Matt set the weight back onto the rack and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
‘It’s nice to know I can still train my strength at a gym even with 20 points. I thought it might have been too high to see any results.’
He remembered [Help] mentioning that you needed more intense training the higher level a stat is. But it would be super inconvenient to have to find some other way to train if the gym didn’t work.
‘So I guess 20 strength seems to equal super strong dude, but not inhuman?’
He wasn’t exactly sure what the average gym goer could lift, but he assumed someone lifted ones these heavy. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even be in the gym. He also noticed that the heaviest one-handed weight on the rack was 100lb.
‘I’ll make sure to come back here to fully use the full month I bought, but I should get going for now.’
He looked outside of the window and saw it was sunset. It would be dark in just over an hour.
‘I think it’s too late to do the money-making plan I was thinking, so I’ll do it tomorrow and do some deliveries tonight.’
The plan required a lot of people around, and now that it was going to be night, it would probably be less effective.
He walked back toward the entrance of the gym and exchanged goodbyes with the front desk person. He walked out onto the street and opened up his phone.
‘Ok, there are a few deliveries. Time to start!’
He accepted a job and began his night of delivering food. As he completed one after another, he noticed his stats weren’t increasing at all.
‘I guess this wouldn’t be enough by itself anymore.’
He knew that if he did enough deliveries he could level a stat. The stat training system seemed to be more based on mileage than the effectiveness of training. Even if he never ran again, and always walked, he assumed that with time, he would eventually get another agility point.
It was nice that he didn’t have to go out of his way to train, and with patience, the stats would follow.
‘But I’m not gonna take the slow way. I’ll make sure to find a better way to train my agility later. I really should think of different ways to train all of my stats.’
He had wondered for a moment, how he would even train luck. Gambling? He didn’t have nearly enough money to waste on that.
As he finished more deliveries, he noticed that he was reaching each destination much faster. It made it so that he could take the next job sooner. He had already done a decent amount of them in half the time.
The orders on the food delivery app kept refreshing, some going away and others appearing. He imagined since the city was pretty big, these orders would keep coming.
‘I wonder how many I can do. With my new speed, I really could make a lot tonight. Other people have to worry about gas prices for deliveries, but all I need are my legs!’
He felt confident that he could earn a decent chunk of the money he needed with tonight’s work. After a couple more hours, he had finished a total of 17 orders. He thought it was enough for the night.
He checked the app to count the total profit. Overall, he had made $148 tonight.
‘That’s almost enough to pay the rent. Maybe I could pay it tomorrow?’
He looked at the total amount he had in the quest now.
[$309/800]
‘With my paycheck tomorrow, which is 300, I’ll just need a little under 200 to pay my rent.’
When he thought about it, he was going to need another day to pay his rent. He had wanted to pay it tomorrow so he could get the mystery reward faster, but he needed to be patient.
Matt decided it would be best to head home for the night. After a few minutes, he arrived at his apartment. As he got home, he was a bit surprised that he didn’t really feel tired. Even though he did more deliveries in one night than he ever had, he was feeling fine.
‘It’s not too late so I’ll try a few things before bed.’
He opened his stats screen and thought about what he wanted to do. He found it satisfying just looking at his stats. It felt nice becoming more powerful and his stats represented his power.
He always enjoyed the feeling he got when he leveled up or increased his stats in a game. And the feeling wasn’t any different now that he was doing it in real life, actually it was much stronger.
He thought about yesterday’s events again and remembered what he had thought about earlier.
‘Just having high stats isn’t enough. I really need to know how to defend myself.’
He had never considered learning self-defense or how to fight, even when he was getting bullied by Chad in high school. At the time, he just put up with it. He thought, if he fought back, it might only get worse, or he might be expelled.
But now, he thought differently. Not just because he had the system.
‘All I was doing was running away and hoping my life would improve on its own.’
He had a scary thought. If he had never gotten the system, his life really could’ve spiraled into a bad place. Regardless of the powers it gave him, the system was just a spark, the push he needed to get his life on track.
‘I’m glad I got that wake-up call.’
Now filled with new motivation, he decided it was time to learn how to learn self-defense. He searched online for some sort of guide, but he couldn’t find much besides random clickbait articles. So he searched for some videos instead.
He found one that was posted by a middle-aged man who looked pretty tough, describing what he should do if he encountered danger. Matt watched the video as he showed, in the worst scenario, how to disarm someone who was pointing a knife at him.
