*Ding!
[The computer has sensed the character regaining his consciousness. Standby mode will be turned off]
[Switching to high performance mode... ]
Hyderus' eyelids opened a fraction; they were shaking as light pierced through the moist gap and gave blinding light to his two pupils; which immediately enlarged as the white ceiling of his bedroom swam into view.
He felt his eyelids heavy; as they opened and closed in a flickering movement at the sheer white ball of light in the middle of the whiteness of the ceiling.
As his eyes got accustomed to the familiar light after the many hours of darkness when they were closed; bits of blob and stickiness on his eyelashes had fallen into his eyes and made a kind of prickly and stinging sensation.
He blinked several times as his hands subconsciously went up to his eyes and started to clumsily brush away the inconveniences on his eyelids.
Unfortunately, that only made his eyes become watery.
It really felt like his eyes had some sort of sickness; because they became so watery, and with them came a tiredness sensation from the muscles around his eye areas; the veins bulging and beating so faintly that it could hardly be seen at all.
Although he could feel them.
And it seemed as if his veins would burst any moment from the intense pressure and migrain he was feeling at this second.
His hand initiatively felt his forehead; there was an abnormal level of heat imminating across his skin; which transpired to his palm and gave him the feeling that something was burning inside his head.
No matter what kind of attempt he did to make his condition feel just a bit better, they only succeeded in making his situation worse.
Plus; the revelation he came to that the sun had risen outside only made him feel a tug of regret as he had always wanted to wake up as early as he could.
As he was a perfectionist; trivilling things like this was a big problem towards his ego.
A psychologist once even said that Hyderus' perfectionist case was quite a rare one amongst other similar people.
If, for example, some things did not go as he planned or as he wanted them to; he would most certainly feel a kind of devastating pained regret in his chest that seemed to flare and burn his innards into a charred state.
In other words, to put it simply; from his perspective, the world seemed to end.
And all because he hadn't done a few unnecessary things that wouldn't have made a huge impact on him even if he did consistently keep them on his imaginary list of things he had to do.
It also had something to do with how those specific things in his schedule always had some kind of benefit; though only if he went according to the imaginary procedures contained inside it.
If he did not do as planned, then there would be a lot of things he would miss.
For example; the occurence right now.
He wasn't able to wake up early; so all those chances to do the early-waking-up procedures had been lost.
The time from around four o'clock to sunrise he had wasted for additional unnecessary oversleep.
And as of now, he could feel those feelings creeping up in his chest.
If he chose to not do anything to diminish this growing pain, who knows what would happen.
Fortunately; the psychologist also gave measures to counterattack.
It was time to initiate and instill a war against himself.
Hyderus smiled lightly at the funny thought.
To calm himself down; well, it was really just a simple matter.
One of the proven theories was to breathe in and out deeply while crossing your hands in front.
Then you proceed to swivel your head left to right; while taking in the atmosphere of your surroundings.
This way, his disarraid thoughts that could only think to deplenish this seemingly-called phenomenal feeling, would be distracted by the momentary focus to the environment.
Though because the effect would only be momentary, only by repeating this act would it be able to lead to the maximum results.
That was why repetition was also highly recommended.
There were other ways to calm his feelings down; but Hyderus decided that demonstrating this theory would be sufficient to him; at least for this morning.
Because his time was, of course, limited, which would also apply to everyone, he repeated this important action for only around ten times before proceeding to push his body towards a sitting position.
Evidently and inevitably, this was the time when he noticed the glowing window, that had patiently been waiting for him to wake up.
It was hovering comfortably over his head.
That was why Hyderus never noticed it until now; even though he had been turning his head left to right to 'Take In His Surroundings' just a few minutes before.
Now, how would someone with the unique characteristics of Hyderus react when they had coincidentally spotted a real-life status window first thing in the morning?
Well, it wasn't really his 'first thing' in the morning.
The status window conveniently moved to his front while slightly tilting upwards to face Hyderus' indifferent expression.
Why wasn't he showing any hint of expressions whatsoever?
Because, Hyderus had a minus five [-5] in terms of sight.
You might have not been able to guess because of how the narration in the previous paragraphs were put; but, yeah, he was a little close to half- blind.
