Slowly Adam opened his eyes to few vague shadows fleeing away through the murky water. For just a moment he simply stared. Not thinking, simply staring into the seemingly eternal darkness. A jolt of adrenaline woke him up from his daze as the events from before he lost consciousness came back to him.

Where Am I? Am I dead? Is this the afterlife?

He wanted to move but found his movement to be sluggish.

Water? I’m still in the water? AIR! I need air!

But to his shock he found himself breathing just fine. Instinctively he tried to hold his breath.

I need to find the surface! Where is it? I can’t see shit here!

Adam started to swim towards a random direction, but to his agony the only thing he found was a couple of small fishes. He looked at one of the small fishes and then he noticed something strange.

Huh?

Above one of the small fishes was a line of text.

Adam tried to touch the helmet on his head but touched his head instead.

If this isn’t the HUD’s doing, does that mean that there are random words floating around in this place?

He reached out his hand to grab the words, but the panicked fish scurried away and the words disappeared.

Wait! What am I doing? I need to find the surface! Why am I so calm? I’m almost out of air!

He tried to panic, but the instinctive fear that he felt started to seep away. Almost as if there was nothing to be afraid of. It almost felt as if he had been living underwater for his whole life . He unconsciously forgot to hold his breath so he started inhaling the water again.

I am breathing? That’s impossible: I’m underwater!

His mind tried to deny it, yet his body proved otherwise. His breathing started to calm down and Adam just floated there, astonished and trying to wrap his head around the entire situation.

Am I dead after all? Is this the underworld? Is this hell? Hell should be a little more.. severe, right? There shouldn’t be goldfish in Hell... right? Then I am guessing that this isn’t what comes after, perhaps this is some kind of weird property of the water in this dimension, I am in another dimension after all. I should try and find my way out of here before some kind of local underwater predator tries to eat me. But what way is up? Normally I should automatically start to slowly float towards the surface because of the air in my lungs, right? But my lungs are full of water. So I should slowly sink. So as long as I just hold still and don’t move I should be able to find the bottom right?

Trying to keep still and hoping that there weren’t any big predators at the bottom of this place Adam slowly descended.

Pressure Resistance has levelled up to Lv. 2

The weird text again!

Adam tried to grab it, but again he failed to and this time his hand went right through the text. Not much later the text just disappeared.

It's virtual? I can’t touch it? This is like the HUD, but I am not wearing my helmet. Is this also some kind of natural occurrence of another dimension? Furthermore, it said that Pressure Resistance has levelled up to Lv. 2. Does it have something to do with the pressure here? Actually, the pressure did lessen after the words appeared. It feels like the creator of this dimension is like a programmer who forgot to clean up his code. Assuming there is one.

While Adam lost himself in thought his head finally touched the bottom. Without much difficulty, Adam succeeded in positioning himself on the bottom and finally, after pushing himself off the bottom he swam towards the surface.

Swimming has levelled up to Lv. 2 Waterbreathing has levelled up to Lv. 2 Fisheye has levelled up to Lv. 2

Those notifications again. It’s like a game. Does whoever made this place like games or something? Although anything should be possible when jumping between dimensions, what are the odds for a dimension to be like a game from earth?

After swimming for what seemed to be an eternity Adam finally reached the surface. After finally breathing something else than water he looked around only to see even more water.

An endless expanse of water greeted his eyes. And with no other options, he decided to just start swimming one way.

After what seemed to be another eternity an exhausted Adam washed upon a shore.

Swimming has levelled up to Lv. 3

He ignored the notice; he couldn’t care less about this strange phenomenon at the moment. Exhausted he closed his eyes and fell asleep on the shore.

Hours later he woke up to an unexpected notification.

Skill gained: Poison Resistance Poison Resistance has reached Lv. 2

Poison? Adam wondered while trying to stand. But his left leg did not seem to agree with this action as Adam fell face forward in the sand as soon as he managed to stand up. Baffled by the betrayal of his own left leg he glanced at it and was met with the less-than-desirable sight of a white goo-ish glob sticking to his leg.

A jellyfish? Great, it must have been washed ashore while I was sleeping.

