It had said a health gauge might help with his survivability, but how? In what way was seeing he was in low health better than knowing he had a broken leg? Or that he was feeling weak due to blood loss?

Well, the system hadn't said it would help, it had said it might help. Thing is, it also might not, and in fact, in the fight against the rats, a health gauge wouldn't have helped at all. Even worse, if he took the time to take a glance at the health gauge at the wrong moment of a tight fight, it might even have distracted him enough to get bitten, and a single bite from those mutated pests might be enough for him to bleed to death, get poisoned to death, or something similar.

No, it became obvious that he needed strength. If qi was anything like what he had seen in anime when he was a child, it was an internal energy that could strengthen him. The sooner he unlocked it, the better, and any advantage towards that which he could get his hands on was the right choice.

'I choose qi,' he thought, willing the words to reach the window.

Gauge Module

Interactive Tutorial: Presentation

You have chosen to set your first gauge as a Qi Gauge.

Default options applied:

» Color: White

» Display numeric values: No

It's recommended you never choose to display numeric values, as it will most likely lead to even more dependency on visual feedback and hinder your qi sensibility and your progress in qi training.

There it was. "Most likely," instead of "might." The system had applied localization to its text before, so who knows what those words actually meant in the original language. He had to pay attention to these small hints and take their meaning at face value.

The gauge turned white. For now, it only served as a reminder of something he had to look for, a way to use his qi.

As soon as he finished reading, the text disappeared. A bigger rectangle highlighted the rectangular grid on the bottom of his view, and text appeared linked to it to explain what it was.

Skills Module

Interactive Tutorial: Presentation

The Skills Module is a way to help you recognize your strengths so you can focus on them and grow stronger.

Your actions, patterns, and behaviors will be recognized by the system and translated into skills when they reach a minimum threshold. These skills are not set in stone, they can change if you change the way you use or understand them.

The Skills Module is considered a good training tool for beginners, especially those who have just learned a new technique and need to remember they have it during a fight. It is also considered a useful way to gauge one's own power later on.

You can check your skills, their details, and their icons on the Skills Menu. To add one of your skills to the skill bar here on the bottom of your vision, you just need to look at one of the empty squares on the grid and focus on changing it.

Check your Skills List and focus on the only skill in there.

He thought "Skills List" and a new window opened. It was a simple list with thick dividers.

The first line was already filled. It contained an icon, the outline of a strong red man with arms raised on a yellow-orange background, followed by some information about the skill.

Skills List

[# — Name — Tier — Level — Progress]

1. Intimidation — Common — 1 / 10 — 5%

When he focused on it, another window opened, better explaining what these words and numbers meant.

Skill Summary

Name: Intimidation

Tier: Common

Level: 1 / 10

Progression: 5%

He came, his rage such that the very air around twisted with the promise of blood. His enemies ran, for they knew better.

There was a text window right beside the Skill Summary.

Skills Module

Interactive Tutorial: Presentation

Tier

Not all skills are created equal. They are divided into tiers that have to do with their rarity and potential might.

As a G-species, you're unlikely to ever learn anything better than an Uncommon tier skill.

Level

When a skill is created, a theoretical limit on the potential of the skill is calculated, and the skill is divided into levels for better understanding of where you stand with the skill.

Common skills have ten levels. The higher the level, the closer you are to reaching the maximum potential of the skill.

Progression

Also to your advantage, an estimate of your comprehension of the skill is given to you. It is shown as a progression percentage towards the next level.

Leveling the skill is achieved by understanding its potential better, which is usually achieved by familiarizing yourself with the skill through repeated usage.

Doing so in situations where using the skill is urgent and extremely necessary usually yields better results.

Leveling up a skill also yields experience points.

Flavor Text

The system has deemed your species highly impressionable by catchphrases and quotes, and has included them in your skills for your advantage. They might also include hints on how to progress the skill.

Remembering he could intimidate his enemies in a tough fight might actually help. He closed the menu and focused on the first empty square of the twelve square grid, willing the Intimidation skill to appear there. Soon, the skill icon replaced the empty square.

Just as he finished setting things up, a new text window appeared.

Status Module

Interactive Tutorial: Presentation

All overlays come with the Status Module installed.

The Status Module comes with the alias "Status" already set up to show the Short Status. You don't have to think of the "Short Status Window" words to open it, you only have to think "Status."

Open your Short Status Window.

"Status," he thought, and a new window appeared.

Status

Name: Ricardo Black

CTPR: HHG-2

It only had his name and his CTPR. This meant that whatever CTPR was, it was important.

Just like his Skills Window, this came with another one besides it containing explanation.

Status Module

Interactive Tutorial: Presentation

Your Short Status Window contains the most basic information about you and your place in the Omniverse.

For more detailed information, check your Detailed Status Window.

He did as told and a new window opened.

Detailed Status

Name: Ricardo Black (I-POF-12742-333-3524846927)

Your name and ID.

Origin World: Earth (198-1-2442)

Where you came from. World number 2442 of sub-dimension 1 of Universe 198.

