Building a magic system on threat of destruction

The next few days passed in a blur. Jack made several new constructions out of status screens, including a second bed for Plexion, more filing cabinets, and a few 'white'boards. The inclusion of some screen markers allowed both Jack and Plexion to write on the surfaces. The two of them argued over skill level breakdowns, writing and erasing breakdowns of the different levels.

They eventually lightly settled on a base ten system, where skills would range from level one to ten. Plexion theorized that the highest level someone could achieve without system benefits was around level seven or eight, but with Deis lending his power and knowledge to people, there would be new heights to skills around the world.

When he wasn't debating skills and creating furniture, Jack was trying to create a format for notifications. He thought about a notification button, which would bring up a list of all the changes that had happened since the last check, but Plexion argued against it.

"If people don't check for a while, the amount of changes will be too long. If there's more than ten things on the list people will forget." he had argued.

Jack had agreed reluctantly, he didn't just want to create huge long lists for people to read, not completely anyway. It was possible he would implement some kind of history tab to the status sheet, so people could look at all the changes that had happened and when they had occurred. For now, Jack and Plexion had decided to go with a notification system that used the minimized screen format. Most people didn't minimize their screen, opting to just close it instead. Jack had only created the option as a way to quickly reference his screen without it being in his way while he worked.

By having a minimized screen pop up with a number on it to indicate the amount of changes, people could still be notified of changes while not getting too distracted by having something pop up in the middle of their vision. Jack would also have to ask Deis to include options for blind and illiterate people as well, maybe something with telepathy?

The full breakdown of all skill levels was more complicated than Jack and Plexion could handle alone. They simply didn't have the expertise to rank the abilities of every person in the world. Plexion only had enough experience in magic, ruling, and eating strangely enough. When Jack asked about eating skill levels, Plexion had just shrugged, claiming that there were better ways to eat things and worse ways to eat things.

Using these skills as a baseline, the two had constructed a system that they believed would work in implementation. The only major point of contention was lifestyle skills. Jack was firmly of the belief that these skills should have a hard cap at level five instead of ten. He was of the opinion that boosting these skills beyond a certain point was pointless, after all, something like the [Walking] skill had no need for a higher level. Plexion argued against this, firmly believing that it would make more sense to have all skills follow the same baseline and endpoint.

The two hadn't been able to come to a conclusion on the matter, so Jack was going to present both options to Deis and see which one the god wanted. The only other thing that had taken up Jack's time had been checking on the butterfly situation. Plexion had checked in on people from time to time, and once they had confirmed that Jeler was trying to hunt down the system bugs, Jack had erased the messages on the status screens. They hadn't seen any evidence that the bugs had been caught, but Jack was hopeful that the butterflies would be found sooner rather than later.

About an hour before Jack was going to call Deis and present the changes, Plexion suddenly decided to speak. "Jack, did you know Deis has a status screen?"

Jack was busy writing out some ideas on the screen board, but nodded. "Yeah, he made the first one for himself. He wanted to see how it felt and looked."

"Did you see what it said?" Plexion asked expectantly.

"The screens just had name and race on them back then. The only things on it were 'Deis' and 'High Deity' I think."

Plexion thought for a moment. "Did the screen look...weird?"

Jack looked up from his work. "No, just a normal screen. What's on your mind, Plexion?"

"Nothing!" he said quickly. Too quickly in Jack's opinion. He decided to press the issue.

"Plexion, what aren't you telling me?"

Plexion looked like he was going to resist for a moment before sighing. "I saw Deis looking at his status screen a while back. It was normal at first, but then it started...flickering and changing. The edges blurred and the words turned into weird symbols. I tried to grab it but he disappeared before I could."

Jack was very interested in this. "Symbols? Can you draw them for me?"

Plexion nodded then moved over to the screen board, he began to draw and Jack watched him expectantly. So Jack was very confused when Plexion simply wrote out some words. He wrote out the words that made up the status sheet, the stats and skills, along with the personal information section. They weren't all complete, some of the letters were missing or there were odd gaps, but it was clearly the status screen.

