I decided that this morning should be dedicated to raising my physical stats since being faster, tougher, and stronger would be handy if I got attacked by a wild animal or hobo on my way through the forest. To begin with I started with the log from last night. I pondered how I would go about lifting it without putting myself in a position to get crushed. Thinking it over I decided to use earthbending to solve the problem. I first cleared away some branches from the ground around the center of the log. Then I used earthbending to create a rectangular shaped depression below the log, about a foot deep and wide enough to easily move into and out of. That done I got to the dirty work of crawling underneath it on my back, getting into a position where I could push up at the log.

'I hope self-adaptation works like this'

With a heave and a groan of effort I pushed on the log with all that my little arms could give. The log refused to budge, its weight just too great. I kept trying regardless, I knew this was the path to superhuman strength, no normal 9 year old could even lift one end of the log as high as I did. I can do this, I can get stronger, I can survive in this world.

With my inspiration came a notification. I couldn't see what it had on it from my angle but I knew that it meant what I was doing was working. So I continued trying to bench press that log. My adaptation ability repairing and improving my muscles at an astounding rate if the notification screens popping up were any indication. Shame I couldn't read any at this angle. I kept it up, resting every once in awhile after my arms burned so hard I couldn't keep pushing. But eventually my work paid off. It was a small creaking sound from the log, and I felt my arms move upward a smidge. The smile on my face must have been huge, it was working! I kept pushing, getting another smidge higher before I had to rest again. Taking the opportunity I slid out from under the log and took a look at all the new screens. They're all jumbled up on top of each other, covering what each other said. So I pulled them all into a stack of screens in front of me to read them one by one.

Your strength has increased by 1!

Your vitality has increased by 1!

Your strength has increased by 1!

Your strength has increased by 1!

Your strength has increased by 1!

Your vitality has increased by 1!

On and on they went. After counting them all it looked like I increased my strength quite a bit. A whole lot actually, a total of 14 points. My vitality also increased by a total of 6 points which is kind of weird. I guess it'll increase more once I actually start lifting the log and holding it there. Dismissing all the boxes I decided to try and finish. Looking around I noticed that the sunlight shining through the leaves has gotten brighter, so sunrise is over and the day has begun. With that I get back under the log and start pushing again. The log rises about an inch, and that's as much as I can manage. I let the log back down and start pushing again. It takes about twenty reps before I feel a shift and suddenly I can push the log even higher. A full 6 inches at least. One side is tilted downward and I can tell one end of the log is resting on the ground. I slower lower the log and then push again. I can't believe it, I am bench pressing a log that must weigh at least 400 pounds! I continue doing so, my progress increasing over the course of an hour to the point that I can bench press the log at least fifteen times before needed to stop. I continue until I can perform a satisfactory 5 sets of 20 with only a moment's rest inbetween. Figuring that it'll do for now I get up and sort out the notifications yet again.

It turns out that bench pressing something 4 or 5 times heavier than you increases your strength and vitality by a lot. In total I got another 8 points in strength and 6 in vitality. Getting out from under the log I pull up my stats to take a look at what I'm at.

Hunter Trent, Age 9
Title: none
Class: The Gamer
Lvl. 1
HP: 270/270
HP regen/s: 3.64
MP: 110/110
MP regen/s: 0.15
EXP: 0/100
Strength: 38.38 (1% bonus)
Vitality: 27.5 (10% bonus)
Agility: 10.2 (2% bonus)
Intelligence: 11
Wisdom: 14.52 (21% bonus)
Luck: 1
Points: 5

I think I may have overdone it a bit. I stood there for a second trying to figure out what a 38 strength meant.

'Maybe since 10 is about average, since that's what my int and wis started as, I'm probably about 4 times stronger than the average person?'

With no way to test out this theory I just shrugged and started walking to the mini valley where I could practice my bending some more.