CTPR: HHG-2

CTPR is an acronym for Clearance, Territory, and Power Rank. It directly combines your Clearance and Territory tiers and your Power Rank.

It contains the most useful information about you: your clearance, and your social and personal power.

Clearance: H

Your Clearance is the average of your Territory and Power tiers rounded down.

It determines your access to certain parts of the system and the Omniverse.

Territory: H

Your Territory tier, which is based on the largest system-sanctioned territory you own and/or govern.

You don't own or govern over anything, so it's set to H, the lowest tier.

He stopped reading for a moment to analyze everything. The first thing that came to his mind was that his ID was ridiculously long.

Unsurprisingly, his Clearance was terrible. He owned nothing, and from what he remembered of the system's evaluation of himself and humanity, their power was only at the G tier, too, so the average was shitty.

His Territory tier was bad too, but also interesting. It spoke of ownership and governance of territory, and if it was part of the most important information about himself, this was a big deal for the system. How did he get ownership of something that was system sanctioned? Would he get a higher clearance if he declared the bridge his? How did it work? Did he have to apply for it?

He tried. "Henceforth, this is my bridge!" he bellowed to no one. Nothing happened. He resumed his reading.

Stats:

This is the evaluation of the most useful traits of any being.

The tiers range from H to A, and then S, H being the worst, S the best.

Power: G-2

To make it easier for beings to understand it and evolve themselves, the system has further divided beings' power into levels. Every tier has nine levels that go from 1 to 9, 1 being the worse, 9 the best.

Both tier and level together make for your Power Rank.

Your current power evaluation is based on the strongest attack you have shown, minus the power that comes from external aid like weaponry.

Your current Power Rank is G-2, which means your Power is at the G tier, level 2. This evaluation means you can destroy medium-sized portable objects, like laptops, with a single hit.

Lifespan: F

Between 33 to 999 years of life expectancy.

Regeneration: G

You can barely regenerate your body if damaged.

Talent: D

Average qi cultivation talent. Can take full advantage of cultivation methods.

Qi:

Your qi attributes will only be displayed after you unlock your Qi.

So, a G-2 Power Rank meant he could destroy laptops in one hit if he used all his power. Looking at his body that would put many bodybuilders to shape, he guessed it was a fair assessment. Barehanded, if he hit it the right way with enough momentum, he could do it. But the text went beyond to hint at weapons allowing him to go beyond his Power Rank.

That was interesting because it meant that while his current Power Rank was G-2, he actually had a stronger power output than that if he used his wrench. He certainly could do more than destroy laptops, so his actual power should be at least at the G-3 rank. He'd better keep that in mind going forward.

That a human lifespan only gave him an F rating was disconcerting. How long could aliens live in the Omniverse? An E tier already meant something that could live at least a thousand years! His Regeneration was even worse; did aliens grow limbs at will?

Finally, his Talent. It was his best stat, but it was only average and it didn't attract any Godparent. He still didn't give a damn about being ignored. None at all. Screw those aliens.

The only good thing about the help text for Talent was that now he knew it was related to qi cultivation. The Gauge Module could only show three things and the system only had four stats, and both included qi. It was even more important than he had thought and finding out how to use it was becoming paramount to surviving.

It was unfortunate that he couldn't see the Qi stat, it might have given him a hint on how to use qi.

That was all. When he finished reading it, a new system message told him that beyond the Detailed Status Window, there was also the Full Status Window, which showed an extensive list of information without the help text. He checked it out.

Full Status

Name: Ricardo Black

Origin World: Earth

CTPR: HHG-2

Stats:

Power: G-2

Lifespan: F

Regeneration: G

Talent: D

His whole being was there, analyzed and reduced to a bunch of letters and numbers. He could only guess what kind of statistics and population control an advanced system AI could do with all that data. This was Big Brother's wet dream.

Experience Module

Interactive Tutorial: Presentation

One of the most important modules you have been given is the Experience Module that comes with all overlays. It will be fundamental in helping you grow stronger.

To gain experience points, cultivate your qi, kill other beings, or level up your skills.

Open your Experience Window for further explanation.

He had been right during the fight against the rats; there were experience points in the apocalypse. XP. He would have to farm XP to grow stronger. Together with dungeons and treasures, that confirmed it, the almighty alien system which had abducted everyone he knew and forced him to fight to death was a damn junior schooler who got high in turning other people's life into a damn game.

That made him incredibly upset.

Experience Module

Total: 2,667 XP

Power:

G-2 » G-3 — 5,994 XP

Lifespan:

F » E — 1,057,342 XP

Regeneration:

G » F — 117,482 XP

Talent:

D » C — 12,688,099 XP

This window also came with an explanation attached.

Experience Module

Interactive Tutorial: Presentation

Your total experience points are the accumulated amount gained from both battle and cultivation.

A list containing your ten latest kills can be accessed with the Show Experience Gain Backlog command. You can see the top ten strongest beings you defeated using the Show Top Defeated Enemies command.

Controlling his temper, as there was nothing he could do about his situation but using the system to his advantage, he checked the Experience Backlog first.

