Chapter 1 – Prologue

The thrum of my car always relaxes me, particularly right after work, BOOM! My world is spinning, WHAT!!?? Ughhhh I can’t breath, I’m somehow in the middle of the road, looking down I see my deformed body, I can’t think, What happened?….. My vision fades.

I’m crying? Looking around while my mind consciousness is still in a haze, I see a few people shouting in some strange language while surrounding a bloody woman lying on crimson red sheets, ummm I think I was born a moment ago…

After a few hectic hours of getting passed around by some strangers I end up at some decrepit building with a few children roaming around, a few spot me and excitedly surround me. Ah yes, A second chance at life yet I end up at the bottom rung of society, an orphan. I get passed to some nun looking lady who cradles me comfortably, oh wow! Now this is how you hold a baby, I eventually drift off to sleep.

Time really flies as a baby, I recently turned 5 and I’ve learnt the language as well as picked up some rudimentary knowledge of this world. I say ‘rudimentary’ because kids in an orphanage don’t really discuss history or talk about topics such as politics of the ruling class, well ‘snotty nobles’ as George says. Not to mention no one wants to tell a toddler anything! What I have learnt so far is that this country seems to be a medieval society, as is made evident by the lacking technology and amenities in this awful orphanage, latrine pits are an actual nightmare. What was even more of a shock was how every person has a ‘system’ of sorts, and more than that, there’s magic! Bloody magic!!!

Race: Human

Class: NONE

Level: 0

Health: 40/40

Mana: 0/0

Stamina: 20/20

Strength: 2

Endurance: 2

Vitality: 4

Dexterity: 2

Agility: 2

Perception: 7

Charisma: 10

Intelligence: 25

Wisdom: 4

Magic: 0

Skills: NONE

Class Enhancements: NONE

While lounging around in the main room I watch George as he’s playing with the little ones.

“Hey Georgeeee,” I say childishly.

He looks up towards me, his vibrant green eyes peek through his long black hair, he’s really quite charming, for a thirteen year old anyway, he replies, “Yes Fera.”

“How does the system work?” I ask.

A snide smirk builds on his face, “Ha, wouldn’t you like to know.”

Clearly amused that a five year old has an interest in the system he begins to jokingly act like some pompous asshole, ugh I hate it when he does this, he’s such a cheeky child, wait what am I saying! I’m not an old lady, I died at 20. He slowly stands and walks towards me haughtily.

“Welllll, I suppose I could tell you… For a price” he says mockingly, acting like some high and mighty noble, well that’s how I’ve been told they act, I’ve yet to see one unfortunately.

“For god’s sake George, stop being annoying!” I yell, crossing my arms.

George chuckles, “Ugh Fera you’re no fun, learn to relax, you act too much like an adult,”

Probably because I am an adult! Seeing a frown adorn my face George mutters something to himself then speaks, “I suppose I can tell you, usually Mum doesn’t tell kids under 10 because they wouldn’t understand most of it, though I guess you’re a little smarter, actually what is your intelligence attribute?” pacing around the room with his arms behind his back acting like some distinguished teacher.

“25,” I state, George suddenly ceases movement, eyeballs almost bulging out of his sockets as he stares at me.

“25!?” he yells, “hell I thought I was smart with an intelligence of 15, clearly I’m just some idiot.”

Laughing self-deprecatingly, he begins to tell me of the system and its nuances.

Strength increases the physical power of the individual, increasing damage of medium to large weapons, the stat can be increased from strength exercise or through combat.

Endurance instead increases stamina and physical resistance (physical attacks deal less damage), like strength it can be increased through endurance exercise or combat.

Vitality increases max health, healing spend and disease resistance, apparently it cannot be increased through regular means.

Dexterity improves minute hand movements and increases the damage of small weapons, it can be increase through dexterity practice or in combat.

Agility increases movement speed and flexibility, making dodging easier, it can be increased through agility exercises such a sprinting and stretching and through combat.

Perception improves vision and slows perception of time, it can be increase through perception training or combat.

Charisma improves objective attractiveness and radiates charm that makes others more agreeable to your opinions, this is inherent and cannot be trained.

Intelligence determines how smart a person is, as with charisma it’s whatever you’re born with.

Wisdom Improves knowledge retention a simply increases from learning through reading books, personal experience or teachers.

