4

As I walked and seamlessly integrated with the stream of Humanity I was bombarded with a stream of information. After being completely alone for 3 weeks I seem to have somehow forgotten just how loud, active, and smelly the environment could be. The footsteps and conversations of thousands washed over me, signs of all kinds advertised their wares to people that seem to have come from all over the place. I could see a man wearing a turban talking to a man looking like a actual medieval knight, while across the street was a dour faced bucket head wearing arbites with a hand on a shock maul watching the crowd stoically. The people all around me were wearing clothing in a vast variety of style, color, and extravagance in some cases which made me inadvertently think of the pink god with a shiver. There were also a bunch of people with cybernetics, and given that I came from modern day Earth I wasn't ashamed to admit I may have stared at them in both fascination and disgust, carefully hidden of course, when I first saw them. To actually have technology implanted into your body with surgery sent shivers down my spine. A lot of them were either wearing red, most likely Adeptus Mechanicus affiliated, or were dressed like fancy nobles with guards in tow, well dressed like nobles in comparison to the rest of the crowd who kept out of their way anyways.

I was certainly in some form of market district, likely one that caters to off world travelers considering the vast contrasting styles of the people in the area. This was great as it made me stand out less, even better was the fact that my eavesdropping skill was earning its keep as it rapidly leveled up as I walked by dozens of stores with people haggling in a variety of languages. This was a nigh ideal place for me to grind a lot of skills such as eavesdropping, stealth, observe, and learning various language skills.

DING!

Though the nigh constant dings from my system was a bit annoying. I gotta say though, no one really ever mentions just how weird it is to just suddenly KNOW things. Like for instance in between language levels I suddenly realized I could curse in 3 different languages in like 12 different ways when I had no idea the second before. It was a bit jarring but I found it helped to just ignore it and just not focus on it at all and let is kind of work like muscle memory after trying out a few innocent phrases like 'I wonder where' or 'Hmmm, that looks useful.'

I just kept walking through the district which was huge. I walked for a good 4 hours and have to reach the end of this market. I did seem to notice that the place is subtly curving though, was this market spanning and entire outer ring of the hive city? Looking up at marveling at the hive spire that went past the clouds I suppose it could very well be. Though it being a long walk was another good thing for me as that meant that anyone I did pass by will no doubt have forgotten me by the time I walk all the way around again preventing any suspicions about a frequently seen man walking by their store buying nothing.

Needless to say with the vast variety available to me, my Observe skill rapidly leveled up to the point that I could get some useful information from it. I looked at random worker #421 and mentally thought/activated 'OBSERVE'

NAME: TOC TIC

OCCUPATION:

GENDER: MALE

JOB: LABORER

TITLE: NONE

LEVEL: 25

NEXT LEVEL: 23.02%

AGE: 25

RACE: HUMAN

ATTRIBUTE: NONE

STRENGTH: 17

CONSTITUTION: 15

DEXTERITY: 10

INTELLIGENCE: 7

WISDOM: 7

LUCK: 3

STATUS: EXHAUSTED

EMOTION: JADED, LISTLESS

BACKGROUND: TOC WAS BORN IN THE HIVE CITY OF GOLGOTHA PRIME TO A PAIR OF LOVING PARENTS. TRAGICALLY HE LOST HIS PARENTS TO A ARBITES RAID WHEN THEIR BULLETS PENETRATED THE WALLS AND KILLED HIS PARENTS AS COLLATERAL DAMAGE. HE HAS GROWN UP ALONE AND MAKES A LIVING WORKING AS A MANUAL LABORER TO ANYONE WILLING TO HIRE A PAIR OF HANDS. HE WORKS LONG SHIFTS DOING WORK OTHERS WILL NOT IN ORDER TO MAKE ENOUGH TO SURVIVE THE WEEK AS HE MOVES FROM DISTRICT TO DISTRICT TO AVOID BOTH GANGS AND ARBITES LOOKING FOR WEAK MEAT. NOW HE CURRENTLY WORKS AS A MOVER, LOADING AND UNLOADING GOODS TRANSPORTED TO HIS BOSS' STORE. CURRENTLY ON BREAK.

