John Newman doesn't understand how to play the Game.

It started when he reached the second floor stairwell landing.

That's not precisely true. It started in the morning, when his arrival before the imposing hall of Ashcroft Academy was met, not with the indifference to which he had grown so accustomed, but the hushed gossip, the greedy eyes, the smiles and envy of the women and men whose names he'd never have known before today. It was merely an interesting phenomenon then: a curious coincidence of sudden curiosity, emanating from virtually everyone in the school. Cult of personality was going to merely make life at school a bit easier, a bit more likeable-

"H-Hel-Hello!"

Isabella Perez
Level 3 Nerd
HP: 20/20
A quiet second-year introvert at Ashcroft Academy who studies etymology. Has fallen in love with the Gamer since three seconds ago.
Relationship: +149

John still had one foot on the stairs when she came into view, and stared dumbly. She wasn't particularly striking in appearance: even if a bit skinny and plain, the thinly-rimmed glasses and wavy hair in a ponytail were a niche sort of cute, complimenting her swarthy features. It was more that she was utterly unknown to him; she didn't attend any of his electives, and was his senior enough to divorce the two from anything but a passing familiarity. Surely, she had no justification to be nearly completely head-over-heels for him, save that the calculations in his brain told him she was probably at -5 until she came under the influence of his new power.

"H-Hi?"

"Are... I know we just... I mean, I know we're not like..." She made confused hand gestures between them, alternating between squinting and giggling and looking away in humiliation. "... T-there's... there's a... nice restaurant. Yes! I mean, we should go- I mean, if you... want to!"

John did his best to follow her stuttering, broken approach, and noticed other girls at the landing... each one, in turn, slowing down as if to wait their turn, some even staring daggers into Ms. Perez. John looked at all their levels, and realized how quickly cult of personality was going to become a problem as the few became a few more on the landing.

"I'm... not sure what you're asking, but-"

"Please go out with me!" Isabella finally blurted... or so John thought, except the phrase had been echoed, near-simultaneously, by two other girls from the clutch that began to squeeze in around them.

"I-I was here f-first-"

"Yeah, but Newman is Vanessa's boyfriend!" one of them, a cheerleader, quipped.

"Then why the Hell are you asking him out?" asked a third.

"Duh, because cheerleaders get first dibs on the leftovers?"

"I-I-Is that a rule?!"

John shook his head. "Wait, is that a rule?" All three women, and the five that stopped to get in line behind them, turned towards John... and their relationship scores barely budged. Instead they each nervously laughed in turn, each one **** to not offend or alienate John... each one realizing they finally met "the one" for them. This is getting out of hand... I hate to turn it off, but there's no way to adjust it down or-

"So get out of the way, bitch!" the cheerleader finally huffed, shoving herself in front of Isabella. Daphne, as her information read, was known as "D-Cup Daphne" for being the third-most stacked cheerleader on the team. John soon confirmed it when she clumsily grabbed his hands and shoved them onto her tits.

John's eyes widened to saucers as he looked at all the other women who nearly became feral in response. "G-Girls, this is not-"

"Don't they feel nice?" Daphne cooed. "I know a nice little place where you can really feel them-"

"Out of my way, Barbie bimbo!" shouted a new girl, a tall Russian blond surging with enough muscles to intimidate John and certainly to peel off the shapely waif he was just groping. Her accent was almost as thick as her neck, the latter which flexed with visible arteries as she grew excited to be so close to the object of her desire. "You need a real woman, John."

Her name was Ayn Sharapova, and that was all John could read before she was upon him. She hoisted him up by his armpits, and John had to scream internally to keep from blinking right out of the situation just to get safe. Despite being level 7, John was evidently her type even before his new influence: she pressed his back against the stairwell wall, and then her torso against him, enough that he could feel that her sports bra was filled to burst. She had an fierce, bestial grin, and John was sure he was the meal to come.

"I-I mean, you're really... uh, pretty, but-"

"You American boys are so cute when you get nervous... and you get so nervous when you meet real women like Ayn," she whispered, licking his lips and the bottom of his nose with an almost inhumanly large tongue.

Despite her intimidating presentation, he was growing hard after all the attention he was getting... but he was far from losing himself when he heard than saw one the girls slap someone else in the crowd. Whatever (sexual) **** was about to be inflicted on him could be weighed on its merits, but John couldn't justify starting a riot; this had gone too far.

John willed cult of personality off... and the bodybuilder blinked at him before finally putting him down, withdrawing her hands with the appropriate level of embarrassment. Behind her, the girls had lost all interest in him and were now focused on breaking up a fight between Isabella and Daphne. Suitably distracted, with relationship scores now deeply settled into the negatives for all of them (except the Russian), John bolted into the hallway and towards Psychology.

Ten minutes later...

