Rewards galore

Once he finished up creating all three spells, John got another popup.

Psychic Connection attunement increased: Attuned to Arcane magic, Psychic connection levelled up

For a moment John did not understand why Psychic Connection had levelled up, until he remembered the level task for it was to gain an Arcane spell through it. At first, this came as a surprise to John, but after he remembered he had no other way to learn spells, it made sense to him.

He then took some time to look through all of his spells to check their categories and discovered that the vast majority of his skills were in the “Gamer” category and that only the skills he had now obtained were in the “Arcane” category. The others, namely Psychic Connection and Modify Emotion were in the “Psychic” category. Beyond that he found nothing else of any significance, and decided to instead go play some video games as he usually did on school nights. He did so until his parents had returned and it had become late enough that he needed to go to sleep. He headed to bed shortly after he had realized that. However, that was not before he could become annoyed with himself at failing to realize a system to limit his creation of skills would exist, given how easily he could seemingly make them. If he was right to assume Psychic Connection had helped him create those skills, the obvious implication was that it would no longer be able to do so.

When he woke the next morning, he was met with a collection of different popups.

First day completed: First phase completed. Information will no longer be displayed above other people's heads

It was a strange popup to find first, but it seemed reasonable that his game-esque powers would have some sort of tutorial. It seems like he had finished the first part of that. Soon enough, he got another one.

The second popup reminded him of something he had forgotten in the chaos of the previous day. It was the fact that at the beginning of the day he had gotten a quest. That popup, however, made forgetting that quest a worthwhile sacrifice, as the achievement it gave him allowed him to never forget a quest again and gave him some more stat points as a bonus. His wisdom, which had now increased by four points since yesterday morning, finally changed drastically enough that John was able to sense the difference, his thoughts were clearer and more focused than they usually were and he remembered more than he ever did before. Interestingly, the popup also seemed to taunt him, and in that taunt was an indication that someone was definitively creating the messages that he had seen up to now, and that it was not just random chance, although John still wasn't sure who that was, and to him it still seemed likely it was his own mind.

The third gave him XP for completing that same quest, as it was now handed in automatically by the new system he had unlocked through the achievement. It was not much, but it was the first XP he had gotten all day, and John was excited to see what new quests he would get now.

Next, he got another achievement, which marked him finally completing his first quest. It had also apparently unlocked a new quest screen and the retroactive giving of quests for the day made John even more excited to see what he had gained.

‘Maybe I’ll even go up a level,’ John wondered, ecstatic at the interesting concepts now opened to him, and somewhat comforted by the way he now had something guiding him where before he had none. Up to this point, John had been worried that even with the skills he had gained, he would be unable to defend himself anyhow because he was just too weak, so to him, this seemed the solution to that problem, he could do quests to get stronger now, and there was less chance he would be unable to defend himself.

After he had looked at the quest screen, he was hit with six popups indicating the acquisition and completion of the retroactively given quests which he had already finished, and three more indicating the new quests he had gotten. All of the quests seemed interesting to John, but strangely, they all seemed to be based on goals he had set himself, and not goals from whoever had created the system.

First, he got a popup for a quest he assumed he would have gotten first, one he was actually overjoyed to see completed, as it confirmed his suspicions that he had both found evidence for magic and found people with direct ties to magic, or possibly even ones with direct access to magic. How many he had apparently found, however, utterly befuddled him, as he had apparently noticed four people with ties to magic, instead of the two he thought he had seen.

A moment later, John got exactly what he wished for earlier, a level up.

You levelled up: you are now level 4, +5 stat points

John, obviously wanting to spend those stat points, opened up his character sheet for the first time since yesterday morning.

At first John wasn’t sure where to place his newly acquired stat points, so he thought on it for some time.

