Homegrown System

As they continued through the city, things became easier. They had made it over the largest hills, and Alice eventually swapped out her bike for one with more battery. Titus teased her about that, but it seemed that the more they talked, the more relaxed he became.

The relaxed Titus wasn't what she had been expecting. It was only now that she realized how on edge he had been when they first met. Of course, it only made sense, given the situation. But there was something about how he carried himself that had made him seem so into control that it made Alice forget that he was just as confused as she was.

As Titus relaxed, he became surprisingly lighthearted. Everything was a joke to the man, no matter how serious it was. Despite everything, his constant humor was starting to put her at ease. Maybe she was a little too at ease, seeing that she occasionally forgot how ruthless he could be.

Every time they encountered a monster that she either couldn't or didn't want to fight, he put it down with ruthless efficiency. This forced the reminder that while the man might joke about being a decrepit old man who needed a cane to get around and ask if he could tow her up the next hill, he was nothing of the sort.

A couple of times, Alice employed a trick similar to the one she had used with the monstrous stop sign. When facing some sort of monster that was either stationary or slow-moving, she would find a nearby car and run it over. This worked better than she could have hoped, and she continually gained experience by defeating those monsters. But she still hadn't hit level five. Based on what she remembered about the System's design and Titus's experience, that was when she would get her next general skill. She still hadn't figured out if the pattern she remembered held true yet. With only a couple of skills, there wasn't enough information to discern it exactly.

Titus was hoping to get another skill soon, as well. He was pushing close to level seven, which should be the next threshold. She had offered to just give him all the monsters to fight so that he could get that new skill before they arrived on campus, but he refused. They could always keep hunting if he didn't hit it. Besides, she needed to get strong, too.

Alice was relieved that he was also invested in getting her strong when he had no obligation to look out for her well-being. Even though she wasn't exactly thrilled about how she had to get stronger. But as she got to practicing, things got easier. With a few more levels and stats, maybe she'd get over her fear and find that she actually enjoyed it. Besides, maybe she could learn magic!

As they traveled, Alice couldn't help but notice the world changing around them. Different types and levels of monsters scurried about, far different than what she'd seen even a little while ago. This had been a low-level zone when she was on campus last, but things were changing quickly. She wasn't sure that the System would even keep the leveling zones as a mechanic.

There were a few other signs that everything was developing continuously, too. The Perk listed in her status had changed to one in a list of Perks. She still only had one, but now there could clearly be more. Sometimes, the System referred to skills as spells, and sometimes not. She kept flicking her interface off and on to see what changed over time, but mostly it remained the same. The stats and actual contents weren't changing themselves. It was mostly minor formatting changes, and she found that with a little concentration, she could adjust those to be whatever she wanted. Convenient, that.

They reached the edge of campus. Instead of going straight to their destination, it was slightly easier to go around to get to the side of the supercomputer center. As they went, Titus went out of his way to chase down monsters, even a block or two away, pushing for one more level up. Right as they were across the road from the part of campus that had the supercomputer center, Titus pumped his fist.

"Yes! Level seven," he said, smiling.

She confirmed with [System Identification] that he was indeed level seven. "Congratulations. Did you get a new skill?"

"Yup. Looks like it."

Alice nodded at the new information. We've got new general skills at three, five, and seven. Seems like we're still getting them at odd numbered levels, though it could be primes.

"What do we need?" Titus asked, his finger swiping up continuously as if he were scrolling through a huge list. "I've got a lot of skill options."

"I don't know. Want to read out the options?" she asked.

"There's a lot of them. [Bow Mastery]. [Sword Mastery]. [Spear Mastery]. [Knife Mastery]. [Mace Mastery]," Titus started listing off a couple dozen mastery skills before getting into more active skills. "[Charged Punch]. [Stealth]. [Leap]. [Quick Steps]."

He went on and on in this vein. Most of them sounded relatively mundane, but when he mentioned [Critical Strike], Alice perked up.

"[Critical Strike]," Alice said. "That seems interesting. What's the description?"

Titus dove into it and read a couple of sentences the System provided. "The ability to identify and hit weaknesses on targets, even when little information about the opponent is known."

