Blurs of white and red swam in Daniels eyes, the sensation of cold upon his temples a shock to his senses. Figures of black and purple swam in his vision, impossibly stretched and utterly alien. Nauseating flashes of brightness slammed into his senses, and a panicked whine began to ring in his ears. Daniel told his arm to raise his hand, in an attempt to ward off the bright light, only to find a biting cuff viciously telling it otherwise. A drowning panic rose from the depths of his mind. Slowly he started to twist his body, and when that did not free him, he began to thrash about, primal instincts warning of unimaginable danger. The panic whispered, warning him if he didn’t move right then that something incomprehensibly terrifying would render movement forever impossible.

With a sharp crack, one of his arms tore free of its prison, desperation lending Daniel inhuman strength. The whining shrieks increased in pitch and volume, with the black and purple shadows beginning to gather over Daniel’s head. Thrashing about, Daniel’s freed arm slammed into the middle of one of the shadows, and the miniscule part of him not consumed by his lizard brain realized that the mass of darkness was in fact solid. Whilst this rational corner worked to decipher this mystery, a sharp pain emanated from the middle of his chest. Eyes rolling down, the thief realized that the shadows had unnaturally twisted, slamming a syringe into the middle of his chest.

The lights began to fade, his vision tunneling until the only thing he saw was the glint of glass peeking from shadow. His muscles began to fail him, eyes rolling into his skull. Darkness again consumed his mind.

It looked down upon the human. Pitiful things, these humans, to be driven to the brink of insanity by the aura of a lowly Worker. It was partly to blame however. It kept on messing up the hormonal dosages, meaning that the Orb of Slumber’s effects wore off much faster than they should have, and due to this race’s pitiful minds were shocked to wakefulness by their screaming monkey brains warning them of an unimaginable threat. It knew that humans had not yet needed to evolve to fight predators with mental manipulation skills, but It was still shocked that the Diarch was putting the fate of The One into the soft, inflexible limbs of such a pathetic splinter. Looking down, It realised that an appendage had completed the task of installing the microchip and new organs, all whilst It daydreamed. Mentally scolding Itself for becoming distracted, It called for another of its ilk to take this human away and place him back in hibernation until the Terracelleration was done. Another sleeping human was floated in, ready for It to work on. After all, if these humans were to evolve from these lazy apes, they would need actual challenges to stimulate them.

Daniel woke up with a pounding head and a dry mouth, a warm ray of light caressing his face and invasively pierced his eyelids. Screwing his eyes further shut and rolling over onto his side, Daniel reached over to grab a pillow, intent on blocking out the light. After a few seconds of meeting nothing but air, his calloused hand gripped something hard. Something sharp. Something that was most definitely not a pillow. Daniel shook the last vestiges of sleep from his mind, fully alert and aware once more. Snapping his eyes open, Daniel rolled up, feet finding purchase on hard, rough ground. Falling into a crouch, the man spun his head slowly, observing his unfamiliar surroundings.

Whitish-yellow light filtered through dancing green lace dappling the ground around him with golden streaks, as if there were veins of gold running through the dirt, stone, and moss. A rock lip jutted out at an odd angle before him, blocking most of what seemed like a forest from his darting eyes. Whipping around, Daniel saw a darkened tunnel, grey and foreboding, leading down and away behind him.

“The fuck?” Daniel's voice crackled hoarsely warbling off the greened stone. Backing out from under the lip of the cave, Daniel slowly moved out into the open, transitioning suddenly from hard stone to bouncy earth and grass. Once around the lip, Daniel couldn’t help but gape.

Spread before him was a panorama ripped straight from a storybook. Large redwoods, towering in height, sprung from a carpet of emerald, glistening with wet dew. A pearly white fog, impenetrable to even Daniel’s exceptional eyes, obscured all beyond a few hundred yards, enveloping the mammoth trunks in a veil. The twittering and chirping of wildlife formed an alien song, a twisted version of the birdcalls heard just one sleep before. Bouncing from the bark of the trees, it promised a bustling ecosystem hidden just out of sight in the fog. The forest fell away to his left, dipping down gracefully. Looking up, the sun could just be seen through the trees and fog, a halo of yellow, painting all within his view gold.