Plexion finished and then studied the words. "I really can't make heads or tails of it. What do you think Jack?"

"...Are you trying to joke with me, Plexion?"

Plexion turned to Jack, surprised. "No, why would I be joking about this?"

"Because that's clearly written in English, just like the rest of your writing." Then Jack stopped. His brain began firing on all cylinders. He snatched the writing tool from Plexion and tried to write the word 'name' in English next to where Plexion had written the 'symbol' for the word name. He wrote it, but his mind felt...odd. It was like he had to think about his writing, almost like forcing himself to write something in another language. He finished and looked at Plexion. "What did I just write?"

Plexion looked between him and the word. "You copied the symbol I made. Is that supposed to be...whatever that word you said was? Eenglesh?"

Jack cursed internally. How could he have been so stupid? He had missed the obvious trope, where the main character is automatically given the ability to translate speech and writing! Deis must have given him the ability when he was first summoned here. Was everything automatically translated to English for him?

That brought up an even more pressing question. Why did Deis have a status screen with English on it? The implications were...well actually, Jack didn't know the implications. Deis could write in English, that didn't really seem like a stretch considering he could summon souls across space or whatever. However, now that Jack considered it, he was forced to come to terms with a concept that was never explored very well. Was Drowl a real place in his universe, or was Jack in some other reality altogether?

If Drowl was in Jack's home dimension, that meant that there was more of a chance that Deis knowing English made sense. A super alien or whatever Deis was could hypothetically spy on Earth from space. If Jack was in a different dimension, then his summoning took a completely different tone. It changed Deis from a powerful god-like figure into a transdimensional, ultrapowerful god-like figure. The ability to move across dimensions was something Jack wouldn't be able to fight, let alone escape. Jack had no real way of finding out which Deis was short of asking the god directly, but he couldn't be sure that he would get an answer.

This was a lot of information to suddenly process, and Jack was annoyed that Plexion had waited until now to dump it on him. But there was nothing to be done about it now. "Let's erase this for now, I don't want Deis seeing it."

Plexion looked a bit worried at Jack's lack of an explanation but did as asked. Only when all the evidence had been erased did Jack talk to Plexion again. "That language you wrote out is from my homeworld. I thought everyone was speaking my language, but I think I'm speaking everyone else's."

Plexion absorbed this information before nodding slowly. "I've read about something like that. Ancient histories that spoke of a time before universal language. Back when the people of the world were separate and strange to each other."

"Wait, everyone in your world speaks the same language?" Jack asked.

"Of course," Plexion replied. "It doesn't make sense for people to speak a bunch of different languages."

That was interesting as well, had Deis made that happen? It made sense to Jack, maybe the people of that time wanted a reward from their god, just like what Jack was doing right now. Deis could have decided to let all his people talk to one another with magic or something. There was so much guesswork, but no way to find out the answers without consulting the source. Deis might answer him, but he had to be careful not to press too far. If Deis thought that Jack was trying to find any weaknesses in the God of gods, then he might get violently angry.

"Plexion, if you get a chance to touch his status screen, take it. But please be careful, I still need you around. Don't do anything that would get you caught." If there really was English on the status screen, then maybe there was more to Deis that could be learned. Plexion had the ability to secretly touch the status screens and witness whatever the owner was doing. Maybe the floating cloak wasn't all there was to Deis, maybe he was actually the sun or something. Jack hoped to find some more answers.

Plexion nodded excitedly. He wanted the truth behind Deis just as badly as Jack did. But before they could continue the conversation, the High Deity emerged from the white void. The black cloak that made up his form billowed dramatically, and Jack felt a familiar weight settle on his shoulders at the arrival of the god. There was no more time to think about hypotheticals, Jack had work to do.

Deis spoke, his voice booming. Show me what you have come up with