playing this game.”

The gravity of the statement hit Ardan hard. Throughout this whole time, he had assumed he was the only one who could see the floating screens. The only one who was a part of the system. The only one who knew what it felt like.

But there had always been doubts in his head. Doubts that, perhaps someone else out there had gone through this. He knew RPG games weren’t usually played solo.

Throughout this time, Sandria had started to explain how she had come to that conclusion. “First thing’s first. How would it be fun to play an RPG game by yourself? Secondly, the name of this game is League of… whatever. The point is, ‘league’ means a group of people. Third of all, I noticed from your status window that there you have a number on the top left. Let me guess. They go up when you level up, right?”

“Uh, what?” He said, so shocked that he hadn’t been paying attention.

“I asked you whether or not the numbers go up when you level up.”

“Yeah? I think so, anyway. I don’t really pay attention to them. Why?” he asked.

“I’m pretty sure that they’re your rank. That means there are at least eight thousand people who play this game. Also, did you not not notice that it said ‘offline’ on the top right? There are so many clues that you’re not the only person playing, so how did you not figure it out?” She flicked a piece of crumpled paper straight into Ardan’s forehead.

“Ooh!” He exclaimed in surprise and pain, before blushing in embarrassment. “How am I supposed to answer that?”

Rolling her eyes, Sandria replied, “Whatever. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let's move on to the other aspects of the game. We can’t do anything about the other people playing, since there’s not enough information. It’d be good if we could get you ‘online’ though. Whatever that means.”

“Menu.” Ardan said, taking initiative.

“Oi, just because you’re the only one with the screens doesn’t mean you get to decide what we’re going to do today.” Sandria warned, then winked. “Just remember who the smart one is.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Ardan snapped forward on his chair, sitting up straighter than before.

“Someone’s being obedient today… What happened to you? Did you get your dreams crushed again or something?” She raised an eyebrow in amusement.

Ardan gulped. “Something like that…”

And at this, Sandria couldn’t hold back her laughter anymore and erupted into hysterics. “I was just messing with you! Ahh, Ardan. You’re so innocent. I don’t think I’ve ever met a purer soul.”

In his head, Ardan was contemplating whether or not that had been intended as a compliment. Probably not.

“Anyways, let’s get back to figuring out this system. You’ve got the menu in front of you already, right?” She asked.

“Yeah, I do.

There was only one section in the menu left, apart from the settings, that he hadn’t explored yet.

Menu - Ardan Boone

Currency: 10§ Profile Inventory Statistics

Skills Quests Shop

Settings

“Inventory.”

The name seemed to be pretty self explanatory, but Ardan wondered how it would actually work. If it was a literal game-like ‘inventory’ how would he be able to store things? It was just a screen after all. How much would he be able to store? Would it act like a backpack?

Inventory Equipped Items Tools Armour Accessories None None None Total Power: Total Defense Points: Total Buffs: Inventory Slots Item Information Halcyon No Item Selected Total Debuffs None

What.. is this? Ardan thought as he scanned the screen in front of him. It had similar aspects to a standard inventory, but then there was this strange debuffs thing… Also, why were so many slots locked?

“Ardan? What’s wrong? What’re you looking at?” She asked, peering into the space he was staring at.

“It’s… an inventory of some kind.”

“Inventory?!” Sandria exclaimed. “Hold up. You’re kidding. Show me!”

Ardan raised an eyebrow. “I can’t exactly do that… But I can draw out how it looks.” He said, grabbing the pencil from the desk, and spoke as he drew. “First of all, it says that I’m not ‘equipping’ any items. Then there are these strange inventory slots - only one of them has anything inside, which is a… ‘hal-sion’? Not sure what it is, or how to pronounce it. The rest are locked for some reason. On the right there is a space for item information, and at the bottom is supposed to be for ‘debuffs’.” He explained. “But why would there be debuffs in an inventory page? That’s not normal.”

Meanwhile, Sandria was examining the sketch he’d drawn. She was already familiar with the structure of the page - it was the standard inventory. The equipped items on the other hand, was something she wanted to test out. Would he be able to equip non-game items?

“Ardan, can you-”

“Information.” Ardan said, remembering the helpful command.

For the first time in a while, a helpful screen materialized.

Inventory Information

To equip an item, simply call out; “Equip [Name of Item].”. Equipping items enables the player to:

Tools: Gain the game benefits of using the tool and bind it to their body, allowing them to call it into their hands from a distance.

Armour: Reduce damage taken depending on how many defense points a specific piece of armour has and instantly wear it.

Accessories: Gain the benefits of using the accessory and bind it to the player’s body.

The inventory is an unlimited storage device without needing to bear the weight of everything inside. Every player has twelve ‘small’ and two ‘large’ inventory slots. Placing an item into their inventory will make it disappear into space. Once the player takes it out from their inventory it will reappear in front of them. Each ‘small’ slot can hold up to two kilogram’s worth of items. Please note that only one specific item will be allocated into one slot, with the exception of stackables (items that are the same).

