Matt ran through the city with his new agility. He was making sure he stuck to back alleys and areas devoid of people so that he wouldn't draw too much attention.
Every once in a while he had to make a quick change of direction to avoid sudden objects in his way. He was trying to save the shoe's speed boost to change direction for situations where it would be hard to dodge something.
As the buildings sped by, he kept receiving new notifications from his system.
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[Training Successful]
+1 Agility
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'That's the second time now. Not bad.'
Matt wondered why he was getting more agility now than when he was just delivering food.
'Maybe it's because I'm not only running but also dodging things?'
He decided to go with that for now. If that was the case, he wondered what other things might be able to increase his agility.
'Probably gymnastics and stuff like that.'
As he was lost in thought, he slammed straight into a street light pole. At the speed he was going, it didn't feel good.
[-6 HP]
"I really need to stop doing that!"
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[Training Successful]
+1 Constitution
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"Yeah yeah, I get it."
Matt waived dismissively at the popup, but he was glad his stats were leveling at least.
'Constitution would not be fun to train…'
He was glad he had more health now after his last level-up, so hitting the pole wasn't that big of a deal. He also noticed that it didn't feel as painful as falling out of the tree earlier.
'Is my pain tolarance scaling too?'
He assumed that was the case but he didn't know if it was due to his HP going up or his Con. He rubbed his face where he got hit and began to sprint to his destination once again.
He casually checked his stats on the way but made sure to stay more aware of his surroundings this time. He wanted to use this time to multitask instead of only sprinting since his hometown was decently far away and he would get bored easily.
He checked his system and started trying to figure out what he should prioritize.
'So I don't really know how much a stat evolution increases its effect, but it wouldn't hurt to aim for stat evolutions. Raising my stats is a decent idea anyway.'
He looked at the stat which was the closest to evolving, which was Int. It was at 18, so he decided he should focus on increasing his intelligence before the other stats.
'After 20, I'm not really sure what stats I should prioritize.'
He looked at his quests and was considering putting points into whichever stat could help him complete his current quests.
'One quest is to just reach level 5, so no specific stat matters there. The other quest wants me to compete in an event and win… Well, I guess it depends on the event.'
He thought about different types of events. He could always increase his strength and agility to compete in some sort of physical event like sports, a race, or something else. But also, if he invested points into intelligence and used his mind palace to study the relevant subject, he could win a chess event or something similar.
'I probably wouldn't even need to increase my intelligence for that. Mind palace would work well enough.'
He continued to consider his stats as he ran, and eventually, he was getting closer to his hometown and the buildings were starting to look familiar. He had lived there his whole life so he had gotten used to the layout of the town. Now it was starting to feel real, he was going to see his family again.
As he was running, he received another point in agility.
'Maybe I should've prepared what I was going to say? Well, either way, they'd be excited that I'm accepting their offer to pay for my college. So it'll probably go smoothly.'
He cringed internally thinking about the conversation even though he knew it would probably be fine. It would just be a bit awkward.
'Should I apologize?'
He wasn't really sure if his leaving warranted an apology, but everyone always leaves home when they're 18.
'I guess the last time I saw them we were fighting, so I probably should open with a sorry, at least.'
Suddenly he heard a strange noise. It sounded like the system, but nothing he had heard before. It was like a loud alarm.
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[Alert]
An unknown player was detected nearby.
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He stared at the notification with wide eyes.
'W-what?'
He remembered the headline he had read a little while ago, but he didn't think he would run into another beta tester that soon.
'Wait, if I was notified… Then they know I'm here too right?'
He thought about what he should do. If they are friendly, which is probably more likely, then he would have someone he can talk to about the system. But if they aren't, then he could die.
'Right now, either way, I should try to figure out where they are.'
He was wondering how he should do that and eventually decided to just look around. If they were hostile, he would run.
He started by walking out of the alley he was in. It was night so there weren't many people out. There were a few people scattered around, some enjoying the nightlife. A bar was close by, which is probably the main reason why this street wasn't empty. A car or truck passed by every so often, but the road was deserted of traffic besides that.
'They could be anyone. Isn't there a better way to do this?'
As he was trying to think of solutions, he remembered the map.
'That might just work. It showed me locations, so maybe it'll show players?'
He opened the map and scanned it to see if he noticed anything different than the usual location markers. And notice he did. But what he saw startled him.
He saw a large blue dot with an intricate design on the map and it had been moving slightly. But the moment he saw it, it turned red and started moving very quickly toward him.
'Shit! Maybe my location can only be seen if I have the map open?'
He felt like this was probably correct, or else why would they not have already been heading toward him?
'Also, why did it turn red?'
He very quickly got his answer.
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-[WARNING]-
Hostile intentions detected. PVP in progress.
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