Adam perused his character sheet, feeling a strange mix of emotions, the screen was at the same time completely new to him, but at the same time, he was sure that he should be intimately familiar with it. And on top of that something inside his psyche revolted at the thought of his very self being quantified in the form of numbers.
He could remember how he hated grades at school, how he hated his quarterly reviews at… whatever his current employer's name was, which were just another form of grading. His mood fouled for days each time a manager attempted to shoehorn his performance, qualifications and even his attitude towards colleagues into a set of hateful numbers.
In fact, he applied for a position with… damn the memory restriction, in large part because of the corporate culture. The Original Joel's company was well known for its unorthodox approach towards employees, requiring absolute loyalty, but in return rewarding them with unwavering loyalty of its own. There were moments when the company seemed more like a cult than a business, but the faithful had nothing to worry about. There were stories about cleaners having their private cancer treatment covered in full, and low-level personnel living in lavish housing.
The irony wasn't lost on Adam. He went through with the application to escape the numbers, but here his whole being was just that. Numbers. It was slightly different though, and that made it bearable. Here, he wasn't himself. His body was different, his life story was different, hell even his skills were different. In real life, he never touched a musical instrument, but here the system insisted he was reasonably proficient with a guitar. And quite good with violin, for some reason.
Anyway, it was time to check the damn numbers.
Adam F. Parsons
Age: 20, Human, male
Current health: 65%
Occupation: None
Statistics:
Strength: 50 (30) Injury
Intelligence: 70 (60) Medication
Charisma: 80 (30) Injury
Agility: 88 (25) Apparel
Vitality: 87 (60) Injury
Endurance 66 (20) Injury
Willpower 64 (64)
Active Effects:
Broken leg (injury)
Missing teeth (injury)
Cast (Apparel)
Painkillers (Medication)
Skills:
General/Adulting 75
General/Cooking 37
General/Driving 91
General/Cycling 78
General/Skiing 83
General/Swimming 66
General/Learning 72
General/Studying 45
General/Creative writing 47
General/Card games 84
General/Board games 90
General/Local knowledge 66
General/Reading 75
General/Car maintenance 50
Hobby/Papercraft 36
Hobby/Music knowledge 89
Hobby/Young adult culture 45
Hobby/General DIY 29
Hobby/D&D Player 50
Hobby/D&D DM 21
Hobby/Fantasy literature knowledge 76
Hobby/Race driving 15
Professional/Violin 88
Professional/Guitar 39
Professional/Programming: BASIC:Colorful Computer 10
Professional/Hardware knowledge:Colorful Computer 3
Professional/Hardware knowledge:Durian 1 1
Professional/Hardware knowledge:Durian 2 1
All other Skills are at default levels. For more information on the default levels for your region please refer to user manual vol. 5 p. 345-360.
Adam was a little surprised about the distribution of his skills, and despite his misgivings, he had to appreciate the character sheet. He was sure that in real life he hated fantasy books with a vengeance, preferring hard Sci-fi and inspirational autobiographies over pure escapism and piss-poor writing of dragon stories.
Here however, as he queried his memories a virtual deluge of information flooded his brain, and to his surprise he managed to find a few books worth reading, making a mental note to try them in real life just to verify whether they were objectively good, or his judgement was skewed by the system and Original Joel's memories.
Adam found another tab within the menu titled Assets. It was at the same time impressive and depressing.
Assets:
Chevrolet Monza (1975) - attention: No Title
Chevrolet Caprice (1970) - attention: No Title
Ford F (1969) - attention No Title
Dodge Dart (1961)
Volkswagen Microbus (1958)
Durian 1 Microcomputer - attention STOLEN
Durian 2 Microcomputer - attention STOLEN
Durian 2 Monitor - attention STOLEN
Durian 2 Disk Drive x2 - attention STOLEN
Durian 2 Tape Deck - attention STOLEN
Assorted tapes, disks and cabling for Durian Microcomputers - Attention STOLEN
Colourful Computer - Attention STOLEN
Colourful Computer 8-track Deck - Attention STOLEN
Assorted cabling for Colorful Computer - Attention STOLEN
Assorted user manuals and programming guides - Attention: STOLEN
It didn't look well. Half his goods had no title which meant he couldn't sell the cars, and all the computers had the warning that they were STOLEN goods in big bright red lettering. Fortunately, the warning was visible only to him, but if the Police got involved his so-called friends would be only too happy to pin everything on him.
On the bright side, Adam's broken leg was healing nicely, but his sprained ankles were a completely different issue. His bones should heal within six to eight weeks, but judging from the pain and the doctor's note he found buried in the wastebasket the sprain could bother him for months.
There were many more tabs available, though most of them were currently empty or held just one or two items. The most interesting tab was titled Research, and it had two subcategories Completed Research and Research Tree.
Completed Research held just a few positions:
Researched topics:
Fantasy
Role-Playing
Car racing
Music (general)
Music (guitar)
Music (violin)
It seemed that his Hobby and Professional skills translated into topics for games, but Adam found it unfair that even though his skill in board and card games was high, it didn't count as research. Slightly dismayed, he tried accessing the Research Tree only to find it locked.
Build a Research Lab to unlock the Research Tree window.
So this option was out, but the system wouldn't stop him from investigating issues the old-fashioned way, would it?
With nothing better to do, and the menu options thoroughly explored Adam went back to the manuals, raising the Hardware knowledge of all the systems to just shy of twenty points. Then he set up and played with both Durian Computers, breaking the magical barrier of twenty, but stopping midway to thirty.
Then he rewrote the Dragon Hunter for both computers, adding even more functions, discovering some small differences between all the machines. The differences were minimal and didn't much affect the game. However, he could already foresee problems in the future with more complicated projects.
You have unlocked a skill: Programming/BASIC:Durian 1/2. Current level 24.
You have unlocked a skill: Programming/Multiplatform development: simultaneous. Current level 15.
You have unlocked a skill: Programming/Multiplatform development: adaptation. Current level 8.
It was easy to unlock new skills in the simulation. Too easy almost. Adam raked his brain and never in his real-life did he learn anything that quickly, nor was he able to reason with such efficiency and precision. And as if by magic a prompt appeared mid-air explaining his doubts.
Learning process within the simulation has been accelerated by several orders of magnitude to decrease the total time of participation. Attention: it is unlikely that participants will retain any skills obtained within the simulation.
"Easy come, easy go." Adam summed up the explanation. It wasn't very likely that he would find any use for a forty-year-old programming language in his career, so he wasn't losing anything significant.