A short walk there and I descended the hill, much easier than my first time around, and returned to the same area I was in before. I needed to raise my other bending styles as quickly as possible, earth and firebending excepted. So which one first? Thinking it over I realized that while my firebending skill increased last night the accompanying martial art did not, and leveling up that would increase my strength by a not insubstantial amount. So I stood in the proper stance for Northern Shaolin Kung Fu and began practicing punches, kicks, blocks, and retreats. For this to work well I started constantly referencing my mental archive to give myself corrections in posture and form. First thing I corrected was taking my shoes off and storing them in my inventory, it just felt better practicing this barefoot. It was also difficult to properly correct myself since I couldn't really tell if I overextended my left leg in a kick when I'm supposed to look forward or if I'm overextending in a punch or just bad at punching. But I kept it up, no pain no gain. Also I am frightened of the kind of things I'll eventually end up fighting. Fear is a pretty good motivator.

Basic Northern Shaolin Kung Fu's level has increased by 1!

Happy with my progress I kept going. But it was kind of hard to train my punches on just thin air, so I thought of a solution. Stopping my training for a moment I switched styles to earthbending and summoned a pillar of stone in front of me. Doing so drained most of my mana but gave me a suitable target and a notification.

Beginner Earthbending's level has increased by 1!

The pillar was about 1 foot in diameter, cylindrical, and about my height. If I had to guess the pillar was made of granite Smiling I began to practice in earnest, using the pillar as a punching bag for my techniques. My first punch did nothing but break the skin on my knuckles.

-10 hp

The pain faded quickly and within five seconds I punched the pillar a second time with my other fist.

-10 hp

The pain stung like hell but with my (un)natural regeneration it faded quickly. Now I was never someone with a high pain tolerance, a small cut or bruise would have me wincing all day and I think I nearly cried one time when I scraped my knee pretty badly riding my bike. But when you only have to suffer the pain for less than 5 seconds it quickly becomes tolerable. My natural instinct to not hurt myself subsided somewhat when I knew I wasn't permanently injuring myself. So I continued to practice my punches and kicks on the solid rock pillar I summoned. Each punch took off 10 or 15 points of HP and each kick took off a little more. But then I got a notification after my fourth punch.

Physical resistance's level has increased by 1!

I opened up the skill, curious to see what it was at now.

Physical Resistance (Passive) lvl. 3
The ability to resist physical damage.
Resists 3% of damage from physical attacks.

Wait a minute. Does this mean if I get it up to level 100 I'll be immune to physical damage? After a moment of thought my face contorted into a gleeful smile.

'This skill is so cool. If it actually works I could eventually be invulnerable to damage. Add in the heat resistance and others I may find and I'll be a walking alexandria!'

Excited I put a little more force into the next punch and ended up splitting open the skin on my knuckles again, and a small bit of dust fell off of the pillar.

-20 HP

Ow.

After about a half hour of training like this I had raised physical resistance's level by 6 and has raised Northern Shaolin Kung Fu's level by 7. I also got another point in agility which is nice. The pillar has seen better days to be honest. At the moment it has cracks and dents covering the top half of the thing with small chunks missing here and there. I kept going, my kicks becoming faster, my punches hitting harder, and my stance improving. With one final punch the top of the pillar snapped off and my knuckles broke.

-37 HP

Physical Resistance's Level has increased by 1!

Basic Northern Shaolin Kung Fu's level has increased by 1!

