Chapter 11 Max
Just outside the border of Ansterial City, beyond the highly guarded gates and walls that circled it, laid a long grassy plain. The breeze caressed the grass down and up the tall hills, which scattered without care through the scenery. The gushing of the Mential river and the cries of animals of the Agil Forrest combined to form the natural harmony that has dominated the plain for centuries. However, if you focus, you could spot a foreign noise. This peculiar sound disrupted the order and sanctity of this natural haven. What was that sound, you may ask? It was low and grumbly, loud, and then sometimes low. It was a sound that did not belong there. If we carefully pinpoint the sound, we can spot a little wooden house closely tied to the southern wall of Ansterial city. The little make-shift house shook and waved with every breath of the wind, almost collapsing under its own weight. Inside the triangular house, whose walls were made of dried sticks and the roof of leaves, laid curled up in a ball, a young man of 25 years of age. He squirmed and kicked as the strange sound manifested from his abdomen.
"
Awww," said the young man."William, I could really use some pasta right now."
"I don't blame you, It's been three weeks since we have last eaten" William said1" Still, it's really interesting how long we've survived eating nothing, could this be connected to dragon sages and what that armored man said?"
Max once again squirmed and clasped his belly." Dragon sage? Does that taste good?. Maybe with a side of rice and ketchup." Max said.
"Not to mention we still don't understand this world operates and how-"
Max jumps up, almost hitting the top of his home. "AAAARG, I can't hold on any longer. I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse." Max said, pacing towards the entrance. "I'm going to get some food"
"Wait, and how do you plan to do that?"
''I don't know, maybe someone inside that city could give us some chicken nuggies or maybe a triple dairy sandwich,heheheh," Max said, wiping the drool off his face.
"How many this do I have to tell you before you get it through your thick skull? We can't get closed to people or else they'll disappear ."
"Disappear? What do you meeeean? I've never seen someone that just vanishes."
"Just trust, for now, we have to lie low before we understand what is causing that phenomenon"
"Maybe I could be of assistance."Inside Max's mind, a distinct voice, chimed in. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Master William. My name is TerraBot and I'm your assigned assistant."
"Woah! You are new. My name's Max. Wanna be friends?" Max said.
"Wait, so you can hear me now?"
"After carefully calibrating your brain waves and pattern, I can now safely interpret to 100 percent accuracy your thoughts."
"Look at that William! The new guy can hear you. Now you can also make some friends. This calls for a celebratory luncheon for me. Let's go," Max said.
Max crawled out of his little house and brushed off the dirt and grass that clung to his clothes. He absentmindedly inspected the towering wall of Ansterial City. "Now, where is that hole again? Don't wanna deal with those guards again," Max mumbled to himself.
"Max, I told you to wait. You could hurt someone," William said.
"Whaaat, but I wouldn't hurt no one. Not even a fly."
"You might hurt someone unintentionally."
"What do you meeean? Come ooooon, I'm hungryyyyy"
"Maybe I'll be able to explain," said TerraBot.
"Yeah, tell him, new guy, a person cannot possibly expect to live without their pasta"
"Shut up Max. Can you tell us what's going on?"
"Gladly, as a matter of fact, I have been silently waiting for the opportune time to explain my purpose and how to use your powers effectively"
Max plopped down on the floor, sulking silently. He entrained himself to thinking about dogs and why they smell like cheese.
"If master William or Master Max would kindly say the word 'Menu', a user interface should appear. This would make the explanation more simple," said TeraBot.
William noticed that Max's thoughts were already miles apart from the conversation. He decided that if they were to survive, He would have to take things into his own hands. Following TeraBot's instructions, William forced Max's mouth to say 'menu.'
"Hey, what was that for?"
"Shut up"
"You big bully"
As TerraBot had explained, a small, square window appeared in front of Max. In the window, William could see that it was divided into two separated windows. The widow on the right displayed Max's full body, along with a list of words and numbers. On the left side, there was a tree-like chart with locks.
"Wow, that's so cool! How did you do that, William? Man, I look so old." Max said.
"If you could direct your attention to the right side of the window, you can see what we call Master William and Max's physical attributes. They are directly tied to every aspect of your body, so increasing these attributes or decreasing them will cause the enhancement or depletion of said attributes." TerraBot said.
William and Max read the following attributes: strength: 50, agility: 20, perception: 0, charisma: 0, spiritual gathering: 500, and luck: 10. As they surveyed the attributes, he notice a small box with numbers. It was blinking, and it had a header which read: "Unused points."
"What's unused points? "William said
"Very observant, Master William. Those points are used to enhance attributes or unlock new skills. "
"Unlock skills?"
"Yes, if you look on the left window, you can see your skill tree," TerraBot said.
Beep
William looked at the skill tree and saw that at the top it read Dragon sage. The entire tree was greyed out and locked except for the first two words on the top which had the title "Dragon soul" and "Increased spiritual gathering"
Beep
"For the moment, you only have two skills opened. However, as you unlock skills, more will become available to you."
Beep
"I see, so it's kinda like an RPG game. "
Beep.
"Yes, the office has been experimenting with different approaches regarding increasing survivability with our clients. You are the first to test our newest model, which takes inspiration from several video games."
Beep
[Ding!]
[Your points have been attributed]
[Current Balance: 0]
"Huh?" William said
"Huh?" TerraBot said
TerraBot and William had been so engrossed in their conversation that they neglected poor ol' Max. bored out of his mind, he played with the shiny window that had magically appeared out of thin air. Before Max knew it, he was amused with all the buttons and flashing, causing him to click more.
"Max…" William said.
"Yes, William?"
"What did you do?" William
Max shrugged"I don't know"
William looked back at the right side of the screen and found that all the unused points were gone. With a sense of dread, William looked at the list of attributes. Strength: 0, agility: 0, perception: 0 ,charisma:0, spiritual gathering : 0 and luck: 100,000.
"You… You.." William.
"What?" Max said
"Why did you waste all our points on lock?"
"You know, um, like Mom used to say, 'If only I was lucky enough to find a sugar daddy, I can leave this deadbeat.'So I thought if put all those point thingies into luck, I could get lucky and find a 'sugar daddy'. I like sugar and I'm hungry"
"You… You.. Yo-"
"YOU IDIOT," TerraBot said. "Do you have any idea what you have done? Not only did you waste all the points, but you also decreased
your other attribute in the process."
"Woah, new guy, you're gonna pop a vein if you don't calm down."
"Wait, what are you talking about"
"Look, your strength went from 50 to 0. "
"A-And.. " William said, hoping that the sudden realization was just a dream.
"Without points, You guys are weaker than a newborn baby."
"No, no, no, no. This can't be. Can't reverse it? Like, reduce it again?"
"You can not do that until you gain more points. Until then, the system is locked. There's nothing we can do."
"Why would you build such an inconvenient mechanic!!!!" William yelled.
"It's still in its early stages, okay!!"
"William relax, we just need to gain 1 point, right? I can't be that hard, right?" William said.
"…"
"Please tell me is not that difficult, for the love of all that is holy, tell me it's easy."
"In this world. Everything is made of spiritual energy. How one cultivates and stores said spiritual energy is then converted into energy by the inner core; In our case, points."
"So we just need to gather some energy right. How hard can it be?"
"Master William…"
"Don't tell me, TerraBot"
"Please look at the spiritual gathering attribute…"
"Please tell me this is all a joke"
"With that level, your spiritual gathering is that of a worm. It would take a million years of gathering to get one point."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"