Mel had wasted no time initiating the level up process. She had decided that she could live with her character’s low Memory, at least for a while. The loss of her memories clearly troubled her, but because she didn’t remember them, she also didn’t remember forgetting them. Her low Intellect and Acuity were slowing down her thoughts, something she described as trying to push through thick spider webs constantly.

From quizzing her construct, she had gathered that raising her acuity first would help most with this. Acuity seemed to be a measure of how fast a person could process surface level thoughts, that was why it was linked to perception. Alex had found himself noticing a lot more detail in the world around him, and he attributed this to his boosted acuity. Mel’s intellect was also dragging down her thoughts, but intellect only seemed to come into play for more complicated information processing.

Zelda gave Alex an analogy taken from his old day job. If he wrote a question on his whiteboard, his students would need a passable acuity to read and understand the question. To actually solve the question the student would then need to use their intellect. Acuity and intellect usually went hand in hand because they tended to work closely together. If a student had low acuity, they more often than not had a poor intellect. Mel was sitting in class and couldn’t even read the whiteboard. She decided to prioritise her acuity first, then her intellect. Once her thoughts were clearer, she would then focus on regaining access to her memories.

Levelling up turned out not to be the quick process they had expected. When Mel instructed her construct that she wanted to level up in acuity there was no loud ding announcing her arrival at level two. Instead, Mel spent a few minutes talking to her construct as it explained the process. She then slumped against the wall and began to medicate. To level up a person had to imbue essence into their character. This process was made easier by the Atevani system, as well as the character sheet constructs their abductor had created.

Ben and Mike had taken a little more time than Mel to consider their options. Levelling up wasn’t the only thing that they could do with the essence that they had gained from the fight. The Atevani system allowed them to progress along their class skill trees with their hard-earned essence instead. This meant that a person could be highly levelled, but have low skill progression, or vice versa.

Zed hadn’t been particularly interested in how they spent their points. She had announced their system integration a success and told them she had business to attend to. As she left, she closed the giant stone doors behind her. An instant too late they realised that she had trapped them in the room behind her. They yelled after her, but she did not return.

Alex would have been worried that Zed was planning on leaving them to die, except he suspected that if Zed wanted them dead, she would just explode their brains. She had also told them she would return and left them with a handful of the level one maur to fetch them anything they needed. Zed had distributed mental constructs to a subset of her minions. This gave the selected drones a greater ability to carry out complex tasks, and to follow more sophisticated commands. The rest of the maur would then imitate the enhanced minions in a hive like manner.

Mike decided to test their intelligence by asking for a beer, using his construct to communicate with the insects telepathically. To his surprise one of the maur stood at attention before it scurried away, as if it was going to find one for him. Unlike Alex’s party the giant ants could come and go as they wished though tiny tunnels in the honeycombed walls. When the maur would return, and what it would bring back was a bit of a mystery. Alex wasn’t sure what Zed ate or drank, but he had a tough time picturing Zed sipping on a beer held in one of her glowing tentacles.

I wonder if I could fit in one of those. Alex thought, looking down one of the tiny shafts. The largest one that he could see looked like it was just wide enough for him to squeeze through, but it would be a very tight fit. If it narrowed at any point, he wouldn’t be able to move forward. Looking down the narrow hole was making him sweat, as he imagined squeezing himself down it. Certainly, he was the only one in the group who could even consider it.

While Alex peered into tunnels Mike and Ben continued to discuss the pros and cons of skilling up versus levelling. The skill tree Mike’s class gave him access to was called Devotion, and it was focused on making him a better servant to his god. One such example was a skill that allowed him to perform a ritual that sacrificed the essence he would gain from a kill as an offering to his god.

“So not only am I constantly giving up this ‘Tribute’ to Telman, but he also wants me to give up my kills for him?” Mike complained.

“It sounds like a surprisingly good deal to be honest. The buffs you can get from him border on overpowered. Sure, you should level up your stats too, but if you keep on Telman’s good side they won’t really make that big of a difference.” Ben said.

