Scott took a deep breathe and inhaled the forest air. Immediately, his nose was awash with the telltale earthy scent of the leaf-covered damp forest ground. He looked above. The blue sky was barely visible through the dense canopy. He could hear faint twittering of birds. The buzzing of insects. The rustling of leaves in the trees. The corner of his eyes caught a rodent-like creature dash across the forest bed and scurry up a nearby tree.
The forest was indeed much different. It was teeming with life.
Scott's stomach grumbled in hunger. He glanced around but couldn't find any trees that bore fruits. He also had lost his sense of direction, and in the dense thickets he had no idea which way pointed towards the North. Well, not yet.
~Brianna, can you hear me?~
Several minutes passed, without a reply.
Scott had been told by the system that it would not be as talkative as before, but he did not expect radio silence.
'This isn't good…is it?'
~Brianna, can you please activate the…modules…you have?~
Again, nothing.
Scott decided to drop eloquence and take a more direct approach.
~Interface!~
A few seconds went by without anything happening, and Scott was ready to curse out loud and try out cruder means to bring his system back to life, when suddenly he heard a familiar voice in his head.
<<… Interface activating. Loading…attribute screen, level notifier, threat indicator, ability screen…>>
A blank screen, faint blue in colour popped up in Scott's mind. He could see his attributes listed on the left hand side, neatly arranged in a list.
Attributes
Strength - 16
Agility - 11
Dexterity - 12
Endurance - 18
Essence - 10
Recovery - 14
Vitality - 15
It didn't take long for Scott to make an educated guess on what the values meant.
'If I consider 10 to be the average, it looks like I have an edge in Endurance and Strength over others. However my Agility and Dexterity seems to be only slightly better, so I guess these are something I should try to improve. I do have more vitality so I guess that's the system's way of providing me with better regeneration from wounds than the average person. That certainly helps. Also, I have more than average Recovery….Hmm, I guess that's a byproduct of my Yoga and Tai Chi practice.'
Of course, at this point Scott knew this was all a conjecture. This values by themselves meant nothing unless he could compare them with others.
On the top right-hand corner of the interface in his mind, he saw a single word - Level. The value next to it was fluctuating. Scott could see the digits jumping around, increasing and decreasing randomly by single and double digits.
'I guess my level is being calculated.'
Scott waited calmly for the numbers to finally settle down on a single value.
Level - 12.
'Huh. I guess I'm not starting as a beginner.' He chuckled. Once again, he had no idea if that value was supposed to be high, average or low. He was counting on it being slightly better than average.
The right hand side of the interface suddenly lit up and he could see the word 'Ability' appearing, with three words under it.
Abilities
Resilient - Level 4
Hand-to-hand combat - Level 6
Polyglot - Level MAX
Scott's interest was piqued. He could make a faint guess about what those abilities meant, but he wanted to get more solid information about them. The interface however didn't have anything else written about them.
Scott decided to try something. He took the word 'Resilient' under the Abilities section, and tried to focus on itself. He saw the word glow briefly. After a couple of tries, he suddenly found a 'pop up' materialize besides the word.
< Resilient - The user has shown a penchant in taking punishment and enduring through the trials of pain and suffering. Each level in this ability increases Endurance by +2' >
Scott saw that his guess had been correct. He then proceeded to focus on the other two abilities he had, one by one.
< Hand-to-hand combat - The user is proficient in utilizing various combat techniques to subdue unarmed opponents. Each level in this ability improves the user's chances when fighting multiple opponents, and also increases the overall power and efficiency of his strikes and moves >
< Polyglot - The user can understand, speak and write all known languages of Athionia, which comprises of 14 major tongues and 23 regional dialects. It also involves 3 non-verbal gesture-dependent languages. >
Scott had a genuine smile on his face this time, especially when he saw the description of the last ability.
'At least I won't be killed due to miscommunication because of language barrier. Small victories, huh.'
He sought deep inside his mind for memories of new languages but couldn't find any. He could only remember the ones he already knew, back on his world. Back there, Scott was fluent in a number of European languages apart from English. He tried to utter a few words in German and did not face any trouble.
'One more thing to test out when the situation calls for it, I guess.'
On the lower part of the interface, Scott spotted the word 'Quests'. He used the same technique he'd used for his Abilities and soon, he could see a single entry listed in the pop-up that materialized.
Quests
Active (1) Completed (0) In progress (1)
Find the message of Hraxanthus
Scott tried to expand the quest title but all he found was the deity's message that Brianna had read out to him. There was no mention of any kind of 'reward' for completing the quest. It did have a set of co-ordinates in its details, like Brianna had mentioned. But like everything else, they meant absolutely nothing to him at this stage. Except for the vague direction he'd been given.
Scott couldn't find any signs of the Threat indicator, the other thing that the System had mentioned being loaded during the activation of the interface. After thinking for a bit, he surmised that it would probably show up when he meets another being.
Scott spent several more minutes trying to check everything nook and cranny of the already super-minimalistic interface he'd been given. He could not find anything else on it.
Scott couldn't find any signs of the Threat indicator. After thinking for a bit, he surmised that it would probably show up when he meets another being. Other than that, his interface had nothing else.
But Scott needed one more thing.
~Compass!~ He called out in his mind, in the same way he'd managed to summon the interface. He was hoping to get lucky again.
This time there wasn't any delay.
<<… Compass activated in the interface…>>
Scott was excited to see a familiar symbol appear at the top middle portion of his interface. It had eight directional arrows originating from a central point, four of those arrows thick and bold while the other narrower four lying in between them. One of the thicker arrows had an 'N' labeled on top.
Perfect.
Scott decided to head towards the compass-directed North for now, and see if he could manage to fulfill his priorities in the process. He had decided to leave the fruits of the forest alone for now, until he could spot birds or small animals eating them. He had enough knowledge about surviving in the wilds to not make rookie mistakes.