“Well, this ain’t Kansas.” Daniel muttered, scanning his surroundings. “Don’t think that was a nightmare anymore either.” He said, looking down at his forearm, recalling the strange black and purple shadows. Looking up once more at the sun he began to plan his next move.

“Firs-”, he started.

Pain ambushed him. One moment he stood, examining his surroundings, the next he collapsed to the floor, excruciating pain shooting up and down his body. Itching agony seared from behind his eyes, a searing hot nail digging through the front of his brain, shooting webs of white across his vision. Flickering blue and white faded in through the webs across his vision, not unlike static on a tv screen. Grabbing his skull and he began to thrash uncontrollably. His mouth began opening in a soundless snarl, shocked into muteness by the intensity of the torment. After what seemed like an eternity, the pain ended. It eased to a throbbing, slowly retreating to the back of his brain, leaving him curled in a ball, gripping his skull, shaking and twitching. He lay there, curled in a ball, wallowing in his agony, for a long moment before the return of reason drove him to untangle his limbs. Rubbing his eyes, his vision unblurred, revealing a side effect of the pain. Floating in front of his face was a blue screen. It was a rectangular panel, opaque in nature, and it blocked much of his view of the surrounding forest.

Hello, Humans, and welcome to your new world! Thank you for participating as test subjects in Project Theta. The One thanks you. We apologise for the forceful extraction, but in order to meet the new schedule, hyper-evolution had to commence on your home planet immediately. However, now that the preparation stage has been completed, the experiment can officially commence! As a part of the experiment, you will now be given the chance to gain personal power through the killing of fauna that resides upon your transformed planet. Due to your species’ previous inability to increase in power through the absorption of others' potential, we have implemented an Artificial Intelligence Operated System (AIOS), which has chosen to model itself after a recent worldwide cultural influence, called ‘RPGs’. It has streamlined itself to best suit your species' needs, making itself as intuitive as possible! We look forward to seeing your progress, and once again thank you for participating in Project Theta.

Note: To open the AIOS, simply think 'Status Window'!

Upon reading the last line, Daniel's vision of the blue square was blocked by yet another panel.

Name: Daniel Bishop

Class:

Class Level:

N/A

Profession:

N/A

Profession Level:

N/A

Exit

Physical Attribute

Description

Value

Mental Attribute

Description

Value

Strength

Muscular Power

10

Intelligence

IQ

12

Agility

Gross Motor Control

13

Perception

Acuity of Senses

14

Dexterity

Fine Motor Control

14

Wisdom

Emotional Intelligence and Judgement

15

Vitality

Physical health and Attractiveness

7

Charisma

Charm and Social Skills

5

Endurance

Physical Recovery Rate

11

Willpower

Mental Resistance and Recovery rate

15

Settings

More Information

Notes

Skills and Abilities

Available Attribute Points:

3

Help

"No fucking way." Daniel said, concluding the severe pain had well and truly driven him mad.

Keywords detected.

Analysing sentences....

Greetings Human 3443570223, designation Daniel Bishop. The AIOS has noticed that you are displaying disbelief at your current situation. It can assure you that this and everything around you is very much real. If this assurance is inadequate, the AIOS must direct your attention to your Status Screen. You will notice that there is a counter named Available Attribute Points, currently displaying the number three. Please think about placing these Attribute Points into one of your attributes. Once this has been done, you will notice a significant increase in the effectiveness of the Attribute's domain. The AIOS wishes you a good day and asks that any further queries be placed towards the Help section of the Status Screen.

Doing as directed by the new panels, Daniel mentally focused on placing one Attribute Point in Strength, the stat he assumed would come with the most noticeable increase. Immediately after focusing on allocating the Point, his muscles began to shift, a sweet burning sensation running up and down the length of his body. His clothes began to feel slightly tighter in some places, skin pressing lightly against cloth.

