Alex noticed several minimized window tabs in the periphery of his vision, and they all popped up as soon as he focused on them. Two of the windows displayed notifications listing the items he had looted from the Caerbunnies he had killed. Two more were health-related; one being a damage warning, while the other was a recovery notification. With a thought, Alex dismissed those two and couldn't help but smile. Despite the questionable state of his sanity, this was awesome. The ability to control things with his mind had always been a fantasy of his. Even as an adult, he couldn't help but wave his hand in a subtle gesture every time he walked through automatic doors at a grocery store.
The last window seemed to be his actual inventory. There were multiple tabs at the top of the window that read: All, General, Equipment, Consumables, Ingredients, Magic Items, Skill Books, Rituals, and Key Items.
The inventory was currently displaying the 'All' tab and the list of items only took up half of the screen. The left side of the screen looked more like an Excel spreadsheet than any video game inventory he had seen. One column displayed nearly a dozen different items in a plain-looking list, while the next column indicated the quantity of each item.
To the right, on a black background, a white outline of a body resembling a gingerbread-man cookie cutout caught Alex's attention. The inside of the body was a pale green. Faint red lines traced the body and Vi told him they represented his veins. A dull red light pulsed through the lines in time with his heartbeat, which Alex assumed referred to his recent blood loss.
Below the body, there were three different colored vertical bars lined up in a row. The red and blue bars were full, swirling with different tones of their respective colors. The bar in the middle, however, was only two thirds full - a rich green color sloshing around gently like tiny ocean waves. The outline of the bar itself flashed a bright green periodically, the bar slowly filling with more green liquid with every pulse. Entranced, Alex reached out and poked at the bar, his hand causing static to rush through the window.
"That's fancy."
"Ooh, Let's try that." Alex said with excitement, before immediately regretting the decision. A tiny naked version of himself appeared on the screen, slowly rotating in a T-pose.
"Nope, nope!" He cried in horror. "don't like that! Change it back!"
The tiny version of himself that was asserting its dominance vanished, replaced once again by the cookie cutout outline of the less threatening gingerbread man.
Alex breathed a sigh of relief, then shot a panicked look at the tree line. Deep in the grip of his stupidity, he completely forgot about the Caerbunnies. He could still make out their forms, black shapes flitting back and forth between snow covered shrubbery. Stopping every now and then to glare at him with beady, hate filled little eyes.
Alex stuck his tongue out at the Caerbunnies and returned his attention to the inventory screen. Below the bars were three different rectangles that expanded as each came to his attention. The one on the far left read 'Currency' and when it expanded, it had six different icons of what looked like different types of precious stones underneath it. The one on the far right looked like a clear diamond, and a counter underneath it showed that he had twenty of these. The one next to it looked to be made of iron and indicated that he had ten. The other diamond icons were grayed out with a small, sad red zero showing underneath.
The middle rectangle said 'Outfits', with four empty slots when it expanded, and the third one read 'Bags' with five empty icons below.
Alex ignored those for now and returned his attention to the list of items he had in his inventory, flipping to the respective tabs. Each tab had 25 empty slots, with five rows containing five slots each. Most of the items he had were animal parts and restorative items from the Caerbunnies, and were stored under the ingredients and consumable tabs, but he was surprised to find a weapon in his equipment tab, as well as what looked like a rabbit foot keychain. Several small jewels labeled as rabbit quintessence, ice quintessence, and a few heat quintessence were all stored in the rituals tab. His key items held two different items. One looked like a giant multi-colored plate of red, orange, black, and silver filled the first slot, and was labeled as Astral Token: Iures Pact. The other item was a rabbit essence; it was a small white cube swirled with different shades of brown and gray. Alex opened his equipment and looked at the weapon. The icon was of a small, curved dagger with what looked like a fur-wrapped handle. Out of a habit forged from years of having a smart phone, he reached out with a finger and poked the icon, remembering belatedly that his finger would pass through it.
To his surprise, he felt his finger make contact, and the icon lit up momentarily before a very real- very sharp- knife appeared above his hand. The knife hovered in the air briefly before it fell, the hilt rapping his knuckles on the way down. He jerked his hand away, causing the knife to spin sporadically through the air, sinking blade first into the ground right next to his foot.
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Good job, moron.
He bent down, pulling the knife out of the ground sheepishly.
"V-lasso... what now?" Alex asked.
Two windows popped up closer to his face than usual in what he felt was a disrespectful way.