Finally magic simply represents a person’s magic pool and increases from magic practice or in combat

The average stats of a full grown adult is 10 excluding magic, moreover the stats are additive, meaning someone with 20 strength is theoretically twice as strong as someone with 10 strength. That is why George was stunned when he heard I had an intelligence of 25, apparently any stat above 20 without training makes you a genius of some kind, I’m just more of the literal genius with my smarts I suppose, heh.

Another point that George made is that classes and leveling up can increase attributes, even intelligence, however the first 5 levels only give you physical stats then at level 5 you unlock your first class which determines your future pathways and stat allocations. For example, a mage will have more of an emphasis on intelligence whereas a swordsman will focus more on strength and dexterity.

People can also learn skills, these can be anything from sewing clothes to shooting fire balls, apparently the skills and the stats you have determine what classes you can choose, so according to George it’s imperative that you increase your stats to the best of your abilities and learn advanced skills to get the best class possible.

“Intelligence is a good indicator of a magic potential, so we may have a little mage on our hands” he explains as he ruffles my hair, I can’t help but smile.

“Anyway, I’ve got some work to do so I won’t be back tonight, look after the kids yeah?” he asks me with false seriousness.

“Of course,” I reply seriously, he gives me a weird look, chuckles then nods back to me. After saying bye to the other kids, he leaves. I’m not sure what his job is but due to the fact he’s all secretive about it I’m sure it’s some rather unsavory work, it’s probably better I don’t know.

Now that George is gone I’m stuck with the kids, It’s hard physically being the youngest but mentally the oldest, I can only have proper conversations with George because he’s quite mature for his age which makes sense considering he assists in supplying the orphanage with food. I suppose I can be productive and work towards getting a good class, no reason why I can’t start now. Seeing mum reclining on a chair as she watches over the youngest kids, I approach her.

Her skin is wrinkled to the point that she looks like she’s always squinting, her silvery white hair is tied in a bun, and she wears a nun’s attire, even though I’m sure Christianity doesn’t exist in this world. She looks incredibly frail that I can’t help but feel fear for the kids, what happens when she passes away? Maybe we would need to contact the local church to ask for a new nanny. Shaking my head out of my dark thoughts I plop down next to her. Looking out to the street, well the mud road, the poor district doesn’t have paved tiles. We see the morning bustle of workers going about their business, workers in these parts referring to thieves, prostitutes and gang members, I don't believe there's a single honest worker this district. It’s funny how I haven’t left this street my whole life, I’ve only left the orphanage a few times to play with the kids on the street, supposedly it’s dangerous to go too far without supervision, which I fully believe, I’m sure the crime rates are absurd in this district since even our orphanage has partially starving children. I’m not going to deny it though, I cannot wait to explore this world, even just this city, thinking of seeing magic excites me immensely, riding that high I decide to engage with mum.

“Hey mum” I say sweetly, “How do I learn magic?”

“Oh child, now why would you want to learn magic?” she asks while shifting in her chair to face me.

“uhhh,” it’s a valid question, but it caught me off guard somehow, is this the power of a high wisdom stat!? to ask simple questions that actually contain a breadth of information to unpack, I muse jokingly.

“I guess to become powerful,” I reply after a brief pause, I don’t really overthink the question, I’m supposed to be 5 after all.

“I suppose that reason is as good as any other, if being powerful is what is truly important to you,” she mutters to herself more than to me, but if I were to answer honestly being powerful is not that important to me, it’s more the fact that I come from a world of science, so magic seems to fantastical to me.

“Sooo, can I learn?” I ask while staring into her eyes hopefully, she shakes her head ever so slightly.

“I am unsure of the exact process to becoming a mage, but you will first need to get the skill ‘mana sense’ to begin on the path of a mage, I’m sorry Fera, but I’m unsure how to go about it all,” she smiles sadly at me and I can’t help but lower my head as my enthusiasm drains.

“Come!” she shouts suddenly as she lifts from her chair and walks to the entrance of the oprhanage, beckoning towards me, “I could use some help in the kitchen, these old bones ache the longer I stand.”

I suppose helping out may cheer me up, sighing “coming…”

1 year later, me and George are in front of the orphanage prepping to do exercises, considering there is no way to learn magic now I decided to focus on other things, I would’ve started training a year ago but apparently physical exercises can be more of a detriment if started too young without certain food and potions, oh the dismay of being poor! I'm sure six years old is still considered too young, but my constant pestering of George for a year finally convinced him to teach me. Charisma 100!

“Ok pupil, I believe you’re now old enough to begin our lessons, we shall now begin George’s introductory lesson on the physical body, now what is most important when improving your stats?” George asks while pacing around imperiously.

