But who cares about that? John has experimenting to do.

John's bus ride was relatively uneventful; he had sequestered himself away, so other than reviewing his stats he didn't have much to do. Thankfully that gave him plenty of time to think about what he wanted to do. It seemed like levelling his mental stats were going to be key - he wasn't sure exactly how the physical ones scaled yet, but if he could get smarter, that would be a huge advantage in life in general, and if he could boost his Charisma he could always become a politician if all else failed. But if he boosted his physical stats he had no use for them that he could hide. Sweet talking and deceiving others was one thing, but if he started lifting cars and tanking… well, tanks, he wasn't sure how long it would stay a secret.

John kept his head low and made his way toward his first class of the night, with little else to do at the moment and hoping that he might unlock more achievements or even get a quest from his first class. As he passed people in the hallways he tried to Observe as many people as possible that caught his eye, mostly the cute girls and the few guys he knew on sight. Most of the information he got was pretty basic. Names that he already knew or didn't care to know, a few tidbits that didn't help him and that he forgot pretty quickly anyway, and levels. The levels were interesting; there was more variation than he thought, and it didn't appear to be tied solely to age. He saw about thirty level twos, a few level threes, and one level five - that was Saria, the soon-to-be prom queen. How she got such a high level he wasn't sure, but if he took a guess all her points were in Charisma. She had half the guys in the school wrapped around her finger… including John, if she'd even give him the time of day.

That didn't actually matter to his abilities, though, so John discarded it for now, making a mental note to watch out and see how many other high-level classmates he could find. First, he had to worry about Chemistry. Honestly, John had no desire to go into any field that was related to chemistry, so he was a little tempted to skip the first day of the class - especially knowing the teacher was probably just going to spend thirty minutes learning everyones' names - but he decided that it was for the best to go anyway. He was running down his mana by Observing so many people, and a little rest and relaxation was exactly what he needed, even if it was going to be boring as all hell.

"Good morning class," Mr. Newin said. He had been John's teacher for Biology last year, and now he had to repeat the misery that was the drone of Mr. Newin's voice. He could've been teaching a class about how to become a professional Gamer and he would've probably put everyone to sleep. Needless to say, as they passed out the textbooks, John found himself desperately wishing he had thought to keep enough mana to entertain himself.

"Well, I can observe items, right?" John thought, idly glancing at the textbook. Having already used Observe on most of the people in the class he was interested in, John went ahead and used it on the book, more out of habit than any actual reasoning.

Do you want to learn "Chemistry Fundamentals?"

John blinked, a little caught off-guard by the pop-up that showed the name of his textbook and asked if he wanted to 'learn' it. He wasn't expecting to see something like that, so he almost instinctively reached forward and pressed the "Yes" button out of sheer shock. Immediately pop-ups bombarded him.

Learned "Chemistry Fundamentals!"
+5 INT
+5 WIS
+25 EXP

Achievement Unlocked! "A Scholar in the Making!" ~ Learn the contents of a book.
+5 INT
+100 EXP
+1 Free Skill Point

Skill Unlocked: Elemental Control Level 1.
Elemental Control: Allows control over the four basic elements - Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. The Gamer can control small amounts of each element in offensive, defensive, or constructive purposes. The amount of the element that can be controlled and the degree to which it can be controlled scale with level. Mana Cost: 10/Second while actively controlling the elements.

Skill Unlocked: Crafting Level 1.
Crafting: Allows crafting of basic objects utilizing normal materials. Also allows the deconstruction of objects to obtain crafting materials. The amount obtained will be less than the amount required to craft the object originally. The kind of items that can be Crafted or deconstructed will increase with this skill's levels. Mana Cost: Based on item Crafted.

"Holy shit," John said, barely keeping his voice to a whisper in his shock. That was a lot of stuff from one book - he noticed his mana had depleted massively as a result of learning it, almost empty now with only enough left for a single additional Observe, but it was clearly worth it. He could control elements now? That was serious - that was a game changer. Almost as much as converting damage he took to hit points. If he levelled up that skill, what could he do? Summon tornados? Erupt volcanoes? Make himself immune to fire, breathe in water, the limits were endless if the power was as general and powerful as it seemed to be.

And as far as Crafting, he had to think that there was something more to that. How would he craft? Did he do it physically, and the ability just told him how? Judging by how his inventory and other objects worked with this new power, he was inclined to think that it might actually just create it for him. If it did, that was awesome - and who knew what kind of crazy stuff he could create with this!