The Psychology class, as boring as it had ever been since he absorbed the text, was also blissfully uncaring for John's presence. He decided he'd keep cult off unless he needed it; in a world of mostly level 3-10s, he was bound to get noticed by whatever else lurked in or around the Academy if he was constantly stalked by a mob. The thought of such unknown enemies brought his thoughts back to his encounter. How the Hell did they even know to look here? The question had bothered John from the moment he understood how they spotted Tricia... and now that he was back to his relatively peaceful life, he had to find out how it had been disturbed in the first place. Moreover, if it was ever disturbed again-

It had barely been part of his train of thought, but still the moment **** its way into the present. John's hands began to shake as he remembered the feeling of an internal explosion, the violent end of his very core... his ****, as he was certain of it. It was traumatic in a way that most humans were never meant to survive to feel or recognize: the sudden, violent destruction of the heart, the expulsion of every artery, the cold that starts at the hot core of a man. It remained fear-inducing... along with Dell's expression when he withdrew his stump of a blade. I can't stay like this... a glass cannon, waiting for something to go wrong. What if I was a bit too slow with Talon, instead, or Tara?

He contemplated his physical stats, left to atrophy in favor of his love for his magic and his boost to being likeable... and eyed Endurance before rapidly tapping his book, striking the plus sign next to the stat until it approached 48. John hesitated. He still didn't know what this mystery quest was... what it would give him, or do to him... or even what the 50-point ability would be this time. If cult had been acquired now, in the middle of the room, it would be a disaster. It's... it's fine. This'll be the last one, right? I just need one more...

John looked around to verify no one was staring at him before he dared it.

Achievement unlocked! "You didn't hurt me. Nothing can hurt me"!
You've achieved an Endurance score of 50 or higher!
+??????? 5/7 Complete
You've learned Armor of Baldr!

New skill: Armor of Baldr lvl1, passive
Armor of Baldr: your flesh hardens reactively when damaged, granting [skill lvl x 3] damage resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage. This may cause damage to the offending object(s).

John checked his hands, and pinched the flesh to confirm it still felt soft... then he squeezed it, as hard as he could, still without a reaction. Looking around, no one had turned to regard him, and nothing he could see indicated that he appeared any different with the endurance boost. Slowly he exhaled in relief, and assigned the rest of the points to strength and agility, still motivated by a need to defend himself and nearly bringing agility to fifty as well. All that remained were his paragon points... and the motivation to forsake the trees he was already in, if only to grab even more damage resistance, was almost strong enough to break through his completionist nature.

"Mr. Newman," the professor suddenly declared, nearly breaking John's facade of academic focus, "does the infamous 'multiple-personality disorder' fall under the umbrella of schizophrenia?"

"No, Professor," John replied, though he might've answered in the positive before absorbing the book, for all that movies had taught him. "Dissociative identity disorder is distinct, though it may exist alongside a diagnosis of schizophrenia."

Tanaka pursed his lips, and smiled. "Try not to read too far ahead, Mr. Newman." The class enjoyed a low murmur of chuckling before the lecture continued.

John steadied his breath as he returned to his paragon tables. Paragon Mind winked at him with the two points he had already put into it, and that voice Tricia's new Eye had inflicted on his mind echoed in his memory. So I'm not perfectly immune to mind-control... so why doesn't it just say resistant or something like that? Doesn't make any damn sense... Seeing the other immunities he could gain from maxing it out, he put the last three points in, and watched as the mastered rune turned white, grew chaotic, plant-like roots of red light upwards onto the table, and eventually touched the two empty black squares above it. Each filled with an infernal rune, and John knew their contents in full:

ABYSSAL DEPTH 0/3
Increase mana gained per point in Intelligence by 2, and by Wisdom by 1 (Default: 2/1), and gain +100mp flat, per point.

HACK: ANALYSIS 0/3
1: Gamer's eye can now identify spells and skills of the subject.
2: Gamer's eye will reveal more private information than before.
3: Gamer's eye no longer has a comparative level limit.

He nearly put his points into the upper-levels when he realized he still had the other, burning questions in the Soul tree. Ruin had, ironically, saved everyone's life, presuming Tricia or Moira wouldn't have been able to finish Dell... and he had four more spells, just as ambiguously named as it, ready for the last four points he had. Whether or not he'd have to face anything "divine" was unknown, but he'd love to have more options when it came to pass. Slowly he tapped the entries, reading them in full before he moved on.

Empower, 0 to 999,999mp
Empower: choose any element of a physical target not reliant on an outside **** or presence. Increase (no maximum) or decrease (to any decimal value above absolute zero) that element. Results and duration are based on the distance to the target, potential harm to the target, visibility of the target, the mana spent, the time taken to cast, the prevalence of the element chosen, the number of mundane witnesses (who can perceive the change), and the degree of difference between how it was manifested and the limitations of the containing paradigm. Results diminish as extremes are reached. Base change is 1%.

