"Herregud! So this is what San Francisco properly looks like! So chaotic yet orderly, so ugly yet so beautiful! My kind of city"!
"Woof"!
After leaving the game store, RJ, Tatiana (Tatterhood) and Bellerophon the dog(goat) decided to take the sudden opportunity of freedom to look around Sam Francisco properly.
Well, to be more accurate, Tatterhood decided to drag RJ around as she explored San Francisco...part of it anyways. She had originally planned to drag him to explore the whole city, but he had managed to talk her down to at least the immediate area for the day due to still needing to go home at some point.
"Let's see what this town has to offer"!
That did not stop her from running around like a maniac.
*Ding! Ding*!
"Huh. The Cable Cars a bit smaller than I anticipated, but still have this timeless charm to them...reminds me of some friends...and myself!", Tatterhood commented with a mix of glee and nostalgia.
"Repent! Repent"!
"Hah! Bible-slingers! Seems like they always preach the same thing regardless of the century. Granted, they look a tad crazier and drunker than what I recall", she said with a laugh.
~La,la,la~
"Performers today are much better than what I remember seeing back home...course, they got nothing on old Orphy".
"As in...Orpheus"?
"Who else could I mean?", Tatterhood asked while looking at RJ like he was dumb for a hot minute. She then turned her attention to yet another sight.
As Tatterhood ran about and looked at San Francisco's sights, RJ took the opportunity to check on his newly acquired..."game".
"Okay, so opening the game doesn't just automatically teleport me to...I'm just gonna call it the WBTL..", RJ though to himself as he pressed on the app to reveal the game's menu.
The menu in question looked pretty standard for a mobile game, animated spell circle in the center, some side bars providing information such as time, energy and currency.
"Let's see here...'Home', 'Gacha','Soul','Quests' and...'Settings'? ... I'll just wait until I'm home to use that one", RJ thought before clicking on the tab marked 'Soul'.
The sidebars retracted to the sides as the spell circle changed color and three new options appeared on-screen: [Creatures], [Artifacts], [Self].
The first two options were self-explanatory, so RJ decided to skip those for now and go straight to the [Self] option. The screen shifted into blackness for a bit before presenting RJ with a profile screen for himself.
________
Name: Ronald Jacobs "RJ" Grimm
Age: 24
Sex/Gender: Male/Male
Abilities: Martial Arts(1), Geomancy(Dormant), Conjuration(Dormant), Model Making (2)
Level: 0
Unspent Skill Points: 5
Cultivation Path: [A Practical Guide to Summoning, Crafting and Geomancy] (!)
_______
Noticing the "!", RJ clicked on it, figuring if he had skillpoints, he might as well used them.
The screen shifted away from his profile to what appeared to be the same book that almost threw out his back. Upon closer inspection, he realized that it was decorated with three gems embedded in the cover: an agate, a piece of bismuth and an opal. Carved into the agate was the Chinese character for Earth, while the opal had a tiny spell circle carved into it.
"Huh...so the giant book was digitized into an e-book...neat", RJ thought to himself as he saw the book floating there in a loading screen-like manner.
A short animation of the book opening played, before switching to what appeared to be a void with three floating balls of colored lights. RJ guessed that they were the three skills that the book was dedicated to.
Rapidly clicking through them, he soon learned that most of the skills were completely blacked out or grayed out, and that some of the skills connected
Except for one branch in the [Crafting] section:[Model Making], which was already lit up.
RJ had mixed feelings about this discovery, but shoved it to the back of his mind as he looked at the skills he could unlock.
________
Geomancy:
[Stone Fist]
[Rock Shot]
[Earth Shape]
[Qi Flow]
_________
Conjuration:
[Spirit Sense]
[Item Call]
[Evolve]
__________
Crafting:
[Model Maker 2]
[Steady Hands]
[Sculpt]
About a crap load of other crafting skills.
__________
As RJ stared at the screen to determine what he should spend his skill points on first, he failed to notice Tatterhood stopping her sight seeing in order to sneak up behind him.
"Boo"!
"Ah!", RJ yelped as he fumbled his phone a bunch of times before he managed to catch it.
"Tatterhood! Don't do-" {Skills selected, beginning knowledge transfer}.
"Wait wha-Nyeehh", RJ managed to squeak out before the knowledge for [Earth Shape], [Sculpt], [Spirit Sense], [Spirit Call] and [Infuse] downloaded into his brain.
It wasn't a bad feeling per say, but it did tingle...a lot.