You received one new message.

In front of Peter’s eyes floated a big blue box, with clear letters. Weed had no hallucinogenic capabilities. Peter wasn’t high, he smoked so little that the only effect was dulling his pain. No, this seemed real. With interest, he watched the incoming messages.

System message

Welcome to Aerb, humanity. This is a world filled with boundless opportunities. Make good use of them.

To ease the transition, guides are made available, think: ‘Guide’, to start.

Battle mode activated. Incoming messages and pop-ups are blocked

That explained why he didn’t see the messages when arriving here, on Aerb. Because directly when he got here, there was a wolf waiting for him. How it counted as battle, when all he did was run, Peter did not know. The next message was a logical one:

Battle mode deactivated.

He had to read that guide, and he would, were it not for the onslaught of messages that followed.

Skill acquired

Sprint

Sprint, a necessity for all those that want to run faster.

Increases sprinting speed by 1% per level

Common

Sprint leveled up.

Sprint is now Level 1

Sprint leveled up.

Sprint is now Level 2

You have been wounded.

-25hp

Intoxicated. Consumption of an unknown substance has caused:

-25% movement speed, -25% strength, +25% clarity, +25% pain tolerance

The pain tolerance was very helpful, but what Peter did not know was if the windows caused this, or this ‘System’, or if it was just the plain old weed. Either way, it did not matter, his pain had lessened considerably, and that was a good thing.

Skill acquired

Herbal Healing

Consuming herbs fasten the natural healing processes of the body.

Increases health regeneration by 25% while under the effects of herbs

Uncommon

Herbal Healing leveled up.

Herbal Healing is now Level 1

Skill acquired

Reflection

The user enters a state of reflection.

Increases clarity of mind while active

Common

This was crazy. This was absolutely bananas. Peter had to accept the reality, because it all felt too real. The weed could not stop panic creeping in. Eyes dilated, Peter thought: ‘Guide’. The guide contained a lot of helpful information, mostly stating that he was on Aerb, that every human was there, and that things worked differently now. He could gain skills, which would have an immediate positive or negative effect. It did not say how to get them, but he figured it involved performing action of some kind. After all, he got the skill sprint after sprinting. The most useful thing in the whole guide was however that he could think: ‘Status’, to get more detailed information. The guide was vague about what that entailed, but Peter as a true explorer thought Status as soon as he read that, closing the rest of the guide.

General information

Attributes

Name

Peter Vancil

Name

Value

Name

Value

Species

Human

STR

8

WIS

12

Sex

Male

DEX

7

LCK

3

Age

20 years

AGI

7

Health

100/125(+0.05/min)

END

5

Stamina

30/50(+1/min)

INT

9

It felt strange, seeing his whole existence reduced to simple numbers. Alien, even, he could not find himself in the simple blue chart that floated on top of his eyes. With a sigh, he resumed reading the guide. There was little valuable information left, only that he could turn on an on eye display, which would enable him to continuously track his health and stamina.

Peter thought about the attributes, according to the guide, STR stood for his strength. DEX stood for his dexterity, AGI for his agility, END for his endurance, INT for his intelligence, WIS for wisdom, and LCK for luck. Peter had a lot of questions for this so called system, he would love to know how in the world his luck and wisdom were quantified. When his health reached zero, would he die? Would he get stronger if he increased his attributes? If yes, how could he do that?

The guide offered no solace. Only the last sentence said anything about how he could get stronger, and it was quite a scary one. Absorb essence, and grow stronger. The guide, being as vague as it was, did not say how he could absorb essence. Oh well, that was for another day. Peter was tired, at the moment it looked like he would live, and he was safe on his sturdy branch. By a miracle, Peter managed to sleep.