Author's Note
So, it's been a while. I can't really explain everything, but life has been hectic. Luckily, I think I can go back to working on this story. Thank you all for the encouragement; it means a lot to me. Also, I've thought over what I want this story to be. When I started, I just wrote willy-nilly, but now I have more of a plan. I wish to share it with you all.
Chapter 2-3: Pre-Foundation Recruitment
Chapter 4-5: Foundation Recruitment
6-12: Junior Researcher
13-20: Senior Researcher
21-28: Site Director
29-35: Regional Director
36-45: 05 council member
46-49: The End of the First Installment of the Series
50: Prologue
start of the actual chapter
"Where am I?" I asked, confused because, well, I'm in a bed, but this isn't my bed. I have no idea where I am, but for some strange reason, I'm not that panicked. While it would be understandable to a certain degree, I am rather calm and logical, but not to the extent that I could be this calm and still be able to comment on that fact.
Then, suddenly, I heard a notification sound, and a see-through blue text box appeared in front of my face.
[Congratulations on your spirit surviving after death and then also surviving being sent to another universe. You have been granted the gamer system.]
"Holy shit." This may be the greatest day of my life. I would be jumping out of joy if it weren't for the fact that I seem to be in perfect control of my emotions. And I have a sneaking suspicion as to why that is.
To test my theory, I thought "perks," and a list appeared in the same blue textbox in front of my eyes.
[Gamer's Body - This perk allows you to live life as a video game. Restore hit points, stamina points, and mana after sleep. Remove 20 hours of negative status effect duration for every 4 hours of sleep. You need only 4 hours of sleep to feel rested for the next 30 hours.]
[gamer's mind - causes the gamer to always think rationally and ensures that their emotions never control them. Additionally, it provides complete protection against any sort of tampering or viewing into the gamer's mind without their permission.]
[Hüting bloodline - The Hüting family used to be German nobles known for their intelligence and bad luck. This blood flows through you. 6 int - 4 luc]
[lazy genius - You are both incredibly intelligent and incredibly lazy 3 int - 1 wis]
[sin of pride rank 3 - You are incredibly proud of yourself. 75% skill exp gain - 25% rep gain]
[Eternal Ego - you are immune to any and all forms of brainwashing or ego erasure (overridden by gamer's mind, you have been granted 1 legendary gacha coin)]
Suddenly, another text box appeared in front of the old one after I finished reading it.
[You have gained the quest "Tutorial" for opening the Perk Menu.
Objective 1: Learn about the gamer system.
Objective 2: Find out which universe you're in.
Reward: 100 EXP, 1 common gacha coin, 1 stat point.]
[Downloading personality AI... 25%]
[Downloading personality AI... 50%]
[Downloading personality AI... 80%]
[Downloading personality AI... 99%]
[Downloading personality AI... 99%]
[Download Complete]
[Well, hello! I will be your personal AI. I will help you navigate and manage the system. It's a pleasure to meet you!]
Uh, hi. Wait, can you even hear my thoughts?
[Yes, I can.]
Well, hi. Thank you for helping me. Can we start with the tutorial?
[Of course! Now just think menu.]
menu
[status]
[Skills]
[perks]
[gacha]
[reputation]
[settings]
[Let's start with your stats. You know what to do, right?]
yup i proceeded to think 'status'.
[status]
Name: Matias (Matt) Hüting
Alignment: chaotic neutral
Affiliation: Self
Level 1 (0/100)
Stat points: 5
Class - Select
Production Class - Select
Hit Points: 170
Stamina Points: 140
Mana: 240 (Locked)
Str: 7
Vit: 7
End: 11
Dex: 6
Agi: 12
Per: 9
Int: 23 (14)
Wis: 12 (13)
Char: 8
Luc 9 (13)
body average: no effect
mind advanced: plus 25% to mental stat gain
[Great now it's time to select your class and production class]
Alright, I thought 'Class,' and three new screens appeared in front of me.
[Fighter] [Ranger] [Mage]
I thought 'Mage' and another screen appeared.