’Perhaps I should put those points into my Strength or Endurance stats, to increase my chances of surviving a fight if somebody physically attacked me,’ That was John’s first line of reasoning, his second, however, convinced him much more than the first one did. ’No. If someone magical attacked me, even if I was average in Strength or Endurance that wouldn’t help, I need to up my Intelligence so I can use Arcane Bolts to fight them off,’ His second line of reasoning was much more intelligently considered, but it was too reliant on far-off things to convince John for now, as he had a third line of reasoning. ’I should up my Charisma, that way I could probably still get out of some situations where I would be attacked or in danger, I won’t horribly fail at the date today, and I might just make it through questioning Rave or Moira for information,’ John concluded, deciding to up his Charisma, as it seemed to him the best course of action. When John did so, he changed, his whole posture, the way he walked, all radically evolved from those of a socially awkward nerd to those of a somewhat less socially awkward nerd. John did not notice this, but what he did notice was the cherry on top, a notification he got after upping his Charisma to 10.

Charisma raised to 10: Passive skill “Gravitas” gained

Gravitas was a particularly interesting skill to John, weirdly, it seemed to John to not be entirely positive, though it could definitely be used that way, it was not entirely positive because it was said to increase the impact of all of his actions and interactions, presumably, that meant both positive and negative ones, so he would have to be more careful with what he did from now on. He would find it easier to do so now, however, as while he did not notice that his Charisma raising to ten had any effect, his mind had already adapted, his newly heightened Charisma allowing him to understand what was appropriate and would work in social situations much better than before.

Now that he had finished applying his stat points and looking at Gravitas, he returned to looking at the quest popups, of which none were as beneficial to him as the first one was.

John felt his heart start to beat more quickly when he saw that quest, but a moment later, when he got the quest completed popup, he had relaxed.

John’s mind once again turned to Alice, this quest represented his success in courting her for the first time in his life, and he would always treasure it. He had gotten another 150 XP from the quest, which also excited him for the other quests even further, as they would probably give him yet more XP, eagerly he continued onto the next popup.

That was the final quest John had seen on the completed column in the quest screen, but now that he saw what the rewards for it were, he became extremely excited to see what the effects of the level ups were going to be. He was also comforted by the fact that both his defensive and offensive capabilities would be getting an upgrade, even if he had done very little for it to happen.

As he expected, after he saw the quest complete screen, he saw two popups indicating the level ups of his skills. The first was for Arcane Bolts.

Arcane Bolts level awarded: Arcane Bolts levelled up

While it still cost the same, the newly levelled up Arcane Bolts was now much better, doing about double the damage and allowing him to manifest up to twelve bolts at once, plus it seemed that the level task remained as he had gotten a level from outside that system.

The second popup held much the same for Arcane Barrier.

Arcane Barrier level awarded: Arcane Barrier levelled up

Instead of becoming more powerful, the level for Arcane Barrier made it much cheaper to create and also made it cheaper to maintain, it also gave him some more distance to play around with, after he had looked at both of the skill popups, John returned to look at the popups for the final three quests he had gotten.

The first quest was one that made a lot of sense to John, as he had wanted to find out who had done both of those things anyhow, and the reward for the optional objective was too good for him to pass it up even if he didn't already want to complete it.

The second quest was one he was anxious to complete but also very scared of, as he still did not know almost anything about any of the people that he could use to complete the quest, and would have to be very careful when attempting to obtain information from them. John wondered what skill it would give him if he found out what or who Gaia was, and also wondered why finding that out was so important as to be placed in the same position as general information.

'I am curious about it, however, and if my brain is the one creating those quests, it would make sense for it to want me to find something out that I myself am interested in finding out, although how it could give me XP in that situation is an interesting question,'

The third was one that while John would love to finish, but he was fairly nervous about, as he wasn’t sure how the date with Alice would actually go. What especially interested him, however, was what item he would get if he was able to kiss her.

Pondering it for a few minutes, John’s eyes began wandering around the room. He soon saw the clock and realized how much time had passed. It was already twenty minutes past seven. He rushed to prepare for school and went downstairs, knowing he would be late otherwise. Once he was there, he grabbed some of the food his mom had made and started eating it hastily, until a few minutes later when he had to hurry to leave the house in order to catch the school bus. When he got on the bus, he first saw that Frank was strangely missing, then he looked for Alice and found her sitting in one of the seats near the middle of the bus with an empty seat beside her.