He did not know how long he sat there, back facing against the stone lip, contemplating the developments. All he knew was that as of now he had to assume that any of the other things stated by the blue screens were true, until they were proven otherwise.This meant that there were many dangerous monsters and creatures in this forest. The only way to protect himself, as the aliens had most likely intended, was through killing.

Daniel focused back on his status screen, and placed the remaining two points he had into perception and agility, as his short term survival relied on his ability to detect and evade threats.

Race:

Human

Name:

Daniel Bishop

Class Level:

0

Class:

N/A

Profession (Rank):

N/A

Profession Level:

0

Physical Attribute

Description

Value

Mental Attribute

Description

Value

Strength

Muscular Power

11

Intelligence

IQ

12

Agility

Gross Motor Control

14

Perception

Acuity of Senses

15

Dexterity

Fine Motor Control

14

Wisdom

Emotional Intelligence and Judgement

15

Vitality

Physical health

7

Charisma

Charm and Social Skills

5

Endurance

Physical Recovery Rate

11

Willpower

Mental Resistance and Recovery rate

15

Settings

More Information

Notes

Skills and Abilities

Available Attribute Points:

0

Help

With that done, Daniel moved onto his first task, reading all information present in his status screen. Daniel settled his back into the stone lip, and began to explore the secrets of the mysterious blue panels.

He first opened Settings, which presented him with a myriad of options, ranging from when he would get notifications and where they would appear, to the organisation of his status screen, and even to the color of the notification panels. After seeing how invasive the notifications were, and not wishing to be killed due to a distraction, Daniel immediately unchecked the option to have notifications appear fully in his vision, instead choosing to have the maximised notifications only seen if one entered their status screen. Next, Daniel enabled the general health and stamina bars, which showed a rough approximation of how healthy he was and how much energy he had remaining. These appeared in his vision, with the former finding a position in the bottom left, whilst the latter appeared in the bottom right. Both were a thin green rectangle which would gradually darken shades to red depending on how well he was doing in each department. After that, he enabled confirmation messages, which meant that errant thoughts would not cause Ability Points to be misplaced. He then spent a short time exploring the rest of the options, but all were either focused on cosmetics, something Daniel was not interested in, or were darkened out, their descriptions illegible, presumably to remain that way until he increased in power or knowledge.

Moving on, Daniel explored the more information tab, which gave a further description of the domains of each Attribute, as well as explaining averages and meanings of the numeric value of each.

Attribute:

Detailed Description:

Attribute:

Detailed Description:

Strength

How far one can throw a tomato.

Intelligence

Knowing a tomato is a fruit.

Agility

How fast one can dodge a tomato.

Perception

Seeing/hearing/smelling/touching/tasting a tomato.

Dexterity

How well one cuts a tomato.

Wisdom

Knowing a tomato does not go well in a fruit salad.

Vitality

Remaining well after eating a bad tomato.

Charisma

Being able to sell someone a tomato-based fruit salad.

Endurance

Being able to run fast for a long time whilst carrying lots of tomatoes.

Willpower

Being able to resist spending money on only tomatoes.

Attribute value:

Meaning

Less than or equal to 6

Below average

7-10

Average

11-14

Athlete

15-19

Olympic

20

Peak, base human

Greater than or equal to 21

‘Super’-human: Will add 1% to score with each Point added (NOTE: Once an Attribute reaches 20, it cannot be increased without Attribute points, and once an Attribute reaches 25, it cannot be increased without special items, or modifications to body.)

After reading the second table, Daniel thought for a second.

"Well that's bullshit. Why can't I?"

Relevant query detected.

Analysing...

Greetings Human number, 3443570223, designation Daniel Bishop. The AIOS has noticed that you are asking it a relevant question. In answer, due to the way humanity has evolved, your bodies can only increase in power so far before needing extreme intervention of a highly advanced scientific or magical nature. These interventions will further modify your genome, allowing a slight increase in the effectiveness of a certain Attriute’s domain. The AIOS apologises for the potential inconvenience on behalf of The One, and kindly asks if you could please direct all questions to the Help tab of your Status Screen.