[Hydromancer]
[Pyromancer]
[Electromancer
[Geomancer]
[IIlusionist]
[Technomancer]
[Psionicist]
One immediately stuck out to me, and I chose it.
[You chose technomancer.]
[Technomancer - you get 2 int, 1 wis, and 1 luc per level.
You get 1 technomancer skill per 5 levels.
You get a perk per 25 levels.
You can choose a new class after getting Technomancer to level 100.]
[You got the skill "Tech Interfacing"]
[tech intervacing level 1/100]
You can create an interface to control and hack technology
Cost: varies based on how complicated the technology is
[Great! Now that that is done, you can choose a production class.]
Alright, I thought production class, and suddenly a massive screen appeared in front of me with hundreds of options.
Uh, system, could you please only show me classes I would like. And suddenly, the screen became much shorter. "Thanks."
[No problem.]
[alchemist]
[engineer]
[chef]
[enchantor]
[runesmith]
[herbalist]
[best tamer]
[apothecary]
Alright... let's choose this one.
[You chose engineer]
[Engineer - 1 int, 1 per, 1 luc per level]
[You can choose a new production class after getting engineer to level 100]
[You got the skill engineering
Engineering (1/100) - your ability to engineer
You can create and follow basic blueprints at an accuracy of 90%
You can create, upgrade, and follow uncommon blueprints at an accuracy of 50%
You can create, upgrade, and follow rare blueprints at an accuracy of 1%
You can create, upgrade, and follow super rare blueprints at an accuracy of 0%
You can create, ugrade, and, follow legendary blueprints at an accuracy of 0%
You can create, upgrade, and follow divine blueprints at an accuracy of 0%]
now what?
[Now we can move onto skills. After that, we can go and roll the gacha you got earlier. I'm curious what you'll get. Anyway, we can skip perks since you already checked your perks.]
Alright. 'skills' i thought
[skills]
[passive skills]
Gaming (50/100) - Increase your ability to be good at and learn to be good at games by 50%.
Level 25 Bonus: You automatically know the controls to any game you play.
Level 50 Bonus: You automatically know basic techs and strats when you play a game for the first time.
Programming (40/100) - increases efficiency and success rate with programming by 40%
Level 25 Bonus: If you look at code, you can spot any error with a success rate of 25%.
Physics (34/100) - increases your efficiency and speed at learning physics-related topics by 34%.
Level 25 Bonus: You can accurately guess how long it will take for something to fall onto the ground from any distance.
Maths (30/100) - Increases your efficiency and speed at learning math-related topics by 30%.
Level 25 Bonus: You can accurately guess the probability of something happening.
Time management (28/100) increases your ability to manage time by 28%.
Level 25 bonus: You can accurately guess how long it will take you to complete any task you have done more than 20 times.
Economics - (27/100) increases your ability to understand and take advantage of markets by 27%.
Level 25 Bonus: You get 10% more profits from all transactions.
Biology (20/100) increases your efficiency and speed at learning biology adjacent topics by 20%.
cooking (20/100) increase the tast and positive effects of your food by 20%
Chemistry (18/100) - increases your efficiency and speed at learning chemistry adjacent topics by 18%.
Writing (12/100) - increases your ability to write by 12%.
fitness (5/100) - increase your speed at gaining physical stats by 5%
[Active Skills]
Debugging (20/100) - Increases your speed at debugging by 20%.
Cost: 10 SP per second.
Running (18/100) - Increases your speed by 18%.
Cost: 5 SP per second.
Tech Interfacing (1/100) - You can create an interface to control and hack technology.
Cost: Varies.
Engineering (1/100) (Expand)
[Alright, those were your stats. Now, let's go to the gacha machine!]
alright lets go 'gacha' i thought and a new screen apeared to replace the old one
[Welcome to the gacha machine!
"Life's a Gamble—Roll the Dice!"]
you have 1 legendary gacha token use it?
yes
[legendary gacha: 99% chance of legendary perk 1% chance of divine perk]
suddenly a the screen showed a wheel spinning rapidly before slowly coming to a stop landing on
Congratulations, you got Vitalitatis Aeternae Adapt!
