Inhaling a deep breath, I tensed. At the same time as I read the effects of the class I’d chosen, I’d felt a surge of warmth passing through me. Given my recent experiences, I had tensed up in expectation of sudden pain. Instead, the feeling of warmth simply passed, and left behind an odd feeling of strength and vitality. Looking down at my body, I didn’t look particularly different, but I felt as though I’d just drunk a pot of coffee and had the most perfect night's sleep. I felt good!

“Well alright then.. “ I muttered, still reveling in the residual feel of what I assumed was the class taking hold. “This is really weird, but okay.” I reminded myself that despite the wonderful feeling I had right then, I was still stuck in a swamp. And I wasn’t going to rely on that feeling lasting long enough to see me out of it.

Speaking of ways out of the swamp… My attention returned to the odd blue text boxes in my vision.

Would you like to select a Skill and allocate your Attribute Points?

I decided on the attribute points first, since I had a somewhat decent understanding of those anyways. Bringing up the screen showing my attributes, I blinked in surprise at just how much higher the class had made them rise.

Status:

Strength: 17 (17)

Dexterity: 22 (22)

Vitality: 24 (24)

Attunement: 41 (41)

Intelligence: 37 (37)

Attribute Points: 6

Health: 1178/1200

Mana: 2050/2050

“Oh holy shit..” I looked over the numbers with wide eyes. “Well alright then. Classes don’t mess around.” I couldn’t help but feel I’d made a good choice. If this was how big a difference was between no classes and classes, I really wouldn’t have lasted very long. Hell, if it wasn’t for the ravine I’d stumbled on, I would probably already be dead.

The thought chilled me for a few seconds, before I forced myself to shake it off and focus on the screen in front of me. Glancing over it, I realized I didn’t really know which ones would be most important to me…

In the end, I simply decided to round out strength to 20, vitality to 25, and used the last two to raise dexterity to 24. This time, a much more subtle, but still noticeable surge of warmth spread through me. “So I guess that’s what it feels like when your attributes go up… Good to know. Probably.” I added the last part as I reminded myself I truly didn’t know anything at all about this world and this system except what I was slowly teaching myself.

I took a long, deep breath before nodding to myself. “Skill time, I guess. I get to pick one of…” I looked at my full status to see how many it was saying were available, “One of seven.” Glancing at the root hollow, I nodded decisively. “Choose whatever this skill thing is, then get moving. Can’t sit here all day..” With a firm plan in mind now, however vague it might be, I pulled up the list of skills.

Please select (1) Skill to gain!

Sunlight Sword Solar Ray Solar Blast Solar Body Warrior of the Sun Sunlit Shield Healing Sunlight

This time I didn’t even wait after reading the names, I simply thought of wanting more details and the skills’ descriptions expanded into view. “Whatever you might say about this crazy thing, at least it’s incredibly intuitive…” I spoke almost subconsciously as I started to read.

Sunlight Sword

Summon a blade of sunlight to your hand. The blade will both cut and scorch your foes, dealing physical damage and solar damage. The sharpness and damage dealt depends on your strength and intelligence respectively. You can choose to use dexterity over strength.

Combat Skill : Summoning : Solar : Active

Solar Ray

A long ranged ray of sunlight blasts from your hand, scorching into your foes. This beam will deal solar damage dependent on your intelligence.

Combat Skill : Ranged : Solar : Active

Solar Blast

A short-ranged detonation of solar energy extends from your hand. This blast will deal damage dependent on your intelligence. The range of this blast extends out to 5 meters. The range and damage dealt depends on your intelligence.

Combat Skill : Ranged : Solar : Active

Solar Body

Solar magic infuses itself into your muscle, bone, and blood. Your body is strengthened by your magic. Your strength, dexterity, and vitality increase by 10% (50%).

Enhancement Skill : Internal : Solar : Passive

Warrior of the Sun

The Sunborn Warrior is a force to be feared on the battlefield, weapon and magic alike striking down foes. Your body learns a fighting technique unique to the Sunborn Warrior, allowing you to fight more effectively. Solar damage and Physical damage dealt is increased by 10% (50%).

Enhancement Skill : Internal : Solar : Passive

Sunlit Shield

Surround yourself with a brilliant shield of solar light. This shield will deflect attacks from both physical and magic sources for it’s duration. The cost of maintaining the shield depends on your attunement.

Defensive Skill : External : Solar : Active

Healing Sunlight

Call down the restorative powers of sunlight on yourself. Solar magic courses through your body, sealing wounds and expunging diseases or poison. The speed and efficiency of the healing depends on your attunement.

Healing Skill : Internal : Solar : Active

“Wow.. Okay.. That’s a lot.” Muttering to myself, I made sure to reread them all. After making sure I’d gotten every detail, I started practicing identifying things again as I thought. There was quite a bit to think about.