Matt tried to imitate the man in the video, and he seemed to quickly shove the assailant’s hand to the side, proceeded to step next to him, and twisted his arm, causing the other man he was demonstrating on to drop the knife.
Of course, Matt couldn’t practice on someone, so he just pretended someone was in front of him. The man in the video showed a few more useful methods, including a few for someone who is attacking him unarmed. It seemed like the techniques were focused on being as safe as possible.
‘This is actually pretty useful! Why didn’t I learn this earlier in my life?’
The final part of the video was about what to do if someone had a gun pointed at him. While the video briefly mentioned how to grab it and redirect it if they’re holding it incredibly close to him, he wouldn’t recommend it.
They mentioned that it’s much safer to talk to the attacker and attempt to diffuse the situation with conversation and give them your money or belongings if that was their goal.
Matt wasn’t sure if this guy knew what he was talking about, but he decided to practice the moves anyway. But while reenacting the moves, he suddenly heard a sound.
[Skill Training Successful]
__________
[New Skill]
Self Defense [LV.1]
__________
-
-
-
-
-
__________
||Stats||
Name: Matt Peterson
Age: 18
LVL: 3 [XP 48/144]
HP | 30/30
MP | 0/0
Status Effects: (None)
-
||Attributes||
[Str] - 21
[Con] - 14
[Agi] - 20
[Dex] - 13
[Int] - 17
[Luk] - 12
[Stat Points]: 0
-
||Skills||
Inspect [Lv.2], Map [Lv.2], Help [Lv.1], Storage [Lv.1], Mind Palace [Lv.1], Self Defense [LV.1]
-
||Quests||
-General-
Pay the Rent [$309/800] [Reward: +Mystery Reward, +30xp]
Reach LVL 5 [3/5] [Reward: +10 Unassigned Stat Points, +1 Artifact]
Make a stranger believe you are a celebrity [Reward: Stat Unlock, +30xp]
Compete in an event and win [Reward: +1 All Stats, +75xp]
-
-Daily-
*Daily quests not available in beta*
||Storage||
-Items [3/25]-
Used Bullet [1], Gun [1], Knife [1]
__________
Matt set the weight back onto the rack and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
‘It’s nice to know I can still train my strength at a gym even with 20 points. I thought it might have been too high to see any results.’
He remembered [Help] mentioning that you needed more intense training the higher level a stat is. But it would be super inconvenient to have to find some other way to train if the gym didn’t work.
‘So I guess 20 strength seems to equal super strong dude, but not inhuman?’
He wasn’t exactly sure what the average gym goer could lift, but he assumed someone lifted ones these heavy. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even be in the gym. He also noticed that the heaviest one-handed weight on the rack was 100lb.
‘I’ll make sure to come back here to fully use the full month I bought, but I should get going for now.’
He looked outside of the window and saw it was sunset. It would be dark in just over an hour.
‘I think it’s too late to do the money-making plan I was thinking, so I’ll do it tomorrow and do some deliveries tonight.’
The plan required a lot of people around, and now that it was going to be night, it would probably be less effective.
He walked back toward the entrance of the gym and exchanged goodbyes with the front desk person. He walked out onto the street and opened up his phone.
‘Ok, there are a few deliveries. Time to start!’
He accepted a job and began his night of delivering food. As he completed one after another, he noticed his stats weren’t increasing at all.
‘I guess this wouldn’t be enough by itself anymore.’
He knew that if he did enough deliveries he could level a stat. The stat training system seemed to be more based on mileage than the effectiveness of training. Even if he never ran again, and always walked, he assumed that with time, he would eventually get another agility point.
It was nice that he didn’t have to go out of his way to train, and with patience, the stats would follow.
‘But I’m not gonna take the slow way. I’ll make sure to find a better way to train my agility later. I really should think of different ways to train all of my stats.’
He had wondered for a moment, how he would even train luck. Gambling? He didn’t have nearly enough money to waste on that.
As he finished more deliveries, he noticed that he was reaching each destination much faster. It made it so that he could take the next job sooner. He had already done a decent amount of them in half the time.
The orders on the food delivery app kept refreshing, some going away and others appearing. He imagined since the city was pretty big, these orders would keep coming.
‘I wonder how many I can do. With my new speed, I really could make a lot tonight. Other people have to worry about gas prices for deliveries, but all I need are my legs!’