Side Note: Due to insane progression rate, one inventory slot is unlocked every five levels.

“Huh!?” Ardan shouted in disbelief. Everything, apart from the last part, seemed reasonable. But what was this? He only had one inventory slot until he reached level ten? That was so unfair!

When he relayed the information to Sandria, he didn’t get the reaction he was hoping for. Instead, she was impressed by the game.

“Nice! At least the game understands how to balance some things. This would definitely help to even out your stupidly overpowered ability. Seriously, EXP multiplication up to a hundred? That’s gotta be the most overpowered thing I’ve ever heard of - in any game.”

“Sure…” Ardan said, not really understanding. So far, the benefits of insane progression rate were rather useless. What was he supposed to do with levels, anyway? It was modern day, and the only time he’d be fighting things or using strength was in street fights or impressing classmates - not that he’d ever need to do either.

“Alright, I guess you should try equipping something now…” Sandria proposed. Ardan’s eagerness was blatantly obvious, especially for someone who had studied body language in their spare time.

Immediately, he grabbed the pencil, lifted it up into the air and called uncertainly; “Equip… this pencil?”

A strange, sinking feeling filled Ardan’s body for a moment and he felt his ears pop. A screen telling him that he’d successfully equipped the item never appeared. In his hand was the pencil, as if nothing had changed.

He dropped it, shaking his head in confusion and annoyance. “I don’t get it. Why didn’t it work?”

Sandria on the other hand, who couldn’t even see the screens, was more patient. “Do you want to try something else instead? Like maybe put the pencil into your inventory instead?” She asked.

Sighing, Ardan reluctantly agreed. “Ok, I can try that. I don’t know what the command is, though. Should I just randomly say stuff?” He brought his hand up, aiming to grab the pencil.

Thok.

Huh? Was I already holding the pencil? Ardan thought to himself as he felt its shape in his palm. Glancing down, his brow furrowed in even more confusion than before. Now he was going crazy, too? Whatever, it must be all this excitement that’s doing this.

“Put this pencil into my inventory?” He asked tentatively.

When nothing happened, he tried again, this time a more direct approach.

“Store pencil. Slot 1.”

- Alert! -

Error: Failed to store item.

Equipped items cannot be stored.

Designated slot is currently in use.

He recited the screen aloud before looking at the pen in his hand suspiciously. So it hadn’t been his mind playing tricks on him, after all. Lifting his arm up, he let the pencil clatter onto the table loudly.

“What’re you doing?” Sandria asked, alerted by his strange actions.

Ardan ignored her, instead concentrating on the pencil. Strangely, it felt very similar to doing elemental magic. As he held his arm high above the table, he thought of picking up the pencil, wondering whether it would teleport to his hand.

Instead of teleportation, a mysterious force pulled the pencil upwards to meet his hand, and he clenched his fist on impact. It was something straight out of a Star Wars movie.

“Woah, woah, woah! When did you learn how to do that?” Sandria exclaimed in surprise.

“I-I don’t know?” He answered back, marvelling at the pencil in his grasp. He dropped it once more, this time to the floor. At the thought of it appearing in his hand, the pencil twitched, like it was possessed.

“Hup!” Ardan called, the pencil flying up to meet his outstretched palm.

Thok.

It slapped against his skin painfully and Ardan cried out, startled.

“Hey! Where did you learn how to do that?”

“I equipped the item!” He declared triumphantly.

A half-assed response like that would’ve pissed off any other person, but thankfully, Sandria was tolerant enough - and excited enough - to ignore it.

“Hang on. So you’re saying that equipping items allows you to do telekinesis?” She asked inquisitively.

“Well, I don’t exactly know…” Ardan began, dropping the pencil a little further away in an attempt to gauge whether or not the ‘pull back to my hand trick’ had a limited range. After a few minutes of testing, he had deemed the range to be about one to two metres away from his body. Both hands had warranted the same results, telekinesis with that object for a specific range.

Now bored with the simple trick, Ardan opened up his inventory once more, searching the screen for anything to do. He tapped the air where the slot that read ‘Halcyon’ was. “Wonder what this is… How do you pronounce it anyways? ‘Hal-son’? ‘Hal-sion’? ‘Hal-si-on’?”

At the final guess - the correct pronunciation - the ‘no item selected’ section of the screen flickered, revealing what the mysterious item really was.

Inventory Equipped Items Tools Armour Accessories Pencil None None Total Power: 5 Total Defense Points: 0 Total Buffs: 0 Inventory Slots Item Information Halcyon

Halcyon

(Blunt-Edged Weapon)

Quality: A++

Power: 999

Requirements: Lvl 100+, Two Handed Weapon Technique Lvl 10+, Blunt-Edged Weapon Technique Lvl 20+

Abilities: Awaken

A hand crafted staff, gifted to one who meant everything to the creator.

Total Debuffs None