Disclaimer: Of course, I do not own anything except for the OCs.


Darkness. Not grey this time. Actual black darkness this time. 'hmmm, at least that is different'.

I tried to move. My body did not respond. Ping.

I tried to hear where I was. No sound. Ping. Except for that.

I tried to look around. I couldn't move –or open- my eyes, although I felt they were closed. That's when I noticed a couple things in the corner of my vision. My eyes were closed and unmovable, yet there was still something to see. 'Weird', I thought.

Looking closer at it, or rather, focusing more on it. I saw that there were 3 bars in the top-left and a blinking rectangle in the top-right. I recognized it. Well, the bars at least. The bars were, from top to bottom: red, blue, then green. 'HP, MP, and….SP? TP? Not sure.'

I would have laughed or giggled at this point. After all, this was an ability I had wanted for years. Unfortunately, my body still did not respond, so no laughing or giggling. I was very giddy though. If this actually was the 'The Gamer' ability, then Gaia wasn't kidding when she said it was 'better' than any of the abilities I listed. It is all of them -and more-, after all.

Back on track. I understood a little better what was going on right now. Time to see what else there is. Since I couldn't move for some reason, I decided to try to use focus- and thinking-based actions.

Focusing on the blinking rectangle, I was only slightly surprised to see it grow to cover more than half my 'vision'. It was no longer blinking and showed the word 'Log' on the top bar. 'A program window. An action log then?' On the screen itself, I could read the following:

The ability 'Basic movement' has been created.

The ability 'Basic hearing' has been created.

Nothing else. 'I see. The pings were system messages. That will probably get old very quick, especially when a lot is going on. Let's see if I can change that.' A bit of mental prodding later and I managed to make the Log disappear again. No blinking this time. Ping. Blinking again.

A quick opening, reading, and closing made the blinking disappear. I just got a point in INT. 'Intelligence, huh? Handy to know my stats can increase through natural means.'

'Options.' I thought next. A new window popped up in my vision. 'Options', it said on the top bar. The window itself was filled with a lot of things. Lots of text, lots of sliders, lots of ON/Off switches. The works. I turned 'System sounds' completely down. No more pings. 'Status bar opacity' got played with until the bars were see-through enough for my liking. They could, by the way, turn completely opaque. Handy if I ever need to share vision with someone or something like that.

After a couple more changes I closed the window. 'I will get back to that later, when I can actually test some of these things. I am still stuck here, after all.' I would have let out a sigh, but that was also something I was physically unable to do.

'What else? Status?' New window. The top bar, obviously, said 'Status'. No surprise there. Other than that, there was the following in the window itself:

True/Original name: David Dekker

Current name: TBD

Aliases: None

Gender: Male

True/Mental age: 83 years

Physical age: -6 weeks

Level: 1 (3/10)

HP: 100/100

MP: 150/150

SP: 100/100

STR: 1

END: 1

STA: 1

AGI: 1

DEX: 1

INT: 2

WIS: 1

CHA: 1

'Names. Makes sense. Gender. Yep, true. Huh, it keeps track of my mental age, too? Handy. Wait. Minus 6 weeks! What the fuck?' I was panicking at that. Well, I would have if I didn't immediately and inexplicably calmed down again. 'That was weird. Even weirder, though, is that negative age. Wait a minute….I am minus 6 weeks old! Doesn't that mean that I am still in the womb? That is….both creepy and would explain why I can't move.' After pondering that for a bit, I dropped that line of thinking. After all, there was nothing I could do about it short of trying to break out, which I was both unable and unwilling to do.

'Moving on. Level 1? Expected. Wonder where the 3 EXP comes from. My stats suck, but that is to be expected when you are a baby not even out of the womb yet. At least now I have some time -6 weeks- to plan things. Kinda long for that, actually. Anyway, what else can I do? Oh! Skills.' Nothing. 'Umm, Abilities?' New window. 5 abilities were listed here:

Gamer system MAX

Gamer's body MAX

Gamer's mind MAX

Basic movement 1/100

Basic hearing 1/100

Nothing else. Just the names and levels. I focused on the first ability to see if it would tell me more. New window. This one showed the following:

An ability that allows the user to gain experience through activities and training. The user can create abilities with both intent and action. Gives access to the Abilities, Gear, Inventory, Log, Options, and Status screens.

'So the system itself is an ability in the system? Kinda meta. Still, good to know how ability creation works and what screens I have access to. Gonna have to experiment with that.' 'Gamer's body' was next.