Panting I sat down to catch my breath. I looked up at the broken pillar of rock and marvelled. I definitely was more than four times stronger than a normal person. A moment passed and I stood up, all my exhaustion and wounds healed. With Firebending and its style up to at least level 10 my work continues with waterbending. First I try to repair the pillar as best as I can but end up just sinking it back into the ground and bringing up a fresh one, meditating to quickly refresh my mana in between. I started practicing Tai chi, using my mental archive to once again correct my posture, stance, and movements. It was slower, more relaxed than the kung fu, but nonetheless had a purpose. Tai chi isn't about pummeling your opponent with punches and kicks, but redirecting attacks. So I practiced, occasionally creating water whips to strike at the pillar when my mana could handle it. After about twenty or thirty minutes I sat down to rest for a moment. I had increased the Basic Tai Chi skill by 8 levels but water bending only increased by 6 levels. It also leveled up Water Whip by 4 levels which is nice. The pillar on the other hand was completely unscathed, aside from a single small scratch at eye level. It was just that water isn't that great against solid unmoving opponents. My water whip could trip someone up and I may be able to restrain them but direct damage is obviously not what it's intended to do. So I looked through my mental archive and found something that may eventually fix this issue.

'I might not be skilled enough to use this but it's worth a shot'

Returning to my stance I pulled a bit of water from the brook to hover in front of me. Taking a deep breath I breathed out onto the water, willing my mana to solidify the orb. My mana didn't react and nothing happened. I tried again, pushing more mana out into the water with a purpose. After a couple more tries I felt like something clicked and most of my remaining mana flowed from my mouth in a puff of fog. The fog froze the water sphere solid in the span of two seconds, which was exactly when my mana pool emptied. The ice ball fell to the ground while I was left with new notifications

A new skill has been created through a special action!

Phase Shifting (active) lvl 1

The art of forcing water from one state of matter to another.

Increases speed of Phase shifting by %5

Decreases cost of shifting by %1

Beginner WaterBending's level has increased by 1!

It worked. I knelt down and picked up the little ball of ice I created. It was cold to the touch and slippery just like regular ice. I tossed it back into the brook, no reason to keep it. Dismissing the notifications I began meditating again. After another ten or so minutes of meditation followed by failed attempts at making an ice whip I finally managed to get basic waterbending to level 10. Now for the last bending type i'd need for the quest. I sunk the pillar of granite back into the earth and began practicing Basic Baguazhang. This time since I was constantly referencing my Archive I quickly began leveling up the technique. After about 5 minutes I also started practicing airbending. Instead of just blowing wind around I tried to coalesce it. The first few attempts just ended up with dust devils and disappointment. But on my fifth try I fixed my mistakes and managed to create a small sphere of swirling air in my palms. It was about four inches in diameter and unstable. It would wobble and bulge so I constantly had to correct it. This ended up helping to level up both Basic Baguazhang and Airbending at the same time. With breaks in between to meditate It took me about an hour to raise Beginner Airbending's level up to 9 and Basic Baguazhang's level up to 10. I could now keep the air ball mostly stable for the entire time my mana lasted, which was about thirty seconds. It took about 5 minutes to meditate and refill my pool again but it was worth it. With two more air spheres I crossed the invisible line and notification boxes appeared.

Beginner Airbending's level has increased by 1!

A quest has been completed!

The first step

Objective: Reach level 10 with all 4 bending styles. Completed!

Bonus Objective: Reach level 10 with all 4 corresponding martial art styles. Completed!

Reward: 100 exp

Bonus reward: 100 exp

+200 exp!

Your level has increased by 1!

I whooped and woohooed. I raised my hands and shouted "Yes Yes Yes. Finally I did it!". I closed all the screens and eagerly opened up my status screen.

Hunter Trent, Age 9

Title: none

Class: The Gamer

Lvl. 2

HP: 540/540

HP regen/s: 7.29

MP: 220/220

MP regen/s: 0.33

EXP: 100/200

Strength: 41.8 (10% bonus)

Vitality: 27.5 (10% bonus)

Agility: 12.1(10% bonus)

Intelligence: 11

Wisdom: 15.48 (29% bonus)

Luck: 1

Points: 10

Finally, I did it. I leveled up! My chances of survival just doubled along with my HP and MP. Looking at my stats I realized that every stat except luck and Intelligence is getting a boost from a skill I have. I'll have to find a skill that passively increases my Intelligence sometime soon. Now, what did that other quest say I needed to do? Bringing up the quest in question I looked it over.