So far from what I can tell the base stats for normal full grown humans range from 10-20, with those born gifted or trained having stats in the range of 20-30, while those who are both gifted and trained having stats ranging from 30-40. That is of course not taking into account augments and equipment or any other special circumstances which could raise or decrease stats. Like with the guy I examined he most likely didn't have a chance to be educated or have a choice on what he could do or figure a way out of his situation which explained his low intelligence and wisdom stat while his whole life could be summed up by that luck stat. Lastly, their levels seem to correlate with their age, on average people will have a level equal to their age with the people worse off having lower levels while those healthy and strong being of higher levels even if their stats didn't truly accurately reflect what they could do. All of this followed a chain of logic that made sense to me as only I was under the Gamer system where my physics was overwritten to follow video game logic. This meant while I could use the information from observe as a general indicator of the capabilities and threats of other people, I couldn't treat it as gospel, as Humans are always full of surprises.

I kept on walking, making sure to always stay moving with the largest stream of people away from buildings or transport systems. Listening, walking, OBSERVING. As I walked I occasionally took a few breaks hanging out on the wall whenever I saw a shop with something interesting. I cast observe on all of their goods which ranged from anything from food to vehicles, giving me a good standard on which to compare other things down the line to make sure I wasn't being ripped off when I finally had money to buy stuff. Also, some shops had security systems which let me know just what exactly I had to watch out for in terms of surveillance. The cameras reminded me of CCTVs and some even had skulls with red lights in their sockets watching the customers, creepy.

Taking another break on a empty stretch of wall I decided to enter the HELP Menu to see what else I could do with the Gamer System.

'HELP MENU' I thought to myself

I entered the HELP MENU, which gave me access to a list of commands I could use to access the additional functions.

Character Sheet

Inventory

Skills

Relationships

Map

Party

Options

Gacha

I was quite happy to see that the Party function was included as that meant I could possibly train up a squad of space marine level companions if I ever found any that I could actually trust.....which meant that I probably was never going to use that function considering Chaos, psykers, and the Inquisition being a thing. Fuck.

Meanwhile, the map function was much more currently useful as it recorded everything with a 30m radius of me leaving a clear indication of where I had been and what I had passed as it also recorded the name of the stores I passed next to easily identifiable icons. It even had a toggle-able icon legend letting me pick and choose what I could see with a search bar at the top in case I was looking for somewhere specific.

Other than that the Option menu only had a few things in it, mainly sound, notifications, and surprisingly enough Hotkey controls. Seems I could create a custom hotkey, either a gesture, command, or a combination of both to use a skill or spell or even a chain of them. That would be very useful once I had more skills or spells to use as it meant I could rapid fire things one after another without thinking. I could probably do all of Overlord's buffing scene in less than a second. If I went down the wizard route anyway, gotta make sure that doesn't open me up to the Warp.

The sound option funny enough was to control the level of background music and whether or not I had subtitles. Both of them were set to default off and I didn't bother to change them as they would just be a distraction. The background music option had a list of recorded background music from areas I passed through, so at least I would have some sort of entertainment if I ever had to take a long trip or do a stakeout.

The notification option though that had more than just setting how the notifications would act both in and out of combat, it also included how I would control the other functions, mainly if they would be thought, voice, or touch based. I immediately set them all to be thought controlled as I couldn't ever guarantee I would be able to be speak or move should I ever needed to use my system.

I quickly checked through the other functions to see the changes to my stats, skills, and empty Gacha ticket indicator, ignoring the question marked relationships as I lacked the information to figure them out besides just keeping an eye out, before pushing off the wall and continuing my walk in the ocean of Humanity.

For hours I casually walked, witnessing everything from slaves to nobles or noble servants moving around purchasing goods and moving items. I eventually got a notification that I maxed out in LOW GOTHIC, and several other planetary languages. That was going to be very helpful in the future no doubt about that. I also kept an eye out for more alleyways especially those near guards as those should have less criminal elements inhabiting them hopefully.

During my long ass walk I came up with a plan. I needed to acquire some gear, which meant I needed to either make some money or make it myself. My crafting skill was pitiful right now as I lacked sufficient quality materials to make items to level it up quickly. However, my inventory held the solution. It had a recycling function.

I could recycle items in my inventory into raw resources and base components to be used to craft other things though at a last of like 33% if I judged the mass of rocks I recycled from my failed stone daggers right.

The one thing you can count on from a city is that it will generate huge amounts of wastes. All of those wastes could be collected and recycled easily by me. I just had to find out where all those wastes were going and intercept them before they end up in the Underhive where the scavengers and gangers would fight over them. The only reason no one at this level would actually scavenge from here is the guards, and they are not prepared to watch out for someone of my skill level. After all if someone is on this level already they do not need to scavenge for some scrap. It's like expecting a guard watching out for gangers to try to detect a space marine scout infiltrator. Just way out of expectation.

