Level Up

Kai closed his eyes for the fall, not wanting to see the ground close in on him. He tried his best to fall feet first to keep his head safe, but the waterfall battered him every which way, making it a complete dice roll as to whether he would manage to keep his consciousness when he hit the water.

At the least, he took comfort in the fact that even if he got knocked out, his suiko adaptations would mean he could still breathe, and he knew that the kappa would pull him out as soon as they could.

Sticking onto that little bit of comfort, he felt himself crashing into something, then darkness.

====

He floated.

Floated in water. Not the water from the clearing – no, that seemed so far away, so distant. A blur. These were warm waters that beckoned to him, enveloping him in memories of a simpler time.

"It's over, Kai," came a defeated voice through Kai's headset. He sat in the cramped confines of his freshman college dorm room, leaning forwards on a rickety chair that had probably felt the asses of every single freshman ever that had lived in the room before him.

His eyes were glued to his laptop screen as his right hand became a blur, clicks echoing throughout the room as he moved his mouse every which way.

The bright and vibrant colors of Champion's Rift flashed on his screen, lighting up the dark room and highlighting the deep dark bags under his eyes.

Empty energy drinks stood in a neat formation behind his laptop, giving him the caffeine and sugar boosted high he needed to stay at peak sharpness.

"No it's not," said Kai flatly. He moved his character, a samurai looking fighter that functioned as a mobile damage dealer who, though low in health, had tools for both dealing and avoiding massive amounts of damage provided the player was good enough at timing abilities and smart enough to use them at the right moments.

"We're down five thousand gold and the only player on the team that does damage is you, and you get zoned out every fight. Come on, it's just a matter of time before they siege our base and break through.

It's been an entire hour of them squeezing us out of gold and objectives. Just surrender and save time."

"We lose this game and we get stuck in the loser's bracket," said Kai. "I didn't sign up for this tournament to be a goddamn loser. And neither did you."

"Dude, I get it, you want to win, we all do. But like, look at the situation, man. You should know when to give up. Unless you play fucking perfectly the next fight, we aren't winning. Let's surrender and get some sleep, plan out our next matches better, you know, do something productive?"

"I am going to play perfectly," said Kai. "That's the whole point, isn't it? Why the hell did you sign up and agree to be on this team if you weren't going to try and play perfectly?"

"That's-,"

"Quit sitting in base. You're the tank and initiator. Force the next fight and stop moping." Kai's voice gained an edge to it. "I didn't spent hundreds of hours on this game for a shitty surrender, and neither did you.

Get your head out of your ass and back into the game."

A voice reached out to Kai through the memory, grasping him and fishing him out of the sea of thoughts coursing around him. His system.

>>>

Host is now level 2. Authorizing deeper access into the Collective…

Authorized.

Host's personality and capabilities assessed. System calibrations fully completed. Compatibility increased. New functionalities based upon the host's personal preferences gained.

New Functions:

-Wording of power changed to mana as is appropriate for this world.

-The presence of a mana bar added ranging from 1-100 on a percentile scale. This will determine the primary resource with which magical abilities may be utilized.

-Analysis of the host's careful and observant nature has indicated the most benefit through the development of a 'Sense' ability. This will now go under a new section called 'Perks' in the host's status. All abilities created for the host by the system will go under this section.

By establishing line of sight, the host may roughly determine the 'danger level' of a being. Danger level is determined primarily by the level of mana within said being. Danger levels are determined from a sliding scale of 1-10 where 5 indicates a roughly equal amount of mana to the host.

-Due to improved compatibility with the host, an 'experience bar' can now be created to indicate host progress towards the next system level.

The system has attempted to create viewable stats based on strength, agility, and endurance in order to adapt to the host's game oriented mindset, but physical abilities are highly correlated with each other and the calculations required to accurately display such stats has been deemed too error and variable prone for consideration.

Updates to Existing Functions:

-Usable active bloodlines increased from 2 -3.

-Delay between switching from bloodline to bloodline reduced from three minutes to one.

-Minor general enhancements to all of the host's physical abilities.

The system will continue to observe the host and his progress, adapting to his unique traits and evolving with him. As always, the prime directive is as such: consume and adapt to survive.

====

He heard more voices. Loud ones. This time, they actually woke Kai up. He opened his eyes wide and sat up in an instant, his mind surprisingly clear. He looked around to see the kappa in a circle around him, looking down at him with clear worry that now began to turn into relief.

"Boss!" shouted the kappa in unison as Kai smiled at them, but not before taking the time to assess where he was.

From the looks of it, he was in the forest right beside the clearing. It was still night time, and it had not grown that much darker or brighter, meaning that time was roughly the same. If he had been knocked out, it had only been for a little while.

"Did you guys drag me out of the water?" asked Kai. He put a hand to the back of his head as he sensed out his body for injuries and found none.

From his status, he knew that his biomass stock had gone down. The system had auto restored him, and it seemed the injuries had not been too severe considering he had lost just fifteen points of stock.

The system was right about compatibility. The more he used it, the more of an innate sense he had of its functions. For example, he could grasp now that around ten points was needed to restore a major injury like say ruptured internal organs or a torn limb whereas five seemed to be general standard for injuries that hurt but did not put him down.

Ryo shook his head up and down. "We wait for you all day, boss! Worried about big yokai eating you!" He bowed. "Not to say you weak, boss."

"Don't hold back on telling me anything," said Kai. He stood up, willing the kappa bloodline out of storage now that he could have three active bloodlines. "I don't mind. Don't gotta be scared about me any."

[Warning. Once the maximum number of active bloodlines has been reached, replacing one with another in storage is a process that will take an hour.]

"Okay," said Ryo. "Then you fall, hit water, big splash. We hear big splash and we take you out, but you were sleeping. Big yokai make lightning fall, so we take you and run to the forest. Hiding now."

"Good job for taking me out of the water and getting everyone to hide here, Ryo," said Kai. He held out a fist to Ryo, and the kappa cocked his head as he looked at it.

"It's a fist bump. Um, humans do it sometimes. It's a sign of recognition. Like me telling you 'good'. We just bump our fists together like this-," Kai took Ryo's hand, balled it into a fist, and gently bumped it into his.

"Ohh!" said Ryo as he jumped up and down, excited. "Fist bump!" He began to hold out his fist to the other kappa, and they joined in with gusto, bumping each other's fists.

Kai nodded, letting the kappa have their fun for a bit before asking, "I don't hear any lightning anymore. Don't get a sense of the yokai's presence either. How long was I out?"

"Half hour," said Ryo. "Big yokai make lots of noise and fly around, even come down to water and hit it with lightning. Boom! Crack! Pshh!" Ryo shuddered in fear as he remembered. "But then big yokai leave. Go back up. Bored, I think."

"Big yokai give us scare, but also do good," said Aya. "Lightning hit water and make all the fish come up. Also kill the ugly hanzaki."

"Oh?" Kai immediately turned back toward the clearing, though it was not in sight now that he was in the forest. He thought it had been worth it just to even get the Nue bloodline, but he would not pass up a potential freebie either. "You sure the yokai went back home?

"Don't hear big yokai moving anymore," said Aya.

"But still be careful, boss," said Ryo.

"Oh, you don't have to tell me that," said Kai as he headed towards the clearing again, eager to see if he could pick up the hanzaki's bloodline.