I very much appreciated that the system seemed to have a way to sort skills already, which made separating them into categories incredibly easy. There were three ways to attack someone directly, 2 ways to passively improve myself, and then a defensive and healing skill…

My first thought was to worry that the same options might not appear ever again, and thus this decision would have far more consequence than I first expected. I spent almost five minutes worrying about this before I interrupted myself. Even if that was true, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I would just need to choose the one I thought best and deal with it.

Looking over the options, I rather quickly crossed out Solar Body. While it’s effects were amazing, I wouldn’t be able to use them properly. I needed something to actively help me, not just make me stronger or faster. Even if I was a hundred times stronger and faster, I still wouldn’t know how to use it right.

Solar Ray and Solar Blast seemed incredibly similar. There was probably a big enough difference in practice, but I didn’t know it. While the ranged ability was extremely tempting, I wasn’t convinced it would be as helpful as it sounded. I wouldn’t be shocked if I tried to use them, only to mess up or miss.

Sunlight Sword was actually pretty tempting, but in the end I decided against it. I wanted it, but I already had a sword. A shitty one, but at the moment, it wouldn’t have been the most useful addition to be able to have two swords. This was all ignoring the fact that I didn’t even know how to use a sword.

There was a minute where I drew up and simply shook my head. Not even three days ago, I’d been reading a science fiction book in a hospital. Now I was sitting in a swamp, selecting skills like a game, and trying my best not to question the existence of magic.

Chuckling, I turned my attention back to the skills. The shield and healing were downright beautiful. If I’d had the option of choosing two skills, I would have chosen those two without second thought. As it was… If I messed up the shield even once, or ran out of mana I’d essentially just be me with a sword I don’t know how to use. And while I understood the need for healing, especially self healing, I didn’t want to rely on it to survive. Besides, I’d felt quite a bit of pain recently, and I was rather reticent to go through more.

In the back of my mind, I’d known since reading it that Warrior of the Sun was going to be my choice. In a world with this system in it, I could learn magic by selecting skills and I could strengthen my body by assigning points. But I still wouldn’t know how to actually fight and defend myself from whatever the world might throw at me. If this skill really gave me a way to fight, it would be invaluable. Not to mention the physical damage increase would be the only thing to help me fight with my stolen sword. Without a second thought, I selected Warrior of the Sun.

And promptly passed out from a massive influx of knowledge and muscle memory.

I was beginning to really hate waking up in this world. My head was pounding, as if every hangover in the history of humanity was raging through my skull. Blinking my eyes to clear the sleep away, I slowly began levering myself from how I’d fallen back down into the hollow.

A quick look at the sky and the position of the sun told me roughly how long I’d been passed out. Luckily, it couldn’t have been more than half the day. My asshole of a brain immediately chimed in, happily informing me it might have been much longer and it might be a whole new day.

Shaking off that thought, since there was nothing I could do about it, I started trying to massage my skull. With more than a little surprise, the pain actually began to fade. I pulled my hand away, before I realized that it seemed to be ebbing away on its own.

My eyes slowly drifted until settling on the sword still laid by my side. I couldn’t help but be shocked as I suddenly felt as though it was now something I knew and was intimately familiar with. I could see where the proper placement of the hand would be on the hilt. I could tell the kind of sweeping strikes the blade was made for.

Even thinking back to my harried and dark fight with the skeleton, I could tell it at least showed the basics of what I now saw and felt. “I mean.. I know it said it did this but..” I slowly lifted the sword, marveling at the way it felt distinctly different than it had when I’d first held it.

Bringing myself to my feet, I held the weapon out in front of me. While I’d initially gone to hold it with two hands, the newfound instincts I had instead had me wield it with only one. Without really thinking about it, I knew this was so my other hand could cast while fighting.

After moving smoothly through a few instinctual motions, I suddenly stopped. I just stared at my hand wrapped around the hilt. “This is…” I said slowly, before starting to smile, “Actually really cool!”

Without thinking, I felt my body flow through a dozen motions and stances. Instinctually, I could see how an opponent would either be struck or have to defend. I could feel how the movements prevented counter attacks and balanced strength and speed. After a dozen minutes swinging around the sword, I forced myself to stop. I was covered in a light sheen of sweat from the unfamiliar exertion, but I was grinning.

“That.. is unbelievably cool…” I murmured to myself, examining the sword in my hand with a new light. It’d been possible to wield with one hand before, simply heavy. Now that I had a class and my strength score had gone up, it was significantly easier to wield with one hand. Still smiling, I checked the new skill in my screen. I’d gotten used to having this system at my call terrifyingly quickly. I could feel my eyes narrow for a moment when I saw the level one indicator next to the skill name. I could only assume it would somehow improve as I used it.

Finally, far later than I initially intended, my eyes made their way up to judge how much time was left in the day again. Estimating about a quarter of the day left, I nodded, satisfied. Muttering to myself, I quickly found the direction I’d been traveling in the day before.

Setting off once again in that direction, I felt strangely more comfortable than before. While I couldn’t be sure if it was that I had a weapon or that I had some kind of semi-understanding of this new world, I felt ever so slightly more at ease. Of course, I was still generally cautious and I kept looking for the source of any sound I heard.