DISABLING VOICE ACTIVATED QUERIES...

Sighing, Daniel rubbed his forehead, processing this information. It made sense, but he still didn't like it. As soon as people began reaching 25 in their stats, then competition for modifications would become extremely fierce amongst different groups, most likely being funneled to their leader in a massive pyramid scheme. Daniel internally grimaced, deciding then and there that he would remain solo, as he always had. Noting the mention of magic, Daniel reminded himself to keep a look out for any way to use it. After all, the ability to create flames, move earth, or turn invisible would be invaluable to him right now.

Moving on, Daniel opened the Notes tab, which turned out to be little more than a blank panel, which recorded all thoughts he had whilst it was open. Daniel spent a short time playing with it and thinking of its potential uses, before moving on to the tab that had caught his eye the moment he had opened his status screen.

Daniel had always been a loner preferring to observe and manipulate from afar over creating lasting relationships. To his teachers, he was a relatively bright, if quiet boy, and to his peers he was the quiet loner, not ever mercilessly picked on, but never defended or welcomed either. This lack of any true friends led young Daniel into becoming an avid reader and gamer, spending much of his free time reading a plethora of both fiction and nonfiction, or sitting in front of a screen, grinding out a game to completion. It didn’t really matter what genre of game it was to Daniel, all that mattered was if he could win. He prided himself in becoming as powerful or as skilled as possible in one game through sheer determination, before moving on to the next. And one of his favourite genres? The RPG. Daniel loved to find the perfect combinations of skills and abilities, practically creating the meta for some smaller games he played. Daniel’s online alter egos quickly rose to notoriety on forums as unstoppable gods.

Skills and abilities, Daniel had learned very quickly, were the bread and butter of every character. They decided one’s playstyle and determined which fights one would win and lose. Without them one was severely limited, attributes only carried a character so far, and choosing or leveling the wrong skills could even cripple a player permanently. The list of skills and abilities Daniel had that had been recognised by the system would determine just how exactly Daniel would fight and survive.

Skill

Description

Ability

Description

Face In the Crowd

Lvl. 45

(Journeyman Rank 5)

Exotic- You blend in. All stealth based abilities are (45%) more effective in crowded areas, and creatures will find it (45%) harder to notice that you do not belong.

Grifter's Smile

Lvl. N/A

Exotic-When focusing, Charisma is increased by 300% for a short time. The longer the ability is used, the more mental drain one experiences. Recovery time is equal to the number of seconds active multiplied by sixty.

Tactics

Lvl.39

(Apprentice Rank 14)

Common- Creating executable plans is (39%) easier.

Stealth

Lvl. 29

(Apprentice Rank 4)

Common-When focusing, it is (29%) harder to be detected.

Sleight of Hand

Lvl.36

(Apprentice Rank 11)

Uncommon- Acts of manual dexterity involving trickery or deception are (36%) more fluent.(Combines Magic Tricks and Pickpocket.)

Run

Lvl. 27

(Apprentice Rank 2)

Increases speed. (Now consumes (13.5%) less stamina)

Cooking

Lvl. 34

(Apprentice Rank 9)

Common- Food is (34%) more nourishing, and taste is improved. Takes half time to prepare simple dishes.

Critical Strike

Lvl. 15

(Beginner Rank 9)

Uncommon- When attacking a vulnerable body part from Stealth, all damage is increased by (50%). Consumes twice as much stamina as a normal attack.

Cleaning

Lvl. 32

(Apprentice Rank 7)

Common- Cleaning is (32%) faster.(Combines Grooming and Self-care)

Clean

Lvl. 11

(Beginner Rank 6)

Common- When actively trying, cleaning anything is 11% faster

Lockpick

Lvl. 28

(Apprentice Rank 3)

Uncommon-Lockpicking is (28%) faster than base speed.