Hyderus had had to strain to dechipher the vague outlines of the stuff inside his room. As, before, he was unwilling to put on his glasses yet.
Which meant that he had to focus more to be able to 'take in his surroundings'.
Then how would he read the system windows?
The answer was, of course, with the thick-rimmed glasses that Hyderus had put beside him after he did the last thing before bed.
What he could see was just a blurred rectangle outline that had indistinguishable words littering all over it in a kind of neat way.
He had thought that it was maybe some kind of blueprint for a house or an architecture. And that someone might've just carelessly left it on top of him while he slept.
Like, maybe, his sister's friend who wanted to become an architect?
Did she come to his room? Why?
No way. Not happening.
Like any four-eyes; as soon as he saw something that intriguied him while not wearing his glasses; his hand unconsciously started to brush the duvet covers as it felt for and tried to find the sighting-aids so treasured by, well; the glasses people. That is; Glasses.
He lifted them and adjusted the handles; making a clicking sound as he put them on.
A cold plastic sensation overcame the skin behind his ears as the light from the lightbulb and the morning sun went through the lens and was modified by the lens until it reached his evergrowing pupils.
The thing he saw through the thick lens was, least to say; surprising.
It made him recall as to what happened to all those MCs of litrpg novels in web novel sites that he had read.
And the cliche things that they did when they found out that they had gotten a system.
There was a status window in front of him right now.
Should he react like JunWoo? Or like a few other protagonists?
No. He had always been dreaming of what he would do if he were in a similar situation to them.
Did this mean that dungeons and monsters existed?
His life was going to change from now on?
No, no.
He felt himself being downcast.
Like as if his heart was falling down a hundred floors then continued to fall down the Grand Canyon.
He felt sick; his thoughts in disarray.
He desperately began to think up of unreasonable excuses.
Anything; anything he could think of.
Was there any possibility that this could be a kind of prank?
He grabbed his chest; pain.
He felt pain.
The penetrating feeling before flared up again deep between his two lungs.
It was burning.
fortunately, he was able to slightly deplenish the raging fire in his chest by counterattacking with the breathing excercises.
The repetition was also going quite good.
He calmed down.
The dull pain resting steadily in his chest.
Then his eyes moved towards the status window.
He straightened up and examined the contents.
Now that he had attempted to see clearly, he noticed that the window stretched down until it hovered over the floor tiles at the foot of the bed.
Why was the window weirdly long?
But before that, he had to confirm a few uncertainties that were currently circling inside his head.
He looked behind the window. Yes, it was confirmed. No kind of projector was projecting the tinted transparent window right now. Whether it was from those projectors that he had seen connected to a computer, or from any kind of mobile device.
He went back to his place. The window had actually followed his eyes as he tried to look behind it before.
But because he had just wanted to look to see if there was anything creating it from behind, and wasn't trying to see the back of the window, it didn't bother him much.
His eyes must have been integrated with some kind of system, that was why he could see the window.
And it was most likely that other people couldn't see it.
That should explain why his family wasn't crowding around him to determine what exactly the window was.
And why they hadn't tried hard to wake him up.
If they saw this kind of thing on Hyderus, they would have tried harder to wake him up to tell him about it.
As usual, his parents had had tried to wake him up before sunrise, but Hyderus was a deep sleeper and didn't wake up.
And now his parents had gone to work, despite the pandemic of the virus.
The university that his father had gone to work to as a lecturer had requested that their employees had to go to work in predetermined times a week.
The meetings and lecturings scheduled had enrolled.
But there were also online classes available.
His mother, on the other side, well, Hyderus didn't know much about her work.
He decided to stop thinking more about it and wished for their health.
Then he went back to his experiments.
The next test was that he wanted to see if he could touch it or not.
In the novel 'Leveling Up Alone', the protagonist couldn't touch his stat window.
He slowly raised his right hand; his fingers itching for the touch to the graphical window.
His palm was wet from perspiration, from the nervousness of what was going to happen.
His heart was beating uncontrollably, as it always did whenever he became subconsciously excited.
The fire getting big in his chest, lit up by something he didn't know.
His hand came closer and closer towards the window, until there were only a few milimetres setting them apart.
He touched the window with his fingers.
They plunged slightly inside like water as ripples formed and made the letters bounce up and down, following the tiny waves across the surface until it reached the edge and bounced back to his trembling fingers, repeating the action several times until it mostly died down into trembles on the surface of the window.
