It must suck to be at 0, you live your whole ass life and the system doesn’t even give you a single skill for it.

-Uneducated Blueet user who never learned about Affinities and Base Stats until impolitely informed by commenters.

A wave of messages rang out in his mind, all clamoring for his attention. The class notice especially, which intermittently reminded him of its presence.

Li was full of contradicting feelings as he read them, he had wanted the system to acknowledge him for so long, and yet he felt annoyed about all the mental ruckus.

But it also excited him to no end, he immediately wanted to dive into the system that he had craved for so long. Read each description, ponder over his class options, things he’d jealously watched Jayce do.

Sadly, there was the issue of the golem sitting on his couch, looking like he’d just had 1000 migraines all at once.

Li had a newfound certainty in that description, given that he could feel a portion of the mind-shattering agony when he focused on his suffering golem.

Soul Link, baby.

Soul Link Level 1 You have achieved a nigh unbreakable bond with your golem. This link grants you access to a portion of your golem’s emotions, their location, their status sheet, and any system notifications they receive. This link can be upgraded like any skill, increasing the accuracy of your locational and emotional awareness.

Whoops, just told himself he wouldn’t read everything and here he was.

It was just all so… exciting.

Another ping of intense pain rained on his parade.

He examined his poor, poor golem, searching for external causes.

He couldn’t help but marvel at all the celebrity crushes imprinted here, all the school time spent daydreaming about the local average white boy of the day.

Gol nodded, he’d allow himself to be objectified for a little bit if it made Li happy.

Li knew it was selfish but to see every desire reflected like that was both extremely embarrassing and startlingly easy to recognize as a pattern of muscles and… well mostly muscles.

Congratulations, you have earned the skill, Analyze!

Analyze Level 1 (Mental) (Active) (Simple) (Universal) The unknown is scary, it makes the world much more dangerous. To survive you must have knowledge, and knowledge you shall receive. Gain a bare-bones profile of subjects in eyesight. Skill works on all subjects.

Ok, I know this is some cheap skill everyone gets, but this is so fucking cool!

Yet another stab of pain…

Ouch, ok let’s stop getting distracted.

***

Ow.

That was the only thought Gol had been able to muster up after 5 minutes of ungodly amounts of pain.

Who knew that 64% of your brain having to be shoved back inside would hurt.

The only consolation were the new skills.

Lesser Linked Telepathy Level 1 (Mental) (Active) (Simple) (Soul Link) Your Link permits you to commune with your operator regardless of distance. You may only communicate in images and emotions.

How useful, too bad his head was too busy splitting open to focus on the skill for more then a moment.

“Are you ok!?” Gol’s operator asked, once done scanning the floating words in front of them and checking him out… for multiple reasons.

Li had leveled up, Gol knew for sure because he could now see all of his operator’s notifications if he focused.

Pride rose up in Gol’s chest at the sight, from both parts of himself; Jayce and the GRA.

Jayce was happy that Li had finally activated his system, something he’d wanted for so long. Now Jayce could tell him everything, now they could go to dungeons together. It would be amazing.

Gol was happy because his operator was happy. Also, a stronger operator is less likely to die, something that isn’t very nice.

Another point of pride was the Analyze skill Li had just gotten, a result of continuous checking out of Gol’s non-muscles. The delay was worth it, Li had been through a lot in one day after all…

Well here’s the problem, who was thinking all that?

Now that Gol had the soul link, some thing that was bound to the Golem only (Skills don’t exactly pull at your soul now do they.); it was easier to differentiate the various thoughts as either of theirs.

A very terrifying revelation was that all of Gol’s thoughts were much less complex then Jayce’s. He hadn’t realized it but almost all of his personality came from fragments of Jayce’s intellect he was able to siphon off, or in the frequent moments he thought of his operator, [Live to Serve].

Behind those he barely thought at all!

Who the hell was he?

Jayce? Well, Gol had a very in-depth log of his personality, and it scarily matched up to most of Gol’s actions.

Given that it had just tried to destroy his mind and replace it, Gol couldn’t imagine a universe where the Memory Catalogue wouldn’t be removed.

Who would he be when it was gone? Would he be as mindless as a rock, only able to follow commands? Would he never be able to talk to Li? Like a person?

The concept, it… Gol… he was…

Scared.

Skill Gain-

[SK-

He didn’t even wanna see it, to be reminded of what was both preventing his growth and simultaneously letting him be a actual person.

Gol layed down in the couch of middling softness (would Jayce have used the word middling?) and closed his eyes like he’d seen… seen Jayce do many a sleepless nights.

He shut his eyes out and hoped that somehow sleep would come for him, he knew it theoretically, from his databanks and the memories.

It seemed relaxing, comforting. Most of all it shut out any thinking and worrying and theorizing… he crazed that nothingness desperately.

“Command Action; Rest Mode”

Li, an absolute angel, obliged his wish.

***

Command Knowledge just became his favorite skill. (So far, fireballs make a very convincing argument.)

Linked Telepathy and Soul Link only shared emotions, but the overwhelming feeling of desire and the forced attempts at slumber had been a very loud sign of what Gol needed.

And Command Knowledge had given him the answer, an “Indefinite Rest State that rests the Golem's mind and acts much like slumber in regards to Essence Reserves.” Ha, who needs to read the manual now, it’s imprinted in my brain, M.O.S more like P.O.S!

Wow that was mean, caught up in the moment.

Either way, Gol was happy and… asleep? Asleep works. Now Li could look at all his Class options!

Win-win bitches!