Cursing as if there were no tomorrow Adam kicked the jellyfish away with his still working leg which probably wasn’t the smartest of actions as he instantaneously lost the strength in his other leg as well.

With no other option, Adam decided to crawl upwards the shore as he refused to give in to a jellyfish.

What kind of crappy game is this world? What’s next? A status screen with all my stats?

Name Adam Xavier Witt Race Human(Evolution Requirements not met) Age 25 Status Hungry, Partially Paralysed(Estimated 10 minutes remaining) Titles Outsider, Survivor, Amphibious Classes N/A Equipment N/A Skills Skill book Body Swimming Lv. 3/10, Waterbreathing Lv. 2/5 Skill Book Assistance Fisheye Lv. 2/20 Skill Book Resistance Poison Resistance Lv. 2/100, Pressure Resistance Lv. 2/100, Cold Resistance Lv. 1/100 Stats Strength 7 Dexterity 6 Intelligence 6 Willpower 9 Vitality 9 Endurance 10

It seems something really did pop up. Really if I ever find the person who did this to this place I’m going to cut open his head to see what is in it. Since it acts like a game I should just interact with it like a game, right? So I should just click on something? How do I click? How did I even get to see the status screen in the first place? I .. uhm... thought about it? So should I just think about what I want to click on?

Rare title: Outsider, given to those who have transcended the bounds of time and space and broken through the dimensional barrier; An outsider to the world, increases the comprehension of the laws of time and space by 30%

It seems to work... So with that said I should just check out the other things too right. There might be a clue on this shit somewhere.

Common title: Survivor, given to those that escaped from the clutches of death, +1 endurance Uncommon title: Amphibious, most people simply drown but those that can overcome will find a new home in the water, +2 Vitality Rare skill: Waterbreathing, Allows one to breathe in water Rare skill: Fisheye, See through water as clearly as you see through air

Suddenly a black shadow came over his view and broke his concentration, slightly curious he looked up.

A dark-green rough looking skin; eyes as black as a starless night and a height of 120 cm(almost 4 feet). Its eyes did not look friendly and the wooden club in his hand looked even less inviting.

Although the goblin did not look particularly dangerous to a grown man, unfortunately for Adam he was half paralyzed, outweaponed and even outlevelled.

Ah, shit, fuck, no, don’t panic, don’t panic, stay calm, stay calm; let’s just calmly retreat.

A fuck it’s raising its weapon; I need to block it or evade it. Weapon, weapon, weapon, is there a weapon anywhere?

At that moment, while he was retreating, at the corner of his sight, lay a white goo-ish blob. His attention fell on it, he reached out to the blob, held it and instantaneously threw it towards the goblin’s ugly face. His arm went numb directly after, but the goblin was way worse off. The goo-ish dead jellyfish flew with a speed that would have required all of Adams strength and gloriously hit the goblin right in his face. The dead blob exploded on impact and the completely paralyzed goblin was down before all the drops of goo had touched the ground.

Skill gained: Throw mastery Title gained: Unconventional Stat unlocked: Wisdom

Adam looked at the drooling goblin that was laying in a puddle of white goo. At that exact moment, a high-pitched screech resounded and five small green figures appeared from some of the bushes beyond the shore. Adam knew he had to get away as fast as possible and started crawling towards the sea with his only remaining arm. Hoping the goblins would not pursue him underwater.

When the goblins had crossed half the distance Adam reached the sea and threw himself in the waves, or he would have done that if he could move normally. He looked more like an extremely desperate stranded whale doing its best to return to the sea.

As soon as Adam’s figure disappeared into the sea the goblins slowed down and gave up their pursuit. They were afraid of the sea as it had eaten some of the braver members of their tribe when they tried to leave the island a few months ago.

Adam was unsure if they would stop their pursuit so he kept crawling over the seabed for a while to be sure. After a while, he noticed that his legs started working again and not long after his numb arm also resumed its duty. He surfaced to find any traces of pursuers, but the little green men had not pursued him into the water and he saw the goblins staring angrily at him from a distance.

He grinned slightly before he saw something change beneath him in his peripheral vision. He looked down to discover that the ocean floor had become spotted with myriad whitish shadows.

Ooh, shit!

Jellyfish!