“Uhhh, balance?” I assume considering that the attributes seem to complement each other somewhat.

“Oh, you actually got it, yeah balance, so I’ll run you through the exercises we peasants have to undergo to build a good base for classes,” after a brief pause he continues, “Firstly we have strength, as we don’t have access to those state of the art facilities at those posh military academies we have few exercises that will build strength, you can merely do pushups and sit ups.”

He demonstrates how to do the exercises, fortunately I regularly went to the gym in my past life so I already knew how to do them effectively.

“OOOooo, we’ve got a natural!” George shouts excitedly, he then proceeds to show me a whole routine to increase my physical stats, endurance requires a mix of jogging and being hit by something, at my level a wooden plank or paddle deals more than enough damage to a weakling like me, supposedly your skin can get thick enough to even stop blades. Dexterity increases by doing these weird finger exercises, and simply playing around with object in creative ways can help increase it, usually more effective when using something hazardous like a knife, just like how combat is more effective than any practice, not like I’m going to get into any sort of combat.

Apparently some people play this world’s version of five finger fillet to show off their high dexterity levels, or the game can even be used to increase dexterity. Agility increases by performing sudden movements, doing stretches, and combining both by performing sudden movements in odd postures, this stat increases far faster with a partner so you can actively practice dodging in a spar, unfortunately I’m not adept enough to even begin such advanced movements. Perception increases by training your eyesight, this ability goes hand in hand with agility because using your perception to react to movements giving you time to dodge, perception is best practiced in mock battles like with agility, the thing with perception is that it’s actually unrelated to your reaction time, counter-intuitively to practice perception you have to ignore your reaction, and actually focus and ‘see’ the movement of the opponent. Supposedly an incredibly high perception can allow you to predict movements before they even begin by recognising minor muscle movements in your opponent’s body. Towards the end of our routine he teaches me some basic dagger movements. After the workout I’m sweating and heaving.

“Now this is the most important part of any workout, it’s called consolidation, while physical classes don’t directly use magic as mages do, every person has passive magic that runs through their body, this mana cannot be directly manipulated but it will be what increases your attributes beyond the ordinary person.” He explains as he sits on the ground, crossing his legs, he gestures for me to do the same, so I oblige.

“Now close your eyes and breath the same rhythm as me” waiting for me to match up with him, he continues, “Good, now focus inwardly and try to sort of, uhhh I guess will the air inwards into you, you’re not actually pushing pulling in air, but mana.”

I continue with what he suggested and then I fall into a trance.

I hear George moving around breaking me from the entranced state, obviously impressed, George praises me, “You entered ‘the zone’ first time, I knew you would be talented, but even this surprises me, now just keep up with and you’ll eventually unlock a skill called consolidation, don’t worry if it takes a while to get it, it takes some people years to unlock, some never do, though I doubt that will be an issue. Same with the dagger movements, you should eventually gain dagger mastery even if your movements are rather subpar.”

“How on Earth do you know all this stuff?” I ask quizzically, he shifts uncomfortably.

“Uhhh, I’ll tell you when you’re older,” he says unquestionably, causing me to pout.

“Gah fine, well anyway Gloria said you’ll be gone for a month because of work, is this true? And if so why haven’t I heard about it?” If before he shifted uncomfortably, now he’s shifting to the point where he’s straight up leaving the area.

“Hey!” I yell running up beside him trying to look him in the eyes, which is slowly averts, “You keep leaving for longer and longer lately, what’s going on, seriously,”

he suddenly stops, and puts on his usual act, performing an overly dramatic sigh. “Haaaaa, sorry, I know you’re not really as close with the other kids’ cos you’re a bit more mature, and even so, I can’t tell you, not yet anyway,”

Oh shit this actually seems pretty serious, he may be playing it off as a joke, but I can tell that he’s being completely serious, I feel like I’m freaking out, he’s literally my only friend in this world. He stops, and scoops me up into a hug, “Awww come on don’t cry, it’s good to know at least some one will miss me if I die,”

Realising that I started tearing up I feel embarrassed, why on earth am I getting so emotional, he’s going away for only a month, I just hope nothing happens.

“Just, just be safe ok,” I stutter before I escape his hold.

“Ha, so you can be a kid sometimes… Well I’ll be fine, I couldn’t leave you and the other little goblins,” he says as he flicks my forehead while smiling reassuringly, “well, I’ll be off then, don’t burn down the place while I’m gone.”

“See ya,” I say half-heartedly as he starts walking off while waving to me, sighing I wave back then return inside.