Making New Skills

[3:30 PM, After school]

Sprinting home after the bell had just rang, Jee-Han wasn't taking any chances this time and darted as fast as he possibly could. He wasn't too keen on being trapped in another one of those barriers again and so he needed to get to a safe location on the double.

It only took a few minutes before Jee-Han was panting heavily, gasping for air as he had almost made it home. He cursed his lack of stamina and made a mental note to put some points into VIT whenever he got the chance and walked the remainder of the way home.

He sighed in relief as he was able to avoid any weird barrier things again and opened his door, greeting his mother who was watching her soaps again and headed upstairs to his room. He threw his bag over his bed and unbuttoned his shirt to inspect something he had been curious about. Even though he fell from such a large distance this morning and should have had some sort of bruise on his back as a result, it was completely void of any injuries and Jee-Han nodded in satisfaction.

This confirmed it.

He put his shirt back on and fell onto his bed, processing all of the information he had gathered today from school and his encounter with those two freaks.

Since he couldn't be bothered to actually pay attention in class, he redirected all of his attention into testing more things about his abilities and was able to confirm a few things.

First, if he repeated an action a certain number of times, he could get a new skill based on that action. Second, his physical body had become similar to a game character and had a "HP and "MP" bar that represented his life and stamina. This was convenient since even if he took a severe beating like today, the pain would quickly subside if his HP bar was full again. Finally, every skill and item he creates or has is saved either between his inventory or skills window.

He opened the skills window during class and saw all of the current skills he either created or already had. He had 4 skills in total, three he had generated today and one that had been there before. He had clicked on it and read the description.

«A Gamer's Body (Passive) Lvl Max»

Grants a body that allows for the user to live the real world like a game

He understood immediately that this was the skill that changed his life, the skill that had made him "The Gamer" instead of just plain old Jee-Han. The simple question of "Where had it come from?" was flashing through his head but he knew he wouldn't get answers without any leads.

For now, he just wanted to rest and since tomorrow was a day off, he was planning on using the free time to prepare himself if he ever came across another situation like that. He didn't want to die, who would? So instead of hiding out for the rest of his life, he was going to make sure he would be fully prepared for any monsters that wanted to take a shot at him.

It's what a man would do, right?

"Though, I'm not much of a man..." His shoulders dropped and he let out a depressing sigh. His life wasn't supposed to be like this, this wasn't what he had imagined at all.

The Next Day [9:15 AM, Garage]

Scuffling through an old and dusty box, Jee-Han found what he was looking for and grabbed the item with a smirk. A metal baseball bat no longer than thirty four inches was held comfortably in Jee-Han's hand as he used his favourite skill [Observe] to check it out.

«An Aluminum Bat made by RealTek Manufacturing. A little lighter and a bit stronger than a wooden bat»

Jee-Han frowned a bit. Even though his [Observe] skill was useful, some of the descriptions were unnecessary as they were quite obvious from the get go. I mean really, who wouldn't believe a metal bat was stronger than a wooden bat?

"It doesn't say anything about attack damage though... Hm, well let's give it a shot" He opened his inventory and tried to place the bat inside. The results were successful and he clenched his fist triumphantly.

"Good, now I'll always have a weapon on me for protection. What else would I need?" He contemplated before snapping his fingers and rushing to his bathroom. He opened his top cabinet and used [Observe] on his tooth paste and mouth wash.

Another one of his theories just confirmed itself. Just like in an RPG, usually health items would recover certain amounts of HP and MP depending on the quality.

All in all though, they were pretty useless items as the average restoration rate between them was around 5 HP but they did have some uses such as removing inflammation and bleeding status effects.

"I have over 100 HP... in a real battle, there's no way I could make use of these. I'll take them for now but I'll need a better healing item" He grabbed them and stored them within his inventory.

A thought just occurred to Jee-Han as he remembered in one of the RPG's he played awhile ago. Crafting was a skill that he used very often to make potions and other accessories; wouldn't that also be usable with my gamer ability? He wasn't a pharmacist so he didn't know how the process of making medicine and potions worked but surely he could simplify it with his powers. He would think about it later.

He decided it was time to do some physical preparation and went out the back door and decided to head to the open playground a few miles behind his house. Fortunately, not many kids came out to play around this time so he didn't have to worry about scaring any of them as he withdrew his bat.

Finding a suitable tree, Jee-Han took a stance and whacked it with all of his might, leaving a small indent on the tree's rough bark. In doing so, two skills had been created.