An ability that gives the user a body like that of a game character. Death only happens when HP reaches 0. Any wounds will disappear at full HP, including lost limbs. The user can rest to remove status effects (both buffs and debuffs), fill HP, fill MP, and fill SP. The user does not need sleep, food, or water.

'That…..is kinda overpowered. As long as my HP does not reach 0, my body can recover from anything just by resting. On the downside, if my HP is, say, 1 and I stub my toe, I could actually die. Have to still be careful with that. Still, very OP. I like. Next, Gamer's mind. I can guess what that does, but better to be sure.' New screen.

An ability that gives the user a clear head in stressful situations. Forces mind to calm down when experiencing fear, panic, stress, depression, rage, and other strong debilitating emotions. Nullifies forced mental changes, like brainwashing, delusions, and mental illusions.

'Oh! Not the blanket mental protection I expected. If I read this right, this ability will still allow me to feel emotions -as little as I feel them naturally, anyway- and it will not protect me against willing mental changes. Interesting and different. I wonder if mindreading is protected against…. Note to self, test mindreading protection and come up with a way to protect myself if Gamer's mind doesn't protect me from that. Anyway, next.'

The ability to move limbs effectively. Increases STR and END by 1 on every 10th level. Increases STA and DEX by 1 on every 5th level.

'Hmmmmm. Not sure if that is actually good. That will only be 10 STR, 10 END, 20 STA, and 20 DEX at max level. I am not sure if that is actually a lot. Not having a frame of reference makes that very hard. However, it's a ability I am going to level up pretty much automatically anyway. So….yay! Free stat points! Now, time for the last one.'

The ability to hear things more clearly and with better differentiation.

'That's it? No superhuman hearing? No stat boosts? Well, the superhuman is not out completely, I suppose, but it is still quite disappointing. Oh well, can't have everything now, can I?'

Having looked through my abilities, I continued on to the Gear screen. It showed a baby in the middle with quite a big amount of squares around it. 'That must be me then. I am not sure what to think of that… Anyway, nothing equipped. Makes sense. Those squares must be for gear, but there are so many. I thought there would be around 10 or so slots, but there are easily 40 here. I wonder what some of those are for. Think I might not want to know, though.'

Lastly, I looked through the Inventory screen. Not much to see there. It was big. It was empty. I couldn't shove anything into it yet, so I let it be.

I noticed blinking. More stat points. 1 INT and 2 WIS. 'Now I get why the ping sound was there. The blinking was too easily ignored. On the other hand, being in the middle of battle and getting pings left and right could very easily be deadly for me. Better to keep it off and just check the Log regularly. So….what now? I have 6 weeks to fill in a place where I can't move, can't read anything, can't even look at anything -not counting the system-. What can I do? It seems I can still create abilities, but that is extremely limited at the moment…'

Not much to do until my birth -and man, does that feel weird to say-, I planned. Plans upon plans upon plans, all the while being very conscious of the fact that plans never survive contact with enemy. I still did it. After all, there was nothing else I could do.

And so, I waited.


AN: It took me quite a while to get this chapter written. I was having trouble in how I wanted to approach this. I wanted it to not be too cliché while still being recognizable. Hopefully, that worked out. It's always hard to criticise your own work, after all.

With this, the basic system should have been explained. Again, I wanted to add a bit of a spin on things. My system does not have a tutorial, or even a personality for that matter (well, not yet. I have plans for that). The 'Gamer's mind' ability is not a blanket protection against anything mental, contrary to many other Gamer stories out there.

You might also have noticed the lack of a quest system. That was on purpose, of course. I want David to work for what he gets. Not being handed things freely. As such, there will be no drops from enemies other than what he can get off of them himself, so humans could give him clothing, cash, and other items they actually have on them at the time. Animal hides and meat need to actually be skinned and cut respectively. You get the picture.

Then there is the experience. After all, if there are no quests, where does he get experience from? I'll give you a couple hints, but I won't tell you until David finds out himself. Hint 1: He does not get exp from killing things either. Hint 2: He has 6/10 experience at the end of the chapter.

Leveling up itself is also a bit different. I don't do stat points. That is, David gets no points to distribute freely. Instead, he gets a blanket increase in stats every level. I am thinking (New level)/10 (rounded up) being added to every stat.

Next chapter should be moving a lot quicker, with time skips and such. Writing out every day would be extremely tedious and not fun to read, I would imagine. Instead, there will be a time skip and then a summary of the interesting things that happened. Of course, any important fights, events, or scenes will still be written in more detail, but I would like to move on to the more fun stuff soon.

With that said, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and look forward to the next one!