Whatever ruin was to his fighting style or Fairy's spells, empower was to his augment/reduce abilities. John looked at shift on the list, and started to worry that it would just give him some inferior power to his portals and teleporting abilities, but resigned himself to at least one useless spell if only to get to those interesting-sounding spells at the bottom. Impatiently, he decided he take care of one screen before reading the others: he poured his remaining paragon points into Soul, and watched the same pattern occur as the tree expanded into two new slots:

LEYLINE CASTER 0/5
If in contact with a leyline, all regular spells reduce their mp cost by 10% per level.
If in contact with a leyline, all paragon spells become 5% more effective per level.

ABYSSWALKER 0/5:
Allows creation or violation of illusion barriers without permission or spells of up to 2 square miles per level, and as long as the original barrier creator isn't of a higher level.
1: Created barriers may contain monsters set by level, or be completely unoccupied.
2: Created barriers may feature time dilation, up 5^X% (where X is the level of Abysswalker).
3: Created barriers may feature a particular type of monster, instead of randomly chosen based on locale.
4: Created barriers may attempt to trap other material beings or specific entities within the Abyss, with success based on their paradigm and level.
5: Created barriers may include a partial breach, letting the Dream ravage the barrier.

John had yet to even find one of these leylines, presuming he'd even know what he was looking at when he finally did. John tapped on Abysswalker, wondering what the Hell it meant by the "Dream", a similar concept mentioned by Talon's trap barrier, but still he was availed no information. Satisfied, he went to his spell list, braced for Shift to be some kind of twist on his Spiraling Snake style.

Shift, 1,000mp
Shift: allows the user to step out of his universe and traverse the Outside. Shift protects the user from Outsiders and Outsider influence for one minute (falsetime) per cast while therein. User's return point in the real space (realspace) moves as time in the Outside (falsetime) progresses. Moving in the Outside (falsespace) corresponds to a different time (realtime) coordinate. Shift must be re-cast to either extend the time (falsetime) spent Outside or to return to the real world (realtime, realspace). If Shift runs out before being recast, user is trapped Outside until they cast Shift again, and without its protection.

... What the fuck...? John questioned the dangerous-sounding, expensive spell and its terms. The first line alone, surreal and unquantified, had only the slight tinge of blue on the word "Outside", indicating a tooltip. Curiously he pressed it, hoping for-

Aberun cotor tenari singular lie fici yegikien golice le fati si, ilepedeh gu movo cod ya disu awelot, osa elenisu ta opaque mirror yure catehe medat eya mad? Asihen urinugat tosu. Mereg ra anacono vebelif kalodir canufe fi ace. Amesetat afelep gnashing putu ha. Feyohie nin cal guhite tobepi ter tehun tara; we shall remind it to rot gosicec. Obipec hosare mother is dead enude runur seven mouths ti otu bepe tenipav ri.

"Mr. Newman," Tanaka stammered, as surprised as everyone else, "do you have something to add to our discussion? Surely you're not making light of the topic of schizophrenia?"

John was standing, wide-eyed, with his lungs aching after a high-pitched shriek that was still ringing in his ears. His heart was pounding as if ready to explode anew, a sensation that did nothing to calm the quivering in every limb as his knees felt like jelly. His vision had tunneled from anxiety, and only now did he manage a few haggard breaths. All eyes were upon him, now, and half those present were still reeling in the shock of the sudden scream while the rest laughed nervously.

John shook his head, offered some apology half-managed through his shaking voice, and sat back down, **** to be ignored. Sadly, he didn't have the opposite of cult of personality, and so even his newfound charisma couldn't save him from the whispers and quiet taunts from the fellow classmates he startled.

Why... why did I do that? What did I read?! John was sure he had seen a tooltip there, for the term "Outside", as well as some for "Outsiders"... but they were gone now, and the plain words there remained unexplained. He had... heard or read something, and it had come and gone with some awful awareness, something between grief and hate that had filled John with an unbearable burden. It had fled his mind, or his mind fled from it, and now he could no longer remember whatever insight he had so briefly gleaned from a tooltip that may never have existed.

John tried to relax as he sat down to look at his book... and blinked at the pop-up he found there.

Do not use the shift spell, Gamer.

What-

The pop-up vanished.

[The other two paragon spells earned:]

Chance, 0 to 999,999mp or 400mp
Chance: change the probability of an event in reality. Results are based on the distance to the target, complexity of the target, visibility of the target, the mana spent, the time taken to cast, the preponderance of necessary elements for or against the desired outcome, the number of mundane witnesses (who can perceive an unusual probability, when applicable), and the number of times Chance has already been cast. Base change is 1%. Alternatively, 400mp flat can be spent to reduce or raise a probability of a future magic spell's critical chance to 0 or 100%.

Restore, 0 to 999,999mp
Restore: heal wounds, reverse dismemberments, cure mental ailments, and/or restore the dead to living, with the possibility of partial success or failure. Results are based on the distance to the target, degree of restoration, visibility of the target, the mana spent, the time taken to cast, the possibility of a natural occurrence of the same, the number of mundane witnesses (who can perceive the restoration), and the time between the injury and this proposed remedy. Base values variable.