Learning the rules

Now that nothing was left to be done in the Barrier, John had to find a way out of it... but how? Well, when in doubt, try to get another ability to do what you want. And so he did just that, going into a small street between two buildings, he leaned against the wall and shut out the world, only concentrating on his breathing and the thoughts about the ability he needed. He was sure there was a limit to the abilities he would get with Meditate, but for now, it still seemed to work with supplying him with abilities for specific situations, so milk that skill as long as you can.

John concentrated on the thought of seeing the valkyries disappear from this Barrier. He imagined it being a dome of glass that he could shatter with the push of his hand, collapsing and reforming to the real world. And lo and behold he heard the DING in his head that he got something:

New Skill: Leave Barrier. Lv.1, 10 MP
Use this ability to try to leave the confines of any Protected Space. When successfully leaving, the MP cost will be refunded.
The Space has to allow leaving or has to be of equal or lower level than the skill user.

New Skill: Create Barrier. Lv.1, 25 MP
Create a Protected Space with random qualities. You can choose whether the Space should be hostile or non-hostile. In a hostile Space, you relinquish ownership of the Space to the strongest enemy. In a non-hostile Space, you are the owner and can leave whenever you want. Spaces will reset themselves after 1 x [Skill level] hours of non-usage.

New Skill: Delete Barrier. Lv.1, 0 MP
Remove a Protected Space from existence. You gain the MP invested in the Space. Only available if you are the owner of the Space

Huh, three skills for the price of one, nice. Although it made sense that he got these three together since they all seemed to pretty much cover the same subject... He would definitely use the Create Barrier skill soon to start grinding... but for now John just raised his hand in the air and used Leave Barrier while keeping watch of his MP to see if he actually left. That observation was irrelevant though as he got another pop up telling him, he did.

You have successfully left the Battle Barrier. You are now reentering (20s)
Reentering means that for the next 20 seconds, you will not be directly perceived by mundane individuals. Only physical contact will alert them to your presence where they will feel as if they were spaced out and bumped into you. Any damage to you or your gear will be noticed after that period

Okay, that was useful to know that he would not be noticed by 'normal' people for the next 20 seconds. So he quickly left the small alley and took in the sight before him. For one the street was indeed in a usable shape again, only damaged by the over usage of cars. Also, the windows of the corner shop were intact again, the ones Brun was flung through. Speaking of the Valkyrie, he could see a group of leather-clad models get onto a mass of bikes.

Among them he could see the unmistakable face of Brunhilde, winking at him while putting on a motorcycle helmet. Looking her up and down, he wasn't sure what he liked more: her battle gear or her current gear. Because where her battle armor was highly skimpy, this was a completely different kind of sexy. Right now, she wore a somewhat formfitting ensemble of black leather clothes. Black boots, a pair of black leather pants and a zipped up leather jacket that seemed like it hugged her every curve. It was fully modest, but it certainly got the brain running on about what was under those clothes.

Her motorcycle was rather on the nose when one knew about her other form because the mean looking chopper literally had her in her battle armor painted on it. On the one hand, that was super ballsy because that could expose her easily, on the other hand, it was incredibly cool because it showed how much confidence she had. However, she wasn't the only one with a Valkyrie version of herself on the bike. Almost all of the other ones did so too, except one or two, whose motorcycles looked very pristine though... maybe they didn't have the time to put them on yet, who knows. But there was one thing John knew: He really wanted a motorcycle now...

With a mighty roar of multiple engines, John was ripped out of his thoughts, seeing the all-female biker gang roll by him, some of them nodding at him and Brun practically blowing him a kiss... God, that girl knew how to play with him.

So now he was standing there, looking after a group of magical bikers that could turn into mythical angels, and the question he asked himself was:

What to do next?

He wanted, or rather needed, to get stronger, if possible as quickly as he could... Now, he still had some time before his mom would expect him at home. So how could he use that time to get better? He could just create a Protected Space and start farming, but that did not seem like the best thing he could do now... However, there was something else that he wanted to try.

He almost forgot about it with everything that had happened in the last hour, but now it came back to him: Before entering the Battle Barrier he had thought about if he could get skills from other books just like he got Biomancy and Augment Body from the biology book. Was it possible? If so, what were the specifics? Could he just take a chemistry book and get something like alchemy? That was a thought for another time, for now, he needed something more broad to get a proper base of powers or other abilities... like a character in an RPG...

That's it! Maybe he could use a video game or a rulebook of some RPG to get a broad variety of skills and spells? It was certainly worth a shot... and he still had an open order at his favorite game store. And thankfully, that store was not that far away from here! With barely contained excitement he went into a slow jog, already feeling the difference in Endurance only after a couple of seconds. For now, he could run quite a while longer than before, which was amazing in itself already. If that were how those points in Endurance affected him, he would have to take a look at how his Strength changed him with all the points he invested...

After a couple of minutes, he already arrived at the store, by now slightly out of breath but still restless. The game store was called "Treasure Cove" and had a paint job that made it look like a weirdly formed treasure chest. In the window of the store were different figurines from various video games and animes, there also was a large poster detailing all about the oncoming events of the store. Without much to do outside John went straight in.

The inside of the shop was designed a bit differently. Whereas the outside was designed like a treasure chest, the inside was designed like the bay of a ship, although it was heavily modified so that it made some actual sense for a store. It was split up into four different rooms that had a slightly different ambient to them. The first was the main room, where the cash register and the counter were located. Here were the card and board games located in various shelves. There were your standard games like Monopoly, Risk and the like, but there were of course also the more 'nerdy' games like Dominion and Zombicide. Behind the counter and inside it were all the different collectible card games that one could think of. Behind the counter also stood one of the only people John ever got on good speaking terms with, even though she was way older than him.