To his surprise, though, when he actually opened the textbook, the entire thing was blank. From cover to cover there wasn't a single page with anything on it. John glanced toward the front of the classroom, unsure what to do. Would his teacher really buy this?

"Uh, Mr. Newin - excuse me, but mine's blank," John said, holding up his book and spreading it wide to prove that he wasn't lying or playing some kind of a prank.

"What the- well, I'll be. Must have been a printing error, ran out of ink or didn't get put through the whole process. I'll get you a spare."

"Thank god I didn't try that halfway through the year," John said, making a mental note not to ever use that power on anything he had to replace or return. The library was definitely out of the question. The bookstore, on the other hand, apparently contained the secrets to all kinds of power and knowledge…

Surprisingly, when John received his next copy of the textbook, he found that he could almost quote it. Not quite, of course - but as his teacher was going over the Table of Contents he found that he knew all of the information before the older man had even listed it off. He could even give a summary of each chapter, and knew most of the vocabulary too…

A chill ran down his spine. Yep, he was definitely right to be cautious about the game affecting his mental stats - because if it could instantly teach him an entire book as well as if he'd been studying it all year, he couldn't afford to underestimate it.

As soon as the class let out, John was the first person into the hallways. He needed to figure out what he was going to do with these new abilities, and to do that, he needed to experiment. By the time class let back out, he'd gone over the things that his new achievements got him - the increased Intelligence and Wisdom scores he got not only increased his mana pool, but also his mana regen, leaving him with almost fifty mana after his rampant Observe skill usage earlier.

John locked himself in the bathroom near the gyms, remembering that it was unisex and only meant for use by one person at a time. As soon as the door clicked he turned toward the center of the room and raised up a palm, trying to imagine summoning fire into his palm, thinking about his skill. Nothing happened the entire time, and even when he thought about the skill's name it didn't work. His mana hadn't even gone down, so he hadn't been using it at all.

"It's not supposed to be this hard," John muttered before catching himself. It would be awkward if someone heard him talking to himself like that from outside… so, in silence, John tried a different element. Earth didn't work either, though he thought he at least felt something move, though his mana remained untouched. Then, John tried air.

He hadn't been picturing much, just a swirling mass of air in his palm, so when a swirl of wind combined with the dust in the air and blasted him, he reeled back in surprise. It wasn't painful, just sort of unexpected - the wind swirled for a moment and then exploded outward with enough to actually make his shirt move with the wind, and even rattled the door a little.

"Woah, that was-" John tried to come up with a word and found his vocabulary sorely lacking. John checked his mana and noted that it had dropped to almost 40 - he'd drained a lot for a very minimal amount of effort. He was still excited, though, and his eyes turned to the sink with a glimmer of hope. It seemed like the element had to be present, so if he focused on swirling water in his palm…

"Water, do your thing!"

John's lame shout aside, he felt pretty good as he reached out his hand. So he was surprised when nothing came out of the sink.

He was appalled when water started floating out of the toilet, moving toward him eerily quickly.

"Oh, jesus, no!" John said, recoiling from the incoming water. Despite that it started to creep towards him for another few inches before all of it dropped to the floor at once, splattering. There wasn't much, thankfully, but John still grimaced as the water splashed onto his shoes.

"Ugh, okay, have to actively stop it too, I guess," John muttered. These toggle abilities were a pain. Sure enough, when he checked his stats again he realized that he was completely out of mana, and that was when the water had finally dropped.

"Never thought I'd be grateful for a low mana pool…"

Still, despite his… failures regarding this experiment, John had to admit that it had its upsides. He knew now that he couldn't create elements from nothing, and that he couldn't manipulate elements strongly enough yet to bypass even small barriers. Meaning that if a faucet was off, it was staying off. Perhaps more importantly, the ability targeted any source nearby, even if it couldn't reach the one he originally intended. Hence, toilet water.

So, maybe John wouldn't be spraying fire from his hands any time soon, but he could probably-

The bell ringing to alert everyone that the next classes were beginning went off, audible even from the bathroom. John cursed as he made his way to the door, hoping that no one noticed him coming out and the mess inside. He had better things to do now than spend his first week of class in detention. Besides, now that John had experimented with his new abilities… he needed to regen some mana. Art class was up next, and that was being taught by June Summers… the hottest teacher in school. All he had to do was sit back and daydream for a while, let his mana build up, and when he got out of class he could start experimenting all over again.