He felt confident that he could earn a decent chunk of the money he needed with tonight’s work. After a couple more hours, he had finished a total of 17 orders. He thought it was enough for the night.
He checked the app to count the total profit. Overall, he had made $148 tonight.
‘That’s almost enough to pay the rent. Maybe I could pay it tomorrow?’
He looked at the total amount he had in the quest now.
[$309/800]
‘With my paycheck tomorrow, which is 300, I’ll just need a little under 200 to pay my rent.’
When he thought about it, he was going to need another day to pay his rent. He had wanted to pay it tomorrow so he could get the mystery reward faster, but he needed to be patient.
Matt decided it would be best to head home for the night. After a few minutes, he arrived at his apartment. As he got home, he was a bit surprised that he didn’t really feel tired. Even though he did more deliveries in one night than he ever had, he was feeling fine.
‘It’s not too late so I’ll try a few things before bed.’
He opened his stats screen and thought about what he wanted to do. He found it satisfying just looking at his stats. It felt nice becoming more powerful and his stats represented his power.
He always enjoyed the feeling he got when he leveled up or increased his stats in a game. And the feeling wasn’t any different now that he was doing it in real life, actually it was much stronger.
He thought about yesterday’s events again and remembered what he had thought about earlier.
‘Just having high stats isn’t enough. I really need to know how to defend myself.’
He had never considered learning self-defense or how to fight, even when he was getting bullied by Chad in high school. At the time, he just put up with it. He thought, if he fought back, it might only get worse, or he might be expelled.
But now, he thought differently. Not just because he had the system.
‘All I was doing was running away and hoping my life would improve on its own.’
He had a scary thought. If he had never gotten the system, his life really could’ve spiraled into a bad place. Regardless of the powers it gave him, the system was just a spark, the push he needed to get his life on track.
‘I’m glad I got that wake-up call.’
Now filled with new motivation, he decided it was time to learn how to learn self-defense. He searched online for some sort of guide, but he couldn’t find much besides random clickbait articles. So he searched for some videos instead.
He found one that was posted by a middle-aged man who looked pretty tough, describing what he should do if he encountered danger. Matt watched the video as he showed, in the worst scenario, how to disarm someone who was pointing a knife at him.
Matt tried to imitate the man in the video, and he seemed to quickly shove the assailant’s hand to the side, proceeded to step next to him, and twisted his arm, causing the other man he was demonstrating on to drop the knife.
Of course, Matt couldn’t practice on someone, so he just pretended someone was in front of him. The man in the video showed a few more useful methods, including a few for someone who is attacking him unarmed. It seemed like the techniques were focused on being as safe as possible.
‘This is actually pretty useful! Why didn’t I learn this earlier in my life?’
The final part of the video was about what to do if someone had a gun pointed at him. While the video briefly mentioned how to grab it and redirect it if they’re holding it incredibly close to him, he wouldn’t recommend it.
They mentioned that it’s much safer to talk to the attacker and attempt to diffuse the situation with conversation and give them your money or belongings if that was their goal.
Matt wasn’t sure if this guy knew what he was talking about, but he decided to practice the moves anyway. But while reenacting the moves, he suddenly heard a sound.
[Skill Training Successful]
__________
[New Skill]
Self Defense [LV.1]
__________
-
-
-
-
-
__________
||Stats||
Name: Matt Peterson
Age: 18
LVL: 3 [XP 48/144]
HP | 30/30
MP | 0/0
Status Effects: (None)
-
||Attributes||
[Str] - 21
[Con] - 14
[Agi] - 20
[Dex] - 13
[Int] - 17
[Luk] - 12
[Stat Points]: 0
-
||Skills||
Inspect [Lv.2], Map [Lv.2], Help [Lv.1], Storage [Lv.1], Mind Palace [Lv.1], Self Defense [LV.1]
-
||Quests||
-General-
Pay the Rent [$309/800] [Reward: +Mystery Reward, +30xp]
Reach LVL 5 [3/5] [Reward: +10 Unassigned Stat Points, +1 Artifact]
Make a stranger believe you are a celebrity [Reward: Stat Unlock, +30xp]
Compete in an event and win [Reward: +1 All Stats, +75xp]
-
-Daily-
*Daily quests not available in beta*
||Storage||
-Items [3/25]-
Used Bullet [1], Gun [1], Knife [1]
__________