[Vitalitatis Aetern adap (divine): You recover 10% of your HP every minute
you adapt to all status effects within 10 minutes to 1 week, depending on its strength, making you immune to them. You also have a 1% chance of gaining a skill based on the effect. If you survive being brought below 25% of your maximum HP, one of your stats will increase by 1%.]
[now were almost done you only have to go check the settings page]
I thought settings and a box appeared with a couple options. I didn't change a lot. I just added my MP, SP, HP bar, and a minimap to the corner of my vision. I changed the color of the boxes from black text on a bright blue background to black text on a teal (my favourite colour) background.
[Now we're done with the tutorial, aside from one thing. You still need to figure out which universe you're in. Sadly, I can't tell you that. You have to figure that out on your own. But there is a computer in this house. Use it to try and figure it out. Actually, this is a great time to explore the house.]
Alright, I walked around my house. Oh, yeah, turns out that in this universe, I'm an orphan, and my parents were rich. Not multi-billionaires, but they nearly had 100 million. I own the entire house on my own. First, the bedroom where I was. There was an Alaskan king-sized bed, a closet with clothes in my size, a massive flatscreen TV with over 2,000 different channels, and all the popular and some less popular streaming services, and a couple of paintings. Leaving that, there is the landing. There is a ladder upstairs that leads to the attic. I didn't find much there. I only found an old PS2, a couple of PS2 games, an old 3DS, a Wii U, and an N64, all having a small collection of games. There's an old mattress. There are three other doors at the landing: one leading to a bathroom with a shower and a bath (duh), a storage room, and a pretty big gaming room. There's a PS5 Pro (so I'm obviously in 2024 or later and on Earth), a PS4, a Switch, a top-of-the-line gaming PC, and an Oculus, and a couple hundred different games in a closet neatly arranged in order of platform (if this is how many I have physically, imagine how many I must have digitally). Now, leading downstairs, I find another landing. So, this is at least a three-story house. I found a big library and a bar. Nice. Turns out this universe's me parents were pretty cultured. And then I went downstairs again and found the hallway. So, it is a three-story house. Downstairs, I found a big kitchen stocked with enough food to last a century, a toilet, and a spacious living room. There is a backstairs that is quite big. There is also a shed, which I checked. It was empty. And there was the basement. It had a lot of supplies. Scratch that. I'm pretty sure it isn't a basement but a bunker. There are shelves upon shelves with canned foods. There are kinetic-powered generators, and uhhhhh, is that a nuclear reactor? Umm, I'm going to steer clear of that. But also, this means that my parents felt the need for a nuclear reactor. Also, my parents' job was never stated, but they always left. If you're wondering how I know that, the system AI, who is now called Eva,
[hai :)]
has been slowly giving me memories of this universe's me. not all of once so i don't get overwhelmed So, my parents were probably part of a secret organization wh8ch I figured due to the secrecy and the fact that both of them died due to a work-related incident that was never broadcasted and no details of it are known
and there is something that will bring the apocalypse or a similar event someday to the entire world. Or we would have moved. This is slightly concerning, but we don't know when it will happen. For all we know, they were thinking of me, and it's in 50 years. I mean, they didn't seem that panicked.
I went back to the third floor, entered the gaming room, used the PC, and opened Opera GX.
"Now what to search for... Well, let's get the most dangerous options out of the way first." I searched for Captain America, and he's fictional, so not in Marvel. Then, I searched for Superman, again fictional, so not in DC.
"Hmmm, modern day, hmm, wait, I got an idea."
I searched up superpowers and got nothing.
"So, this is a universe where the common folk don't know anything. This is worrying."
I have a suspicion, but how do I check without seeming suspicious... I can't think of anything, so I will have to do something risky.
I searched for the numbers 682.
I saw the results for an area code. I saw results for the year. You wanna know what I didn't see? A certain regenerating reptile.
This could mean only one thing:
I was in the SCP mythos...
[quest completed]