Experience Gain Backlog

[# — Being — Power — Experience Points Received]

1. Evolved Rat — G-1 — 5 XP

2. Evolved Rat — G-1 — 5 XP

(...)

10. Evolved Rat — G-1 — 5 XP

It was plain ten lines of him having killed rats. The only useful thing about it was that the system also showed their power. So the rats were at the G-1 power, which was lower than him, but he didn't know what it really meant.

Top Defeated Enemies

[# — Being — Power — Experience Points Received]

1. Mutated Capypard — G-4 — 2,592 XP

2. Evolved Rat — G-1 — 5 XP

The capybara thing he had killed was called a capypard? He guessed it came from capybara and leopard, a simple enough name if not overly creative. It did move kind of like a leopard, although it thankfully had none of its hunting senses.

Killing a G-4 enemy earned him 2,592 XP, while killing a G-1 earned him 1 XP. It was really a crucible of valor if growing stronger came at the cost of overcoming his limits to fight beings stronger than himself.

His top defeated enemies list only had two entries, which meant the same kind of enemy only counted once.

Experience Module

Interactive Tutorial: Presentation

Experience Gain Through Combat

This is the primary way of acquiring XP in the Omniverse.

In combat, one of three situations will occur: you will kill enemies with the same Power Rank as you, enemies with lower levels, and enemies with higher levels.

Same Power Rank:

At the G-2 rank, killing enemies of your level earns you 594 XP.

Lower level:

Killing enemies one level below you earns you one hundredth of killing enemies at your level, rounded down. In your case, 5 XP.

Killing enemies two levels below you earns you 1 XP.

Anything below that gives no experience points.

Higher level:

XP from killing enemies stronger than you is multiplicative. For every level above you, the base XP that an enemy at that rank would earn someone from their own rank is multiplied by the number of levels between you both, then further multiplied by the enemy's Tier Factor.

For instance, if you, at the G-2 Power Rank, kill an enemy at the G-5 Power Rank, this is the formula that would be applied:

G-5 base XP: 675

Level difference: 3

G Tier Factor: 2

Total: 675 * 3 * 2 = 4,050 XP

Another example, if you kill an enemy at the F-1 power rank:

F-1 base XP: 2,511

Level difference: 8

F Tier Factor: 3

Total: 2,511 * 8 * 3 = 60,264

However, these are shown for demonstrative reasons only. The system strongly advises you about not getting tempted by the big numbers. Killing beings many levels above you, especially those at other tiers altogether, is a very difficult feat.

Experience Gain Through Skill Leveling

When leveling up a skill, you earn XP depending on the skill tier and your Power Rank tier.

The higher your tier, the less XP you earn from any skill. This type of XP gain is mostly for the benefit of lower-tiered sapients, or highly skilled ones.

You are currently at the G tier.

You will earn 999 XP for leveling up Common grade skills.

You will earn 2,997 XP for leveling up Uncommon grade skills.

At any tier, you will receive a nine times bonus for reaching the max level of any skill, as long as you would normally gain XP for leveling up said skill.

Experience Gain Through Cultivation

As you don't know a cultivation method, the tutorial for it will be postponed.

A Cultivation Method Interactive Tutorial Voucher has been added to your overlay and will be automatically activated once you learn a cultivation method, even if you do so after the Interactive Tutorial is over.

That situation was shitty, to be honest. At the G-2 rank, leveling up to G-3 required 5,994 XP, and killing a G-2 beast netted him 592 XP. Going from 0 XP, If he only killed beings of the same power as him, it would take him eleven kills to get it done. While this might not look like much, this was real life and any mistake could be lethal. He had been in some bar brawls, but he wasn't exactly well-versed in fighting to the death.

Putting it in another light, he certainly didn't think he could kill over ten of him in a straight fight in succession without something going wrong. Even if he could rest between fights, each one of them would be a coin flip. Moreover, a few dozen G-1 rats had almost overwhelmed him. Things were much more dangerous than simple level numbers made it seem.

Leveling up skills was his safest bet, but he would have to see how feasible that was.

The window closed with no new one appearing, no mention of the options menu, nothing, but he didn't mind it. He was thinking of something else.

All that talk about power evidenced to him the need to grow stronger, for even if he survived for one year as he was now, what then? What would happen when the Earth was opened for aliens and they came? No, he had to grow stronger and the ripe time was now. Not by leveling up skills in safety, but by fighting.

Yes, now. The capypard's attack was the best hint that could have happened to him, and the rats too to some extent; both encounters made him realize the animals had become monsters, but they still weren't fully adapted to their power and their new position in the food chain.

If the rats had kept coming for him, he would be dead. If the capypard had known how to take full advantage of its newfound power, he would be dead. But he wasn't, because they were ignorant of their power.

This was a race of adaptation of the fittest. Whoever adapted first and best, the monsters or him, would survive to tell the tale. And if he found other supposedly powerful monsters like the capypard, who hadn't learned how to fight and earned him lots of XP, he would be set for leveling up.

He clenched his wrench. The window to kill monsters before they adapted to their newfound power was already closing down.

It was hunting time.