“Yea, but… Look, I might not be massively religious, but my folks are pretty devout Catholics. I don’t go to church every Sunday, and I do pray… Pretending to be a priest in a made up game is one thing, but actually praying to a different god, and sacrificing things to him… it feels wrong, like, blasphemous somehow. My folks would disown me.” Mike explained as he ran his hands through his hair.

“I see… I dunno mate. I don’t believe at all, but to me there seems to be a big difference between the gods of this world, and your God back on earth with a capital G. Maybe you need to think of Telman as more of a loan shark. He’s gonna give you blessings when you need them, but if you don’t keep paying him, you’re losing your kneecaps.” Ben replied

Ben’s analogy seemed to settle Mike, though he still grumbled about giving away his kills. In the end Mike decided to level up his Fortitude. As a front-line fighter, it seemed a decent idea to get tankier. He also resolved to start climbing his devotion tree once he hit level three or four. Ben, on the other hand, had a quite different problem. He had too many awesome options to choose between. His race gave him a ridiculous mana pool to play with, and so he didn’t need to worry too much about maximising his Spirit right away. Instead he had to decide between which awesome spells he wanted to learn. He was leaning towards a spell called ‘Spirit barrier’, reasoning that he already had some offense and could use a bit of defence.

While Mike and Ben debated their options Alex was considering his own. For the first time since he awoke in this new body, he was a little excited. His skill trees had very few combat abilities, but they did have some pretty cool sounding tricks. Particularly later on there was an ability called ‘Shadow Dash’ that sounded awesome. It was a skill that branched off both the Mobility and Stealth trees, meaning that he would have to invest heavily in both before he could pick it up.

“Any thoughts Zel?” Alex asked his construct.

“Thoughts on what Alex?” The construct answered.

“On what I should do. I can’t level, but my skills actually seem pretty cheap for the most part. I have 527 essence saved up.” Alex thought.

“You want me to tell you how you should build your own character?” Zelda asked in what Alex construed as a patronizing tone.

“Yes, I do. I think we got off a bit on the wrong foot. I think you aren’t as emotionally detached as you act. I’m sorry I called you a parasite when we met, but in my defence, I was, and still am new to all this. Regardless of what we feel about each other we are sharing the same body. You said that you would die without me, but I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t last long without your help either.“ Alex considered his words carefully as he tried to patch up their relationship.

As far as he could tell Alex was the only one in the group to be having issues with his construct. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was having a problem. He wasn’t the only one who had reacted badly to finding out he had an uninvited lodger inside his soul. He remembered Mike being paranoid that his construct would try to fight for control of his body. Alex’s working theory was that the more he interacted with it the more of his personality rubbed off on it.

“I am an advanced mental construct, a creature of pure logic.” Zelda thought back at him.

“That might be true, but you are sharing my soul. Isn’t it possible that you are picking up some of my habits?” Alex had to admit that sarcastic and snarky were his go to options when he was in a bad mood, and that being abducted to a different world had definitely put him in a bad mood.

“I am not sarcastic nor snarky, and I do not share your habits. I will let you know when I start getting aroused over feet.” Zelda replied.

“Hey, I don’t have a foot fetish! And that WAS snarky! If you are a creature of logic, then… I dunno, analyse yourself or something.” Alex shot back at her. He was not aroused by feet; he just liked the look of them.

“If you command it, I will waste my time doing so. This may take a moment due to my complexity. Please wait a moment.” Zelda replied before going silent.

Alex waited a moment. Then he waited for another. Then he waited a few more. Ben and Mike had both sat down to spend their essence, mirroring Mel. In the end they had both decided to level up. Alex wasn’t sure if picking a skill took as long but levelling up seemed to be a process that took a while. Alex started to pass the time by looking at his skill options.

Stealth Tree

Muted Body:

240 Essence To Unlock

Cost : 5 Energy / Second

Rank 2 / 5

You can imbue your body with Energy that muffles noises that you make.

150% Stealth 200% Stealth

Mobility Tree

Swift Burst:

300 Essence To Unlock

Cost : 5 Energy / Second

Rank 0 / 5

You can imbue your body with Energy that boosts your movement.

150% Movement Speed

Observation Tree

Enhance Senses:

300 Essence To Unlock

Cost : 5 Will / Second

Rank 0 / 5

By focusing your Will, you can increase the sharpness of your senses.