That meant I could circumvent the security forces nearby and access the guarded alleyways and collect the trash. I had already marked several alleyways connected to shops that would most likely have to throw out some inventory or other things and marked alleyways near them that weren't guarded or had guards that needed to patrol multiple areas, leaving it temporarily unguarded.

I resolved to do that after doing the same to every area on my walk, until I either made a full circle, or I reach the point where I could go no further.

That came up a lot sooner than I expected as a couple hours later I looked up a large gothic structure that reminded me distinctly of a train station. Looking inside that looked exactly what it was and more. I could hear various transports leaving and see people entering and exiting large and small elevators. So this was most likely a transport hub to other districts and down the various lower levels.

Turning around I began walking back to the alleyways I marked, in a few more hours it would be around for me about 3-4 AM so most people should be either tired or unobservant from long shifts and there would be less lighting present in the alleyways, though there was not much to begin with anyways.

Reaching the closest unguarded alleyway I entered silently and scanned for any signs of surveillance equipment. The alleyway was dirty and smelly and devoid of people. Perfect. I leaned against the wall and looked back out at the slightly smaller mass of moving people. So many people even at this time of the night. Geez.

After making sure that no one was paying attention to me I looked around the alleyway to make sure there was no one inside and if there was nothing for me to collect. Nope nothing.

Looking up I see that I would need to make 3-4 jumps off the walls to reach the top, I begin heading deeper into the alleyways so no wandering eye would catch my blatantly inhuman feat and raise a fuss.

I soon reached a T junction and looking down the side alleys they also revealed to be absolutely devoid of people and cameras, perfect.

I bent down and JUMP at the wall across from me, then proceeded to kick off the wall to propel myself further upwards and kicked off again and again before landing on the roof of the building. Silently crouching low, listening, in case there was anyone on the roof or someone spotted me below and raised a alarm. A few moments passed before I relaxed and proceeded to scan the rooftops of the other buildings nearby, seeing nothing except various rooftop cooling equipment and towers.

Seeing the coast was clear I began running and roof jumping towards my target alley, easily clearing the space in between buildings like a bird. I quickly reached the marked alleyway and poked my head over the edge of the roof to scan the alleyway. It was a lot cleaner that the one I entered from and the guard at the other end was facing outwards. The other end of the alleyway was devoid of people as well. Even better was that there was a dumpster and from the looks of the partly opened lid, it was full.

Ugh, damn, now for the hard part, actually grabbing and touching the filthy, smelly ass trash. Taking one quick look again at the guard I proceeded to drop over the edge, landing on my feet silently next to the dumpster. I crouched down behind it and opened up my inventory, making sure that it was parallel to the floor so I could easily just drop items in and behind the dumpster so the light from putting in items would not alert the guard. I also stored away my jacket and shirt to keep them clean. I then held my breath (wait do I even need to breath anymore?) and silently lifted the lid hoping that the damn thing was not rusty and squeaky.

Luckily it was not.

DING!

Not now system!

Looking inside I could see a bunch of bags with bugs crawling over them. Steeling myself I quickly grabbed the bags and dumped them into my inventory as fast as possible, ignoring the disgust building up within me. I quickly cleared out most of the trash leaving the ones without bags and looked like they were not worth recycling enough to be touched and leapt towards the roof again.

I proceeded to repeat this twenty more times before calling it a night as the sun began to rise and hid inside a cluster of rooftop equipment which had surprisingly a lot of space.

I looked down in disgust at my arms as they were filthy and I had no real way to clean them. I rubbed them against the roof of the building to scrape as much of the filth as I could but even then it left a of stains on me. *Shudder*

Time to see if the fruits of my labor, opening up the inventory I began using the system to open up the bags of trash which instantly got sorted and added by the inventory system without needing me to take them out and put it back in manually. Nice.

Soon enough I had few pages full of damaged or destroyed materials and began sorting things out between recycle or keep as some items were worth keeping if I could repair them. I found a lamp, a case of a half dozen crumpled field rations, a few chits which were recognized as the system as valid local currency, a couple las packs, a chipped knife, what looked like a intact lasgun except it was actually just a toy model, a actual functioning if slightly scuffed las pistol, seemed like it was accidentally discarded given that it still had a half charged pack, and a few serviceable local style shirts and pants. The best things however were five dataslates that were still functional despite some damage to their casing and screens, even better was the notification that popped up when I touched the last one.

DING! DATASLATE FOR THE SKILL TECH USE (IMPERIAL) DETECTED! WOULD YOU LIKE TO LEARN THIS SKILL? YES/NO

Jackpot!