There stood an old woman, judging by looks probably around 75, adorned in some kind of pirate-inspired costume. She wore a typical pirate's hat, had a lot of chains and cheap looking jewelry around her neck and an outfit that practically screamed Pirates of the Caribean. With a simple smile John entered the main room and did a theatrical bow, "Good day, Captain Storm, I have come for my loot and maybe something that can bring me to more treasures." The old woman laughed and looked at John, "Greetings to you, Mate Newman. Ah yes, your shipment has arrived, I shall bring it to you at a moment's notice. What is this about other things, however? Should we deal with that first?" It was a bit of a game John and Captain Storm (Her real name was Mary Storm) played since one of the first times he had entered this shop. It was nice to see how such an old lady could handle pretty well with the much younger crowd she attracted in this store.

Looking around, John noticed that there was no one else in the store right now as far as he could see. With a nod, he asked the Captain, "Indeed, I'm in need of some roleplaying rulebooks. However, I honestly have never had much to do with those, so I might need some help with picking the right one." "Very well, I shall help you in your quest to find a book that suits your needs, let us go to the library."

And a library it was. From the main room, a small staircase led to a basement where all of the books were stored in long shelves along the walls and in long rows in the middle of the room. Aside from the bookcases the room was decorated like the inside of an old library with wood lining the walls and carpets adorning the floor. There also were a couple of armchairs strewn about the room so people could read the books they were going to buy. In this library, there was everything from fantasy books to mangas. Now that they were down here something nagged in the back of John's head. "Captain, is it okay if we go down here together? Wouldn't the store be unsupervised now?" asked John, slightly concerned about the safety of the store. "Ah, don't worry, I've got a new employee that should be there right about now. I left her a note telling her that I was here with you. Now then, what kind of RPG are you looking for? Fantasy, Steampunk, Urban Fantasy, or something else?" "Honestly, I don't really care about the setting... however, there might be a slightly weird specification that I want. I want something that really goes into detail about what happens in that world. I'm a bit of a lore nerd, so I really want to dive into the world when I start to play that system."

"Ah, that request is not that weird at all, I totally get what you want. You want something that can really take you to its world so you can feel like you're there. Off the top of my head, I'd suggest three systems for now," then they went to the shelves containing the rulebooks for them to sift through. "Firstly, I'd suggest to you a classic: Dungeons and Dragons. The world itself has been around for so long by now that it created a really rich lore that people can get into. It's pretty much the go-to system when you don't know what you want to play. You can't really do anything wrong with that one, though I might have some different ones that are more suited to your needs. This here is called The Dark Eye. It's a German roleplaying game that has been around almost as long as D&D; however it has two things that make it more suitable to your wishes: for one, the lore in that system is extremely excessive. They built that world more than two decades ago, and they update the lore pretty much every month with free newsletters that describe the happenings in the world. And second, it's very excessive in its dice system. It's more of a simulation with very tactical elements than it is a power gaming roleplaying game like D&D. Do you want to look through the core book a bit?" she asked. With a nod, John took the book that the old lady handed to him into his hands and acted as he looked into the table of contents.

When he touched the biology book, he instantly got a pop up asking him if he wanted to learn the skill but now... nothing... Maybe this idea was a bust after all? Damn it that would really put a dent into his mood. Sighing, he closed the book and gave it back to her with a smile, "This looks promising, but you said there was a third one you had in mind. Could I look into that first before coming to a decision?" "Of course, of course! Now, the third one I had in mind is this here," and she pointed at a very long line of books all with a weird worm-shaped symbol on them, "Shadowrun. It's not as old as both of the other ones but it has one advantage that both of the other ones don't have: It plays in our world, only sixty years in the future. The lore says that around Christmas Eve of the year 2014 a giant dragon came out of Mt. Fuji and started a new age of our world, a world where magic and technology exist hand in hand and pretty much everything you have ever heard of in some myth or legend came to Earth now. It's also quite extensive in its character options and its items. For that, we also would have some special Collector's Editions, and I know how much of a collector you are," she said with a wink of her eye.

John had the courtesy to blush and look away, "I do not know what you're talking about... but that sounds interesting, could I look into that?" He instantly had a book in front of his face, from the looks of it one of those Collector's Editions. Storm knew that she could trust him with her valuables and that he would treat them properly. Once his eyes fell on the image on the front of the book, he knew there was something drawing him to this book. There was this... pull, telling him to take the book into his hands. Reaching out with one of his hands he saw that the book instantly disappeared and that in its stead there were iron bars in his grasp.

What the hell?!?

"I knew something was up with you when you walked into my store today; you just felt different. Okay, who are you, what have you done with the real John and who sent you?" said a young and harsh voice. Snapping out of his confusion John saw that he was in a prison cell. The floor beneath his legs was just rocking back and forth... like a ship. The rest of the room actually did resemble a ship quite a lot... and it didn't resemble the basement of the 'Treasure Cove' at all... Just as he was starting to get confused, John got a pop up that ran a chill up his spine.

You have been pulled into a Prison Barrier
You can only leave once the owner releases you

Prison Barrier? Who put him into prison?!? The answer to that question was someone that made him practically drop his jaw...

Captain Storm