Rest and Relaxation

As the world around John shifted with the spell and settled to reveal his bedroom exactly as he had left it, all John had the mind to do was to unequip his pants and shirt and flop into his bed, falling asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

John suddenly awoke, but he felt like he was supposed to remember something he couldn’t, but the feeling quickly subsided, and all was normal again.

Looking at the clock next to his bed, it revealed that he had only slept for approximately 4 hours

But John was still too asleep to focus or question that, but what he did see, once he sat up, was multiple achievements right in his face.

Suddenly realizing that this was indeed not a dream, he began the process of getting out of bed, reading the achievements as he did.

Achievement Unlocked: On the brink of life and ****
Suffer a near **** experience.
It makes for a grave affair.

+1 End

Achievement Unlocked: Baby’s First Boss
Slay your very first boss!
Well, it certainly doesn’t get easier from here.

+155 XP

Achievement Unlocked: Why are you hitting yourself?
Kill an enemy with its own weapons.

+1 Int
+1 Wis

Achievement Unlocked: A Moment of Clarity
Retain consciousness in a situation that would knock you out with willpower alone!

+1 Wis

Skill Transmogrified!
I’ll give you a freebie here so you don’t die horribly.

Meditation was reconfigured into: Machine Mind!

After finishing the achievements and looking at the skill, John thought, That should be fun, as he got dressed, and after he sat down at his desk, he finally pulled out the projector, book, and arm of the golem he had killed yesterday and inspected the objects in question.

While those items were certainly noteworthy, John was more interested in the skill book next to them and hovered his hand above it as a popup appeared.

Learn Introduction to Technomancy?
Yes/No

John immediately tapped Yes and was suddenly overwhelmed with information for what could’ve been anything from a few minutes to a few days. When his senses came back, he opened the eyes he hadn’t realized he had closed.

John searched inside his mind for a moment, familiarizing himself with the newfound knowledge he had just acquired. The contents of which was extremely varied, ranging from sciences such as physics, general knowledge such as the applications of mana and materials, to the physical and electrical capabilities of most base materials as well as some alloyed ones...

Shaking his head to get himself back on task, John looked up and was met with several popups.

Achievement Unlocked: Walking in the footsteps of the forgotten
Learn the first skill book in the beginning of a skill tree, good on you.

+1 Int

Suddenly feeling inspired, John stood up from where he was sitting and got his soldering kit that he had gotten at one of the many Christmases he had been through, thinking This was a christmas present from Dad before he… well, yeah, but I can’t believe I only used it a few times, I guess...

After John finished unpacking the kit on his desk, he took out the Golem Arm and got to work on the thing.

It took many hours, but after gutting the thing until almost nothing was left except a shell, John began to rewire it into something that would serve him better. It stored mana in the internal capacitor, which he salvaged from the arm, which allowed him to rapidly discharge the mana reserves at a moment’s notice. After turning the mechanisms for draining mana inwards to feed off of the wielder, he then installed the (on closer inspection very broken), mana projector into it to be able to project a weak but still protective shield temporarily.

The end result was a gauntlet of sorts, made from some sort of blue-ish metal. However, John now knew was just old, boring stainless steel after being exposed to mana for long periods of time thanks to the skill book. It had glowing blue channels which coalesced into two beads of luminescent blue energy, one in the center of the back of the hand, the other in the center of the palm.

John experimentally picked it up, put it in his inventory, and equipped it into his right hand slot. Noting how it simply just appeared on his arm, John raised it up palm first and attempted to summon a mana javelin using its power.

And he did summon one, faster than John could’ve ever done it by himself, and then the gauntlet promptly sparked and started to smoke.

Putting it into his inventory as quickly as he could, John immediately dismissed the Javelin and rushed to the window to open it before the fire alarm went off.

After he had opened all of the windows in his room to get the smoke out, he sat back down at his desk with a sigh and was met with an achievement.

Achievement Unlocked: Explosive Results
Ha, you totally blew it.
Have something you’ve made explode on you immediately after using it.
Here, I’ll be nice just this once...

+1 of whatever you need to repair the gauntlet

Sighing, John said, “Thanks Gaia. I know I suck, but hey, second time's the charm, right?”

John looked in his inventory, finding what mostly amounted to a lot of wires for the repairs, set down the fortunately no longer sparking gauntlet from his inventory onto the desk, and prepared to repair it.

Half an hour later, John had earned another level in Craft, which allowed him to create more complex items, and had successfully repaired the gauntlet. After rewiring it, he found that the issue was with a seemingly intact circuit which upon inspection was clearly faulty. He then took out that and replaced it with the spare Gaia had given him.

Flipping back the cover of the gauntlet, John equipped the thing once more and attempted to summon another Javelin while hoping with every fibre of his being that this wouldn’t explode on him or something.

Upon summoning the Javelin, John was met with a shock that actually hurt quite a bit, but thankfully nothing started to catch on fire.

John’s hand started to slightly tingle, and he noted a debuff that had been applied. He tapped on it, after which it expanded to give a detailed explanation

Slight Nerve Damage
Your nerves have been slightly damaged. As Gamer’s Body works on repairing them, you may experience some tingling.
Duration: 10 Minutes

Oh great, that’s fun, at least I have Gamer’s Body to help deal with that, John thought before looking at the clock on his bedside table and realizing that he should get ready for school before he was late.

John put his school clothes that he had soiled yesterday into the washer and dryer combo and equipped some fresh ones to avoid the inconvenience of having to manually put them on.

Gathering his school supplies into his backpack, he found out that it gave him 10 more inventory slots, but he had to use the bag normally, as to avoid people being suspicious of him not carrying anything around to school.

After eating some breakfast, John hastily made some lunch, which he put into his inventory for later.

John then walked to the bus stop, and once he was there, he experimented around a bit and found that he could manipulate the menus by putting a bit of mental effort into it. He also decided to use Machine Mind for a bit to familiarize himself with it and to get some experience for it under the pretense of looking at his phone.

Like the last time John had used it, it was almost as if he was opening another set of eyes he wasn’t aware of until now. Every single bit of technology around him lit up, and he could see how everything was connected through very small strands that bridged to almost every piece of internet connected technology he could see around himself, even the ones that were not actively being used, such as the phones and other devices that others who were waiting at the bus stop were carrying.

But it only lasted for a few seconds due to the mana cost, and abruptly, as soon as it had started, it had ended, and he was left just staring at his phone.

By the time the bus came around, John had exhausted most of his mana but was excited to start the new day with these powers.