Two days after setting out again, I began to see the swamp truly start to give way to something else. The muddy ground underfoot and the hanging trees slowly became less and less common, giving way to more and more solid ground.

By this point, I was sure of two things. My guess on the first day that I’d been dropped near the edge of the swamp was either very right, or very wrong. It was either a small swamp I’d fallen in the middle of, or a massive one I fell on the edge of. Either way, I was just happy to slowly be making my way out.

Second, my attributes going up by such a massive amount when I got my class, helped with more than just the obvious. Despite walking for literal days without shoes, my feet only got sore instead of developing blisters. And I couldn’t be happier that my class had reduced my need for food, water, and sleep. Less need for sleep let me walk for longer, and the food and water part meant I was only then starting to really feel hunger pangs and a drying mouth.

Despite my inner thoughts about the system as I’d come to call it, and its effects on me, I was getting more and more excited about leaving the swamp behind.

Near the end of the second day, I finally was drawing into sight of the very edge of the swamp. Looking past the few remaining trees, I bit my lip. What looked to be a sprawling field, as far as the eye could see, spread out in front of me. There was a layer of constant mist or fog that kept me from seeing anything definitively.

“This is incredibly ominous, and not necessarily better than the swamp…” Murmuring to myself as I leaned against the side of what I knew to be a Young Swamp Cypress Tree - Level 21.

I’d had a thought that using my new sword to hack down a few trees might improve my level, but I wasn’t so sure the sword wouldn’t just break in the attempt. I was rather wary of the poor quality it had. In the end, I’d decided against trying so I wouldn’t lose my only weapon.

Glancing out at the expansive field, I sighed before deciding to spend this last night on the edge of the swamp. My only real choices were the fields or back into the swamp, and I wasn’t going back on literally all the progress I’d made since coming to this world.

Waking the next day, I went through my usual process of identifying everything in sight when a surprise popped up in my vision.

Through repeated use and practice, Identify has leveled up to Level 2!

Blinking in surprise for a short moment, I took a minute to look at the skill to see what had changed. As far as I could tell, the only difference was that instead of being able to identify up to twenty levels above mine, it was now twenty-five.

I shrugged, even a little improvement was an improvement. I certainly wouldn’t say no. However, it did raise an interesting question… Were all skills capable of leveling up through just practice? Because if so, then it would be entirely possible to just spend so much time practicing that your skills would be ridiculously high…

I smiled wryly as I added that question to the list I’d need to ask if I eventually found someone I could trust. Given the extraordinary amount of time I’d had to think while walking, I’d realized that I might not be able to trust the first people I meet. I’d have to play it safe and wait for a while first, before revealing I wasn’t from this world and asking the million questions burning away at me.

After a moment, I shook those thoughts away. I spent a good ten minutes practicing with the Warrior of the Sun skill. I’d just been messing around with it when I discovered that actually using it and practicing made it even easier to use, and even more natural. I had a feeling that while the skill transferred the knowledge, instinct, and muscle memory, it would still be better to allow it to simply help my body naturally program my muscles.

So I’d set up a routine after waking up and before sleeping. I’d practice at least ten minutes with Identify and Warrior of the Sun.

After my time spent with the morning routine, I rested for a short while. Looking at the fields in front of me, I didn’t want to go into a new area while tired out from practicing. Only once my body started to feel rested again, did I stand up and face the fog banks that hovered over the next leg of whatever odd journey I was on.

At first, I walked into the mists rather hesitantly. There was something both ominous and creepy about the field covered in mist, but since I couldn’t find any real problem with it, I forced myself to continue. The fog coiled around me as I made my way into it. Only by using the sun overhead as a reference point did I keep from being lost.

Traveling in this new area was an odd experience after my time in the swamp. Somehow, the fields had even less visibility, given the fog banks and mists swirling everywhere. Additionally, while it may have been disgusting, I had grown somewhat accustomed to walking around in the mud and muck. Walking on dry grass and hard ground was a startling change.

More than that, I was incredibly bored. At least while walking in the swamp I could identify things as I passed them, keeping my mind occupied. The only thing for that here, was checking where the sun was. Even though I was incredibly alert for danger, I couldn’t help my mind slowly being numbed by the constantly unchanging surroundings.

I suddenly drew up short as a dim shape moved in the mist, out of the corner of my eye. I moved the sword from its resting place on my shoulder, slowly shifting it to be between me and the shape. I could feel the skill slowly take effect, my feet shifting position, my grip strengthening slightly, the angle I held the blade moving.

A moment later, I could make out the shape in the mist. Leering out of the mists, was a fleshless skull, atop a stained, ancient skeleton. Without a blade, the undead lurched into view as it seemed to finally notice me.

Undead Skeleton - Level 13

Taking a deep breath, I smiled grimly. Time to see if the skill and class really paid off… And that was the last thought before the skeleton suddenly lurched towards me, lunging forward with it’s clawed hands.