Leaving the nest

Objective: Leave the forest and find civilization

Bonus objective: Complete within 2 days.

Reward: 200 exp

Bonus reward: $20

Failure: Loneliness, boredom, and eventual depression

Time limit: none/ 1 day 11 hours 12 minutes 1 second

So I just need to find my way out of this forest and find someone or something that constitutes 'civilization'. Pondering how to do so I looked around at the forest, before the sound of the brook caught my attention.

'I was always told to follow a river if I ever got lost in the woods, at least I think it was. Should've paid more attention in boy scouts.'

Figuring it was as good of an idea as anything else I started walking downstream. As I walked I idly began using 'Observe' on anything that caught my eye. But since there was nothing but trees, leaves, and sticks to look at I didn't use it very much. The small valley, which was more like a very wide and deep ditch now that I think about it, lead to a more open area. The hills flattening out to show more or less flat forest. I kept walking, just trying to enjoy the scenery instead of paying attention to things. I began to whistle, well tried to whistle. The mouth I remember and this one are shaped slightly different after all. But I kept trying since there was nothing else to do. I tried to whistle catchy tunes I remember from commercials and came close more than once. But I was interrupted by an unexpected notification.

A new skill has been created through a special action!

Whistling (active) lvl 1

Allows the user to whistle clearly. The higher the level the better the whistling.

Okay… so that's a thing. Shrugging it off as some quirk of The Gamer ability I continued walking, whistling all the while. Eventually after leveling up whistling thrice I saw something shiny and gray sticking out of the ground. When I got closer I used 'Observe' on it.

Empty beer can

Well that's helpful. Looking closer it wasn't of any brand I recognized on my world, which isn't saying much considering I've never bought beer before. Looking around I could see a few more beer cans and even the plastic from a 6-pack on the ground. Investigating the area I think I saw a dirt pathway through the brush, or it could have just been coincidence. Either way I followed it. The path turned out to actually be a path and lead to a baren clearing. The clearing itself was about 40 or 50 feet in diameter and appears to be someone's private campground. The ground was bare dirt, as if it was trodden upon so often plants could not grow. Using 'Observe' I found a few rusted tent stakes and a lot more beer cans which kind of proved my theory. Investigating further revealed another pathway that lead to a dirt road.

'This is it, I just need to follow this road and I'll eventually find civilization. But it's going to take a looooooong time to walk there. I guess I could start jogging, maybe it'll raise my agility or vitality.'

I suddenly became self conscious about my appearance.

'What if I meet someone, What would they think?'

Looking down on myself I must admit that I don't look presentable. My brown t-shirt is stained with dirt and grime, my jeans are in a similar state but the dirt is more visible. My skin though isn't dirty but I can't tell why. Well whatever, it's not like looking like a prim and proper 9-year old was on the top of my priority list, though I should put my shoes back on before I meet someone.

With that thought over I began running down the dirt road barefooted, surprisingly not getting tired or winded in the least. So I upped my pace and ran faster than a light jog. After about a mile or two the dirt road exited the forested area and connected with hard blacktop road. I stopped at the edge of the road and deliberated which direction to run. To my left the road went straight until it turned a corner about a hundred and fifty yards away. To my right was about four hundred yards of open road before a slight curve in the road hid it from view. Wishing I had a coin to flip I just decided to go right. If it was a dead end I could always just turn around. So I set off in a run on the blacktop for about ten seconds before I had to stop. It wasn't that I was tired, it was that my bare feet couldn't handle the heat of sun-warmed blacktop. So I pulled my shoes out of my inventory before pausing mid-retrieval. The weight indicator box that I had ignored before caught my attention.

