Time to process.

It had been a long time since John had gotten time alone with his own thoughts. As he entered the utter silence of his room, the last weeks flooded back to him. In the quiet of his own mind, a violent riot erupted. Maybe it was searching for some reason as to why it had all occurred, John was entirely not sure. His thoughts only barely lingered on one thing at a time, as they raced towards some conclusion. Out of all those, he grabbed on to one. He calmed down and so did his mind, eventually. But that thought he had held onto left him off balance. It was a random thought, or so John wanted to believe, but it was one empowered by recent events. He lacked purpose before he joined the Abyss, and to a degree, he still did. He couldn't answer a simple question.

'Who am I?' he thought, again and again. Grasping for an answer as much as his mind did moments ago. It had been years since a sense of stagnation had stripped him of his identity, but considering himself to be the same old lonely nerd was true no longer. His time in the Abyss had changed him, given him a new purpose, and a new identity. He guessed it was his choice, if the Abyss let him choose. Suddenly, a pop-up appeared before him, interrupting his thoughts. Driven by it, he put it all aside for now.

'There's more time. I'm still new to this whole thing. I don't need to decide, yet...' John argued, and turned his attention to the pop-up.

Ok, that's quite enough ignoring popups. From now on, the only thing they're gonna be delayed by is combat.

That was the only warning he got before he was bombarded with pop-ups. By the end, his entire vision was full of them. They appeared in no real order, but the ones that ended up most prominent seemed the most recent, so John started with them.

The first one was his first achievement in a long while. The reward was quite welcome, as it gave a major boost to his MP regeneration, but the whole thing felt a little strange. It seemed to further indicated that a real person was on the other side of all this, and given what he’d learned of her involvement in his powers and from her single confirmed interaction with him, there seemed no other candidate but Gaia herself or at least none that he was aware of. It was obvious that Gaia was involved in his powers, but to what degree was she directly interacting with him, John still didn’t have enough evidence to determine. It was clearly not insignificant, but the reason for all of it was still a mystery. The achievement also indicated that there was more than one Mana type a person could have, given the main adjective.

’And now I have yet more questions. I’ll have to ask Ingrid about Mana types the next time I see her, but either way, I probably have access to the other answer right here.’

“Gaia? Is that you?” It seemed quite banal to be saying that into the void, but John got a message soon after.

You could say that.

That was all he was given. A straight answer, sure, but not a particularly helpful one.

“Are you talking to me directly now?” he asked, hoping for a response, but getting none.

He was about to move on to the next popup when his thoughts turned back to the unsolvable. His legs shook under him, and his head felt foggy for a moment. He was clearly more bothered by it than he wanted to admit. There wasn’t much to be done, but John sat down.

His eyes searched around the room for something to latch onto. He had looked around the room for the most part, but there were some things he had not noticed. On the other side of the room from the wardrobe stood a small dresser and nightstand, both being made of the same elaborate Victorian design.

He walked over to it, more wanting to distract his own mind than really curious as to what was inside. Opening the first drawer, he found several objects he didn’t recognize that seemed like small crystals of various colors. In the second was a gold pocket watch, with his initials carved into it and strange markings on the inner part of the case. This was all seemingly done with the same haste as the chair in the Council room. He quickly put it into his inventory for safekeeping, and in case it had some importance he didn’t know of yet. The next few drawers had various assorted items one could use. Such as a handkerchief and a set of colognes. None of them were important to John now, but it had all been a welcome break, and more than all, it got his mind settled again. With that relative calm, he moved onto the next popup, which was now on the side of his vision.

Guild Task completed! Succeeded in stealing the documents and taking out two guards.
400 XP awarded.

He was happy to see that he did indeed directly get some reward for his efforts from his own powers, but that was still not a large enough boost to level him up.

First Guild Task completed! You have defeated the golem and drawn the map.
400 XP awarded.

The next was more of the same, except for his previous task. That made him believe he would get more for any future task. That, along with another respectable XP boost, made him thank his powers for cooperating with his chosen path. After all, it was still not out of the question that he would have to go out of his way to level. XP is usually brought by relatively few things in standard RPGs, after all.

You levelled up: you are now level 6, +5 stat points

That was the most exciting popup out of all of them. He always needed more points, and by extent, more options. John decided he would assign them after looking at all of the other popups, however, just in case he got something equally interesting. So he quickly moved on to the first of a few more achievement popups.

It was quite strange. All of it. The achievements had been generous before, but the text was always… Sassy. This seemed different, somehow. It was more helpful, and it raised a good point, he still had no idea where that Golem came from. He thought about that for a minute before deciding to ask the others the next day. There was more than that, however, that was the third time his powers mentioned a “Guild Task”. John guessed it was some kind of new quest category, or some other mechanic he was not yet familiar with. He’d have to look into it later. In the meanwhile, he moved onto the next pop-up.

There was something about it, again. Gaia’s tone, if she really was the one writing this, was different. Her earlier comment didn’t really make enough sense to John for him to know that for sure. It could still be that his own mind was calling himself an idiot. For the moment, that sounded just as likely. Regardless, John was sure he would find that Charisma boost useful, and there was only one achievement left that he could see.

John felt like he was hit in the stomach. He had almost forgotten what had happened a week ago in all the events since, but that reminded him of it. A bitter taste entered his mouth as he read through the achievement. For a moment he wasn’t sure what the end was referring to, until he felt an unfamiliar itch coming from his groin.

Moments later, his pants became unusually tight. Even though he panicked slightly, he managed to figure out exactly what happened soon enough. It was a welcome gift, to be sure, but the reason it was “customary’ was somewhat more worrying. Not wanting to dwell in strange theories and/or the ability of presumably Gaia to physically change his body at will, he moved on quickly.

It definitely was enough. A completion pop-up soon followed. John was amazed at how much progress there was that he had just not seen. He was ecstatic, but also annoyed at his own stupidity for not taking some time to do this beforehand. He was still adapting, and this was definitely something to put higher on the priority list.

You levelled up: you are now level 7, +5 stat points

Another level up came along, and this was just as welcome as the previous one. John was excited with the prospect of getting stronger, given all the challenges he had faced lately. Nonetheless, he moved on. The next popup was yet another quest that got a completion pop-up straight afterwards.

Another pop-up for the quest’s completion came a second later, he had apparently gotten both objectives, which was at least good to know. That brought him back to the fact he hadn’t observed anyone yet. He still wasn’t sure how detecting magic worked, so it was a stupid risk to take, and he didn’t want to risk alienating any of the others. Nonetheless, it was prudent to learn how to hide his magic. Deciding to ask Ingrid about it as soon as he could, he moved on.

It was yet another interesting quest. The rewards made it very worthwhile to pursue. Even the optional objective would give him a full level of experience if he managed it. The advent of more guild features was also quite intriguing. Nonetheless, it would take some time before any of it would come to fruition, so he looked to the next popup.

Gravitas level task completed: Gravitas leveled up.

Gravitas continued to grow more powerful. Sadly, that only came with more risks. It made him nervous, as more responsibility that he had never bothered with before kept piling on his shoulders. Leadership required trust, he knew that much. That however, did not change his hesitation at the increasing weight of his actions being thrust upon him, it made him all the more nervous. That anxiousness quickly turned to exhaustion, as he had finally reached the last popup and his energy began to fade. It dawned on him now that he had not dealt with all this when he had the time, back home in Springfield. Things distracted him, of course, but that was a common occurence now. He swore to use the next break from the Abyss more wisely as he fell onto the bed and into a deep slumber.