«Ding!»

A Skill has been created through a special action!

A Skill to deliver a strong blow, [Power Strike] has been created!

A Skill has been created through a special action!

A skill to utilize Blunt weapons freely, [Blunt Weapon Mastery] has been created!

To sum it up, because Jee-Han was not only using a newly acquired weapon but also striking with it, he was able to create not only an active skill but also a passive skill.

"Hell yes!" He cheered in excitement as he took a deep breath and held the bat in his hands with a wide smile. Because he already experimented on creating new skills, this wasn't that much of a surprise. Still though, he was understandably joyful.

"Since the power will depend on its level, I guess it's time for some grinding!"

With his goal made up, Jee-Han tightly grabbed the bat again and hit the tree but this time used [Power Strike] to active his new skill. The tree left a much bigger dent than before and Jee-Han kept at it while his [Blunt Weapon Mastery] and [Power Strike] skills were levelling up at a decent rate.

After a few dozen hits...

«Power Strike's Level Goes Up By One!»

"Oh I see, about 1 level for about 30 hits huh?" Jee-Han wiped away a few drops of sweat from his forehead. He tried to keep at it again but noticed that the bat wasn't glowing like it used too before.

"Huh? What's wrong? Is the skill broken or something?" He didn't understand why the skill wasn't working until he came up with an idea and opened his Status Window.

Thought so.

He looked at his MP bar and saw it had reached 0/100.

"My MP runs out that quickly? That means I've only got about 30 shots before I'm defenseless huh?" 30 hits weren't terribly bad but he would definitely need more if he was going to face off against stronger monsters than the slime.

"Wait, what's my MP recovery rate? In RPG's you can recover mana at a certain rate so I need to make sure I recover more than I spend" He clicked on the MP bar and saw that his recovery rate was only a measly 1 MP per every minute.

"Only 1 per minute? That's really shitty; at that rate it'll take over an hour to get back to full MP" Jee-Han brought his hand to his chin and began thinking on alternate ways to keep his MP high at all times.

"If it's like this, the only way I can have full MP is to either increase the rate at which I recover mana or get some passive skills that will permanently increase it. Wow, I really am like a game character" He looked over his body and still couldn't believe it. Using the terms HP and MP to address himself felt weird no matter how anyone looked it.

Picking up his bat, he decided he might as well figure that out later and spent the rest of the morning grinding his [Power Strike] and [Blunt Weapon Mastery].

The day went by quickly and Jee-Han saw that the sun was setting and decided to take a break, leaning his body against a nearby rock. He had been at this all day and even though he could instantly recover his fatigue with 30 minutes of rest, his mind still needed a break from mental exhaustion.

Opening his skill window, he smiled contently when he saw that he had raised [Power Strike] to level 3 and [Blunt Weapon Mastery] to level 5. A decent rate if he said so himself. That wasn't all though, after increasing his mastery of blunt weapons to level 5 he obtained a passive skill that increased his attack damage of blunt weapons by 30 % and attack speed by 10%! Now that's pretty damn good!

With these passives added on top of each other his base damage would be more than twice of what it was before.

A cocky grin was plastered on Jee-Han's face as he was still stunned at how much more powerful he had become.

Satisfied with today's progress, he decided to call it a day and began walking back home after leaving the playground and heading down an empty street. The sun had already set and it was getting late, he needed to get home quickly.

Jee-Han shivered at the prospect of facing off against another one of those monsters at this time of night. Trusting his instincts, he started sprinting back home and kept a look out to make sure he wouldn't get ambushed. He didn't care if he looked weird while doing it, he valued his life above all else.

As he was running, he immediately noticed that none of the houses he passed by had any lights on. Weird, at this time of night surely there must have been a few families still awake having dinner or watching TV?

"Wait... could it be...!" He stopped running and reached into his inventory, bringing out his bat and held it with more grip than necessary. He began to sweat profusely and his heart beat was rising again.

"Shit, how did I end up in another one of these barrier things again!?" As he began cursing his own rotten luck, a howling screech startled him and he slowly turned his head around to find the source.

He saw a figure standing close to a street light and had most of its body shadowed out. It looked like the silhouette of older man but why was he just standing there?

Jee-Han swallowed his spit and took a few steps back just in case and just as he was about to run, the figure began to slowly limp forward and Jee-Han's eyes widened in shock at the revelation.

A Zombie.