Maybe it is a bad idea that she is learning behavior from his memories.
***
[Vasoconstriction]:
Status Effect:
Type: Magic. Wounding. Blood. Stacking
Effect: Constricts the blood and muscles of the target, disrupting the flow of magic and hindering the movement of the target. Drains a small amount of health, mana, and stamina per second. This status effect prevents the target from bleeding and increases the mana cost as well as the activation time of magical abilities. If a target is afflicted with [Bleeding]; [Vasoconstriction] and [Bleeding] will negate each other on a 1:1 basis. However, the magic disruption will remain in effect until the effect is cleansed or drops off naturally. Additional instances have accumulative effect.
***
"That's... A lot of words." Alex said dumbly. Though he frequently enjoyed video games, it always took him a while to understand complex battle systems. He was more of a 'hit it 'til it dies' kind of guy. Once the mechanics grabbed his interest, he would break out the spreadsheets; It just took a lot to get him there. He had a feeling though; he would need that kind of attitude if he wanted to stay alive. At least until he found out if this was real or not. He saw no point in taking chances. Those rabbits nearly killed him, and his network identified them as ‘lesser monsters’. Who knew how strong the actual monsters were, and if the classification nomenclature was any indication, he suspected that there was probably a category of greater monsters.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst and all that.
He dismissed that screen and looked at the second window. Glancing around the forest again to make sure none of the rascally rabbits were trying to be sneaky.
***
[Caerbunni Dagger]
Category: Weapon
Type: Magic, Wounding.
Rank: None
Rarity: Uncommon
Growth: Uncommon
Ascension Limit: Bronze
Description:
A dagger made from the body of a [Snowy Forest Caerbunni]. While attacking, this dagger inflicts an instance of [Vasoconstriction] on the target.
You can ascend this item by completing the Ascension task provided by your [Racial Ability] [Survival Specialist].
[Caerbunni Dagger] Ascension Tasks:
[Iron Rank] Tasks:
Kill Caerbunnies with this weapon (Lesser rank): 0/20
Collect Caerbunni Pelts (Lesser): 2/10
Collect Caerbunni Claws (Lesser): 1/5
Collect Caermorpha Claw (Iron rank): 0/1
***
A level up system? Not bad. Depending on how bad these creatures were to fight, he should be able to farm them pretty easily with a weapon. He had no idea what a Caermorpha was, but he assumed that it was a bigger version of the bunnies he had been fighting.
Alex absentmindedly twirled the dagger between his fingers as he watched the northern lights undulate across the night sky in slow, hypnotic waves. With a sigh, Alex pushed away the absurdity of his current predicament and turned his attention to something he could at least understand. With a semi-conscious thought, Alex wished he could put the dagger back in his storage space.
In an instant, the blade shimmered like a mirage and then disappeared.
“Hey, come back!” Alex said, thinking the dagger just vanished forever.
The air around his hand shimmered once more and he was once again holding the dagger.
Now that could be useful.
Alex dismissed the dagger again and then threw a punch, the dagger reappearing mid swing in his fist, slicing through the air.
“Abracadabra, Mother-”
A chorus of chittering roars from the forest made him jump and he scanned the tree line, but none of the caerbunnies were approaching.
“Not a word.” He said to Vi.
Vi said in a voice that sounded like she was trying to offer genuine advice.
Unsure of how to respond, Alex dismissed the dagger again and opened the Network window listing the items in his dimensional space and began experimenting by moving various items in and out of the inventory in different ways. He found out that he could withdraw and store items directly from his hand with a thought as long as he knew the full name of the item or what it looked like.
He took out one of the lesser spirit coins and dropped it on the ground. He closed his eyes and visualized the coin in his mind. An instant later, it shimmered and then disappeared, returning to his inventory. Alex repeated the process several more times. Tossing the coin on the ground, he took a step backwards, increasing the distance each time before attempting to return the item to his inventory. Returning items he wasn't touching required a great amount of concentration - each step he took made it harder and harder and he soon needed to not only visualize the coin but also concentrate on its name as well. He looked down at the coin barely five feet away and frowned.
He moved forward a step and the coin disappeared.
Maybe the range will increase as I get stronger?
With a flourish, a spirit coin appeared in his palm. He theatrically waved his other hand over the coin and his palm was now empty.
“Suck it, Houdini!”
Vi suggested.
Alex’s shoulders sagged and he kicked a foot at the grass.
“You don’t have to be mean about it.” He grumbled.