"That sounds like something you couldn't just do by yourself, necessarily. All the others sound like things you could work on to improve without the System. Though I'm sure they're still useful."

Titus shrugged. "Well, my [First Aid] skill definitely does more than just make me good at it."

Alice shrugged. "True. It's just my opinion; you don't have to take it, you know."

"No, [Critical Strike] sounds good, I think. Especially when taking down bigger predators, it would give me an edge and opportunities where I normally wouldn't have any. Hopefully, at least. I don't suppose I could change it later?" he asked.

Alice shrugged. "If I'm right, you can. But there are some pretty big drawbacks. Try changing your other skills."

He frowned and furrowed his brow. "Hmm. Looks like you can change things, but it says you have to wait 24 hours before you swap them. Also, you lose all progress in the skill."

"Progress? Do skills have levels?" That didn't sound right. Another change to her original design, and a pretty big one.

"Not that I can see. Not directly, at least, but it said I would lose all progress in the skill. Perhaps skills will get levels later on."

Alice frowned. "The System seems to still be refining itself slightly. I imagine over the next day or so, things will be in flux. But if skills get levels, well, it's best to find one you like early and then push it as far as you can so you're not swapping them out constantly. But it is nice to know that you can change a skill selection if it becomes no longer useful."

"Right. I think [Critical Strike] will do well for us here. Something about this tells me we're going to see combat soon," Titus said, gesturing to the Supercomputer Center building.

"Why?" Alice asked. "I don't see any threats nearby."

"That's exactly it," Titus responded. "We should see something. It's suspicious."

"You're suspicious of everything."

"Hey, I didn't survive this long without being cautious," Titus said with a smile. "But we've gone for more than a block without seeing any monsters. Doesn't that strike you as odd?"

Alice couldn't really argue with that. "Fair. We'll have to be careful."

"Mmm. Anyways, do you have a key?" he asked.

Alice checked her bag then shook her head. "Nope. I think it fell out at some point."

"Well," he said, pointing to the glass front door across the street, "I don't suppose anyone would mind if we broke in."

Alice shrugged. "I think we're long past caring about that."

"Alright. You ready to go?" Titus asked.

Alice looked at her own stat sheet quickly and frowned. She made a couple of quick adjustments to the formatting and realized that there was not enough time for her to reach level five and get a new skill herself.

Name: Alice Wright

Titles: Mother of All

Perks: Quick Learner

Level: 4 - F

Speed: 7

Power: 3

Control: 7

—

Physical: 2

Magic: 5

Gen Skills

System Identification

It's interesting that Titles is plural. That must mean I can get more than one.

"Yeah, ready as I'll ever be," she said, closing the screen again. "Let's go with that."

They dashed across the street from underneath the awning they were sheltering in. Occasionally, flying monsters passed above, but none seemed to have taken an interest in them. Still, whenever they stopped for long periods, they usually wanted to be sheltered from the sky.

As soon as they were in the alcove leading into the building, Titus smashed the glass panel with his ax. The safety glass cracked and shattered into inoffensively small pieces with no rough edges. They stepped through, glass crunching under their feet as they looked around. The lobby had nothing in it, though. A sparrow fluttered its wings and flew out the window they had just broken.

"That shouldn't be there," Alice said. The building was incredibly careful about not letting birds in as they could mess up a lot of equipment..

Titus slung his ax back into his belt and gripped his shovel while looking around cautiously. "I told you something's wrong."

"The servers are this way," Alice said, guiding them to a door and letting Titus go first. She pulled the door open for him as he leaped in and made sure the room was clear before she followed. They repeated this a couple of times down a few hallways until they emerged into the long line of towering server racks. White and green lights glowed, and the heat from the still-operating fans was significant but not overwhelming.

As they stepped through the room, it was silent, and only then did Alice realize what the issue had been in the background. A noise she had tuned out was the constant chirping of birds. A few seconds later, a flock of sparrows exploded from nests made of cables on top of the server racks. Between them, little arcs of electricity passed between each bird as they winged around the room, diving at the pair of shocked humans.

[Thunder Sparrow - lvl 12]

[Thunder Sparrow - lvl 13]

[Thunder Sparrow - lvl 15]