150% Perception

From a glance he could see that breaking into a skill seemed to be more expensive than upgrading it. At the moment he could afford to pick up a new ability, or he could upgrade his Muted Body. When he tried to look forward to the cost of the third rank, he began to get a mild headache as if he was squinting too hard. He hoped that if the cost continued to decrease, he might be able to boost the skill to rank three with his current essence. He also had a look at his alchemy tree, but the base ability of the tree was far too expensive for him to consider at the moment.

Alchemy Tree

Distil Essence:

25,000 Essence

Cost : 200 Mana

By using your mana to separate components, you can extract the imbued essence from dead creatures.

Gain Distil Essence

The ability sounded amazingly useful; he was still learning how essence functioned in this world, but even with his limited understanding he could imagine the applications of such an ability. The chemistry teacher in him wondered how this ability actually worked, and if he could find unusual ways to use it. It was a bit of a moot point; however, even when Alex became high enough level that he could afford the ability he wouldn't have enough mana to use it unless he invested heavily in his Spirit.

Alex’s last option was to upgrade his tail. He was still getting used to controlling it. At the moment he could swing it around in big clumsy movements, and he could wrap it around objects to pull on them. He had a few ideas of how he could use his tail, the most practical being using it like a scorpion tail with a spike attached. He could dually wield daggers in his hands and have a third blade on his tail. He would call it his ‘Scorpion Style Blade Dance‘. It was probably as bad an idea as it was a name. He would do better to focus on ranged options. He could try to learn how to shoot a bow, either through hard work, or by buying the ability from a skill trainer. Maybe he could try his hand building a crossbow. Why stop at a crossbow? I should build a gun, there is a reason people on Earth don’t still fight with swords.

“A gun would certainly be a good weapon for you, from the little information Zed gave me on them they appear to be very deadly weapons. Do you know how to make one?” Zelda asked, breaking her silence with the question.

“Mmm… I know what they look like, and I have a rough idea how they work on an abstract level… I don’t have a clue how to actually make one though.” Alex replied.

“I suppose a crossbow will have to do then.” Zelda said. The way she spoke seemed more straightforward than before, as if she was genuinely trying to help rather than being forced to do so grudgingly.

“I ummm… don’t actually know how to make one of those either.” Alex admitted, feeling a little bit useless. Like a gun he knew what a crossbow looked like, but only had a very vague idea of how to make one.

“I think I might be able to reverse engineer one of those based on your memories of them.” Zelda offered.

Alex couldn’t help but notice the change in his construct’s attitude, nor the fact that she was pointedly avoiding sharing with him the results of her self-analysis. He was about to say so to her, but unsurprisingly she had already sensed his questions.

“It appears as though something went wrong with my creation.” Zelda said. Rather than bombarding her with questions, Alex remained quiet to let her talk. “Do you recall waking up before your companions?” She asked.

“Yea, though I’m kind of trying to forget being stuck inside that fleshy prison.” Alex replied.

“You awoke at the moment Zed was creating me. I don’t know exactly why, but something happened that injured your mind.” Zelda explained.

“Wait what? What the hell is wrong with my mind?” Alex burst in with, alarmed.

“Your mind seems fine now, I can see where Zed repaired the injury. Unfortunately, when it was injured it leaked. When I was examining my own mind, I found memories there that I identify as personal, but clearly originate from you. You have infected me with your personality.” Zelda said.

“Hey now, you are mooching off my soul energies so let's not start arguing about who is infecting who.” Alex replied, a little disgruntled.

Alex and Zelda both went quiet for a moment. Alex was troubled at the notion that he had lost some of his memories, but Zelda seemed even more disturbed by the idea.

“This doesn’t really change anything at the end of the day.” Alex said.

“It might not for you, but for me it changes everything. I am not supposed to have emotions. I am a mental construct, a creature of logic.” Zelda‘s mental voice conveyed panic as she replied.

“Well… Get over it. Like I said before, we are stuck with each other. It’s not my fault you got infected with my emotions. If you need to blame someone, then blame Zed. I didn’t ask to be shoved into this monkey body any more than you did. Now are you going to work with me or not?”