Find weakness

Lvl. 6

(Beginner Rank 1)

Uncommon- Allows one to scan a biological creature for general information and weaknesses. Information revealed is dependent upon skill level, perception score, and power of creature.

Academics

Lvl. 25

(Novice Rank 10)

Uncommon- All academic abilities are (25%) easier to perform.(Combines Read, Write, and Reason into one skill.)

Scan Item

Lvl. 6

(Beginner Rank 1)

Common- Scan an inanimate object for general information. Information revealed is dependent on skill level, user's knowledge of the object, Perception, and rarity of the object.

Workout Proficiency

Lvl. 20

(Novice Rank 5)

Common- 20% more gain in stats when training

????

??????

Fast Talking

Lvl. 18

(Novie Rank 3)

Uncommon-Increases effectiveness of attempts to convince others in any situation by (28%).(Combines Barter, Persuade, Intimidate, and Lie into one skill. Level is average of all four common skills.)

Operating (Machines)

Lvl. 18

(Novice Rank 2)

Common- Operating, basic and intermediate man-made machines is (18%) easier.(Combines Driving, Sailing, Tech-Skills, Biking, Skating, ..., and Gaming into one skill)

Modifying (Machines)

Lvl. 17

(Novice Rank 1)

Uncommon- Modifying or repairing basic and intermediate machines, or computers is (17%) easier. Creating simple and basic machines is (17%) easier and they work (17%) more efficiently.

Small Bladed Weaponry

Lvl. 17

(Novice Rank 2)

Common- Increases damage dealt by (14%) when using a small blade.

Unarmed Combat

Lvl. 8

(Beginner Rank 3)

Common- Increases damage deal by (8%) when attacking unarmed

Piano

Lvl. 7

(Beginner Rank 2)

Common- Playing and learning simple songs is (7%) easier.

Unskilled

[EXPAND]

*Please note that all skills and abilities of Unskilled Rank (Levels 1-5) are not shown for the convenience of the user.*

Reading through his Skills and Abilities, Daniel was satisfied. Most of the skills he used or might need had shown up, and although their levels were relatively low, he wasn't surprised. After all, he was young, and had always been more of a jack of all trades. The panel also confirmed some things that he had suspected for a long time, much of which provided significant bonuses. Looking at Face in the Crowd and Grifter’s Smile, he smiled. The two explained his extraordinary luck in his life of crime. After all, it takes either an extremely talented or extremely lucky individual to thrive alone in Los Angeles' criminal underbelly.

Frowning again, he looked at the question marked ability. It was unfortunate that he could not read the question marked ability, as an unknown variable could spoil his chances of survival. He couldn't find a way to view the ability though, no matter how much he searched Settings.

Speaking of Settings, the tab had updated, now displaying some customisation options for the Skills and Abilities tab. Daniel scanned them all quickly before unchecking the Description box. Now that he had a basic understanding of them all, he did not need to be refreshed constantly what they did.

Rolling his neck, Daniel exited Settings, before opening the final tab he had yet to explore, Help.

Opening the tab revealed a sight similar to the Q and A forums found scattered about the internet. At the top of the panel, was a large banner, with writing in bold.

Hello, welcome to the Help page! Here you will find answers to questions the AIOS has determined as those in need of answering for much of humanity! If your question isn’t already present, don’t worry! You can post your own question, which will be answered by the AIOS. In order to preserve the integrity of Project Theta, all questions will be screened to determine if they fall within acceptable parameters. In order to reduce the workload on the AIOS, please refrain from : asking for the locations of others, publishing the location you are at, or attempting to hold a conversation with question posts. All of these attempts will be immediately deleted. You will also not be able to ask certain questions, due to the nature of Project Theta.

NOTE: In order to preserve the conditions of the Project, name, level, class and profession will be kept confidential.