He felt a sensation through his fingertips so soothing and tranquiling he couldn't think of anything else besides wanting to feel it more and more.
It seemed as if the pleasure of the touch was travelling through his arms, making them tremble as the sensation reached his head and traversed into his whole body.
His problems forgotten, his pains forgotten, everything was forgotten as the tranquility washed over him like waves washing over the shore, bringing his sins and wickedness with it.
The waves also washed down the fire in his chest, as water would do to fire, leaving only the wet coal and wood as smoke rose up from them.
The blissfulness of it all made his whole body relax and his head looked up as his eyes drifted towards the ceiling.
It was a while before Hyderus recovered, as the sensation dissipated, leaving behind the lingering aftertaste enveloping around him like the misty fog outside.
He looked at the stat window again, still hovering in front of him at the edge of the bed tiredlessly.
The feeling of just the first touch was like that, then would he feel it everytime he touched the window?
He would just have to prove it.
The sensation overcame him again, but it was somewhat distinctably weaker.
He tapped the window again and again, each in different parts, and he could feel it getting weaker and weaker. He continued tapping until there were no more extraordinary sensations. Until it felt normal.
All this time, he had ignored the text typed on the window. It was not like the usual window that showed only stats, there were so many information in between that filled up most of the space, making the window stretch down to the floor.
He had been contemplating on something that had been worrying him, but even he himself had forgotten precisely what it was.
Or maybe he was just scared of what might be written on the window? Scared of the reality of it all? He wanted it all to be a game?
Were all those notes between the stats some kind of information provided by the system? If so, then it must be friendly. Not like the system in a few other novels.
Should he try talking to the system? But it had kept quiet all this time.
Or maybe the info he needed was already in one of those notes? Was there even a system and can he even communicate with it?
Hyderus started reading the text on the status window.
...
*[The computer has run a simulation code on the character using base stats. Stats are used exclusively to simulate combat. If the character attacks a monster, the computer will need a way to decide if he/she hits it, and if he/she does, how much damage he/she will inflict, and finally, it will need to check if the blow will kill the creature. That is why, to make these decisions, the computer has run the simulation code on the character. As in the statistics]
...
Hyderus had understood what he had to do. He tried asking for the computer.
'Computer. Remove the additional information.'
*Ding!
He flinched. The sound came from inside his head and deafened his eardrums.
[Processing...]
The young female's articulated voice was alluring, and Hyderus was consumed by it as the voice seemed to be coming from deep inside himself.
[Additional info has been removed. Restarting window...]
The window blurred and dissappeared before reappearing with renewed contents.
He readjusted his mispositioned glasses and made himself comfortable before advancing towards the inevitable future ahead of him.
________________________________________
[Status]
Name: Hyderus
Race: Human
Level: 1
Exp: 1/10
Class: None
Title: Code Assimilator
State: Assimilated
[Base Stat]
HP: 11
MP: 11
Strength: 11
Speed: 11
Intelligence: 11
Available points to distribute: 100
[Skills] - Open Specifications -
______________________________________
He had [100] stat points to distribute because of his default title 'Code Assimilator' and he already had a good idea of how to do it, though he wasn't really sure yet. He could ask the computer about it later. Because right now, he needed to get the 'beginner's pack'.
'Open [Beginner's Pack]'
[Opening...]
__________________________________
[Gift contents]
Gift 1 [Equipment starter pack] contains:
Weaponry:
[Item] The Goblin's Fiery Dagger -Show Info-
[Item] Steel Longsword -Show Info-
[Item] Steel Mace -Show Info-
[Item] Wooden Axe -Show Info-
[Item] Steel Reaper -Show Info-
[Item] Wooden Spear -Show Info-
[Item] Wooden Longbow and Arrows -Show Info-
[Item] Round Wooden Shield -Show Info-
Armory:
[Item] Leather Set of Armour -Show Info-
Gift 2 Potions -Show Info-
Gift 3 Gold -Show Info-
Gift 4 Food -Show Info-
Gift 5 [Unknown]
-Accept- -Decline-
______________________________________
The first impression he had gotten was that the computer or system was really kind to give a complete preparation for beginners like him, not like