0.0lbs/118.8lbs

From what I remember before my max capacity is only one-tenth of my maximum lifting strength. So does this mean that I can lift over 1,100 lbs? It probably does. That's something I need to keep an eye on, because if my strength is growing exponentially instead of linearly its something I could use. Is that the same with all of my physical stats? Probably. Briefly checking over my stats again I noticed that my agility, the stat that governs speed and reflexes along with manual dexterity, is only at 12 while the next highest physical stat is over two times higher. I'll need to rectify that. From what I've done before it seems that pushing my physical limits forces my body to quickly adapt to overcome the issue. So all I need to do is run like hell to train my agility, in theory. Finished with putting on my tennis shoes I stepped onto the road yet again. I began running, but instead of a leisurely pace I was sprinting like a mad man. By the time I came to the corner of the road I was panting slightly but more importantly a notification appeared.

Due to pushing your running speed to the limit your agility has increased by 1!

I smiled wide and continued running faster, the road bending around corners and up a few hills with no end in sight. My feet were pounding away on the road, each step pushed me further and further ahead. My breathing was rapid and gasping, but I felt absolutely great.

'Is this what a runner's high is? If so I never want to stop!'

So I kept running. The road disappearing mile after mile, yet I never saw another car. What I did see were more notification screens telling me that my agility was skyrocketing and my vitality was catching up too. I ran for at least an hour or two, whenever my agility increased so did my speed. Eventually I was flying down the road faster than I ever thought possible. My feet were a blur and the world around me sped by as I kept running on the world's longest Runner's high ever. I felt happy. After a bit longer I saw something in the distance. A white and red building I recognized as a gas station. I slowed down to a reasonable walking speed and checked my stats. During my high I just dismissed the notifications as they appeared so it's hard to say exactly how much I gained. So to inspect I opened up my status screen and balked at what I saw.

Hunter Trent, Age 9
Title: none
Class: The Gamer
Lvl. 2
HP: 680/680
HP regen/s: 11.56
MP: 220/220
MP regen/s: 0.33
EXP: 100/200
Strength: 41.8 (10% bonus)
Vitality: 34.1 (10% bonus)
Agility: 33 (10% bonus)
Intelligence: 11
Wisdom: 15.48 (29% bonus)
Luck: 1
Points: 10

My agility had increased by over 20 points and my vitality by about 6 points. If it's this easy to train my physical stats with Self-Adaptation then it won't be long until one of my stats reaches over 100. I wonder what my stats would look like in a year, if I lived that long.

Dismissing the stat screen I walked the remaining distance to the gas station. Using 'Observe' as much as possible I found out a few interesting things. The gas station is often used, it only employs one person at a time, and only has one security camera on the outside. Interesting.

Observe's level has risen by 1!

Observe now shows current action of target

Neat, but not particularly useful at the moment. '

So how should I go about this. The quest said I had to find civilization, but I see the gas station and the quest isn't completed. Maybe I have to go inside and talk to someone? Or maybe just touch the building? Well whatever it is I want that $20'.

My internal musing over I brushed dirt off of myself as best as I could and walked up to the gas station. It was a small one with only two pumps and a small convenience store inside with nobody I could see from this angle. There was only one car outside, a beat up green pick up truck with rust eating through the paint on much of the car. The paint on the station was peeling slightly but the neon sign reading "Open" was still operational. I walked up to the outside pump station and was momentarily disoriented by how tall everything is now. It's going to take a long time for me to get used to this. I hesitantly walked to the glass door, worried about what will happen inside. Do I ask for help? Do I just pretend to be a normal kid? Do I cut my losses and run?

'No! I am not going to do nothing. It's just a gas station convenience store, how bad could it be?'

With that reassuring thought I pushed the glass door open and entered.

A quest has just been completed!

Leaving the nest
Objective: Leave the forest and find civilization. Completed.
Bonus objective: Complete within 2 days. Completed.
Reward: 200 exp
Bonus reward: $20

+200 exp

+$20

Your level has increased by 1!