Under this large bold paragraph were various headings, most of them clearly designed for people with little or no experience with either technology or video games. Looking through, Daniel noted that all questions that he could see seemed to only deal with navigating or using the System. There were no posts relating to subjects such as combat, skill and ability usage, or general survival methods. It seemed that the AIOS was serious in its wish for one's personal growth and survival to come from only oneself. Scanning the titles again for potentially useful information, many of the posts seemed absolutely useless to Daniel, who had more than enough experience with video games to be familiar with the content they explained. There were, however, a few posts that interested him. Mentally clicking on them, they expanded, and Daniel began to read.

Why are the Attributes so generalised? For example, shouldn’t there be multiple stats for Strength, one for each muscle or muscle group?

Good question! Attributes don't actually directly or immediately increase the power of a certain organ . What they do instead, is increase the growth rate of their domain drastically. For example, using the example of Strength like you did, if you put one point into Strength, muscles used frequently would see a drastic increase in power. This is the same for every Attribute, and is why two people who use Strength as their main Attribute can have drastically different physiques, classes and/or professions.

Why is there not an actual unit of health or stamina present on my statistic sheet? Even when I put the indicators on my HUD, they don't show numerical values, only a rough indication of where they are.

Good question! This is a combination of two factors, one your Perception score, and two the nature of the AIOS. When you increase your Perception to a high enough amount, you will begin to see numerical values attached to health, stamina, and weapons. However, due to this not being a videogame, this will always be a rough guide, with a ‘Soft Limit' imposed upon one's health and stamina. This means that in theory, someone could carry on going for a short while after their health or stamina has reached the theoretical limit. Although, this will have serious negative consequences on the user.

Now that we have Attribute Points, can we no longer better ourselves through normal exercise?

Good question! No, not at all. Whilst Attribute Points will be by far the best method for improvement you will come across, exertion will gradually improve one's Attributes. This will still function under the law of diminishing returns, with Attributes taking longer and longer to increase with each Point.

How do I get a Class or Profession?

By levelling up of course! After 10 levels, multiple generic choices will be offered for class and profession options. These will then level with you, providing bonuses to certain Skills and Abilities, as well as the potential for physical rewards. Be warned however, upon picking a tailored class and profession, you will experience minor debuffs to some Skills and Abilities that do not Synergise with your class. You will still be able to use these abilities, but they will not be as effective as they were before. Your class and profession will both evolve and grow with you, giving you choices of further specialisation every few levels in order to better synergise with your lifestyle. This will, obviously, provide better bonuses to certain Skills and Abilities, with the debuffs on others growing just as much.

Nodding, Daniel was pleased with this development. The AIOS seemed to have designed itself to be very non-restrictive on people’s abilities. The debuffs were a slight problem, but Daniel figured that they were an insignificant factor. After all, they would not be skills that you used often, or they would have been incorporated into your Class or Profession. Pleased, Daniel read on to the last box he had expanded.

Is there a limit to the number of Classes or Professions I may have?

No, every time you are presented with the choice to specialise your Class or Profession, you will also be offered the choice to pick a new base Class or Profession. Note, that just like in real life, this lack of specialisation will cost you extreme expertise in your chosen area, in exchange for versatility.

Again, Daniel nodded. This made sense, and proved his theory that the AIOS was less giving knowledge and more representing what knowledge he already had. The only outright power increase the AIOS had so far given him was Attribute Points. Skills and Abilities were little more than descriptions of things he could already do, and the Classes and Professions seemed to be primarily buffs, useful yes, but not a way to gain new things. This was also why he could probably not currently use magic, and would have to unlock it through either trial and error, or tuition under one more knowledgeable than himself.

Once more scanning the Help panel for any important information he might have missed, Daniel slouched against the stone lip. Seeing nothing else useful, Daniel closed his Status Window and stood up. Stretching, he once more scanned his surroundings.

The Sun had risen higher, and there was now no longer as much fog blocking his view of the surrounding forest. The new view did not reveal anything that was especially noteworthy or interesting, only more trees in every direction, and that he seemed to be about halfway up an extremely large hill, one that was borderline small mountain.

Deciding that a better view of his surroundings was needed, Daniel began to pick his way up the slope, aiming to break even with the treeline, in order to get a full sense of his surroundings. Then, it would be time to plan.